The Alchemy of Stuttering- A Spiritual Approach Part 1

by ST UTT E RIN G JA C K http://stutteringjack.com/

I have spoken briefly in previous posts, about the different forms of speech therapy for stuttering that are available to people who stutter, and I have also spoken briefly about the various methods of approaching the psychological side of stuttering/stammering, but are you aware that you can alter your experiences associated with stuttering/stammering, (and speaking anxiety in general), by actively altering the way that you see and interact with other people, and the world around you.

I believe that stuttering is like a vine that has wrapped itself around every aspect of your being, and in order to remove the influence of stuttering from your life, you not only need to look at using some of these mainstream speech therapy approaches, but you also need to understand how these vines have formed, and how they influence your behaviour, and then how to go about removing these vines. These vines are made up of issues to do with: 1) Judgement 2) Perfection 3) Expectation 4) Power 5) Control 6) Acceptance 7) Approval 8) Fear Now this is by no means an exhaustive list of what I believe make up the vines that hold stuttering in place, but I believe that they encompass many of the major issues that we all need to look at. As mentioned, this list is not exhaustive and each of us will have additional vines specific to our own persona, but I think what I

have to say here, will get you thinking about the type of individual emotion or behaviour, that could be holding stuttering and speaking anxiety in place for you. You are unlikely to read this anywhere else so lets go slowly and look at these in turn closely. Judgement Judgement makes up one of the main vines that holds stuttering in place. When you are speaking in a dysfluent manner, you are invariably engaged in running a mind reading program in your head, while at the same time you are trying to operate a communications program. This mind reading that is going on is a process of assessing how the other person, and any secondary or adjacent listener, is judging you while you are in the process of speaking, and more likely, stuttering. This additional program that is running, may account for some of the unusual brain activity witnessed in the brain of a person who is stuttering, as this program is highly, and probably abnormally, active while we are speaking. Now we all think we know exactly how the other person is judging us, and the fact of the matter is that, for all intents and purposes, in our world, we DO know what the other person is thinking. So how is it that we know how we are being assessed or judged? Well the real fact of the matter is that we DO NOT know what the other person is thinking at all, and if in fact they are judging us in a positive or a negative manner, if there is any judgement going on at all. What we are certain of is our own perception of judgement by the listener towards us, and that is all that really counts in our concept of what is real. The fact of the matter is that the toxic judgements that we are experiencing, are in fact our own judgements of our self, that we are bouncing off the other person back at our self. Now this does not only apply to people who stutter, but every one of us when we experience some form of performance anxiety e.g speaking in front of a group. So

why is it that we judge ourselves negatively, and how can we correct this errant thinking. Well it is perception of our own experiences in life, but more so it is a reflection of our own personal ethos and approach to life. If you are judgemental in your thinking towards others, who display some form of disability or unusual behaviour, then to that same degree of judgement will you apply it to yourself, through the eyes of others. If you are judgemental of others, you will surely use that same criteria of standards to bounce your own judgemental thoughts about yourself, off the other listener to that same degree, and depending how toxic those thoughts are, your level of anxiety about that judgement that will affect your speaking performance will follow. You may want to read that again, to ensure that you have absorbed what has been said there, as it is VERY important to understand and embody from this point on. The secret to unwinding this vine, that is holding your stuttering in place, is to look on all fellow humans for what they are, a fellow human, who like you, experiences a range of emotions, including love, and never attempt to pass a judgement on them in any situation. Human existence is a tapestry of dichotomies and differences. Behind those eyes or that voice is a soul that is connected to your soul, and any behaviour you experience, both acceptable or unacceptable to you, is just you on another day. It is behaviour that you yourself have demonstrated, or are likely to demonstrate in the future at some time. If you must judge, judge others for the differences and uniqueness that God has given them, in a positive and accepting way, and you will soon find that you are judging your own, less than perfect speaking behaviour, in the same more accepting way when you speak to others. By beginning to live your life with a less judgemental approach to others, you will begin to remove one of the major vines that is holding your

experience of stuttering in place. Perfection & Expectation Another vine that is holding stuttering in place in your psyche, is the concept of perfection. Many of us have the illogical concept in our brain, that certain activities must be executed in a more than socially acceptable or perfect manner. Perfection is a result of fear. We believe that our speech pattern has to be perfect in any particular situation, otherwise we will not make the desired social impression, and we have a belief that that is bad, and will result in an undesirable outcome. The result of this is procrastination and avoidance. It is the content of your mind, not the speed and fluency of your delivery, that is what is important. Whether you are a person who stutters or not, aiming for increased knowledge is achievable, perfection in speech delivery is less achievable for the majority of us, so should be viewed as a skill that we may or may not have, not a prerequisite for social acceptability. Aiming for perfection will add to your speaking anxiety, add to your procrastination in moving forward in any situation, and add to your avoidance behaviour in situations where you do not believe you will be able to reach your expectations. If your expectations are too high, or are not reasonable given the facts that operate in any situation, then you are just continually setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment, however that manifests itself in your behaviour and your speech. Shed the vine of perfection by practicing some deliberate dysfluency. Although the logic of deliberately being dysfluent may seem a foreign concept to you, it is totally different to the normal stuttering behaviour that you experience, in that in the real stuttering moment you are out of control, and in some cases at the exact moment of the speech block your awareness is not fully present. In a deliberate stuttering situation, if it is

performed correctly, you are in control and your awareness is present. You are able to see that imperfection in speech delivery is something that most people overlook, especially if you give them the vibration that you are OK with it. Shed the vine of perfection, and bring your expectations in line with the reality of the situation, and further remove one of the supporting vines that holds stuttering in place for you in your world. Power & Control Another set of vines that tend to hold stuttering in place are issues to do with Power and Control. Many people who stutter, are reluctant to exercise a level of power and control in their life, out of fear of how it may impact on them in the eyes of another. Many people who stutter tend to figuratively see a verbal exchange as taking place on a small mountain, where one person has to be on top of the mountain, while the other has to be on the bottom. In any verbal exchange many people who stutter, tend to subconsciously assess who should be on top, and who should be on the bottom. Invariably the person who stutters tends to place themselves on the bottom and, figuratively speaking, hand control of the situation to the other person, who they have given their power to, and place them on top. In many cases it is akin to handing the remote control that determines your behaviour, over to the other person. In many cases there is no logical justification, as to why the other person should be given control of the situation. It could be for as little a subconscious reason as their assertive or authoritarian look, or the tone of their voice, but more likely their perceived authoritative position. Invariably after some form of treatment for our dysfluency, we often manage to place ourselves on the top of this fictitious mountain, only to feel most uncomfortable in this position, and thereby placing added stress and anxiety on ourselves. Many of us choose to subconsciously

gravitate back to the bottom, where we feel more comfortable, and this is one of the less understood psychological factors that leads to the concept of stuttering relapse. Allowing the vine of power and control to dictate your response, in any speaking situation, places unnecessary performance anxiety on you, and the result for a person who stutters, is increased dysfluency. It is better to see the situation in a way that there is not one mountain, but a mountain for each person. Each person is on his own mountain rather than one on top and one on the bottom. If you must see the world as a single mountain, when you are in verbal exchange, then take the position of power on top, but exercise that power with understanding, compassion and empathy and do not try to control and manipulate others to your own benefit. The power and control vine holds your stuttering behaviour in place, by making you feel uncomfortable whenever you are speaking to a person who perceptions have you believe is in a position of authority. Accept that you have the right to your own level of power and control in these verbal exchanges, and shed this vine from the mix, and further loosen the grip that stuttering has on your sense of self. Acceptance The next vine I would like to talk about in this post is that of acceptance. In order to begin to remove the vine of acceptance, we must first accept what is. We must all learn to start from a base of acceptance of what is. No matter what it is in your life that you are not happy with, you must first deeply and completely accept its existence as a fact. If you are a person who stutters, you MUST accept that fact. If you cannot accept it as your reality, then you will continue to hold it as your reality when you start to try to loosen its grip on your lifes direction. Not only must you privately accept this fact, but publicly accept it as well. If you refuse to accept the total reality of your stuttered speech, and

speaking anxiety, you will always be trying to hide it, ever if you learn to control it. If you are a person who stutters, and are attempting to use a technique to try to control your stuttering, you will always oscillate towards trying to hide it by trying to sound normal, or trying to sound like the other person, instead of doing what you need to do to control and improve your fluency. Accept your situation and this vine will also begin to lose the support it is giving to your dysfluency problem. Approval We all seek some degree of approval, but as a person who stutters this need for approval can often work in a counterproductive way, in that whenever we believe that the listener may not approve of what we are about to say, we increase our anxiety level and the result is invariably greater dysfluency. It is OK to not receive full approval for our opinions, and for what we have to say. No one is always going to agree with what you have to say, and no one is going to always like what you have to say, but if you respect others, speak to them as you would have them speak to you and speak from the heart with others mental welfare in mind, whenever possible, you can remove the vine of approval that is another support surrounding your stuttering.

The Alchemy of Stuttering- A Spiritual Approach Part 2

Stuttering In the first part of this post, I spoke about how I believe that stuttering/stammering is like a vine, that has wrapped itself around every aspect of your being, and in order to remove the influence of stuttering/stammering from your life, you not only need to look at using some of these mainstream speech therapy for stuttering approaches, but you also need to understand how these vines have formed, and how they influence your behavior, and then how to go about removing them. In this part of the post, I talk about one of the main vines that holds stuttering/stammering in place, and that is the vine of fear. Fear The innate emotion at the base of all anxiety is fear. We dont have to learn what fear is, as our brain is programmed to recognise what is a threat to us, and to trigger various reactions in the brain, to cause us instantly to react, to remove us from the stimulus causing the fear. This can be a physical threat, or an emotional threat to our wellbeing. It can be real and/or it can equally be perceived. Either way, fear will cause a reaction in our brain, and that reaction will cause both a physical and mental response in our body. As people who stutter, this reaction heightens our anxiety to some extent, either mildly or severely, but what is known is that that heightened anxiety, contributes to our degree of stuttering. If we realise then that fear leads to anxiety (or even panic), which in turn leads to increased speech dysfluency, then it is natural that to reduce fear, will result in less anxiety, and

less dysfluent speech, and of course a more enjoyable existence. So if fear is at the route of our speaking anxiety, then how can we replace it with an emotion, that is more resourceful to us? What is a feeling that we could engender within our self, that would help to replace feelings of fear? What are we fearful of when speaking to other people? For various reasons, too complex to go into here, we are fearful of how we are being perceived and judged by others, and what that may mean in our life, and how that makes us feel in that moment. In most cases it is illogical, that we have fear when we are about to speak to another person, so if there is no logical reason to fear others, then we need to learn to get ourselves into a state which is as far removed from the state of fear as possible. Many would argue that the opposite of fear is courage, but from a spiritual point of view, the opposite of fear is love. When you are in a state of love there is no fear, and the same can be said for the many degrees of love. You feel a closeness towards that person, a feeling of mutual respect, admiration and trust. In this true state, there is no feelings of judgement, only acceptance for each other. So how can we invoke this state, when we have allowed ourselves to develop a mind-set, where we feel everything except love towards our fellow man, especially when we are required to speak to a stranger, or person in perceived authority? Can we change that mind-set? Do we want to, and why should we? Can we afford to, or do we open ourselves up to having our feelings hurt if a more open, interpersonal relationship in our communication style is not reciprocated? From a spiritual point of view many would argue that we are all connected, and that we all share a spark of the supreme soul, but I do not want to go into that in this post other than to say, it will be

resourceful to you to try to look at other people, who you are about to communicate with, as though they were your very best friend, or even your lover. It will be resourceful to you, to look beyond the face, or the tone of the voice of the person you are speaking to, and try to see the soul behind that individual. Their soul that is pure love. Now you may argue, that some of the people that you have to speak to, show a nature that is the furthest thing from love, and some even border on pure evil. Well that may be the case on the outside of a hardened persona, but deep down there is a person inside all of us, that just wants to be loved. Look for that, and speak to that in the people you speak to, and it is very likely that it will be reciprocated, and at the very least, it will lower your anxiety about speaking to that person. Now whether you accept that or not is irrelevant. What is relevant, and will be very helpful to you, is to try to approach every person you speak to, as though you are going to talk to yourself in a mirror, or about to talk to someone who loves and or respects you for who you are. As mentioned above, you will find that you approach the communication situation, in a totally different state of mind. A state of mind where fear is gone, or at least minimised, and as a result your stuttering and speaking anxiety, will be greatly improved, whether it is a one on one communication situation, or communication to a group. Why would your mind be consumed with thoughts about how others are judging you, if you have flooded it with thoughts of love for all who you speak to. How can I feel that way towards all people, you say? Why would I want to? You have not met my boss! You have not met my father! You have not seen how they laugh at me! It is not about giving the other person something that they have not earned, or are not entitled to, your love. It is about you freely giving yourself the

same thoughts that create a feeling of love, instead of freely giving yourself thoughts of fear, which your mind is going to use, to subconsciously govern your body to act on, and throw you into a state of anxiety, where your body believes you are going to either have to fight, or flee, from this other person or group of people. You must understand, that you do not know how the other person is judging you. You think you do but you dont. What you are perceiving are your own thoughts, so why not have loving thoughts in your head. It will certainly drive out fear in many areas, other than just thoughts that relate to speech. It is something worth trying. What have you got to lose, really? It is an approach to life that, like the other vines that hold your stuttering persona in place, will not only benefit your speaking anxiety and speech dysfluency, it will improve the whole way you see the world, and the way you move through it, with ease and grace. What I am saying is, that rather than try to put yourself in this alien state of love and appreciation for the other person only when you feel anxious, you need to try to remain in this new state as much as you can, which will mean that you need to be conscious of your ongoing emotional state as much as you can be. So how do you achieve this? Well these tips will help. 1) Always smile when you go to speak to another Look into the other persons eyes, and try to see the If you experience less than a

person. 2)

loving soul that resides within. 3)

loving reaction from the other person, accept it, and realise that it is more about them, and their concept of how the world is in that moment, rather than about you and how you, and your perceived

influence on others, and how you believe your expectations should be met. 4) If you experience a less than loving reaction inside yourself, and less than loving or accepting judgemental feelings towards yourself, as a result of the interchange, try to see the other person as having helped you find your own triggers for negative emotions, and use those experiences to work on changing your emotional reactions to others behaviour, in such a way that such perceived negative behaviour, does not influence your internal chemistry, in a way that negatively effects your anxiety level and feelings of love towards all other people. See those who help you find your emotional buttons, as your teacher, not your enemy. 5) Try to look for the good in all people. 6) Try to respect that everyone has the right to control their own emotional reactions, whether it be negatively towards others or positive, and that you have no influence over their behaviour, only your own thoughts and resultant behaviour. 7) If people laugh at you or mimic you from time to time, realise that it is only their reaction to something that puzzles them, and is in no way a true reflection of how they see you, as a fellow human being. 8) If people finish your words or sentences for you, realise that communication is all about getting thoughts from your head into the other persons head. It is only natura, that when people believe they have the message, they react on it. People are not obliged to wait for you to finish, when you are obviously showing signs of difficulty in getting the words out. You must love and respect all people, and not judge them for the way they appear to you, otherwise YOU are being the judgemental one, in being upset that YOUR expectations have not been met by that other person. Allowing fear to take control of any part of your life, is not the way our creator meant for us to live our lives. This is born out by words

in the Bible, where it is said that through fear, all our lives we are subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:15). Anger and Expectation Anger is an emotional response that all of us feel from time to time, but it is not a state that we should choose to go into if we can help it, as it will rob us of rational thought, and control over our stuttering behaviour, and consequently our ability to communicate well with others. If you are trying to work on controlling your stuttering, anger may give you a level of short term fluency, but it will ultimately lead to increased dysfluency. So what leads to anger. Two of the main causes of anger are: 1) A feeling that our ego is under attack. 2) Our expectations

not being met, and our frustrations about that. We all know that our ego can sometimes get in the way of engendering harmonious relationships, but we are not always aware that unfulfilled expectations are one of the main causes of frustration, that can lead to anger. Our expectations of what other people should do or say, will rarely be met, as we are all different, so to allow the fact that your expectations may or may not be met, to rule your emotions, is allowing anger to enter into your life more than it should, and interfere with your quest for calmness and awareness of mind, and fluency of speech. Finally I would like to add, that harbouring anger, and failing to forgive others for their failings and indiscretions in communicating with you, will not only cause increased anxiety in you, but can also lead to dis-ease! Just remember that.

Now that was all a bit controversial, and everyone may not relate to or agree with what I have said, but I wanted to write that anyway for those of you who can appreciate and learn from that wisdom, as I have. In future posts I will get back to talking about more main stream approaches to treating the symptoms of severe and chronic stuttering. In the meantime, I again urge you to subscribe to my RSS feed or email notification, so that you do not miss posts about subjects and content that you will not read anywhere else. If you found this post useful or thought-provoking in any way, please make a comment.