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From: Pam
Date: 05 Oct 2009
Time: 10:03:06 -0500
Remote Name: 163.153.6.70
Hi Alan, Great paper. Attitudes, beliefs, and self-talk indeed color our thinking and can in fact paralyze us to some extent. Fromthe time I started stuttering at age 5, until about 3 years ago, I carried around a lot of shame and self-contempt. Becasue I had received early negative messages from my father and a teacher, I felt bad about myself and tried to make myself invisible most of the time. That became ingrained, and I believed I was less of a person because of my stuttering. And those beliefs were often re-inforced by negative social rections as I got older and couldn't hide the stuttering as well. It takes great courage to finally break free from the chains of shame, although shame may creep in unexpectedly sometimes. I have a learned a lot from my journey and from sharing the journey of others, by reading, talking and doing, instead of taking a back seat. Thanks for sharing this. It is not always easy to identify our bad habits, but it sure helps others to see that they are not alone.