August 12 Meeting Update: A Different Way of Looking

Here's a different way of looking at the phone: as an opportunity to practice fluency techniques without having to worry about how you look. A new group member pointed this out at our last meeting; he actually prefers the phone for some types of speech practice! It's a positive side of this much dreaded instrument that I didn't think about before.

When it comes to face-to-face conversations, the emphasis in our discussion fell once again on eye-contact. It's valuable in so many ways: to build self-confidence, to clue in your listener about how to react when you stutter ("Stay calm, everything is okay"). A group member mentioned another benefit: keeping eye contact makes it less likely for your listener to interrupt you.

But there's also that awful moment when, even though you're keeping eye contact as you try to get through a block, your listener looks away. Your heart sinks; negative thoughts flood in. That makes the block worse and traps you in a vicious cycle. What to do? This is the time to remember that we're not responsible for other people's reactions, only our own.

Another frequent topic at our meetings is introductions, and we touched on it again yesterday. We talked, in particular, about the benefits of being open about stuttering right off the bat when you meet someone new. The biggest obstacle is awkwardness, not being sure how to broach the subject. But there are other ways of incorporating advertising into conversations than just to say bluntly, "Hi, my name is... I stutter." You can use a block (an unintentional one or a voluntary one) as an opportunity to mention that you're working on your speech. At a job interview, when the question about your greatest fear or challenge comes up, you can bring up your speech and your commitment to improving it and doing your best at your job in spite of the difficulties that your speech puts in your way.

It's a different way to look at stuttering: as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, a source of strength rather than a weakness--and to teach others to look at it in the same way, too.