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From: Alan Badmington (to Zacharia)
Date: 08 Oct 2009
Time: 15:08:43 -0500
Remote Name: 84.70.154.101
Hi Zacharia, Thank you for taking the time to read and comment upon my paper. I very much appreciate your positive feedback. You asked, “How do we eliminate the anticipatory fear from our subconscious minds?” I shall respond by relating my own personal experiences. As I mentioned in my article, I avoided using 13 letters of the alphabet and practised extensive word substitution throughout my life. It involved so much effort and energy. But every time I avoided a letter/word, the fear level in respect of that letter/word increased. But as we know, there are times when you can’t avoid – you have to say a particular word; you have to speak in a particular situation. When that happened, my fear levels were so high that I stuttered severely. In 2000, I decided to adopt a zero-tolerance attitude to all avoidance strategies. I was determined to say whatever word I wanted to say; I was determined to speak in situations that I had previously avoided. I simply wanted to free myself from the shackles that restrained me – I wanted greater freedom. I achieved this in two ways. Firstly, I purposely introduced several of my ‘feared words’ into my routine speech throughout the day. I said them when the pressure was off – I said them when it wasn’t essential for me to say them. In other words, I became pro-active, as opposed to being re-active. Fortunately, I had a new speaking technique and tools that made it easier for me to say those words in other environments. It felt strange saying words that I had always avoided but it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to utter the vocabulary of my choice. I was no longer allowing my fear to influence my selection of words. I was saying the most appropriate words, rather than settling for words that I believed were easier to say. Every time I said one of my challenging words, the following message was transmitted to my subconscious, “Hey Alan, you’ve just said ‘Son’; you’ve just said ‘Pen’ etc”. For so many years, the message had been “You can’t say ‘Son’; you can’t say ‘Pen’ etc”. These positive experiences helped to reduce my anticipatory fear because I had evidence that I could, after all, say those (and other) words. In addition, I practised the technique known as creative visualization. As my paper explains (under the heading ‘Internal Images’), I created internal movies that depicted me speaking in the manner (and location/situation) of my choice. I visualized myself saying those words successfully, thereby duping my subconscious into believing that it had actually happened in real life. In time, my anticipatory fear totally dissipated. “How does one recreate self-image?” In my case, I challenged myself by doing the things I believed I could not do. I expanded my comfort zones to incorporate words, sounds, situations and roles that I, hitherto, believed lay outside my scope. I hastened the process by regular use of visualization exercises in which I ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ myself speaking in the manner of my choice, in the situations that I had previously feared. When you conquer something that has challenged your advancement, it causes you to reconsider your self-limiting beliefs. When you overcome hurdles, it opens your eyes to possibilities that you could never have imagined. Zacharia, I wish you every success with your studies. Kindest regards Alan