People do not stutter because they are nervous, but they are nervous about their stuttering. After an incident during which we stuttered, we feel compelled to relive that stuttering. We remember the shame we felt and the embarrassment it caused. We say to ourselves: "If only I had taken my time; or taken a breath; or thought about what I wanted to say; or, or, or...." Rather than focus on any positive aspects of the conversation, we dwell on the negative. We remember only the failure, our shame and our humiliation. Not only do we remember it for the duration of the conversation, but we allow it to haunt us for the remainder of the day and to disturb our dreams at night.
The first rule of training is to repeat a lesson over and over again. This will reinforce the message and strengthen the training. We learn to do something well by repeatedly reinforcing it. Repetition is the foundation of all learning. But why would we want to train ourselves to stutter? Why do we repeat the lesson over and over in our mind? Just exactly what do we hope to gain from reinforcing our stuttering?
As I look back over a lifetime of stuttering, I realize that I did not begin to reduce my stuttering until I stopped allowing it to control my life. I stopped focusing on my stuttering during a conversation and, instead, focused on the results of the conversation. I focused on the positive rather than the negative. Instead of remembering every instance of shame and embarrassment, I forced myself to forget about it. If my listener no longer remembered my stuttering hours or minutes later; why was I beating myself up over it days, months, even years later? A fleeting instance for my listener became a horrific memory for me. Reliving my stuttering didn't change a thing. It served no purpose at all! To what end? To what gain did I torture myself? My listener had forgotten it; why couldn't I? Why couldn't I "give up the dead"?
So I changed. |
