Hello, new body here

[anna]

Hi

My name is Anna, and I have only been a stammerer for about 5 yrs, not quite sure why I suddenly started, but by god is it annoying!
My problem is on the phone, I just get stuck, and then fall over my words so badly that I have ended up in tears...
I even stammer to my husband on the phone, but not my daughter? why?
Is there anyone who can give me some advice on this one?
I have tried the talk on exhale but seem to forget it untill the conversation is over!
I am new here and havent done this before, so any tips would be great.

Cheers

Anna :(

[Violinia]

Are you the same Anna who posted on the Valsalva forum? If so, we may have talked before..

The thing with the outbreath is probably not quite as simple as it sounds, and does need time and practice. If you really want to pursue this method, the best thing is to get used to focussing on the breath 10 minutes morning and night, every day for about a month or so before applying it to speech. The feeling has to become quite familiar to you before it'll really work on speech.

I had been doing a meditation practice for 4 years before I realised I could do it while speaking and eradicate my stuttering. This meditation practice involved watching your breath, eyes and mouth closed, 15 minutes twice a day. I also used to practise it at odd times during the day, whilst sitting on a bus, or walking down the street - it can make you feel quite peaceful (actually this was the whole idea). And obviously, not with eyes closed at those times!!!

So I'd suggest if you're serious about this, practise the breath observance (don't try and control your breath in any way, just watch its movement). And don't worry about your mind wandering off all the time - this is natural - just keep bringing it back.

When you begin to feel a slightly altered state - a peaceful relaxed state - coming over you when you are observing your breath, you may be ready to start applying it to speech. So this is what you do:

On your own at first, just say one word on an outbreath. Imagine the word is coming from your abdomen, not your throat - this can really help. Then try two words, then three, then a whole phrase. Then try this in front of someone you have a tendency to stutter with. Look them in the eye at the same time. It really does take time, though, and constant practise. I think the tendency is for people to try this a couple of times and then give up if it doesn't come easily, but what you have to remember is that you're trying to change a habit that may have become quite established. What you are trying to do is take up the habit of RELAXING just before speaking, instead of tensing up. And then staying relaxed all through speech, instead of tensing up.

Stuttering is caused by thinking speech is something to force out, rather than let flow out. And it really can take time to understand exactly what has been going wrong and how to put it right.

Some people at the StutteringChat forum have found virtual fluency through just not worrying about stuttering. I think this can work pretty well too, and what's probably happening there is that by not worrying so much about it, they're relaxing and this allows much more fluent speech. So this is something else you can try if the breathing meditation method doesn't work for you.

I have to say, though, that the breathing method, once I'd established it, worked so well that after a couple of years I didn't need to think about it any more and fluency was restored. I've now been fluent again for more than 20 years.

I hope this helps.

All the best

Violinia

PS Oh, and you wondered why you stutter with your husband and not your daughter. Well, without knowing how old your daughter is, it's hard to say, but if she's very little you're probably feeling very little judgement from her, imagined or otherwise. I used to be fine with certain people but not with others, but then again, a stuttering attack could get me at any time or in any place, unless I was talking to myself on my own. And I seem to remember even stuttering completely on my own, when talking to myself, it was that bad at times! The phone can be stressful at the best of times - perhaps it's the lack of reassuring eye contact that bothers you, which is understandable.

Anyway, all the best to you in your journey back to fluency.

[Aesop]

Hello to both of you. :)

Anna, I have been stuttering all my life. Don't be sad. I know how you feel cos I experienced all these too.

Violinia, you are an inspiration. Thank you for sharing the meditation method. Can you please tell me more about it?

You said "This meditation practice involved watching your breath, eyes and mouth closed".

Can you please elaborate on that?

How do you practise it at odd times during the day, whilst sitting on a bus, or walking down the street?

Do you mean keeping our mouth close, and breath with our nose only for both inhale and exhale, while mentally focusing on the air flow?

Is this meditation the main thing that cure your stuttering?

[anna]

Hi Violinia,

No I am not the same Anna! but many thanks for your help, I am trying to talk more slowly, and someone who I spoke to on a help desk also stammered and I noticed he was doing the talk on exhale thingy! I was quite inspired by him being on a help desk too!
I have told family and certain friends about my "problem" and they have all agreed to help, and its quite nervy at first but after they have told me to slow down a few times I am slowly getting the hang of it!


And thanks Aesop for your input!

All the best for now

Cheers

Anna

[Violinia]

Hi Anna and Aesop

Glad, Anna, that you're finding a little progress. Hope you can keep it up! I think the main thing to remember is not to rush at speech, trying to force the words out, but let them almost slide out naturally, always on an outbreath. And speak in phrases, not a long "stream-of-consciousness" - not yet anyway!

To Aesop - yes the meditation - two ways of doing it. On your own, at home, pick a quiet time of day and find a comfortable place to sit. Focus on the movement of your breath (without trying to change it in any way). Just watch it. Keeping your mouth closed makes it easier and keeping your eyes shut helps the concentration inside.

To increase the amount of breath-awareness, you can also focus on your breath at odd moments in the day, like when you're walking down the street or sitting on a bus or train. Probably best not when you're driving! At those times obviously keep your eyes open!!! but it's up to you whether you close your mouth or not.

The main thing is to watch that breath as it goes in/out, up/down or however you like to visualise it. I've always felt it as an up/down thing. But don't get into that "in through the nose, out through the mouth" thing - that's something else and more of a breathing exercise, for childbirth and intense relaxation. This is more about just observation of your breath, nothing more, nothing less. If you find it easier with mouth and eyes open when sitting on your own, that's fine - whatever helps you focus.

You'll find after a while that you are able to feel a sort of peace from within, which is nice. THIS is the state you're ing for when you first attempt it with speech. The point of all this is that the peace from within is completely opposite to the anxious, tensed-up state that stutterers get into on anticipation of speech (whether they're aware of it or not).

You're really ing to get back to the same unanxious state (about speech) you were in before you started stuttering - the state that allowed you to be fluent. An analogy that springs to mind is swimming. Babies can naturally swim, right? And pretty much all human beings start out with fluent speech. And if nothing interrupts that natural flow, a baby, if introduced to water early enough, will find it easy to swim. In the same way, without obstacles to fluency, a baby will grow into natural speech.

But if something makes that baby or child afraid of water, they'll tense up and sink, even though it's the most natural thing in the world for a human being to be able to float on water with the minimum of movement - it's all about relaxation and letting the water carry you.

Same with speech - if something makes you afraid of speech at a vulnerable age, you can lose that natural facility of speech, and speaking becomes a chore and a problem. And stuttering is like sinking in the swimming pool when everybody around you is swimming around as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which of course it is, when you remember how.

Watching your breath and speaking utterly relaxedly, in phrases and on the outbreath is very much the same thing as relaxing into the water and trusting that it'll carry you. It's the tensing up that makes you sink in the water, and it's the tensing up that makes you stutter. It's the thinking that floating and speaking takes an EFFORT, whereas the opposite is true - it's a NON EFFORT.

I hope all that makes sense. When I suddenly understood it myself all those years ago, it was like a light going off in my head and I realised instantly what I'd been doing wrong all those years. Rediscovering my fluency was just a matter of time after that.

Please read this too - very inspiring, and he puts it much better than I can:

(This guy was once a stutterer and is now also completely fluent.

http://www.neurosemantics.com/Stuttering/speech-block.htm


It's well worth a read.

Best of luck!

Violinia

[Aesop]

Thank you Violinia for your helpful info.

[DonR]

For what it's worth, I can confirm everything that Violinia has said as regards overcoming a stutter. I used the same method, calling it self-hypnosis rather than meditation, over 30 years ago. I used it to improve my breathing, to learn to relax under pressure, and most importantly to eliminate fear. I'm sure we have all had to sit in class, or at a conference, waiting for our turn to give our name and introduce ourselves, the tension rising as our turn came closer and closer. By the time it arrives we have been reduced to a bunch of knotted muscle.

Donald is a terrible name for a stutter.

I'm now 73 and haven't had problems with my speech since the 1970's, but I can remember those early years as if they were yesterday.
Please, give Violinia's method a try. It's worth working very hard at it because it will work, I'm sure of it.

[chains]

Well people mostly stammer when they are nervous or feel the person they are talking to has to hear them at their best. This is also common with people who doesn't stammer. The best thing I try to do as a person also with stammer is to change how fast I talk, either talking faster or speaking slowly. I find that doing this I reduce how much I stammer in a sentence.