Today is a big day. Not for myself only. But for all those who work on having their lives in their hands. The ones who write their stories, define themselves, aim for mountain peaks, never give up, and—those who are objective, reasonable, wise, smart, and agile. Today, I celebrate my graduation ceremony. I no longer appear speech disabled. Out of the narrow path that stuttering limited me to for long. I am free from it, finally. And you can be, too. I was almost a shut down blocker, close to mute sometimes. Although I read Coach Lee’s book two years ago, I have only worked hard on WSSA’s program for eight months or so. It has been a life saver.
You know what, ladies and gentlemen? I just shared the secret recipe to expel bad habits and replace them with what you believe to be—of course, not to become a flying angel but to be as best a human can be. This approach is a life-quest yet beautiful journey. In this way, you will meet wonderful people (like WSSA’s speech coaches, heroes) who are so unlike the many who preach that stuttering is incurable and must be accepted.
To me, the definition of stuttering is two words: a bad habit. Our master, Coach Lee, put it as simple as that. The more I thought about it, the more I found it could never be truer. I am not a perfect man. In fact, I am full of faults. And among all my faults and negative behavior, I found that stuttering was the strongest. That is what made a legend and allowed it to be amplified beyond any human ability. That’s why a lot of stutters, sadly, await medical labs to ‘invent’ the magic pill that gonna treat stuttering. Well, I wish this happens, but until then, the best medicine (I believe) is to heal the whole person, to define it as a mere bad habit, confine it, despise it, attack it all day long until it diminishes and subsides (as in my case) or even dies (as in Coach Lee case and many PWSS around the world).
I don’t know why or how, but as many as 80 million PWS around the world, we long believed that words—or some words and sounds are difficult by nature. Wrestling, care, fanatic, apricot, and many other words are bo bos. Bizarrely (to our negatively programmed subconscious), the reality turned out to be against all our odds! All words are easy! Normal people do not differentiate between anything that comes out of the mouth. They (in some magical power) do not see K is harder than L sound!!!! How come this? But they do it all the time, everywhere, in every language!!! Then daaaaaaaaaaaamn! WE ARE THE ONES IN TROUBLE! And that, obviously, needed to be changed. Let me refresh your memory from Coach Lee’s book: Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures: Third Edition “Repeat anything enough, and it will become your reality.” If we hadn’t repeated that speaking is difficult both consciously and unconsciously, we would not have gotten ourselves trapped. And it is the same way out. I wish every PWS realize this and work on themselves redemption.
To beat stuttering, you must have a strong power of well, bravery, and consistency. Equipped with these three weapons, I attack stuttering from wake-up until bedtime. Before talking to others, after stuttering, when fluent, when happy or down, when standing or lying down, I repeat with a strong belief and bravery and constantly that all words, all speaking situations, and all sounds are easy. If I can say any word anywhere, anytime, then I can say any word anywhere and anytime. Be cautious; with one missing pillar out of those three, your journey will fall short, and you will give up before reaching your destination. I used many of the crutches but my speech plan probably helped me the most, speaking in short increments, linking my words and inserting long stops to rest and breathe.
To me, this belief did not have to be in the form of hypnosis. Hypnosis can be, for some people, tedious and hard to reach for. This is stronger and easier. It falls between autosuggestion, as you repeat it the whole time, and hypnosis, where you feel what you say. It’s like a doctrine.
What did stuttering teach me? Of course, all experienced members here know that it teaches you humbleness, persistence, etc. Let me grab one out of the usual box to show you how it can turn you into a great person before kicking it out: as a scientist in his lab, stuttering taught me to isolate myself from my feelings and look at matters subjectively. To give you an example, a person looks a good fit to become a friend of mine, then he turns his back and gives me a cold shoulder. Instead of going under all negative feelings of shaming myself and feeling guilty and taking it personally, I would go back to my mental lab: was it because I stuttered? If yes, then I think I was trying to impress a superfluous unworthy piece of crap, and I should avoid such people in the future. Was it because I did not use a proper crutch? Then I gotta speak like a king, louder, lower, or any other crutch. And so on. I now almost do not take anything personally. I am in charge of dictating my mental state. Isn’t this beautiful? Isn’t it a big source of peace and tranquility? Without stuttering, I think I would never have been able to achieve such wisdom. Tell me, how many people around you do you recognize them with such ability? Yet, with a word of caution and humility, I am far from mastering this art of mental freedom, but at least I realize it and try to reach it.
Another challenge I have faced since I joined SAM or read Coach Lee’s book in 2020 is that I was probably one of the slowest people to get results. However, I didn’t give up, and the success stories I kept seeing on SAM and directly observing how some members improved substantially have helped me to continue hypothesizing and autosuggesting for a good four years. The moral: do not give up. It’s a marathon, not a race. It’s a voyage, embrace it and enjoy it along the way. Someday, you will reach and not die trying.
Am I perfectly fluent? No. It is of extreme importance to me to clearly tell everyone that I am not a completely fluent person. But compared to the long and far way I came from, I am living a life of fluency and the ability to say what I wanna say that seemed to be mere dreams in the past. Unfortunately, large population of people who stutter around the world still adopt this fallacy.
Would I become one who loves to speak everywhere someday? I believe yes. It’s a journey towards becoming a better version of myself day after day.
Can I talk in every situation and with everyone? Yes! And that by itself was my biggest life dream. And I made it! Now it’s the time (as I said) for improvement. This improvement initiates itself from concrete grounds, where I counter some incidents here and there or minor replaces, but they do nothing except trigger me to encounter them with a flood of positive thoughts: I am a normal person, like all the people around me; I am not giving my life up for an illusion; all words, litters, and sounds are at the same ease; I knew how normal talk is and I shall do it.
In the end, be determined, be relaxed, and be in good company, at WSSA’s community of ex-stutterers. And do not take it so seriously.
Nawaf, France/Arabia, June 2024
