Buying Lee’s book was the best decision that I ever made. My name is Javier. I’m 29 and I live in Madrid, Spain. I have been stuttering on many words in most situations since I was 4. I blocked and repeated constantly. I couldn’t really talk at all to groups. I couldn’t stand it. I haven’t been able to say what I wanted most of my life. It got worse in high school and university; especially when I had to give presentations to a class of more than a hundred students. And as you can imagine, I used to block in almost every word.
Afterwards I worked as a seller for six years. So I had to speak with clients and suppliers all day long. Of course, I used to block in most of the sentences I said. I avoided speaking on the phone as much as I could.
After stuttering for around 24 years and trying multiple therapies, all of them unsuccessful, I surrendered and ended up accepting that I will be a stutterer for the rest of my life.
This situation changed more or less at the same time I started my own company, when a very good friend of mine (who also happens to be a PWS who recently posted his success story here in SAA) recommended me Lee’s book. You can’t imagine how grateful I am to him. I finally found the answer! By just reading it, his 2nd Edition, I was able to reduce my stuttering by 50%. Since then, I’ve read his 3rd Edition too, and it’s the best one by far!
I now use the crutches constantly. After I finished the book last summer, I started Skyping most weeks with Lee. I can’t tell you how much his coaching has helped me. The “one-two-three punch” in his book works. Reading aloud let me hear and believe how good my speech could really be. It also gave me a chance to practice thinking about my emotions as I spoke rather than about my words. I learned self-hypnosis and this has been a huge benefit. I give myself two treatments a day, before sleep and on arising, and sometimes one during the day. Seeing and hearing myself be fluent during those treatments has changed my thinking about my speech. Then, of course, the crutches have made it possible to stop stuttering long enough to fill my mind with memories of myself talking fluently without constantly adding stutter memories.
By my third or so month of Skyping with Lee, I had cut my “bad speech incidents”, as Lee calls appearing to have a speech disability, from a great many to 5 a day and then down to 2 a day and, finally, to none! My speech had changed hugely, and so did my life. Lee’s methods changed my life in so many wonderful ways. I began to see stuttering as a blessing. I used to worry about my speech most minutes of every hour of every day. After studying Lee’s book and reading it several times and Skyping for a few months with Lee, I began to see how stuttering was becoming a blessing. I was learning to control my thoughts. I was worrying about my speech only five minutes or so in most hours. I felt freedom like never in my life.
My family can’t believe how improved my speech is. I saw a light at the end of the darkness of the stuttering tunnel, and I accepted it, and I ran for it. I kept trying harder and harder every day. I wanted out of that tunnel. After a while, I didn’t stutter; I was having NO bad incidents, but my speech was still “bumpy” as Lee calls it. I didn’t appear speech disabled but I still had to force some words, a word here or there in most sentences. So, we began working on that. I learned to “speak like a King” as Lee calls it, slower, less talking, talking less words at a time, thinking pronunciation, my feelings, word linkage instead of words. Gradually, I stopped the bumps.
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my girlfriend and two of her friends who I had never met before, so they didn’t know I used to stutter. At the end of it, one of them said “You speak really well.” I couldn’t believe that anyone could ever say that about my speech! Interestingly, since then, two more strangers have said much the same. I guess that I am speaking more “like a King” than I thought. A stutterer all my life until now, I am overjoyed to hear people compliment my speaking ability. Just a year ago, I had resigned myself to a lifetime of stuttering but now I have found fluency. Lee’s methods and coaching showed me how to do it, and I have done it!
Do I still have speech fears? I do, but less and less every day, and as Lee says fear is not stuttering. It’s a post-cure war, and I’m working on that now. I think it’s been two months since my last bad speech incident. I know so many ways to avoid them now.
I’m joining a toastmasters group soon. Imagine that! As Lee says, the next goal Is to be able to say “I love speak anywhere, anytime no matter how big the audience”. I know that I’ll get there. I won’t quit until I do and I’ll keep doing self-hypnosis for mind training for the rest of my life. I can already feel its benefits. I am making myself a better person.
So here’s what I want to say to my fellow stutterers: You can stop your stuttering. Anyone who doesn’t believe that hasn’t really applied Lee’s methods. They work. It has taken me about six months of reading and Skyping but that’s a small price to pay for a new life of fluency and to already have three strangers tell me that I speak “so well”. Unbelievable, but true. If you want to hear me speak, go here: https://vimeo.com/389156228/d043367104. So, don’t hold back; don’t wait another minute; get Lee’s book and study it right now, and, if you can, Skype with Lee or some of the other SAA coaches. It’s a new day out there. Stuttering is no longer needs to be a lifelong curse. Lee’s methods and SAA are changing the stuttering world.
Javier, Madrid, Spain, April 2019
P.S. Javier became an SAA Certified Coach in September 2019 and is now actively coaching several PWS.
P.S.S. It has been two years since I posted my story above. What a wonderful ride it has been and continues to be. As a PWS I used to be angry all the time, with myself, with the entire world. I was depressed too. I lost hope. I arose every day knowing that I had to go to work, sell whatever I had to sell, make reports, send emails, etc, then go back to my house, have dinner, and go back to bed. All the while knowing that I would be stuttering forever, and badly. I knew that I would never be able to marry, raise a family, etc. Then I found Lee’s book, his videos, the Success Stories. I was 28. It became my nº1 priority. Not my job, nothing else. Only that. I slept 4-5 hours a day for weeks, or maybe months, because I had to read aloud, do my AST or SHT, use the Crutches, my work, etc. Best decision ever. Nine months later, I posted my story above. I then became an WSSA Certified Speech Coach and I’ve helped around ten PWS beat stuttering already, all the while continuing to improve my own already fluent speech. My life has changed. I have changed. I am a completely different person. Some weeks ago, I came across some friends; I hadn’t seen them in years. They almost cried when they saw how much I changed, not only my speech, everything. I improved. No kidding. I feel as though I owe my new life, my real life, to The Lovett Method and now to WSSA, the world’s only community of EX-stutterers. I hope that you will embrace our methods and us; we’ll embrace you right back, and your life will change too. April 2021
