Changing Limiting Beliefs

A Case Study with Fernando
Bobby G Bodenhamer, D.Min.

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Fernando as a 27 year old male had experienced blocking/stuttering since he was nine years old.  During our first few hours of therapy, Fernando’s father stood out as the main contributor to Fernando’s problem. The fear of his father drove his anxieties that were behind his blocking.

As I was questioning Fernando during our fourth session about how it was in his home as a child when he desired to express his feelings, Fernando replied, “I was never allowed to express my feelings. I was made to believe that my feelings were not ‘legitimate.’ I have always thought that my father lay at the root of my problems. Deep inside I always knew that dad was at the root of my blocking.”

I kept on going with this thought when Fernando interrupted. Fernando inquired, “Did you notice?”  I inquired, “Notice what?”  Fernando continued, “When I was telling you about my thoughts concerning dad’s being at the root of my blocking, I was fluent. I felt a ‘lightness’ in my chest and I was totally fluent.”  “Yes, that is correct Fernando, you were totally fluent.”

I picked up on this thought and explained to Fernando how that when a child is not permitted to express honest emotion, that can cause great harm in adulthood. Then I inquired, “And, Fernando, what does it mean to you that you felt that ‘lightness’ in your chest when you were expressing honest emotions and beliefs about your father’s role in your blocking?”

Fernando, “It means that the feeling is right.”  Further inquiry revealed that to Fernando, experiencing that ‘lightness’ in his chest when he was discussing his honest feelings about his father’s role in his blocking, let him know that his feelings were right all along and that his father was the one in the wrong. Fernando summarized it when he said, “My feelings are valid.”

So, picking up on Fernando’s principal that “His feelings were valid,” I proceeded to lead him in incorporating this principal into his very muscles. The fear of his father being incorporated into his muscles drove his blocking. So, Fernando’s ability to honestly express his feelings about his father and getting the affirmation from the internal feeling of lightness provided an extremely valuable resource in Fernando’s gaining fluency.  I proceeded with the “Mind to Muscle Pattern” to install this resource state into his muscles (See Figure 1).

1. The principal to incorporate into my muscles – The principal that I wanted to lead Fernando in installing in his muscles was, “My feelings are valid.”
2. Describing the principle as a belief – “So, Fernando, what do you believe about your ‘feelings being valid?’”  Fernando, “I believe that my feelings are valid.”
3. Re-formating the belief as a decision – “And, Fernando, what will holding the belief that your feelings are valid lead to in your life?  What will you decide to do?”  “I am going to apply it. I am going to be conscious of it all the time.”
4. Rephrasing the belief and decision as an emotional state/experience – “How do you feel about that, Fernando?”  “It makes me feel like I have some control of myself.  I have a ‘feeling of control.’”
5. Turning the emotions into actions that express the belief and decision – “And with that ‘feeling of control,’ how will you be changing your behavior?”  “I will be conscious of it all the time especially when the validity of my feelings is being challenged especially with my father. This will certainly give me a lot more ‘hope’ – that’s for sure!”
6. Stepping into the action and letting the higher levels of the mind spiral downwards – I led Fernando to repeat the above thought-feelings several times. He wrote them down to continue processing. The purpose is to take these thoughts and to continue rehearsing them in one’s mind over and over and putting them into practice so that they become habituated.

Summary Steps to “Mind-to-Muscle”

1. “I understand…”
2. “I believe…”
3. “From this day forward I will…”
4. “I feel and experience…”
5. “The one thing that I will do today as an expression of this understanding, concept, belief, decision and state is….”
6. Step into your higher understandings and bring it back down through numbers 2 to 5. Repeat this looping to install.

Figure 1
Mind to Muscle Pattern
A Case Study

Click here to read an article on the web site which has more information about the Mind-to-Muscle Pattern.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Author:

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.

The Mind-to-Muscle Pattern by Hall & Bodenhamer

PDF file

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

A Case Study

Stephen Kostes from Europe (Fictitious name for anonymity)

My experience with stammering is very similar with most people that suffer from the same thing. From my very early years I tried to hide it, overcome it, cure it, and accept it. All my efforts were almost fruitless. I felt that stammering controlled every aspect of my life and especially my choices in life.

I went to therapy twice. The first therapy did not help me at all, it actually made me worse and I quit it in the very beginning. The second therapy helped a lot. It did not make me fluent, but it took away the severe blocks. My speech was interrupted by many small blocks, but at least the severe blocks with the accompanying struggle to overcome them, were gone. I have to point out here that no therapist gave me false hopes. They did not promise fluency. They promised significant improvement. This was both good and bad. On one hand I did not have false hopes. On the other hand I felt that there was no hope at all. And under this perspective I adjusted my life to my stammering.

Things were going quite smoothly, but I knew that this was somehow an artificial state. I knew that sometime I would have to confront my stammering, because I could not always avoid situations (especially in the professional field) where my stammering would be a liability. And I also knew that stammering was the source of phobias and insecurities that would certainly affect my personal life. Well, as a saying goes, it never rains, it pours. And almost simultaneously my personal and professional life crashed. And I knew that one major part of this crash was caused by stammering.

At that time a friend of mine introduced me to NLP. In the beginning I was just curious. Soon this curiosity became a strong interest. NLP cuts through the essence of things and provides solutions, the “how to do it” rather than the “why” – why is of little practical help in resolving problems. Soon I started to wonder whether NLP could help me with my stammering. I conducted my search mainly through the Internet and after visiting tens of sites dealing with NLP I came along neurosemantics.com. For the first time I saw a thorough approach to stammering. Not just an article on some obscure approach, or just theories on how it is caused and what should a stammerer do, but many articles on how to actually deal with the problem and solve it. And among the articles, was one by Linda Rounds with Bob Bodenhamer. I could totally identify with Linda Round’s experience and Bob’s approach. No miracles, no drugs, no tricks to overcome or avoid blocks, just the utilization of a person’s powerful resources and the belief in God.

I studied these articles very carefully and I started practicing. Soon I realized that I could not do it on my own. I lacked the deep knowledge in NLP and I could not be the therapist and the patient at the same time. I needed professional help. I e-mailed Bob and he responded promptly saying that he was willing to help me. Since I live in Europe, I asked him whether we could do our sessions using the teleconference facilities of instant messaging software. He agreed and after numerous efforts we set it up.

In our three sessions Bob used mainly the drop-down through technique and time line therapy to disassociate (meta-state) feelings and situations from my stammering experience.

In the drop-down through technique we established a strong reference point and we took each negative feeling to this reference point. I am a visual type of person and, like Bob and Linda, I hold strong religious beliefs. With Bob’s guidance we established a very strong reference point (resource) that combined both these characteristics and we took each negative feeling to this sacred for me place. They were all neutralized (meta-stated) in insignificant nuisances that had no impact on me anymore.

Then Bob used the time-line therapy pattern to work with a particularly strong incident from my childhood that played a major part in how I perceived my stammering. This incident had instilled three very important feelings that follow me through my life and most stammerers know too well – guilt, shame and incompetence. Just think how many times you felt these things and tried to hide them either by retreating to your personal shell, or by attacking those near you. This was a very strong experience and it was the first time I talked about it to anybody. And although I was over flooded with emotions I felt secure with Bob to guide me through this traumatic event and make me meta-state it. When this was over it, I felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. I felt, and most importantly, I knew that my life would become better in so many ways.

After concluding the treatment I am much-much more fluent. I speak to other people and I often amaze myself with this new found fluency. And although I am not totally fluent yet, I feel that I am getting there. After all a cognitive behavior such as stammering that has developed over 30 years of practice, cannot disappear immediately. Think of any bad habit that you have and you will understand this better.

I have to point out some things however. This treatment, like every other treatment depends very much on how one approaches it. To be successful with this treatment, one must:

• Be determined to succeed. I had always wanted very much to become fluent, but at this time of my life, due to various events, I had really decided to get rid of stammering. Until now I wished that stammering would go away by some miraculous treatment, drug, whatever. Now I was more determined than ever to get over it.
• Have faith. For me, my religious beliefs were a reference point that I could turn and rely on. For others it may be something else.  This reference point has to be so strong that will neutralize everything bad.
• Understand the impact of stammering in behavior. Stammering is not only a way of speaking. Unfortunately it is a way of thinking and ultimately living with fears, phobias and negative emotions regarding you and the people around you. Getting rid of it is not merely speaking fluently, but living fluently. It is about choices, freedom and realizing the full potential of life.

My stammering has lessened significantly and I often amaze myself with this new found fluency. On the other hand I realize now more than ever that stammering is not only a way of speaking, but ultimately a way of living and that there are many things that I will have to overcome. After all my map of the world has been very much influenced by my stammering.

The Art of Dropping-Down Through Experiences
Even Stuttering While Rising Higher.

RISING UP TO DROP-DOWN THROUGH!

How to Meta-State
the NLP Drop-Down Through Pattern

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

We first applied Meta-States to the subject of stuttering a couple of years ago. That led to an article that we published on the Neuro-Semantics website (www.neurosemantics.com). More recently, Bob has worked with several individuals around the issue of stuttering and found that sometimes in one session, those who had stuttered for decades stopped. It was amazing. Of course, it did not always work that quickly. Sometimes in as many as four sessions (No doubt some will need more than four sessions.). And still that’s incredible especially when you consider what the professionals working in the field of stuttering think and say about it.

With that success rate, we began exploring some of the key factors in stuttering and the neuro-semantics of the relief. Some of the case studies have been dramatic, as dramatic and exciting as “curing” a phobia in a few minutes. This does not mean that every case can be resolved that quickly, although some will. Our experiences with people who stutter have led us to discover several things. Discoveries and Understandings―

• Stuttering offers a great example of how a person can “mind-to-muscle” an idea so that an idea drops outside of awareness and becomes a muscular pattern in the throat.

• Stuttering operates from a simple idea, “You are forbidden to speak non-fluently, so be self-conscious and self-interrupting in your verbal expressions.”

• Amazingly, once you mind-to-muscle that idea into your neurology so that it becomes neuro-semantic, you can forget it and your body (your muscles in throat and lungs) will remember to run that program. Then you can begin to believe that it is inevitable, inescapable, and permanent. Of course, those are just beliefs, just confirmations of thoughts and limiting beliefs at that.

Questions―

• Once we have a neuro-semantic (or mind-body-emotion) “program” like stuttering in the muscles, can we reverse it?

• Can we un-do it?

• Do we have any Neuro-Semantic patterns for reversing it and how long would that take?

What better evidence do we need that we can mind-to-muscle ideas than stuttering? The experience of stuttering shows that we can embody an idea to such an extent that the idea or principle becomes completely incorporated inside a person’s very neurology and physiology. The tongue, throat muscles, muscles governing breathing, etc. all learn the lessons well. And the principle? The ideas that’s embodied involves those that create panic attack, “It’s bad to speak non-fluently, always be on your guard against any speech that is not perfectly fluent, it means you’re inadequate and inferior.”

This fits with what those who have explored this field have written. (Bloodstein, 1975) has written that stuttering is―

“… an anticipatory struggle reaction that is manifested as tension in the body and that shows up as fragmentation of the stutterer’s speech.”

Similarly, Sheehan, and Sheehan (1984) said in their analysis of stuttering. “… stuttering is an approach-avoidance conflict.” Wendell Johnson (1946) using General Semantics demonstrated that stuttering is a learned phenomenon, one that is typically “taught,” and one that involves the meta-level structure of a fear or dislike of non-fluency and unwillingness to tolerate the hesitating.

A Demonstration

“Robert, I want you to recall the feeling, memory, or a state that’s behind your stuttering, something that you feel each time just before you stutter.”

“Okay, I know what it is.”

What are you feeling?

“I’m feeling intense anger.”

And what are you feeling anger at or about?

“It’s about being teased when I stuttered as a child. I hated that.”

Where in your body do you feel that intense anger?

“It is in my chest and here in my arms.”

And you say intense, how intense or how much do you feel that?

“It is very intense, it feels hot.”

And, Robert, just drop down through that … and what do you feel underneath that?

“Sadness is below that.”

Good, and just be with that sadness for a moment and what is that sadness about?

“The sadness is about being hurt by my peers at school. They really hurt me… And it’s a sadness and heaviness here…”

Good, and now … drop down through the sadness and what do you feel underneath the sadness from being laughed at?

“I have anxiety and a sense of panic … my heart is beating much faster.”

Robert, what are you feeling in that state?

“I have a kinesthetic sensation of this state in my belly… And also here in my neck and shoulders, and the same sensation is here in my jaw, throat, and chest.”

Good, and drop down through the anxiety and panic … and what do you feel underneath the that?

“Pain … I have a sensation that feels like I’m being ‘restricted.’ It’s hard to describe. It’s like I’m being held back.

Just stay with that emotion for a moment and now go ahead and drop down through that sense of being restricted and held back and what do you feel underneath that?

“Now I have frustration … Yes, lots of frustration. Just frustrated.

Good, and as you now drop down through the frustration, what do you feel underneath the frustration?

“Hmmmm … Ah … I can’t tell exactly …”

Thee was a pause here, briefly and then Robert went immediately into his resources.

“Bob, I’m feeling a feeling of lightness.”

That’s good. And drop down through the lightness and what do you feel underneath the lightness?

“Lots of things … lots of feelings. I feel joy, happiness. I feel a sense of elation.”

Great. Tell me about these feeling of joy, happiness, and elation? What’s is it like?

“In addition to the feelings, I’m also getting a visual image of myself.”

I elicited more of the meaning frames around his resource state of “joy, happiness and elation.” That resource state also included “relaxation, peacefulness, contentment, and freedom of expression.” By asking him these “meaning frames,” I was not only getting more information from him for use later in the therapy, but also, by eliciting meaning frames, these frames would anchor in these resources and make them more powerful and meaningful to Robert.

As I validated that, I gave him more time to stay in these good resourceful feelings. Later I used this image as an anchor as I had him apply his resources back to his original difficulties. All I had to do was say, “See that picture of you being …” and then mention the following frames which was part of his joy― relaxed, peaceful, content, and freedom of expression.

“Now, Robert, how does seeing yourself as relaxed, peaceful, contented and free transform and enrich the intense anger?”

I repeated this question on each of Robert’s negative frames. As we continued to empower his resource state, he saw the picture of himself growing taller and taller. It really developed into a powerful resource. I then moved to slowly and deliberately meta-stating the negative frames. As we did―

Anger and Rage became Contentment, peace, harmony and happiness.
Sadness became joy, happiness.
Pain and Restriction became supple. He often used “supple” in the sense of flexible and limber after reframing pain and restriction. limber.
Frustration became “it just went away” and he became really excited about taking this out into “real life” and working it including telling his class that he was meeting in about an hour after our session about the experience he just had.

Debriefing the Drop-Down Pattern

In Robert’s case, he went through the following series of states as he dropped-down through one after the other:

1. Intense Anger

2. Sadness

3. Anxiety / Panic

4. Pain

5. Frustration

6. Pause (where typically the “nothingness,” void, or emptiness occurs)

7. A feeling of “lightness”

8. Joy, Happiness, Elation which included relaxed, peaceful, content, and freedom of expression.

In thinking about this pattern, doesn’t it make sense that the ideas in his head about non-fluent speech and being teased about it and his higher frames of dislike about that ended up as kinesthetic sensations in his belly, neck, shoulders, jaw, throat and chest? Does it then surprise us that what we call “stuttering” then shows up as a kind of panic attack in this way?

So with the kinesthetic sensation of feeling blocked or restricted, and from the point of view of organ language, his speech has become blocked or restricted. I have found this as extremely important in working with those who stutter. Which also leads me to feel 100% convinced that stuttering is nothing but a panic attack expressing itself this particular way. The therapy I do is exactly the same as with panic disorder― right out of the same text book.

While we use the label of “stuttering” or “panic attack” ― there is a similar structure in terms of the mental frames and the physiology. In the experience of stuttering, we have a state of anxiety that’s expressing itself in breathing and in the muscles of the chest which control breathing as well as the muscles around the larynx. It’s really that simple. And once the person reframes the meta-level structures that drives the panic over speaking and what other’s think, the stuttering disappears.

The Drop-Down Through Pattern
Meta-Stating by Dropping-Down Through Painful Experiences:

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

What emotion, feeling, memory, or experience would you like to transform so that it enhances your life?
Are there any emotions or experiences that undermine your success that you would like to eliminate?

2) Step Into that Experience.

For the purposes of transformation, recall that experience and step into it so that you see what you saw, hear what you heard, and fully feel what you felt. Be there again. …. Good.
Where do you feel this in your body?
What does it feel like?
How intense 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 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 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.]

5) Meta-State each problem state

Use each resource state to meta-state 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?
Valid and solidify: just stay right here in this X resource and as you experience it fully, what happens to the first problem state (#1)?
When you feel this (fire anchor for each resource) … what else happens to those old problem states?

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?

Caveats about the Pattern

In terms of trouble-shooting the use of this pattern, there are a few concerns as you work with people and coach them through this process.

1) About “getting to the bottom.”

Sometimes people will reach a point near or at the “void” where they say things such as, “That is it. There is nothing else.” Or, “I am at the bottom. There is nothing else below. I can’t go any further.” If this happens, then ask them if they have a visual. I invite the person to say something like, “I am on the ground. There is nothing below me.”

When this happens then we can say, “Good, just imagine opening the earth up and dropping down through that.”

In any Neuro-Semantic or NLP pattern, our basic approach is that we do what we have to do to coach a person to continue dropping down through. Use their metaphors and feed it back to the them in a way that will lead them to open up whatever is blocking them.

2) For intense trauma, use another pattern first.

If the person is experiencing a great deal of emotional pain from a memory, use some other meta-stating patterns to loosen up the frames before using this pattern. We don’t want to lead a person to associate into some extremely painful experience when there are easier ways of doing it. I (BB) have found with this pattern that it provides a great “cleaning up” pattern for finalizing your work.

3) Track the person’s states all the way down.

If you have an excellent memory, make a visual image of a ladder and state in your mind__ and to them, each state. If not, then jot down on a notepad each state the person drops-down into. Sometimes there will be as few as 5 and sometimes as many as 20 or 30.

4) When to end.

If the person still has some “negative” emotions after you have taken him or her through the process, then simply repeat the process. That is, recycle through those feelings as you did with the first negative feeling. You may have to do this two or time times. Do it until the person does not experience a negative feelings.

Understanding the Meta-Stating Structure
of this Pattern

How Do we Meta-State when we Drop Down Through Experiences?

We typically think about meta-stating as going up. That’s the metaphor. We make a meta-move above and beyond an experience and then bring a resource to the original experience. This sets a new frame for the experience or emotion. In doing this, we transcend and include the first experience and embed it inside of a broader and more extensive resource.

This comes from Bateson’s meta-connection and from the Meta-States model of the levels of the mind and so from Korzybski’s Levels of Abstraction although he had his abstract levels upside down.

Yet all of this is just a metaphor. It’s just a way of talking about things― a way of thinking, conceptualizing, and imagining. Can we turn this metaphor back upside down and still meta-state?

You bet.

In NLP, the Drop-Down Through pattern does this. Tad James was apparently the first to introduce it to NLP, we put it in our book on Time-Lining (1997). And yet it is actually a meta-stating pattern. Bob has that illustrated with Robert in the demonstration. Now we want to explain what we each see in the pattern and how it actually works as a meta-stating process.

The idea of “dropping down through” and the feeling it evokes works as a meta-frame. In the pattern we essential take this feeling, idea, and metaphor and use it as an operative frame. So we invite participants to

“… just drop down…” “Feel yourself falling through that old experience, that old emotion … and just go with this … and drop down through … there you go… and what’s beneath that feeling?”

In this languaging, we are inviting the person to go higher deeper (or deeper higher) as a trance phenomenon. This is a new distinction recently introduced in the Meta-Trance trainings. I pulled it out of some of the language patterns of Erickson not in the NLP patterning of Erickson.

I noticed that Milton would sometimes ask his clients to do two opposite things at the same time. In slow time he would have them go faster. In fast time, he would suggest that they go slower. When I tried that on, I found it very trancy. That led me to experiment in some of our closing inductions at trainings.

“And now, just for the purpose of enjoying the learnings of the day and to let them solidify within your mind, I would like to invite you to float down deeper. .. and deeper still because we have been rising up in our mind to higher levels and frames of mind … to our highest intentions and as you float down deeper now with those highest intentions, you can feel deeper higher in just the way that allows you to step into those highest and most expansive perspectives and then feel higher deeper in a way that solidifies them into your core now … as you move out into the world… “

In the same way, when we invite a person to float down and to drop down and to go through a thought, an experience, an emotion― the downward feel combined with the realization (the higher frame) that that emotion arose from yet another thought or emotion … we combine the going deeper higher trance. Framing that we can back up to the originating emotion, we backtrack the negative meta-stating the person had created in his or her history.

And what was before that?
And what was before that?

This replicates, backwards, the process that created the dragon state … and subtly starts pulling it apart. That’s why this pattern is a Dragon Slaying/ Transforming pattern and explains why Bob has gotten so much mileage from it in dealing with physiological problems such as stuttering. In this, it reverses the syntax of the problem, very similar to what happens in the Phobia Cure pattern.

The nothingness state of the void is another interesting meta-state to bring and set as a frame over our experiences. We get through by backing up to when nothing was going on … no particular thoughts or feelings. Then we can metaphor it with the sense of emptiness, a void, or whatever. This essentially helps us empty our mind and emotions and move to neutral.

Then, because we have moved down from negative to neutral, by presupposition, if we keep moving in this direction, we have to move to positive states. The continuum has been set up and so it naturally and easily follows that we will now continue to drop down into positive states that will be much more resourceful. So every time we drop down through the next experiential state, we drop into an even more or higher resource state.

All this is … is meta-states standing on its head.

We could change the metaphor and invite the float up through pattern.

“And now just feel yourself floating up … getting lighter and lighter … lighter than air. … floating … that’s right, floating right up out of those old emotions and up into something higher, something lighter, something more expansive, something that invites you into a higher state of mind― perhaps a higher state than you ever been in before … now .. because you can, can you not… that’s right… floating all the way up.”

In this, the metaphor doesn’t matter all that much. The magic isn’t in the metaphor as if there were some holy metaphor. What’s important is that once we frame with a metaphor, we can do things with it, we can experience things with it, we can make significant transformational change. Dropping down through an experience implies, suggests, and facilitates moving to a new place as does floating up to a higher state.

When we facilitate change, movement, difference and get a person to construct new experiences, we can then use those very resources as new frames of mind. If there’s any magic, that’s the magic. We trust that the person moves into (drops down through) and into the very resource states that he or she needs. So we then use those and apply those to the original problem.

“And when you fully step into and experience this resource… how does that change the problem that you started with?”

Meta-Level Magic

It’s been a number of years now since the first time I saw Bob run the Drop-Down Through pattern. It occurred when he had a whole group of people finishing their NLP Master Practitioner training. He introduced this pattern on the last day as he demonstrated it with one person, then the whole group wanted to have him coach them through it! It was powerful. After several people sat in the chair and kept dropping down through things, I almost got the impression that there was something magical about that chair.

Maybe it was a secret door to another universe!
Be careful when you set in that chair, you never know where you might end up!

Yet in watching the processes, it was clear to me that while we all thought about the metaphor as taking us down … down … down into the foundation of an experience. When we popped out the other end … and dropped on down into positive resources … it was like Dante’s trip.

Do you remember Dante’s trip? At a cave entrance at Jerusalem he saw the sign marking the gateway to Hell. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter herein.” And down, down, down… the circles of hell Dante went … deeper into the problem … past the fire, the brimstone, etc., until he came to the most unimaginable source of evil… to Satan. And Satan in that poem was frozen in ice in the center of the earth. You’ve heard about when hell freezes over? Well, that’s the picture Dante drew when he wrote his poem in 1400. Every attempt of the giant Satan to get free … as he flapped his wings … made the ice freeze even more. (What an imagine of impotent evil!)

As Dante continued his journey having reached the center, all his movements forward thereafter was actually up and out the other side of the planet … where he emerged at the foot of Mt. Purgatory and when he got to the top of that mountain and the Garden of Eden on top, Beatrice took him on a trip through space, first to the moon, the Mars, then the starts. But that’s another story.

Going down and coming up. Going up and coming down to a new core of values. Going higher deeper now … you know what that’s like, do you not?

Transforming Neurology

I know why Bob really likes this pattern and think about it as one of the most powerful ones. Why? Because he has been using it to actually transform meanings that have been installed in muscle like stuttering. This is what we mean by “neuro-semantics.” Taking the term from Korzybski who coined that and “neuro-linguistic,” we have been modeling how meanings are transferred and installed in muscle. It happens all the time and our Mind-to-Muscle pattern taps into this mechanism of our mind-body-emotion states.

It can happen with the idea of “don’t stutter,” “don’t hesitate when you notice yourself being non-fluent.” This is the structure of stuttering as general semanticist, Dr. Wendell Johnson noted a long time ago in his now classic work, People in Quandaries. Stuttering always involves becoming conscious of non-fluency. Yet since all of us are non-fluent everyday, there has to be something else that creates “stuttering.”

We have to dislike, hate, or forbid the non-fluency. We have to give it a negative and painful meaning. And when we do, either by being forbidden to be non-fluent (which some parents and teachers are highly skilled at pointing out and enforcing!), or by defining it as meaning something painful like, “being stupid,” “being inadequate,” “lacking confidence,” etc. Then we can create a meta-state structure of refusal to tolerate non-fluent speech and so become highly aware and conscious of every non-fluency and find it painful and intolerable. After that it only takes weeks, months and years of practice and those semantics will get into our physiology so that the way we breath and the way we use our tongue and mouth muscles support this negative meta-state.

Stuttering becomes neurological. It becomes a neuro-semantic state. This is great because it means that we only need to change the semantics (the meanings) and the neurology will change. During the winter and spring of 2001-2002, Bob used the Drop-Down Through pattern with 5 individuals who stuttered, mostly over the phone from all around the world, and within one to four sessions (typically 2)― they stuttered no more.

Summary: The Neuro-Semantics of Stuttering

We have used the basic NLP principle that every experience has a structure to flush out the basic structure of the experience of “stuttering.” In doing so we have refused to mindlessly accept the labels and medical model definitions of its cause or cure. In doing so, we begin by refusing to identify people as “stutterers” as if they is who they are. We also refuse to buy into the fatalistic frame, “Once a stutterer, always a stutterer.”

Similar to our work, The Structure of Personality (2001) we then de-nominalize the form and structure to look at the four meta-domains that give us a description of processes and “personality:” language (the Meta-Model), perception (Meta-Programs), states and reflexivity (Meta-States) and the cinematic features of a person’s internal Movie (Meta-Modalities or “sub-modalities”).

Just because stuttering so happens to be the end-result of the coalescing of the meta-levels and meta-frames into muscle (and so a great example of how we mind-to-muscle ideas and meanings), doesn’t make it unchangeable. That happens with every idea (belief, value, understanding, meaning, expectation, etc.) that we “install” as a motor program. That’s what happens all the time in a mind-body-emotion system.

And if we created it, we can un-create it and can create something much better! That’s the power, the magic, and the excitement in neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics.

Success Story #1
Two Month Follow Up ? Is It Working Long-Term?

After I had completed the consultations with Bob, I knew there would be certain milestones that would determine how effective the treatment was on a long_term basis. Those milestones included being placed in the usual “high stress” situations that would normally result in stuttering. Some examples are serious one_on_one conversation concerning uncomfortable topics, Management meetings, Company meetings, and several other speaking situations that I previously thought of as “threatening.” Over the past two months I have been exposed to each of these “threatening” situations and spoke fluently through each milestone. The final milestone was met on March 21, 2002 when I was scheduled to give a presentation to the Board Members of the Company I work for. Now, prior to working with Bob, stuttering in this situation was a 100% certainty. However, even that meeting was unable to produce the stuttering again. I have tested my fluency in every situation that used to produce stuttering! And, I am happy to report that it appears to be a long-term success. The biggest difference between stuttering and fluency is that fluent individuals do not think about stuttering.

Linda Rounds
LSRounds @ aol.com
March 2002

Success Story #2

Neuro-Semantics and the NLP Drop-Down Through Pattern offer great possibilities in the treatment of stuttering. Most traditional speech therapy has centered around modifications at the behavioral level (i.e., breathing, easy onset of speech, light articulatory contacts, etc.). The perceived stigma of stuttering and overwhelming urge to “not stutter” often overpower the behavioral level strategies. Periodic relapse after treatment is common. The missing Holy Grail from traditional speech therapy has been a consistent, swift, and thorough reframing strategy for meta-states to alleviate the pre-stutter phenomenon. Success with the cognitive aspect of stuttering (i.e., fear, avoidance, limiting beliefs) is essential to lasting change. Situation and word-specific anchors form along the time-line of stuttering development. As an NLP practitioner and person with a residual, mild stutter, I was game to explore the Drop-Down personally. I have experienced a rapid and significant increase in spontaneous fluency after three telephone consultations with Bob.

Tim Mackesey, CCC-SLP
Speech Pathologist
fluency @ bellsouth.net

Success Story #3

I met Bob while taking the Meta-NLP class at Gaston College. I have had for the majority of my life an uncontrollable stuttering problem. While in class, I learned how to apply Neuro-Semantics to controlling my stuttering. How do I know it worked? After having a long conversation with several people, it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t stuttered at all and that I had talked great. I use to be horrified of calling people on the phone. Now, I can call people without the anxiety and the stuttering. In fact, I suddenly found myself calling people more frequently.

Lawrie Crawley
Bank of America
Charlotte, North Carolina
ljcrawley @ earthlink.net

Additional resources on the subject of Stuttering

For more information about using Neuro-Semantics with stuttering, go to our web site and read two articles on the subject with both based on case studies of those who stuttered who overcame their problem in just a matter of a few sessions. The articles are found at:

1. “From Stuttering to Stability: A Case Study” by Linda Rounds with Bob Bodenhamer.

2. “Meta-Stating Stuttering: An NLP Approach to Stuttering” by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. and Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

3. E-mail Discussion on Yahoo Groups. The Institute Of Neuro-Semantics, Meta-States, NLP &; General Semantics sponsors the Neuro-Semantics of Stuttering Yahoo Group. Announcement and Discussion List to provide support, information, education and training on Meta-Stating Stuttering utilizing Neuro-Linguistics, Neuro-Semantics, Meta-States and General Semantics Models –
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/

This list will serve as an information exchange and a discussion forum for overcoming stuttering utilizing each model and will provide information on upcoming trainings, additions and editions to each model and developments in each field by contributors.

Questions and comments, updates, noteworthy announcements about stuttering and the use of Neuro-Linguistics, Neuro-Semantics and the Meta-States Models are welcomed. The list manager/owner, Linda Rounds, is responsible for approval of list members and messages posted to the list as this is a moderated and private list.

References

Bloodstein, Oliver (1975). In J. Eisenson (Ed.), Stuttering: A Second Symposium. New York: Harper & Row.

Korzybski, Alfred. (1941/1994). Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, (5th. ed.). Lakeville, CN: International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.

Overdurf, John; Silverthorn. (1996). Beyond Words Audio Cassettes.

James, Tad. (1989). Master Time Line Therapy Training Manual.

Hall, L. Michael (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 Junction, CO: ET Publications.

Hall, L. Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer, “The Drop Down Through and Mind Back Tracking Techniques” on The Institute of Neuro-Semantics Web Site at www.neurosemantics.com

Johnson, Wendell (1964/1989) People in quandaries: The semantics of personal adjustment. San Franciso, CA: International Society for General Semantics.

Sheehan, J.G., & V.M. Sheehan (1984). Avoidance-reduction therapy: A response suppression hypothesis. In W.H. Perkins (Ed.), Stuttering disorders. New York: Thieme-Stratton

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.

A “Self-Help” Pattern in Overcoming Blocking/Stuttering

Bob Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici

• What is the Fight/Flight or General Arousal Syndrome?
• How is this neuro-physiological phenomena tied in with blocking/stuttering?
• Why is it so hard to overcome a block when you are in one?
• How does the Fight/Flight Syndrome help explain the difficultly in overcoming a “block?”
• If I can “fly into a block,” can I learn how to “fly into a calm”?

After submitting this pattern to Robert Strong of New Zealand for review, he highlighted the word “Freeze” in the title and wrote back:

I’m glad you’ve added this Bob; to me, that’s what holding back/blocking is.  One is not running away externally or fighting externally (exempting muscle contortions) but alternating between running away internally and fighting internally, and ‘locked’ (frozen) in the middle of the two.  ‘Locked’ between consciously wanting to speak and unconsciously wanting to hold back. Another analogy of being ‘locked’ is like a Kenwood mixer speed control.  The speed control works by a centrifugal mechanism that is continually making and breaking contact to turn the power on and off to the motor… is flicking back and fro non-stop but it appears to be running at a set and constant (locked) speed.

He drew a graphic to illustrate his point. I have re-created it in Microsoft Visio:

Figure 1
Frozen in the Middle

Robert is correct. It is like the proverbial mule that starved to death between the two hay stacks. He couldn’t decide which one to eat from? It is like running with one foot on the gas pedal and the other one on the brake?  In the process you get nowhere but you burn out.  Just think how much energy you expend trying not to block/ stutter.

I ran these remarks by another PWS (Person Who Stutters) and she wrote back:

What Robert says about wanting to speak and wanting to hold back at the same time is right on. That is the crux of John Harrison’s thoughts on stuttering apart from the stuttering hexagon. Like you said, it is like putting on the brakes but wanting to go forward at the same time. Divided intentions cause all kinds of things like stuttering – not being able to go to the bathroom in public; not singing on key in front of someone; not being able to hit the target; forgetting your speech in front of an audience; trying to quit a bad habit, and on and on. It is all the same thing.

Importantly, as long as one stays in the middle, one will never get out of that “frozen moment.” One must go higher and access higher resources and bring those to bear on the problem. So long as one stays in the middle, that one will remain frozen. You have to go higher for one never solves the problem by remaining inside the problem (See Figure 2).  This article introduces you to the how of doing just that.

Figure 2
Thawing the Freeze

Any context that the PWS defines as being stressful usually triggers blocking/ stuttering. Importantly, situations defined as being extremely stressful can easily trigger the fight/ flight response known as the General Arousal Syndrome.  I just finished the first session with a PWS. He has had good results with the McGuire Program but is still blocking/stuttering in the work place. In talking with him, he said that the McGuire program refers to a block as a “chest freezer.”  Now, when that happens, the General Arousal Syndrome has “cranked up.”

Fear and stress come into play as we think and interpret things in fearful and stressful ways.  When the fear and stress are intense enough, our animalistic instincts take over. When we sense danger, threat, fear, insecurity, etc, these messages send signals to the cerebral cortex (the higher mind) which then passes them on to the thalamus. The amygdala also comes into play. The amygdale is an almond-shaped neuro structure at the base of the brain and is involved in producing and responding to nonverbal signs of anger, avoidance, defensiveness, and fear. These in turn activates the fight/flight syndrome known also as the General Arousal Syndrome.  As this triggers the General Arousal Syndrome, everything inside of us shouts to do what is necessary to survive.   The time has come to fight or flee.

For the PWS, an intense block has all the symptoms of someone who’s General Arousal Syndrome has activated totally and completely.  More than one PWS has given me the metaphor of viewing themselves as a “deer looking into the headlights” of an automobile about to hit them when describing a block.  Now, when experiencing a block that severe, which is common, the General Arousal Syndrome has activated and the person is in a full fledge panic attack.

Blood is withdrawn from the brain and stomach and sent to the larger muscle groups; adrenalin is released into the blood; the heart beats faster; breathing becomes rapid and intense; the eyes dilate; the individual starts perspiring; the fats, cholesterol and sugar in the blood stream increase; the stomach secretes more acid; the immune system slows down, and thinking shifts to a more black-and-white, survivalist mode. Is it any wonder that many have erroneously defined the cause of stuttering as being physical?  It sure seems “real” for one feels so intensely.

One PWS after reading this stated, “You bet, that is when the devil takes over. That is what PWS think; ‘SOMETHING’ uncontrollable takes over.  And I’m sure what you are stating here IS that ‘something’.”  Yes, that is what I mean.  There is no outside “force” that takes over, it just seems that way.  It is all an “inside job.”

The fact that a severe block activates the General Arousal Syndrome also explains why it is so difficult to access a resource state when in one. The entire mind-body system screams either for one to fight or to flee.  With neither a possibility in most cases, one just remains there in the block attempting to burst through it with stuttering.

When our fight/ flight syndrome has activated, it is as if thinking is impossible. Because we feel so intensely the fear/threat, our primitive instincts take over and what little thinking if any goes on it is either fight or flee. There is no other choice available for we are functioning more from the lower parts (more primitive) areas of our brain and much less from the cerebral cortex.

In chapter one of the training manual, Mastering Blocking/Stuttering: A Handbook for Gaining Fluency, I spoke of state dependency and being inside a state. We are now providing a powerful example of that concept. For, when one is so inside a block that the General Arousal Syndrome has activated, one is totally inside that state.

However, there is good news. With proper therapy and practice, one can eventually move from the primitive mind (thalamus, amygdala, etc.) to the higher mind (cerebral cortex) and apply reason and logic to those fearful situations. Instead of coming off of fears learned in childhood, one is able to apply the higher mind of the adult to those contexts that did trigger blocking/stuttering.

Power/Resource Matrix

Now when one is so inside a block that one has activated the General Arousal Syndrome, one views oneself as totally powerless and un-resourceful. How could one be otherwise? Also, when one typically gets so inside a block that one activates the General Arousal Syndrome, that person will probably need individual therapy plus time for practice in overcoming the blocking. Yet, there is hope – much hope.

However, you can do much on your own. All of the patterns in this book are about “how” to remain out of the block.  We must get out of the primitive mind and activate the higher mind.  On the web site, you will find an article entitled Overcoming Blocking/Stuttering: A Testimony.  I worked with this person therapeutically. The author wrote:

“In the drop-down through technique we established a strong reference point and we took each negative feeling to this reference point. I am a visual type of person and, like Bob and some of his other clients, I hold strong religious beliefs. With Bob’s guidance we established a very strong reference point (resource) that combined both these characteristics and we took each negative feeling to this sacred for me place. They were all neutralized (meta-stated) in insignificant nuisances that had no impact on me anymore.”

Here the author describes how he has learned to move out of the fear and to higher resource states. So, speaking technically, he was able to move out of his primitive mind that activated the fight/flight response which created the block and go mentally to his higher resource states which for him were religious.  He moved from his primitive mind to thinking from his cerebral cortex wherein he accessed his higher spiritual resources.  You may read the article at:

http://www.neurosemantics.com/Stuttering/testimony_stephen.htm

Generally, once we enter into the stress state, state-dependency takes over so that we are not in a good place to learn new patterns.  Not at that moment.  State dependency means that all of our communication, behavior, perception, memory, and learning are almost completely governed by a given state at a particular time. For PWS, the state is expressed in the block.  The state (whether anger, fear, anxiety, etc.) controls what we see, how we think, what we feel, our memories, behaviors, communications.  As state dependency takes over, it takes some time for all of the neuro-transmitters, adrenalin, and autonomic nervous system activation to run their course.

Michael Hall says, “The time to learn state management skills, of course, is not during the stress storm.  Learning navigation skills when a ship is tossing and turning in the open sea in the midst of 40 foot waves is a bit late in the Game.”

The primary secret of stress management for the PWS is to learn how to avoid sending the “Danger!” message when we are not facing a physical threat.  This takes some doing.  It means learning to run our own brains and to take charge of the higher levels of meanings that we give to things.  It means learning how to stop reacting to circumstances involving communication as if they are a real threat.  Instead, it means that one learns to respond more realistically from the adult mind of being under control.

It means that the PWS stops defining speaking as if it is a life threatening experience. It means that the PWS no longer chooses to give others control over one’s life. It means loving and honoring oneself no matter how one speaks. It means that one learns that speaking is just that – it is just talking. Forgive the arrogance of this statement but no one has ever died from blocking/ stuttering.  By that I mean, “Is it really necessary to attach so much fear to speaking that one activates the General Arousal Syndrome?” Are you really in a life threatening situation?

I sent this article to several PWS for feedback.  One of them sent this response to my above statement:

I think the real fear is that they are NOT going to die. If they died then they would not have to live out the shame and humiliation. They are not in a life threatening situation but they are in a self-esteem threatening situation. What is more painful, being totally humiliated or dying? At least dying ends your misery but being humiliated seems never to end and it is a real threat…that is why it kicks the fight/flight syndrome into action. Seriously, death is easy compared to living a life of humiliation. Sounds weird but ask PWS how many times they wished they were dead. It is not the fear of death that activates the fight/flight mechanism it is the fear of humiliation. Does this make sense?

It is always good to get feedback isn’t it?  My point – emotions are just that – emotions.  They only have the power we give them.  My encouragement to you is that there is hope – much hope for you to overcome this problem. That is why we are working so hard to develop a model that works most of the time in leading people to fluency.  In our work, we encourage you to welcome your emotions.  When the fight/ flight syndrome fires from your chest freezing up, let that be a signal for you to engage your determination in overcoming this problem. The fact that you are reading this article tells me that you are already doing just that. Read on.

Accessing the highest levels of our mind enables us to manage stress more effectively. This allows us to simply eliminate our perception of “stress” in the first place.  And when stress goes, so will unnecessary experiences of fear and anger.  When that happens, we simply do not get recruited to stress ourselves out.   When we learn to put new meanings (reframing) to old triggers for blocking, we learn how to manage the meanings we give and the frames we set when we face those contexts that did trigger blocking.

The Stress Management Pattern involves managing our energy over time to work more efficiently and restore our sense of power and resourcefulness.  It involves learning to recognize the bodily symptoms of stress, to accept such as just the functioning of our body, to breathe more fully and deeply, to relax tight muscles, to stretch, and to use yoga exercises to train the body for calmness.

How to Play the Game of Masterful Relaxed Alertness

How can we become truly masterful in coping and handling the demands, challenges, threats, fears, etc. of communicating at work and at home so that we don’t stress out about these things?  How can we avoid the fear/ anxiety emotions that set off blocking/ stuttering?

1)  Step 1: Recognize the Presence of Stress

Because we cannot control or effectively manage anything outside-of-awareness, we first must welcome in those contexts that trigger the stress that activates the blocking/ stuttering.  So, first grant yourself permission to notice those times and to notice the presence of stress and its symptoms in your life. Take an inventory of those circumstances that create the stress that initiates the blocking.

Now, notice what it does to you mind-body system. Begin with your body.  At the primary level, stress usually shows up in the body of the PWS as tightness in the throat, chest and/or jaws. Muscle tense in those areas. Those areas also become inflexible. What happens to you when you are in a block?

Enter into the tension and tightness and let it teach you.  Quiet yourself and establish communication with that part of you responsible for causing the tightness and tension.  You might ask the tightness in your neck or in your chest:

“What message do you have for me?”

“If you were to speak to me, what would you say?”

“Is the tightness/tension more physical or more mental?”

“Is it both physical and mental?”

“What is the purpose of this tense or tight part for you?”

2)  Step 2: Specify Your Stress Strategy

There is order and structure to how you stress yourself. How do you do it?  Begin with those contexts that trigger you’re going into the state of stress.

“What induces a stress experience in you?” (“What contexts? With what people specifically?  With what groups? etc.”)

“When it comes to speaking, what situations do you fear the most?”

“What do you say to yourself that increases the stress and intensifies the block?”

“How do you express these thoughts in your mind?”

“What tonality, volume, voice, etc. do you use?”

“What are the qualities of your pictures when you stress? Are the pictures up close, big and bright?  Are the sounds loud or soft?  Where do they come from?  Are they from outside your body?  Are they from the right side or the left side?”

Stress is a forerunner of fear. It triggers fear.  Fear triggers blocking. It, as all thinking, has an internal dynamic structure.  The magic of stress doesn’t just occur without some spell being cast.  So how do you do it?  What stress language do you use to create the fear that drives the block?  Name your poison!

“I have to get it out!”

“If I stutter, they will think I am dumb.”

“Why can’t I talk like everybody else?”

“I hate it when I stutter.”

Cognitive Distortions:

What thinking patterns do you use to crank up your stress?  This gives us more information about the set-up of the blocking. We begin to learn what thinking patterns make it more exaggerated and sick.  Here are some of them (Cognitive Distortions):

• Personalizing – Interpreting events as “about me.”
• Awfulizing and Catastrophizing – Interpreting events in the most extreme negative ways possible.
• Emotionalizing – Interpreting the presence and meaning of “emotions” as the ultimate source of information.
• Minimizing or Discounting – Interpreting to make of lesser importance.
• Maximizing or Exaggerating – Interpreting things to make them of greater importance.
• All or Nothing Thinking – Interpreting things as if there are only polar choices and nothing in between.
• Perfectionism – Interpreting things as if “It is not good enough,” “It could be better.”

Carefully review the above Cognitive Distortions. PWS have a tendency to interpret their world in several of those unhealthy ways of thinking. Mark those that apply to you. Then ask yourself the question, “What would happen to my blocking/stuttering if I refused to do that anymore?”

Physical Elements:

What physical elements add to your stress or prevent you from operating from calmness?

Shallow breathing

Tight throat and jaws

Poor posture

Contracted abdomen

Lack of focus: constant eye shifting

Tightening and holding neck or jaw muscles

Ask yourself:

How can I alter my physiology so that it serves me better?

How can I breathe in a calmer way?

How can I use my posture to relax my chest, neck and jaws?

Knowing how you create the block allows for you to develop ways for messing it up.  You will be able to prevent the block from working automatically. Instead of it running you, you will be able to run it. Now you can play around with it so that it can begin to serve you well.  To flush out the higher mental frames that create the stress that creates the block ask:

Qualities of the Image:

What qualities characterize my stress?

What are the qualities of the pictures, sounds and feelings of my image of stress?  Are my pictures of it close in, big and bright?

Are the sounds loud?

Where in my body do I feel the stress?

What tone of voice can I use in my self-talk?

Higher Mental Frames that Create Stress:

Which of the following kinds of thinking/believing describes me?

I must perform, achieve and produce!

I have to be perfect.

I must be in control at all times.

I have to get it out.

I have to be liked and approved.

They will think I am not normal if I stutter.

How do I compare with X?

I must speak fluently.

You can’t trust others. They always judge you by how you speak.

I should not be frustrated or disappointed.  It’s not fair.

(Check the mental frames listed in the stuttering matrix. You will find this on the web site in the article entitled “How to Create a Good Dose of Stuttering.”)

Typically, you will find that these are higher frames that create the Stress Games that we play.  They set us up for pressures and needs: the need for achievement, approval, control, competition, perfection, impatience, anger.

Does your stress have a feeling of anger in it?

Does impatience contribute to your stress?

How much does the desire to speak fluently contribute to your stress?

Or perhaps you have competitive, must-be-better than stress?

Do you experience stress as a make-or-break feeling?

How much do you have your identity and self-definition wrapped up in speaking fluently, achievement, approval, control, etc.? (See the Self Matrix.)

When we think and believe in toxic ways, thinking that our very being is dependent upon what others think, the job we hold, status symbols, etc., we create fire breathing Dragons that can consume a lot of psychic energy.

3)  Step 3: Practice Flying into Calm.

Can you fly into fear and anxiety that create a block?   PWS have learned to do that extremely well.   Most people can “fly into a rage.”  Can you? In fact, I have never met a person who couldn’t “fly into a rage” at a moment’s notice.  Can you fly into a fear – a fearful state of worry, dread, and anxiety?  Well, if you can do either of these, then you have all the neurological equipment you need for “flying into a calm.”

Flying into a calm gives you the ability to access a state of instant calm in a moments notice. Indeed, to learn how to fly into a calm in those moments that did trigger blocking, would eliminate the problem of stuttering, wouldn’t it?

Actually, you already can do it.  I know you can.  After all, you have a “telephone voice” don’t you?  You know the scenario.  You’re in the living room or kitchen and having an intense argument with a loved one.  You’re saying things that you would never say to a stranger.  You save those kinds of things for the people that you love most.  It’s your way of testing to see if they can keep on loving you if you do this to them!  So you really get into state.  You raise your voice.  You feel really, really angry, upset, frustrated … and then the phone rings.

You take a breath, and then calmly and politely answer it.   “Hello…”

You answer it with your calm and even professional “telephone voice!”

See, you can fly into a calm!

Creating a “Calm State”

To develop your “Flying into a Calm” skills, you only need to practice this skill, orchestrate it so that it becomes stronger, more powerful, and so that you have ready access to it in a split second.  It’s already a resource; you only need to develop it further to put it at your complete disposal.

OK, I admit that for a PWS, it may not be as simple as that in those extreme contexts where you go into a panic when it is time to speak. However, let’s not pass off this process to lightly.  You may be surprised at what you can do. For sure, you have nothing to lose but some time practicing. It certainly want cost you any money to practice.

First, amplify a state of calm. Think about a time when you really demonstrated the power of your telephone voice.  Be there again, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, and totally feeling what you felt.

What enabled you to step out of the angry and yelling state to the calm and cool state where you said, “Hello!”?  What ideas, beliefs, values, decisions, etc. empowered that response?  Why didn’t you answer the phone with your angry voice?  Why didn’t you yell at the person calling in?

Your answers to these questions will help you flush out the “flying into a calm” mental frames of references that actually work in your life.  As you make these clear, amplify them, give yourself even more reasons for doing this and then set up a trigger (or anchor) so that you can step back into this place of mind and emotion whenever you so choose.  State your ideas, beliefs, values, decisions, etc about flying into a calm in powerful terminology that works for you:

“I know how to fly into a calm for I have done it before.”

“I am not a child. I can choose to run my own brain.”

“I absolutely refuse to let my fear of what others may think of my speech create fear and anxiety in me guaranteeing my blocking.”

“I can go to my place of comfort and relaxation in the split second of a thought.”

Consider:

• What would be a good symbol of total calmness?
• What sound, sight, and sensation would remind me of this state?
• Let such be your anchor as you connect that symbol to that state.

Now practice stepping into it, setting that link to some trigger, breaking state, and then using the trigger to step back into that place where you manage your emotions.

4)  Step 4: Texture Your Game of Flying into a Calm

Access your best representation of a confidently relaxed state. The best way to do this is to recall a time when you were really relaxed in a calm and centered way.  Imagine going to that place and be there totally (associate into that moment). See what you saw in that moment; hear what you heard and feel what you feel being there totally and completely.  Recall it fully so that you can access this state and then connect it to a word, picture, or sensation so that when you recall that it will put you back into that calm state. We call this anchoring which is just a trigger that recalls the  state.

You may wish to amplify the state by making the pictures more vivid; by making the sounds more explicit; by talking to yourself in a calm relaxing way using words that totally and completely relax you.

After you have fully accessed, amplified, and anchored that primary resource state – step back from it and examine it:

• What is the nature and quality (pictures, sounds, feelings) of your relaxed state?
• What qualities and factors make up this state?
• What other qualities would you like to edit into this state?

Frequently, while the relaxed state that we access is appropriate for a sunny day on the beach, it really is not for the workplace or those times that typically trigger blocking/stuttering.   Typically such ideas have led us to jump to an unfounded conclusion, “Well, I cannot use calmness or relaxation there.”  Then we never again consider relaxation as a possible resource.

• What if you tempered and textured your relaxed state so that it had the kind of alertness, mindfulness, readiness, etc. that would make you even more resourceful when you typically block?
• What if you qualified it with the kind of qualities, resources, and distinctions that would give you the kind of mastery you need in those times that typically trigger blocking?

This describes what we mean by framing and reframing.  This also shows how a higher level state (or meta-state) differs from a primary state.  In primary states of relaxation, we feel relaxed.  Our muscles are limp, our breathing becomes easy, our calmness and comfort dominate our mind and everything feels at ease.  It’s a great state.  But hardly the state we must have in overcoming a block. We need a special kind of relaxed/calm state for such occasions. We need a higher level state of mind characterized by:

• Relaxed Alertness
• Calm Confidence in our ability to speak fluently
• Relaxed attentiveness in listening fully to the other person and not being concerned with whether or not he/she may be judging how we speak
• The relaxed energy of readiness and eagerness to speak calmly and with confidence knowing that our mind-body system knows how to do just that.
• Accepting the frustrations of everyday life and not judging our sense of self should we in fact slide into a block or stutter once in awhile.

Ask yourself:

• What kind of relaxation do you need or want to speak fluently in all contexts?
• How do you want to feel calm and confident and relaxed whenever you speak?
• What kind of a relaxed mind and emotions do you want or need in a given situation?
• What are the mental frames of mind that you want to layer your mind with in developing your core relaxed state?These mental frames of mind will texture your state of relaxation. Repeat them until they coalesce into this core state of relaxation. Build you a menu list of mental frames (thoughts) that through constant repetition you create a most useful state of calmness and relaxation.

5)  Step 5: Practice Accessing your Relaxed Core State

In the book Instant Relaxation Michael Hall, Ph.D. and Debra Lederer speak about accessing our “Relaxed Core Self.”  This refers to feeling relaxed with our sense of self, to feel relaxed with ourselves, to feel confident, assured, and centered.   These kinds of mental frames of mind structure a state of mind that enables us to operate from a sense of safety and security.  This prevents the “Danger! Threat! and Overload!” messages from triggering us into a block.  Wouldn’t that be nice? This is exactly what the PWS needs in order to speak confidently and fluently in all contexts and not just in those perceived “safe” moments.

When we have this kind of centered sense of self, then we have a platform of comfort and security from which we can sally out to the adventures of life.  This gives balance to our life energies and allows for fluency in all contexts.

This state also becomes a state for rejuvenation. We shuttle out to a challenge, and then we retreat to our relaxation zone to recuperate and rejuvenate our strength.   We move out to perform as achievers, and then we move back in to just be and enjoy ourselves as persons.

How do we do this?  Simple.  Here’s an induction written by Michael in our book Games for Mastering Fear:

Imagine what it would look like, sound like, and feel like to completely and thoroughly access your own relaxed core state and make it your game.  Float back in your imagination to capture bits and pieces of anything that will enrich your editing of such a self-image and begin allowing these pieces to come together to create a powerful sense of a core self; relaxed, confident, assured … comfortable in your own skin, breathing fully and completely, taking charge of your thinking, emoting, speaking, and behaving…  Just imagine what that would feel like and how that would transform your life….

… and when you have edited it to your liking, and it feels compelling, step into it and be there.  And enjoy it… so that you experience it as a joyful relaxed core state.  And now as you translate it from mind to muscle, imagine breathing with this and seeing out of the eyes of your core relaxed state.  Hear the voice of this state—speaking with a calm confidence that radiates a sense of your inner power.

• Are all of your parts aligned with this?
• Does any part of you object to living this way?
• Would you like this as your way of being in the world?

6)  Step 6: Keep Refining and Texturing Your Relaxed Core State

Figure 3
Building a Core State of Enhanced “Relaxation”

Because of the mind’s ability to layer one thought upon another thought – to texture and enrich one thought with another thought – this  process does not end with the first design engineering of this highly resourceful state.  With the tools for running our own brains, you can now maintain a creative attitude about all of the other resources that you can find and incorporate in that relaxed core state.

For instance, why not add a big dose of healthy humor to the mix?  The ability to lighten up, to not take yourself so seriously, to enjoy people and experiences tremendously enriches relaxation.  How many times have you become extremely fearful of a speaking moment and it was totally unnecessary?  I mean you became so fearful that you would block and that the other person would judge you as being less than human and it was totally unnecessary. The person you were speaking to would in no way judge you like that and you know it. Yet, you did the judging of yourself and not the other person. Well, what about just stepping outside that and see how ridiculous such thinking is and laugh at your childish behavior.

We can explode most fears by using the humor power of exaggeration.  Exaggerate the fear until it begins to become ridiculous.  Then exaggerate it some more.  Eventually it becomes funny and then your humorous perspective enables you to operate in a more human and delightful way.

Or, how about appreciation? What if you moved through the world with an appreciation of things, people, and experiences? Instead of fearing what other people may think of your speech, appreciate that most sympathetically listen patiently to you.  Appreciate that you can not only speak, but you can in some contexts speak fluently which means you can learn how to speak fluently in all contexts. I know some mute people who would love to have those abilities.  How would that texture the quality of your stress?

Magnanimity would be another resource.  It would enable you to operate from a sense of a having a big-heart and thereby prevent you from becoming mentally ruffled.  How would that enhance your life?

Then there is openness to reality, flexibility, forgiveness, playfulness, balance, and the list goes on and on.  Create you own list of mental frames of mind that will enhance your core state of relaxation.  Practice, practice, practice building that state so that you can learn to fly into a calm instead of flying into a block. You have already learned that one really well. You don’t need to practice flying into a block, do you?

References

Bodenhamer, Bobby G. (2004) Mastering blocking and stuttering: A cognitive approach to achieving fluency. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.

Hall, L. Michael, Bodenhamer, Bobby G. (2001). Games for mastering fear: How to play the game of life with a calm confidence. Grand Junction, CO: Neuro-Semantics Publication.

Hall, L. Michael, Lederer, Debra. (2000). Instant Relaxation: How to reduce stress at work, at home and in your daily life. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.

A Case Study

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

Note: Read this article from the viewpoint of the client.

Imagine with me, if you will, that it is tomorrow morning and like all other mornings you wake up to face another day as a person who stutters. You begin  your normal morning routine that in all appearances resembles any non-stuttering persons morning routine. In fact, the only difference in your routine and a non-stutters routine is what is occurring in your mind. While the person who does not stutter is worrying about what to wear and if they are having a bad hair day, you are scanning ahead in your mind at what speaking threats might be awaiting you. You immediately feel anxious and fearful and begin to plan out how you can avoid threatening situations. The day plays out as you expected…you were able to avoid some situations, others you were not. By the time you arrive home at night you are emotionally drained and have expended all your energy trying to keep your stuttering problem at a minimum or at best, hidden all together. But what if on this particular evening when you arrive home something new happens and you are handed the emotional tools to immediately control the stuttering? Too good to be true? Another empty promise? Not so fast, it really happened.

I began stuttering at the age of five; by the age of seven I was proficient at stuttering. I was fully equipped with every emotion and belief necessary to be good at stuttering. I carried those emotions and beliefs with me everywhere I went, even as I proceeded into adulthood. During my childhood school years once a week, instead of being allowed to go outside to play at recess time, I was often whisked away to speech therapy. In high school my well-meaning teachers felt I would overcome stuttering by providing me ample speaking opportunities in front of the class. Then as a young adult I enlisted in the Army for four years to help pay for my college education. The Army recruiter promised that the Army could help me overcome stuttering, what he didn’t tell me was that their technique was to scare the stuttering right out of me. None of these methods were very helpful.

When I was 19 years old I made the most meaningful decision of my life. No, I am not talking about marriage, although that is very meaningful. I am talking about the decision to become a Christian. From that point on my perspective of life and the world did a 180-degree turn. However, becoming a Christian did not end my stuttering and the disappointment I felt over God’s seeming lack of concern about my speech problem was no small matter through the years. But I will revisit that issue a little further down.

Now, you would think that most people who stutter would avoid professions that require a lot of speaking. This is probably true, however, for some unknown reason, 12 years ago I was drawn to a profession that not only required a lot of speaking but also a lot of public speaking. In actuality, it is due to the dynamics of my profession that set me on a relentless path to overcome stuttering.

Previous Treatment

Before I go on to how I moved from stuttering to stability, I think it is note worthy to mention that I have tried some of the more popular treatments for stuttering with minimal success. After becoming very disenchanted (and thousands of dollars poorer), I began doing research on my own to see if I could discover the key to unlocking the mystery behind my stuttering. You see, I have always been bothered by the theories that stuttering is caused by a physical defect in the speaking mechanism and/or brain. It made me feel dis-empowered, like my only hope was to wait until they invented a magic pill that would cure stuttering. It also did not take rocket science to figure out that my speech mechanisms were in good working order since even my most difficult words could be spoken fluently in certain situations. And then there was that ever-present anxiety that always preceded the stuttering. Hmmm, I wonder what would happen if there were no anxiety?

This is where the story gets really interesting. One day several months ago I was surfing around on the National Stuttering Association’s web site when I spotted the book How To Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People by John C. Harrison. I ordered the book and when it arrived I immediately began devouring its contents. The first part of the book talked about specific techniques that people who stutter could use to be an effective public speaker. While this portion of the book was good, it was the second portion that was like breathing a breath of fresh air.

The second part included John’s feelings about stuttering which included an overall sense that if you are trying to solve a problem without making headway chances are that you are trying to solve the wrong problem. His book indicated that he felt many stuttering treatments are not inclusive enough to fully describe the full dynamics of what drives stuttering. Basically, that a paradigm shift in the way we view stuttering is needed.

In his book, John states:

“If stuttering were simply a problem with the mechanics of speech, we’d stutter all the time, even when we were alone. Rather, it seems to be an interactive system involving a number of different components, only one of which is physical. It is the way these components interact that creates a self-reinforcing system.”

John goes on to describe what he has termed ‘The Stuttering Hexagon’. The Hexagon is composed of six points that include: physical behaviors, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, intentions, and physiological responses. On the Hexagon every point is connected to every other point. Concerning all points being connected John states:

“This means that each element is influenced, either positively or negatively, by what’s happening at the other locations on the Stuttering Hexagon. In other words, your emotions will influence your behaviors, perceptions, beliefs, unconscious programs and physiological responses.”

For the remainder of the second part of the book John goes into detail explaining each of the six points on the Hexagon and how they interrelate with one another. If a person who stutters has previously been working on changing their debilitating beliefs and has been successful but still carries negative emotions from past childhood traumas or hurts those emotions will have a negative affect on the remaining points on the Hexagon and throw the entire system off leaving the person still vulnerable to stuttering. So each point must be effectively dealt with. He also contends that to make the stuttering disappear you can’t focus on solving it you must focus on dissolving it. In other words, to remove the problem you must destroy its’ structure.

John’s Stuttering Hexagon was the most accurate description of the mystery behind stuttering that I had read to date. And the fact that after 25 or 30 years of stuttering he was able to defeat it himself, gave me the final boost that I needed to know that I too, could overcome stuttering.

As excellent as John’s book was it was never intended to be a therapy program or provide techniques for becoming more fluent. So, at the end of the book I was left with the question, “How do I get all of the points on the Hexagon positively biased?” Little did I know that shortly I would discover the answer.

Neuro-Semantics

Throughout his book John recommended several other books to read one of which was Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. Reading Anthony Robbins’ book was my first introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Eventually this book led me to The User’s Manual for the Brain, which is a comprehensive manual covering the NLP Practitioner course and is written by Bob G. Bodenhamer, D. Min. and L. Michael Hall, PH.D. Co-founders of Neuro-Semantics? (NS).

As I was reading the books on NLP I became very excited about the potential of these techniques being effective tools in getting the Stuttering Hexagon to be positively biased as it related to my inability to speak fluently. Practicing some of the techniques in Awaken the Giant Within proved to be mildly helpful. But I remained hopeful that this could ultimately be the mechanism that would throw me into speech stability. I felt that if I could just work with someone trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming that they might be able to walk me through the techniques that would prove most effective for people who stutter.

My opportunity presented itself when midway through The Users Manual For The Brain the authors indicated a web site address for Neuro-Semantics? (NS) (www.neurosemantics.com). The next day I visited the sight and discovered that they provided private consultations. BINGO!!!!!! Because of my Christian beliefs I chose to e-mail Bob Bodenhamer, D. Min. I knew through reading his book that he held the same Christian values that I did so I felt an element of trust in contacting him (later I discovered that L. Michael Hall, PH.D. held the same beliefs also.). When I received an e-mail back from Bob indicating his willingness to work with me I was ecstatic!!!! He indicated that he indeed had limited experience with four or five clients who stuttered but had obtained successful outcome utilizing the skills of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics? (NS). Bob also felt that he stood a real chance of helping me over the phone, which alleviated the necessity of me flying to North Carolina to meet with him. We set up the first phone consultation for the following Friday.

So the big question you may be asking is, “What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics (NS)?” NLP is a model that helps you take charge of your own brain by developing effective strategies and representing your experiences in an effective manner. Neuro-Semantics incorporates higher level “meanings” into the structure of subjectivity. Our “states” involve the primary level neuro-linguistic thoughts-and-feelings in response to something out there in the world. That defines a Primary State. A Meta-State involves more. It involves our thoughts-feeling about our thoughts, emotions, states, memories, imaginations, concepts, etc. It involves our meta-responses to previous responses. (Fearing the fear of stuttering).

Bob sums up one of the major concepts of NLP/NS in his statement, “ In NLP/NS we hold the belief that each person has all the resources that they need in order to “fix” any cognitive (thinking) based problem they may have.”

I don’t know about you but that is music to my ears.

It is important to understand that Neuro-Semantics utilizes the person’s own resources to bring about change. Everybody, regardless of his or her station in life, operates from a belief system. This belief system is what we utilize to determine our self-esteem, our personal limitations, our viewpoint on the meaning of life, how others view us, what we can and cannot accomplish in life, and every other judgment we make about ourselves, others and the world we live in. There are as many belief systems as there are people. In assisting individuals to overcome cognitive problems, Neuro-Semantics first attempts to discover the person’s unique belief system and then utilizes it to bring about change.

With that being explained let me move on to tell you about our first phone session together and the day I was handed the emotional tools to immediately control stuttering.

The first tool was actually given to me by Bob through an e-mail he sent me on the day I requested consultation with him. He had already determined through a previous e-mail that I held a strong Christian belief system and therefore, he used that system to bring about change in how I perceived things relating to stuttering. He said, “…I do believe that there is a great chance of taking care of this through phone consultations and e-mail. For, what will happen when your Fear, anxiety and/or phobia comes into the presence of God?” When I first read that e-mail my initial response was shock. Then laughter as I immediately envisioned a picture of three teeny, tiny men called Fear, Anxiety, and Phobia shrinking back and cowering in the awesome presence of God. Bob had effectively used my belief in God to reframe my thoughts of fear, anxiety, and phobia by forcing them together knowing full well that my beliefs would not allow the two to reside together.

Note:

In NLP/NS we hold the belief that each person has the resources he/she needs for his/her own healing. We also believe in utilizing each individual’s resources. We do not judge the resources; we use them.  In this subject’s case, her highest resources were her Christian faith. I (BB) have learned over the years that a person’s religious beliefs usually provide the most effective resources that when applied to the problem state, the person will experience the greater healing. However, even if you do not hold any religious beliefs, we believe you already have adequate resources to overcome any cognitively based problem you may have. The reason ― every individual maintains high level beliefs, values, etc. that make for excellent healing resources.

The Consultation

Then came the phone consultation. After a brief period of getting acquainted Bob zeroed in on the feeling of anxiety that was so familiar to me, and to so many other people who stutter. He utilized a technique called  “The Drop Down Through Technique” which had its foundation in the works of Alfred Korzybski in his classic work Science and Sanity. From that work Dr. Tad James of Advanced Neuro-Dynamics devised the current “Drop Down Through Technique” and later it was revised by Bob and Michael by adding additional resources to it from Neuro-Semantics. The technique is designed to address unconscious thoughts like those that drive stuttering. The following transcript is taken from the therapy notes of Bob Bodenhamer:

“In our first phone conversation I (Bob) associated the client into her anxiety which simply means I had her really feel the anxiety. She had a “heavy and tightening” feeling in her stomach, a feeling she described as “holding back.” Now move that up to the muscles that control the vocal cords and you have stuttering.

From her position of experiencing this “heavy and tightening” feeling in her stomach I asked her to drop down through that feeling. “What do you feel underneath that feeling?”

“I feel fear. Fear is there!” (Note that here we have a thought of fear, which ties right into anxiety.)

“Drop down through the fear. What do you feel under the fear?”

“Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”

“Good. Now, just imagine yourself opening up the ‘nothingness.’ And, drop down through and out the other side of the nothingness?”

“I see people. It is a little bit scary. They are watching me. They are expecting me to say something.”

“Yes. And, what does that mean to you?”

“Well, I have a sense of wanting to go away and hide.”

“OK. That makes a lot of sense to someone who tends to stutter when she speaks to a group of people. Now, just drop down through that thought-feeling. What do you feel below that?”

“Ummh. I feel safe. I feel pretty safe now.”

“You are doing really great now. That is good and it is going to get better. Now, just drop down through the feeling of being safe and what or who is underneath that?”

“I feel contentment. I feel alone but safe.”

“Now, just drop down through that feeling of contentment and safety. What or whom do you feel below that?”

“Warmth. Total acceptance! I feel total acceptance. There is no judgment here. I see a yellow light.”

“Great. Is the light really bright?”

“Yes, it is. It is very bright.”

“Yes, I know it is very bright. And, Who said, “He is the light of the world?”

“Jesus.”

“That is right and He is there isn’t He?”

“Yes, it is God. He is the Bright Light.”

“Very good and just be right there with God in the presence of warmth and total acceptance. Now, what happens to the anxiety in the presence of God?”

“It is gone.”

“What happens to the fear in the presence of God?”

“It is gone.”

“What happens to the sense of wanting to go and hide in the presence of God?”

“It is gone.”

“Yes, they are all gone, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are.”

“And, in the presence of God, what happens to stuttering?”

“It is gone.”

“Yes, and being there in the presence of God, notice what you see, hear and feel. Put a word or a phrase to that state so that when you recall that word or phrase you will immediately go into the presence of God. And, anytime you have a sense that you might stutter, just go into the presence of God and you will get totally control of the stuttering.”

Bob utilized my beliefs in Jesus by having me “bring the negative thoughts into the presence of God” which forced me to apply my faith and belief in an all-powerful God where, to her,  each of those thoughts can’t possibly reside. (By associating her into her belief about God, she was “inside” a very resourceful state. When I (BB) asked her, “What happens to fear, etc. when she brings them into the presence of God?” I was in effect meta-stating the negative frames behind her stuttering with her meta-level frames of her beliefs about God.) After we had completed this technique Bob utilized The Trans-derivational Search technique by having me remember the first time I felt the anxiety related to stuttering. My first memory of feeling the anxiety was with my mom. From my experience, my mom was unhappy with my stuttering and as a child I could easily detect her dissatisfaction with my speaking ability. Bob reframed this memory which effectively removed the impact of those past perceptions.

The Results

So, the question is, “How did this work in the following days after the 45 minute call with Bob?” Well, I kept track. The following Monday and Tuesday at work I had nine occasions where anxiety set in. Eight of the nine times I used the technique Bob utilized during our consultation session  (See “Come Up Here― 5^th Position to the Lord”) and the words flowed as smooth as butter.  However, one time I encountered a block that just came out of nowhere (no warning, just wham!).

The progress was amazing but now I wanted to ensure that the surprise blocks would not happen any longer. So I scheduled another session with Bob for the following Wednesday evening. We spent an hour on the phone that evening working through an issue that I had no idea had buried its tentacles into the foundation of the stuttering. It had nothing to do with stuttering per se but everything to do with the anxiety behind the stuttering. The issue came up while Bob was trying to determine what specifically I was doing to trigger the speech block. I had indicated that my biggest challenge was speaking in front of groups as opposed to one on one conversation.

We uncovered various feelings associated with speaking before groups such as feeling outnumbered, out of control, vulnerable and exposed. Becoming fully conscience of those feelings caused only a minor amount of discomfort. However, the feelings behind those initial ones were not as easy to deal with. As Bob worked with me to discover the “other” thoughts they eventually came screaming to my conscience mind. My mind immediately began an internal war of “to tell” or “not to tell”. After what seemed like a very inappropriate amount of hedging around in response to Bob’s question, I came to the conclusion that if I ever wanted to be 100% free of stuttering I was going to have to step out on a limb and reveal what I have refused to discuss since my youth.

So what was this childhood thing that reinforced the stuttering? Well, like too many other children, while I was growing up I experienced some traumatic events. I knew I could skirt the issue, hang up, and continue having a certain level of problems in my speech OR I could meet it head on and overcome the stuttering. The two issues had intertwined and the trauma reinforced the stuttering.

An important point to make is that one of the great things about Neuro-Semantics is that it is not necessary to discuss the specifics of a given situation. (Because our brain works more from structure than content, the NS Practitioner usually needs very little content to assist the client in resolving the issue. See my article “Seven Keys to Personal Change” and Michael’s article “Why Introduce ‘Meta-Levels’ to Modeling” for more information about structural change.) I never had to reveal much more than just the high level aspects of the trauma. But I did have to be prepared to deal with the thoughts in my mind. That is not always easy. However, going back to John’s Stuttering Hexagon it had to be effectively “reframed” in order to get all the points on the hexagon positively biased. The surprise blocks probably would never have gone away without effectively dealing with all of the issues behind the anxiety and fear.

So for the remainder of the session Bob utilized specific Neuro-Semantic techniques to help bring about desensitization of the memories as it related to the childhood issues. By the end of the session we had discovered that while anger toward the events surrounding my childhood was very apparent what was even more significant was the anger I felt towards myself as a child. In essence I blamed myself for the events of the past. The session came to an end and we set up another appointment for the following week.

What is interesting is that after this session the speech blocks totally disappeared. The issue had not been completely resolved but apparently enough had been dealt with to cause the blocking to disappear. I still had the “thoughts” of being a stutterer and occasionally I would get the physical sense that I would stutter or block but I never did. In essence the physiological aspects were still present which Bob later explained was a result of the muscles still being neurologically programmed (another point on the Stuttering Hexagon). I am not sure but I would venture to say that the stuttering may have eventually returned if we had not taken the time to deal with the anger I felt toward myself as a child.

Before I move to the third and final session it would be good to mention that during the three weeks that I had been having phone consultations with Bob I was also reading Games for Mastering Fear written by L. Michael Hall Ph. D. with Bob Bodenhamer. While reading it I eventually came upon the ‘Cartesian Logic,’ which is a mechanism to challenge a person’s thinking. It is composed of four questions, the final question being, “What wouldn’t happen if you did not keep your phobia (i.e. stuttering)?” I answered the first three questions with relative ease but once I got to the final question (after I figured out what it was really asking) I had a difficult time coming up with the answer until, out of no where, the statement, “It wouldn’t keep people away from me” came slamming into my conscious mind. I was stunned trying to figure out where that came from. It was an almost laughable statement to me because I have always enjoyed being surrounded by people. But just as quickly as the statement came to me I realized exactly what it meant.

Note:

The four questions from Cartesian Logic are most effective in critical thinking. In the context of stuttering, ask yourself: What will happen if I continue stuttering? What will happen if I stop stuttering? What will not happen if I continue stuttering? What will not happen if I do not stop stuttering? Trust your unconscious mind to give you the answers. Sometimes it is good to let someone else ask you these questions so you can concentrate on processing the answers.

Although people play a very important part in my life, I had learned early in life to keep most of my deepest thoughts and feelings private. Now I was remembering the many times people who have crossed my path had made comments on how “private” I was in sharing personal thoughts and feelings. Stuttering was a way to keep people I loved in my life but at a safe distance. I was happy to take care of them emotionally but I could never allow them to take care of me emotionally. This, I suppose, was a behavior that I learned early in my childhood. As I reflected back on this I could plainly see how it was a protection mechanism. When friends and family would start asking questions that I perceived as threatening I immediately would begin to block and stutter. This was a way to let them know that I was not willing to go there with them and it worked quite nicely. Nobody wanted to watch me struggle when I spoke so they usually dropped the subject. So there it was… the primary benefit I was receiving by stuttering.

From there I was able to go back and evaluate the reason why I felt I needed to maintain so much privacy and also if it was something that was still a valid behavior to keep today. My conclusion was that as an adult I do not need to have the stuttering protect me any longer. I also have the ability to evaluate on a different basis what should be shared and what should be kept private. The rules of my childhood are no longer valid.

The Last Session

Now on to the final session. During this session, Bob and I directly dealt with that intense hatred. The session was the most difficult of the three. Bob had me go back and visit the little girl at age seven. He asked me to bring her up to God (See “How to Take a Hurt [Bitter Root] to Jesus”) but initially I was unable to do so because I felt she did not deserve to be with him. In fact, I felt that God himself would not want her there with him. I knew in my head how ridiculous my thoughts were but my emotions were filled with dislike and contempt for the little girl. Eventually, Bob was able to find a way to get me to bring the little girl to God but it remained unnatural and I despised her invading my relationship with God. Then we shifted gears. Now the focus was on how the little seven-year-old girl felt. My comment to Bob was that she was “madder than spit fire”. When Bob asked what or whom she was mad at, the events of the past were certainly mentioned, but the real anger she was feeling was at the grown up me. Her anger was that I was blaming her and that I refused to get on with my life. She wanted me to quit placing so much emphasis on the events of the past and to simply start being the adult. Wow.

After 30 minutes Bob cut off the session to allow me time to process what had just occurred. That certainly was a major turning point. The next day I sent Bob the following e-mail message:

“…After we hung up I went in to work out (great time for thinking and processing information) I had a lot of thoughts running through my mind. Let me bore you with some of them. 🙂

I was thinking of my seven-year-old niece (good age huh?). In the day she was born she owned my heart. I desperately loved her and silently vowed to do everything in my power to ensure that she would never experience a traumatic childhood. Then I came to realize that I did not have the power to completely protect her. Even my sister and brother-in-law did not have full power to protect their own daughter. Then I came to realize that God did not give me the power to completely protect her. He did not even give my sister and brother-in-law full power to protect their own daughter. So I determined to do what he did give me the power to do…to unconditionally love her no matter what happened, to be her advocate throughout life, to encourage, and to help teach her how to love God and other people. So then I began to wonder why I am able to love my niece so deeply regardless of what happens to her. If anything ever happened to her I would just want to hold her tight until the pain went away. Seems to me there should be no difference between my seven-year-old niece and myself at age seven.

So then I see myself looking back 31 years at a seven-year-old girl and I am shouting, “Pack your bags and get out of my life!”. The seven-year-old girl is looking forward 31 years and shouting, “Grow up, you’re the adult! The answer is not back here!.” It dawned on me that she is right. No matter how many times I replay the tapes of the past I wont discover the answer from a seven year old. The seven year old did the best she could with the resources she had. There are no answers in her mind, she is only seven. So, I shout back down to her again, “Hold on, I’m coming back there.” Now the little girl is smiling. I, being 38 years old and operating with a strong belief system, , begin to move back toward her. When I reach her, I welcome her in my arms and give her the same love that I would give to my niece. An interesting thing happens then, we both look at the individual who was responsible for the events of the past and we see something new…the emptiness within that persons’ soul. I whisper to the little girl, “It was never about you”. Then I move forward and visit that little girl at each stage of trauma while she is growing up and I repeat the same process.

Then another thought occurred to me. Continuing to live with the mind of a seven-year-old traumatized girl is in direct violation of all the values and beliefs I hold as an adult. Beliefs such as: Jesus has come to set me free, I am saved by grace not by works, I am a new creature in Christ, I do not fear those who can kill my body but have no power to destroy my soul, and all the other wonderful Biblical truths that I hang my life on. And then there are your words ringing in my ears as you quoted Paul, “When I was a child I thought as a child but now I put childish thinking behind me”.

So right now I feel better about that seven-year-old girl. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but today I not only look like an adult but I think like one also.”

My first phone conversation with Bob took place on January 18, 2002. The immediate results were amazing. My second phone conversation was January 23, 2002. I have not stuttered since that time. My third phone conversation was on January 30, 2002. I have loved that little seven year old ever since.

So I have to ask, “Was God really unconcerned with my speech problem for the past 32 years?” I am of the opinion that he was very concerned about the stuttering. In fact, I believe his concern went way beyond the stuttering to the heart of who I am. I am convinced he was more concerned with healing all of me not just a symptom of stuttering.

In closing, I would like to mention that for me Neuro-Semantics was a very effective tool in getting the remaining points on the Hexagon in a positive mode. Although I believe that Neuro-Semantics can assist a great majority of people who stutter, I equally believe that the quick results I received were due in part to the work I had been (unknowingly) doing through the years to get the points on the Hexagon positively biased. I have learned that the core root may be different for each individual but the symptoms (anxiety, fear, muscle tension in the vocal cords and stomach, etc.) and the outcome (stuttering) appear to be the same. If, as suspected, the emotions such as fear and anxiety lie behind the stuttering, then Neuro-Semantics provides the tools for alleviating these unconscious negative emotions. And by alleviating these negative emotions, we alleviate the stuttering.

Two Month Follow Up ― Is It Working Long-Term?

After I had completed the consultations with Bob, I knew there would be certain milestones that would determine how effective the treatment was on a long-term basis. Those milestones included being placed in the usual “high stress” situations that would normally result in stuttering. Some examples are serious one-on-one conversation concerning uncomfortable topics, Management meetings, Company meetings, and several other speaking situations that I previously thought of as “threatening”. Over the past two months I have been exposed to each of these “threatening” situations and spoke fluently through each milestone. The final milestone was met on March 21, 2002 when I was scheduled to give a presentation to the Board Members of the Company I work for. Now, prior to working with Bob, stuttering in this situation was a 100% certainty. However, even that meeting was unable to produce the stuttering again. I have tested my fluency in every situation that used to produce stuttering! And, I am happy to report that it appears to be a long-term success.

The biggest difference between stuttering and fluency is that fluent individuals do not think about stuttering.

Endnotes:

This article was written with the assistance of Bob G. Bodenhamer, D. Min. of which I am incredibly grateful not only for his assistance in writing this article but also for his assistance in helping me achieve the tremendous results I have received by utilizing Neuro-semantics.

If you would like to communicate with the subject of this article, please contact Bob Bodenhamer at bobbybodenhamer @ yahoo.com and I will provide the subjects contact information to you.

Did you like this article? Then read Meta-Stating Stuttering: An NLP Approach to Stuttering by L. Michael Hall and Bobby G. Bodenhamer for another stuttering case study with more technical information.

And:

Rising Up to Drop-Down Through: The Art of Dropping-Down Through Experiences; Even Stuttering While Rising Higher by Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min. and L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

References

Bodenhamer, Bobby G. and Hall, L. Michael. (1997). Time-lining: patterns for adventuring in “time.” Wales, United Kingdom: Anglo-American Books.

Bodenhamer and Hall. (1999). The User’s Manual for the Brain. Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Publishers Limited.

Hall, L. Michael (1995-2001). Meta-states: A domain of logical levels, self-reflexive consciousness in human states of consciousness. Grand Jct. CO: Empowerment Technologies.

Bodenhamer and Hall. (2001). Games for Mastering Fear. Grand Jct. CO Neuro-Semantics Publication.

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

Harrison, John C. (1989-2000). Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People. Anaheim Hills, California: National Stuttering Association