Fluency 1: the long and winding road.

[Asif]

For this I will try to be serious.
But not too serious.

Fluency DEPENDS upon self-esteem.
What is self-esteem? Well...
It's an overused and abused term for not being worried about how you look, sound, act or think. It is the (natural) ability to simply "be".
Most importantly, self-esteem comes from you. Nobody else can either give it to you or take it from you.

Consider a crow, for example. How does it behave?
A crow does what it does, and is what it is.
Apart from that, it is intelligent, curious, interested in imitating what it sees and hears. It practices new things until it is satisfied with them.
What it does NOT do is compare its performance with turtles, vacuum cleaners, or even other birds.
It just does what it does.

We can be like this. We do not have to obsess about the mega-importance of being like everybody else. Everybody else can talk. So what? They can do things you can not do. So what can you do that nobody else can do?
If you really feel the need to obsess about something, maybe try obsessing about this instead.

There is always something that you can do that nobody else can do. And this simple truth gets completely ignored by stutterers in general.
Stutterers forever compare themselves to people who CAN talk.
How silly is that? How doomed to failure?
Did you know that you are unique?
There is nothing like you in all the universe.
This is worth remembering.

Right now - at this point in time - you may be a stutterer.
And this may continue for quite a while.
But there is no real reason why it should always be this way.

I am going to share great secrets and revelations with you in the coming months. If I don't lose interest or get sidetracked. Or if you don't.

All you have to do is read and consider.
If you like what you see, you can try the things I suggest.
I can not guarantee that what works for me will work for you, but I CAN guarantee that what I will write about DOES work for me.

I imagine what I know can be used by you a great deal faster than it took me to discover it :)
So although I always make a point of cling that this will not be either easy or quick, I may just be wrong about that.

Are you ready?
Watch this space :)

[Silent]

Thanks, I look forward to hearing more of the story :)

[Violet]

Awsome words. can't wait to hear more of your wisdom. I'm so gonna adopt you as my life coach :p

So what can you do that nobody else can do?

My eyes change colour!! beat that! :D

[emily445455]

Good post.

[DKoz]

Awsome words. can't wait to hear more of your wisdom. I'm so gonna adopt you as my life coach :p



My eyes change colour!! beat that! :D

How do you do that? Are you part Chameleon!? haha just kidding!

[emily445455]

How do you do that? Are you part Chameleon!? haha just kidding!

My husband's go from hazel to green to more blueish sometimes. I think it depends on what he's wearing...it's very cool indeed!! Mine are just brown...boring boring, lol.

[Violet]

How do you do that? Are you part Chameleon!? haha just kidding!

My eyes fluctuate between bluegrey, royal blue, blue with distinct yellow in them, bluegreen, green, and occasionally hazel :D

yeah i can make them turn more blue if i wear blue or red, and green if i wear greens, purples, and yellow... i think its something to do with light reflection or something :confused:

[Asif]

When I was younger, I used to notice a lot of peoples' eyes turned from their normal colour to black.
Strangely this always occured after they had laughed at the way I spoke.

[Violet]

When I was younger, I used to notice a lot of peoples' eyes turned from their normal colour to black.
Strangely this always occured after they had laughed at the way I spoke.

like literally? ...or figuratively?
haha black! they are clearly EVIL! :eek:

[jak]

what great secrets and revelations do you have to share that we have not heard ?

[Asif]

what great secrets and revelations do you have to share that we have not heard ?
Sorry Jak...
Apparently secrets and revelations are out of fashion in this forum.
Jesus may have died for the sins of others, but I am a whole other can of worms.
No matter what I say, all I get is abuse.
Find your own way like I had to.
Best of luck to you :)

[Violet]

Sorry Jak...
Apparently secrets and revelations are out of fashion in this forum.
Jesus may have died for the sins of others, but I am a whole other can of worms.
No matter what I say, all I get is abuse.
Find your own way like I had to.
Best of luck to you :)

Since when have you been abused about you trying to help us? Well ignoring the whole dating advice thread and all subsequent posts afterwards (thats a whole other basket of party crackers)... But i was actually quite interested in what you had to say.. :p

[Asif]

I am going to share great secrets and revelations with you in the coming months. If I don't lose interest or get sidetracked. Or if you don't.


Did anybody realize just HOW sidetracked they had become?
My time n this forum - so far - has served well to illustrate how long term stutterers will do anything to avoid doing anything about their biggest problem.

There is this enormous blind-spot to the log in your own eye.
What I may or may not believe is neither here nor there.
It is what I know that is important here.
Did we forget that this is a stuttering forum, and not an anti-everything-and-anyone-you don't-agree-with-forum?

Like the very famous Hans: I came here to share what I know. Not because I needed to be here, but because there are some people who do things for others without needing anything for it in return.
And like Hans I have been systematically attacked, belittled, vilified and ganged-up on.

Fluency depends on deconstructing yourself completely.
Yet I read again and again that you outraged at the very idea that anything about you might need to be changed.
This suspension of the obvious is quite breathtaking.
You say that you seek a change, but yet you refuse to change.

As a group, stutterers are - from what I have seen - the most overly-sensitive, overly-defensive, overly-judgemental, overly self-righteous people ever to walk the earth.
And remember, I have been exactly like that too.

It makes you rant and rave when I say I have overcome my stutter.
You want to believe it is possible, but you can not believe it.
But most of all, you just can't bear it that I am different from you in this way.
You call me arrogant, condescending, patronizing, setting myself up as a guru.
For God's sake can't any of you SEE yourselves?

Like Hans, I may well just give it up. I can see why he did.
What could possibly be worth the trouble?
It seems clear that nobody can help anybody else.
With the best of intentions, one can find oneself doomed to fail.

But I will try to point out something very useful here:
None of you seems to be able to see things as they are.
Words exist for a specific purpose.
To inform.
To convey an idea.
To paint a picture that others can see.
Words - to a stutterer - seem only to exist to be hated, warped and to prevent one from being whole.
It seems that words themselves, to a stutterer, are like the tip of an iceberg.
The greater part of words consists of the mentality behind the words.
And it is that greater part that is completely ignored.

I have been consistently misunderstood and misquoted from the beginning.
I feel like an alien on a strange planet. Nothing I say gets received as intended.
I can't help but wonder why.

You might try wondering too.

[JDRow]

Asif, as I asked on the other thread, why do you still have stuttering behaviors and tell people that you have a speech impediment if you have the secret to fluency that you might enlighten us all about?

[Asif]

Asif, as I asked on the other thread, why do you still have stuttering behaviors and tell people that you have a speech impediment if you have the secret to fluency that you might enlighten us all about?

I have very few stuttering behaviours. As I previously stated: my subconscious is still under the impression I stutter. That is what I am dealing with now.
I am not here to enlighten anybody. That's your journey.
I tell other people - sometimes - that I have an impediment so they don't assume I am as verbally capable as them, thus asking them to choose to wait longer before interrupting me, thus forcing me to start all over again.

Who else has noticed that although you may be able to deliver a sentence the first time, it is very much harder to repeat it?
The tricks we use include finding alternate - easier to say - words, and maneuvering on the move. For example: who else has difficulty saying their own name? We can't choose a different word for that. Or our phone number. Or address.

Of course, the mere fact that I subscribe to some of the views of The British National Party may render my views worthless.
When a soldier kills an enemy, if that enemy has a better weapon, might not that soldier make use of it?
The source of what we need is not nearly as important as our need of it.

[JDRow]

my subconscious is still under the impression I stutter.

But it sounds like you do still stutter sometimes. So your subconscious isn't under some false impression.

This is exactly the same argument Hans made: he stuttered because he'd convinced himself he stuttered, and if he could unconvince himself, he wouldn't stutter. I think you should own up to being the same poster. It seems highly unlikely to me that two posters, both with the same posting style and the same guru-like attitude, and the same contradictory cl that they don't stutter while they still have stuttering behaviors, would also have the exact same theory for what made them stutter.

[Asif]

But it sounds like you do still stutter sometimes. So your subconscious isn't under some false impression.

This is exactly the same argument Hans made: he stuttered because he'd convinced himself he stuttered, and if he could unconvince himself, he wouldn't stutter. I think you should own up to being the same poster. It seems highly unlikely to me that two posters, both with the same posting style and the same guru-like attitude, and the same contradictory cl that they don't stutter while they still have stuttering behaviors, would also have the exact same theory for what made them stutter.

Further evidence of your inability to see the forest for the trees.
Why - in your view - should the highly unlikely be any less valid than the likely?
What sort of reality do you inhabit?
You seem only able to hear what you want to hear.
That explains a great deal.
I was amazed and awed by the words of Hans: I searched them out and read them all.
It saddens me that anyone who so much wanted to help could be so cruelly treated.

And of course I still stutter sometimes. Although not so much that anybody even recognizes it as such.

[sst]

Asif, is this part 1 of your 20-part series on stuttering? What's the number to call to order? Are there limited quantities? Oh, and is there an audio version available?

[Asif]

Asif, is this part 1 of your 20-part series on stuttering? What's the number to call to order? Are there limited quantities? Oh, and is there an audio version available?

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
But to humour you:
I have no idea how long this series will be.
We will never get to number two unless you stop interrupting.
Phone number withheld: I doubt I would understand you anyway.
Limited quantities? The are no quantities at all.
As for the audio version: my speech is very good indeed, but still not enough that I would risk an audio version. But thank you for the idea.

Avoid disappointment: stop reading what you don't want to hear.

[sst]

I guess I should keep interrupting. ;)

Wait, I thought you don't stutter anymore? Why all the backtracking? Could it be you're full of shit?

[Asif]

I guess I should keep interrupting. ;)

Wait, I thought you don't stutter anymore? Why all the backtracking? Could it be you're full of shit?

Not worth a response

[sst]

I'm crushed. :)

[Asif]

I'm crushed. :)

After due consideration of what appears to be your unchanging, never-ending attacks upon anything and everything I write, this is the only response you will ever get from me.
You are evidently a masochist and I will not give you pleasure ever again.
Asif.

[nate]

For this I will try to be serious.
But not too serious.

Fluency DEPENDS upon self-esteem.
What is self-esteem? Well...
It's an overused and abused term for not being worried about how you look, sound, act or think. It is the (natural) ability to simply "be".
Most importantly, self-esteem comes from you. Nobody else can either give it to you or take it from you.

Consider a crow, for example. How does it behave?
A crow does what it does, and is what it is.
Apart from that, it is intelligent, curious, interested in imitating what it sees and hears. It practices new things until it is satisfied with them.
What it does NOT do is compare its performance with turtles, vacuum cleaners, or even other birds.
It just does what it does.

We can be like this. We do not have to obsess about the mega-importance of being like everybody else. Everybody else can talk. So what? They can do things you can not do. So what can you do that nobody else can do?
If you really feel the need to obsess about something, maybe try obsessing about this instead.

There is always something that you can do that nobody else can do. And this simple truth gets completely ignored by stutterers in general.
Stutterers forever compare themselves to people who CAN talk.
How silly is that? How doomed to failure?
Did you know that you are unique?
There is nothing like you in all the universe.
This is worth remembering.

Right now - at this point in time - you may be a stutterer.
And this may continue for quite a while.
But there is no real reason why it should always be this way.

I am going to share great secrets and revelations with you in the coming months. If I don't lose interest or get sidetracked. Or if you don't.

All you have to do is read and consider.
If you like what you see, you can try the things I suggest.
I can not guarantee that what works for me will work for you, but I CAN guarantee that what I will write about DOES work for me.

I imagine what I know can be used by you a great deal faster than it took me to discover it :)
So although I always make a point of cling that this will not be either easy or quick, I may just be wrong about that.

Are you ready?
Watch this space :)

good post..let i ruminate.
Nate