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From: Mary
Date: 10/5/02
Time: 5:25:45 PM
Remote Name: 209.183.16.101
Hi Dawnyale: Wow! I could probably go on for days about this. Sometimes it's rather hard to be succinct. Anyway, I'll try. I'd have never had my dream if my focus was on fluency. When this dream happened, my focus was on accepting me as a person who stutters and noticing, maybe for the first time in my life, all the other good parts of me. If we work on our self-worth, then it won't matter if the stuttering stays or goes. I just look around at a self-help conference and see the people who stutter living full and happy lives. I don't even like the word "fluency" but would rather think of how I can communicate which involves so many ways besides speaking. When I realized that stuttering was in my life to learn from - and it's taught me many lessons - then I stopped running away from it. When I started to face the fear, then I found that the courage was there. There's a saying that goes "what we resist, persists." I can't remember exactly what my article says, but I do know that the only person who rejects me when I stutter is me. My lack of self-worth was such a large part of the fear of stuttering. Oh, if we could only embrace and celebrate all the parts of who we are, then we would know we are so much more than a person who stutters. (This reply may seem a little disjointed, but there are so many thoughts around this.) Feeling that fluency is a prerequisite to all of our goals limits every part of us. How do we change that? First of all, by making a decision this is what we want to do. By deciding there is another way to live and then doing something about it. There is all the information we could ever need, want or desire if we make this choice and then stick to it.
I'd be so happy to continue this dialogue because it's so important to me. But right now, it's the end of the day and I'm wearing down a bit. Hope to talk to you again. Take care.