Once you have set this trigger, try it out for real by accessing this state just before entering a speaking engagement. Learn from what happens. Remember there is no “failure”; it’s just a message that you need more practice. (For further information see Lederer & Hall, 1999). If you need to customize this set up, mentally step back and examine it, so that you can make any necessary adjustments. Find out what works best, and then amplify it, build your resource state:
What is the nature and quality (pictures, sounds, feelings) of your relaxed state?
What qualities and factors make up this state?
What other qualities would you like to edit into this state?
Additional qualities
For instance, you could add a big dose of healthy humor to the mix. The ability to lighten up, to not take your self or others so seriously, to enjoy people and experiences tremendously enriches relaxation. How many times have you become extremely fearful of a speaking moment when it was totally unnecessary? The people you were speaking to were not judging you like that and you know it. It was you who was doing the judging. Well, what about stepping outside that and seeing how ridiculous such thinking is. Could you now laugh at your childish behavior?
You can explode most fears by exaggerating them. Go really over the top with the fear until it become ridiculous. Then exaggerate it some more; it becomes ludicrous. Your sense of humor enables you to operate in a more humble and delightful way.
How about appreciation? What if you moved through the world appreciating things, people, and experiences more? Instead of fearing what other people may think of your speech, appreciate that most will listen patiently to you. Appreciate that you can not only speak, but you can in some contexts speak fluently. I know some mute people who would love to have those abilities.
Magnanimity is another resource. It would enable you to operate from a sense of a having a big heart and thereby prevent you from becoming mentally ruffled. How would that enhance your life?
You could choose to be open, to accept what the world offers you. You could be more flexible, forgiving, playful, balanced … the list goes on and on. Create you own set of resourceful qualities that will enhance your core relaxation state. Practice, practice, practice building that state so that instead of flying into a block you fly into a calm. Defusing emotions
Emotions have a profound effect on whether or not the PWS blocks and stutters. The PWS can learn how to control those emotions which have got out of perspective. In Chapter Two it was proposed that people evaluate their experience based on their expectations of what happens next, they learn to associate their emotions with whether or not their experience of the world matches those expectations.
The degree of association can change. The adult mind can judge which emotions are appropriate for a particular experience. Most inappropriate emotions are linked to the past, possibly childhood experiences. A PWS may claim that because “I was scared of my father because every time I started stuttering he would yell, ‘Spit it out! Spit it out!’ and ever since then I have been afraid of authority figures for they will want me to ‘spit it out’ and I can’t. That’s why I stutter.” This kind of generalization needs to be challenged; the PWS needs to sort out these confusions, as there is no need to hang on to the embarrassments from childhood and apply them to present situations. For example, the person they are talking to now is not that yelling parent, that threatening or ridiculing authority figure. It’s time for the PWS to make new evaluations about their emotional responses as the old ones are no longer justified.
Exercise 5.2: The Emotions Are Just Signals Pattern
Emotions have a profound effect on whether or not the PWS blocks and stutters. The PWS needs to know how to control those emotions which have got out of hand. The following exercise provides several ways to reframe those negative emotions. Overview
Recognize that emotions are just signals.
Access a witnessing state.
Recognize the triggers that evoke the blocking
Say to yourself, “It is just an emotion.”
Give yourself permission to change the meaning that drives the emotion.
Use a positive resource.
Check alignment.
Put into your future and install.
1. Recognize that emotions are just signals.
Remind the PWS that their emotions are there for a purpose, which is to help them evaluate and decide whether or not their experience is enjoyable and worth pursuing. In this sense it is information about their relationship with an experience. The point is: are they acting on that information unthinkingly, or are they engaging in a proper evaluation of what is happening?
2. Access a witness state to one of the major negative emotions around blocking.
Ask the PWS to name one of the emotions they associate with blocking. It could be
