Stuttering Hub

The Joys Of Stammering

Thinking of all the reasons why we don't want to stammer is the easy bit. I bet each of us could come out with at least 5 reasons in the next minute. But If we did do this exercise would it actually help us? Most likely not. We might get miserable about it all.

Instead, (I'm not crazy, trust me on this one) let's use the powers we have, try and change our attitudes, and think of all the reasons why stammering could be a joyful activity - if only we choose to see it that way:

1. It's a skill. Have you ever considered that stammering could be a behaviour that you are highly skilled at? You probably know how to create a stammering behaviour in all the situations you normally stutter without fail every time!

2. It can be fun! I'm serious! Think about it - we have the ability to make interesting noises and blocks, repeat words and form unique body movements to go with it. How many other people do you know who can do this? Not many, I suspect. Humour can be a great thing which can help reduce stress, and even lessen some of the beliefs we may have developed but don't really help us. I spoke to  a lady at a dinner last night, who told me how her dad stammered his whole life, but learnt to very easily laugh at himself which helped reduce his anxiety greatly.

3. We're a minority group. We belong to a unique clique. You do know it's fashionable to belong to a cool posse, right? Think about it. We can have conversations, meetings, secret stammering conversations (full of blocks) that 'fluent' people can really never understand. 

4. We can sing fluently, and stammer when speaking. Fluent people can only sing fluently and speak fluently.

5. We can take pride in the knowledge that we are the crème de la crème of society when it comes to bravery and courage. We have the ability to feel the greatest of fear and still be tough enough to get on with our lives. How many people can do this, or try to at least?

For many years of our lives we have resisted stammering and all the negativity we associate with it. How about reversing the problem on its head, and see how this changes things for us?

Quote Of The Day

In one of my old places of work a colleague and I used to have a 'Motivational Board'. Each day, one of us would write a motivational quote by a famous person or a interesting proverb to start the day off in a good way. I can remember the mood of one colleague changing to happy and positive after reading some of these. This colleague was renowned for being very miserable! To this day I've wondered whether the motivational board had an effect...

Well anyway, I'm going to be posting quotes and proverbs from time to time. The one for today is as follows:

There is no failure except in no longer trying.  (Elbert Hubbard)

I think the above is a good one to help keep motivated and to not worry about failing at something.

A Way To Remove Unwanted Thoughts

An important aspect of any type of self-improvement is self awareness.

How do we get into self-awareness? Usually when we realise that something may not be right with our world.

One method of analysing ourselves is by looking at how our thinking may be making us unhappy. An example of doing this taken from the cognitive behavioural therapy field is to identify when we disregard the positive.

What does this mean?

Well have you noticed how our brains sometimes are wired to look for and focus upon bad things even when we had a good experience? For example you may have a good speaking day where you hardly blocked and spoke calmly and with confidence. However you chose to label this as just a fluke and that it didn't count because normally you always stammer. You ended up feeling bad.

Well it's time to learn to be more receptive of our good experiences! You can do this using the following steps:

1. Next time you have good feedback from either yourself or someone else (it might be speaking related or could be about another thing), just notice where your mind goes. If you catch yourself disregarding the positive experience for whatever reason, you know your mind is being tricky and move on to step 2 below...

2. Practice accepting positive feedback and comments. Enjoy your good points. If you handled a speaking situation assertively in a particular situation, then keep this in mind. If another blocking episode starts then replace this by remembering that you have and can speak with confidence.

Be Happy!

BSA E-friends

By David Morris

We are fortunate that there are now many places on the Internet where we can find groups of people who share an interest or concern and chat together. They can give a great sense of bonding, and the feeling that we are no longer alone with our particular issue. That is certainly the case with stammering. For example, Stuttering Chat (a Yahoo group) now has over 4,000 members and there are many similar groups.

When I started E-friends I had something a bit different in mind, and that was to put people into contact with each other so that they could share their thoughts more on a 1-1 basis via email. Basically, it’s just an old-fashioned email list. When anybody expresses an interest in joining, I ask them to complete a basic profile of themselves, then I add that to a WORD document containing all the other profiles and I send the whole thing out to all members at the start of every month. The only contact details provided are email addresses, so if any members wish to contact any other members, they just send them a personal email. This is perhaps a personal preference, but I generally find it easier to express myself more openly in a 1-1 email, than I would writing to a group, or in any kind of face to face situation or by telephone.

The idea for E-friends started at a British Stammering Association (BSA) Social towards the end of 2002. At that time BSA member Rachel Albert organised the BSA Telephone Link Scheme which works along the same lines that E-friends does now. She encouraged me to set up a similar scheme based on email. So, E-friends was launched in the Winter edition of the BSA magazine Speaking Out. I wasn’t sure what to expect. In fact there was a good response and membership grew quite rapidly to 100 people. I got many emails from people telling me how much they appreciated the service and telling about the friends they had made in this way. So, feeling encouraged I carried on and the scheme is still going strong today, 6 years later.

Members join E-friends from all over the world; they aren’t just BSA members from the UK (although the majority are probably from the UK). There is a wide mix of people in terms of age, gender, location and background. The only real problem I’ve had in looking after E-friends has been that while many members love to receive and respond to emails, there are always some who join with the best of intentions and then move on to some other interest, and a few who joined for some reason, but don’t seem to have the time or inclination to actually email! To make sure that the list stays up-to-date and active, I have an annual “purge” of non-active members.

I would say though, that E-friends is designed first and foremost for people who like to express themselves by email. You need to be somebody who enjoys writing. So long as it is used properly, it is very safe. You only need to disclose your email address and your first name. (If you’re really shy, it doesn’t even have to be your real name!) People get out of it as much as they put in. Sharing thoughts and feelings about my stammer via email has really helped me to think about it more positively. I’m sure that many others have benefited in the same way.

If anybody is interested in joining E-friends, they just need to send an email to:

E-friends@stammering.org

About the Author: David Morris is a volunteer and member of the British Stammering Association. He is also coordinator of BSA E-friends.

 

Spirituality and Stammering

Spirituality is extremely important to me personally. I think it can be a great way to deal with anxiety, and I would go far as to say, that it might one of the best ways to deal with fear.

Pam has an interesting post on spirituality on her blog. She discusses how she used to equate spirituality with religion, but through her life experiences, she has been able to find spirituality anyway and everywhere.

My good friend John Carling from the community is very keen on spirituality, and asked me to pass on some information of some resources he has found helpful:

The London Buddhist Centre

He has also had contact with Anxiety UK, a charity for anxiety disorders.

If you're in the UK, and are interested in finding out more about spirituality then you can contact John directly on 01992 636015.

Cheers!

 

Why Friday The 13th Is A Good Day For PWS

Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. But is it?

Below are some reasons why Friday 13th should be a great day for people who stammer....

Friday the 13th is no longer a feared day from now on. We can frighten our fear of Friday 13th!

Realistically it is just another day... nothing to be scared about. Just like our fear of stammering. It’s not really logical. Deep down we know this. The sooner we realise this, the sooner can begin to work on finding strategies to subside the fear.

Initially, when we were young we didn’t know about Friday 13th. Other people most likely told us it was unlucky and spooky. Television channels played horror movies at mid-night on Friday 13th. We learnt to associate fear with this particular day. Same could be said about stammering. When we were young we may have stuttered. We were frustrated, but it might not have been that a big deal. But it seemed like other people thought we were different. They did not stammer. We did. Maybe it was wrong to do so? So we became frightened of stammering. We learnt to associate fear with stammering. Hold on a minute... if we learnt to create fear for ourselves, then surely we can learn to overcome it?

Days are just days. They come and go. Friday the 13th will be here one day. The next day it will not. Yes we stammer. Some times more often than others. Other times we may not stammer at all. Either way, stammering will come and go. Most things in life come and go. The sooner we accept this; surely the anxiety will begin to lessen?

Avoiding our fear of this day is stupid. After all it’s just one day. Avoiding our fear of stammering is even sillier.  It’s just behaviour. Tell you what... why don’t we just avoid our avoiding of the fear of stammering?

Yell as loud as you can: “I’m no longer afraid of Friday 13th!” Feel silly? Good. Say it 4 more times. Now stand up. Stick your chest out and yell twice as loud: “I no longer will let the fear of stammering control my life!” Did that feel good? Yes? Great! Shout it out 9 more times. Come on?? What are you waiting for? Friday the 13th? :-)

Think about it for a moment.... if the worry of Friday the 13th never existed for you, how would things be different? Do the same for stammering. If the fear of stammering was no longer a problem for you, how would your life change? What would you be doing? Picture it vividly in your mind.

How long have you thought Friday 13th to be an unlucky day? How many of these days have you experienced in your life? Have they been enjoyable? How long have you let stammering control you? Are you ready to say “no more”?

Every time someone gets crazy about it being Friday and the 13th day, you will know better. It is time to do the same with stuttering. Whenever fear raises its naughty head, it’s time to push it away. It’s not really real anyway!

1 day a long time ago there was a boy and girl. They both stuttered and were saddened by it. However they refused to give up hope and...

3 years later they both had overcome their fear of stammering and lived happily ever after...

time to make a change.

how are YOU going to do it?

The Sound Of Your Name Is The Sound Of Music!

When was the last time someone called you by your name?

Perhaps it was a friend? A colleague maybe?

Did you feel a slight sense of happiness or excitement when you heard your name being called?

A great technique for building friendships and relationships with people is calling them by their name. I don't know what it is, but there is something special when people acknowledge you by your name. I first read about this when going through Dale Carnegie's book: How to Win Friends and Influence People a few years ago.

I think it probably has something with people feeling important. Their self-esteem rises...

So make someone's day. Refer to them by their name!

Don't overdo it though!!

2 Great Ways To Improve Listening Skills

We have 2 ears and one mouth. Do you reckon this might give us a hint about the ratio of talking and listening that we should do?!

Below are two great techniques I learnt on a leadership training course a couple of years ago on how to improve listening skills.

1. Paraphrasing the facts of what the speaker has said into your own words

This technique involves translating what the person has said by using your own words and using these to respond back. It's a great way to show that you're listening and to clarify that you have understood correctly.

For example...

Friend: I've been having a lot of trouble with my speech recently. My stammering seems to have got worse. I'm always feeling down. I wish that I just wouldn't be so scared of speaking out.

You: Yeah, tell me about it. The anxiety really troubles me as well. My speech seems to deteriorate particularly when I'm tense. And because of this, I end up having bad days.

2. Reflecting feelings a speaker has conveyed back to them

This one involves someone expressing emotions (such as saddness and happiness), and you responding back in a way that shows you're 'in tune' with what the person is experiencing (i.e. having empathy).

For instance...

Friend: I'm giving a speech at work next week. You know I've had a lot of difficulty with my speech recently...

You: It seems like you might be a bit nervous... do you want to practice it with me a few times?

Friend: Yep, it's making me nervous, but practice will defintely help. Thanks for the offer.

The above techniques are also great for getting the speaker to continue talking - this way, both of your listening skills will improve...

A Technique To Increase Confidence

Do you have trouble with self-confidence?

I know I do at various points. Perhaps you find it hard to do a particular task. Maybe you would like to be more assertive in a particular situation. Or speak without fear.

A classic technique introduced by William James that you could try inorder to increase confidence is by acting confident.

How can you do this you might ask? Just imagine what it'd be like if you were confident. How would you appear? What would you be saying? What would you be doing? Just imagine this, and step into it.

Also, do you know someone who is confident? Or someone who displays some qualities or traits that you would like to have? What would this person do and say? How would they handle the situation? Now imagine stepping into their shoes and look at the world through their eyes. Notice how this feels. 

If you try doing this over and over, until it becomes habitual, there's no knowing what might happen...!

A Way To Change How You Feel About Fear

Can fear actually be a good thing for you?

Yes, most definitely!

"Yeah right!" I hear you say. "Fear is not nice. It's not good... it's outright horrible!" A few years ago I would have agreed with you...

People who stammer may experience fear on a daily basis. The fear can be so overwhelming, it might feel like we're dying. We feel it in our heads. It makes us tense. Our faces and throat become tense.. and wait for it...more fear... AND THEN, THE DREADED BLOCK. Fear makes us do weird things. We avoid people, places, situations and so on.

But fear can also be a great friend. Now you think I'm really loopy! I promise, I'm not (I hope!)...

How can fear be a great friend? Well for one, it can be one of the most powerful motivators to change. It can be the push we need to look for strategies and ways to overcome our fears.

Through my study of self-help in the cognitive therapy area, and through experiences with meditation, I want to share a technique of how you can quickly change how you feel about fear. It's very simple, yet profound:

When you find yourself wandering into fearful thinking about stammering, or whatever it might be, instead of resisting it, just allow yourself to observe the fear objectively - just accept it. Next, take it one step further, and allow yourself to embrace the fear. Yes - you heard correctly - just take it in without resisting it.

Did you experience any changes in how you felt about the fear? Did it lessen perhaps? It was YOU who just did that...So why not try it again when you next experience fear?