Feb 13 Meeting Update

Stuttering is not an "it," it's an "I."

The focus of our meeting on Monday evening was the "I" at the center of what we experience as stuttering. That experience isn't just about the way our speech sounds. It's also about the way we think about ourselves. How do we answer the question: who am I? Are we able to see stuttering in the context of everything else that we are? Can we see what's right with us, not just what's wrong?

One member in our group wrestled with this recently. He had to give a presentation at work, and--this will sound awfully familiar to all of us--during the week before the presentation he spent a lot of time preparing his speech and thinking (sometimes with dread, sometimes with hope) about what would happen. In the midst of all these thoughts and emotions, he realized that what really, really mattered was not whether he was going to stutter or not during the presentation. Instead, what mattered was whether he was going to choose to be okay with stuttering if it did happen. Was he going to label himself as a stutterer and nothing more? Or would he be able to look at himself as a whole person, with valuable abilities and strengths and a voice worthy to be heard?

That choice is the hardest part of the work we do as stutterers. It's also the most rewarding. At the end of Monday night's meeting we went round the table and tried to answer this question: If you could go back in time, what would you tell your frightened and angry ten-year-old self about stuttering, knowing all you know now?

Here are the answers:

Stuttering isn't all you are. 

Don't blame anyone for it, including yourself. 

There is something you can do about it. 

Stop hiding. Get our there and speak. 

You'll have noticed that none of these answers is about special fluency shaping or stuttering modification techniques. It's about how to see yourself, how to relate to the whole of who you are.

Stuttering is not an "it," it's an "I."

And that "I" has the power to change.