June 11 Meeting Update

We began our meeting with breathing exercises, focusing on breathing from the belly rather than the chest, and on inhaling and exhaling to the full capacity of the lungs. Many of us experience stuttering as a constriction of the airflow in the throat, and it was helpful to practice keeping the breath moving steadily in and out.

The breathing exercises were followed by a three-minute period of silence. For people who stutter silence can be frightening. It often means that we can't speak, and it weighs heavily on us. To choose it consciously and to sit with it without worrying or panicking is a powerful experience. It proves that silence doesn't have to be the enemy. Pausing, taking our time, allowing for a few seconds to pass before and while we speak can improve our fluency in significant ways.

Taking our time is one of the hardest things to do when we're in conversation with other people. It seems almost impossible not to be influenced by the speed of others' speech, their interruptions, their impatience, their demands to answer the question or give our opinion already. There's no easy solution to this. There's only this: just don't do it. Don't let anyone else dictate how you speak. Don't forget that you can take control of your speech, you can decide that no one but you will be in charge.

Our group discussion touched on changes in our fluency and the types of blocks we tend to have over a longer period. There are certainly patterns in the way each of us stutters. But some aspects of stuttering remain unpredictable. They can be infuriating when they occur. Why did I stutter on this word that I've said perfectly fluently a dozen times before? Why is it that a technique I've been using successfully last week doesn't work this week?

This can make you feel like you're fighting a losing battle. I have days when I'm just sick of all the effort required and the inevitable failures. But then I have days when all the fluency techniques I've learned work effortlessly and I feel like I can say anything. Things don't stay bad forever. Nor do they stay good forever. The wheel is always turning. The only thing we can do is to stay consistent with our practice. It's only steady practice that makes the good times last longer and the bad go away faster.