Key Takeaways After Two Years in the Neuroscience Method to Stopping Stuttering Program

I thought long and hard about what I was going to talk about today. There are simply so many things that have happened since I gave my first SAM talk on August 16th of last year.

I have since hosted countless group practice sessions, become a CSS and, with that, further deepened my understanding of The Neuroscience Method.

Since it took me longer than most to become a PWSS, I had plenty of time to be confronted with – and eventually overcome – a litany of challenges. I now see this as a positive, even a blessing, for my work as a CSS and Group Practice Session Host because I have yet to encounter an obstacle on the road to fluency that I haven’t personally had to learn to overcome in my own speech journey.

I was never a fan of summaries and I don’t like making final choices. This is why I’ve decided to center my talk around a collection of key realizations or lightbulb moments I’ve had since I started my speech journey with StopStutter in late June of 2024 — this day two years ago I was in the process of first reading Lee’s magnum opus “How To Stop Stuttering And Love Speaking” after Danny had recommended it to me.

So, without further ado:

Lightbulb #1: Consistency is key. Seriously.

While not being a necessarily novel or original statement, it bears repeating because I truly think it is the number one ingredient for anyone who wants to change a longstanding habit — such as stuttering.

If we think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Most of us have spent years and years building up the stuttering habit brick by brick. So, whenever we speak, we are faced with two diverging paths. One path is the one of the stuttering habit—the other one is the one of the new fluency habit. The issue is that, when we start out, those paths are not equal. The path of the stuttering habit is a highway, built, reinforced and maintained through often decades of stuttering. The path of the new fluency habit is a thick jungle. In order for you to get through, you will have to take a machete and actively make your path. The vegetation is thick, cutting it down and navigating through it will take some effort. But the more often you walk this path through the jungle and keep cutting away the vegetation, the easier it will get to walk it. It will take less and less energy as time goes on. With each and every walk through the jungle, the path will become more and more trodden — eventually, a road will start to be built enabling ever quicker travel. Additionally, after a certain amount of time of not taking the stuttering highway, it will begin to fall apart. If it’s not being maintained anymore — if we stop sending construction workers down there — it will get reclaimed by nature and eventually turn back into jungle. If you, however, after cutting down the vegetation with your machete, return to taking the highway, the jungle’s vegetation will grow back quickly. So, stay on it. Learn to use your machete effectively by joining Group Practice Sessions and taking Private Stuttering Therapy and keep your blade sharp using mind training. Keep forging your path over and over again until you can walk it comfortably. Eventually, when your speech plan has become your habit, it will require less and less effort until the stuttering highway has been completely overgrown and transformed back into a jungle.

In order for you to accomplish this, hearing fluency and not hearing dysfluency, you need the 1-2-3 punch. There’s a reason for every part. Find a daily routine you can commit to each and every day. I say that even 20 minutes of reading aloud each and every day will go a lot further than reading aloud 60 minutes randomly every couple days or so. And when you read, make it count. Read while using your crutches and practice your speech plan. What matters here is focus. I have found that 20 minutes of focused reading aloud using my speech plan beats an hour of unfocused “mindless” reading aloud every time. Listen to yourself when you read. Be your own narrator. Make it fun — imagine you’re reading to an audience. Maybe even to a person you usually have a harder time speaking with.

Lightbulb #2: You’re always the one in control.

For a long stretch of my speech journey, I struggled with the following problem: I would go into a situation thinking I’m going to use my crutches and speech plan — I know this will be the best way forward. As soon as I was in the actual situation, however, I would, for some reason or another, not use my speech plan and instead try to “wing it” — often unsuccessfully — and resort to my old habits. This, even though I knew using my speech plan would be the best strategy in that situation. At the time, I described this feeling as being on train tracks and as soon as the situation hit, a lever was being pulled that switches the tracks.

But, wait a second… Who could’ve pulled the lever? Despite its frequent personification as “Satan stuttering”, stuttering is not a person. It doesn’t have a mind of its own. The only one who controls our speech, and with it stuttering, is our own mind. This means that we need to take control of our mind. I know now that, in actuality, it’s always in our hands. The only one who can take control of our mind, and in turn our speech, is ourselves.

But how? Because only saying “take control of your mind” or “just do it” isn’t helpful advice. Instead, I will tell you how I overcame this very problem personally — maybe the root cause and solution will be similar for you, maybe not.

After dozens and dozens of instances of me failing to use my crutches in real-life situations even though I knew it was the most logical choice and thought I really wanted to and was truly giving it my all, I turned to mind training. First, I went inside myself searching for the cause of my seeming inability to consistently use the crutches in conversation. What I found was that I had an inner resistance towards using the crutches. For me, it was the fear of sounding different, not sounding like myself. I believe that I had built up this resistance towards using any method that altered my speaking style because of the countless failed stuttering therapies I had undergone in the past that used methods that truly did make me sound robotic and unnatural. My mind applied the same fears to the crutches.

To combat this, I started using the affirmation “I sound better when using my crutches”. To be honest, when I first started using it, I didn’t believe it at all — it almost seemed comical to me. But then, as I kept saying the affirmation over the next couple months, things started to change. Over time, I managed to use my crutches more and more in conversation, winning the battle over the steering wheel with my inner critic more and more consistently. One day, probably after 2 or 3 months of saying the affirmation as part of my daily routine, I noticed that most of the resistance was gone. When I now read the affirmation, my true first thought was “duh? obviously. How could it be any different?”

In this case, I was able to specifically witness a wrong self-belief I had do a complete 180° — all because of the use of daily mind training. I truly believe that this was one of the most impactful things I did in my speech journey. If I hadn’t turned to mind training, I believe I’d most likely still be struggling with the same issue today. So, my advice to you would be: If you feel like you’ve hit a wall in your process, look inside yourself and try to figure out what the root cause may be. Then, create a highly personalized affirmation to address that root cause and incorporate it into your daily mind training routine, saying it with feeling. Visualize yourself in the situation as realistically as you can — the more real you make it for your brain, the more effective it will be.

Lightbulb #3: Don’t be too hard on yourself.

The knowledge of you being the only one in control at any given moment is a double-edged sword. As Uncle Ben famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

This means that whenever you don’t manage to handle your speech in the way you wanted to, there’s no one you can blame but yourself.

I experienced this big-time as well in my own speech journey. After having a humiliating speech incident or simply appearing choppier than usual, I would beat myself up over it sometimes for days. It would often haunt me for quite a long time and would lead me to question my own progress.

But, the truth is, we are human, and humans make mistakes.

This is where I had to learn to let things go and not be too hard on myself. In fact, being hard on yourself actively works against the work you’ve done with mind training. This is also why I have long stopped logging my negative stuttering experiences. Because whether I was more or less choppy, or even had a humiliating incident, does not say anything about my ability to be fluent going forward. People sometimes say things like “this is a bad speech day for me” — and don’t get me wrong, I relate to that a lot and have thought and said the same thing in the past as well — however, in my view, there are no “bad speech days”. Because we are always in control — any speaking situation can start with a blank slate if you clear the slate. The time that has passed since the last “bad speaking situation” is meaningless. There’s no reason why choppy or humiliating speech would have to latch onto us like a tick — if we address it with mind training and actively distance ourselves from it, letting it go completely, we can always start fresh.

If you find it hard to do this on your own, reach out to a friend — we have a community filled to the brim with some of the kindest, most loving and empathetic people you’ll ever meet. If things get tough and you need a pick-me-up or reminder, make use of this resource. I and many people I know have done so many times. It works!

Lightbulb #4: Acknowledge and celebrate small victories.

Lastly, I have learned the importance of recognizing victories and celebrating them, even when they are small. For me, at one point, victory looked like simply using my crutches instead of forcing through the words, even if it took me many attempts. It didn’t sound low-key or inconspicuous by any stretch of the imagination but it did successfully get me around the stutter block without a humiliating speech incident.

At one point, when I felt I had hit a wall in my speech progress, I really forced myself to use crutch 4 and link through my words no matter the situation. During that time, it sometimes seriously took me 7 or 8 attempts to get my words to link properly. But I did it. I got around the block eventually. While maybe not obvious to an outsider, this was a huge victory for me. Because it showed me that if I don’t commit to stuttering, I will simply not stutter — no one is gonna stutter for me. I think doing this consistently for a few weeks changed something fundamental in my brain when it comes to my speech. It solidified the fact that there’s always an alternative path, no matter the pressure level — no one is ever forcing our hand — or our lips.

So, every time now a block pops up and I get through it using a crutch or speech plan is a huge win for me. Actually, I think getting through a block using a crutch or speech plan is way more worthy of celebration than if you’re just “naturally fluent” and the block doesn’t even come up. Because when you are hit with that anxiety, that pressure, that block, and you manage to grab a crutch and pull yourself out of the mud by sheer force of will, that’s so awesome. Because you did that. Actively. If that’s not worth celebrating, I don’t know what is.

We all have a different starting point, different challenges we face on our way up the fluency ladder. Some may reach certain rungs quicker, for others it might take a little longer — but with enough patience, persistence and perseverance all will reach the top eventually. Comparing yourself with others doesn’t do you any good. “Comparison is the thief of joy” as they say. It’s you versus you.

In closing, I want to thank you all for listening and supporting me throughout my speech journey. I would truly not be where I am today, if it wasn’t for this wonderful community. From the bottom of my heart: Thank you.