It's difficult to resume what Buddhism actually did for me in a short text, but if I had to express in it's simplest form, I'd say it taught me the difference between reality and my perception of it. In Buddhism we have a concept called 'emptiness'. Its the idea that things are inherently devoid of any intricate characteristics on their own. Any adjective you could ever put on anything is dependent on everything else in relation to the subject and your own baggage of perception. For example, I don't really like pears. We all understand that pears are not ultimately disgusting. The aversion comes from me and my own sense of perception. Now that is a very simple and tangible example, but the idea of emptiness is that the same applies to literally anything under all circumstances. When we go through our ordinary lives, we spend an immense amount of time judging and evaluating the world around us. Life becomes an act of either attraction or aversion towards everything we stumble upon. Since we know pears are not ultimately disgusting, we understand that this dance of attraction and repulsion takes root in our own heart and not in the word around us. Every judgement you could ever have about anything is not a reflection of the object of judgement, but a reflection of a part of your unconscious mind. People believe they hold opinions about things, but in reality those opinions are nothing more than a small glimpse into the part of their heart they haven't explored yet. Perception itself is an expression of the witness, even when this perception is directed inward. Even the things you believe to be true about yourself are just an expression of the part of yourself that have not been understood yet. To bring it back to stuttering, this concept really helps with dealing with other people's reactions to it. When we keep emptiness in mind, we don't perceive other people's reactions as a response to our speech impediment, but we understand them to be a glimpse into their own heart. When people react badly to us and mock us, what we see is actually someone dealing with a part of themselves they are not too sure how to react to. They are in discomfort because they are not yet ready to face the feelings we provoke by our impediment. When we feel anger and shame towards our own impediment, we act in the exact same way. As long as these feelings are pushed back, the reaction will not change because the object of perception remains in the shadow. The solution? Compassion. Kindness. When we enact these qualities we create a fertile ground for people to plant the seed of introspection. We create a safe space where people feel secure enough to dig into their own hearts and understand more about themselves. This, in turn, creates a space within our own self where we can investigate and react more wisely to the world around us.