Six Rules for Affirmations

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the philosopher, sculptor, artist, polymath, was possibly the most accomplished man in all of history. He was widely quoted as well. One of his most memorable observations is this: “People of accomplishment rarely let things happen to them; they rather happen to things.” That is what we try to do. We use overcoming stuttering to catapult us into becoming a person who happens to things. By converting stuttering into exceptional speech, we “happen” to our speech. We do as the Chinese guru, Lao Tsu, said some 3,000 years ago: “When we let go of who we are, we become who we might be.” Exactly. We let go of stuttering, and we become fluent.

How do we re-program our minds from stuttering to fluency. We do mind training. We give ourselves 20 minute mind-training-treatments (as described in my books) before bed and upon arising and, sometimes, during the day. In those sessions, we repeat our key Affirmations as we visualize ourselves speaking fluently. Then, throughout the day, at random times, we repeat all or our favorite Affirmations, creating a flood of repetitions that drown fears of stuttering.

We write our own Affirmations. We make them short and powerful, easy to remember and quick to say. For example, I have used the following short, easy Affirmations:

SIX RULES FOR AFFIRMATIONS

1. I will not force a word.
2. I will speak slowly,
3. insert 1 second stops,
4. think “How can I say it with more passion”.
5. I will hold/push my tone thru all my words.
6. I will think, “I love to speak under pressure.”

The more Reps, the sooner the New Habit

Reps of Affirmations = Fluency

Discuss each one.

“I will not force a word.” This means ANY word, ANY time, ANYwhere. This starts now, and it applies to every word from your mouth, 24/7. “No” forced words means zero forced words. How can you do this? Never try to say the threatened word. This leaves you two options: (1) Say ANY other word or (2) Begin with a sound (“Ahh” or “Mmm”) and hold that sound into the feared word and through all subsequent words to your next full stop. Since never inhale extra air before we speak, we DO run out of breath after a few words (1 to 5 words usually, maybe 7-10 on occasion). Speaking this way FORCES you to speak in short increments of 1-5 words or so in most cases. It sounds quite normal and leads to BETTER speech anyway. DEMONSTRATE IT. After you do this in ALL your speech for an hour, then two hours, then an entire workday, and then in your non-work hours as well, IT WILL GET EASIER. You will NOT be stuttering at all.

Speak slowly. Speaking slowly will make it easier to avoid forcing a word. As you speak slowly, enjoy your own speech. It will sound so much better.

Insert at least one-second stops. This will make it easier to speak in short increments AND to speak slowly. STOPS bring listeners to you. If you lose the speech floor now and then, you don’t care. You WILL get the floor back, and, when you do, you will hold the listeners’ attention better than do other speakers.

As you speak, THINK “HOW CAN I SAY THIS WITH MORE FEELING?” Think like an actor on the stage. Try to SELL your message. Be willing to come out of your shell, and be an extreme example of yourself. It’s fun, and others will enjoy your speech ever so much more than the speech of others.

Hold your tone through ALL words to your next stop. To hold your tone, you must push air through your words much as you do when you sing. PWS do NOT stutter when they sing. The reason is that they hold their tone through all words. Pushing air through all words enables us to hold our tone naturally. When you hold your tone through all your words, it is impossible to stutter.

Think “I LOVE to speak under pressure” as you speak. As you consciously think this, you will believe it; your speech will become easier and easier until you DO love to speak.

The more that you REPEAT the above, six Affirmations through the day, the sooner they become your dominant thoughts; that thought, over time, replaces the word-fears that spring from the stutter-habit. The less you allow the stutter-habit to repeat itself in your mind, the sooner the stutter-habit will die. Unused habits simply die. Disuse kills habits. Your stutter-habit can and will die.

As I have often said, there is ONE method that will always end stuttering: Full commitment to saying the message like you mean it. When you become an actor and sell every thought that you speak, stuttering will be nowhere in sight.

It seems most fitting to end these remarks by demonstrating that again. I shall do so by reading a great poem by Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorites, which I have read at least once year at SAM. His Annabelle Lee offers one of literature’s great tributes to lost love, a perfection of sentiment and poetic structure. Some assert that he wrote it about his first and only love, who died when she was very young. It goes like this:

Annabelle Lee

By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.