Article: Make Peace with Imperfection

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The following is an excerpt from a new book by Rick Hanson, PhD, which I though would be useful at this time of year. We're all running around dealing with deadlines at work, last minute errands, and visits from family, and the stress keeps mounting. I've stuttered more in the last week than in the last two or three months, and have to remind myself over and over about not getting hung up on being perfect and not giving in to negative thinking. I hope Hanson's article helps you with that as well.

"'Imperfections' are all around, and they include: messes, dirty clothes, weeds, snarled traffic, rain during a picnic, wine stains on carpet; injury, illness, disability, pain; problems, issues, obstructions, losses - including with others; objects that are chipped, frayed, broken; mistakes, errors; confusion, lack of clarity; war, famine, poverty, oppression, injustice.

In a nutshell, an imperfection - as I mean it here - is a departure from a reasonable ideal or standard (e.g., dog poop on your shoe is not ideal, nor is the hunger that afflicts one in six people worldwide). These departures-from-ideal have costs, and it's reasonable to do what you can about them.

But we usually don't leave it at that: we get anxious - uneasy, nervous, troubled, stressed - about imperfection itself, rather than recognizing it as a normal, unavoidable, and widespread aspect of life. Instead of dealing with conditions as they are - weeds, injuries, conflicts with others - and just handling them, we get caught up in worrying about what they mean, grumbling, feeling deflated, becoming opinionated and judgmental, blaming ourselves and others, and feeling woe-is-me and yet again disappointed/ mistreated/wronged.

These reactions to imperfection are major second darts (as described in the previous chapter). They make you feel a lot worse than you need to, create issues with others, and make it harder to take skillful action. 

Here's the alternative: let the broken cup be a broken cup without adding judgment, resistance, blaming, or worry to it.

How?

Make appropriate efforts to improve things, but realize the impossibility of perfecting anything; even the most sophisticated technology cannot produce a perfectly flat table. You just can't perfect your personality, thoughts, or behavior; trying to do so is like trying to polish Jell-O. Nor can you perfect others or the world. Open to this fact: you can - not perfectly protect your loved ones, or eliminate all of your own health risks, or prevent people from doing stupid things. At first this opening could feel poignant or sad, but then you'll likely feel a breath of fresh air, a freedom, and a surge of energy to do the things you can now that you're not undermined by the hopelessness of making anything perfect.

We need standards and ideals - from the strike zone in baseball to the aspirations in the world's sacred teachings - but we also need to hold these lightly. Otherwise, they'll take on a life of their own in your mind, like petty tyrants barking orders: "You must do this, it's bad to do that." Watch out for righteousness, for self-important moralizing insistence on your own view of how you, others, and the world should operate. Know if you have tendencies toward perfectionism; I do, and I've got to be careful about them or I become a difficult person to live with or work for, as well as unhappy inside.

Further, many things transcend fixed standards. For example, could there ever be such a thing as a perfect rose or a perfect child? In these cases, anxiety about imperfection is absurd - which applies to trying to perfect your body, career, relationships, family, business, or spiritual practice. Nurture these, help them blossom, but give up on perfecting them.

Most fundamentally, all conditions, no matter how imperfect, are perfectly what they are: the bed is perfectly unmade, the milk is perfectly spilt. I don't mean morally or pragmatically "perfect" - as if it would be just perfect to tear a shirt or start a war - but that all conditions are utterly, thoroughly themselves. In this sense, whatever is the case - from dirty diapers and everyday hassles to cancer and plane crashes - is the result in this instant of the perfect unfolding of the entire universe. Try to see that unfolding as a vast, objective process in which our personal wishes are as consequential for it as a patch of foam is for the Pacific Ocean. In this light, perfection and imperfection vanish as meaningful distinctions. There are only things in their own right, in and of themselves, without our labels of good or bad, beautiful or ugly, perfect or not. Then there is no anxiety about imperfection; there is only simplicity, directness, engagement - and peace."

November 20, 2013 Meeting Update

At this Wednesday night meeting of the South Orange County NSA group, although there were only 3 members present, it was an interesting & enjoyable evening. (For those of you who didn't attend - you know this goes on your permanent record don't you? You can redeem yourselves by attending next time.) One attendee was a new member from San Gabriel who works in Irvine. We began with introductions where people stated what they would do if they won 100 million dollars in the lottery. Two people said they would invest the money and/or buy properties. The third member said it would allow his wife to retire. We can all dream, right?

This was another "Public Speaking" session using Table Topics. Members were free to use any fluency techniques they were working on. The Table Topics subjects were: "Gaming: Your ThoughtsOn It",  "The Best Book You Ever Read" & "What You Would Do If You Knew An 8.0 Earthquake Was Going To Hit In 30 Minutes." Some lively discussions followed. The person who had the earthquake topic said there is a species of fish that live in very deep ocean water where there are tectonic plates. When the plates rub against each other as they do preceding an earthquake, the fish are forced to the surface & can sometimes be found on beaches. Some of these beached fish have been recently found on California beaches. Is "The Big One" coming? The person who had the gaming topic knew practically nothing about it, but thought excessive gaming may be taking the place of human interaction for some gamers.

The familiar subject of how hard it is to transfer fluency techniques from the speech therapist's safe environment to the "real" world was discussed. This may be one area where all persons who stutter agree.

We talked a little on what helps us in general to be fluent. The new person said he has a non-stuttering friend who talks very slowly. When he is with this friend, it helps him greatly in improving his fluency.

We also talked a little on the effect of foreign languages on stuttering, as each person has a foreign language in their background - Chinese, Spanish or Italian. We pretty much agreed that stutterers stutter the same amount in whatever language they use.

The next Wednesday meeting is scheduled for December 18. However, it may be canceled as it is very close to the holidays and attendance would probably be low or even zero, with only the group leader showing up. Emails will go out as usual if the meeting is cancelled.

Happy Thanksgiving. Drive carefully. Don't watch too much football. Don't drink too much. Don't eat too much turkey - for you vegans/vegetarians, it's hard to eat too much tofu, so go ahead & indulge yourselves in a soy orgy.

Article: "What It Actually Feels Like to Stutter"

I ran across this Huffington Post article, written by a woman who stutters, and thought it very honest and insightful. She writes so well about that moment after a period of fluency, when you get stuck and it's so easy to lose hope and give up. But she just "picks up [the ball] and serves" it back!

November 11 Meeting Update: Full Disclosure

We had a larger than normal group meeting and I wanted to share the article "Stuttering and the Power of Powerless Communication" again since many haven’t read it. This was a major topic for last month's meeting.  After taking turns reading a paragraph, we discussed what people thought.  What was interesting was that a few didn’t agree: if you suffer from severe stuttering, you’ll never be in a commanding position to insight dialogue.

After our normal introductions and brief update on what’s going on, we transitioned into the questions, “What do you do for a career and what are your biggest challenges you face at the job?”  The group was eager to aid in ideas to better that person’s situation.  The phone, giving your name and directing people in a group setting were the biggest challenges. 

The group's thoughts related to the phone were “Don’t fear it.”  Learn to master it by using it.  At the beginning of the phone call, let the person know that you’d like to take a little more time to make sure you get all the information.  Pause a bit more to collect your thoughts and lastly, take control.  If you’re calm and collected, you’ll be able to lead the conversation and take charge of the call by shaping the direction you want it to go.  What’s better, you’ll be able to comprehend the conversation and be in the moment. 

A seed developed throughout the meeting into the idea of full disclosure.  Many of us in the group have been covert stutterers for many years and not able to reach out to find others like us.  What surprised me was how many young people are able to understand and deal with this.  Facebook, YouTube and the web have aided this.  Being open and honest about our stuttering in life, with friends and even in a job interview has allowed us to be cool with it.  Full Disclosure is our pass to taking control.

October 30 Meeting Update

At this Wednesday night meeting of the NSA Orange County South group, 5 members were present. One brave soul showed up on crutches - nothing stops some NSA members from meetings. We began with introductions, where people stated where they were originally from & what was their first car. Members were originally from: California, Texas, New Jersey, Slovakia & Mexico. Everyone easily remembered their first car & had detailed memories about it. This was another public speaking meeting, but this time we did "Table Topics" instead of reading from a prepared text. For the uninitiated, Table Topics consists of each member writing down a topic on a piece of paper. The papers are then put together & each person picks one out randomly. Each person then speaks on the topic on his piece of paper. Only caveat is you can't talk on the topic you wrote down. Each person had about 10 minutes to speak. The topics were interesting & included "Are Some People Born Evil?",  "Exercise" & "Have You Been Hiking & Where." People were encouraged to use any fluency techniques they may be working on while speaking on their topic. Another spontaneous subject that arose was how some TV shows are addictive especially "Breaking Bad."

Because of Thanksgiving,  the next Wednesday meeting will be on November 20, & will go from 7:00 to 8:15 PM.

Hope everybody had a good Halloween.

October 14 Meeting Update: The Phone--A Potential Time Bomb

One member described it as a bomb, and if you think about it as a person who stutters, it can be. It sits there, ready and able to go off anytime. The unknown timing of the ring, the thought of... If this does ring, I'll have to answer it. Even worse is the question of how I will communicate once I'm on the phone. Will I block? Will I make sense? What will other people think when I'm on the phone?

As simple as a phone may be for communication everyday, it can shape the direction of a stutterer in avoidance. This avoidance can only be dealt with for so long before we can move forward and recognize that this issue needs to be addressed. Some successful ways have been to seize the moment and just answer the phone; taping yourself; calling friends; and calling small businesses. Little by little we'll get a handle on the fear and defuse this phone bomb.

Reading out loud is always an important part of our meetings too. This meeting we read Katherine Preston's blog piece, "Stuttering and the Power of Powerless Communication." She writes about embracing powerless communication and how it specifically relates to stutterers and how everyone can harness its power to generate trust and respect. In his book Give and Take Adam Grant states that when it comes to collaboration, "we are more inclined to hire, promote and value people who communicate powerlessly. This includes: talking tentatively, asking people questions, giving them the joy of talking, asking for advice and being open to our vulnerabilities and weaknesses, not just our strengths."

In her post, Preston writes:

"When writing Out With It I discovered how often people are drawn to stutterers, how likeable they seem to be. At first I balked against the discovery, worrying that the attraction was perhaps born of pity. However, the more people I spoke to, the more I realized it was the opposite – they were drawn to the stutterer’s courage and lack of artifice. In a world full of noise and nonsense, stutterers were seen as somehow trustworthy and genuine. Because their speech had nothing to do with their competence, it did not demean them in their audiences’ eyes. Rather it raised them up.

The idea that something that we often perceive as a weakness can actually be an important asset was a personal breakthrough. Grant proves that the idea is applicable to anyone wishing to improve their communication.

Everyone has a weakness, whether it be their weight, their height, their looks, their clumsiness etc. Often our weaknesses have nothing to do with our competence, but we try to hide them to appear in control or knowledgeable or attractive. In actuality, when we speak in a way that reveals our shortcomings and expresses vulnerability, people can relate to us as a human beings. They are attracted to us."

Our group meeting liked this post and insight very much. It seems like instead of hiding our stutter, we can be upfront with it on job interviews, and when meeting new clients or customers. People remember us more, it separates us from the the masses and makes us more human... potentially opening more door ways.

by Matt

Asking for Help

I wanted to share with you this great story from a meeting of the Chicago chapter. It's a perfect example of how we can create a community of support even with people we don't know and who we imagine don't care.

A young man works in a new job as a recruiter and is a very dynamic, "type A" go-getter. He is on the phone for 8 full hours a day. His bosses recently gave him feedback that "You're doing great, but you need to talk smoother on the phone." Essentially, "You need to not stutter." 

How do you respond to this? 

Steve, who is an experienced, high-powered sales executive, said he had a similar experience to this when he first started working and he was required to cold call all day. It was not going well and he stuttered a lot. He said his boss took him aside and said, "Okay, I know you stutter. When you call, you need to do this. You need to ask people for help."  

At this point in Steve's story, we all said, "...What?" He continued. "I couldn't believe what he was telling me. He said, "When you call people, you should say, 'My name is Steve. Can you help me?' And then stop talking until they respond. When they say 'Yes', say, 'I stutter. I want to talk to you and I just want you to know that it's not because I'm reading off a card or because I'm nervous. I just stutter is all.' And then continue with the pitch." 

"I was so mad after that conversation, I thought it was nuts. But I did what he told me. I hadn't made a single sale to that date. And what made me even madder was the first call I made using that strategy, I made my first sale."  

He now does this all the time and said it works incredibly well. As our meeting progressed, a theme that came out was "everybody struggles with something." Steve's strategy is so powerful because it reminds us that we have commonality as humans with struggles, whether it's stuttering or something else. It's advertising, but advertising in a particularly vulnerable, connective way.