July 16, 2024
Your Untethered Voice:
Resilience, Discovery, and Renewal Unveiled
Tracy Rohrer Irons
Our Voices Creations (2024)
ISBN: 979-8-9908700-0-0
New Book Shares How to Be True to You
In Your Untethered Voice: Resilience, Discovery, and Renewal Unveiled, Tracy Rohrer Irons shares her personal journey of how she recovered from a childhood accident, learned to live with the disabilities it left her in its wake, and overcame some of the dysfunctional behaviors she adopted to cope with her disabilities growing up. Tracy’s purpose in sharing her story is to help others overcome the feeling she had that they need to hide their true selves, perhaps even unaware they are doing so, and learn to own their voice and true identity.
Tracy begins by sharing her personal story of how she was hit by a car in 1976 when she was just five years old. The accident resulted in her being in a coma for eight weeks, followed by three months of rehab consisting of physical, occupational, speech, and recreational therapy for a brain injury. Through continued home-based and outpatient therapies, she learned to walk with a walker within a year and was able to walk independently within two years. The trauma of this situation for a small child can only be imagined by readers, but Tracy shares it in detail for us.
What followed for Tracy was the difficulty of growing up not being able to live and function like other children. Something as simple as carrying her books at school could be a problem, resulting in dropping them and requiring others’ assistance to collect them. Far worse, she developed self-doubt about her abilities and self-awareness about her appearance that led to an eating disorder. As she describes, “Too often we stray away from ourselves as a result of life’s wounds, rejections, and emotional hardships. We may pile on shovelfuls of the dirt of perfectionism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other dysfunctional behaviors in our attempts to bury those wounds. In the process, we become buried alive and parts of us lose their way amid the darkness of that grave.” Tracy experienced this kind of burying, and she knows others have experienced it even if in different ways.
Tracy grew up craving to be “normal,” but over time, she realized she needed to redefine normal as “seeking to be our real, authentic self” and abnormal as “seeking to be anything other than the real you.” She also discovered that while her faith and spirituality could help her, she had to take action to heal. She tried praying for deliverance from her eating disorder. She also had the mindset that “Christians don’t get counseling because they should get counsel only from God or, at most, their pastor.” So, her unhealthy relationship with food continued. What she finally realized is she needed to listen to the still, small voice inside her. She wanted her relationship with God to be the key to unlock the door, but it turned out the key was cultivating her relationship with herself.
Eventually, the day arrived when Tracy became determined to heal. As for so many people, that day was when she found herself saying, “I’ve had enough!” That day didn’t come until she was in her late forties, but when it came, she was ready to put aside the dysfunctional behavior and start focusing on the wonder that she is. She found her inner light and began to heal, be creative, and live with a sense of wonder.
Tracy shares the process to her transformation in Your Untethered Voice in far more detail than there is room to explain here. The book is divided into ten chapters with titles such as “Fashioning a Newness of Life,” “Embracing Ourselves to Heal Perfectionism,” and “Expanding Spirituality.” Each chapter ends with Discussion Questions for the reader to think about based on what they’ve just read in the chapter. Tracy also provides resources in the back of the book for people seeking extra help. In addition, Tracy shares personal poems after each chapter that encourage the reader to experience growth. For example, in one poem, she writes:
Wrap your mind around love
While love wraps its mind around you.
Love says you are accepted.
Love says it is true.
One section of the book that really resonated for me was the discussion of understanding our emotions and what triggers us. Having grappled with obsessive-compulsive disorder, perfectionism, and eating disorders, Tracy offers helpful techniques for grounding yourself when struggling not to indulge in behaviors you know are detrimental to you. Tracy teaches us how to shift from fighting against the parts of ourselves we do not like to accepting and even seeing the benefits we’ve gained from them. Tracy made that kind of shift in how she viewed her disability. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s when the world was less accommodating for those with disabilities, she came to believe society’s lie that a disability is a flaw that makes us less than perfect. Ultimately, she had the epiphany that “Disabilities are not flaws; they are differences. They are differences that allow the gifts of acceptance and creativity to step up to the plate and engage with life.”
In the end, Tracy realized that she is worthy: “I am worthy to dream those dreams. I am worthy to accomplish those goals. I am worthy to do the things that are in my heart.”
And Tracy wants the reader to know they are worthy, too. A lot of places in society may make us feel we’re not worthy, from fear of others talking about us behind our back, to our families, churches, schools, and even our doctors. Tracy discusses her experiences in all these situations and how she determined her worthiness regardless. Ultimately, she learned to dig deep to bring out her abundance, her healed self. She hopes her book will help others do the same.
If you are looking to heal, be at more peace with yourself, or understand how people learn to cope with disabilities, Your Untethered Voice is an excellent book to read. For more information about Tracy Rohrer Irons and Your Untethered Voice, visit www.TracyRohrerIrons.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and The Best Place
