For example, my husband smokes and so I asked him – “What do you get out of smoking or out of taking that large inhale of nicotine.” He had to pause for while and think about the answer because no one had asked him that. He said, “Whenever I smoke, just for a moment, I feel like I am stress-free that everything is alright. I feel I am getting some space to reflect and calm down and I then feel better to get back to business.”

Wow, what an answer to a simple question! That made me understand why he smoked and that he was using this habit to find that feeling of calmness and as a moment of reflection.

Now you try to find a positive intention on one of your behaviours and ask: “What am I trying to get or gain out of this?”, “What is my (his/her) positive intention?”

I remember in my childhood when I had a respiratory illness or the common cold, my mother would make me a drink that would help me feel better and, according to her, fight the cold. This drink contained: millet flour cooked in a lot of butter, milk, brown sugar and cinnamon. Yes, it was sweet, aromatic, tasty and very comforting. My mother is in Kenya and I only see her every couple of years, but when I do visit, I will ask her to make this drink for me! There are times that when I am in my own home and suffering from a cold, I will crave that drink and I have even tried to make it, but it never turns out like my mother’s. To tell you the truth, I am not sure if this drink has anything to do with the common cold but for that little time that I would sip it to completion, it sure made me feel good.

However, you will agree with me that some of us eat foods to comfort us or make us feel better – almost everyday! What are you doing? You are numbing out how you feel and not acknowledging your feelings. We are human beings – a being is person who feels in the moment – we will always have feelings and always come up against our emotions. Are we always going to go to food? Food will always make us feel better only in that moment, but will not offer a solution on how to deal with your feelings. Isn’t this behaviour similar to an alcoholic? If an alcoholic numbs out his emotions with alcohol, he is just enabling the behaviour. Similarly, when we emotionally eat we are enabling the behaviour.

What can you do?

1) Become aware of when you are reaching for the pantry or refrigerator when you are not hungry and stop. Ask yourself: What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way or what is the cause of this feeling? What does it mean? By asking these questions, you are exploring your feelings and troubleshooting. Then find an alternative way to deal with your emotions other than food.

2) Start keeping a journal or a list of the foods you eat when you have certain emotions and then explore what that food does for you. Again, once you figure this out, find an alternative way to deal with that emotion. Thanks to Sophie Ciche for this idea.

You could share the above (#2) on this blog by making a comment.

“What if I did block/stutter as I went through with the task or situation – like going through a drive-thru?”

Well, there is a couple of pieces to this question – one is about the action itself (going through a drive-thru) and the other is about the stuttering behaviour itself. I had signed a contract with myself (mentally not on paper) that I would do the action regardless and I also remember telling myself that I am doing this to improve my communication skills so it will take time. This is similar to planting seeds – the seeds will grow into healthy plants in time and when nurtured. Similarly, I had made the contract with myself and some of the conditions in the contract were:

• to keep doing my best
• to have patience
• to nurture myself even if I had slip-up
• to have a goal(s)  – to work on task that I had avoided before
• to have the intention (comes from latin word “intendo” which means “to stretch forward”)

The second part to the question is what if I stuttered even after I practiced and visualized? How did I feel after?

I would feel sad, but then I would remind myself that I could not do this before and now I am doing it for myself and it feels good. I accomplished a goal! I would then reflect back on my conversation and notice what happened before, during and after. If I stuttered/blocked on a certain word, what thoughts or images were going through my mind, could I have used one of my fluency techniques, etc?  And yes, after I had figured out what had happened, I would repeat the same action (going through the drive-thru) so I could test what I had just deduced and desensitize my fear.  These experiences started to change my belief system about stuttering/blocking, my thought patterns and my behaviours.

I do not even think about stuttering like the way I used to. It does not control me.

Intuitively or unconsciously, I knew I started the behaviour when I was in the process of completing Kindergarten and some of us in KG had shown a higher IQ or something like that. The board of the school had approached my mother and other parents to allow their children to skip Grade 1 and go straight into Grade 2 from Kindergarten.

When I think about that moment, I can see myself at 5 years old listening to the conversation between the board member and my mother and watching my mother’s reactions and behaviours. I can see her feeling pressured to make a decision, having a lot of concern for me, but yet wondering that maybe “my daughter is capable”. I can see my little self – worried, scared, wanting to stay with her friends and peers and hoping that her mother would say “NO”.

You can guess what happened next – I did go into Grade 2. Now imagine a child at 5 years going into a class of 7-8 year olds. Imagine, a child leaving her friends behind and finding new friends. Imagine a child having to catch up with grade 2 work and feeling lost and frustrated. Imagine the belief systems the child acquired at that age.

I cannot remember the exact number of children, but I think there were 3-5 of us that skipped grade 1 and two of us ended up with the stuttering behaviour!

How did I stop the stuttering behaviour? You can read that on my other blogs and the strategies I used.  My family is in Kenya and I visited my mother this year. While having a deep conversation with her about life and our purpose and so on, she apologized for the decision she made when I was 5 years old. I looked her and told her not to apologize that that was the best gift she has ever given to me.

My strategy:

• Practice and practice what I was going to say (using my new toolkit on fluency skills)
• Actually say it like it is already happening
• Visualize myself going through the situation (for example going through a fast food drive-thru window) and saying what I had practiced
• Seeing myself completely go through the situation and feeling so good about facing my fear and feeling good about myself. It is this feeling that propelled me take action.
• Go do it

If you model this strategy, let me know how it goes. You may wonder, what happened when I did “go do it” and I stuttered? How did I feel after? How did I react? I will let you know in my next blog!

I decided at that instant that I was going to face every situation that I had avoided so I could overcome my fears. Now isn’t that interesting…..it is no longer about “the stutter” but it is about “managing my fear and taking action towards what I had avoided.” I did this because I had reached my threshold and I wanted to live my life and do the things I wanted to do so desperately.

I started with small steps. For example, I took one situation that I had previously avoided, like asking someone the time, and kept on doing that until I was comfortable and confident. I would then take another situation and repeat the same process.

Now in my next blog, I am going to tell you what my thought process was that propelled me to take action.

The light bulb came on for me after I took speech therapy classes at the age of 19…..yes that is right. However, those of you who stutter know that even after speech therapy, you got to practice the skills in your own environment and it can be tough because the underlying fear, beliefs and perceptions of what others might think is still there.

After I had completed my therapy, a few weeks later, I went back to my speech pathologist and I told her that the fluency skills are great, but what can I do about the fear that creeps in when I want to do something that I have avoided all these years.

People who stutter avoid speaking situations like ordering food, speaking on the telephone, introductions, presentations and so on.

So going back to my question that I asked my speech pathologist about fear…… she helped me put it into perspective and I have to thank her for changing my life at that moment. She coached me about the new resources and tools I had acquired (the fluency skills) that I had not had before, and she then told me to answer my own question that I had asked her! So how was I going to overcome my fear that I had carried with me all those years about all those situations I had avoided? Check out my next blog for what I had to say to her and the actions I took.

This sounded like an internal conflict, but my intuition wanted to explore what was going on in her mind that was guiding her behaviour. I asked two simple questions that made her very aware of her behaviour:

1) How did you decide to eat pancakes (notice I asked “HOW”)?

She started by answering, “It was easy to make; I felt like eating pears with pancakes; I knew my son would enjoy eating pancakes; (then came the slam dunk)…. during my childhood, Sunday night suppers were “treat suppers”. I asked my client to elaborate. She continued, ” Well, after Sunday morning church, the family would have a huge meal so by early evening we were not really hungry and we would end up having light and quick meals.”

I asked, “What was the goal for the type of suppers you had on Sunday?” She replied, ” A special treat with the family and we would end up going back to church at around 6 p.m.”

2) What made you decide to have pancakes (notice I asked “WHAT”)?

She quietly answered, “Comfort….the conference had a lot of information and a lot to learn…I just wanted some comfort.”

Notice, that her behaviours are guided by what happened in her childhood on Sunday night with the family, and the most common one “emotional eating” – using food to make herself feel better. I realized that she had formed a belief or made meaning about her childhood experience and her unconscious behaviour was guided by that belief that she formed as a child. Can you tell me the belief she formed?

Try it out! Ask a friend or a co-worker, as you stand to his/her right, “Do you prefer me standing to your right?” and then slowly move to his/her left and ask, “Or do you prefer me standing to your left?” Repeat this a couple of times and most often you will get a preference.

When I coach clients, I always ask this question because I want to make sure they are comfortable. However, in Nuero Linguistic Programming (NLP), I have found that the client’s non-preferential side is where his/her critical voice is situated!

We all have a critical voice and these are typically installed when we are young and they usually start with an “I” or a “You” voice. For example, pick a specific situation where you are angry, sad, fearful or frustrated and notice what internal dialogue is going on. Some examples could be: “I can’t do it”; “I am scared, it is hopeless”; “You are stupid”; “You don’t know anything”; “You are not smart” and so on.

A critical voice starting with an “I” is related to your limiting beliefs, while a “you” voice is an introjected voice from a significant other that is typically installed when we are young and this could be a parent, a grandparent or a sibling.

In group coaching or individual coaching, we explore this voice, find out what its positive purpose is and then change the effect or dynamics of this voice so it does not limit you anymore. Check out my next workshop on this topic on September 21 and 22.

“As I was growing up, speaking in public was a great fear for me. I believe it started when I was about 8 years old, standing up in front of the classroom and trying to recite the words that were written on the blackboard.  I remember being so scared that I would just freeze and my mind would just draw a blank and I would end up in tears.

Even as an adult, I had a hard time introducing myself, stating were I was from and my occupation.  I couldn’t concentrate or relax until my turn was over. I even tried to write everything down on a piece of paper so that I only had to read it.

About 7 years ago, I attended Red Deer College to get my site manager’s certificate. One evening, the instructor announced that everyone had to prepare a 2-minute presentation  for next day’s class. My heart fell to the ground. That night I never slept a wink. I wrote out a few sentences on a piece of paper and I played it over and over in my mind all night long.

It wasn’t until I met Zaheen that I knew I could get help to overcome this fear. Approximately two weeks after my coaching session with Zaheen I had to attend a large manager’s meeting. Something seemed different this time, I was more relaxed. I was sitting at one end of the table and we started with introductions and site reports. The person beside me was first and then it was to be my turn but instead they went the other way and I was last. It was just amazing as I sat there throughout the day listening to people with not a care in the world and most of all I wasn’t panicking! When it came my turn to speak I was so relaxed it was like I had done this all my life.  I even got up off my chair and stood up to talk. I could have talked for a long time because I was just so full of energy and it felt like I was bouncing off the walls. Most of all I think I did a pretty good job.

After the meeting, a lady that I have known for sometime came up to me and told me that the moment I walked into that meeting she noticed that there was something different about me.  She asked what I had done.  I told her that I have met a lady by the name of Zaheen and she is coaching me on how to overcome my fear. She was just amazed and so am I.  I cannot thank you enough Zaheen, for helping me overcome my fear of public speaking. I am looking forward to when I have to speak in public again. Thank you once again.”

Patti D. – Central Alberta