letters to a desperate stutterer

lroundsLetters To A Desperate Stutterer: A Journey to Fluency

Letters to a Desperate Stutterer A Journey to Fluency

Author: Linda Rounds This book is the intellectual property of the author. © All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by Linda Rounds.

The contents of this book are not warranted for correctness, and are used by the reader at his/her own discretion. There is no warranty provided in the use of this book or in the outcome each reader receives from the contents of the book.

©Rounds – All Rights Reserved www.desperatestutterer.com

Letters To A Desperate Stutterer: A Journey to Fluency


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Contents Forward by Bob G. Bodenhamer, DMin…………………………………….4 Forward by John C. Harrison………………………………………………..8 The Letter……………………………………………………………………11

Chapter One

Beginning the Journey……………………………………………………….14 Seeing the Obvious in the Medical Studies……………………………..19 Discomfort with People Encounters…………………………………….21 What Am I Blocking?...............................................................................25

Chapter Two Uncovering Hidden Truths………………………………………………….31 Performing for Protection………………………………..…………35

A Longing to be Perfect…………………………………………….38 Why Can’t I Stop Thinking About Stuttering?..................................44 Is It Possible to Stop The Obsessive Thoughts?................................52 Chapter Three Stopping the Maddening Thoughts……………………………………….. .55 Taking A Powerful Position.……………………………….……….59 What Does My Brain Have To DO With Me?...................................63

Chapter Four

Viewing My Identity from A Different Perspective......................................75

Chapter Five Renewing My Mind…………………………………………………….…..84 Drop Down Through………………………………………………..95 An Unexpected Fear………………………………………………..100 In This Moment……………………………………………….…....102



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Chapter Six

Beliefs, Values and Perceptions………………………………………..….110 How Can I Change My Beliefs?......................................................118 Placing Value On The World Around Me………………………...123 Is Perception Reality?......................................................................133

Chapter Seven

The Conclusion of the Matter…………………………………………….137 Reality Shattered & Rebuilt………………………………………142

Appendix A Neuro Semantics/NLP Brain Games……………………………………..144 Recommended books, materials, & Courses……………………………..149 Bibliography……………………………………………………………...150



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Foreword By

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, DMin.

Have you ever wondered why you speak fluently in some situations and not in

other situations?

How does my mind-body-behavior system know when to block and stutter and

when not to block and stutter?

Have you ever asked yourself, “If I did not care what other people thought of me

as a person who stutters (PWS), what would change about my stuttering?”

Consider this question: “When did I give my power away by allowing other

people to control how I think and feel?”

“Is there any rational reason for me not to take my power back now and start

driving my own bus rather than living in the back seat at the mercy of somebody

else driving my bus?”

How about asking yourself, “If I really loved myself in spite of this thing called

stuttering, what would change about my stuttering?”

Or, “What would change about how I speak if I refused from this day forward to

fall back into my comfort zone of blocking and stuttering when I feel threatened?”

If you have asked yourself such questions, and I am sure you have, then this book is for

you.



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In this magnificent work, you will travel with Linda over a period of a number of years to

get to where she is today – fluent in speech. This book is not for those who are unwilling

to step out of the box of traditional stuttering treatment. Linda dared to ask questions.

And, in daring to ask such questions, Linda quickly found herself out of the box of

speech shaping treatments to treating the thinking that triggers blocking and stuttering.

In this expertly written book, Linda Rounds suspends what she had been taught about

stuttering as being some mystical malady thought to be primarily a physical problem.

Instead, she takes you through her journey of changing her thinking about stuttering and

about herself as a PWS and, thereby, gaining complete fluency. And, she teaches you

how she changed her thinking and how by doing so, she let go of those fears and anxieties

about stuttering that were triggering her to block and stutter.

(Note: By “normal fluency” I (BGB) mean the talk that happens when one is not

thinking about how they are talking. The average fluent person just trusts their

unconscious mind to provide them with the words they wish to say. The person’s

focus is on the other person and maybe the content of what they are saying – not on

how they are talking. “Normal fluency” is speech that happens without any fears or

anxieties about how one is speaking.

Let this be your outcome for fluency – to remain in a state of calm confidence that

you know what you are talking about and that you are worthy of being heard. May

your outcome be to speak without thinking about how you are speaking? Some years

ago, Linda Rounds told me that she was now 100% fluent in all contexts of her life.

She said, “I do not allow the thought of stuttering any place in my mind.” That is a

profound statement. May it be your outcome and may it be you?)

Linda’s long path of discoveries about how she discovered fluency is a path of intense

struggle; a path of daring to look at oneself critically; a path of venturing where few have

traveled. It is this path of self-discovery and the subsequent gaining of normal fluency. In

this labor of love, Linda takes the PWS with her on her journey providing practical

guidelines as to how she changed her thinking about stuttering.



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Her path is a “new path”. Her path runs counter to most accepted methodologies for

treating stuttering. As such, Linda will introduce you to new methodologies that

addresses those hard questions such as, “How can I be in a conference room speaking

fluently with my peers but when my boss walks in, I immediately start stuttering?”

In this seminal work, Linda invites you to travel the “new path” she traveled. Learn how

she gradually but persistently challenged old limiting beliefs and values as being

irrelevant to her present life and, therefore, open to her changing those meanings to

meanings that now serve her as a fluent professional.

To my knowledge, there is not a book written quite like this one. Linda’s work is

different in that she provides practical suggestions as to just how she overcame her

“stuttering thinking”. She has read extensively and by your reading and studying her

book, you will take advantage of years of research by her. In this work, Linda reveals the

secrets she has discovered that has helped her to put away her old “stuttering mind” and

for her to put on a new mindset resulting in freedom of expression. You will benefit

immensely from her studies of Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Linguistics, Neuro-

Linguistics, Neuro-Semantics, Neuro-Science and self-help books writing by the

best.++++++-`` + -

Unlike many PWS, Linda never let stuttering stand in her way professionally. She is a

highly educated Human Resource Professional. I know of other PWS who determined

early in life that they were not going to let a stutter stop them professionally. Linda is one

of these determined personalities. And, in my opinion, this dogged determination that she

has expressed in her professional life has gone a long ways in providing her the drive, the

patience, the determination, the resilience, etc. that gaining fluency has required.

As you now begin to read this book, if you do not have such characteristics, then begin

now to framing your mind with these thoughts. In all likelihood, you are going to have

many failures as you work on your speech under Linda’s tutelage. These are not

“failures” so long as you do not allow them to be. They are just setbacks that offer you a



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learning opportunity. Linda will teach you how to look back on a time of blocking and

analyze it as to how it happen and what you need to do to eliminate that kind of thinking.

Linda wants the reader to know that this is not some “quick fix” for stuttering. Indeed, it

is far from it. Her journey to fluency involved years of researching, practicing,

experimenting, and practicing some more before she found freedom of expression. A

belief will fight to survive. Beliefs were formed by you to serve you. They believe they

are serving you and that you need them. So, prepare for resistance. You will have it but

truth will win if you let it.

I believe that this book will become a major piece of the puzzle being put together in the

transformation of the field of stuttering treatment. Linda is proof positive that what is

found in this book will work for you if you will work it. We all owe Linda a major debt

of gratitude for all the loving sacrifice placed in this volume.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

www.masteringstuttering.com



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Forward

by John C. Harrison

One night in early December of 2002, I was editing the monthly newsletter of the

National Stuttering Association (NSA),when I received an email from a woman named

Linda Rounds.

Mr. Harrison, I purchased your book "How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking

before People". In fact I have read it three times already and have purchased every

book you recommended.

I think you are right on concerning the cause of stuttering. I have always felt it was

not about a physical deformity within my speaking mechanisms but rather something

gone wrong with my perceptions and beliefs about myself and the world around me. I

still have the nasty habit but I am spending a huge amount of time doing everything I

can to correct the underlining cause. I did not develop the habit overnight and so I do

not expect to overcome it overnight (Maybe over two nights.:-))

I was wondering if you could share with me a little more in depth on what specific

things you did to balance out the hexagon? Your book was great but now I am

looking for more specific, in-depth action items. Any help you can give me would be

greatly appreciated.

I was thrilled to discover I’d contributed an aha! moment to someone else’s life, and I

was anxious to learn more. Linda and I started trading emails and phone calls, and I

quickly realized I had met someone with whom I had a lot in common. It turned out to be

the beginning of a very productive relationship.

At the time I met Linda, I had spent 25 years in various pro bono roles with America’s

largest self-help organization for people who stutter (PWS). I had dealt with my own

chronic stuttering for close to 30 years, and unlike most other PWS I’d met, I had



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completely recovered. My mission was to use what I had learned to help change how

people saw this perplexing problem.

I felt that by and large, a good part of the professional community had been missing the

mark in understanding the underlying dynamics of chronic stuttering, and that the

paradigm they labored under had never been appropriate for the problem at hand. As I

had discovered, my speech blocks had not been caused by any one thing, such as a

physical problem or a genetic glitch. Rather, it was a problem that involved all of me –

my perceptions, beliefs, emotions, intentions, physiological makeup, and the specific

behaviors that I had cultivated over several decades.

Since the early 80’s I had been contributing articles to the NSA’s monthly newsletter –

articles based on my own personal observations and journey – and over time, I had

collected them into a book, which I periodically expanded and published on my desktop.

This book, now over 400 pages, was what Linda had read and referenced in her letter.

Several things were obvious about Linda. It was clear she was tired of being intimidated

by her stuttering and was motivated to experiment in an effort to find an answer. It was

also apparent she was smart, perceptive, impatient, and capable of thinking outside the

box.

Linda has become an important catalyst for a newer, broader way of thinking about

stuttering that is gaining traction each day. This approach relies heavily on the cognitive

disciplines, or what might be referred to as mind management. Cognitive disciplines give

people practical tools to help them run their own minds and have for many become an

important part of their recovery process.

I am indebted to Linda for introducing me to Bob Bodenhamer, one of the founders of

neuro-semantics, who over the last six years has done pioneering therapeutic work with a

number of individuals within the stuttering community. In addition to his therapy

practice, which uses techniques that draw on neurosemantics and neuro-linguistic

programming (NLP), Bob has written a groundbreaking book on applying these powerful

disciplines to chronic blocking and stuttering.



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Linda was also responsible for starting the neurosemanticsofstuttering discussion group

on Yahoo, a group that, in my opinion, regularly has the most informed and intelligent

discussions about stuttering anywhere on the Internet. It’s a discussion group with a

point of view that grounds people in the hard-to-see realities and truths behind their

speech.

Recently, there have been some impressive articles and books by people who have

recovered. Linda’s book is one of the best. As you read it, you’ll experience through

Linda what it means to connect the dots, discover your own considerable resources, and

empower yourself to live like, and speak like, the person you always wanted to be.

John C. Harrison



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THE LETTER



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Dear Friend,

We do not know each other but I have received word of you through a mutual friend. I am

sending this letter to you out of desperation and holding out hope that you will be able to

assist me.

My name is Dan and I am 26 years old. I have a stuttering problem that I have been

dealing with for as long as I can remember. I have tried everything I know to try to end

the stuttering, including speech therapy, psychotherapy, endless medical tests and

medication. I have spent thousands of dollars trying to overcome stuttering and have

participated in numerous stuttering therapy treatments. Nothing has worked.

I have quit over 7 jobs in the last 8 years because of speaking requirements that came up

at each job that I knew I would not be able to fulfill. I am desperate because I am afraid I

will never find a good paying job that does not require me to speak.

Every aspect of my life is affected because of my speech. I am unable to carry on simple

day to day speaking encounters. I cannot even pick up the phone when it rings because I

will stutter and the person on the other end usually hangs up on me. My friends do not

bother to even call me anymore. I doubt that I will ever marry because no woman would

want to be with me. Even if they did I cannot get the words out of my mouth to even ask a

girl out.

I find myself becoming more of a recluse and turning into something I do not want to be.

I run and hide from every situation that requires me to speak. My insides are eaten up

from anxiety over the fear of the next time I have to speak. I am at a desperate point in

my life and I have to find a solution to my problem.

Recently a mutual friend told me about you and that you had successfully overcome

stuttering. He suggested that I contact you to see if you wouldn’t mind sharing with me

how you were able to do it.



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I am willing to do anything to stop stuttering and I would be very grateful if you could

share with me how you were able to overcome the problem. Some of the questions I have

are:

1. Were you really able to overcome stuttering?

2. How bad was your stuttering problem?

3. Did you overcome stuttering using a specific program or medication?

4. Do you think it is possible for anyone to overcome stuttering?

5. What steps would you recommend to someone who is trying to overcome the

problem?

Please share with me as much about your recovery as you can.

Yours Truly,

A Desperate Stutterer



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CHAPTER ONE

Beginning the Journey

Dear Dan,

Thank you for your letter and for being so open about your struggle with stuttering. Over

the years I have received letters from people just like you who desperately want to

discover a way to overcome stuttering. I understand completely when you said you will

do anything to stop stuttering. In fact, the desperation I read in your letter reminded me of

the heightened desperation I felt. That desperation eventually proved to be the catalyst to

my intense quest to figure out how and if stuttering can be overcome.

I appreciate the many questions you asked in your letter and I will do my best to answer

them.

Yes, it is true. I struggled with a stuttering problem for almost four decades. The

struggles you described in your letter concerning handling simple speaking situations on

a day-to-day basis are reflective of the experience I also had for the first four decades of

my life. Like you, I could not speak on the phone, speak in front of a group and in many

cases I could not even speak one on one.

I can relate to your comments about feeling as though you were forced to quit jobs

because of stuttering. I also had a similar experience when I was a young adult that

eventually forced me to quit. I worked for an appliance shop and was required to talk on

the dispatch radio to inform the repairmen where to go for their next repair stop. I

agonized over that stupid radio going off every second of the day and even when the

work day was over, I still agonized over the radio knowing that I had to go back and do it



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all again the next day. Like you are doing now, I agonized almost every second of the day

about the next threatening speaking situation I would find myself in.

I am also not surprised to hear how much money you have spent in your pursuit for

fluency. Most of us who have spent our lives struggling with stuttering have invested a

lot of money in therapy, devices and medication trying to escape the agony of stuttering.

The outcome for the majority of us has been dismal and disappointing. The good news is

that now you know what will not lead to fluency and can stop wasting your hard earned

money on these methods.

When I tell people that I struggled with a stuttering problem for almost four decades, they

are in disbelief. During the time I struggled with stuttering I was unable to carry on a

fluent conversation. I struggled in most situations, including speaking on the phone, one

on one conversations, group conversations, reading out loud, and, of course, public

speaking was out of the question. Today I am able to speak fluently in all of these

situations and I often present in groups of 200 or more people. I know this causes people

who stutter to want to know how it is possible that I can now speak fluently. I am happy

to share with you what I learned about my own stuttering problem in hopes that it may

help you. I will tell you, though, that what I will be sharing with you will be perhaps

completely contrary to what you currently believe about stuttering. In some cases what I

share with you may be difficult for you to believe because it is contrary to the mainstream

thoughts about stuttering. The only encouragement I can give you for now is to reflect on

the wise statement that Benjamin Franklin once said;

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different

results”.

So if you have been doing the same thing throughout the years of your life trying to

overcome stuttering and you have not produced the results you are looking for, then it is

time to find a new way to overcome stuttering.



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The few individuals who have overcome stuttering throughout history have been able to

do so because they were willing to look at the problem of stuttering in a new way.

Despite what the “experts” were telling them concerning the cause and cure (or lack of a

cure) they refused to succumb to the “experts” hopeless and helpless views of stuttering.

Instead they took an obstinate stand against them and refused to believe the reports that

stuttering is an incurable affliction.

It is partially because of these obstinate and courageous people who were once plagued

with stuttering that I can even write this letter to you. To them I owe a gratitude that I

could never repay.

I will be happy to share with you what I learned from them and how I used the wisdom

they gained to move me into fluency. Before I tell about the journey I took to fluency,

you need to ask yourself if you intend to be open to believing new things about stuttering

and especially about yourself. Are you willing to look at stuttering in a new way? Are

you willing to put all of your current beliefs about stuttering under the microscope and

not resist what the microscope reveals? If so, then please read on, but if you have any

hesitation then now is probably the time to put this letter down.

I will begin to share with you my personal journey on how I gained fluency. My journey

began very slowly and evolved into a much faster pace as time went on. The reason the

journey took so long initially is because I began it alone without any outside guidance.

The men and women I spoke to you about in my last letter who were able to overcome

stuttering were people I had not heard of initially. Therefore, I was on my own for quite a

number of years. I suppose my journey could have been significantly shortened had I

known someone who could guide me through the journey. It does not matter though

because obviously I was still guided down the right path and eventually achieved the

results I set out to achieve.

When my journey for fluency first began I was unaware of anyone who had overcome

stuttering. Sadly, the only information I had concerning the problem of stuttering came

straight from doctors, psychologists and speech therapists. Their prognosis of my



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stuttering problem was always the same…there was no permanent cure for stuttering so I

would have to get used to it being a life long problem.

My desperation was so bad that many times I thought about seeking a surgeon to remove

my voice box so that people would not expect me to speak. I am sure you have had

thoughts like that. I remember very well how agonizing those days were. Can you just

imagine how it would feel to be free of stuttering? It is amazing. It is also possible for

you to be fluent, too. It will require work on your part though but it can definitely be

done.

Ok, enough about the miseries of stuttering. Let’s move on to answering your question

about how I was able to achieve fluency.

One evening, many years ago, I was lying in bed reading a book and I was having a hard

time understanding what the author was trying to convey in one of the paragraphs so I

started reading it out loud. I read out loud to myself very slowly so I could concentrate on

the message he was trying to get across. About half way through the paragraph it dawned

on me that I was reading out loud perfectly fluent. Although I had read out loud to myself

fluently many times before, for some reason this time it hit me like a ton of bricks. I

began to wonder how it was possible for me to speak fluently when I was alone but the

moment you put me in someone else’s presence I would lock up tighter than a drum and

lose all fluency.

That evening experience proved to be a significant event in my life. It started me on the

journey of figuring out what was going on inside of me that allowed me to be fluent when

I was alone and not to be fluent when I was with people. That evening I realized with

certainty that there was nothing physically wrong with me. My speech mechanisms were

obviously working perfectly. If they were damaged or flawed, I would stutter in all

situations. So, I wondered what in the world was causing me to stutter if it was not a

physical problem. I became obsessed with this question. It plagued me and I found

myself thinking about it all day long and I even began to have dreams centered around



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that question. I had to figure out why I could speak fluently when I was alone but I

stuttered like a pro when someone was with me.

I also realized that there were other times I was completely fluent. For example, I could

talk to a baby, a small child or an animal and never stutter once as long as we were alone.

But here was the fascinating part, if you added a person to my conversation with the

baby, child or animal I would stutter on every sentence. Initially, this drove me crazy

trying to figure out why this phenomenon was occurring. But then it hit me. I do not have

a speech problem; I have a people interaction problem. It was suddenly very clear to me.

The only time I stuttered was in the presence of other people. When I was alone I was

fluent. This posed an entirely new set of questions that I needed to find answers to.

Many years later, I was talking with an individual who had also overcome stuttering.

During my conversation with him, he said something that pinpointed the real issue. He

said that he believed stuttering was a communication problem not a speech problem. I

was blown away when I heard him say that because somehow two people, who never

knew each other, came to the same conclusion about stuttering. Based on that information

we were both sent in a new direction in our view of stuttering. I attribute this new view as

essential for any one who wants to gain fluency.

You see, I believe the speech therapists, doctors and the medical community are focusing

on the wrong thing. They think we have a speech problem or impediment. They have

been running around for hundreds of years trying to fix a speech problem and coming up

empty. As long as they continue to focus on correcting a speech impediment they will

continue to come up empty handed. However, if they would be willing to change their

stuttering paradigm and contemplate that it might possibly be a communication/people

problem instead of a speech impediment there may eventually be a lot more of us

walking around who can say, “I used to stutter”.

It is late now and I want to give you an opportunity to digest what I have just told you. I

will write again soon.

Your Friend



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SEEING THE OBVIOUS IN THE MEDICAL STUDIES

Dear Dan,

I want to talk with you about the medical studies concerning stuttering. I am sure you

have read a great deal about them or at least have gained some basic information about

them through the years. The first thing to keep in mind is that there is very little

agreement within the medical and speech therapy community as to what causes

stuttering. The only thing they appear to be in agreement about is that it cannot be cured.

You already know how I feel about their views on stuttering so I will not rehash that

point.

Over the years I have followed with interest the medical studies on stuttering. I am

fascinated by them but I am also perplexed as to why the medical community is unable to

see what is so obvious, at least to me. Let me give you an example: there are published

reports that show the brain activity of people who stutter is significantly different than the

brain activity of people who do not stutter. These tests are usually interpreted to show

proof that stuttering is a physical or hereditary issue.

I do not deny that the brain activity of people who stutter is different from people who do

not stutter, anymore than I would argue that a person with a headache has a different

brain scan than a person who does not have a headache. But it would be a mistake to say

that headaches are caused by an abnormal brain and use the brain scan as evidence that

headaches are caused by abnormal brain activity. We all know that there are many things

that cause a headache, including stress, anxiety, sinuses, etc. The key is to find the root

cause of the headache and fix that.

It is the same with stuttering. We cannot use a brain scan as proof that people who stutter

have a portion of their brain that is not functioning properly and that is the cause of

stuttering. I think the different brain scans found in people who stutter as opposed to

people who do not stutter is actually proof that our brains are completely normal. Our

body is made in such a way that it is designed to malfunction externally (physically)

when something is out of balance internally (emotionally).



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My point is that we have to be careful not to buy into the medical community’s

interpretation of the cause and treatment of stuttering. They have been proving over and

over again throughout the centuries that they are unable to come up with a solution.

Again, I believe it is because they are focused on the wrong thing. Until they shift their

focus, they will continue to struggle with the stuttering issue.

There is one other thing I want to mention to you before I get back to your original

question of how I gained fluency. Through the years I have seen a very sad and

unfortunate thing happen to people who stutter and that is the disillusionment that has

been caused by stuttering treatments that fail to produce long term results. We held out

hope that a treatment, drug or device would produce long term relief, only to have our

hopes dashed over and over again.

Unfortunately, this has caused a great many us of to go to the opposite extreme and not

only believe that there is no lasting cure but to be out right hostile to anyone who believes

otherwise. I am deeply grieved by this because thinking and acting in this manner is like

putting the last nail in the coffin. Losing your hope and your desire to overcome

stuttering absolutely guarantees that you will continue to stutter forever. Being willing to

look at the problem of stuttering from a different perspective breathes new life into the

possibility of permanently speaking fluently. I would rather die with a hope being

unfulfilled than live life with no hope at all.

My goodness how the time flies! I must head off to an appointment. I apologize for not

being able to continue on with the story of how I became fluent in this letter…or perhaps

I really did continue on? Until next time.

Your Friend



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DISCOMFORT WITH PEOPLE ENCOUNTERS

Dear Dan,

Discovering that stuttering is really a people interaction issue, or as someone more

accurately states “a communication problem”, was initially absolutely mind blowing. It

was one of those times in life when you have a realization that you know in the core of

your being is the truth. My direction was now set. I knew what the root problem was even

though I had no idea what to do about it or how deep the issue really ran inside of me.

You see, although I did not know it at the time, the easy part proved to be identifying

what the real issue was. What I was about to discover over the extended years about

myself and the world around me is a journey that will be hard to capture in detail. I will

do my best to reveal the truths as I learned them because your desire and sincerity propels

me to tell you everything as I learned it.

Now armed with the knowledge that stuttering was a symptom of a communication or

people interaction problem, I knew where my focus had to be. I had to figure out why I

found it difficult to communicate and interact with people. I also knew that to find the

answer to this problem I was going to have to invest a lot of time in soul searching and

getting to know myself. I was going to get to know myself in ways that I had never

before known. In taking this journey, I had to be willing to uncover every rock and search

in every crevice of my brain to look at aspects of myself …even some aspects that proved

to be very uncomfortable. Everything about my personality and who I thought I was had

to be examined in a new and intense manner. You, my friend, will ultimately have to do

the same thing.

One of the first things I did shortly after I discovered that my speech problem was really

a people interaction problem was that I began to study my own stuttering pattern. I kept a

journal and started logging speaking encounters that I had during the day. I recorded who

I was talking with, what the subject matter was, what my surroundings were at the time,

how severe the stuttering was, and what I was feeling before and during the conversation.

This was a journal that I would refer back to over and over again through the years.



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The journal proved to be an invaluable tool for uncovering patterns that I would have

never noticed had I not record them. For example, prior to keeping the journal I would

have never realized that I stuttered more on Monday’s than I did on Friday’s. I stuttered

less with one co-worker and more with another co-worker. The stuttering increased if I

had a cold or felt ill. The stuttering also would increase significantly as the date grew

closer to my monthly meeting with my boss. I even noticed that I had periods of fluency

when I knew there were no threatening meetings coming up at work.

At first some patterns did not appear to be people related at all, like when my stuttering

became worse if I felt sick. I also noticed that I stuttered more on Monday’s than I did on

Friday’s. But, as the soul searching continued, I eventually figured out the answers. I

stuttered more on Monday’s because I was facing a new week with unforeseen speaking

challenges. Friday’s were slightly better because the weekend was coming up and I

would be safe and free from threats.

I discovered that when I was ill I felt more vulnerable and I had less energy in dealing

with the fear of upcoming “people encounters”.

After gaining a better understanding of the stuttering patterns that I was prone to

incorporate in my interactions (and fear of interactions) with other people, a curiosity

about what specifically made me so uncomfortable developed. This discomfort was one

of the many areas I had locked away in my subconscious, and I found the task of digging

out the real reasons a little difficult at first.

One day, while I was alone contemplating the issue, I decided to try something that might

help me better understand why I was so uncomfortable interacting with other people. I

decided to imagine myself giving a presentation. Initially, I imagined myself giving the

presentation in a room where I was alone. I saw myself in the front of the room talking

fluently as I made my presentation. I stayed on this thought for a few minutes to really

gain a good understanding of how I felt giving a presentation when no one else was in the

room.



23

I remember feeling very confident, with my posture straight and comfortably moving

about the room as I presented the information. I was enjoying the experience.

Next, I imagined a person walking in the room to hear the presentation. I noticed at the

very moment I imagined a person entering the room I felt discontent and fearful. I hated

that feeling and almost stopped the process because it felt so uncomfortable. But instead

of giving up, I decided to continue on in spite of the feelings. I knew facing the fear was

important if I was going to figure this thing out.

Instead of quitting I decided to back up the image over and over again to the exact point

someone walked into the room. I wanted to understand the emotion I was feeling at that

point and what it was about the person that made me tremble inside. I imagined the scene

from where I was alone to the point when someone walked in the room until I had a good

understanding of exactly what I was feeling.

Once I completely felt the feeling and made no attempt to run from the feeling, I began to

see what was causing it to develop. What I saw shocked me.

I saw that at the moment a person walked in the room, I felt as though I was required to

suspend all of my own thoughts, values and perceptions about myself and turn them over

to that person to make the ultimate determination about my worth as a person.

Did you catch what I said? Not only was I turning over all judgment about myself to the

person I was interacting with but I felt I was REQUIRED to do so. I want to share more

with you concerning what I discovered about why I felt it was required of me to allow the

other person(s) to make the ultimate determination about my self worth, but before I do I

need to discuss some other important information with you. I hope you are able to be

patient as I continue to reveal my journey to fluency. It will all make sense shortly.

Earlier I mentioned a person who discerned stuttering as a communication problem not a

speech problem. This same person, in his journey to overcome stuttering, came to the

realization that several factors, including behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs,



24

intentions and physiological responses, play into stuttering¹. He contends that they all

interact together so if any one of them is out of balance it will cause the remaining factors

to be affected and leave you more vulnerable to stuttering. Conversely, if you positively

impact any one point, the remaining points are also impacted positively. I found this to be

very true in my experience of stuttering. However, during my journey to fluency I

focused on my beliefs, values, perceptions, intentions and emotions. I never had to

consciously do a lot of work on stuttering behaviors (i.e., stomping my foot to get the

word out, snapping my fingers, etc.) or physiological responses because they self-

corrected once I had corrected my beliefs, perceptions, intentions and emotions.

I can’t express to you the importance that values, beliefs, perceptions, intentions and

emotions play in stuttering. I will later talk in-depth about these issues. You will be

excited about the potential for yourself..

Before I close I want to leave you with one thought, one discovery that I made in the

early years of my search for fluency. This discovery followed me throughout the entire

journey to fluency. No matter where the journey took me, no matter what road I traveled,

or what truth I gained, it all came back to one thing…Me. There was nothing outside of

me that forced, created, or caused me to stutter.

Your Friend



25

WHAT AM I BLOCKING?

Dear Dan,

In my last letter I had indicated that no matter what road I went down in my journey to

fluency, all roads led right back to me. You will see this in every letter I write to you. Be

watchful and as you continue to read my letters; it will eventually become clear to you.

Let’s move on for now.

I do not know who created the word “stutter” and I do not know who created the word

“blocking”. But I think the word “blocking” more accurately describes a person who has

a stuttering problem. The question for me became “What am I blocking?”

But I also want to mention that there tends to be some confusion around what stuttering

really means. I bump into people all the time who have never struggled with a stuttering

problem but the minute I start talking about stuttering they will say, “Oh, I have that

problem, too.” The reason they feel they have that problem is because they

misunderstand what a stuttering problem really entails. They believe that just because

they stumble over words, especially when they are nervous, that they have the same

stuttering problem that I am referring too. This could not be further from the truth. What

they are describing is normal, effortless stumbling over words that every fluent person is

prone to do.

As you know, the stuttering I am talking about is when the speaker has a physical

struggle saying words, sounds and syllables. They tend to contort their faces or engage in

other physical movements as a part of the struggle to get the words out. However, having

a stuttering problem does not always mean that the listener will notice an obvious

struggle by the person who stutters. I know a man who has a serious stuttering problem

but no one knows he stutters. When he speaks he is very fluent, but to the trained eye you

can see every time he blocks a word or switches out words to avoid blocking. This man

equally suffers with stuttering just like a person who overtly stutters. His symptoms are

undetectable to the outside world but internally he is struggling just the same. I read

somewhere that an individual suggested that the definition for stuttering needs to be



26

defined from the speaker’s position not the listener’s position. I couldn’t agree with his

statement more.

Anyway, back to the question of “What am I blocking?” Trying to find out what I was

blocking and why I was blocking was another eye opening event for me. It happened one

day when I was analyzing the stuttering pattern I used. I was flipping through the pages

of my journal and for some reason on this day I saw something in there that I had never

seen before… I was inauthentic. What I mean by that is that my behavior, my moods, my

conversations, and my perceptions all varied dependent on whom I was with. I acted one

way with my friends and then I acted a totally different way when I was with my co-

workers or family and yet another way with my boss. I was all over the board with my

identity. I did not have a clue who I was!

I have always been a sensitive person (and you probably are, too) and very perceptive of

the moods and emotions of others. My childhood was no exception. I was especially

attuned to my Mother’s emotions. She and I had a very close relationship and the only

thing I ever wanted as a child was to please her and live up to her image of me. She

thought I was special…sent from God. Her first two children were lively and

rambunctious. They kept her hopping. When I came along she was at her wits’ end trying

to keep up with my brother and sister. She naturally thought that I would be as lively as

her first two children because her perception was that all children must be the same.

To my mom’s delight, she was wrong. I was the opposite of my brother and sister. I was

a very quiet and content child. According to my mom I rarely cried and never got into

any mischief as a toddler. As I grew she kept telling me what a wonderful child I was and

how God had sent me to her so she would know that not all children are lively and

rambunctious. She never hesitated to tell me how special I was and how much God had

blessed her with a child who was quiet, content and obedient. My dad also caught my

mom’s vision of me and felt that I was a “spiritual child”. He was in awe of my

demonstrated patience as a child and felt it could have only come from God. My parents

loved me and I knew it. The problem is that as a small child I interpreted the cause of my

parents love for me to be due to the fact that I was so good. At the same time, I also



27

developed a fear that if I did not live up to their standards then they would no longer love

me, or at best, just love me the way they loved my rambunctious siblings.

I lived out the rest of my childhood trying to present a “good child” image so I could

hang on to their love. Once I started school I quickly realized that my teachers and other

adults also seemed to love good children more than bad children. The meaning I gave my

world is that to receive love you have to be good and being good meant being calm,

patient, and subservient to others.

If this perception of the world around me were not enough, I had another problem that I

was dealing with. I knew I was really not as good as what my parents and teachers

thought. To prove it, when I was eight years old I smoked my first cigarette with my

older brother. I laugh at it now, but back then smoking that cigarette instilled a lot of fear

and anxiety in me because I was concerned my mom would find out. Since I attributed

her love for me to be solely based on how good I was, my entire world was threatened by

smoking that one cigarette. If she found out she would know that I really was not good

and I would have lost her love. Nothing worse in the universe could happen than that, at

least my little eight year old mind. I spent months in constant anxiety and fear wondering

if my brother had and/or would tell my mom what I did. Not surprising, my stuttering

problem went out the roof in intensity! I could barely say a single word during that time.

I never outgrew the thought that being good means being loved. As I became an adult the

meaning of being good shifted slightly. Being good now meant being a hard worker and

always supporting and being faithful to authority figures (work and church primarily).

But being good still meant being loved. In my mind the way to be loved was to be good

and the only way to be good was to understand what other peoples’ definition of good

was so I could adhere to their expectations. Because of this, I gave my power away to my

perception of how other people perceived me.

Because being loved was so important to me, I had to abide by everyone else’s rules so I

could obtain their love. The problem with that is that every time the real me would try to

come out I would block myself from doing so. This played out in my speech and began at



28

the age of four. Eventually, all sense of who I really was fell away and in one way my

normal psychological development was hindered because of the meaning I had given to

the world around me. I was an emotional puppet at the service of anyone whose love I

wanted or needed.

When I first began to stutter at the age of four, my mom tried desperately to get help for

me. She even tried to help me herself by telling me to slow down or start over again. This

was an added pressure on my young, developing mind because if I did not quit stuttering

my mom might not think I was good any more, and if I am not good, I am not loved.

Funny how a child’s mind works, isn’t it? But don’t be fooled. The adult mind works

exactly the same way. The advantage of the adult mind is that we can reason through and

identify when we are placing unhealthy meanings on the events in our lives. We will talk

about that later, though.

So one of the things I learned on my journey to fluency was that I was inauthentic. I

became who everyone wanted me to become and I had no idea who I was.

It was now time to learn who I was. I was confident that if I could find that person I

might be able to relate better with others. I also knew that I would need to reevaluate the

whole issue of what constitutes worthiness to be loved, but for now I needed to figure out

who I was.

At first, I was not sure how to go about finding out who I was. I began to read a lot of self

help books and asking God to show me whom he wanted me to be, or, better yet, who he

intended me to be. I grappled with this question for years and in some ways I am still

asking the same question, although I have a much clearer picture today and live

according to who I believe I really am more than I ever have in my life.

I began to get some clarity on my identity after I realized I had an identity problem and

began to focus on figuring out who I really was. But the revelations did not start pouring

in until I began to compare my behavior when I was fluent versus when I would stutter. I

decided that if I am blocking something when I stutter then I must be more authentic



29

when I am not stuttering. So I began to observe my thoughts, feelings, behaviors and

emotions whenever I was able to speak fluently. This usually occurred when I was

speaking with a close friend or even when I would speak out loud when I was alone.

I began to write down the behaviors I was demonstrating when I was fluent, I tried to

notice my thoughts and how I felt about the person I was speaking with and the topic we

were discussing. I tried to notice everything I could about each fluent moment I

encountered.

Slowly but surely an image of who I really am started to immerge. I began to realize that

instead of being calm and subservient, I really prefer to be silly and humorous. I enjoy

being serious when appropriate and I tend to be an intense thinker who likes to figure out

the unanswerable questions in the universe, but I never enjoy being subservient to

anyone. Respectful and kind…yes. Subservient…heck no!

I also discovered that I am, in my very nature, a confident person. Hard to believe isn’t it?

Take the journey and I have a feeling you will discover that you, too, are a confident

person in your very nature.

I began to realize many more things about myself that I was consciously unaware of for

most of my life. Then I began to start practicing being authentic and behaving in

accordance with who I thought I really was. At first this was a terrifying event for me. It

was kind of like dipping your toe into a cold pool of water. You dip it in quickly and then

pull it out just as quickly. It took me many attempts before I could keep my toe in the

water for more than a split second. But the more I practiced the more I eventually found

myself living more in accordance with who I really am.

Amazingly, I also started seeing improvements in my speech. When I did stutter I was

able to utilize those times to continue to evaluate why I was blocking myself. This helped

me to understand when and why I was not being authentic and more importantly it guided

me into being more authentic.



30

Years later I gained an even deeper clarity on my identity that I will be happy to share

with you in a future letter. But at this point something else shifted in my thought process.

For the first time in my life I had moved to a place where I could express gratitude for

having a blocking problem. I no longer hated and despised the stuttering problem

completely; instead, I felt gratefulness at how the stuttering was able to point me in the

right direction of being an authentic person. I know this may sound weird to you, but

making the shift in my mind to being grateful for what the symptom of stuttering was

revealing to me helped me to stop resisting stuttering and it eventually moved my

thoughts completely away from stuttering. As the old saying goes, “What you resist,

persists.” Your Friend



31

CHAPTER TWO

Uncovering Hidden Truths

Dear Dan,

I want to continue on with the topic of transitioning into a perspective of being grateful

for stuttering, one of the things I realized during this time is that stuttering is not the

problem, it never has been the problem. Stuttering is just one of the many symptoms I

was experiencing that had developed as a result of the root problem. Because stuttering is

such an embarrassing symptom, we tend to focus on it day and night trying to get rid of

it. We do this to our own detriment because the stuttering is actually just trying to tell us

that something is wrong internally. I do not believe that we will ever overcome stuttering

by focusing on stuttering. I think we have to get clear on this point.

I believe we need to use the symptom of stuttering to help show us what is really going

on inside of us. I think we have been fooled into thinking that stuttering is the main

problem. It is not, but because it is the obvious, painful part we chose to look only at the

stuttering and we never realize what is behind it.

Another thing you might as well know now, because you will eventually figure it out

somewhere along your journey, is that we are not unique because we stutter. Our

problems are not unique and the causes that eventually led to the symptom of stuttering

are not unique to just us. We do not get the privilege of saying to other people that we are

unique because we stutter and that a non-stutterer could never understand our issues.

They may not be able to identify with the symptom of stuttering, but they fully identify

with the root cause of stuttering. Would you like to know how this is possible? Because

the root causes behind stuttering are the same root causes that are common to many other

external symptoms.



32

Let me ask you this - before and during the time you have to speak do you feel stress,

anxiety, panic or fear? I have never met a person who stutters who did not have those

emotions prior to speaking. Have you ever thought about what would happen if you felt

calm and confident before you spoke? I would bet your stuttering problems would

disappear.

Therefore we can confidently conclude that stuttering is a symptom of many things to

include stress, anxiety, panic and/or fear. (Stress, anxiety, panic and fear are also a

symptom of something else, but we are not ready to go down the rabbit hole yet.) Do

people who have never stuttered also feel stress, anxiety, panic and fear? Sure they do.

Everyone feels those emotions at sometime in their lives. Their symptom may be

different than stuttering symptoms but you can bet they have them. Some common stress

and anxiety symptoms range from headaches all the way to heart attacks. Panic and fear

symptoms may range from sweating all the way to an inability to go out in public. The

symptoms of stress, anxiety, panic and fear can be endless depending on the person.

The reason it is so tempting to look at stuttering as a unique disability is because it is a

very emotionally painful, embarrassing and frustrating symptom. Which one of us would

not rather just deal with headaches or sleepless nights? Those symptoms would be a piece

of cake to deal with in comparison.

I am glad there is research being done on what causes stuttering. I hope they come up

with a magic pill that dissolves the symptom just like they came up with aspirin for

headaches, or Prozac for depression. However, if that ever happens don’t forget that the

little pill you are taking is masking the stuttering symptom, not curing it. Just like aspirin

and Prozac do not cure headaches and depression.

When I began to stutter, instead of seeing it for what it really is…a symptom of

something deeper, it was labeled as a speech impediment. Talk about a missed

opportunity! Think about it. Our bodies are wonderfully made. They are designed to heal

themselves and they are designed to provide clear communication when something is

wrong. Any form of pain, whether physical or emotional, is an indication that something



33

is wrong. It is your body crying out for you to pay attention to what it is saying. It wants

you to understand that there is something not quite right going on inside.

It is much easier to treat the symptom instead of figuring out the root cause, though. That

is why we pop aspirin to get rid of a persistent headache that shows up over and over

again, it is why we take muscle relaxers to give us temporary relief from the stiff neck

that plagues us, it is also why the amount of prescribed antidepressants has sky rocketed

over the last decade. It is easier to quiet the symptom than it is to deal with the root cause

of the symptom.

The problem with stuttering is that no one has been able to come up with an effective

long term solution to alleviate the symptom of stuttering. This is actually very good news.

My recommendation is to start listening to what the stuttering is telling you. It will never

go away until you do. It is there to help you. Your body is doing exactly what it was

designed to do. There is nothing wrong with you. You are beautifully made and you

function perfectly.

This brings me to your previous question when you asked if I thought stuttering can be

cured. Your question is very controversial. Everyone has an opinion on the topic and as I

indicated earlier some people believe their opinion so strongly that they will degrade

themselves into a position of hostility towards those who hold a differing opinion. I

certainly have no intention of ever joining their ranks, but I do have my own belief about

it and since you asked, I will share it with you. But I want to ask you a question first.

Can headaches be cured? Can muscle aches be cured? What about depression, can that be

cured? The simple answer is that a single instance of a headache, muscle ache, and even

depression can be cured but the susceptibility to having a headache, muscle ache, or

depression can never be cured. Our bodies are created so that we have a headache if we

are overly stressed or if we have a sinus infection. The headache tells us that something is

wrong internally. We can never cure our bodies of producing symptoms and we do not

want to. Without the body’s ability to produce symptoms we would all die. Plain and

simple.



34

However, we can correct the root cause of the headache and never have another headache

as long as we live if we continue to ensure the root causes have been corrected. We could

heal a muscle ache and never have another one if the root causes of muscle aches never

became a part of our experience. But are we cured of headaches and muscle aches at that

point? The answer is yes if we no longer experience those symptoms. But if the root

cause of the headache returns then so will the headache.

Perhaps your next question will be, “Yes, but what makes me susceptible to the symptom

of stuttering? Why don’t I just break out into a sweat or hives when I am anxious,

nervous and fearful?” But to ask that question you would also have to ask why some

people are more susceptible to headaches, depression, hives, eye twitches, and on and on.

My question to you is, “Do you really want to invest all of your time trying to figure out

why you are susceptible to one symptom versus another symptom or would you rather

invest your time in eliminating the symptom all together?” Where you place your focus

will determine the results you get.

Your Friend



35

PERFORMING FOR PROTECTION

Dear Dan,

As I mentioned earlier, I realized that my stuttering issues really involved discomfort

with people interactions. It became obvious to me that stuttering was mostly about

blocking myself from interacting with other people in an authentic manner. I was terrified

of being myself because I so desperately wanted the approval of other people. But it

really went deeper than that. In reality, what I wanted was to protect myself from being

hurt by them.

Because of the way I defined love at a very early age I subsequently gave all of my power

over to other people to define my value and worth. As a consequence, other people

became powerful in their interactions with me – not because they really held the power

but because I handed it over to them. I became sensitive to every word they spoke and

every action they displayed where I was concerned.

The pain I felt internally whenever someone said or did something to me that I perceived

as negative was crippling. I feared feeling this pain so much that I blocked who I really

was and became who I felt the other person would want me to be. All of this was done

primarily to protect myself.

Consequently, I felt as though I had to monitor everything I did and said when I was in

the presence of other people. I did this to ensure I was meeting their expectations of who

I perceived they wanted me to be. This caused me to become a performance junkie so-to-

speak.

If I was having a conversation with a co-worker, for example, and they said something I

did not agree with I may initially try to express my disagreement. However, because I

was afraid of their retaliation against me, or more specifically, because I was afraid they

would get mad at me for disagreeing with them, I subconsciously blocked myself in my

communication with that person. It was as though one part of me wanted to express



36

myself openly and authentically by communicating my disagreement, but the other part

of me who could not tolerate the pain associated with the fall out of the disagreement,

blocked me from speaking openly about my disagreement.

The other element that fed into this was that I felt as though I had to monitor what I said

and did most of the time, this meant that my actions, whether in speech or in deed,

became a performance issue for me. Therefore, I was rarely acting in a spontaneous

manner that reflected who I really was. I was too busy being involved in a lot of

forethought about what I was saying and doing.

In his book “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” Maxwell Maltz, M.D. made this comment

that accurately reflected a part of my personal struggles:

“While most of us are not consciously aware of the fact, when we talk

we receive negative feedback data through our ears by listening to or

“monitoring” our own voice. This is the reason totally deaf individuals

seldom speak well. They have no way of knowing whether their voice is

coming out as a shriek, a scream, or an unintelligible mumble. This is

also the reason that persons born deaf do not learn to talk at all, except

with special tutoring. If you sing, perhaps you have been surprised to

find that you could not sing on key, or in harmony with others, while

suffering temporary deafness or partial deafness because of a cold.

Thus, negative feedback itself is no bar or handicap to speech. On the

contrary, it enables us to speak and speak correctly. Voice teachers

advise that we record our own voices on a tape recorder and listen to

them as a method of improving tone, enunciation, etc. By doing this we

become aware of errors in speech that we had not noticed before. We are

able to see clearly what we are doing “wrong” and we can make

correction.



37

However, if negative feedback is to be effective in helping us talk better,

it should (1) be more or less automatic or subconscious, (2) it should

occur spontaneously, or while we are talking, and (3) response to

feedback should not be so sensitive as to result in inhibition.

If we are consciously overcritical of our speech, or if we are too careful

in trying to avoid errors in advance, rather than reacting spontaneously,

stuttering is likely to result.

If the stutterer’s excessive feedback can be toned down, or if it can be

made spontaneous rather than anticipatory, improvement in speech will

be immediate.”

However, for me, the key to moving back into spontaneous speech and action

required that I recognize not only when I was blocking myself, but also why I

was blocking myself.

For this reason, in my future letters to you I will rarely use the word “stutter” to

speak about my journey to fluency. I want you to understand that stuttering was

a symptom of a deeper issue. Stuttering certainly became a part of the problem,

much like a headache becomes a part of a stress related issue, but it was not the

root cause of my interaction issues. Therefore, I will begin addressing the issue

in a much more semantically correct manner which is to express it as blocking

myself from being who I really am and expressing myself honestly and

authentically.

Your Friend



38

A LONGING TO BE PERFECT

Dear Dan,

I would like to talk about perfectionism for a minute. It is my understanding that a lot of

people who block themselves tend to be perfectionists in one regard or another. We tend

to be driven to do everything without error. I think we need to only look as far as our

speech problems to see the validity in that statement. I certainly was no exception. I was a

perfectionist to the tee, not only in my speech but in many other areas as well. In fact, up

until about five years ago if you walked into my home you would not have found a

misplaced item anywhere in the house. I would dare you to try and find a piece of dust.

My house was in such perfect order that my family and friends would not come visit me

any more because they did not feel like they could relax in my home. My entire life was

ordered like this, my car, my office at work, my schedule…everything. Neat and tidy,

just the way I needed it to be.

So do you think the perfectionism that I displayed was because of my speech problem?

Did perfectionism cause blocking or did blocking cause perfectionism? Or were they

even related? The answer is yes, they were related, but neither caused the other to occur.

There are plenty of perfectionists who do not block themselves. It is not a requirement to

block if you are a perfectionist and it is not a requirement for you to be a perfectionist if

you block. Both blocking and perfectionism is the same thing. They are symptoms of a

deeper issue.

The perfectionism I displayed in having perfect order to my world was the external things

that I could control. Internally I was a mess. You would never know it though because I

was intelligent, bright, and organized enough to know what feeling and emotions were

permissible to display and which ones were not permissible. I was so good at it that I

even lost the conscious ability to really know what I was feeling. That was all a part of

the inauthentic person I had become. Perfectionism and blocking were both pointing to

the internal conditions that went amiss.



39

No one would have ever guessed how much of myself I had lost over the years because I

seemed so well put together. The only external evidence that anything was going wrong

internally was the fact that I blocked.

If you have the same perfectionist tendencies that I had then you have just identified

another symptom. If you identify your symptoms eventually they will lead you to the root

issues and you will discover how they are all really tied together. You see, once you

discover the root cause of these symptoms and correct the root cause; you will discover a

freedom you never imagined.

The point is that blocking does not have a single cause just like a headache does not have

a single cause. Each person has their own unique root causes of blocking and with some

willingness to look at your self in a new way you will begin to discover what emotions,

beliefs, perceptions, behaviors etc. are reinforcing your blocking problem.

Once I noticed what a perfectionist I had become it was time to really take a hard look at

why I was behaving in a perfectionist manner. Why was I trying to control my world?

What was I really trying to control? What was I afraid of? What would happen if I left

some dishes in the sink or failed to make my bed?

I will tell you what I discovered. Keeping my world in an orderly fashion was all about

establishing and maintaining a false perception about myself so I would appear normal,

healthy, and fully worthy of being a functional part of the human race. I had defined

being healthy and normal as being “perfect” and in my mind I was not allowed to show

other people that I was not really all that perfect. I knew, of course, that I was far from

being perfect but I had a belief that I could not let anyone else know how imperfect I

really was as a person.

Interestingly, I reserved the standards of perfection for myself only. I never set the same

expectations for those around me. Which begs the question of why I felt I was able to

achieve perfection when I knew no one else could achieve it?( It also made me realize

that at some level I had a high opinion of myself to think that perfection should be

obtainable by me when I knew no other human being could achieve it.)



40

I was terrified of someone finding out how imperfect I really was. For me, as I indicated

earlier, I had a strong belief that to be loved meant that I had to be good. Being good

means being perfect.

Guess what happened when I started taking steps to break the perfectionist mentality? I

discovered two important life changing truths: 1.) People actually started liking me better

when I was open about my imperfections. They identified with me and the bonds

between my friends and family grew stronger. I actually found that more people were

drawn to me because I was more honest and authentic. In reality, most people don’t like

people who try to pretend that they are perfect. 2.) I felt an inexplicable freedom and

gratefulness in being able to live in a manner that was more consistent with who I really

am. I realized that the perfectionist tendencies in me were self imposed through the

years…not externally imposed by other people.

Those of us who have been brought up in a Christian home have an additional burden to

bear when it comes to being perfect. We have been preached to endlessly about how we

are to live our lives in a manner that will allow us to attain perfection. In our minds

perfection was not just a goal - it was a requirement. This requirement seemed to be

supported by the Bible itself. For example, in Matthew 5:48 it says:

“…Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

This also played a significant role in my need to be and appear perfect. Quite simply, I

was required to be that way.

I remember one day at work I was discussing religion with a co-worker and I had

mentioned to her how frustrating it was to try and reach perfection. She looked at me

stunned and said, “I am not trying to reach perfection, if I made that my goal I would

never have a genuine relationship with God because I would be focused on something

unattainable instead of God himself.”



41

Her comment haunted me for years after that. It was the first time I had ever heard

someone that truly loved God say they were not working towards perfection. I not only

envied her for being able to live life without the goal of perfection, but I also felt a

strange sense of freedom when she said it. It was like she was speaking a truth that I

needed to hear.

Because of my co-workers comment I began to really contemplate the issue of attaining

perfection. I knew deep inside that I would never attain it and I knew most Christians

knew they would never attain it either. That is why we Christians say that Jesus died for

us because being perfect was not something we could do. I always thought it maddening

that we talked out of both sides of our mouth, though. We knew we could not achieve it

and that is why we needed a Savior - but yet now that we have been “saved” we are

expected to be perfect because He saved us.

I began to really have a strong sense that something was misleading about what I had

been taught concerning perfection. Things just did not add up and I was beyond the point

of being able to “be in submission” to the elders and pastors of my church and take what

they said for granted as though their words were inspired of God. I had to start seeking

out God for myself.

I applied logic and common sense (the very thing many of us Christians are told not to

do) to the issue of God’s requirement for perfection. I compared the attributes ascribed to

God to the attributes of human beings and concluded that there was no way God expected

man to be perfect. For example, we all assume that God is all knowing, he sees

everything, everywhere. Nothing is hidden from him. He knows the past, present and

future. Not only does He know everything but He is everywhere, all the time. He is spirit

and not flesh. He has everything He needs to be perfect.

In contrast, when He created us He limited our ability to only knowing the past and the

present. And we have only been given the ability to know the past and the present from

our one single point of view. We were not given the ability to know the future and we

were not given the ability to have all knowledge. In short, we were created to be blind so



42

to speak. Then He further limited us by wrapping our spirits in a physical body so that we

could not be everywhere all the time like He is.

I concluded in my mind that God did not provide us with the tools to be perfect and

therefore, the requirement to be perfect must be a man made requirement. In fact, God

seemed to have intentionally created us NOT to be perfect. I know, I know, we Christians

attribute that to the fall of man when Adam and Eve ate the dreaded apple they were

forbidden to eat. But my question is this: if they were perfect prior to the fall how is it

possible that they were able to do something wrong? How could Eve have been deceived

by the serpent if she was perfect? How could Adam have been so weak to give into Eve if

he was perfect? Perfection is not weak and it cannot be deceived.

Later I discovered that the word “perfect” in our Bible is actually translated “complete”

in the original Greek. So Matthew 5:48 should really read:

“…Be complete, therefore, as your heavenly Father is complete.”

If you were to go through the entire New Testament and find all the places the word

“perfect” is used and replace it with the correct translation of “complete”, it will paint a

different picture of the message the New Testament is trying to get across.

My dogs have always been a great source of instruction for me. I love to observe their

behavior and interaction with one another. When I apply the laws of perfection from a

Christian perspective to my dogs it is blatantly obvious that they fall short of being

perfect. While they are lovable, adorable, and a great source of joy and entertainment for

me, it is obvious that they are only concerned about themselves. They do not hesitate to

growl at each other if one threatens the other with taking away her bone or food. I have

never seen a willingness to share on either of their parts. They both want to be snuggled

only when they want to be snuggled…not when I want to snuggle with them. They are

incredibly territorial of their back yard and when it is time to eat they whine and cry until

I give them their food. And yet, they are complete. They are dogs and to expect any other

behavior from them is insanity on my part.



43

Should I require them to have human attributes like being considerate, sharing, having

patience, giving love all the time to all dogs everywhere? If I do can they achieve it? Of

course not, dogs do not have the necessary tools to be human…but they can be, and are,

complete as dogs.

Arriving at these conclusions, whether you agree with them or not, set a part of me free

and brought me one step closer to being who I am really am without holding back. This,

in turn, had a positive impact in my journey to fluency.

Before I close, I want to mention one other thing that I learned about myself that was

equally important. My comfort zone in every area of my life was also self imposed. I

have a new belief that for the most part “comfort zones” are self imposed prisons

designed to shape us into the people we ourselves believe the world wants us to be.

Your Friend



44

WHY CAN’T I STOP THINKING ABOUT STUTTERING/BLOCKING?

Dear Dan,

I am excited in continuing to take you down the rabbit hole of eliminating blocking as I

experienced it over the last two decades. I will be discussing many more things with you

that all contributed to the symptom of blocking that I experienced. I hope you continue to

enjoy the journey and I hope it is proving to be beneficial to you.

Let me start out by sharing with you an important discovery I made concerning my

thought process and the impact it had on my ability to overcome blocking. As you are

well aware and as I have mentioned earlier, people who stutter tend to be consumed night

and day with thoughts about blocking. I think you would agree that rarely do we

experience a 24 hour period without some thought of blocking entering our minds. When

we do have thoughts about blocking they are usually wrapped up in fear and anxiety

about the next speaking situation. Most of us live a life consumed with thoughts of how

to avoid blocking.

Many years ago I recorded how many times within a week I caught myself thinking about

blocking. It may or may not surprise you to know that I recorded 259 times that week. It

is important to note that I did not record the length of time that I spent on the thought and

I was unable to capture the times I thought about blocking on a subconscious level.

Suffice it to say that I was obsessed with thoughts about blocking. I lived and breathed

thoughts about blocking. I would predict that you are as obsessed with thoughts of

blocking just as I was. I would probably not be missing the mark by saying that most

people who block would also find that they are also thinking about blocking to an equal

degree that I did during that time.

The reason I bring this up is because we have learned over the last few decades through

science and the medical field how our thoughts have a tremendous impact on us,

physically and emotionally. In fact, science is now accepting the fact that not only do our



45

thoughts have a direct impact on us physically and mentally but also how they play a

large role in the experiences we have in the world around us.

Science appears to just now be catching up with what many religions have been saying

for thousands of years. Take for example what the author of Proverbs said over three

thousand years ago:

“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he²”

Buddha also said:

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”

The scientific community is now taking a much harder look at the effects of our thoughts

on everything involving our mental, physical, and emotional stability. Interestingly, there

are even studies being conducted to determine what role our thoughts play in creating the

world around us, or better put - the reality we perceive around us. As you know there is a

proliferation of books on the market that discuss this very topic. One example that I have

always been intrigued by is the research conducted by Dr. Masaru Emoto showing the

effects of our thoughts on water.

In his research, Dr. Emoto provides factual evidence that our thoughts affect the

molecular structure of water. Considering that we are made of 70% water ourselves, I

think this is very significant. In his study he demonstrates that thoughts and words will

positively or negatively change the molecular structure of water. For example, Dr. Emoto

typed the words, “You make me sick, I want to kill you” on a frozen vial of water. He

then tested the molecules after leaving the words taped to the vial over night and the

molecules of the water changed in appearance to a dull blob that had lost its shape and

form. He also typed the words “Love and Appreciation” on another vial and when he

tested the molecules the next day they were a distinct, beautiful shape much like a snow

flake. If you want to learn more about this study just type in Dr. Emoto’s name in any

internet search engine or you can purchase his book called: “The Message from Water”.

I spent a lot of time reading, researching, and studying the effects of our thoughts on the

outcome of our daily lives and came to an undeniable conclusion that I had to stop



46

thinking about blocking. In fact, after all the research I had done I knew that if I did not

stop thinking about stuttering, my chances at overcoming the problem were slim to none.

I knew it was critical for me to find a way to stop thinking about blocking. This proved to

be perhaps one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish in my journey. Initially I was

immobilized in my ability to proceed any further because I was so addicted to thinking

about blocking that I had absolutely no idea how to stop it. One thing was certain though:

willing myself and using mental force to stop thinking about blocking was not going to

work. I tried those methods over and over and always failed.

Many times I became so frustrated that I gave up trying for awhile. I had no idea what

would work and every time I thought of a new tactic or strategy it always failed

miserably. I spent several years in my journey to overcome blocking on this one dilemma

alone.

It was literally a vicious cycle for a long time. I knew a major component to overcoming

blocking entailed breaking the addiction to thinking and obsessing about blocking but I

felt hopeless to do so. This caused me to go through a cycle of trying ways to stop the

obsession, only to become frustrated at my own failure. When the frustration became

intolerable, I would stop seeking until the frustration over blocking became greater than

the frustration over the lack of finding a way out of my obsessive thoughts. Ugh!

I would guess this will be one of the more difficult aspects for you, also. Maybe you have

already experienced the frustration I am speaking about. It is at this point that I cannot

encourage you enough to stick with it until you prevail. I will share with you what

worked for me in hopes that it will shorten the struggle for you, but please understand

that it will be take work on your part none-the-less. The good news is that I believe if you

stick with it you will eventually get blocking off of your mind just as I did. What I am

going to share with you will hopefully convince you that blocking cannot stay in our

thoughts if we apply certain guiding principles. However, you should know that when

you try to eliminate the thoughts of blocking from your mind it will take time and



47

practice. Again, nothing about overcoming blocking is quick and easy. It will not happen

over night.

To start with, having a basic understanding of how our brain works was a tremendous

help to me in understanding why certain things happen in our thought process and also

why our repetitive thoughts about blocking have now become automatic thoughts that

seem to have control over us instead of us having control over them. As you may or may

not know, the way the brain functions is actually quite marvelous. If you were to peek

inside of each of our brains you would see millions of pathways with electrical charges

shooting across the paths depending on what thought or function we were currently

engaging in. The pathways have been created in our brain by the repetition and emotional

charge felt from the experiences, perceptions, beliefs, and values we have obtained

throughout the course of our lives.

Learning that we each have a specific pathway in our brains designed for every

movement we currently carry out in our body was very intriguing to me. For example,

there is a neural pathway established in our brain designed for the specific function of

moving our finger. Each movement has a specific pathway located in the brain that

allows us to carry out that function.

Not only do we have a pathway for each physical movement that we make, but we also

have pathways in our brains for our beliefs, perceptions, values and thoughts. So

whenever we have a certain thought the electrical charges fire across the pathway in our

brain that was created specifically to carry out that thought. So how does a pathway in

our brain get created? Well, stated simply, we create it.

Let me give you an example: if you currently are unable to play an instrument but decide

that you want to learn to play a violin you would probably start taking violin lessons. At

first you would fumble a lot with the violin and the bow not knowing how to hold them

properly and certainly not knowing how to make both components play music.



48

The reason you would fumble around a lot at first is because you do not have any prior

experience with playing a violin and therefore you have not created any neural pathways

in your brain that tell you how to play it. However, after taking several lessons you may

begin to feel comfortable holding the violin and bow properly and maybe playing a few

simple cords.

At this point your brain has begun to create neural pathways on how to hold a violin and

on how to play a few simple cords. Because your brain has now begun to create neural

pathways due to the repetitiveness of the violin lessons and your time spent practicing,

you consequently begin to feel at ease holding the violin.

When you learn a new task such as playing an instrument your brain creates a new

pathway that is directly linked to your ability to play a new instrument. Eventually, you

will be able to play the violin effortlessly and without much thought. The key is to

practice it enough so that the neural pathways are deeply established in your brain. By

doing so something that was once awkward becomes second nature and can be done

without much thought.

Another interesting thing is that the neural pathways are all interconnected and one

pathway can trigger another pathway to start firing electrical charges. For example, if

through practice, I have learned to play the violin exceptionally well but during my first

concert, I am nervous and subsequently play off key then the next time I pick up a violin

my brain’s neural pathways may fire two separate pathways. One that allows me to play

the violin but simultaneously it may also fire off the other new neural pathway of feeling

self conscious around a violin due to the failed concert I just participated in.

In short, now I have two neural pathways that are firing with just the one action of

picking up the violin. If I play at a second concert and do extremely well and have a

strong positive emotional response to the second concert, then that neural pathway will be

stronger than the neural pathway that was created in the first concert and I will probably

continue to be successful in future concerts. However, if I became nervous in the second

concert and was once again off- key the probability of future concerts being successful



49

are decreasing because the neural pathway I am creating in my brain is getting stronger

and stronger. Pretty amazing stuff, isn’t it?

So let’s take an example that you and I can both relate too. If you were to take a peek

inside of my brain when I was four years old and look at the speech processing part of my

brain you would see a bunch of new neural pathways being created as I learned how to

speak. The pathways were not grooved in yet because I was still young and learning to

speak in full sentences.

As I learned to speak I did so in a clumsy way as all children do when they are first

learning to speak. I obviously stumbled over words and sounds and produced repetitive

sounds instead of fluent sentences and words. All of this is very normal when you are

learning to speak. However, at some point I became aware of the fact that I was

stumbling over my words and became conscious of the lack of fluency.

This awareness probably came to me through my parent’s visible concern over my

speech development but I am only guessing. In reality, I do not believe it really matters

how I became aware of my lack of fluency, the point is I became aware of it. This new

awareness brought in a new element to my brain thus creating new neural pathways.

Now I had a concern over my lack of fluency so every time I spoke I listened very closely

to every word I was saying in an effort to avoid stumbling over my words. My brain

responded to my new concern and developed a neural pathway to support my concern.

So, every time I would speak my brain would fire off two pathways, one that would allow

me to speak and a second one that caused me to listen carefully to every word I was

saying so I could avoid stumbling over my words. The concern I had about stumbling

over my words grew stronger and stronger and so did the neural pathway in my brain.

Let me stop here and mention one other important fact that you should find interesting.

Your brain is designed to carry out your wishes. It does this based on the neural pathways

you create. So if I create a neural pathway for speech, eventually after I have learned the



50

task well enough my brain will allow me to speak without having to think about it before

I do so. It is like being on auto pilot.

This is the way our speaking abilities should function. Just like walking, hearing, seeing,

feeling, and a million other tasks we do every day. We never have to think about them

consciously before we do them because they are unconscious tasks that do not require

ongoing thoughts from us in order to perform them.

However, when I was four years old I added a second element to my speech that required

my brain to create a second neural pathway. This second element was that I started to

listen carefully and monitor my speech. My brain responded by creating the “listening

and monitoring speech” pathway.

Also, because I repetitively monitored my speech and because my emotions were very

strong about monitoring my speech, the neural pathway became very strong and well

grooved. It became so well grooved that my speech could not go into auto pilot mode

whenever I would think about my speech first. My brain was carrying out my wishes

perfectly. It allowed me to speak but usually not without monitoring the majority of the

words I spoke.

Additionally, since I was monitoring my speech for the specific purpose of not stumbling

over my words my brain created another pathway called “stumbling over my words”.

You see, this is a very important thing to grasp - although my intention was to monitor

my words for the purpose of avoiding blocking my brain only recognized that I was

thinking about blocking and so it worked to produce blocking.

Our brain works to fulfill our wishes and uses our thought process as commands to fulfill.

It does not have the ability to discern my thoughts as positive or negative; it just takes my

thoughts and assumes that is what I want.

So if I continuously think about not wanting to block my brain only knows that I am

thinking about blocking and so it works to fulfill my blocking command. Again, it cannot



51

discern that I want to avoid blocking; it only knows that blocking is what I am thinking

about. This, my friend, is why it is so important to stop thinking about blocking.

So your question may be, “Since I have developed strong blocking neural pathways in

my brain is there any way to change or destroy the pathways?” The good news is that the

answer is a big YES! I will share with you more on this topic in my next letter but for

now I want to give you time to digest what I have told you about the functioning of your

brain.

Your Friend



52

IS IT POSSIBLE TO STOP THE OBSESSIVE THOUGHTS?

Dear Dan,

For many years neuro-scientists and psychiatry claimed that once you reach adulthood

there is no way to undue the neuropathways in your brain. In fact, this has been the belief

since 1913 when neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal proclaimed that “the nerve

paths are fixed, ended and immutable”.

This proclamation about the brain has been as damaging over the last 100 years as the

proclamation that blocking cannot be over come. In effect, if this were true it would mean

that the neural pathways that we created to reinforce blocking would have been

permanently embedded in our brain and there would be no hope for overcoming

blocking. This may play a role in why the medical community has always insisted that

blocking cannot be cured. This is my guess only.

As strange as it may seem, even though I had read a lot about the brain not being able to

be changed after adulthood I never held that belief just like I never held the belief that

blocking cannot be overcome. In my uneducated, simplistic mind what the

neuroscientists and psychologists were saying did not make sense to me.

One reason I was never able to buy into the unchangeable brain theory is that I had

always held a strong belief (and still do) that I can do anything I want and learn anything

I want as long as I am willing to practice it. Nothing is out of bounds for me. If I have the

interest and invest the time to practice, I can play any instrument, learn any sport, learn

micro biology and even become a rocket scientist. All it requires is an interest on my part

and dedication to learning and practicing.

I believe this is true not only for me but for every human being on planet Earth. Because I

have always had this belief, the neuro-scientists and psychologists claim that your brain

cannot be changed after adulthood never made sense to me. Learning a new task requires

new neural pathways to be developed and since we as adults are able to learn new tasks

that meant that we were creating new neural pathways.



53

I also was able to end some behaviors and habits that I know were well grooved in my

brain and once I ended those behaviors and habits I knew the neural pathways were no

longer well grooved because they were not being utilized any more.

I know what I am saying is very simplistic and I am sure a neuro-scientist or psychologist

could explain in technical terms why they declared that the brain is immutable but none

of that mattered to me. I knew I could change my brain anytime I decided to do so.

You may be thinking, “Ok, you can learn new things and add neural pathways but can

you stop using current neural pathways already established in the brain…such as the

stuttering pathway?” That would be a fair question and the short answer for now is

“absolutely!”. I will explain how this works shortly but first I want to tell you about

recent studies concerning the plasticity of the adult brain.

It should excite you to know that now after 100 years of the doom and gloom predictions

about the brain being unchangeable; many neuro-scientists and psychologists have

changed their mind. Towards the end of the twentieth century neuro-scientists conducted

numerous studies that showed that the adult mind can be rewired. Not only can it be

rewired but it retains superb powers of neuroplasticity. In the book, “Train Your Mind

Change Your Brain” by Sharon Begley (I highly recommend you read this book in its

entirety) the author writes:

“The brain can indeed be rewired. It can expand the area that is wired to

move the fingers, forgoing new connections that underpin the dexterity of

an accomplished violinist. It can activate long dormant wires and run new

cables like an electrician bringing an old house up to code, so that regions

that once saw can now feel and hear. It can quiet circuits that once

crackled with the aberrant activity that characterizes depression and cut

pathological connections that keep the brain in the oh-god-something-is-

wrong state that marks obsessive-compulsive disorder.



54

The adult brain, in short, retains much of the plasticity of the developing

brain, including the power to repair damaged regions, to grow new

neurons, to rezone regions that performed one task and have them assume

a new task, to change the circuitry that weaves neurons into the networks

that allow us to remember, feel, suffer, think, imagine, and dream.”

Notice again what the author says above about current neural pathways in the

brain, “It can quiet circuits that once crackled with the aberrant activity that

characterizes depression and cut pathological connections that keep the brain in

the oh-god-something-is-wrong state that marks obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

The author’s statement is based off of scientific evidence not just her beliefs. This

means that the circuits you and I have developed over the years that created and

reinforced the “stuttering” pathways can also be quieted and the connections cut.

I am eager to continue this conversation with you and discuss the ways in which

you can quiet, and cut, the circuits in your brain that cause you to unendingly

think about blocking. I will do in my next letter, but for now I want to leave you

with one more interesting piece of information about your brain that will help you

as you work on overcoming blocking.

Your brain is only capable of having one conscious thought at a time. You can

have an endless number of thoughts within a 60 second period of time but the

current thought must leave when the new thought enters.

Your Friend



55

CHAPTER THREE

Stopping the Maddening Thoughts

Dear Dan,

I hope you have had ample time to digest what I wrote to you in my last few

letters. I want to continue to talk with you about the issue of being obsessed with

thinking about blocking. Since this is such a difficult issue for people who block I

think it is important to spend as much time on the topic as needed.

My hope is that you now have the knowledge and belief that you can stop

thinking about blocking even though at this point you are not sure how to do it. I

can almost feel your eagerness at wanting to know specifically how to do it and I

am eager to share the information with you.

However, I want you to know that while I will be discussing some secrets that I

used to effectively get blocking off of my mind, you will see as I continue my

correspondence to you that everything I share with you from this point forward

played play a role in my ability to eliminate thoughts of blocking from my mind.

I had to look at this issue not as a separate issue that I could conquer

independently, but as a part of the whole system. You will understand what I am

saying more fully as you continue to read my letters.

Let’s move on to discuss how to get blocking off of our mind. First of all, if we

want to put an end to a well grooved pathway in our brain, such as the thoughts of

blocking, we must stop using that pathway. The old saying “use it or lose it” is

very true when it comes to neural pathways in your brain. If we do not use the

pathways they eventually shrink up and lose their electric charge. This is

wonderful news for people who block. It means that if we stop using the blocking



56

neural pathway it will eventually become non functional unless at some point we

start to use it again.

An example of this is that for many years I struggled with words beginning with

‘C’. Any time I would start a sentence such as “Can I go outside and play?” or

“Could you come here for a minute?” I would find myself in a major holding back

problem. Later, I realized that the reason I struggled with words that began with

‘C’ is because I had associated these words with asking for something from

someone, which meant that I was being too aggressive.

After realizing what the real issue was around the ‘C’ words I began to practice

saying those sentences over and over. Eventually, I got to a point where I could

say them to someone if I spoke very slowly and maintained an outward breath as I

said the word. I also allowed myself to fully acknowledge the fear I felt when I

said the words.

Sometime later, I noticed that I was saying the dreaded ‘C’ words without holding

back. In essence, I had created a new neuro-pathway in my brain that allowed me

to say ‘C’ words without holding back and without even realizing that I was

saying them without a struggle.

So how do you stop using it? Obviously, the way to stop using that neural

pathway is to stop thinking about blocking. Keep in mind, though, that you

probably have a lot of other neural pathways that are connected to the blocking

pathway. Let me give you another example.

If I asked you to give a group of 100 people a presentation on any topic you desire

your first thought might be,” I can’t because I block!” At almost the same instant

you would probably begin to feel panic, stress, anxiety and fear. Am I correct? I

know for me the simple word “presentation” threw me into a full fledged blocking

panic attack so I have to assume it is also similar for you. If that is the case then

you can reasonably assume that not only do you have a well grooved blocking



57

neural pathway, but you also have a panic, stress, anxiety, and fear neural

pathway attached to the blocking pathway.

In short what this means is that when we think about blocking the other neural

pathways also get charged and we begin to feel all those icky feelings associated

with blocking. The good news is that if we stop using the blocking neural

pathway the other pathways attached to it will also diminish. However, I also

knew that the panic, stress, anxiety, and fear would have to be dealt with if I ever

expected to be free from blocking. I will address those issues in a later

correspondence though. For now, I want to continue to talk about getting blocking

off of our mind.

But before I move on I want to reiterate that removing blocking from your

thoughts is a process. I will share the process I used with you in my next letter and

I think it will be helpful to you in your journey, but since we are all different you

may find other techniques and tools that will work equally as well or better for

you. The one recommendation I can give you is to simply trust yourself in the

process. You will be amazed at how important information and needed steps

come to your awareness from seemingly out of no where.

One of the first tasks I did to stop thinking about blocking was to become aware

of my thoughts. I did this simply by making a conscious effort to pay attention to

what I was thinking about at any given moment. I made a point to stop myself

several times during the day and identify the thought that I was having regardless

of whether it was blocking related or not. My goal was just to get very familiar

with how my thought process was currently operating. This is where keeping a

journal was invaluable to me. Eventually, I got to a point where I became very

aware of my thoughts the majority of the time.

When I was first trying to pay attention to my thoughts, I would pretend I was just

listening in on myself, like a nosey neighbor would do. It made it more like a



58

game for me and helped me to disassociate from the thoughts a little by becoming

an observer instead of an active participant in my own thought process.

What is mind boggling to me is that although in the last couple of years I have

read a lot of material about the benefits of moving into an “observer” position, at

the time I first started monitoring my thoughts I had never heard of the concept of

an “observer”. This was just another time that I had been guided, so-to-speak, in

doing something that apparently was known by others for a very long time. I

implemented it into my journey in overcoming blocking without realizing that it

was a legitimate exercise that psychologists, religious leaders, and a host of others

were doing and recommending to their clients.

Let me explain to you what an “observer” is and why it is an invaluable tool in

overcoming blocking. When we take an observer position what we are basically

doing is watching and/ or monitoring our self from an outsider’s perspective. We

are, in essence, viewing our self as other people would view us and instead of

being in the experience we are watching the experience.

The general rules of being an observer of yourself is that an observer has only one

job and that is to observe. This means that when we are observing our thoughts,

we cannot judge our thought as good or bad and we cannot despise the fact that

we have the thoughts. If we start judging our thoughts in that manner it means that

we have moved out of the observer role. Our job as an observer is to just be aware

and notice the thoughts we are having.

This is a good time for me to close for now so that you can have some time to

contemplate what I have said. My hope is that by my next letter you will have

spent some time observing your thoughts.

Your Friend



59

TAKING A POWERFUL POSITION

Dear Dan,

Now that you have spent some time observing your thoughts, and as you continue

to do so, you will soon become attuned to your thoughts and will notice that your

awareness of them will become automatic. Eventually, even subconscious

thoughts will start coming to your awareness.

I remember the first time I was able to identify a subconscious thought and bring

it into full awareness. It was kind of eerie at first because I was not used to

hearing the thoughts in the back of my mind.

It happened one day when I was sitting on the sofa. It was very quiet in the room

and I was taking a momentary rest period. It is hard to explain but I caught a

couple words of something I was saying to myself. It was like it was buried deep

inside my brain and that is why I only caught a couple of words. In fact, it would

have gone completely unnoticed if I had not spent significant time prior to this

incident monitoring my thoughts.

As soon as I realized that I heard those two words, I focused on them to try and

get the full sentence. Amazingly it worked and I heard myself say a very self

defeating comment. Once I heard the comment on a conscious level, I was able to

evaluate it to see if it had any validity. I realized how silly the comment was so I

was able to remove the thought. This one experience made me wonder how many

other thoughts were lurking below the surface that I had not caught yet.

Eventually, I became fairly good at digging out subconscious thoughts. You will

probably have the same experience somewhere along your journey if you stick

with it.

As I mentioned earlier, willing myself to stop thinking about blocking just was

not going to work - Especially when I knew there was another dreaded speaking

situation coming up that I was concerned about. During those times I obsessed



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with blocking thoughts. I reran the words over in my head so many times that a

non- blocking person would have declared me insane if they were able to see my

thought process. How in the world can you ever stop those situations? I will tell

you what I learned.

First of all, I learned that it was very difficult to try and stop my thoughts during

those highly emotional times, at least at the beginning of trying to manage my

thoughts. In fact, trying to end those thoughts at times like that will simply not

work. I discovered that I had to backdoor the highly emotional times by just

allowing them to happen for the time being. I knew that I would have to start on

smaller stuff first - like when I spoke to my mom or a co-worker.

Those were times that I would block but I would not experience such a heightened

emotional meltdown prior to speaking with them. I had a hunch that if I could

control my thoughts in the less intense moments it would also eventually have an

affect on the more intense moments. I was correct in my thinking.

However, I want to share a secret with you. I touched upon it a little in my last

letter and I believe you are now ready to hear something very important that I

think every person who blocks should know.

In my last letter I discussed the role of an observer. Remember that I said the role

of an observer is to watch and monitor your thoughts as though you are a

spectator without any judgment on the thoughts. I indicated that you are to simply

observe as though you are an objective third party. What I did not tell you in my

last letter is the power that an observer role has.

You see, I learned that as an observer I was placing myself in a unique and

powerful position to continue in that role and begin recognizing that my thoughts

of blocking are just transient mental events that flow through my mind.



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I learned that by continuing to take on the observer role, I eventually realize that I

do not have to identify with the blocking thoughts that seemed to plague my

mind. I learned that they are just activities of my brain. At that time I tended to

think of the never ending thoughts of blocking as real and because they were real

to me, I gave the thoughts a lot of negative meaning which produced fear, anxiety,

stress and panic which inevitably leads to blocking.

Being in the observer role really helped me to understand that the essence of who

I am is very different from my brain activity. My brain may be shooting electrical

charges across the blocking thoughts pathway but as an observer I took a higher

role and immediately begin to see the thoughts as nothing more than brain activity

that is creating blocking thoughts. Since it is separate from who I really am, I was

able to recognize it as simply a thought and not reality.

Many years later I was reading some studies conducted with people who struggled

with various issues such as depression and OCD. The studies were set up to find

out if moving to an observer role through cognitive therapy actually changed the

brain circuitry and pathways.

The results are mind blowing and caused the neuro-scientists to repeat the study

several times to ensure their finding were accurate. All of the tests produced the

same results. The finding was finalized… the brain circuitry and pathways were

substantially altered! They also found that relapse in patients who underwent this

type of therapy was significantly reduced.

After reading the study I knew why playing the observer role was so effective in

eliminating the thoughts of blocking in my brain. Once I recognized them as

simply brain activity (electrical charges running across the pathways) instead of

identifying them as something real that I need to pay attention to, and as soon as I

stopped identifying the thoughts as a part of who I am they eventually lost their

charge. The fear, stress, anxiety and panic that were fueling the electrical charges



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in my brain started to subside. Blocking cannot survive without the fuel that feeds

it.

Your Friend



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WHAT DOES MY BRAIN HAVE TO DO WITH ME?

Dear Dan,

In my last letter I touched on a topic that is a very important and I want to make

sure you understand because if you do it could make a great shift in the way you

think about yourself and your brain. Let me start by asking you a question.

How many times throughout your life have you had the thought that there are two

of you living inside of one body? One person that wants to do what is right in life

and the other who is very selfish and only looks out for its own interest. Does that

sound familiar?

You will recognize what I am saying by reflecting on the times when you uttered

words such as, “I don’t know what made me do that?” or perhaps you had to

apologize to someone for saying something in a moment of anger and you weren’t

sure what made you so angry?

What about the two voices in your head? You know, the one that talks about

revenge and instills a deep need to vindicate yourself when you perceive someone

did something to you or against you and the other one that says to let it go. Who is

that talking when you are having a steady stream of panic thoughts about an

upcoming speaking event and another voice interrupts and says, “If I keep

thinking about this I will drive myself nuts!”

What about the voice in your head that wants to tell your boss to take a flying leap

but a second voice comes along and says that it is not worth the consequences so

you better keep your mouth shut? Who are you talking to in your head and why

are there two voices?

It sounds like I am talking about a schizophrenic person doesn’t it? The truth is I

am talking about all of us. We all talk to ourselves in our head and we all respond

to ourselves in various ways. One of the things that set a schizophrenic person



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apart is the degree to which that person does it. You and I are considered normal

because we do not do it to a degree that is noticeable to the outside world. I would

imagine that if you started walking down a busy street saying everything out loud

that was going on in your brain you would be locked up fairly quickly.

I used to ask myself a lot, “Who is talking as I am having a mental blocking break

down”? Who were those two voices in my head; one that wanted to obsess over

blocking threats, and, the other who wanted to calm me down and bring peace

back into my thoughts?

We all seem to have these two “personalities” living within us and this has been

the subject of philosophers, authors, religious people and spiritual leaders since

the beginning of time.

Listen to what Paul says in the book of Romans concerning this phenomenon:

“…I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I

do not do, but what I hate I do…as it is, it is no longer I myself

who do it, but it is sin living in me that is my sinful nature. For I

have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For

what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to

do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is

no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (NIV

Romans 7:15-20)

The Christian religion calls it a sinful nature, Buddhism relates it to

suffering, and Muslims relate to it as a fight between good and evil.

Regardless of what your belief system is we all seem to have the same

issue with duplicity within us. We have all been taught that it is something

we must overcome and fight against so we can prevail as “good” human

beings.



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I know for many years I struggled to understand the duplicity within me. It

drove me nuts trying to figure out why I do what I do and why I can’t

overcome the things I want to overcome…like blocking.

Not only that but I had also made a gruesome discovery about myself that

bothered me for years. I realized that no matter what I did, whether it was

good or bad, it all had a very selfish motive attached to it. I could not even

seek refuge in the good things I did for others because it became painfully

obvious to me that one of the primary reasons I did good things was

simply to feel good about myself and to make sure I did not lose favor

with God.

I saw this ugliness inside of me that I was powerless to escape from. The

more I dug into who I really was the more I came up with things I was not

very proud of…it was devastating to me and made me realize the fallacy

in my own self perception.

I almost became bitter at the world and God because I felt they had

deceived me into believing I was someone that I now know I really

wasn’t.

Then it happened. I am not sure when it happened but it just seemed to

click one day after I had read many books about the brain and spent a

significant amount of time paying attention to my thoughts, beliefs, values

and perceptions. The answer seemed so clear that I was not sure how I

missed it for so long.

The answer was that the two parts I was identifying with as who I am

included 1.) My brain and how it functions and 2.) The real me which

many of us relate to as the spirit or consciousness. But in reality, there was

only one part to me and that was the real me or the spirit inside of my

body.



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For almost my entire life I had assumed that my brain and what it

produced was the real me. Every thought I had that came from my brain I

assumed and identified as who I was.

If I spent 5 minutes cussing someone out in my head because they had just

laughed at me for blocking or said something else that hurt my feelings I

would feel guilty later on for being such a horrible person. If I had a

moment of road rage I would later question rather I was really a Christian.

After all, a real Christian does not behave that way. I would continue to

spiral down from there until I saw myself in the pit of hell.

My entire self image was based on my identification with the functions of

my brain. After all it was my brain so it had to be the real me, right? Keep

in mind the functions of my brain included my perceptions and beliefs

about the external world around me which is filled with people, the very

thing I identified earlier as my main problem that resulted in a symptom of

blocking.

When I identified myself with the brain activity going on inside of my

skull, it caused all kinds of dysfunction in my life. I was also identifying

with every thought and every action that I did as though it was me, and

because I was brought up in a Christian home I held many of the same

rules that most Christians hold…things like:

• I have to attain perfection.

• Sin must be conquered.

• I must love everyone and if I fail I have sinned.

• I must forgive everyone and if I don’t God won’t forgive me and I

will be under his wrath.

• I cannot lose my temper and say any thing mean to another person

because it is sinful and God will not be pleased with me.



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• I must discover God’s will for my life and fulfill it so he will be

pleased with me.

The list could go on and on but for sake of time I will assume you get the

picture.

I am sure you can see that much of my interpretation of the Christian rules

were flawed but the point I want to make is that those were the rules I

lived by, so when I failed (which was a lot!) I identified the failure with

who I am and began to think thoughts like

• “I am unworthy”,

• “I am a sinner destined for hell”,

• “God must not really be with me or I would not behave in this

manner”,

• “Something is wrong with me”, and;

• “I wonder if I am possessed”.

All the thoughts were very self-defeating and fed into my blocking

mentality of not being good enough and needing to hide from people.

But when I really got a good understanding of the difference between the

mind and the real me, it exploded all the false perceptions I had been

holding about myself. I felt as though a part of me was set free. I believe it

will do the same for you too.

So, let’s talk about the two separate parts that we identify with as who we

really are. I will start with the mistaken identification that our brain or the

mind is who we really are.



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Many of us consider the brain and all of its mind activity to be who we are

but is that really true? I think on closer examination you will see that not

only is it not true, but it is not possible.

One of the simplest examples I can give you is to ask you if you lost your

finger in an accident will you still be you or was the real you contained in

your finger? Obviously we can both agree that the real you was not

located in your finger. But what if you lose a more significant body part

such as an arm or a leg, would that mean you lost a part of who you really

are?

I think you would also agree here that losing an arm or a leg means you

lost a part of your body but it has no impact on the real you. You are still

you in your body even if your body no longer has an arm or a leg.

What about if you lose a body part that is essential in being able to stay

alive… such as your heart? If your heart stopped beating you would

definitely die if it did not start beating again, but what if you knew you

had a bad heart and the doctors gave you a heart transplant? Would the

real you die with your original heart? Of course not, so who you are must

not be contained in the essential body parts either.

All of our body parts are simply the vehicle that we travel in during the 90

or so years on this earth. If we lose one of our body parts we have only

lost a body part but we have not lost the real person occupying that body.

The brain is no different. It is a body part. I believe it is possible that one

day we will create an artificial brain. Imagine the potential! If someone

who is “brain dead” as we call it and barely hanging onto life could have

an artificial brain replace his damaged brain then he could continue on

with life. I do not see any reason why it cannot be done eventually.



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Think about that for a second. If we were able to provide an artificial brain

to someone who needed it then we could also program the brain with

healthy neural pathways so that individual would always be able to do

only what he wanted to do and would no longer be tormented by the

duplicity within. However, the new brain would also have to be

programmed with a fight or flight mechanism or the person will die within

a short amount of time. It is the fight or flight mechanism, or survival

instinct that seems to give us humans such a difficult time as I will explain

in a minute.

I know I have entered into the realm of science fiction but it makes a clear

point. The brain is a body part and nothing more.

Remember earlier I talked about how the brain functions and the effect it

has on our daily lives? The brain has a very important function because it

is the main tool used to help us interpret and give meaning to the world

around us. The brain is also highly intelligent when it has the proper

information filtering in to it. We could not live without it. With that being

said, unfortunately human beings have made a sad error in identifying the

brain and the activities of the brain as who we are.

Let me share a story with you that I believe will help explain something

about the brain that most of us are not aware of.

One day I made a right hand turn on a red light even though there was a

sign that said, “No turn on red”. This one indiscretion of mine almost

caused an accident. The other driver became upset and began to honk his

horn at me and wave at me with his middle finger. When he passed me, I

saw that he had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said “Jesus

loves you and so do I”. Now, do you think in that moment when he was

honking and waving at me with his middle finger that he believed what his

bumper sticker indicated?



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The answer is yes, he did believe it. His behavior in that moment was not

an indication of his beliefs - it was a demonstration of his brain activity

which happens to have a very physiological explanation as to why he

behaved like that. Let me explain.

As you may be aware our brains are hard wired to go into a fight or flight

response when we feel threatened. This was created in us to help preserve

our life when something threatening occurs. While the fight or flight

response is critical to our survival it also has a weakness that has plague

man kind since the beginning of time.

The problem with the fight or flight response of our brain is that the brain

goes into fight or flight mode when it is given an instruction to do so.

When we have a threatening emotion, triggered by a thought, regardless if

the threat is real or not (our brain cannot determine what is real and what

is not real) it automatically releases chemicals into the brain. These

chemicals include Cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenalin.

What you may not be aware of is what these chemicals actually do to you

when they are pulsing through your brain. To understand the impact of

these chemicals let’s revisit the gentleman who became upset with me.

The gentleman in the car, let’s call him Tom for simplicity sake, was

probably riding in his car peacefully until he found himself at the red light

having to slam on his breaks to avoid hitting me. He immediately began to

feel fear which automatically alerted the Amygdala in the brain to become

alert. (The amygdale is the site for emotional memory and it is where the

flight or flight response is triggered.).



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Tom’s amygdala became alert because Tom’s emotion of fear alerted the

amygdala of impending danger. Again, keep in mind the amygdala has no

way to tell if the threat is real or perceived. It also has no ability to

determine the level of threat. It takes its cues solely based off of Tom’s

emotions.

Once the amygdala was activated by Tom’s fear it automatically released

cortisol and various other chemicals into Tom’s brain. These chemicals,

by design of our creator, shut down the Neo Cortex part of his brain which

is the part of the brain responsible for the reasoning, IQ, and working

memory. The fact that these chemicals shut down the reasoning part of our

brain when we go into fight or flight mode is nothing short of miraculous.

If there is a real threat to your survival you would want the reasoning part

of your brain to shut down, because in real life and death situations you do

not have time to reason things out you just need to act.

So what I am saying is that you mentally lose your ability to reason things

out when the fight or flight response is activated. You lose your ability to

“do the right thing” because your brain is not interested in the right thing it

is only interested in survival. You could not do the right thing in that

moment if your life depended on it. Your physical body has taken that

ability away to ensure your survival.

As you know not everything is really a life and death threat. In fact most

of what happens to us in life is not a life and death threat at all. But the

amygdala does not know that because it is only reading your emotions. So

we find ourselves doing and saying things that we later regret.

Back to Tom. Now that his amygdala has been alerted and the chemical

released in Tom’s brain, they travel straight to Tom’s Neo Cortex to shut

down his ability to reason and think logically. All of this happens in less

than a split second.



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So, Tom is physically only able to respond to the near collision in the fight

or flight response, otherwise known as the survival mode. His brain thinks,

due to his heightened emotional state, that he needs protection. In

response, his amygdala shuts down his logical thinking. The only possible

way his brain will allow him to respond to the situation, at this point, is to

either fight or run. In Tom’s case, his brain decided to fight. This caused

Tom to speed past me while waving at me with his middle finger.

Tom’s ability to reason through the situation was substantially and in most

cases entirely gone. He had, quite literally, “lost his mind”.

It is also interesting to know that once these chemicals hit your blood

stream it takes 3 -4 hours for the chemicals in the blood to completely

clear. Tom was probably without his logical mind for the next 3-4 hours

that day.

If Tom had known about the normal physiological make up of our brain

and understood what had just happened to him he would have known that

his behavior in the car was normal physiologic brain activity…it was not

Tom.

Just as a side note, I am not eliminating responsibility for our actions and

behaviors but it is important to understand where they are coming from

before we start burdening ourselves and others with our petty

condemnation and judgments. Also, there is a way to deal with our

emotions so that our amygdala does not hijack our Neo Cortex at every

turn, but I need to cover a few more things with you before I jump into a

discussion concerning emotions.

You may wonder what impact the amygdala has on those of us who block.

Let me give you an example of one of my past panic attacks so you can



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see what is happening in our brains when those of us who block are in a

state of panic over speaking.

Many years ago when my career was first getting off the ground my boss

asked me to give a presentation at the next company meeting. The

company meetings were held once a month and all 350 employees of the

company were expected to attend, which they did.

The moment my boss mentioned the word “presentation” I went into full

fledge panic mode. My heart began to beat so fast I thought it would pop

out of my chest, my hands became sweaty, my blood pressure went

through the roof, and I was having a hard time breathing. I was so upset

that I did not hear another word my boss said to me.

I went back to my desk thinking “Oh my God, I can’t do this! How am I

going to get out of it? Maybe I will call in sick. Maybe I will just quit

before the day the company meeting is scheduled.” The panic thoughts

were endless for the next several hours. It wasn’t until later that evening

that I was able to calm down a little but only because I had convinced

myself that I would find a way out of giving the presentation. However, I

loved my job and there was no way I wanted to quit, so each time I

realized that I really did not have a viable way to get out of giving the

presentation I went right back into panic mode and the cycle started over.

You can probably see pretty clearly by now that the word “presentation”

was a trigger point that activated the amygdala in my brain. Once the

amygdala was activated the chemicals it distributed put me in full fledge

flight or fight mode. Which meant it also shut down my Neo Cortex

thereby rendering my logical thinking abilities useless.

At that time my brain was only interested in survival and so I was

powerless to do anything except to fight or run to ensure my survival. In



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my case, my fight or flight response was to run from the threat and find a

way to avoid giving the presentation.

Once I found myself in the fight or flight response over giving the

presentation it would have been very difficult if not impossible to logically

reason out the situation. I would not have been able to remember, much

less incorporate, any empowering thoughts or more resourceful states of

mind because it would have been physiologically impossible to do so.

So if you have ever wondered why you were unable to break free from

these panic moments, now you know. You may wonder if your situation

is hopeless and if you have no choice but to be at the mercy of your

amygdala. Let me assure you that your situation is not hopeless and that

you do not have to be at the mercy of your amygdala. Stay with me and I

will explain at the appropriate time what the solution is to our fight or

flight response.

For now I just want you to understand that your brain does not determine

who you are, it only determines how this life will be played out. The way

it has been formatted so-to-speak by your experiences, beliefs, values, and

perceptions determines only how you will see the world, what your reality

is comprised of and what you will most likely experience in the future.

Since blocking resides as a symptom of the way we have consciously and

most likely, unconsciously formatted our brain through our experiences,

values and beliefs, we can safely say that stuttering is an activity of the

brain. It is not who you are.

Your Friend



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CHAPTER FOUR

VIEWING MY IDENTITY FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Dear Dan,

I know you probably have a lot of questions running through your mind right now

and one of them most likely is; “If my mind is not me and I am not my

mind…who am I?”

That is the very question I sought to figure out for myself. I had gained some

clarity on that question by observing myself when I was fluent but as the years

progressed and additional information was made known to me, like the

information I just shared with you concerning the amygdala and neo cortex in

your brain, I began to wonder who I really was apart from my brain. If I did not

factor my brain in the equation to answer the question of who I am, that meant

that everything I thought about myself was no longer valid.

I also came to understand that the reason I always had a hard time figuring out

who I really was as a person was because I was trying to identify myself by

something that constantly changes and sometimes changes on a moment by

moment basis.

It became apparent to me that when we use our brain activity to determine who

we are our identity changes depending on the day, our experiences, and our

interactions with others. Part of the reason for this is because our brain is the tool

we use in this world to interpret the world around us. Since the world around us is

changing all the time it means our interpretations are also being modified based

on the external activity.



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For example, there were many days I thought I was a good person but if I were to

have taken a good hard look at why I felt that way it probably had more to do with

having positive interactions with other people that day. Those positive

interactions made me feel good about who I was so my self perception or my

identity was based on the thought that I must be a good person.

Conversely, there were many days that I thought I was a poor excuse for a human

being. Again, upon closer examination, those were the days where I had a conflict

with another person or maybe did not accomplish a goal that I felt I should have

accomplished or perhaps in my mind even behaved in a manner unacceptable for

a Christian.

The point being that using the activities of my brain to define who I am can only

result in a constantly changing identity. No wonder so many of us seem to be so

confused over who we really are.

I rarely run across anyone who does not identify themselves based on their brain

activity. If you would have met me several years ago I would have identified

myself to you as: a 30 something year old, fairly successful, female, human

resource executive who was also a Christian, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a

counselor, and a mediator. I saw myself as having a really good side that

genuinely wanted to do what was right in life and to love others the way God

wanted me to love them.

But I also saw myself as being defective in many areas of life to include my

speech, being insecure, being selfish, being self centered, wanting to please

people for my own gain, wanting the approval of others so I could feel good about

myself, and wanting to be perfect so I would be accepted.

What I was actually identifying was my brain activity not who I really am.

Everything I listed above is just brain activity interpreting the external world. For

example, I occupy a female body while I am here in the world, My body is middle



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aged, I work as a human resource executive, I chose to live in this world under

Christian principles, I have various relationships with others that we semantically

call sister, daughter, friend, etc, I do things that I have defined as good and I also

do things that I have defined as bad, I behave in a selfish, self centered manner at

times and I struggled with blocking for many years. None of these things are who

I am; they are simply things I do while I live on this earth.

I realized that if I wanted to figure out who I really was I would have to look at

myself from a different perspective that did not include my brain activity. I knew

I would have to approach the question of who I was by asking different questions.

I could no longer ask myself what role I play in life, what behavior I exhibit day

to day or what I believed other people thought of me in an effort to define who I

was. The only response I would get from these sort of questions was an awareness

of how I was running my brain.

I want to stop here and mention that asking ourselves the above questions to gain

an understanding of how we are running our brain is absolutely valid and

necessary when we attempt to become skilled at running our own brains instead

of allowing them to run us. Learning to run your own brain is something I will

discuss with you in a future letter, but asking these types of questions in an effort

to understand and define who we are is a function that leads to misidentification

of who we really are. This in turn leads to a whole host of other psychological

issues.

The question then becomes what new questions could we possibly ask ourselves

to try and identify who we really are? We know that we have to avoid any

questions that lead us to utilizing our brain activities to identify ourselves so we

have to use questions that bring us to a point before our brain activity takes over.

Several questions that I used that proved extremely beneficial to me were:



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1. Who was I moments after I was born, the time before I learned to evaluate

and judge the world around me?

2. Who was I the second before I felt any emotions based off of the labels

and judgments I have placed on me and the world around me?

3. Who am I when my mind is silent?

4. Who would I be if I were the only person on earth?

5. Who would I be if I really believed there was nothing to gain and nothing

to lose?

This type of questioning really helped me to remove the brain activity in my head

and it’s relation to the external world from the equation. It provided me with an

opportunity to peer inside of myself without the pollution of the external realities

I had created inside of my mind.

It was interesting to me because the more I asked myself those types of questions

the more I had the sense that I simply…just am. At one point in the Old

Testament God identified himself as “I Am”.³ The Old Testament also indicates

that we are made in his image and asking myself this new set of questions caused

me to feel as though I had a better understanding of what being made in his image

meant. It was the first time I have ever had a sense of just being. No labels, no

judgments, no perceptions, nothing. I just am.

That was just the beginning though. The next line of questioning I embarked upon

was “Why?” I wanted to know what the purpose in “just being” was. What was I

doing and why was I doing it?

I used the same line of questioning this time around to see if I could gain any

understanding. Of course I had to change the questions slightly. Instead of asking

who I was I asked:

1. What was I doing moments after my birth?

2. What am I doing when my mind is silent?



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3. What would I be doing if I were the only person on earth?

4. What would I be doing if I really believed there was nothing to gain and

nothing to lose?

I contemplated these questions as earnestly as I did the previous questions and the

answer I came up with was as startling as the answer I came up with on the first

set of questions. What I was, am, and would be doing is experiencing and

observing.

Let’s talk about that for a moment. If you look at the question; “What was I doing

moments after my birth?” it is obvious that I was not identifying and labeling the

world around me because I had no idea how to identify and label things due to my

absence of language abilities. It is also obvious that I was not doing anything

physically except “just being” since I had not developed to a point where I could

control my body in any fashion. There was not a lot I could do to participate in the

world around me with the exception of observing and experiencing the new

sensations that I was feeling through the few senses that were functioning at that

time.

Again, on the next question; “What am I doing when my mind is silent?” Well,

first of all, getting my mind to be silent was very difficult but during the brief

moments I could do it I was “just being”. I realized that if my mind is silent then I

could only be observing and experiencing. I would be impossible for me to be

labeling and judging because my mind would need to be in an active mode to

carry those tasks out.

The third question asks what I would be doing if I were the only person on earth.

This question also leads me to the same tasks of observing and experiencing.

Although I may be physically active hunting for food and trying to survive, every

action I engaged in would be absent of labeling and judging. The reason this is so

is because I would not know how to place judgment and place labels on things if

the culture and society I lived in did not teach me a specific language and also did



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not dictate and/or teach me what is right, wrong, up , down, black, white, success,

failure, and on and on.

The fourth question is interesting and can lead us down a variety of different

roads in our responses. However, I believe that if I had nothing to gain or to lose I

would just observe and experience the world around me. This does not mean that

I would not engage in external activities - it just means that everything I engaged

in would be for the sole purpose of having the experience and observing the world

around me.

The ultimate answer to all of these questions is that I would simply be observing

and experiencing. Recognizing this seemed to explain why playing the observer

role in our everyday lives is such a powerful tool. It works because a part of who

we are designed to be is an observer. It seems to be a part of our essence. Which

begs a host of other questions but for our purposes namely, overcoming blocking,

I will move on.

At this point I have identified that my identity at its very core was simply “I just

am” and that revealed that my being-ness, for lack of a better term, was

experiencing and observing. My next question to myself was if I just am and what

I do is observe and experience void of all labeling, judgment and therefore void of

all emotion generated by labeling and judging the world around me, then what am

I feeling?

I wanted to know what feeling was at the core of who I am. What is the feeling

when I am absent of any judgment and label based emotions? What was I feeling

the day before I was born?

The answer to this question came to me after spending several months meditating

and contemplating on these very questions. I felt like I was on to something and I

wanted to continue digging into this aspect of myself because I knew if I could

find out the truth about who I am and what my true identity was really comprised



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of it would help me in my quest to overcome blocking. In essence, I knew it

would give me a solid foundation to build on, and aid me in running my own

brain instead of my brain running me.

I remember lying in bed one morning trying to imagine what I would be feeling

knowing that “I just am” and that what I do is experience and observe. I kept

asking myself, “How would I feel if there were no labels and no judgments and all

I did was experience and observe?”

I realized that what I would feel and be is peaceful, content, and blissful. How

could I possibly feel or be any other way if all judgment and labels were

nonexistent and what I did in my being-ness is experience and observe? And if I

am peaceful, content and blissful is that any different than pure love?

I concluded then that who I am at the core and who you and everyone else is at

the core is love. That is our essence. From that moment on I was convinced that

every one of us is pure love at the core of our being.

I am not making an assumption that this is what you will discover about your true

identity. I think it is a very personal path that each person has to take on their own

and come to their own conclusions. However, I will not be at all surprised if that

is exactly what you discover also.

What I do want to tell you, though, is gaining this clarity about who I really am

made a huge difference in almost every aspect of my life. For starters, it solidified

my ability to distinguish the brain activity inside of my head and no longer use it

as an identifying mechanism.

The realization that at our core we are all love also allowed me to make huge

leaps in identifying erroneous beliefs, values, and perceptions. Quite literally, my

measuring stick about myself and the world around me had made a transformation

that I would have never guessed possible. Everything looked different to me from



82

that point on. Especially the thing that scared me the most in this world…people’s

perception of me.

As I indicated, I knew that if my identity at its core was love then I also knew that

every human being had that same identity at their core. Have you ever been afraid

of something that is love? It is not possible. My fear of people’s perception of me

subsided greatly after that. It was a mind shift that proved to be very powerful.

I do not want to send the wrong message and make you think that I no longer

experienced fear of other people’s perception of me at all. I did, but it was not to

the same magnitude that it had been most of my life. I had clarity that I had never

experienced before and it was priceless. The fear that still remained was solely

based on fear of other people’s brain activity which was really just a mask for the

fear I had of my own brain activity.

Making that discovery about myself and others and realizing that our brain

activity is not us, it is simply a part of the physical body, set the foundation for

my path going forward. I now had clarity on who I was and knew that the mission

going forward was to start learning how to run my brain in a manner that would

better reflect the real me.

I began this journey with the goal of gaining fluency and at some point it really

became clear that my issues with blocking were intertwined with every aspect of

my life. My friend, who I spoke of earlier, was very wise when he said that

blocking was like a hologram in that it was a piece that contained the whole. In

fact, I am convinced that I could have set my original goal on trying to understand

why I am prone to headaches and it would have eventually led me to the exact

same place.

At this point I hope I have done a fair job in showing you where I discovered the

real problem lies. It is not that there is a flaw in who we are, it is that there is a

flaw in the way we run our brain which has led us to all the perceived dysfunction



83

we see in us and around us. So like I did in my journey, I will do with you, and

that is to use the remainder of my time to focus and discuss how I approached

learning to run my own brain in hopes that you will find aspects of my journey

useful to you in your journey.

Your Friend



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CHAPTER FIVE

Renewing My Mind

Dear Dan,

As you can imagine I fervently began to seek out information on how I could

effectively run my own brain. One thing was clear - up until this point my brain

seemed to be running me instead of the other way around.

I began searching around for books and articles about blocking that reflected my

own beliefs concerning the cause of blocking. As I mentioned earlier, most of the

professionals who dealt with blocking viewed it from a physical impairment

perspective so there were not that many books on the subject that was very helpful

to me.

I eventually came across one book about blocking that did have a lasting impact

on me. The book is called “How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking before

People” by John Harrison. His book was like a breath of fresh air to me and the

excitement I felt while reading his material was inexplicable. The author of this

book is the same person I mentioned to you earlier in a previous letter. In his book

he discusses blocking as a system involving the entire person comprised of

behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, intentions, and physiological responses.

He is also the same individual who believes that blocking is a communication

problem and not a speech problem per se.

His book fueled my fire and for the first time I did not feel like I was alone in my

journey. Someone else in the world understood the issue of blocking from a

different perspective. Of equal importance, John had overcome blocking and I

knew that if one person in this world was able to overcome blocking then I could,

too. In essence, he solidified in my mind that I could and would eventually



85

overcome blocking. He became my hero and mentor through out the remainder of

my journey through his writings and conversations with him.

It wasn’t long after I read John’s book that other books and articles started to

materialize that were impactful to me in my journey. Interestingly, I never found

another book quite like John Harrison’s book and every book I read from that

point on did not have blocking as its main topic, but each of them provided

wisdom and insight on how to run my brain in a manner that reflected the essence

of who I really am. Remember that stuttering is a symptom of a deeper issue just

like a headache, muscle ache, etc. and my mission was to get to the root issues so

stuttering would just diminish by itself once the real issues were identified and

corrected.

The next book I read was “Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins. This

book introduced me to Neuro Linguistic Programming and would eventually put

me in touch with Bob Bodenhammer who is a highly regarded trainer and theorist

in the field of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Bob quickly became a hero and

mentor of mine and ultimately walked me to the finish line of my struggle with

blocking.

Bob Bodenhamer is the co-author of several books on Neuro Linguistic

Programming including the book “The User’s Manual for the Brain” which is a

book packed with what I call “brain games” that help you learn to run your own

brain. Later, Bob wrote a book titled, “Mastering Blocking and Stuttering” written

to be a cognitive approach to achieving fluency.

In case you have never heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming, it is a model that

helps you take charge of your own thinking by developing effective strategies and

representing your experiences in an effective manner. It was exactly what I was

looking for at this stage of my journey and it delivered beyond my expectations.



86

It was through his books and the books of his business partner Michael Hall,

along with one-on-one counseling from Bob that finally renewed my mind and

provided the tools I needed to run my own brain.

Much of what I share with you from this point forward were discoveries I made

about myself based on the wisdom, knowledge, and tools I gained from John and

Bob. I am sure they will provide you with meaty information that you can use in

your journey to fluency also. Are you ready to move forward?

The observer role that I discussed in earlier letters was an amazing tactic that

reduced the perceived severity of a given situation. Additionally, after making the

connection with Bob Bodenhammer I gained a tool chest of effective tactics

designed to eliminate false perceptions, beliefs, values, and also designed to

uncover root issues. What I discovered is regardless of how many tactics I used; it

always brought me back to the same realization. I will share that realization with

you after I share some of the methods I learned and used to change my thought

patterns.

One of the first tactics I used outside of the observer role was to intentionally

interrupt the thoughts I had concerning blocking. By now I had a fairly good

awareness of my thoughts so every time I noticed a thought about blocking pop in

my head I would observe it and then intentionally interrupt the thought.

One interrupting tactic that proved very effective for me was every time a

stuttering thought would come up I would scream as loud as I could inside my

head. You don’t want to do this out loud because people will think you are crazy

but it is very effective even doing it silently inside your head. I always thought it

was funny when I screamed inside my head. The blocking thought did not stand a

chance of sticking around. However, initially the thought was very persistent and

would return over and over. Each time it returned I would just observe it and then

scream inside my head again. You may want to try it. You might be amazed at

how well it works.



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Another simple tactic I used was that I imagined taking the thought and placing it

in a box and throwing it out into space. Sounds silly, I know, but for some reason

it worked.

Although I encountered some frustrating moments when I first began trying to run

my own brain, for the most part I made a point to have fun with the process. I was

learning new techniques to run my brain and most of them felt like games to me

so having fun with them was natural. I also made sure that I was mindful to

demonstrated patience with myself because I knew that it is through repetition

that the neural pathways in my brain would begin to make changes.

I tried to never allow myself to set an expectation that any of these tools would be

a quick fix. However, usually after 21 -30 days I began to notice significant

differences in my ability not only to recognize my own disempowering thoughts

related to blocking but also be able to observe and interrupt the thoughts. This

took constant focus on my part, though. I had to maintain a willingness to put

forth the necessary time and effort even when I really did not feel like doing so.

It wasn’t long before I figured out that interrupting my thoughts was not going to

be enough to gain full control over my thought process. It was just the beginning.

Since I had been allowing my brain to run me for almost four decades I knew I

would be investing a lot of time and attention in learning to change the direction

of the way my brain functioned. In fact, it is a lifetime focus. Even to this day I

have to put forth the effort to ensure that I am the one in charge, not my brain.

Interrupting my thought patterns was a great tool but I quickly realized that the

old thoughts must be replaced my new thoughts. The vacancy had to be filled

with something and if I overlooked that part of the equation the old thoughts

would have just returned. So I came up with a good replacement thought that was

the opposite of stuttering thoughts. Of course the opposite of stuttering is fluency.



88

However, the new thought had to be believable to me or it would not be powerful

enough to over ride the blocking thoughts. What I mean is that if I was in the

middle of a blocking thought and I interrupted it and replaced it with a mental

image and a thought that I was 100% fluent my brain would not have accepted it

because it knew that my experience and reality is that I was not fluent.

So what I did to come up with a good fluency thought that my brain would accept

was to imagine a time when I was fluent during a conversation. I had brief periods

of time when I could speak fluently during conversations so I picked the most

recent memory I had and spent a few minutes thinking about the conversation.

I remembered what it felt like to be fluent in those brief moments and I focused

on what my internal feelings were at that time. My feelings during that

conversation were that I felt calm and confident. I really concentrated on those

feelings for a few minutes and then came up with the phrase; calm, confident

fluency.

So from that point on every time I would notice that I was thinking about

blocking I would observe it, interrupt the thought with a loud internal scream and

then immediately start thinking about the phrase calm, confident fluency. What is

amazing is that every time I said the phrase calm, confident fluency I would

immediately also have the feeling of being calm and confident.

Still initially, the thought of blocking fought to come back in my mind. It was as

though my brain was saying, “Hey, wait a minute! We always think about

blocking - what are you doing?” I knew that this is a very normal thing to happen

so I did not worry about it when it did happen. I just stuck with the course and

keep observing, interrupting and replacing with the new fluency thought.

Remember, it is impossible for our brain not to respond after repetitive action.

Our brain wants to fill our desires and it just needs to know that the new fluency

thoughts are the new direction. Once it gets that message it will change course



89

and we soon find that thinking fluency thoughts are not that difficult after all. The

key is not to let discouragement set in which will only do so if we set unrealistic

expectations of ourselves throughout the journey.

I do want to mention something at this point, a word of caution: remember earlier

I told you that our brain does not have the ability to discern what we do not want;

it only is able to know what we are thinking about. For example, our entire life we

have had thoughts like this:

• “I do not want to stutter/block”

• “I have to stop stuttering/blocking”

• “I have to figure out a way to stop stuttering/blocking”

Look at those statements. What is the primary thought? It is blocking. The fact

that we are saying “I do not want to …” does not matter because our brain only

knows that we are thinking about blocking so it thinks that is what we want. I

bring this up again because when and if you get to a point where you are trying to

think of new fluency replacement thought you might want to be careful that you

are setting up the new fluency command in a manner that your brain will execute

what you really want.

Another example of how not to phrase your thought is:

• “I want to be fluent”

• “I have to be fluent”

If we develop a replacement thought that expresses a want or a need then what

our brain is picking up is that we currently lack fluency and it will continue to

fulfill our lack of fluency command. The way our new fluency thought should

work is by creating a statement that indicates we are already fluent.



90

That is why using a past experience when you were fluent, if even for a few

minutes, is a good experience to build a fluency statement from. Your brain will

be getting the clear message that the command is fluency and it is a believable

command because it knows that it has already created the experience for you in

the past. Now your brain knows that the command is to create more experiences

just like that. In short, fluency.

Some examples of good fluency statements would include:

• “I choose to be fluent”

• “I choose to be calm and confident when I speak”

• “I choose to speak in a manner that is effortless”

• “I choose to be myself when I speak”

I found that using the words “I choose” as opposed to “I want” or “I need” gave a

clear signal to my brain consciously and subconsciously the command I wanted

my brain to fulfill. There was no mixed message in it that caused me to focus on

the wrong thing because it did not introduce a need or want that could have

confused the command to my brain.

I also tapped into other past experiences to help me replace blocking thoughts

with fluency thoughts. For example, something interesting always seemed to

happen right after I finished a conversation with someone in which I blocked

substantially, I would feel a huge sense of relief when the conversation was over

and then I would always think back on the conversation and wonder why I

blocked so badly. I always had a sense that if I could do it all over again I would

not block. I think this happened because all of the pressure was released and I felt

a sense of freedom. I do not know if other people who block have this same thing

happen to them or not. If you experience this same thing then this experience for

you could function as another means of replacing blocking thoughts with fluency

thoughts.



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You see, that feeling of tremendous relief and sense of being able to speak

fluently, if I could have repeated it all over again, was a wonderful thing to tap

into and I used it all the time in the following manner: When I knew that I would

have to give a presentation at work and the blocking thoughts came crashing in

along with the panic, fear and anxiety, I would observe, interrupt the thought and

replace it by imagining that I had just finished the presentation.

Instead of rehearsing the presentation over and over again in my mind I would

think only about the point in time when the presentation was complete. When I

did this I was able to feel the relief and freedom feelings that usually followed

presentations and I was able to make my brain believe that I did it fluently

because I pretended it was the second time I did it.

So rather than spending endless hours and days agonizing over the up coming

presentation, I would only allow myself to think about the point in time when the

presentation was complete. I would never allow myself to think about delivering

the presentation because I knew that having those types of thoughts would only

sabotage my ability to speak fluently. I had many years of experience to tell me

that rehearsing the presentation over and over again in my mind in an effort to

determine the threatening words would only guaranteed that I would block during

the presentation.

Recently, there have been many books come out discussing this very issue. Books

like “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne and “The Power of Intentions” by Dr. Wayne

Dyer and an entire host of other books all emphatically state how important it is to

focus your thoughts as if you already have the thing you desire. For me, training

my mind to think about speaking events as though I had already completed them

was very powerful. It takes discipline, though, and a strong awareness of your

thought process, but as with anything the more you practice it the easier it

becomes.



92

I eventually was able to interrupt panic and fear thoughts pretty consistently even

while I was in the middle of a conversation or presentation. I learned how to do

this by working with Bob Bodenhamer. He is a master at creating paradigm shifts

in your thought process. Things that I assumed were “real” thoughts he was able

to show the fallacy in those thoughts simply by asking a few questions. Let me

give you an example.

One day I sent him an e-mail indicating that I had an upcoming presentation that I

was feeling very fearful and anxious about. He sent me an e-mail asking me to

make a mental picture of fear and anxiety. I immediately imagined two, huge,

demon like creatures named fear and anxiety that were tormenting me. Then he

sent me an e-mail and asked what fear and anxiety looked like in the presence of

God. Immediately in my mind the image of the demons turned into two, one inch,

little men scurrying away from God as fast as they could.

I was amazed at what his one question did to my thought process in that moment.

I used the image of “fear and anxiety” being in the presence of God many times

during conversations and presentations and it was amazing how effective it was to

break up the overwhelming thoughts that brought about blocking.

Just for the record, it does not matter what your belief system is or even if you

feel you do not have a belief system (we all have a belief system even if it is to

believe not to believe), mental paradigm shifts are available for all of us because

we all operate under faulty beliefs to some extent.



93

I also used a technique that involved the observer position that I discussed with

you earlier. In the case of being caught up in a conversation that made me uneasy

and prone to blocking I would imagine myself watching the conversation in real

time as an observer instead of living through the conversation as a participant.

This helped to lessen the intensity of the experience while I was in the middle of

it. What I would do is imagine myself floating above the conversation sitting in a

chair with God right next to me. We would both watch the conversation or

presentation going on below as spectators. Having God there with me made me

feel secure and minimized the seriousness of the conversation.

There are a lot of things you can do to interrupt a current thought process and

most of them I found to be very enjoyable and much like playing a game. When I

was first learning to get blocking off of my mind there were some unsuccessful

attempts. Before I really got into the grove of the observer role I would find

myself getting frustrated and angry for not being able to stop thinking about

blocking. That is when I realized that it was working against me and slowing

down my progress so I created new rules to have fun with the process and

exercise patience with myself.

Fortunately, I also started reading books pertaining to the observer role and had

received instruction from Bob Bodenhamer on “Going Meta” which is the Neuro

Linguistic Programming term for the observer role. So I found myself becoming

more and more efficient at fully engaging in taking an observers position.

I learned that when I was having an unpleasant blocking thought, that if I would

fully acknowledge the thought and then just let it pass through me by not listening

in on it and not entertaining it, then it would subside. For example, whenever a

blocking thought based in fear and anxiety would come to my mind I would just

acknowledge it but not allow myself to entertain it. Then I would say the words

“calm, confident fluency” and feel the feelings of being calm, confident and

fluent. Imagine doing this every time a blocking thought came to your mind?



94

Don’t you think that your mind will pick up on the fact that the new command is

fluency?

Your Friend



95

DROP DOWN THROUGH

Dear Dan,

Another technique from Neuro Linguistic Programming that was very beneficial

to me was a technique called “The Drop Down Through Pattern” which has its

foundation in the works of Alfred Korzybski in his classic work Science and

Sanity. The technique is designed to address unconscious thoughts like those that

drive blocking.

When Bob Bodenhamer utilized the pattern during one of our counseling sessions,

it really made a shift in my thought process and allowed me to incorporate a

resourceful state of mind at the point when a fear of interacting with people would

surface. I used this pattern many times and I still find it very useful when I am

struggling to find the root issue behind a negative thought or feeling.

In his book, Mastering Blocking and Stuttering Bob Bodenhamer explains the

Drop Down Through Technique as:

“Essentially the person re-experiences their limiting emotional

state and then mentally drops down through a number of layers

which lie beneath it. With emotions, the metaphor of going down

through the layers works best. As they encounter each new layer,

the person brings to conscious awareness the previously

unconscious frames of mind that were supporting the layers

above. The Drop Down Through Pattern provides a quick way to

uncover the systemic nature of the problem, and the PWS will

find it easy to apply the appropriate resources for resolving the

issue and healing themselves.”

To give you an idea of how it works I will share with you my first experience

with the technique.



96

After Bob introduced the pattern to me had me focus on the anxiety and really

feel it. Then he asked me to tell him what it felt like. I told him it felt like a

“heavy and tightening” feeling in my stomach, a feeling that I describes as

“holding back”.

The following transcript is taken directly from the therapy notes of Bob

Bodenhamer:

From her position of experiencing this “heavy and

tightening” feeling in her stomach I (Bob) asked her to

drop down through that feeling. “What do you feel

underneath that feeling?”

“I feel fear!” (Note that here we have a thought of fear,

which ties right into anxiety.)

“Drop down through the fear. What do you feel under the

fear?”

“Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”

“Good. Now, just imagine yourself opening up the

‘nothingness.’ And drop down through and out the other

side of the nothingness.”

“I see people. It is a little bit scary. They are watching

me. They are expecting me to say something.”

“Yes, and what does that mean to you?”

“Well, I have a sense of wanting to go away and hide.”



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“Ok, that makes a lot of sense to someone who tends to

stutter when she speaks to a group of people. Now, just

drop down through that thought-feeling. What do you feel

below that?”

“Ummh, I feel safe. I feel pretty safe now.”

“You are doing really great now. That is good and it is

going to get better. Now just drop down through the

feeling of being safe and what or who is underneath

that?”

“I feel contentment. I feel alone but safe.”

“Now just drop down through that feeling of contentment

and safety. What or whom do you feel below that?”

“Warmth. Total acceptance! I feel total acceptance. There

is no judgment here. I see a yellow light.”

“Great. Is the light really bright?”

“Yes, it is. It is very bright.”

“Yes, I know it is very bright. And who said, “He is the

light of the world?”

“Jesus.”

“That is right and He is there isn’t he?”

“Yes, it is God. He is the bright light.”



98

“Very good and just be right there with God in the

presence of warmth and total acceptance. Now, what

happens to the anxiety in the presence of God?”

“It is gone.”

“What happens to the sense of wanting to go and hide in

the presence of God?”

“It is gone.”

“Yes, they are all gone, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are.”

“And in the presence of God, what happens to the

stuttering?”

“It is gone.”

“Yes, and being there in the presence of God, notice what

you see, hear and feel. Put a word or a phrase to that state

so that when you recall that word or phrase you will

immediately go into the presence of God. And anytime

you have a sense that you might stutter, just go into the

presence of God and you will get total control of the

stuttering.”

You see, Bob utilized my beliefs in God by having me “bring the negative thoughts

into the presence of God”. This forced me to apply my faith and belief in an all-

powerful God where, to me, each of those thoughts could not possibly reside. It

proved to be a pretty awesome mind shifting technique.



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I never stopped being amazed at how well the Drop Down Through Pattern worked for

me. I will include instructions on how to do the Drop Down Through Pattern in the

event you are interested in giving it a try (Appendix A).

Your Friend



100

AN UNEXPECTED FEAR

Dear Dan,

I would like to go back to in an earlier letter when I briefly mentioned the internal

struggle every time I tried to discontinue the obsessive blocking thoughts in my

head. I want to bring it back up because I would like to mention an additional

experience that may be helpful to you in your journey.

I am reflecting on the internal feelings I had when I first started consciously being

aware of my thought patterns and attempting to change the blocking thoughts to

thoughts of fluency.

I did not expect it, but every time I caught myself rehearsing threatening speaking

situations in my mind and subsequently attempted to stop those thoughts by

replacing them with fluency thoughts I would encounter a huge rush of fear and

discomfort. The fear and discomfort emerged because I was attempting to

terminate my old thought patterns.

I realized a part of me took a lot of comfort in scanning ahead for threatening

words and constantly thinking about blocking. Even though scanning ahead and

constantly thinking about blocking never produced the fluency results I wanted, I

was amazed at how I had developed a sense of security by repetitively engaging

in those thoughts. The scanning ahead was a part of my ‘comfort zone’. It was a

behavior that I thought would provide safety for me. But in reality it was

everything but safe and it was most certainly not ‘comfortable’.

Initially, I had to talk myself through continuing the process of changing the

thoughts because the fear and anxiety I felt in not allowing myself to constantly

think about blocking was very discontenting.

When a blocking thought would come to my mind I would consciously change it

and then feel a sense of panic over not allowing myself to scan for future



101

threatening words or situations. It was as though my mind was saying, “What are

you crazy! You HAVE to think about blocking and you HAVE to scan your

words or you will never be able to speak fluently!”

When this happened I remember thinking to myself that I need to move through

this feeling and force myself to continue on in spite of the discomfort and fear. I

reasoned in my mind that the old thought patterns never produced the results I

wanted so I might as well give this new way a chance. After all, if it does not

work then I can always go back to my obsessive blocking thoughts.

I am glad I made myself continue in spite of the fear. I learned a lot that first time

I made it through the fear. It became very clear that the fear I was feeling was an

illusion. Initially, the fear I felt by not allowing myself to compulsively think

about blocking was almost debilitating. The fear seemed powerful and I felt as

though I would disintegrate if I did not go back to my obsessive blocking

thoughts. But in the end, the fear was just smoke in glass. It did not really have

any power at all.

It only took a few more times before the fear totally subsided. By allowing myself

to move through the fear instead of giving in to it, I saw how fake and powerless

this emotion we call fear really is. When I discovered the illusion and

powerlessness of fear in this situation, it no longer was able to present itself

because it had been destroyed.

Our thoughts are a critical component to overcoming blocking. It is crucial that

we understand and learn to manage our thoughts instead of letting them manage

us. In my next letter to you I will discuss the impact of learning about focusing on

the present moment. Shortly after that I will move on to what role my beliefs

played in my thought process and the role they played in reinforcing the blocking

problem.

Your Friend



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IN THIS MOMENT

Dear Dan,

One day I came across an article which was really an advertisement for a self

improvement course on how to live in the present moment. Initially I was just

going to put the article down thinking it was about Eastern religion concepts. At

that time I tried to stay away from learning anything about Eastern religions

because I had always been warned by my church that it was false doctrine and if I

were to explore those types of religions God would be angry with me.

I say that a little with tongue in cheek because I did eventually do a fairly

thorough study on some of the Eastern religions and still have not encountered the

wrath of God. In fact, I am down right impressed with a lot of their views and I

have a sense that a lot of Jesus’ message is right in line with what some of the

Eastern religions are saying. But I digress. Let me get back on track.

The premise of the article was that a lot of our suffering as human beings is

derived from the fact that most of us are not able to live in the present moment

because we spend our present moments reflecting on the past and/or the future.

According to the article this causes suffering because most of the past memories

we reflect on are the bad memories. These memories include the things that went

wrong in our childhood, how our parents failed us, the lack of love we felt, and

the traumas we experienced in school, just to name a few.

When we are locked into thoughts of the future they are predominately riddled

with worry and anxiety about our finances, health, relationships, etc. We tend to

view the present moment as a means to the future. It is very common for us to say

things like;

• “One day I will find the man/woman of my dreams.”

• “One day I will be independently wealthy and not have to work any

longer.”



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• “One day my kids will grow up and realize all the sacrifices I made for

them.”

• “One day he will get paid back for what he has done to me.”

• “One day I will work on overcoming stuttering/blocking.”

• “One day I will be the person I really want to be.”

If you taken a minute and listen to your thoughts you will probably come to

realize how many thoughts are really about what we want to happen. The problem

is that it is always in the future so we miss enjoying what is happening in our lives

right now. This was the point of the article that we very seldom are able to live

fully in this moment.

As a person who struggled with blocking I knew that what the article was saying

was true. Almost all of my present moments were spent re-running the speaking

failures of the past and agonizing over future speaking events. I really had very

little experience or knowledge of what living in the present moment felt like. I

wondered what kind of an impact doing so would have on my ability to speak

fluently. I intended to find out. The article that was promoting the self

improvement course did a great job of convincing me I needed the course.

When the course¹ was finally delivered I was excited to learn more about how to

live in the present moment. I thought if it could teach me how to do that then it

would be a great lesson in helping me to run my own brain. I am glad to say that

the course delivered on its promise.

Let me share with you the highlights of the course that were impactful to me

specifically as someone who struggled with stuttering.

As I mentioned, since we all have a tendency to spend most of our present

moments focusing on the past or present we miss being fully aware or being fully

present in this moment right now.



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Not only do we miss what is happening in our lives right now, but we actually

create a false reality for ourselves when we do not live in the present moment. In

effect we create illusions that we perceive as reality. Let me give you an example

of what I am talking about.

Let’s say that I am scheduled to meet with my boss next week to review a

proposal. Under past circumstances the moment I received notification that the

meeting was scheduled I would immediately start to panic. My brain would

automatically jump to the future meeting and start thinking about how the

conversation with my boss would go. I would begin to review the proposal that

was going to be discussed with my boss but it would not be primarily to

determine the quality of the proposal or to ensure that I was prepared to present

the proposal to my boss in a sequential, logical manner.

The reason I would be reviewing the proposal is to identify the threatening words

that I might block on and to identify the areas of the proposal that I was not as

confident about, meaning that I would probably block more at that point.

I would obsess about the meeting being held next week to a point where I would

get sick to my stomach and my blood pressure would shoot up. In my obsessive

thoughts I would contemplate exactly how the conversation with my boss would

go. In my mind, I knew that I was going to blow it because I have blown it so

much in the past. Just ask my school teachers and parents. They will tell you.

I knew exactly at what points I would block. I also imagined that I knew my boss’

reaction to my blocking. He was clearly thinking I was an incompetent idiot. He

would probably give me that weird look people give me when they hear me

blocking …you know the one that shows how uncomfortable they are listening to

it? When that happens I will probably break down and not be able to complete the

conversation with my boss.



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The conversation in my head then runs something like this, “He will definitely

want to fire me. What will I do then? Maybe I can become an interpreter for the

deaf. Yeah, that’s what I will do. I wonder what kind of schooling I need to

become an interpreter. I just can’t take this pressure anymore. It is killing me.”

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? It is exactly what I used to do in my head all the time.

I left the present moment and visited the negative experiences of the past and used

them to create a false an illusionary future. Let me ask you, how many times have

you gone through a process much like this in your mind and then discovered that

the actual meeting or event did not turn out that way at all? Or at least was no

where near as bad as you had created in your mind?

You see, one of the things I learned from the course and also from Neuro

Linguistic Programming is that the past and the future are not real. The only thing

that is real is this very moment we are living right this second. The past does not

exist. You may have memories of the past but they are just brain activity. They do

not exist outside of your mind and by the way, chances are even those memories

are completely distorted.

I think we have a better understanding that our thoughts about the future are not

real but that does not mean that we do not see them as being real when we engage

in future thoughts. One thing is for sure though, since our brains do not have the

ability to determine what is real and what is not real it assumes our future

thoughts are real. That is why we experience all the physical emotions that go

along with our thoughts.

I think the lemon example is one of the best examples to show that our brains are

unable to separate reality from an illusion. For example, imagine that you have a

juicy slice of lemon in your hand that is dripping. Now imagine bringing it slowly

up to your mouth and once it reaches your mouth imagine taking a big lick of it.

Doesn’t it make your mouth water and/or pucker at just the thought of it? Sure it



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does, because your brain does not know that the lemon was just a thought in your

head, your brain thought the lemon really existed.

If I had been able to live in the present moment when I received word about the

meeting with my boss it would have been a completely different experience.

Instead of immediately feeling panic I would have simply accepted the meeting

and gone on with what I was doing. I would have never put myself through the

emotional trauma of fear and anxiety.

I know what you are thinking, sounds good but it would not be easy to actually

do. I agree. It is not easy, especially for those of us who have spent most of our

lives living in the past and the future. It takes practice and it certainly is not the

answer to gaining fluency but it is an important step in learning to run your own

brain.

What I did to start practicing living in the present moment is to initially take five

minutes a day and focus on the moment I was in. I tried to become aware of my

surroundings, how I felt and what I was thinking in the moment. If I was having a

thought about the future or the past, I would just observe it but not engage in the

thought.

The main thing I wanted to accomplish at this point was to build an awareness of

what living in the present moment actually felt like. I also wanted to increase my

awareness of when I was living in the past or the future. I found that sometimes

just being aware that my brain was currently visiting the past or constructing the

future would bring me back to the present moment.

Another important insight I took away from the course was that in almost every

case when I am in the present moment that is when I feel good and feel like

everything is fine. Think about it, right now, in this exact moment how do you

feel? When you answer that question make sure you are thinking about this very



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moment and not about anything in the past or what may be coming up in the

future. Right now…how are you?

I understood after practicing some of the methods recommended in the course that

a lot of my emotions actually are just a product of the memories in my mind of

the past or something I am concerned about in the future. I may agonize over a

past memory of someone picking on me when I blocked and I may agonize over

the thought of an upcoming meeting, but right now, in this moment without any

thoughts of the past or the future, I am actually doing really well.

I make a point, even to this day, to ask myself several times a day how I am doing

in this moment. It provides a time for me to refocus and become centered again on

the only time I really have which is right now.

This brings me to a point where I want to mention that often times past traumatic

memories can make it difficult on our ability to stay in the present moment. I

know at one point I really struggled with some past childhood memories that

seemed to nag at me at every turn. This is where the neuro-Linguistic

Programming tools were so effective in helping me with tough issues (any trained

therapist should be able to assist you.).

Luckily I was also working with Bob Bodenhamer at this time and he was able to

help me through the issues by doing some techniques that were designed to

desensitize hurtful past memories. One of those techniques is called time lining. I

really was amazed at how effective this tool was so I will send you instructions on

how to do it at the end of my letters in the event that you would like to utilize the

technique.

Focusing on the present moment also helps me in another area that at first would

not be obvious. You see, when I am obsessed with past and future thoughts my

real goal of entertaining those thoughts is to provide protection for myself.



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It could be argued that my need to obsessively think about the past and the future

is really a self protection activity that has fear at the root. Why is this? Because

when I reach for past memories concerning blocking I am trying to really find a

way to avoid stuttering, and more specifically what blocking represents.

I am trying to protect myself and find examples of the past when blocking

happened to possibly see if I could have done it a different way. If it is a bad

memory of someone laughing at me for stuttering I am remembering it in an effort

to avoid it happening again. All of my future thoughts about blocking are also

just an attempt to protect myself. To simply avoid the pain that I am convinced

will happen.

If this is the case, and it certainly always has been for me, then what I realized is

that my mind has always been focused on me. My past and future thoughts of

stuttering were secretly whispering to me that I was overly focused on me. I took

myself and the world around me to seriously. I seldom, if ever, focused on the

person whom I was talking with and I never considered their needs being more

important than my need to speak fluently.

During a conversation with someone the main focus of my attention was on

avoiding blocking. Even if I was talking to a friend who was having an emotional

trauma in their life, my first and foremost objective was to make sure I did not

stutter when I was talking with them. There were times that I could have said

something that may have been helpful but I refrained because I knew I would

stutter if I said it.

In those moments I was more concerned with my own embarrassment than I was

with their pain. It is a horrible thing to admit but I began to see how self involved

I really was and how this too reinforced blocking. In truth I wanted to be perfect, I

wanted to make an impression on others, I wanted everyone to think that I was

smart, I wanted to be respected. I wanted these things so badly because I wanted

so much to be needed by others



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that I placed a life and death importance on getting them. The harder I tried to get

them, the more I blocked and the more I blocked, the more I felt I did not have

them so I tried harder and then I stuttered harder and on and on I went.

When I realized that this is what I was doing, I made an attempt to not only focus

on the present moment when I was with others, I also made an attempt to place

my focus on the other person(s) need. When I did this I discovered the intensity of

blocking was reduced. This even worked when I had to give presentations. Instead

of focusing on my need not to stutter I consciously made an effort to identify the

needs of my audience. The reason this worked is because it took my focus off of

blocking and on to something else.

Your Friend



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CHAPTER SIX

Beliefs, Values and Perceptions

Dear Dan,

As I indicated in my last letter to you, the beliefs we currently hold play a big part

in how our thought process is manifested. Because of this they also play a huge

role in reinforcing blocking and also in our ability to overcome blocking.

I was always the type of person that held very strong beliefs about a lot of

different things in life. My beliefs have always been my compass in life and like

most people I would have been willing to die defending them. I never really

questioned them and, quite honestly, I was very proud of them.

I felt that for the most part my beliefs were positive and helped create the

wonderful life that I lived. After examining my beliefs, I discovered how many of

them were not healthy and was playing a part in holding me back from gaining

fluency.

For example, I once held the belief that to be successful in life I had to respect all

authority figures and trust them completely. Compliance to their way of thinking

was what I subconsciously believed would make me successful. To a certain

degree this is true in the business world, but at what cost? For me it cost me my

own self- identity.

I was so busy trying to figure out the world from other people’s perspective that I

never figured out what the world looked like from my perspective. What did I

really enjoy in life? What would I really believe about myself and the world



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around me if I pushed everyone else beliefs out of my mind? Taking this kind of a

journey was life changing in and of it self for me.

Today I hold beliefs that are much different from what I had 10 years ago and I

feel my life is even more fulfilling today than it was at that time. One of the

obvious reasons for my life being more fulfilling is that by working on my belief

system it has helped me gain fluency. There were many other life changing

revelations that came along with evaluating my beliefs and some of them I will

discuss with you a little later, but many are beyond the scope of my letters to you.

When I decided to take the time and effort to evaluate my current belief system I

made some incredible discoveries that completely changed the way I view my

world. Those discoveries still “rock my world” to this very day. The one big

change in my mind that has occurred by evaluating my own belief system is that I

gained the knowledge that my beliefs are not always right. This may not seem like

a lot to you but it changes everything.

I would not be over exaggerating if I said that my reality as I had known it for

over 30 years became a totally new reality that impacted every area of my life. I

am still trying to put some of the pieces together. None-the-less, I do not believe I

could have made any significant personal growth improvements unless I had

gained the knowledge about beliefs that I have today. I am still learning and I

suppose I will be for the rest of my life. For this reason I have made a

commitment to myself to constantly evaluate my beliefs and adjust them when

necessary.

Beliefs are a very interesting component of who we are. It might be of interest to you to

know that beliefs are one of the most powerful components that make up our every day

reality. This being the case, it is amazing to see how few of us really know what our

beliefs are. Oh sure, we know the higher level beliefs that we hold such as our belief in

the existence of God, our general belief about whether most people are good or bad, our



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beliefs about trusting others, whether we believe our car will start when we turn the key,

and on and on.

But very few of us really stop to do a thorough inventory of what belief system we are

currently operating under. I know when I started focusing on my belief structure I was

amazed at how many beliefs I was still holding on to from my childhood and how many

beliefs that I had developed over the years that were no longer serving me well. I was

really amazed when I discovered a lot of my beliefs were directly affecting my inability

to speak fluently. Some examples of those beliefs include:

• My value is defined by my parents

• Those in authority over me are smarter and wiser than I am.

• I will be punished if I assert myself.

• People get annoyed with me if I express my feelings.

• Other people determine my worth as a person.

You see, our brain is fed billions of pieces of information from our environment every

day. The problem is that our brain is incapable of taking in every piece of data that is fed

to it in a single day, hour or minute in our life. Therefore, it has to filter the data it

receives and only allow a certain portion to come into our conscience and eventually into

our subconscious. Can you figure out how your brain decides what information to let in

and what information to dispose of?

You probably guessed it. Beliefs! That is correct. Beliefs, along with values, perceptions

and emotions are the primary way our brain knows what data to let in or filter out. I will

talk about the other components later, but for now I want to stick with discussing beliefs

as it relates to overcoming blocking.

This filtering mechanism in our brain looks at our current beliefs and whatever data that

it receives from the external world must match our beliefs before it will allow the data to

become a conscience part of our reality.



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Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Let’s say that your favorite

teacher in grade school had dark hair and brown eyes and that your favorite teacher in

middle school also had dark hair and brown eyes. You would probably, at a subconscious

level, develop a belief that all teachers with brown hair and brown eyes were kind hearted

school teachers. When you finally made it to high school you would be delighted to see

that one of your teachers had brown hair and brown eyes. Your belief system would

automatically kick in and tell you that she is going to be a great teacher. You would then

begin filtering events involving this teacher according to your beliefs. You would notice

all the kind things the teacher says and does, thereby reconfirming your belief that all

teachers with brown hair and brown eyes are good teachers.

But what if the majority of your class thought that she was a horrible teacher who was

just out to see them all fail the class? Chances are you would strongly disagree with them

and continue on in your belief that she was a good teacher. Why would your beliefs be so

different from the rest of the class? Because you are filtering information based on your

belief that all brown hair and brown eye teachers are good. You will notice every kind

word she says and every kind act she displays. The other students are filtering the data

according to their beliefs which may be exactly opposite of your beliefs. They filter for

every unkind word or deed and you are filtering for every kind word or deed.

It is interesting because you and your classmates are in the exact same environment,

dealing with the exact same teacher, but your reality concerning the teacher is completely

different from your class mates. The interesting question becomes who is right and who

is wrong or is there a right and wrong in this situation?

I have a friend named Jerry who came from a very dysfunctional family. Jerry’s dad was

a very heavy drinker and often became abusive toward the family when he was drinking.

Jerry has a sister and brother who grew up in the exact environment that Jerry grew up in

and yet each one of them has a completely different out look on life as a result of the

abuse. One turned out bitter and blames the world for everything that goes wrong in her



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life, the other became very distrusting of people, and Jerry could not be more grateful for

the events of his childhood because it has shaped him to be who he is today.

What made the difference between Jerry and his siblings? It is the meanings they have

given the events of their lives which are directly shaped by their beliefs. Jerry believed

that the events happened to shape him into a decent human being who would never repeat

the same behaviors that he witnessed in his childhood. His sister believes the events

happened to show her that life is hard and evil lurks everywhere. Jerry’s brother believed

the events happened to teach him he is the only one he can count on in life. It all comes

down to beliefs. There is no way around it. Beliefs are powerful!

Obviously beliefs and our thoughts are interchangeable. Our thoughts are always going to

support our beliefs. It is impossible for us to maintain a consistent thought pattern if it

does not match our current belief system. This is why it is important to really have a good

grasp of what our belief system is because it will directly impact our ability to break the

blocking thought cycle that we have all lived in for the majority of our lives.

Science and all religions of the world, without exception, are all in agreement that beliefs

are one of the most important and powerful tools at your disposal. You may have read

many medical studies on how people are healed or become sick based on their beliefs.

For now though, to give you an idea of what I am talking about, consider this: I am sure

you have heard about the affects of placebo drugs on patients. You have surely read about

such cases as Lance Armstrong and how he overcame cancer? There are hundreds and

thousands of stories out there about people who overcame death sentences due to cancer,

heart disease, diabetes, etc. all based on their belief that they could overcome what ails

them.

Why are beliefs so powerful? One of the reasons is because our brain does not have the

ability to distinguish reality from non-reality. Our beliefs are an awesome part of each of

us that has the important job of ensuring our reality stays in tact. Think of your beliefs as

the commands your brain must carry out. Your brain is designed to keep your reality of



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the world intact and one of the most effective ways to do this is to filter the data it

receives from the environment according to your beliefs.

I want you to understand that I am not saying that any one person’s reality is right or

wrong, real or an illusion. I am simply saying that it is each individual’s reality.

Personally, I continuously discover that a lot of my reality is not real at all. Much of my

reality has been based on assumptions born out of my beliefs that once I took the time to

examine, a lot of them fell apart. I will discuss some of these with you shortly.

Right now what I am saying is that we each have created a unique view of the world

around us that we call “reality”. My reality is completely different from your reality. So I

am not using the term reality as a statement of fact or truth, I am only using it from an

individual perspective. In short, there are as many realities as there are individual people.

This is why two people who witness the same car accident see different things. They

were both there at the exact same time and same place but one person said the male was

driving the car and the other person said it was the female driving the car. Our brain

filters data according to our beliefs.

This is actually very good news because as you may have already concluded by changing

our beliefs we can change the way our brain filters data and therefore change our present

reality. As I said, the problem is that very few of us seldom evaluate our current beliefs to

ensure that they are still valid and serving us in the manner that we need them too. We

develop a belief and it eventually sinks into our subconscious mind never to be brought

into our conscious awareness again.

One of the many books I read in my journey to overcome blocking was, “Why We

Believe What We Believe” by Andrew Newberg, MD. Listen to what the author says

about beliefs;

“ …our brains make educated guesses about the true nature of the

external world by drawing maps and making elaborate assumptions



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and predictions about future outcomes. In other words, the brain is

busy constructing inner beliefs about the outer workings of the world.

Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we don’t. Fortunately, the

human brain comes equipped with a very special feature: it can alter its

system of beliefs far more rapidly than that of any other organism on

the planet. Thus beliefs act as an invisible but intelligent inner pilot

guiding the complex activities of our lives.”

Most of our beliefs are developed as children and depending on the environment we grew

up in our beliefs today could actually be causing more harm than good even if they

served us well as a child. Since most of our beliefs are shaped as a child the majority of

the beliefs we developed were created to protect us, especially if we came from an

environment that we perceived as threatening to us both physically and mentally.

If you came from a less than perfect childhood environment (which is almost all of us)

then you can be fairly certain that you are still carrying childhood beliefs around that are

no longer serving you in an empowering manner. They may have served their purpose

perfectly when you were a child but since your environment and personal resources have

changed since becoming an adult, your beliefs also should be adjusted to meet the current

needs and not the needs of your childhood.

Some of the beliefs I held as a child, that were completely acceptable at that time, later

became disempowering beliefs when I became an adult:

• Adults (authority figures) are always right. Whatever they believe must be true.

• I have to please Mom and Dad so they will be happy.

• Doctors and speech therapists understand why I block better than I do.

• Living a loving and peaceful life is what God wants so I must do what others tell

me to do so I can have peace and love in my life.



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Obviously, some of our childhood beliefs have changed on their own as we have gotten

older. Most adults no longer believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. The additional

knowledge and insight we gain as we get older will naturally change and shift some of

our beliefs. However, once we become aware of our current beliefs we will be amazed at

how many childhood beliefs we are still operating from.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, just because we hold a belief does not make it true. People

for centuries believed that the world was flat. We now know that is not the case. Yet,

theories of the world being round infuriated the “flat world” believers. They initially

thought it was heresy to believe the world was round and persecuted people who believed

otherwise. This is the power of beliefs. It shapes who we are, what we will do, who and

what we will tolerate, where we will go, how we will feel, and how we interact with other

people. Beliefs are so powerful and become such a huge part of our reality that many

people will die for them regardless of whether they are actually correct or not.

Take a look at all the wars that have been fought through the centuries. Almost every one

of them was fought defending personal beliefs whether those beliefs were religious in

nature (certainly the majority of all wars have been fought for religious purposes) or

based on human rights, or land, etc. The point is that both sides believed so strongly that

their belief was correct that they readily gave their lives and took the lives of others to

ensure it remained in tact. Beliefs are powerful motivators!

The good news for me was that I learned that I could change my beliefs. I am sure you

have had a strong belief at one time and as you grew older it changed radically. Again,

one example may be your belief in Santa Claus or the tooth ferry. Perhaps you have had

some strong religious beliefs that have changes over the years. The point is that beliefs

can be changed and are changed all the time.

What are your beliefs?

Your Friend



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HOW DO I CHANGE MY BELIEFS?

Dear Dan,

So how do you change a belief? One of the primary ways a belief is changed is by our

experiences in life and our environment. But we do not have to wait until a life changing

event happens before we change our beliefs. I highly recommend that we do not wait.

Changing a belief can be done as easily as doing an evaluation of our current belief

system.

When I spent some time digging out my current beliefs and bringing them back to my

conscious mind, then I had the awesome opportunity to take a fresh look at them to

determine if I still believed them to be true and more importantly to ask myself if they are

serving my needs. If they were no, t then I was able to change them into more

empowering beliefs that assisted me in obtaining what I wanted in life, which in this case

was fluency.

When I began the evaluation my beliefs, I just took about 30 minutes and wrote down all

the beliefs I could identify that related to my ability to speak. I included my beliefs about

interacting with specific people, beliefs about various speaking situations, beliefs about

blocking, fluency, how people perceived me when I blocked and every other belief I

could think of that was related to blocking. Then I expanded it out and included my

beliefs about God, the world, society etc. I was amazed at how many beliefs I had that I

never really thought about any longer.

Once I had a list of my current beliefs, I went back and separated the empowering beliefs

from the disempowering beliefs. Then I evaluated the disempowing beliefs by asking

questions such as: Where did that belief originate from? What was the experience I had

that made me decide to create that belief? What does having that belief do for me today?

Is it a belief that I still need to have?

A lot of the disempowering beliefs I originally listed started to lose their impact

immediately because it was very evident that they were useless beliefs that were just left



119

over from when I felt I needed them to protect myself. You will have this same

experience once you start examining your beliefs.

Let me give you an example from my journal that may help you fully understand what I

am saying. As you know, most people who block have a hard time with authority figures.

I was no exception. I really struggled speaking to authority figures. So when I listed out

my beliefs about authority figures, here is what I found I believed:

Belief #1 Authority figures have power over me

Belief #1 Authority figures are smarter and wiser than I am

Belief #1 Authority figures will see through me and know how imperfect I am

Belief #1 Authority figures will judge me.

Belief #1 Authority figures’ judgment of me is always right.

Belief #1 Authority figures’ opinion of me defines who I am and if I am worthy.

Belief #1 My entire value as a person is in the hands of authority figures.

You can see that the beliefs I had about authority figures were all disempowering beliefs.

Is there any wonder why I blocked myself in their presence? How could I not? For those

of us who carry stress, fear and anxiety in our speech, how would it be possible for us to

keep from blocking ourselves with a belief about authority figures like we carry a round?

No wonder.

Aha, but now that I was aware of my beliefs I was immediately amazed at how ridiculous

most of them were. I felt the power of those beliefs diminishing as soon as I had written

them out. Why do you think the power of the belief would diminish just by writing them

out? Because I now had full conscious awareness of them and could plainly see how

inaccurate they were.

Next, I went through each belief and asked myself where each one originated from, what

experience(s) fed into that belief, had there ever been an experience with authority figures

that were contrary to my current belief? Is there any advantage in having the belief going



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forward? What will happen if I maintain the belief? What will happen if I remove the

belief? These questions helped me solidify the lack of need for the beliefs going forward.

The process of evaluating current beliefs is actually a pretty simple but very powerful

exercise. Let me walk you through another exercise I did concerning my beliefs about

authority figures.

If you remember, the first belief that I had was that authority figures had power over me.

I needed to evaluate whether or not this was still the case now that I am an adult. So I

asked myself the following questions:

Q. Who are the authority figures in my life right now?

A. My boss, the police, the law (the number of authority figures in an adult’s life is

much less than in a child’s life).

R. Do they REALLY have power over me?

A. Yes

Q. What kind of power do they have over me?

A. They can terminate my employment, throw me in jail.

Q. Have you ever done anything illegal to be thrown in jail?

A. No

Q. Have you ever done anything to cause your boss to terminate you?

A. No, but I may mess up or he may think my performance isn’t as good as it should

be. He may also think I am incompetent because of my blocking issues. The threat is

always there because he has that power over me.

Q. What would happen if he fired you?

A. I would get another job.

Q. So his power over you is actually very limited and something you could overcome

relatively quickly?

A. Yes

The above Q & A is a condensed version of the original exercise, but the point is that by

the end of the exercise it was clear that while authority figures did have power over me, it



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was very limited power and it would only have a short term consequence to me if they

chose to exercise their authority. The truth was far different from what I had been

operating under for over 30 years. Putting it into proper perspective was a very freeing

event. Now authority figures do not have the same impact on me that they once did.

Let’s look at another one just to make sure you get the picture. I held a belief

(unconscious at first) that authority figures defined who I was as a person and determined

my worthiness as a person. You may have already guessed where that one came from. As

children our authority figures are our parents.

It is reasonable for a child to believe that their parents define who they are and what

value they have. It is the parents’ job to help develop their children into decent human

beings and show them how valuable they are as a human being. This works well if

parents are providing a loving and nurturing environment. However, it can be disastrous

if we come from a dysfunctional family because we usually enter adulthood with a

warped sense of self value.

Additionally, our parents may have actually done a wonderful job but because many of us

who are prone to stuttering tend to be sensitive people, it does not take much for us to

adapt to our parents beliefs as we perceive them and also misinterpret their actions. A

perfect example of this is how I interpreted my parents love for me as being a product of

how good I behaved.

As a healthy person goes through adolescence and finally into adulthood, their beliefs

about authority figures defining their value and who they are as a person decreases as

they gain a good understanding of their own self worth. This is a normal developmental

process.

In my case, I not only developed a poor self image, or value, but I also was unable to

adjust my belief as I grew into adulthood. This meant that I was stuck in a childhood

cycle of always allowing authority figures to determine my self worth. Allowing

authority figures in childhood to help shape your value is a normal part of adolescence.



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Allowing authority figures to continue to determine our value as a person in adulthood is

dysfunctional and can only produce dysfunctional results.

So this was a belief that I realized I had to change immediately. Once I put authority

figures in the proper perspective, i.e. limited power over my working conditions, ONLY

then I was free of that limiting and debilitating belief.

Can you now see how important your beliefs are in shaping your everyday life? If you

form empowering beliefs, then you will live an empowering life - but if you hang on to

childhood and/or disempowering beliefs you will have a lot of obstacles in your every

day life.

We have covered a lot of information since the beginning of my letters to you. My hope

is that you are picking up some useful information that you can use in your quest to

overcome blocking. I have a lot more I will share with you, but for now I want to give

you some time to work on uncovering and evaluating your current beliefs. The effort will

pay off nicely and I am sure you will discover many revelations about your beliefs.

Remember to have fun with the process. If you have fun with it I have a feeling your

success will come quicker.

Your Friend



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PLACING VALUE ON THE WORLD AROUND ME

Dear Dan,

Now that you have a better understanding of the power of beliefs, I want to ask you a

question. Have you ever contemplated what the importance of values is in our lives and

more specifically in the life of a person who blocks? Initially, I never gave my values a

second thought in the context of blocking. Of course, my values played a large part in

almost every area of my life but I never really associated them with blocking. I certainly

never would have thought that they could be helping or hurting my ability to speak

fluently. However, values are important to understand because they are the glue that

holds beliefs together.

In fact, many beliefs are actually formed by the values we hold and when one of our

values changes, you can be assured that the beliefs attached to that value also changes.

Because of this, taking a closer look at our current values is equally as important as

having a thorough understanding of our beliefs.

Values are simply defined as what is important to you. Once we have determined that

something is important to us, then we start creating beliefs and “rules” around that value.

For example, if you value spending time with your family then you believe that is

important. If you believe it is important to spend time with your family then you start to

create rules around that value.

For example, you may create an internal rule that all Saturdays need to be reserved for

family activities or you may create a rule that the entire family must eat together in the

evenings. If you violate one of your rules then you may start believing that you are an

inadequate mother or father to your children. Conversely, if you keep all of your rules,

you will probably think you are a good parent.

We do this kind of self evaluation based on the rules we establish around our values all of

the time. For better or worse, we also tend to judge other people based on our personal

rules. So if you valued spending time with your family and you set a rule that Saturdays



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are set apart for family time, not only would you judge your competence as a parent

based on that value and the rules you established around that value, but you would also

tend to judge others’ parenting abilities based on how they spent their Saturdays. You

might catch yourself making statements to your wife such as: “I can’t believe so and so

never spends quality time with their family during the weekend. I bet their marriage does

not last very much longer.”

Our values extend far beyond just us. They determine how we see the world around us

and have a large impact on how we treat others and how we interpret the way others treat

us. Values are present in every action we take and every word we speak. They are

powerful motivators and can create wonderful opportunities for us if they are not

misguided values.

I realized that my values tie into a lot of major components in my life and they explain

why I do, act, feel and say certain things throughout the course of each day. They

determine and hold my beliefs together. More importantly, they are the catalyst for the

spoken and unspoken rules I establish throughout the course of my life.

This was an important point that I had to grasp. We all create rules around our values.

We make judgments about ourselves and others based on those rules. The interesting part

is that the rules are self imposed.

Where did you ever get the idea that spending Saturdays with your family is what

determines a good parent? I do not deny that it is a good thing to spend time with your

family on Saturdays, but you have to be very careful about establishing rules.

For example, what happens to your self esteem if you are forced to work several

Saturdays in a row or if household chores are so piled up that you must miss several

Saturdays? You would probably start questioning your parenting skills. In that case, the

rule you have set up is self defeating and if you are not consciously aware that you have

established that rule around your value of having quality family time, it could do serious



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damage - not only to how you view yourself, but also to the health and stability of your

family.

But what would happen if you were fully aware of the rules you have established around

your values? This is something I knew would be important for me to figure out. The

reason I say this is because in my experience as a person who blocks, I knew I had a

tendency to create a lot of unhealthy rules around my values.

Would you like me to give you an example? Since most of us have struggled in the area

of authority figures I will use the example from my journal. I think you will identify with

it very well.

Below is the list of beliefs I had about authority figures that I shared with you earlier.

Authority Figures

They have power over me

They are smarter and wiser than I am

They will see through me and know how imperfect I am

They will judge me.

Their judgment of me is always right.

Their opinion of me defines who I am and if I am worthy or not.

My entire value as a person is in their hands.

What would you guess some of my values to be, centered a round authority figures?

What kind of rules do you think I may have created around those values?

Well, first of all, I placed a high value on the opinion that authority figures had of me. I

valued their opinion because I believed they were smarter, wiser, etc. than I. I also valued

their judgment and believed their judgments to always be correct. I believed that they had

ultimate power over me. Based on the value I placed on authority figures, I created rules



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that I must adhere to in an effort to protect myself from experiencing any negative

exercising of their power. These rules included:

• Always behave in a meek manner around authority figures.

• Always validate the opinion of an authority figure whether I agree with it or not.

• Always be attentive to verbal and non-verbal communication from an authority

figure on how he/she feels about me.

• Always accept their judgment of me.

• Go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure their approval.

• Never share personal information with them because they may see my flaws.

• Keep my home and office in perfect order so it will not present an opportunity to

be judged negatively.

Without going on endlessly, I think you get the point.

At this point, don’t you think it is amazing how just one category - “authority figures” -

could have so much unconscious stuff attached to it? But again, authority figures were

just the tip of the iceberg for me, as I am sure you are discovering they are for you, too.

The good news is that the more aware we become of our values, beliefs, and self-imposed

rules, the better able we are to evaluate them and change them if they are not serving us

well.

Keep in mind that many of the things that we value and hold as important to us were

instilled in us at an unconscious level from other people, the environment, our childhood,

the church we attended and a variety of other outside sources (much like beliefs).

Because our values were instilled subconsciously, predominately by the people and

events in our environment, most of us are probably unaware of many of our values. I

know I was, and setting aside time to evaluate certain aspects of myself involving beliefs

and values paid off very nicely.



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I am happy to share with you a simple method I used to understand my values and the

rules I imposed on myself to ensure the values were fulfilled. Initially, to understand the

higher level values I held, I simply made a list of the 20 most important things in my life

to me. After I completed the list I put the pen down and really took a hard look at those

20 things that were important to me. Those 20 items were my values.

Then I went through and estimated how much time I spent on each value in a week. This

helped me to really know what my top values were. In short, where I spent the most time

indicated that it was my top value. The final result was quite surprising because my first

value, based on the time I spent, was different than what I thought it would be had I just

ranked them based on my own thoughts and feelings.

At this point I want to share with you what my number one value turned out to be. Not

surprisingly, my number one value turned out to be speaking fluently. I spent most of my

time within a one week period trying to ensure that my speech was fluent. Don’t you find

it interesting that the number one thing I valued in life, above everything else, was

speaking fluently?

Next I went through and wrote down three beliefs that I had been operating under as a

result of the value, and then I identified at least two self imposed “rules” that I was

operating under to maintain the value.

I want to stop here and tell you about a significant discovery I made about my first value,

“speaking fluently”. Ironically, what I discovered was that the rules I had developed

around this value were a large part of what held me back from speaking fluently. Rules

such as: I must scan my words ahead of time, I must listen and monitor everything I say

to ensure I say it correctly, I must be aware of all upcoming speaking situations, and

finally, I must not block.

In short, the rules I had placed around the value of speaking fluently were still causing

me to constantly think about blocking. I was not able to think about fluency because my

rules around fluency brought all my thoughts back to avoiding blocking, the very thing I



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knew I had to stop doing. I needed to change the rules around speaking fluently in a

manner that would direct my mind to fluent thoughts instead of blocking/stuttering

avoidance thoughts.

It is interesting that the rules I placed on myself to ensure the value was met were the

very thing sabotaging my ability to fulfill the value. Also, because I was not aware of the

sabotaging rules I had imposed on myself; it actually reinforced the value guaranteeing

that it would remain a value indefinitely.

So I wondered what would happen if I changed the rules and made new rules to support

my “speaking fluently” value. In response to this I changed the rules to reflect:

• I will make a conscious effort to focus on the following thoughts:

o When I am concerned about an upcoming speaking situation instead of

allowing the thoughts “What if I block and make a fool out of myself?” to

dominate my mind I will ask myself “What if everything goes great and I

am able to honestly express myself without holding back?”

o I will think about the last time I did not hold myself back and how great

that felt.

o I will only focus on the point in time when I feel relief, which is when the

speaking engagement is over. I will not allow myself to spend time

thinking about the actual event.

• I will keep the importance of the events and people associated in proper

perspective.

The first time I utilized my new rules they produced a result that still excites me to this

day. I am happy to share the experience with you.

I was scheduled to interview with a large company for a job that I really wanted. The

interview was going to be a panel interview which meant that I would be interviewing

with five people all at once in a conference room. This type of interview is tough for



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anyone to go through, but add a blocking problem to the mix and you could not help but

tremble at the thought of it.

Immediately after receiving word that I was selected to be interviewed I was ecstatic.

However, it only took a few short seconds before the reality of what I had to do hit me. I

started to panic as I always did. My thoughts were flooded with “I am going to make a

fool out of myself!”; “There is no way they will ever hire me when they hear me block”;

“I can’t do this!; I need to cancel the interview…maybe I just wont show up.”

Not only was my self-talk out of control, but my physical body was having a strong

reaction such as heart palpitations, queasy stomach, pounding head, and a strong urge to

throw up. I am sure you know exactly what I was going through.

But then I remembered my new rules around my goal to speak fluently. Initially, I was so

out of control with my fear thoughts that I did not see how it would be possible to

incorporate my new rules but I tried any way. The first thing I did was to ask myself,

“What if everything goes great and I am able to honestly express myself without holding

back?” By simply asking myself this question it caused my mind to make a switch from

picturing myself blocking during the interview to seeing myself speaking fluently. I could

actually feel how wonderful it felt to be fluent because I was also thinking of the other

times I was able to speak fluently. So the thought “What if everything goes great?” broke

the fear and anxiety cycle, at least for the time being.

A little later, though, I found myself focusing too much on how the conversation would

go during the interview and soon I found myself panicking once again. In my mind, I

could hear myself block on certain words as I anticipated what they would ask and how I

would respond. So I tried focusing on the point when I was driving home from the

interview… after it was completed.

This allowed me to feel the relief prior to the interview that I knew I would feel after the

interview was actually over. I focused on this point in time whenever I felt the panic start

to set in again. It was truly amazing how this changed not only my thought patterns but



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also had a positive affect on me physically as far as calming my heart rate and causing

the butterflies to subside in my stomach.

I also asked myself questions like, “What if I had fun with the interview and pretended

like it really did not matter?” You see, I knew that I was giving the interview too much

importance. In my mind I was viewing it as a life and death situation which caused my

brain to go into fight or flight mode. Allowing myself to evaluate if it was truly a life and

death situation caused me to realize how silly that belief was. I also allowed myself to

make it ok if I did block during the interview and, more importantly, I allowed it to be

perfectly ok if I did not get the job.

The other thought I tried to maintain in my mind was to remember who I really am. What

I mean is that I have always had the sense that the person who was blocking was not

really me. I had a sense, as I mentioned earlier, that the “real” me was actually a calm,

confident person who liked to have fun. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, I also came

to a belief that who I really am at the core is love. So I focused on the real me and began

to focus on acting like the real me. I would ask myself questions like; “What would love

act like?”, “Would love contain fear?” “Would love contain anxiety?” The answer was

obviously “no”. So I knew those elements were a part of my brain activity and I could

focus on the attributes that were really who I am.

I utilized these new rules the entire week prior to the interview. Anytime I caught myself

moving into a panic mode I consciously made the effort to incorporate the above rules.

Something amazing happened. The closer the date of the interview approached, instead of

feeling more panicked, I found myself feeling calm and confident. I was ecstatic at how

my new rules were working, but the proof of success would be determined when the

interview actually occurred.

On the day of the interview, I found that I was feeling a little nervous and my stomach

had butterflies, but I found it very interesting that I was not overly concerned about

stuttering. More on this in a second.



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When I walked into the lobby of the company I was getting ready to be interviewed by, I

experienced something that was remarkable to me at that time. I felt like the real me! I

was calm, confident and felt an amazing desire to be humorous. When the interview

began I remained in this calm, confident, humorous state of mind throughout the entire

interview. I never blocked once!

This was a major milestone for me because I had just experienced what I knew logically

was true all along. The way I run my brain can bring fluency.

This experience also showed me another false belief that I was operating under. The

belief was that being nervous, anxious, and having butterflies in my stomach meant that I

was going to stutter. The truth was that being nervous, anxious, and having butterflies are

a normal physical reaction to stress for EVERYONE and that it does not indicate that

blocking is inevitable.

Once I redefined being nervous, anxious, and having butterflies as a normal human

experience and stopped believing that if I felt those emotions it automatically meant that

blocking would follow, I became free and was able to feel certain emotions without

defining them as a precursor to blocking.

Now, back to values. The last thing I did was to write down the results I was really

hoping to achieve out of each of the values and when I found that a value was actually

disempowering I switch it with a value that would give me the result I was looking for.

For example: Valuing the opinion of how authority figures perceived me was a

disempowering value. What my ultimate goal was in valuing their opinion was really to

receive validation from them that I am a worthy human being. I changed my value at that

point to reflect:

“I respect the position of authority figures but I value the fact that all human beings are

equal and have tremendous value in the eyes of their creator.”



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Changing disempowering values and beliefs into empowering values and beliefs was

essential in my ability to overcome blocking. I also understood that evaluating my values

and beliefs would not be a one time event. I knew I needed to always be consciously

aware of what beliefs and values I was operating under at all times. This may seem like a

daunting task, and at first I struggle with it, but after awhile I got to a point where it was

very easy to identify these aspects within myself.

I am sure you may be wondering if it is necessary for you to uncover the entire iceberg

before you see any improvement in your speech. The good news is the answer is NO!

Each value and belief that I uncovered, evaluated and changed was one step closer to

overcoming stuttering and I noticed improvements in my speech as I went through the

process.

In my next letter I will begin to tell you what I learned about perceptions and how they

affect blocking.

Your Friend



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IS PERCEPTION REALITY?

Dear Dan,

Have you ever heard the phrase, “perception is reality?” The truth is that perception is

very seldom reality. By now you probably understand why this is true. The way we run

our brains based on our experiences, beliefs, values, thoughts and a host of other

elements is what creates our perception.

Perceptions are closely related to beliefs but are actually a product of beliefs. They are

your observation and interpretation of events. Like beliefs, they can be very powerful if

they are healthy perceptions. However, they may also be one of the most unreliable

methods for us to use in interpreting our world because their foundation is a direct

reflection of the events we encountered in our past and how we interpreted those events.

As a person who stuttered, I interpreted a majority of the events in my life through the

filter of blocking, or rather a fear of blocking.

My perception of people and events was filtered first through a lens of security. In other

words, do they make me feel safe enough that I can speak with them without blocking? Is

the event non-threatening? These questions were answered by mentally scanning the

individuals and/or event and then forming a perception based on my observation and

interpretation of what I saw and felt internally.

The problem with this is that my perception was built from my own experiences and had

very little, if anything, to do with the person or event. For example, if the person I was

speaking with was a little short with me, I would perceive that person as a threat which

naturally translated into holding back in an effort to protect myself. In reality, the

person’s lack of patience was almost certainly never really about me. But because I

personalized my external world, I had a perception that anyone not demonstrating

kindness towards me would emotionally hurt me.

Somewhere along the path I realized that the emotions and behaviors of other people

were a reflection of what is going on with them internally. I must have come to this



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awareness by examining my own behavior and realizing that NONE of my emotions

were really about what was happening in the world outside of me.

A story that demonstrates what I am saying happened once many years ago. I was feeling

a little cranky one day as my sister and I were cooking dinner. She asked me to get the

potatoes out of the closet and when I tried to pull the bag out of the closet it ripped and

the potatoes went flying everywhere. I was so mad that I started saying a bunch of not so

nice things to her. Later, when I had a chance to reflect on the situation, it dawned on me

that my anger had nothing to do with my sister. I simply had expectations to pull the bag

of potatoes out of the closet without incident and when they did not come out the way I

expected them to, I took it out on her. The issue was really about my expectations.

I know that is a simple example but it was instrumental in a new journey. I would take

into understanding why I do the things I do. It was not long before I realized that every

behavior I demonstrate is really about me, whether good or bad. It is what is going on

internally that decides my external behavior. I also realized that I was no different from

anyone else, so I gained the wisdom to know that the external behavior others

demonstrate is also really about them and has very little, if anything, to do with me.

So what does this have to do with perceptions? Actually, everything. My perceptions

were always created assuming I was the center of the other individual’s behavior. If they

were cranky it was because I did something wrong or they were displeased with me for

some unknown reason. This relates back to an earlier letter when I discussed how self

focused I was. It is kind of funny now that I look back on it and see clearly how self

centered I was even though it was masked in timidity.

I always had a tendency to personalize events so my perceptions were always about what

other people thought and felt towards me. I had no idea how warped my perceptions were

and how much they were holding me back from gaining fluency. Once I took the focus

off of me and started looking at people and events from their perspective, it set me free in

evaluating and setting up false perceptions about other people as it related to their

interactions with me.



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Since perceptions are born out of our beliefs it is safe to assume that if there is a faulty

belief we are hanging on to then there is also a faulty perception attached to that belief.

The scary part is that we force OUR perceptions to become reality because our brain

refuses to acknowledge anything different. Even if the situation is different, it will never

be seen by us because our brain will only accept what we filter for as our reality.

This includes each one of us and how we perceive ourselves. What is your perception

about who you are? It is an honest question that deserves some contemplation. Really,

who do you perceive yourself to be? Whatever your perception of yourself is, you can be

assured that is exactly how you are behaving externally. Is it possible that your

perceptions about yourself are incorrect?

I had a lot of perceptions about myself that I eventually discovered were just plain lies

and self deception. I mentioned one of those perceptions above concerning how I

perceived everyone’s reaction and behavior towards me as being about me. But there

were other perceptions I held about myself and the world around me that were equally

faulty. If I were to be honest, I would have to say that the majority of my perceptions

were faulty in one form or another.

I really enjoy watching the show American Idol because I think it provides a great

example of how misleading our perceptions can be. If you have seen the show, then you

know that during the singing auditions the judges have many contestants that perform for

them and then are humiliated by the judges’ comments that they cannot sing. Some of the

contestants are so convinced that they are gifted vocally that they are stunned and

shocked to hear Simon Cowel say the audition was “torturous!”. Many of them, upon

hearing for the first time in their lives that they have a horrible singing voice, flat out

refuse to believe it - even to the point of cussing and swearing at the judges.

Don’t you think that is kind of scary? These contestants who are as normal as you or I

(most of them anyway) are so convinced that they can sing that even when reality hits



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them over the head, their brain rejects it as a lie. They go on believing that they can sing

and the rest of the world is wrong. I would bet that when these rejected contestants went

home they found other people to validate their position that the judges were clueless

when it comes to a good singing voice and they continued on in their perception and

delusion that they have a good singing voice. Perceptions are a tough nut to crack.

Your Friend



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CHAPTER SEVEN

The Conclusion of the Matter

Dear Dan,

Looking back on my life and my journey to fluency, I can see things now that were not so

evident to me back then. As I have been indicating to you throughout my letters,

blocking/stuttering is a people interaction and/or communication problem. I have covered

a lot of information that directly and indirectly deals with that issue and now I would like

to go down that rabbit hole a little deeper with you.

As I reflect back on those people interaction issues, I can see an element that was there all

along. It was a subtle, unconscious thought that was actually quite powerful in

manifesting itself every time I interacted with someone else.

The issue was a lack of trust in people. I think all human beings have a certain amount of

trust issues with other people. We have all been hurt before by people we loved and

respected. We have all also been hurt by complete strangers. Unfortunately, being hurt by

people is just a part of life. There is no way to really avoid it. However, we can learn to

handle these disappointments in a manner that will allow us to recover from them much

easier and without being permanently scarred by the incidents.

I think my lack of trust in other people had its beginning in childhood. Not unlike the

majority of the remainder of the earth’s population, my childhood quickly became

dysfunctional at an early age due to having an alcoholic father.

My father was a wonderful dad when he was not drinking, but as soon as he started

drinking the world around me had a tendency to be very disruptive and volatile. I began

to discern through my dad’s behavior that consistency in the behavior of other people

could not be counted on. I lived in an environment where things would be peaceful and

fun but in a split second that peace could be disrupted with hostility and anger. One



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minute we could be sitting around having a nice family meal and the next minute my

mom, siblings and I were fleeing for our lives.

The way I coped with the situation was to disappear in my mind by being quiet and trying

to stay out of sight; however, staying out of sight was not always possible and that is how

I eventually learned that if I agreed with whatever my dad was saying, he would calm

down and become my friend so-to-speak.

Obviously, my childhood experience with my dad, once he started drinking, also played

heavily into my self perception of being timid, fearing authority figures, and wanting to

please everyone around me, but my blocking problem started long before my dad started

drinking so it certainly was not the cause of blocking - it was simply a reinforcement of

the issues.

What I want to point out is that I experienced through my dad initially how erratic human

behavior can be. As life went on, this erratic behavior is something that I would

experience over and over again to a point of losing all trust in those around me. I am not

saying that I suffered more disappointment and hurt than other people did, in fact I am

pretty sure we all get dealt a substantial amount over the course of our lives.

The only difference is that I was very tuned into that part of people’s personalities, so I

noticed it and contemplated it perhaps more than I should have. Consequently, I came to

the conclusion that human beings care about others only to the point that the other

person(s) is fulfilling a need.

I have seen and experienced husbands, wives, children, siblings, friends, co-workers,

acquaintances and strangers love and like each other one minute and in the next

demonstrate hatred, deceit, betrayal and abandonment simply because their need was no

longer being met by the person they once held in high regard and even loved, as in the

case of family members. I always believed firmly that there was a fine line between love

and hate.



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Have you ever had a time when someone you considered a friend just stopped contacting

you for no apparent reason? Have you ever left a job where you felt you had a lot of

friends but after you left the job they no longer made any attempt to contact you? What

about a family member who disagreed with you on something and decided to disown

you? How about church friends who called you a backslider or sinner because you no

longer believed exactly as they did? Have you ever had a spouse or significant other who

swore they would love you forever, but then they left you for someone else?

Honestly, I could go on and on but I do not want to depress you. I just want to give you a

bird’s eye view into how my brain processed the behavior of people around me. I realized

that to gain favor with other people I had to ensure I was meeting a need. The need that I

was trying to meet would vary with each person. For example, the need I would try to

meet for my boss was to make him look good by doing a great job, the need I might try to

meet in a friend was that I would be there when they needed to talk, the need I might

meet with my church friends was to agree with their beliefs so they would feel validated,

I might try to meet the need of a neighbor by always being available to watch their kids

or pick up the mail when they are out of town. The needs are different for each

relationship.

However, once I could no longer meet a need for them, I knew they would not see me as

being useful. So, I was on an unending quest to please other people and not only try to

meet their needs but equally trying to make them think that I had something to offer them

so they would not want to remove me from their life.

I had absolutely no reason to believe that anyone really and truly loved anyone else. I

sensed that all relationships were based on an unspoken rule that said, “We will maintain

a relationship as long as it is mutually beneficial in meeting both our needs.”

I believe that as long as we are trying to live our lives from the stuff in our brain instead

of from the essence of who we really are, then we have no choice but to interact with

other human beings from a meeting of needs standpoint instead of based on unconditional

love and a genuine appreciation for the other person just as they are. I also believe that



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having this understanding of human behavior is essential in developing healthy

expectations of the world around us.

This is where a part of my people pleasing behavior came into play. It is also where the

insecurity, lack of trust and fear displayed itself. I had a deep internal sense that if I were

unable to meet a specific need in a person they would discard me and move on to

someone who could fill that need. And just for clarity’s sake, let me say that I have not

been exempt from this behavior either. I am just as guilty as the next person.

The problem with the way my beliefs have formed in this area has not so much to do with

whether it is true or not, but how I respond to this belief.

During the time I struggled with blocking, I responded to this belief by trying to meet the

needs of other people on a continuous basis. It was like I was trying to fight against a law

of being human. Sort of like trying to fight against gravity. I wanted everyone to need me

all the time, for all of eternity and when they stopped needing me I felt as though my

value as a human being was diminished. I was literally crushed! I wanted to figure out

what was wrong with me that someone would not want me to be a part of their life any

longer.

Today, although I still have the same belief about human behavior, I see it in a different

light and I respond to it completely differently.

As I alluded to a few minutes ago, I now understand that it is our brain activity that

makes us behave in that way. Our physical bodies are made to ensure our survival and a

large part of that is ensuring that our needs, rather real or perceived, are met. Until we

learn how to run our own brains and operate according to who we really are (love), then

we will all continue to behave in this manner. There is no other choice.

With that being said, at some point I had to make a shift in how I would respond to our

human condition. Was I really willing to spend the rest of my life trying to please people

in an effort to feel valued and needed myself? Did I have enough energy to spend the rest



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of my life trying to meet everyone’s needs so they would not abandon me? And most

importantly, can I just let it be ok that I will meet some needs and not others? Can I make

it ok that today I may meet your needs and tomorrow I may not? Can I make it ok that we

are close friends this year but may lose contact with each other next year? Can it be ok

that I may make my boss look good today but not as good tomorrow? Can it all just be

ok?

When I made it all ok…everything was truly ok…. then I realized the more I make

everything in life ok… the more everything in life is truly ok.

Your Friend



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REALITY SHATTERED & REBUILT

Dear Dan,

At some point in my journey, after I began to have a better understanding of my beliefs,

values, and perceptions, I came to the startling conclusion that if I knew anything at all,

it was that I do not know anything.

The journey to overcoming blocking started at a place where I was pretty certain of what

was real and what was not. In fact, the thought of even questioning my own sense of

reality, to include my beliefs, values, and perceptions, was not even a concept in my

mind. Reality was what my eyes saw and what my brain thought.

When I first started my journey to fluency several decades ago, I had no idea what I was

going to discover about myself and the world around me. I had no idea that I would come

out the other end as a completely different person. Every aspect of who I thought I was,

every perception about the world around me, every assumption I made about other people

and every other possible aspect of my life as I once knew it was not untouched by the

journey.

Imagine for a moment that one day you wake up and realize that everything you believe

to be true about yourself, others, and the world around you was all false - a deception

created by the way you interpreted the events in your life. Imagine discovering that your

deepest held beliefs were an illusion put in place to ensure you conformed to your own

perception of who you are.

All of this and much more was involved in my journey to fluency. It was everything I

never imagined it would be. It was a long journey and at times it felt like it would never

end. I wondered over and over if I would make it. At times I wondered if it really had an

end. And finally, I reach my destination.

Perhaps your journey will not require so much from you, but if it does are you willing to

take the journey?



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In my journey I came to recognize that blocking is simply the external problem of my

internal miscalculations on reality itself. When I finally understood that everything that

happens under the sun has no meaning, it is all simply activity I then, realized that it was

the meaning I was assigning the activities under the sun that was causing all of my pain

in life.

I came to see that my journey was not really a journey to fluency but rather a journey of

self discovery. I experienced every form of emotion I could imagine, from excitement,

relief, wonderment, confusion, disbelief, frustration, anger, loss of control, sadness,

happiness and eventually freedom.

I will leave you now to your journey. I wish you success, but most of all I wish you fun

and enjoyment in the process.

Your Friend



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APPENDEX A

Brain Games from: Patterns for Renewing Your Mind International, Inc. Courtesy of Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min

DROP DOWN THROUGH PATTERN

1. Identify the experience with the emotion that you want to transform. For this exercise I suggest that you choose the ‘fear of blocking/stuttering’.

2. Step into the experience by imagining yourself back in the moment of the block. You will be totally there seeing the other person(s) out of your eyes and hearing him/her with your ears.

3. Once you ‘feel’ the fear, imagine that you are in an elevator and you are dropping down further and further. You drop down through the fear and you drop below it. You can imagine peeling off the ‘fear of blocking’. Once you drop down through that fear, what thought and/or feeling is there? What thought-feeling is supporting the fear of blocking?

4. Repeat dropping down through each negative thought-feeling until you reach a place where there is nothing – there is no meaning. (Everyone doesn’t experience consciously this place of nothingness. Some just ‘flip’ or transition right into the positive thoughts-feelings.)

5. If you experience that place of ‘no meaning’ or ‘nothingness’, imagine that you break through that place and go down through and out ‘beyond’ all the negative thoughts. (If you did not experience a place of nothingness, just continue on down through your positive thought-feelings.) Continue down through the positive thoughts-feelings until you reach that place representing your highest belief; that place where you hold dearest. For many this place is ‘God’. Others may experience the place as being a state of ‘oneness’, ‘unity’, ‘wholeness’, ‘love’, etc. (This is what in Bob refers to as being our 5th Position.) 1st Position is the position of self – a state of being in our own bodies. From here we see and experience the world from our own perspective. 2nd Position is the position of empathy. It is our imagining ourselves in the other person’s body looking back at ourselves from his perspective. (PWS tend to go into the other person’s body and imagine that the other person is judging them. Stop doing that. When you go into their body, ask yourself what they are probably thinking/ saying about you. Do not ‘judge’ them by guessing that they are judging



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you.) 3rd Position is being outside our bodies and observing ourselves and others in the interaction. This is the “Observer” state that I have spoken of so much. 4th Position is viewing our position or place within the structure of an institution such as our family, our work team, etc. 5th Position is the highest position that our minds can hold. It is the position that you want to drop down through all the way until you experience it. For me it is being in the presence of God. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with these positions as they are most useful in overcoming blocking as well as enhancing our conversing in all contexts of our lives.

6. Once you ‘feel’ yourself totally and completely inside your highest belief, your 5th Position, apply that state of being to the old fear of blocking. Just merge those two images together. If you experience the fear and the resource state of the 5th Position primarily as a feeling, mentally move the ‘feeling of fear’ up and into the 5th Position. This will bring healing to those old fears. You want to repeat this step on each negative state you uncovered as you dropped down through your fear of blocking. (Note: this works much better by your enlisting a coach to walk you through the process. This allows you to concentrate on the mentally processes without having to think of ‘what’s next’.)

7. Test by re-accessing the old memory of fearing blocking. What is your experience

now as you attempt to step inside that fear?



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PERCEPTUAL POSITIONS ILLISTRATION



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TIME-LINING

Before you begin this exercise, look carefully at the diagram below. This diagram

represents your time-line. The line going above your Time-Line illustrates your

dissociating above your Time-Line. The numbers indicate four key positions involved in

Time-Lining. Position 1 lies above the Time-Line and represents your arrival just before

you get to the root cause. Position 2 lies directly above the root cause. Position 3 refers

to the position above your Time-Line, 15 minutes before the root cause. Note carefully

the conceptual location of Position 3, for this is where you do the change work. As a

conceptual place, in position 3 we enter a place dissociated to the problem. Also, we have

positioned ourselves temporally before the problem ever occurred. And, we conceptually

take all our present knowledge and resources to that position enabling us to do some

powerful change work through reframing the problem by bringing those resources to bear

on the problem. Position 4 indicates your association into the event.

Time-Lining Diagram

Make a mental picture in your mind of these four positions above your Time-Line. Now,

select some experience that created a minor negative emotion in you. Someone could

have hurt your feelings, or maybe you did something that caused you some minor guilt.

Choose a minor negative emotion that you would like to let go. Get into your favorite

Birth The triggering event of “The Root Cause”

The presentFuture Events

1

23

4



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place and position of relaxation. You may wish to have some relaxing music in the

background. Take that memory and float up above your Time-Line. As you travel back

on your Time-Line, you approach Position 1. From this position see the root cause of the

event in front and below you.

From Position 1 go on to Position 2. At Position 2 you locate yourself directly above the

root cause. Now, float down into the event (Important: Never associate yourself into a

trauma or phobia.) Associate into the event of the root cause totally. See what you saw,

hear what you heard and feel what you felt at the creation of that emotion. Now

disconnect from those emotions and float back up to Position 2. From Position 2, float

back to Position 3, which lies 15 minutes (further if you need to) before the root cause.

From Position 3, turn and look towards the present. You will see the root cause of your

negative emotion below and in front of you. Now, where is the negative emotion? And,

any other emotion from that experience, have they disappeared, too?

If after looking toward the present you still experience negative feelings, remain in

Position 3 and “give yourself permission” to let those negative emotions flow out of you.

Remain there until all the emotions flow out. If you cannot let the emotions go

completely, a part probably needs reframing.



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RECOMMENDED BOOKS, MATERIALS, & COURSES The Map of Reality Expander http://www.centerpointe.com/life/courses/

This course is designed to help you become conscious of what I call your Internal Map of Reality, how it creates every result and every experience in your life, and how you can make the necessary changes that will allow you to very consciously and very deliberately create the results you want. (Cost is about $600 but they do let you pay in monthly installments).

Bob Bodenhamer, DMin The Institute of Neuro-Semantics [email protected] 704-864-3585 Bob Bodenhamer, cofounder of the Institute of Neuro-Semantics, offers individual therapy consultation sessions with PWS. He currently does a lot of work with people who stutter so do not get discouraged if you call and are placed on a waiting list. Highly Recommended Books Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, MD How to Conquer Your Fear of Speaking Before People by John Harrison Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg, MD Mastering Blocking & Stuttering by Bob G. Bodenhamer Users Manual for the Brain by Bob G. Bodenhamer The Secret by Rhonda Byrne What the Bleep do we know by Betsy Chasse, Chasse, Mark Vicente, and William Arntz States of Mind by Roberta Conlan Support Groups & Other Links http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/ This is the only support group that I am aware of that has its primary purpose as trying to assist people in overcoming stuttering. This group is intended to help you go through the journey of overcoming stuttering. By joining this group you will be able to correspond with some significant individuals who can help you like John Harrison author of ‘How To Conquer Your Fears Of Speaking Before People’ and Bob Bodenhamer author of ‘Mastering Blocking and Stuttering’. http://www.nsastutter.org/ The National Stuttering Association (NSA) is the largest self-help support organization in the United States for people who stutter.



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http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/stutter/ A place for people who stutter to talk and express themselves and maybe share some wisdom and insight."



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Bibliography

Begley, Sharon. (2007). Train Your Mind Change Your Brain. New York. Random

House Publishing Group.

Bodenhamer, Bobby G. and Hall, L. Michael. (2001).The User’s Manual For The

Brain. Wales, United Kingdom: Crown House Publishing.

Harrison, John. (2002). How To Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People.

Eighth Edition. The National Stuttering Association.

Maltz, Maxwell. (2002). The New Psycho-Cybernetics. New York, New York: Prentice

Hall Press.

Scheele, Paul. (2004). Abundance for Life. Learning Strategies Corporation.

Minnetonka, Minnesota.

The Institute for Health and Human Potential. (2007). Emotional Intelligence for

Personal Leadership. Barrie, ON.

letters to a desperate stutterer

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