March 27 Meeting Update

There were 10 persons present at the March 27, 2014 meeting including a new member - welcome Thabith. This was the 1st of the 2nd meetings of the month to be held at the new time, day & place. It was very gratifying for there to be such a good turnout. Thanks to those who attended. 

Along with introductions, we opened the meeting with the question: Which person(s) in history do you most admire & why? Some interesting & unusual choices were given including: the framers of the Constitution & Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. (No, Jimmy Page didn't help draft the Constitution, he's British.) A rousing chorus of "Stairway to Heaven" ensued - just kidding; I wanted to see if you were paying attention. 

Next (seriously), a group discussion was started based on the following premise: You come across an old fashioned oil lamp covered with dust. Thinking it might be a valuable antique, you start wiping off the dust & lo & behold - you guessed it - a magic genie appears! This is a different kind of genie, however, than the usual garden variety genie. This genie only appears to persons who stutter. Also, instead of the usual 3 wishes he only grants 1 wish (he's a cheap genie), and with these added caveats: the wish has to be directly connected to your stuttering (e.g. you can't wish you win the lottery & stutter when you claim the money, etc.), and you're not allowed to wish that you don't stutter anymore. What would you wish?A lot of interesting wishes were put forth, many around the themes of: saying whatever you wanted to say whether you stuttered or not; not worrying so much about what others think of you when you stutter; & not being so preoccupied with your stuttering all the time. Three of the more novel wishes were: "I wish my stuttering made me irresistible to the opposite sex";

 "I wish everyone else in the world stuttered"; & "I wish I held the patent to a magic pill that cured stuttering, started a drug company that produced it & got rich". A very thoughtful wish was: "I wish I could make it easier for children & teens who stutter so they wouldn't have to go through what I did." 

A side discussion also took place about the efficacy of drugs designed to help ease stuttering. Two of the members that had direct experience with some of these drugs that have been prescribed by a researcher at UC Irvine talked about their experiences. 

There was a little bit of time left over, so one person did a Table Topics presentation on "Favorite Kind of Music" What was learned from this was that nobody but the speaker had ever heard of Bill Haley & the Comets. (How is this possible?) The group redeemed itself somewhat by some members admitting they had heard of Jerry Lee Lewis. Maybe there's still hope.

The next meeting will be on Thursday, April 10, at 5:45 PM at Kaiser Permanente, 6 Willard, Irvine, 92604. Room 105 (near reception desk).

March 13 Meeting Update: 100 Times

We began our meeting by reading the Welcoming Words together. To introduce ourselves, we used a "structured communication" format: the beginning of a sentence was given, and each person completed it with a personal statement. For example:

The worst thing about stuttering is....

            ...that I can't say what I really want to say.
            ...that other will mimic the way I speak.
            ...being scared to stutter.
            ...hiding it.

What I want people to know about me is...

...that I'm normal.
...that I'm no different than anybody else.
...that I'm more than my stutter.
...that I'm a hard worker.

Afterwards we had a free-flowing discussion where members shared what was new in their lives. A few are either going through the interview process for a new job, or have just completed it. One member was recently hired in a field he's really passionate about. His story was very inspiring. He talked about his experience with the interviews, how nervous he was at the beginning. He blocked and stuttered often. But by the third round of interviews he decided to look at the experience as just a way to practice speaking and to build up his confidence, and forget about whether he would be hired or not. This is what enabled him, in his words, to "lean back" and take his time when he spoke.

Another member talked about a job he had answering the phone at a big retail store. He barely made it to through the first few calls. But the more he did it, the easier it got. By the hundredth phone call, he said, he wasn't afraid any more. It sounds crazy: to do something that scares you 100 times. In Outliers, a book about what it takes to be successful, Malcolm Gladwell writes that people at the top of their field have spent 10,000 hours practicing their craft. There's nothing like practice, getting your feet wet, just doing it--over and over and over again.

Our discussion was in full swing when the time to end the meeting came. It was a little disappointing that we had to stop; but that makes it all the more exciting to get to the next meeting!

Wednesday, February 26, 2014 Meeting Update

Four people were present at this meeting, including a new member. The first part of the meeting was a free wheeling discussion on various stuttering avoidance "tricks" most stutterers use. One member talked about how terrified he is to let anyone hear him stutter. Two of the members have been in speech therapy with the same SLP. They discussed the techniques this particular SLP uses & how it has helped them, or not. One of these members also talked about an upcoming job interview.

The second half of the meeting was given over to Table Topics. Topics were: "Job Interviews", "Favorite Movie", "Illegally Downloading Movies & Music" & "Will There Always Be Wars?". This writer drew the Illegally Downloading topic & didn't have a clue how to talk about it. The others informed me this practice is very widespread & easy to do. Another member preferred not to talk about the topic he drew & talked instead about his current college science project.

The next meeting is Thursday, 3/13/14 at 5:45PM at the Kaiser Medical Center, 6 Willard in Irvine, 92604.

The next Wednesday meeting is 3/26/14 at the Katie Wheeler Library,13109 Old Myford Rd, Irvine, 92602 in the downstairs meeting room, at 6:30 PM.

All of you should attend both meetings!

Article: Stuttering at Work

This article from The Wall Street Journal discusses the effect stuttering had on a man's career and how he overcame the obstacles stuttering put in his way. It reminded me that other people often don't understand how difficult and painful it is to be a stutterer, and it's up to us to make our own path in the world in spite of them. Not easy, but possible.

January Meeting Update: Renew

During introductions, a lot of people talked about renewing their commitment to their speech and to becoming better communicators. Some are going back to speech therapy, others are tackling issues related to anxiety and stress. Then the discussion shifted to how difficult it is to "stay on the wagon" and keep practicing day after day, year after year.

One member mentioned that he has challenged himself by becoming more involved at church and volunteering to do more public speaking there. He wasn't concerned so much with becoming fluent, but rather with getting out there and connecting with others. Other members echoed this: their goal in seeking speech therapy and in dealing with anxiety isn't to stop stuttering but to stop worrying constantly about their stutter.

A technique that often works to reduce worry is not hiding your stutter. A new member confirmed it. Before a presentation, he told his audience that he stuttered, and it had a positive effect both on him and on them. Another member talked about giving a presentation in front of over one hundred people. He thought only 20 would show up! But he was well-prepared and rose to the occasion--something to be very proud of.

Not running away from difficult speaking situations is what my personal goal has been for the last few years. I don't stay silent any more because I'm afraid I'll stutter. And if there's no other way to say what I want to say, I stutter. This is the commitment I want to renew in this New Year: to make my voice heard, no matter what.

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.