Articles by Bob Bodenhamer & L. Michael Hall

Seven Minutes to Breakthrough (The Bright Spots Strategy)

December 18, 2012 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Watch Tony Robbins do a masterful job of assisting a PWS in the overcoming of his fears about stuttering which led the PWS to unbelievable fluency. These results were obtained in just one session or demonstration to a crowd of participants. In this presentation, Tony shows his superb skill at using NLP skills in bringing about the reframing of old limiting beliefs into new, powerful resources. It is a masterpiece of work.

Why Do Stutterers Not Stutter When Singing

August 14, 2012 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

by Bob Bodenhamer

Over the years I have been asked many times, “how is it that a PWS does not stuttering when singing?” I have heard several explanations such as the value of “cadence” in the music makes it possible to structure the PWS’ voice with the beat of the song and this helps fluency. I have heard others speak about the “flow of air” through the vocal cords while singing that permits fluency.

There may very well be truth in both those replies, but the following one makes more sense than any that I have heard:

“Why don’t British singers sing with a British accent?”
Or
“Why stutterers don’t stutter when singing?”

I just found quite by accident a very interesting article entitled “Why don’t British singers sing with a British accent?”

By Joram on “Answering squeebs’s question”

It is found at:

askville.amazon.com/British-singers-sing-accent/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1351524

I have copied and pasted the full article below (Bold & italics Bob’s):

“Because singing forces the singer to pronounce “true” vowel sounds.

English vowels are the same, no matter where you’re from. Speaking employs gliding vowels…transitions from one to the next. Singing is phrased such that vowels are held longer (to the note), which more or less erases regional accents. In singing, vowels tend to sound more like their true sounds (monophthongs), rather than diphthongs.

“Imagine the difference between accent disappearance in, say, an Andrew Lloyd Weber song, vs. a Cake song, if sung by the same person. The Weber track (Memory, to take an annoying example) would almost entirely mask any accent because vowels are held for a relatively long time. In Comfort Eagle, on the other hand, the words are barely sung…almost spoken over the music. Any regional accent would come through quite strongly.

“And of course, it’s possible to maintain or manufacture an accent when you sing (anyone who’s ever heard Charlie Daniels or Randy Travis knows that). But it may take some effort. The Proclaimers are a particularly egregious example pointed out by one commenter on the topic.

(Bob says, Randy Travis is a country music singer. He is from Marshville, NC about 60 miles from me. We have very similar accents when we talk. I sure wish I could sing like him.)

Applying Acceptance, Appreciation and Esteem to Yourself Pattern

February 12, 2012 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Meta-Stating Self Acceptance, Appreciation and Esteem for Self
By L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. and Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

Acceptance Pattern (PDF File)

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici

How to Create a Good Dose of Stuttering

June 9, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici

In the field of Neuro-Semantics we recognize the cognitive-behavioral principle that every experience has a structure. The facets of our mind-body-emotion system come together as variables in a system. This has many ramifications.

For one thing, it says that we can model the structure of experience. After all, if we can identify the component elements, arrange those variables in a sequence, identify the feedback and feed forward loops of the system, we can replicate that experience. Modeling in this way lies at the heart of NLP/Neuro-Semantics.

This explains why we can replicate excellence in communication, relating, managing, leading, inventing, creativity, and thousands of other experiences. This focus on modeling also means that every behavior and experience is a skill. Though it may be painful, harmful, and destructive (like manic-depression, schizophrenia, etc.) it has a structure and by exploring such experiences of pain has a structure and strategy that makes it work.

Does it suggest anything else? Yes. It also suggests that by curiously wondering how something works we are able to thereby enter into that experience and be inside that matrix of frames. And it is in this way that we can develop many more choices about changing and transforming an experience.

Therefore to work with the mind-body-emotion system of human beings which we call the Neuro-Semantic System, we begin with that system and watch how it works (See Figure 1). What follows here begins with state and then adds state upon state to create the experience that we call “stuttering.”

In the field of stuttering, John Harrison (2002) has provided a basic systems model for six of the key variables or factors. He calls this system, “The Stuttering Hexagon.” The six factors that he has highlighted are: physiological responses, physical behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, and intentions. He has noted that in a system every element is influenced by the other elements, positively or negatively (vi). Harrison has also noted numerous other systemic factors about the stuttering hexagon:

As a system, stuttering involves the entire person and is not just a speech problem.
Once operating as a system, it has a life of its own (p. 3).
As a system, the stuttering system will have default settings.

“A permanent change in your speech will happen only when you alter the various default settings around the Stuttering Hexagon.” (106)

Change a critical factor in the system, and the entire system changes.

“Stutter on purpose, openly, consciously…. deliberately. Instead of escaping from each block as quickly as possible, you want to give yourself the luxury of extending the block as long as you can make it interesting to do so. When you block on purpose, you are in control. Find out how good it feels to be holding the strings. Sure, your heart may be pounding away. You may get all flushed. You may feel silly and stupid.” (34)

If there’s a structure to experiences, then we cannot just create a good batch of “stuttering” on the spot. It doesn’t work that way. Instead, we have to have the right ingredients and we have to mix them in the right order in order to create this skill. Not everybody can stutter. It’s a skill that necessitates a certain way of thinking and believing, a certain way of looking at and perceiving speech, self, others, etc. It involves a specific use of fear and apprehension, a certain attitude about how to cope and respond and it involves coaching and training the muscles and breathing.

What we are calling an attitude, Harrison calls a mentality.

“You have to change to another mentality, the fight should be against the stuttering mentality that creates it, not the symptoms.

This means that there is a non-stuttering mentality just as there is a stuttering mentality. In what follows we have used the 7 Matrices of the Mind Model, a Neuro-Semantic model developed in 2002, that structures the NLP and NS patterns. We use this model for coaching, counseling, modeling, and neuro-semantic profiling. Accordingly, we here use it to make explicit the stuttering system to provide systemic understanding of the semantics (meanings) that get into the body and nervous system (neuro-) to embody “stuttering” so that it becomes part of physiology and a style of moving through the world.

Figure 1

Meaning Table for Creating Stuttering:

#1 Meaning/Value – Meaning Determines the Matrices C 1. Classification of non-fluent speech as blocking/stuttering 2. Associating blocking/stuttering with fear and shame 3. Evaluating blocking/stuttering as bad and unacceptable 4. Framing blocking/stuttering has having the following meanings in the other matrices:

#7 Intention/Self	#7 Intention/Power	#7 Intention/Time	#7 Intention/Others	#7 Intention/World
(Attempted solutions that make the problem worse)
I don’t want to look like a fool?I will not show my vulnerabilities or weaknesses. I will play it safe and create a sense of security because I am not like others. I am more sensitive. I can’t handle criticism well. I’ve got to stop this. This shows me to be inadequate and flawed. I will “block” myself from stuttering!	I am going to try to control this?I am going to try to control every word that comes out of my mouth. I need to change. I must not stutter. I have to catch this. I will do that by becoming very self aware of my speech. I have to try really hard not to block and stutter or I will look foolish.	I am going to not repeat the past.I am not going to make a fool of myself with my speech anymore. If I block any emotion in this moment, it will give me more control. I’m afraid this will be permanent so I will try hard to not to continue stuttering so I will “block” more.	I am not going to attract attention.I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities. I will not give others to chance to laugh at me. I will not let them see me struggle. I will avoid any situations around people or groups that will expose this weakness. I will try to cover the stuttering up.	I will not do anything that will draw attention to me in my work, career, etc.I will avoid speaking situations that will attract attention to me. I will try to be successful by avoiding all opportunities to speak.

#2 Self	#3 Power	#4 Time	#5 Others	#6 World
I am flawed. (“There is something wrong with me.”)I am broken. I am not enough. I am inadequate. I am flawed. I am foolish. I am worthless. I am insecure. I am timid. I am shy. I am anxious. I am tense. I am “shamed.” I am “possessed.” I can’t be enough. Embarrassment I am ashamed. I am angry. I am abnormal. I can’t be enough. Self-pity My value is in my performance. Unique (I stutter – I am special.)	Loss of controlFrustration Lack of Protection Perceived hurt. I need to change. I can’t be enough. I am terrified of speaking to ____________. I need to be respected and loved in order to speak fluently. (Other) I should be doing better. I got to do something. I got to get it done. “It” (becoming fluent) works for everybody but me. I cannot speak─ In public On the phone On stage I cannot order in a restaurant. I cannot introduce myself. Hesitation is a sign of weakness. Hesitation is a sign of fear. Hesitation means you are not sure.	PermanentDoomed It has always been this way. I am not making progress. I got to do something. I got to get it done. I can’t take my time to say what I want to say (sense of being rushed).	It is not OK to stutter.Fear (of being rejected) Expectations from others Inability to measure up to expectations Hurt (not being validated) Rejection Isolation Protection – (From getting involved in a relationship.) I am less than. I look foolish. Judged. People validate or determine my worth. What people say about me becomes the truth. People judge the content of what I am saying. I must protect myself from being hurt by others. I must conceal my emotions. I am doing something “bad” to them if I stutter.	I should be doing better.I got to do something. I got to get it done. “The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’” I wont succeed. I am out of control.

Note: In the above table we are illustrating how after the PWBS punctuates/classifies non-fluency as stuttering, the individual will associate fear and shame as to what stuttering might mean. The PWBS evaluates blocking/stuttering as bad and unacceptable. Obviously, the person does not want to block/stutter so an outcome (#7 Intention) of not stuttering becomes priority. The person fears what stuttering may mean and thus creates a driving urge to not stutter. Thus the person attempts to “block” stuttering because he/she has defined stuttering as being bad in each classification of his/her concept of self, of his/her relationship with time, of his/her relationship with others and how he/she views the world (Is the world safe, unsafe, friendly, not friendly, etc?). You will note that in the attempt to solve the problem of stuttering by attempting to block the stuttering, the person in fact creates blocking/stuttering.

We have included the matrix of frames from two actual case studies. Click here to access a a graphic file of each case study depicting the frames matrix that activated the blocking/stuttering – (Case Study #1) (Case Study #2).

Another Visual – The Stuttering Iceberg Click Here

Read on─

Step 1: Call Stuttering Into Existence as a Reality.

First we have to punctuate the non-fluency of speech in which a person might be searching for a word or repeating a phrase or sound so that you stammer, hesitate and halt, and then try to stop or block oneself from hesitating, and then stutter. When this happens, we need to call this “stuttering” and do so with a certain disdain and contempt in our tone or attitude. By making this distinction, we thereby call into being such a “thing” as stuttering. We classify certain verbalizations as “stuttering” and so it comes to be. All we have to do then is to attach negative thoughts, feelings and attitudes to it and about it. Punctuating “stuttering” calls it into existence, gives it attention, enables you to pay attention to it, and become conscious of it.

Harrison (1989/ 2002) notes this very thing in his work:

“When I stopped observing my problem through the narrow perspective of ‘stuttering,’ the stuttering per se was gone–that is, I stopped seeing behavior as something called ‘stuttering’ – and in its place was a handful of other problems in a unique relationship that needed to be addressed. By individually addressing these issues, the actual physical blocking behaviors slowly diminished and disappeared over time.” (220)

Wendel Johnson (1946), as a general semanticist, noted the same thing in a chapter entitled, “The Indians have no word for it.” For there to be an experience of stuttering, we have to classify and categorize it and if we want the experience to be negative and painful, we have to add massive psychological pain to it: embarrassment, sense of inadequacy, flawed, etc.

We use our first and primary matrix to do this, the Meaning Matrix. We create meaning in several ways, one by classifying or punctuating an event in a certain way. The term “stuttering” calls it into existence. Without a term that identifies and classifies it in this way, it doesn’t exist. Then only non-fluency exists. Secondly, we create meaning by associating certain feelings to the classification. Then we frame the associated class and create higher level meanings.

Step 2: Contemptfully Fear Stuttering

What does it take to create a strong and lasting case of “stuttering” or blocking? Typically, we need a strong personality of a parent or teacher, someone who can raise their voice, yell, insult, punish, embarrass, or give hypnotic suggestions to set the meaning frame for “stuttering” as a bad thing. It doesn’t matter what semantic (meaning) frame is set so as long as you feel fear about the existence of this thing that you call “stuttering.” In this way you can develop a sense that to say words in a halting way is a negative, scary, and threatening thing. As the sense and feeling of fear grows, then you can attach that fear to more and more ideas thereby creating layers and layers of negative and fearful meanings.

What will you hear when you ask anybody who stutters in a state of self-consciousness?

Do you like stuttering? Do you enjoy it? Do you practice it? Do you feel skillful, masterful, or powerful when stuttering?

If they stay around to answer you, they will tell you that they do not like, enjoy, or want it. They will tell you that they hate it, reject it, feel embarrassed by it and try their best to stop it.

This highlights the fact that they have moved in their minds to a higher level meaning as they have take a thought-feeling state (in this case, “fear”) and applied it to the classification of stuttering. This frames the facets of stuttering in a way that makes these components seem dangerous and threatening. This seems natural. It seems intuitive. If the experience embarrasses and brings forth unpleasant social experiences, it’s easy to attach negative feelings and meanings to it.

This explains why it is so counter-intuitive to welcome it, embrace it, accept it, and practice it. Why make friends with “the enemy?” Why kiss the dragon? Yet, this is precisely what the so-called “paradoxical intervention” from Logotherapy and Brief Psychotherapy invites. And it is precisely what we do in Neuro-Semantics to straighten out the meta-muddle of setting the negative semantic frames in the first place.

Harrison recommends intentional stuttering:

“Here’s the irony, the harder you try to solve your stuttering problem, the more you’re establishing its presence.” (30)

“Just like fighting the gang reinforces its presence, focusing on the speech block—resisting it, fighting it—only further entrenches it within your psyche.” (31)

Step 3: Become Afraid of what Stuttering Means

To create a good dose of stuttering, but we next have to buy into the negative meanings and move to yet a higher level as we add a good dose of fear about what the stuttering will mean. Expressing it in this way may seem weird. Yet we are a class of life that can become afraid of what something may mean.

In Neuro-Semantics, we see this all the time. We even elicit this structure in our trainings. I regularly ask, “Do any of you have a bad relationship to an idea? To criticism? Rejection? Discipline? Authority? Approval?” It’s amazing the things we can fear. We can fear concepts and ideas. We can fear what something could mean.

With shuttering, we give it such negative meanings and then feel threatened at the level (or within the matrix) of self, resourcefulness, relationship, and the world of career. Yet anything that creates a basic existential threat to some highly valued set of ideas or frames will put us in a fear state. What works best is to feel fear that it could, might, or does mean one of the following. Stuttering will now come to mean─

In the Self or Identity Matrix: I am inferior, flawed, inadequate, bad.
In the Other or Relationship Matrix: No one will like me. I’ll be rejected, disdained, alone, mocked, embarrassed.
In the World Matrix of Life and Success: I won’t be able to succeed: my future success in business and relationships are endangered.
In the Power or Resourcefulness Matrix: I will be out of control, dis-empowered, unable to handle things, unable to cope, etc.

At this level the system oscillates back and forth between Fear and Meaning. First the state of fear, then the state of meaning, then back to fear, etc. In this step, we use the Meaning Matrix and apply it to the foundational Matrices of Self, Power, Others, and World so that each of these become fearful. Each seems dangerous. Each seems dangerous because we map things as fearful now and in the future (the Time Matrix).

Step 4: Get the Fear Looping

Once our mind-body-emotion system classifies an event and then fears it, we can then become afraid of ourselves and our entire experience. That is, we can move up yet another level and fear our fear. We can fear our entire neuro-semantic system.

As we then fear what the stuttering might or could mean, we fear our fear, we fear that it does mean personal inadequacy and more. After the looping back and forth between awareness of personal inadequacy and the state of fear, first one then the other, then the first again, your mind-body-emotion system oscillates in a closed-loop so that every time around the loop the fear becomes stronger and more intense.

This indicates a higher level move. The fear moves to a meta-level to become about the meanings. In this way, the fear becomes the frame and governs and self-organizes the fearful meanings. The meanings become fearful, dreadful, terrifying. The fear permeates into the meanings so that the very idea of the meanings set off “semantic reactions.” Primary state “reactions” are those built in reactive patterns to triggers. Semantic reactions are higher level ideas, meanings, beliefs that similarly “rattles the nervous system” and what happens when someone “pushes our buttons.”

This explains why fear in one’s stuttering mind-body-emotion system can so easily spin out of control. It explains why it seems so real. Inside the body-mind system, it is. Then the fears multiply. In this, the Meaning Matrix uses fear of fear to begin looping round and round. As we attempt to stop the stuttering and the fearing this intention operates paradoxically to add fuel to the fear. This activates the Intention/ Purpose Matrix and actually makes it all worse.

Step 5: Outframe with even more fearful and dreadful frames

As the fear of stuttering becomes fear of what it means, the fear rises to a higher level. Later this turns into yet another higher level fear… fear as judgment, shaming, angering, guilting, etc. This operates to solidify the system and to close the feedback loops from the outside world where new information and data can enter. This outframe may take various forms.

This is the way it is.

This is all genetic and physiological and nothing can solve it.

Once a stutterer, always a stutterer.

It’s no use going against the grain, might as well settle for being mediocre.

Step 6: Set Up a Closed Looped Contemptful Self-Consciousness

With all of the above in place, it will be easy to access the Self Matrix and bring a sense of painful self-awareness that you can then fear and attach dread and terror to. You will experience the painful self-awareness as self-consciousness that again believes that you are inadequate and flawed.

Step 7: Access the Time Matrix to Amplify the Painful Fear

Finally, recall any and every historical reference that confirms and validates this internal experience of shameful contemplate about stuttering … bring it to this present moment to anticipate that it could happen at any moment, and project this into the future so that you anticipate it repeatedly over and over throughout all of the coming years. This will construct anticipatory fear of this whole matrix of fearful meanings in this moment and every step of every moment into the future.

The finale: A Fully Developed Stutterer

Set that system into motion and in the end you will create a human being who can semantically over-load speaking and verbalization. Speaking up suddenly isn’t just saying words and transferring ideas via symbols, suddenly it is the litmus test for being adequate and non-flawed as a human being. Talk about putting your self-esteem or worth “on the line!” Talk about turning an everyday feature of life into a major event!

Yet the problem isn’t the person, it’s his or her frames about speaking. Such persons have been inducted into the Hall of Fears and Mega-Fears of Fears as they have learned and been trained to think of speaking in unresourceful ways. Most believe that “fluency is everything.” Many people that “fluency would solve all their problems.” Many think that mis-speaking is a big deal and that the only thing worse is looking foolish in front of others, being embarrassed, or being self-conscious. Others believe that making mistakes is terrible and that being criticized is horrible.

Yet it is these ideas as belief frames that actually create the problem. And they then lead to secondary problems: conditional self-esteem, lack of assertiveness, a style of playing it safe, trying to stop or block themselves when anticipating misspeaking, fearing strong feelings, thinking life is a performance, etc.

How To Create a Good Dose of Non-Stuttering

Are you ready for some “paradox?” Are you willing to hear and act on that which might seem counter-intuitive? It will seem counter-intuitive because if you stutter and hate it and/or even identify yourself as such, what follows is the mentality or set of frames that leads to a very different world, that of non-stuttering. Well, actually to stuttering and not noticing.

That’s how we do it. When we stutter (that’s when, not if), we just don’t pay much attention to it. Our attitude is that it doesn’t matter much. So what? It is in this why that we don’t over-load it with semantic meanings. Stammering, halting, or stuttering only means “I’m searching for my words” and nothing more. We don’t psycho-speak.

It’s like psycho-eating. Those who eat for psychological purposes and reasons─ to feel loved, rewarded, fulfilled, valued, given the good life, to distress, to be social, etc.─ eat for the wrong reasons. That’s why they of all people are the ones who seldom taste the food or enjoy it. They don’t eat food for food, for fuel, for energy and vitality. They psycho-eat. (See Games Slim People Play, 2001).

Psycho-speaking has the same structure─ speaking to prove that you are adequate, aren’t a fool, to avoid feeling embarrassed, to avoid feeling powerful, to avoid feeling angry, to avoid feeling … Harrison notes that by over-valuing “fluency” as if it is some magical cure, we make fluency the golden key to all of the goodies of life. That’s the lie. I love what he wrote:

“Ask your friends if their lives are terrific simply because they talk fluently. You might even ask them how comfortable they are when they speak in front of others. You’ll discover that fluency is no magic pill for anything except being fluent.” (v)

Step 1: Undo the classification. Stop punctuating speech in terms of stuttering or fluency. Let speech be speech and talk be just that, talk. Some is more effective than others. Some is more to the point, more succinct, and some is searching for words. No big deal.

Step 2: Welcome non-fluency and play with it. Spend five minutes stuttering on purpose. If you can turn it on, guess who’s in charge of your tongue? Practice with a friend and try to outdo each other. Turn it into a game. Attach fun and joyful and playful and social feelings to it. Harrison recommends doing this with an entire audience!

Step 3: Create a solid semantic basis for your sense of self, resourcefulness, relationship skills, and ability to take effective action in the world. This undoes the damage previously described. Unconditionally esteem your self as a human being whose worth and dignity is a given. You are a somebody, now live your life expressing that. Develop new and powerful resources to increase your sense of power and vitality. We have many empowerment processes in Neuro-Semantics just for that. Recognize that connection is with others is based more on thoughtfulness, consideration, sharing of values and visions, love, compassion, and a thousand other things than fluency. So is effectiveness in the world.

Step 4: Welcome in every negative emotion, make friends with it, and embrace it. Turn any negative emotion against yourself and you have not only missed the whole point of having “emotions” but you have created the foundation of a dragon state. (See Dragon Slaying, 1995/ 2000). Get comfortable with discomfort. Stretch yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. Enjoy embarrassment.

The 7 Matrices of the Mind

In this presentation, we have run one possible scenario through the Neuro-Semantic model of the 7 Mind Matrices. We believe it is the most common one that mostly prevails, yet it is not the only one. Upon punctuating the existence of “stuttering,” one could just as easily hate it and develop strong antagonistic feelings of intolerance for any flaw in speaking. These responses would create meanings and feelings that would generate similar conclusions as described above, but with a different feel. The person would not so much fear the experience as feel contempt for it. Similarly, anger, shame, guilt, and numerous other negative feelings could drive the mind-body-emotion matrix system and create other affects.

Summary

If you stutter with a self-consciousness that you find painful, fearful, shameful, or intolerant, there is hope. There is hope because your experience has structure. That you have gotten certain ideas incorporated or embodied into your very neurology and physiology does not mean it is not psychological. It only says that it has a lot of habit strength and that it now operates apart from your conscious awareness. Structure means that we can intervene at numerous places in the system, sometimes reversing the structure and sometimes messing it up.

In Neuro-Semantics we are currently using various meta-stating processes for resolving the stuttering matrix. These include such patterns as the Drop-Down Though, Phobia Cure, Self-Celebrating, Power Zone Ownership, Dragon Slaying, Intentional Stance, Glorious Fallibility, etc. We do all of these patterns in our Personal Genius training (Introduction to Meta-States) and recommend that training for this purpose.

Endnote

A full description of the 7 Mind Matrix model will be presented in the Neuro-Semantics Coaching materials, due Sept. 2002.

References:

Harrison, John C. (1989/ 2002). How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People: A complete public speaking program plus a new way to look at stuttering. Anaheim Hills, CA:

Hall, L. Michael. (1995/2000). Dragon Slaying: From Dragons to Princes. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael. (2001). Games Slim People Play. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publ.

Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (2001). Games for Mastering Fear. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publ.

Authors:

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. is a psychologist licensed as a LPC in the state of Colorado, trained in the Cognitive-Behavioral model, developer of the Meta-States model, prolific author, entrepreneur, and international trainer.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. is an international trainer in Neuro-Semantics and NLP, author of numerous books, ordained minister, and director of the First Institute of NS in Gastonia NC.

Challenging, Provoking, Teasing, and Mastering The Experience Of Stuttering

April 6, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Meta Reflections 2011 – #16
April 5, 2011
A Practical Application regard Semantic Reactions

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

The very first time that Bob Bodenhamer and I used The Matrix Model to model was the experience of speaking dis-fluency called “stuttering.” I initiated that as I had followed the work of speech pathologist, Wendell Johnson. In his book, People in Quandaries, he wrote a chapter about several American Indian tribes wherein he could find no one who stuttered. Later he discovered that people from those tribes did stutter when they lived in other cultures, but not in their original culture. He also discovered that in their original culture and language, there was no word in those languages for “stuttering” or “stammering.” It did not exist!

And if an experience is not punctuated by language and set apart as a separate entity or experience, people don’t notice it. For them, that experience does not exist. In fact, in trying to explain what stuttering was, Dr. Johnson imitated stuttering and the elders in those tribes laughed. They thought it was silly. Now, not so surprising, Wendell Johnson had stuttered himself as a young boy and that was one of the reasons for entering the field of speech pathology. What separated him from most in that field was that he applied the revolutionary work of Alfred Korzybski in General Semantics to the experience of stuttering and as a result, he cured himself. And it was his original work that got my attention and led Bob and I to write several articles about the Neuro-Semantic approach to stuttering.

Now in 2011 there is a movie about stuttering, The King’s Speech. It is dated in the 1930s when the young man who became the King of England during Hitler’s time and prior to World War II suffered from this speech dysfunction. And the person who became his speech trainer / coach was an Australian who used various techniques to facilitate mastering over stuttering. What did he do?

He challenged the frames. Stuttering is not a problem with breathing or genetics; it is a problem of a person’s frames. To create a good case of stuttering there are certain belief frames that you have to adopt. You have to believe such things as:

Mis-speaking is a terrible, horrible, and awful experience (Meaning matrix).

Not speaking fluently means I’m inadequate as a person (Self matrix).

Not speaking fluently means no one will like me, want to be around me, value me, love me, but will laugh at me and reject me (Others matrix).

I have to stop myself from stuttering and pay attention to each and every word that comes out of my mouth (Intention matrix).

But it’s impossible, I can’t stop it, trying to stop it only makes it worse, this means that I’m powerless and helpless against this, I must indeed be inadequate as a human being (Power matrix and Self matrix).

So now my future with others, with a career is ruined (Others, World of Career, and Time matrices).

Now if you adopt frames like these, you will be semantically loading the experience of speaking so that any and every form of mis-speaking or searching for words. Do that and you will be creating a semantic reaction of fear, dread, anxiety, and worry about speaking. This is what Dr. Bob found in working with so many individuals who stutter— they have created not merely a fear of mis-speaking, but a phobia of mis-speaking. And that became his hypothesis about stuttering: Stuttering is a phobia of mis-speaking located in the throat. That is, the person has mind-to-muscled the fearful frames about stuttering so that those frames now inform and govern one’s person’s breathing and speaking.

The problem here? The frames! The problem that anyone who stutters is not them. They are not the problem. They are not inadequate. They are fine and work perfectly well. The problem is their frames! The belief, understanding, decision, identity, etc. frames listed above— those frames is the problem. And that is why when you change those frames, the performance of the behavior of stuttering changes.

This is what most stutterers do, they semantically over-load the speaking experience and give it far too much meaning. They make their identity, their value as a person, their relationships with others for all time, etc. dependent on their tongue and lips. How they speak determines everything! So they over-generalize; they awfulize; and they bring a demanding-ness to speaking fluently.

1) Fearful Demanding-ness. In the movie, The King’s Speech, that’s what Lyonal did with Bertie, the King of England. He challenges his frames.

First he challenged his frames about the demanding-ness. “Bertie, call me Lyonal, here we are equals.” This was to change the context (which changes meaning). Later he said, “Say it to me as a friend.”

What Bob and I found out about stuttering was that every person who stutters have exceptions— places, times, and persons with whom they do not stutter. When do you not stutter? Do you stutter with your dog? Do you stutter when you pray? In the movie, Lyonal asked, “Do you stutter when you think?” “No, of course not.” Ah, so here’s an exception! So you do know how to think or pray or talk to your dog without stuttering! So if there’s an exception, what is the difference that makes a difference in that exception? If you develop that, you have developed a powerful first step to a resolution.

If you stutter, notice the demanding-ness in your mind when you tell yourself to not stuttering. What that does with the automatic nature of speech is create a command negation that will make it worse. It is the same kind of demandingness that you create when you can’t sleep at night and you say to yourself, “I have to get some sleep; okay, try really hard now to sleep!”

So what’s a person to do? Get ready for a surprise and a paradox—give up the need and demandingness! When you fully accept not-sleeping, and just notice it, you fall asleep. So with speaking, just accept the stuttering and notice it and welcome it by practicing it. This paradoxical injunction: Try to not-sleep. Try to not-be-fluent. Go ahead and notice your non-sleeping— your non-fluency.

In the movie, Lyonal asked Bertie to sing it. Find a tune that you know well and whatever it is that you are trying to say, sing it. “Sounds let it flow” Lyonal explained. This both accepts the experience and changes one element in the experience. The King thought it silly, ridiculous and refused to do it, at first, then he found that he could move through the blocking and stuckness by using a tune and putting the words to the tune.

From the Meta-States Model perspective, applying the state of fear to mis-speaking creates a phobia and panic about it. It frames the utterance of words with fear. Mis-speaking now becomes a member of the class of fear. So when you meta-state the mis-speaking with a very different state— acceptance, exploration, curiosity, fun, playfulness, humor, etc.— it radically changes things. That’s what I always do. I will intentionally stutter on “s” or “f” or “p” or other letters and then provoke and tease the person, “Can you do better than that!?” The purpose is to get the person to play with it, to bring fun and humor to the mis-speaking.

This reduces the semantic loading and changes the frame from fear to fun. For most, it is the first time in their lives that they have ever treated the mis-speaking from a non-serious and even playful way.

2) Cruel Judgments and Judgmentalism. In the movie, the King did not want to talk about his personal history or anything personal. He viewed the problem as strictly and as only behavioral. But the problem isn’t behavioral, it is semantic— it is the frames of meaning that the person gives to the behavior. So it took a long while, but eventually the King talked about being mercilessly teased about the mis-speaking as a young boy, teased by his brother who put him down and judged him for it, as well as by his father. Lyonal’s comments?

“You don’t need to be afraid of the things you were afraid of at five. You are your own man now.”

What great frames! The past-is-the-past and what you feared as a five-year-old doesn’t need to be fearful now as a man. You once were controlled by others, now you are your own person. Breaking the judgment frames is critical. First we have to master the childish fear that others will judge us and that will be terrible. And yet even more important is that we have to master our own self-judgments.

The movie portrayed this in a fascinating way. It occurred when Lyonal invited the King to read a famous writing. When he did, because he could hear himself, he was simultaneously judging himself. But when Lyonal turned up some music and played it so loud the King could not hear himself reading, he read the literature fluently, only he did not recognize it. And because he was so impatient, so self-critical, so non-accepting of the process—he stormed out. He did take the recording with him that Lyonal had made and at a later time, late at night, he put on the record and listened. He was amazed! The recording only recorded his voice and not the loud music and he was reading fluently. Why? What was the difference? When he could not hear himself, he was not judging himself.

The problem that creates stuttering is the judgment frame! This is so human. This is so common. I’ve never met a human being who didn’t have the well-develop skill of judging him or herself! And judging self or judging others seems to be so developed with us that what most of us have to learn is how to suspend judgment. [By the way, we have a Neuro-Semantic pattern just for this, the “Releasing Judgment” pattern which we have all Meta-Coaches and Neuro-Semantic Trainers experience on day one of the training.]

The movie portrayed another process in the movie was Lyonal provoking the King to anger. He noticed that when he got angry enough to curse, that at that point he did not stutter. “Do you know the F word?” he asked. At another time he “reproved” and “commanded” him regarding sitting in a chair, “You can’t sit there!” and that frustrated and angered the King to be talked that way by a commoner! Lyonal brought his fluent-while-cursing to his attention.

So what’s going on with that? When he moved beyond the frame of caring what people think, when he was frustrated or angry enough to curse— he was fluent!

Finally there was the scene where Lyonal brought Bertie into his home and there was a model plane on the table in the process of being put together. When the King was a child he was not allowed to play with model planes, so Lyonal encouraged him to play with it and as he became preoccupied and focused on the plane, his speech became more and more fluent. Ah, again, it was an experience that moved him outside of his usual frames of judgment, disapproval, and over-consciousness of speaking.

Whenever you have an automatic, non-conscious behavior like sleeping or speaking, when you become conscious of such and then meta-state yourself with states like fear, demandingness, and judgment—you can really mess things up! It is the same process when you learn something so well, when you over-learn it, then the performance drops out of conscious awareness and operates automatically like playing any sport, driving, tying a tie, etc. Then if you start noticing it, and especially with judgment, you can really screw it up. [By the way, this is why some people fallaciously think that consciousness is the problem. It is not. The problem isn’t awareness, but the kind of awareness— judgmental, fearful awareness.]

Mis-speaking is just that— mis-speaking. So don’t over-load it with too much meaning. Don’t put your self-esteem as a person on the line for that. Don’t semantically load it with meanings about relationships. Instead, welcome it. Embrace it. Play with it. Enjoy it! Yes, enjoy the stuttering! That’s why, when I coach a stutterer, I always give the assignment: “Every morning when you are dressing and getting ready for the day, practice stuttering for five minutes.” Why? Because if you can “turn it on” then it becomes yours! You have it instead of the experience having you and you hating its control over your life.

Mastering Blocking & Stuttering – Presentation Handout for National Stuttering Association – July 2005

January 29, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Mastering Blocking & Stuttering – Presentation Handout for the National Stuttering Association – July 2005 Chicago Illinois

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Mastering Blocking & Stuttering – Presentation Handout for National Stuttering Association – June 2003

January 29, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Presentation Handout for National Stuttering Association – June 2003 Nashville Tennessee by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

The “Structure” of Blocking & Stuttering

Looking at Blocking & Stuttering Through the Eyes of Neuro-Semantics^®

June 27, 2003

Nashville, Tennessee

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.
Presenter

“John, say you have times when you stutter?”

“Yes, there are times when I do; but; most of the time I am OK. I speak fluently at home and around my friends.”

“So, John, when do you tend to block the worse?”

“I am worse at work.”

“I understand. So, you block worse at work. What is there about being at work that causes you to block?”

“Well, I am not quite sure. I just know when I am at work, I am uncomfortable.”

“So, you are uncomfortable at work? What is there about being at work that makes you uncomfortable?”

“I guess it is my boss primarily. He makes me uncomfortable. I suppose if I were honest about it I would say that I am really afraid of him?”

“Oh, so you are fearful of your boss man? What is there about him that causes you to choose to be fearful of him?”

“Yes, I am fearful of him. In fact, when I am around anyone who is in authority over me, I get nervous and fearful.’

“So, it is really about being fearful of authority figures in general and not just your boss man?”

“Yes, that is right.”

“When you think of your boss and being fearful of him, where in your body do you feel that fear?”

“I feel it in my upper body – especially in my chest, throat and in my jaws.”

“Very good. Now, when you block, where do you feel the block?”

“In the same place. It is the same feeling.”

“So, when you are not at work and are speaking fluently, how do your chest, throat and jaw feel?”

“Oh, I feel fine then. I am relaxed. I don’t even think about how I am speaking. I just feel relaxed and focus on what I am talking about and enjoying the conversation with the other person.”

“So, if you didn’t fear people in authority, what would happen to your blocking and stuttering?”

“Well, it would go away, wouldn’t it?

John was one of the first persons who blocked and stuttered that I worked with therapeutically. We found that the origin of his fear of authority came from his relationship with his father when John was just a lad. We accessed some higher adult resources of John’s and he applied those resources to his old childhood memories of fearing his father. The fears disappeared and with them, so did the blocking and stuttering. The most powerful learning for John was that he was bringing blocking and stuttering on himself. He determined to fix that problem which he did.

In our work in Neuro-Semantics^®, we have discovered that the primary drivers of blocking and stuttering are cognitive (thinking) in nature and not physical or certainly not genetic. Now, we are not saying that genetics and psycho-motor problems early on may have played a role in the development of a stutter; but, they are not the primary cause of its continuation. It is the deeply unconscious thinking patterns that developed around the stuttering that have locked the behavior in. Successful treatment will involve addressing these thought patterns.

How do people who block and stutter lock in the childhood disfluency into an ongoing adult problem? Our work has indicated that it is the meanings surrounding blocking and stuttering that in fact lock it in and make it so difficult, but not impossible, to change. Indeed, I have known several people who blocked and stuttered; who, through proper therapy, gain total fluency by removing the unconscious meanings they had built around blocking and stuttering.

Some questions for your consideration:

How is it that many PWS can speak fluently in some contexts and not speak fluently in other contexts?
When a person speaks consistently fluent in one context but not others, what does this imply about the causation and continuation of blocking and stuttering?
How can the primary causation and continuation be physical?
(We do believe that at its onset, blocking & stuttering could have physical components.)
How can the primary causation and continuation be genetic in nature?
(We do believe that genetic predisposition could have contributed to the beginning problem but not its continuation. See Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief.)
If you were not fearful of looking like a fool or being vulnerable because of your blocking and stuttering, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Other and Power Matrices)
If you had a healthy view of yourself as an innate person of worth in spite of how you speak, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Self Matrix)
If you felt in control of your speech all the time as you do when you are fluent, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Power Matrix)
If you were able to rid yourself of the belief – “I have always blocked and stuttered in certain context which means that I always will,” what would happen to your blocking and stuttering? (Time Matrix)
If you were not fearful of the judgments of other people about how you speak, what would happen to your blocking and stuttering? (Other Matrix)
If you viewed the world you live in as a warm, inviting, friendly and supportive place rather than a place to be feared and to always be on your guard about, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (World Matrix)

The Matrix Model

In explaining how we believe that blocking and stuttering are structured in the mind-body system, I will utilize the model developed by my colleague, L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Borrowing from a term of mathematics and the title of the movie by the same name, Michael calls the model “The Matrix Model.” The model provides a fantastic tool for organizing all of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics under seven simple headings. I will use it here for a brief (and over simplified) description of just how we believe blocking and stuttering are created.

How is blocking and stuttering structured in the mind? It is structured like any other thought-feeling-behavior. It all begins with the meanings that we give events. The word “meaning” comes from a German word “to hold in mind.” What meanings do people who block and stutter typically “hold in mind”? We shall be considering those. The Matrix Model provides seven areas for us to divide the various meanings given to any behavior. The first one listed is the area of “meaning” which we list first because it is “meaning” that determines how we describe the other matrices of our experiences.

In summation, the matrices are:

We begin with Meaning which is the determinant of:

2. Your concept of your Self.

3. How you understand your sense of Power and Resourcefulness.

4. Your relationship with Time.

5. Your relationship with Others.

6. Your view of the World you live in.

7. Your understanding of your higher Purpose and Intentions.

Ask yourself:

What does “blocking and stuttering” mean to me? (Meaning Matrix)
What do these meanings say about me as a person? (Self Matrix)
What do these meanings say about my sense of power and resourcefulness in relationship to how I speak? (Power and Resource Matrix)
What do these meanings say about how I view my relationship with time in the context of how I speak? (Time Matrix)
What do these meanings say about my relationship with others in regards to how I speak? (Others Matrix)
What do these meanings say about how I view the world I live in? Do I view the world as a safe or unsafe place? Do I view it as a friendly or unfriendly place? (World Matrix)
Because I am a person who blocks and stutters, what is my purpose/ intent/ outcome in regards to how I speak? (Purpose and Intentional Matrix)

Figure 1
The Matrix Circle

For sure, you never leave home without your “Matrix” filled with all these and many more frames of mind. Your Matrix gives you your model of the world through which you navigate through life. If you view yourself as a person of worth with innate powers to navigate the world in which you live, you will live your life one way. If, however, you view yourself in a negative light and with little or no power to navigate your world, you will live your life in a totally different way.

Your Matrix to a large degree determines how you live and experience life. We believe that these seven key matrices determine all the other matrices of our mind (beliefs, values, understandings, etc, i.e. all of our thinking patterns both conscious and unconscious).

In Figure 1 (previous page), I illustrated how meaning as the center of all the other matrices determines all the other matrices. In Figure 2 (below), I utilize a graphic created by Pascal Gambardella, Ph.D. that more accurately illustrates how the model works. In this graphic, Pascal shows how Meaning does determine all the other matrices. But, your desires, your wants, your intentions are involved in creating the other five matrices. Thus, Intention sends your mind or directionalizes your thoughts in creating meanings of your concepts of Self, Power, Time, Others and World. Because you don’t like blocking and stuttering, you will desire to stop it and this not liking it and wanting to stop it will affect how you mentally frame the behavior. This is mostly done totally out of conscious awareness.

Figure 2
The 7 Matrices of Your Neuro-Semantics

I shall illustrate. When a person who blocks and stutters anticipates an upcoming conversation, the person may fear that they will block based on past experiences (Time Matrix). But, the person does not want to repeat the past behavior of blocking (Intention Matrix) due to all the negative meanings the person has associated with blocking and stuttering (Meaning Matrix). These meanings find expression in the other matrices such as, “I don’t want to appear like I am a weirdo because I block” (Self Matrix). Or, “I am powerless to overcome this” (Power Matrix). Etc.

So, in this illustration, note how the person’s defining of self is mostly determined by the meanings associated with blocking and stuttering. And, the intent or desire of not repeating past behaviors due to the meanings associated with blocking/ stuttering drives the meanings given to the other matrices: “I don’t want to appear like I am a weirdo because I block” (Self Matrix). Or, “I am powerless to overcome this” (Power Matrix). Etc.

Below, I have listed some examples from my clients. I have categorized these in the seven areas of The Matrix Model. Turn to Table 1 at the back of this handout for a more thorough listing of meanings that I have discovered from questioning and from studying a good sampling of people who block and stutter.

How do we create “Meanings”:

We create a “meaning” first by making a “thing” out of something. In the context of blocking and stuttering, we do this by first naming the behavior of “disfluency” as blocking and stuttering.
We evaluate this “thing” called “disfluency” as something bad and to be avoided.
Then, we associate fear and shame with it. The “disfluency” quickly becomes “blocking and stuttering – something “real” because it now has a label and meanings associated with it. Plus, we can “feel” it in our bodies and it is really real.

By doing this, an earlier disfluency gets called into an unwanted existence. From there we start creating more meanings around this thing called “blocking and stuttering:

Intentions/ Outcomes (What do you want in reference to this thing called blocking and stuttering? What are your outcomes/desires because you now have this thing called “blocking and stuttering?)

“I don’t want to look like a fool.”
“I am going to try to control this.”
“I am not going to repeat the past.”
“I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities.”

Self/Identity (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you as a person):

“I am flawed.”
“I am broken.”
“I am not enough.”
“I am worthless.”
“I am insecure.”
“I can’t be enough.”
“I am embarrassed.”

Power/Resourcefulness (What does blocking and stuttering mean about your sense of being Resourceful or Un-resourceful, Powerful or Powerless?):

“I am out of control.”
“I don’t feel safe and protected.”
“I need to change.”
“I can’t be enough.”
“I should be doing better.
“If I hesitate in speaking, I will be perceived as weak.”

Time (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in your relationship to “Time” and how do you view blocking and stuttering in reference to Time?):

“I am doomed to continue this behavior.”
“It has always been this way.”
“I have always blocked and stuttered and I always will.”
“I have to get it done.”
“I can’t take my time to say what I want to say.”

Others/ Relationship (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in your relationship with Other people):

“It is not OK to stutter.”
“I am fearful of being rejected.”
“I can’t measure up to the expectations of other people.”
“I am less than they are.”
“I look foolish to them.”
“People determine or validate my worth.”
“What people say about me becomes truth.”
“I must protect myself from being hurt by others.”

World (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in how you view the World you live in?):

“I should be doing better.”
“I have to do something.”
“I have to get it done.” (Time Matrix also)
“The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’” (Self & Other Matrix also)
“I won’t succeed.”

Creating the “Block”

Such thinking creates a matrix of meanings that locks in the disfluency of childhood. The layering of these thoughts on top of one another creates the block. The layering multiplies the effect of all the thoughts. For instance, if you think, “I have always blocked and I always will.” And from there, you think, “I am a hopeless case.” “Indeed, I am hopeless. I am not normal.” Etc. This layering of negative thoughts upon top of negative thoughts puts you into a total powerless state.

Figure 3
Layering Meanings for Blocking

It is the feelings and emotions emanating out of all these thoughts firing at one time which are embodied in the muscles surrounding breathing and speech that produce the blocking. As with all panic attacks (Blocking functions exactly as a panic attack.), the emotions expressed in those particular muscles for breathing and speaking result in a physiological response called blocking. Stuttering is a result of the person trying to break through the block.

Figure 3 illustrates the phenomena of layering our minds. The mental frames of mind presented here come form one of my recent clients. With such meanings embedded in her chest, throat and jaws, are you surprised that she blocked? And are you surprised that she had problems with depression as well? Again, it is the layering upon layering of deeply unconscious negative meanings that find expression in those specific muscle groups for breathing and speaking that create the blocking and stuttering.

One gains fluency by removing or changing these meanings to newer and more positive meanings. This will result in creating a newer and more powerful matrix to live in and to speak through. What meanings have you created in each matrix surrounding your blocking and stuttering? What would happen to your speech if all those meanings suddenly disappeared?

How do I change these meanings?

Basically, one changes the unwanted memories by creating new meanings in exactly the same way one created the negative memories. I shall explain. The blocking and stuttering became locked in by the child’s layering on negative meaning on top of negative meaning about what he or she didn’t like about the disfluency. As we mentioned earlier, this layering meaning on top of meaning acts to hold in the unwanted behavior. The layering actually multiplies the effect and creates the blocking from a simple disfluency.

So in changing those negative thoughts to positive thoughts, we want to layer on positive meanings on top of the negative meanings. For instance, say you experience fear of what others may think should you block and stutter. Instead of going the negative route, you instead go the positive route. You think, “I am a courageous person. I have lived my life blocking and stuttering. I have survived. That takes courage.” Now, take that thought and state of “courage” and apply it to the thought of fearing what others may think of your speech. Layer “fear” with “courage.” See Figure 4 on the next page.

The basic pattern goes like this:

Consider the fear-ridden thought that you will block and then stutter.
Now, access a thought of faith or courage. What do you have faith in? What are you courageous about? Access one of those resourceful thoughts.
Apply the thought of faith/courage to the fear of blocking. Take the thought of faith/courage and bring it to bear (apply to) on the fear of blocking.

How do I do that? Some people do it visually. They will have a picture of “fear” and then they will take a picture of “courage” and move “courage” on top of “fear” allowing “courage” to overwhelm “fear.” Others may do it kinesthetically by moving “courage” from wherever they feel it in their body to the place where they feel “fear” in their body. Experiment and see what works best for you.

Figure 4
Layering Fear with Courage/ Faith

Think about it? If ever time you felt fear of what others may think of you, you gave yourself permission to pause and then you access a state of courage or faith and then you applied that state to the state of fearing what others may or may not think of how you talk, what would happen? The brain learns through repetition. So, just keep repeating this. It takes practice but it has a tendency to work. This pattern is the basic meta-stating pattern developed by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

The Drop Down Through Pattern

At last count, we have over 140 Neuro-Semantic patterns. With that many, which is the best? That is a difficult question to answer, for some work better than others on an individual basis. And, many are especially designed for specific issues. Indeed, one of the major benefits of the 7-Matrices Model is that it provides not only a diagnostic tool but it also provides a way for us to know which techniques to use on what problem.

However, if I were to point out one pattern that works the best in most contexts it would be this pattern. Indeed, I have been using it for eight years and have had more successes with it then any other single pattern. About three years ago, we advanced the pattern by adding some Meta-States distinctions to it which is step # 5.

The Pattern

(Read “Rising Up to Drop Down Through” for a complete article and example of the Drop Down Through Pattern.)

1) Identify the experience and emotion you want to transform.

What do you feel just before you block?

What feelings/ emotions are behind your blocking/ stuttering?

What emotions or experiences are there that undermine your success as a speaker that you would like to eliminate?

2) Step into that experience.

Associate fully into that experience.

If you are aware of a particular experience that you would like to work on; be there present in that memory looking through your eyes, hearing what you heard and feeling what you felt then, now

Where do you feel this in your body?

What does it feel like?

How intensely are you experiencing this emotion?

Good, just be there with it for a moment, noticing … just noticing it fully… knowing that it is just an emotion and that you are so much more than any emotion…

3) Drop down through the experience.

This may feel strange, but you do know what it feels like when you drop … so feeling that feeling of dropping, just drop down through that experience until you drop down underneath that feeling…

What thought-feeling or emotion lies underneath that emotion?

And now just imagine dropping down through that feeling.

[Use the language and terms that the person gives you.]

And what thought-feeling comes to you as you imagine yourself dropping down through that one?

[Keep repeating this dropping-down through process until the person comes to “nothing…” That is, to no feelings … to a void or emptiness.]

4) Confirm the emptiness

Just experience that “nothingness” or “void” for a moment. Good.

Now let that nothingness open up and imagine yourself dropping through and out the other side of the nothingness.

What are you experiencing when you come out the other side of the nothingness? What or whom do you see?

[Repeat this several times … to a second, third, or fourth resource state.]

Note: Sometimes people will not experience the void, the nothingness. They will drop right on down through the negative frames and right into the positive resources. At other times they may just pause briefly as they make the switch from the negative frames to the positive frames.

5) Meta-state each problem state

Use each resource state to apply to each problem state.

And when you feel X about Y, how does that transform things?

And when you even more fully feel X – what other transformations occur?

Validate and solidify: just stay right here in this X resource and as you experience it fully, what happens to the first problem state (#1)?

6) Test

Let’s see what now happens when you try, and I want you to really try to see if you can get back the problem state that we started with.

When you try to do that, what happens?

Do you like this?

Would you like to take this into your future – into all of your tomorrows and into all your relationships?

Table 1

#1 Meaning/Value – Meaning Determines the Matrices C 1. Classification of non-fluent speech as blocking/stuttering 2. Associating blocking/stuttering with fear and shame 3. Evaluating blocking/stuttering as bad and unacceptable 4. Framing blocking/stuttering has the following meanings in the other matrices:

#7 Intention/Self	#7 Intention/Power	#7 Intention/Time	#7 Intention/Others	#7 Intention/World
(Attempted solutions that make the problem worse)
I don’t want to look like a fool? I will not show my vulnerabilities or weaknesses. I will play it safe and create a sense of security because I am not like others. I am more sensitive. I can’t handle criticism well. I’ve got to stop this. This shows me to be inadequate and flawed. I will “block” myself from stuttering!	I am going to try to control this? I am going to try to control every word that comes out of my mouth. I need to change. I must not stutter. I have to catch this. I will do that by becoming very self aware of my speech. I have to try really hard not to block and stutter or I will look foolish.	I am not going to repeat the past. I am not going to make a fool of myself with my speech anymore. If I block any emotion in this moment, it will give me more control. I’m afraid this will be permanent so I will try hard to not to continue stuttering so I will “block” more.	I am not going to attract attention. I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities. I will not give others a chance to laugh at me. I will not let them see me struggle. I will avoid any situations around people or groups that will expose this weakness. I will try to cover the stuttering up.	I will not do anything that will draw attention to me in my work, career, etc. I will avoid speaking situations that will attract attention to me. I will try to be successful by avoiding all opportunities to speak.

#2 Self	#3 Power	#4 Time	#5 Others	#6 World
I am flawed. (“There is something wrong with me.”) I am broken. I am not enough. I am inadequate. I am flawed. I am foolish. I am worthless. I am insecure. I am timid I am shy. I am anxious. I am tense. I am “shamed.” I am “possessed.” I can’t be enough. Embarrassment I am ashamed. I am angry. I am abnormal. Self-pity My value is in my performance. Unique (I stutter – I am special.)	Loss of control Frustration Lack of protection Perceived hurt. I need to change. I can’t be enough. I am terrified of speaking to ____________. I need to be respected and loved in order to speak fluently. (Other) I should be doing better. I have to do something. I have to get it done. “It” (becoming fluent) works for everybody but me. I cannot speak─ In public On the phone On stage I cannot order in a restaurant. I cannot introduce myself. Hesitation is a sign of weakness. Hesitation is a sign of fear. Hesitation means you are unsure.	Permanent Doomed It has always been this way. I am not making progress. I have to do something. I have to get it done. I can’t take my time to say what I want to say (sense of being rushed).	It is not OK to stutter. Fear (of being rejected) Expectations from others Inability to measure up to expectations Hurt (not being validated) Rejection Isolation Protection – (From getting involved in a relationship.) I am less than. I look foolish. Judged. People validate or determine my worth. What people say about me becomes the truth. People judge the content of what I am saying. I must protect myself from being hurt by others. I must conceal my emotions. I am doing something “bad” to them if I stutter.	I should be doing better. I have to do something. I have to get it done. “The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’” I won’t succeed. I am out of control.

About the Presenter:

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
1516 Cecelia Dr.
Gastonia, NC 28054
(704) 864-3585
Fax: (704) 8641545

www.neurosemantics.com

Dr. Bodenhamer first trained for the ministry, earned a doctorate in Ministry, and served several churches as pastor. He began NLP training in 1990, studying with Dr. Gene Rooney, Dr. Tad James and Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall and receiving Master Practitioner and Trainer Certifications. Since then, he has taught and certified NLP trainings at Gaston College in Dallas, NC.

Beginning in 1996, Dr. Bodenhamer began studying the Meta-States model and then teamed up with L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. to begin co-authoring several books. Since that he has turned out many works as he and Michael have applied the NLP and Meta-States Models to various facets of human experience.

In 1996 also, Dr. Bodenhamer with Michael co-founded the Society of Neuro-Semantics. This has taken his work to a new level, taken him into International Trainings, and set in motion many Institutes of Neuro-Semantics around the world. Dr. Bodenhamer authored the training manual, Mastering Blocking and Stuttering: A Handbook for Gaining Fluency. He is presently working on this manual for it to be published in book form.

Books Co-Authored by Dr. Bodenhamer:

Patterns For “Renewing the Mind” (w. Hall, 1997)

Time-Lining: Advance Time-Line Processes (w. Hall, 1997)

Figuring Out People: Design Engineering With Meta-Programs (w. Hall, 1997)

Mind Lines: Lines For Changing Minds (w. Hall, 1997, 2000 3^rd edition)

The Structure of Excellence: Unmasking the Meta-Levels of Submodalities (w. Hall, 1999)

The User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume I (1999, w. Hall)

Hypnotic Language (2000, w. Burton)

The Structure of Personality: Modeling “Personality” Using NLP and Neuro-Semantics. (Hall , Bodenhamer, Bolstad, Harmblett, 2001)

Games for Mastering Fears (2001, with Hall)

The User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume II (2003, w. Hall)

Meta-Yes Meta-No Pattern: Say “No” to Fear/Anxiety and “Yes” to Courage and Faith

January 28, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Beliefs (#5)

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Do We Now Have a 10 Minute Belief Change Pattern?

After I learned about the Meta-States Model (Hall, 1995, 1996) and began to see and experience its power in making changes in people’s lives, I began to think that Graham Dawes’ review of Dragon Slaying (Anchor Point, June 1997) made a serious point when he described the Meta-States model as “the model that ate NLP.” I will not go so far as to say, however, that it “ate” NLP, I will go so far as to say it has advanced it further than any other addition has since the discovery of submodalities. And, I encourage the reader to take me seriously with that point.

In the last two years, having teamed up with Michael and co-authored several books with him (Time-Lining, Figuring Out People, Mind-Lining, Patterns for Renewing the Mind), I have used and tried out Meta-States Patterns as we discover them. Last year, Michael came up with the distinction that separates a “thought” or representation from a “belief.” More recently, he published that in the series on Belief Change Patterns Using Meta-States (Anchor Point, Nov., Dec. 1997, Jan, Feb. 1998).

Recently I have put this belief change pattern to the test and found that it does indeed streamline the process. In doing so I discovered that “beliefs” do indeed exist and operate at a higher logical level than do “thoughts,” and that beliefs do not always change by mere submodality shifting, but by shifting the frame of reference at a higher logical level.

When I ran these Meta-Stating Pattern of Meta Yes-ing & No-ing on a client (Jim Polizzi – name used with permission) recently, it struck me that we now have a Ten-minute Belief Change pattern along with the ten minute Phobia Cure. The closer we get to the structure of subjective experience — the more streamlined becomes our working with such structures. When I presented the following demonstration of the pattern to Dr. Hall, he wrote,

“What an incredible application of this meta-stating pattern! The simplest and briefest Belief Change Pattern by far.”

“Meta-NO-ing” & “Meta-YES-ing” With Jim

Jim, 39 years old and married, has struggled for years with a limiting belief that goes, “I alienate and drive away friends.” He has also held another belief, one meta to that first belief, that goes, “Nothing will ever work in helping me overcome my limiting belief.”

Recently, after seeing a particular counselor weekly for a year and a half, Jim and his wife in frustration stopped seeing their counselor. It had not helped. So I began working with Jim on reframing the belief that nothing would work on him. Also, we did some work in re-imprinting some childhood roots from which the limiting belief arose which said that he would sabotage all his relationships with friends.

One day, Jim came in and announced that the old belief of his driving away old friends “was loosening.” Ah, deframing! However, he still experienced some of it this past weekend when he met with some of his peer “computer geeks.” After leaving this business meeting, Jim experienced some old internal dialogue nagging at him that “You may have alienated them!” This triggered a negative feeling of fear. So, even though we had loosened up the limiting belief, the belief still ran although not with as much intensity as before. We both wanted it to completely disappear.

I asked Jim for permission to try out and experiment with Michael’s suggestion of “Meta-NO-ing” the old limiting belief and “Meta-YES-ing” the new desired belief about his ability to build and maintain relationships. Jim said he’d enjoy doing that.

“Jim, when have you said ‘No!’ and really meant it?”

“You mean like when I say ‘No’ to the kids when they do something they shouldn’t?”

“Yes, I believe that will work.”

“Well just recently I said no to my daughter.”

“How did you do that Jim? What did you see, hear, and feel as you express that definitive No? What tone of voice did you say that in?”

Jim experienced his Meta-NO-ing high in his chest with a feeling of tightness. His voice came across to me as very firm.

“So, Jim, as a meta-stating process, I want you to bring that ‘No!’ to bear upon the limiting belief that you alienate friends. Repeat that meta-level No! several times.”

As Jim did this his face flushed. His head move forward and down firmly as he grunted out a ‘No!’ He did so with real firmness in his tonality.

Jim replied, “This is neat, Bob. It sounds silly that you could bring a ‘No!’ that you say to your daughter to bear upon an old limiting belief like this. But, this works, this really works. How neat!”

Then, without any directions from me, Jim said, “What do you do when the kids do something good?” And continuing he said, AWhen my little girl does something good, I say, “Yes, that’s right, you have done good. You have really done good. You can do it!”

Then Jim, again without directions from me, brought to bear the “Yes!” to his daughter to the desired belief, “I can build friends and relate to them with compassion.” (The meta-stating process). He uttered a bold and definitive Yes to — “These guys really care about me. I am not alienating them, they really care about me.”

At this Jim started taking notes on a notepad and then noted, “I have two powerful resources here. The No! I say to the kids, and the Yes! I say to the kids.”

I then decided to test the old limiting belief of his sabotaging relationships through the old belief of his coming across as arrogant and rude. “Jim, what do you think about the old belief of your alienating your friends?”

Jim recalled the experience of last weekend. “These guys really love me. They really love me. They don’t believe I am a jerk and arrogant, they really love me.”

Then Jim recognized part of the process, ABob, you just did an auditory swish on me with my internal dialogue. Instead of hearing myself say ‘I am a jerk’ I hear myself saying these guys really love me.”

ATrue enough and that’s insightful. For by Meta-NO-ing the old limiting belief and then Meta-YES-ing the new desired belief, you essentially give your brain instructions about where to go, from the old limiting ideas to the new enhancing ones, an auditory swish. Great point. How neat, Jim, that you automatically moved from the Meta-NO-ing the old belief to Meta-YES-ing the new desired belief. I had planned to move you to that, but your unconscious mind beat me to it and did it automatically. You did good, real good.” (Hear me say that in my Appalachian dialect!)

Next we checked out some of the previous thoughts-and-feelings that he had about his dysfunctional family of origin.

“Bob, I now realize that I may never have a deep relationship with my family. And yet that does not mean that there is something wrong with me. However, I still have a sense of ‘aloneness’ when I think about that.”

“Okay, put that thought aside for just a moment and think of your own family — your son, daughter, and wife.”

As Jim accessed a representation of his family, his physiology, breathing, and facial expressions shifted and seemed to become more pleasant. Jim thought about his family’s nighttime ritual of story telling as the four of them gather just prior to bedtime.

“Now bring this to bear upon that representation you had of the aloneness from your family of origin.”

Jim, immediately brought this family frame-of-reference and the state that it put him in to bear upon his family of origin thoughts. As he did, he became teary eyed, his facial color reddened, his breathing deepen as he generated new neurological connections.

“It sure is hard to feel alone with a little boy and a little girl on your lap and your wife sitting beside you. This is a powerful thing to bring to bear on your aloneness. The aloneness is not congruent with the family I now have. The aloneness is no longer valid. It is not that it is no longer true. It no longer matters. My old family does not have the significance it did. I have a sense of connectedness.”

The Pattern

1) Get a good strong representation of saying “No!” to something. You will want to make sure that the person’s No looks, sounds, and feels congruent and that it truly fits with their beliefs and values. Anchor the resource experience of congruently, firmly, and definitively saying No! to something.

2) Get a good strong representation of saying “Yes!” to something. Once you do, reinforce it by asking about it, and amplifying it so that the person has an intense experience of his or her Yes! Anchor either with a touch, the way you say Yes!, where you gesture to, etc.

3) Invite the person to identify the limiting belief that they no longer want to run their programs. Meta-model the limiting belief to assist in deframing it, loosening it up, and preparing for the belief change. Find out how it has not served them well, how it has messed things up, etc. Notice how they represent the belief, pace its positive intentions.

4) Fully elicit from the person an enhancing belief that he or she wants in the head. What specifically will the person think and say in the new belief. Write out the language of it. Get several versions — and make sure that the person finds the expression of it compelling.

5) Meta No! the limiting belief. Ask the person to re-access the limiting belief and once they have it, have them go meta to that belief, and then about that belief have them say No! Have the person do it congruently, intensely, and repeatedly.

“And you can keep on saying No! to that limiting belief until you begin to feel that it no longer has any power to run your programs.”

6) Meta Yes! the enhancing belief. After the deframing of the old belief, now let the person’s mind swish to the content of what to believe. Have the person fully re-access the enhancing belief and then to go meta to it and validate it with a great big Yes! Have them repeat it with intensity and congruency.

Conclusion

Don’t take my word for this powerful process. Try it yourself. I know it works. I have seen it change lives and alter old belief systems.

A few weeks ago, I received a call from an NLP Trainer on the West Coast. He had heard some positive statements about the Meta-State Model and desired more information. I spent about thirty minutes on the phone explaining the basic theoretical concepts supporting Meta-States. I then E-mailed him the major articles and techniques on this web site that referred to Meta-States. I particularly pointed out the brief statements about the Yes/No pattern in Michael’s address to the ANLP about “Updating the Submodality model.

Well, the next day I received this E-mail message from that NLP Trainer:

“Thanks so much for your email message. This old Trainer has seen and done most everything in the ‘NLP’/hypnosis world. . . but this is absolutely REVOLUTIONARY! And it’s the first time ANYTHING has EVER worked on me too. AMAZING, just absolutely amazing. Working with my client this AM consisted of 1 3/4 hours of talking to her and giving her strategies for her business that will make her lots of money. She thought we were done, when I said, look let’s just take this a step further and really cement this in, shall we? She said, Great. Then Bob, I just did the pattern as written – I elicited the problem. . . I elicited a strong congruent ‘NO’. I elicited the desired state – rewording it several times till it became compelling. Had her step into the bad state. . . then out of it and ABOUT the situation, say with much congruence – NO, repeatedely. Coupled with my exquisite hypnotic language patterns :-), I then had her do it a few times until when she spoke of the ‘problem’ she did so from a new chunked up perspective. WOW! Then I reminded her of the good state. . . got her CONGRUENT ‘yes’. Told her to ‘TRY’ and experience the bad (she couldn’t, Ha Ha) and from what ever she could get to just imagine the new experience zooming in until she stepped into and felt it’s compelling power and then step out and ABOUT the experience, say ‘YES’ congruently. Had her do it a few times. Future paced and was done. She literally sat there for a moment and tears started welling up and then streaming down her face. Her boyfriend was blown away. She was so thankful. Then jumped up and began pitching me on how she could help me with her marketing (what she was previously afraid to do) with such force and conviction, I was amazed. She said she was over the problem – couldn’t get it back if she tried. Boyfriend even more amazed. They left thrilled. THANKS YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! This stuff is amazing. And I’m pretty dog gonned good at making changes in people – but this was truely amazing in scope and depth. I’m hooked beyond belief. Monday first thing, I’m ordering everything you and Michael have. Thanks again, my friend.

I really appreciate this person’s taking the time to share the response he received the first time he used the “Yes/No” pattern. One can tell from reading his case study that he has great ability in working with clients. Though he made light of his ability to utilize hypnotic language patterns, he obviously does it well, very well. Note however, the results he received through the utilizing the power of meta state languaging within the context of hypnosis. Excellent job of “doing” therapy.

References

Bodenhamer, Bob; Hall, Michael. (1997). Time-lining: Patterns for adventuring in time. Wales, UK: Anglo-American Books.

Hall, Michael L. (1995). Meta-states: A new domain of logical levels, self-reflexiveness in human states of consciousness. Grand Junction, CO: ET Publications.

Hall, L. Michael (1996). Dragon slaying: Dragons to princes. Grand Jct. CO: ET Publications.

Hall, Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (1997). Mind-lines: Lines for changing minds. Grand Jct. CO: ET Publications.

Hall, Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (1997). Figuring out people: Design engineering using meta-programs. Wales, UK: Anglo-American Books.

Embodying Negative Emotions: Guess Where a Stutterer Embodies His or Her Emotion?

January 28, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Guess Where a Stutterer
Embodies his or her Emotions?

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
With L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Question:

Can we get negative emotions actually installed in our body?
Is it actually possible to em-body and in-corp-orate negative emotional states in our muscles and nervous tissue?
Could it be that the feelings that correspond to and drive stuttering and blocking have gotten into the breathing and speaking muscles?

We raise these questions to first of all acknowledge that the end expression of stuttering and blocking is physiological. Of course, it is physiological. Yet, is it caused solely by physiology? Could the physiology that we see, recognize, and feel actually be the embodiment and manifestation of something that is primarily a mental-emotional state? Could it be the way the person is running his or her brain that ultimately creates the physiological symptoms and expressions?

What if it is through the process of habituating the typical state of mind about speaking, mis-speaking, and stuttering that actually drives and causes the state to become, as it were, “locked into” a person’s body? What if the stuttering, and all the negative emotions associated with it, actually gets into the person’s muscles?

These questions suggest a different model about how to think about the subjective experience of stuttering and blocking, and yet one could potentially lead to more options for recovery and fluency. In saying this, we mean that it is because our mind is connected to our bodies through our central nervous system and because our mind communicates to all parts of our bodies— that the outer behavior occurs. Since the 1950s medical science and the neuro-sciences have become aware of this mind-body connection. After all, our nerve cells occur throughout every part of our bodies and receive information from all of our cortex and subcortical parts.

That mind can embody emotions is obvious in the most primitive and basic of all our mind-body functions, the Fight/Flight arousal syndrome. And as you well know, you don’t have to be in actual danger to set it off. All you have to do is think, remember, or imagine something fearful. Then your body will oblige. It is wired to respond.

Is it any surprise then that all of our emotions can and do become embodied in certain areas of our body? Today, we even know that the patterning or habituation of response can become so incorporated that it becomes what we call “muscle memory.” That is, the muscles “remember” how to run the pattern. The neuro-pathways have “worn a groove” so to speak so that they have a readiness for certain responses.

For people who block and stutter, we find that the negative emotions are typically contained within the chest, neck and/or jaw. Check this out for yourself. Ask a person who blocks and stutters, or ask yourself,

What emotions are behind and within my blocking?
Where in my body do I feel these emotions?
Where in my body do I feel the fear and anxiety as I anticipate the possibility of blocking and/or stuttering?
What do I feel about these feelings?

That is what we’re talking about.

In my thirteen years of work in therapy with clients, I have literally asked these questions of hundreds of people who were suffering from some unwanted thought-feeling-emotional problem. “Where in your body do you feel that emotion?” is a question that enables a person to begin to recognize the embodiment of emotions.

And out of those hundreds of times of asking question, there have been very few times when I did not get an immediate and direct reply. The individuals simply told me where they felt the emotion. Often they pointed to the body parts where the emotion seems located. This is a general rule of thumb for therapists. If a person “feels” the negative emotion, they will point to the area of the body where they feel that emotion. It is in the body (the soma) and so it is psycho-somatic in nature and form.

Paruresis (Bashful Bladder)

More recently we have been introduced to, and have worked with, a disorder called “Shy Bladder” or “Bashful Bladder.” The technical name is Paruresis. People suffering from this problem say that it can be most crippling individually and socially. A person suffering from this disorder will report something like this,

“Whenever I try to use a public restroom, everything freezes up! No matter how badly I need to go, nothing happens. If I’m not at home, I can’t urinate. When I’m alone or at home, I have no problem.”

Michael worked with a client with this problem during the Neuro-Semantic Intensive Trainings in Colorado. A participant flew in from the southern part of the United States. Yet to make that four hour flight, he refused to eat or drink for two days. He absolutely was terrified that he would have to go to the restroom in the airport or worse, on the plane and someone would hear him pee. It was utter terror for him.

Emotions are like that. They have a “reason” of their own. We call it psycho-logical (following Korzybski’s work, Science and Sanity) because the reasons make perfect sense to the person’s internal thinking, remembering, imagining. It if seems irrational on the outside, that’s because we don’t know the full internal logic. To this man, it seemed totally irrational. He couldn’t figure out his own internal logic or why his body was doing that. He knew better! And he chastised himself constantly about it (of course that only amplified the problem).

What in the world could cause a highly success young CEO of a successful business who employed nearly a hundred people and was making six-figure income to suffer at the hand of his embodied emotions in that way? An old trauma. The traumatic event of walking into a restroom at five-years of age, stepping across the body of his drunken alcoholic father who had passed out in the bathroom floor, and beginning to pee. As he did, it woke up the dad who yelled and screamed at him, threatening him to “never do that again!”

That was the meaning (the semantics) that became incorporated and embodied in the little boy’s body (his neurological, nervous system). It’s in this way that “Shy Bladder” syndrome is neuro-semantic in nature and structure. The messages within the little boy’s consciousness in-formed his entire mind-body-emotion system, he repeatedly reviewed that internal movie and there you have it.

I presently am working with a 46-year-old male who has had this problem since he was a teenager. He developed fears, anxiety, and even panic around the natural process of urinating. In questioning him, I discovered that his problem rooted in his being shamed primarily by an older brother during the time when he was late being potty trained. These anxieties were amplified from other experiences of being embarrassed from significant adults in his life because he was a “big boy” and still in diapers.

I hadn’t talk with him very long before I realized that the structure of this problem correlated very closely to the structure of stuttering. The difference was that the memory embodiment occurred on the other end from the person who blocks and stutters. Same structure, different expression.

Neuro-Science and “Muscle Memory” or “Cell Memory”

What evidence is there in the neuro-sciences which gives credence to this understanding that memories as ways of thinking and reasoning (our semantics) can find expression in various areas of the body? This theory and paradigm is obviously foundational to our belief that the major contributing factor of blocking and stuttering are those mental frames of fear and anxiety behind the stuttering. Then, when we add to this are all of the negative mental frames associated with the early psychological development of a person, no wonder we can get some very strange ideas embodied somatically. Then, these mental frames, when activated by the fear of blocking or stuttering will function similar to how a panic attack operates. The only difference will be in the expression occurring in those muscles surrounding breathing and speaking.

Today, human anatomy and medical science recognizes that the nervous system is an interactive system. Today the neuro-sciences speak about auto-immune-disease, and psycho-immunology, and many other hyphenated words. There is no “mind” apart from “body,” or “body” apart from mind. Researchers today describe the brain functions and anatomy as responsive, processing, and always changing. We have a dynamic system that is alive and forever in process.

That’s why the old metaphors of the mind-body system no longer work. The mechanistic idea of steam and energy and “things” have given way to processes, systems, communication exchange, information transfer, etc. And yet how mind manifests itself in the embodiment of nervous tissue, and creates the sense of consciousness, and self-reflexive consciousness, self, identity, and internal movies of past and future events— all of this is still a mystery.

What we know is that “mind” is not a thing, but a process. We know that our mind does not have mechanical structures for “storage” of “memories” and “thoughts” that are static like what we use in a computer. There are no comparable computer chips … there is only the constant transform of information, the exchange or transduction of energy from electromagnetic to bio-electric, to chemical to the exchange of ions at the level of molecules.

In there, everything is so completely dynamic that they only way it can be sustained is through using the higher levels of mind (our meta-cognitions) to set up beliefs that keep on thinking the same thought so that it habituates and becomes muscle memory. Of course, if we stop that process, then that memory will be changed, altered, or erased. That’s why we are such good forgetters. The things we program into our nervous system have to be constantly refreshed. And, of course, all of this also identifies processes for intervention and transformation.

Embodied Emotions

If this is true for our thinking, it is even more so for our emotions. These somatic movements in our body, what we call “emotions” must also be re-framed. We must also recognize that they are processes as well. They are the embodiment of our thinking, appraising, and understanding into our protoclastic tissue— nervous tissue, signals and messages of arousal, threat, safety, etc. That everything is interconnected and affects everything else is a given in the neuro-sciences today.

What does all of this mean? It means that there is no mind-body-emotion problem because it is an interconnected system in the first place, a system that cannot be broken up. We can only break it up linguistically as we talk about the parts. The parts do not operate singly. Of course; this includes the cortex, the hippocampus, and every other organ come into play including muscle groups.

Neuro-Scientist Susan Greenfield’s states, that “consciousness, memory, learning, etc. are gestalt (connected) phenomena, and not located anywhere, but everywhere.” We recognize this process in terms of “cell memory” or “muscle memory.” Actually, this is a misnomer for it implies that somehow the storing of memory in certain areas of the body. The error in this is the nominalizing (or freezing) of a process. The memories are actually the expression of a dynamic process. With blocking and stuttering, the driving emotions find expression in certain muscle groups but they are not just there, they are everywhere but there as well.

In all of this, the modern neuro-sciences confirm our suspicion that emotions can and do find expression in particular areas of the body. As a systemic whole, the mind-body system works together and cannot be separated.

Consider a panic attack. When a person has a panic attack, part of the diagnosis involves physical symptoms. I certainly do not believe this diagnosis is the result of some accident. It is the result of what people experience as is the case with blocking/ stuttering. The DSM IV offers this description on diagnosing a panic attack:

A Panic Attack is a discrete period in which there is the sudden onset of intense apprehension, fearfulness, or terror often associated with feelings of impending doom. During these attacks, symptoms such as shortness of breath, palpitations, chest pain or discomfort, choking or smothering sensations and fear of going “crazy” or losing control are present.

Note the psychosomatic symptoms. Move the expression of those emotions to particular areas of the body controlling speaking and you have blocking/ stuttering. Take those same emotions and have them expressed themselves in the bladder muscles and you have “Shy Bladder.” The structure is the same; the expressions are different. Reframe or heal the emotions and the physical expression disappears.

Summary

Can we get negative emotions actually installed in our body?

Is it actually possible to em-body and in-corp-orate negative emotional states in our muscles and nervous tissue?

Yes indeed. That, in fact, is precisely what all of our emotions have the potential to do. Repeat any emotional state (which inevitably comes along with thoughts and frames of mind within it) and it will become somatized or embodied in our very flesh.

Could it be that the feelings that correspond to and drive stuttering and blocking have gotten into the breathing and speaking muscles?

Yes, of course. And because of this ongoing, dynamic process— when we change the thinking-and-feeling within that experience, the messages sent to the body that keeps refreshing and reinforcing the neuro-pathways change. This offers hope for recovery and transformation. No wonder the multiple forms of Cognitive-Behavioral therapy have taken the lead in the past three decades in creating the most significant change. And it is that model that we use in Neuro-Semantics as we are pioneering faster and more streamlined ways of getting to the source of the problem —the frames that determine the experience.

Authors:

Bob G. Bodenhamer, D.Min., Consultant, author, minister and trainer from Gastonia, North Carolina – www.neurosemantics.com

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Psychologist and entrepreneur in the Colorado Rockies – www.neurosemantics.com

Bibliography and the Neuro-Sciences:

Conlan, Roberta. (1999). States of mind: new discoveries about how our brains make us who we are. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Crick, Francis. (1994). The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Greenfield, Susan A. (1995). Journey to the centers of the mind: toward a science of consciousness. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Koryzybski, Alfred. (1941/ 1994). Science and sanity: An introduction to non-aristotelian systems and general semantics. (4^th Ed & 5^th Ed), Lakeville, CN: International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.

Kosslyn, Stephen M.; Koenig Olivier. (1992). Wet mind: the new cognitive neuroscience. New York: The Free Press: a division of Macmillan, Inc.

Nuland, Sherwin B. (1997). The wisdom of the body. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Osherson, Daniel (Ed.). (1994). Visual cognition and action: an invitation to cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press.

Osherson, Daniel (Ed.). (1990). Thinking: an invitation to cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Pinker, Steven. (1997). How the mind works. New York: W.W. Norton and company.

Smith, Anthony. (1984). The mind. New York: The Viking Press.

The American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic Criteria, from DSM-IV (1994). American Psychiatric Association, Washington DC.

Suggestions for new PWS to the NLP/NS Model

January 25, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

By Bob Bodenhamer
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Information for the PWS new to the Model

Over the years in working with PWS, I have summarized what I believe to be the foundation of what “triggers” stuttering and some techniques/ patterns to assist the PWS in gaining more fluency. As you enter into this new way of thinking about stuttering be patient for it will no doubt be a journey of some years but above all be persistent. You are probably beginning a journey of from 1 to 3 years but it has the potential of radically re-organizing your thinking about who you are and what you will be doing with your life. That is worth spending 2 or 3 years on, isn’t it?

Suggestions for the PWS:

There are a lot of articles on the web site (www.masteringstuttering.com) that should prove helpful. Below find a list of what I believe key articles that present the information crucial to your understanding as you begin this journey.

Articles:

“Eight ‘Keys’ to Personal Change: Thirteen Years of NLP”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/eight-keys-to-personal-change/

“How to Create a Good Dose of Stuttering: The Neuro-Semantic Structure of Stuttering”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/how-to-create-a-good-dose-of-stuttering/

“Meta-Stating Stuttering: Approaching Stuttering Using NLP and Neuro-Semantics”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/meta-stating-stuttering-approaching-stuttering-using-nlp-and-neuro-semantics/

“The ‘How-To’ of Meta-Stating”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/the-how-to-of-meta-stating/

“A Model for Resolving Stuttering”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/a-model-for-resolving-stuttering/

“From Stuttering to Stability: A Case Study”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/from-stuttering-to-stability-a-case-study/

Techniques/ Patterns that have proven quite helpful to other PWS are:

1. The “Meta-Yes/ Meta-No Pattern”.
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/meta-yes-meta-no-pattern-say-no-to-fear-anxiety-and-yes-to-courage-and-faith/

2. The “Drop-Down Through Pattern”.

www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/the-drop-down-through-mind-backtracking-pattern/

www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/from-stuttering-to-stability-a-case-study/ (Case Study)

3. “Applying Acceptance, Appreciation and Esteem to Yourself Pattern”.
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/applying-acceptance-appreciation-and-esteem-to-yourself-pattern/

4. “The Power Zone Pattern with Responsibility To/For”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/the-power-zone-pattern-with-responsibility-to-for/

5. “The Mind-to-Muscle Pattern”
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/the-mind-to-muscle-pattern/

6. Make sure you learn the difference between “associating and dissociating” and learn how to do it. This process from Gestalt Psychology is covered in the article entitled “Eight Keys to Personal Change” number 6.
www.masteringstuttering.com/articles/eight-keys-to-personal-change/

7. Also, learn the “Perceptual Positions” and practice those especially practicing how to go to your 5th position (Number 8 in the above pattern).

8. I have a book Mastering Blocking and Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency. It is available from the web site through me and it is also available through Amazon as well as the publisher. This book has

numerous Neuro-Linguistic and Neuro-Semantic Techniques/Patterns for you to utilize in “challenging” your stuttering mind with your fluency mind. Also, within the pages of this book, you will find a theoretical foundation for stuttering and what must happen for fluency.

8. John Harrison, former PWS, lived through the fear of stuttering, conquered the problem, and even wrote a 485-page book about it – REDEFINING STUTTERING: What the struggle to speak is really all about – that’s
available on line at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and as a free PDF download at:
www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/Infostuttering/Harrison/redefining.html

9. I highly recommend that you find a cognitive trained therapist to assist you with those deep learnings of fear and anxiety that trigger you to block. If this isn’t possible, read and practice. Post questions on the email list as
there are some really good people on that list to help you. Look through the archives of the list to found volumes of great posts. A list of providers is found at: www.masteringstuttering.com/pws-coaches/

Also, if you are not already a member of our email list, I highly encourage you to join. The archives are full of great posts. This list is active. There are over 800 members:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/

Discovering your “Highest Resource” for Gaining Fluency
“The Drop Down Through Pattern”

It is better to have someone assist you with the Drop Down Through Pattern but many people run it on themselves successfully.

As to discovering your highest resource think for a moment what you hold to be your very highest value. It may also be a belief. We tend to value our beliefs and believe in our values. For most, their Higher Resource is of a Spiritual nature.

Such answers that we here are love, unity, oneness, openness, vastness, serenity, peace, Jesus, God, Allah, Higher Power, etc.

Find one of these high states of mind that you hold dear and really think about that state. When were you last in that state? Imagine yourself back in that state now. What was it like? What were you seeing and hearing? How did it feel? Where in your body do you feel that high state?

Now, once you access that high state hold that state in mind and then bring into that state a state about your fearing blocking or about being anxious about blocking. What you will be doing is allowing these to polar states to merge together into one with the higher state demolishing, hopefully, that fear or anxiety state.

Introduction to PWS interested in Therapy

First of all, I need to be upfront with you and let you know that this is no magical cure. Those who gain good progress spend a great deal of time working on their speech under my directions or the directions of their therapist. I am talking about 1 to 3 years so it is a major commitment in time.

However, we are not talking about a huge amount of time in therapy – plan on 8 to 20 or 24 hours over a period of 3 or 4 months followed by tune up session every month or so.

Approximately 1/3rd of the people I see experience significant improvement. Another 1/3rd experience feeling much better about themselves and getting more involved in their world. There is usually some improvement in their speech. With these, I have very high hopes that over the years with their new learnings they will see significant improvement in speech.

Another 1/3rd make no progress – most drop out after 2 to 4 sessions. When they realize that what I do isn’t a magical cure, they are gone.

This is for most PWS slow tedious work. Don’t give up. Just keep working and practicing and I am talking about 1, 2 or even 3 years or longer. You can do it.

Contact Information:

Bobby G Bodenhamer, D.Min.
1516 Cecelia Dr
Gastonia, NC 28054
704.864.3585
Fax: 704.864.1545

www.masteringstuttering.com
www.neurosemantics.com
www.renewingyourmind.com (Christian site)