Pune shg 15-7-2012

Pune shg has a very great day today. Six members attended it

Amol(Myself),Vivek,Aftab,Sanjeet sir,Anup sir and Sachin sir. Out of these me,Aftab and vivek are students and rest all are doing job.

Our usual time for meeting is 10.30am.I came around 10.30 am. Later Anup sir came and after some time sanjeet sir came. Then we decided that we should start our session. We started with meditation in which we concentrated on breathing. Till 11am Vivek and Sachin sir came. Next we have an activity of slow reading. Then we have an activity of self introduction. In the mean time there came some reporters from “AAJ KA ANAND” newspaper to cover Pune SHG. They have recently started a English newspaper “LIFE 365” so they are in a process of writing article about TISA and Pune SHG in paper. They take some of our photos.

Cure Your Fear

I always find myself complaining that no matter what I do,my fear always tends to overpower me in a speaking situation and I start substituting and avoiding words.No matter how much meditation,how much blogging I do,this fear never tends to go.

Today,I found my answer !!!!!!

I was reading a book by a very famous motivator Dr.Schwartz in which he so rightly says:-"The biggest cure of fear is ACTION".
Let me give you an example.I went to Rishikesh last to last year to do water-rafting.In between we all had to jump from a high cliff.Now I had 2 very different friends with me.The first one (lets call him A) just climbed the cliff,not once looked down and jumped.Just like that.I actually thought at that moment that it was damn too easy.But then my other friend (lets call him B),went towards the cliff,he just stood there for a minute,just lost into God knows what thoughts.That 1 minute of thinking cost him the jump.No matter how much we motivated him to jump,he just couldnt,and its not like he was trying,he was putting in every bit of strength he had in him,to jump but just couldnt.Each of us jumped 3 times but he just stood there.And till date he repents that he couldnt enjoy the thrill of that jump.

Thats precisely what happens to the majority of us in everyday life.Just before we are faced with a speaking situation,instead of just speaking out,we start weighing the  possible pros and cons our less than perfect speech might have.And once we have these thoughts its GAME OVER.Then we spend the rest of the day,drenched in self-pity and feeling both sorry and agitated at ourselves.

Even during the national conference,we had to introduce ourselves many times.The times when I spoke when someone asked me to were the times when  so much fear used to accumulate inside of me,that I thought I was going to faint but once I just rose my hand when introduction started without thinking twice and it was the best feeling ever,I stuttered less but more importantly,I didnt let any fear to accumulate inside of me and it was the greatest feeling.It felt so light.

In the example I gave before,it wasnt the jump that was difficult but it was the wait for the jump that was excruciating. Mr A acted and just jumped and hence didnt allow any fear to overpower him and we all know what happened to Mr B.

Similarly,its not the actual speech which is difficult but its the fear of stuttering that does the most of the damage.We all know that the longer we postpone talking to someone,the more difficult it becomes.

As Dr Schwartz puts it "Use actions to gain confidence and cure fear. Action feeds and strengthens confidence,inaction in all forms feeds fear.To fight fear-act.To increase fear-wait,put-off and postpone."

So the next time you are faced with a difficult speaking situation,just stand up and speak without thinking twice.Stop waiting for the time when everything would be perfect and just speak up.Because no matter how much deep breathing you do,no matter how much affirmations you say,without action-you cant cure fear.Its the hard hitting truth,the sooner you realize it,the further in life you will go.

www.mystammer.blogspot.com

will you please speak little louder

will you please speak little louder ........these are some words which my listener want to say,
he is already little dis comfortable with my dis fluency, still i am increasing his discomfort by speaking in low volume,he has to make some extra effort to listen me.

This may be general problem with some pws ,they(including me) don't want to disclose their stammering(which they can't) so they speak slowly so if they stammer only active listener notice this lead to low volume speaking

i don't want to generalize any idea bu,t i think ...Loudness and confidence are interrelated for both stammerer and non stammer and confidence is related with stammering so ...loudness is related to stammering.........ohhh we established relation between them, and you all pws know what to do next ,yes..... need to work on loudness...for this, we have to practice this for 5 to 10 min daily for some weeks.

I Have Stopped Taking Nonsense

This is regarding an incident that happened when I was at my training a month back.I was talking to a senior (not a senior really,he has done a two year diploma and hence started working 2 years before me,he is like 6 months older than me) about how I had to give a presentation at college after my training is complete.The senior jokingly replied-"You would be like this !!!!" and then started to imitate  my stammer.Now earlier if ever such incident happened ,I used to be silent and bear with it at that moment and then keep thinking about it for the rest of the day drenched in an amalgam of self pity and self loathing !!!!!But now I just replied-"Atleast I know how to give a presentation in English(he doesnt know a word of English) and better still atleast I know how to make a power point presentation !!!! Now for the record,I would never say such thing to him ordinarily but this situation was different.My senior went blank for like 5 seconds and another guy sitting next to me gave me a look that said-"Well done dude !!!"
The best thing I liked about the incident was dat I didnt allow myself to become a victim but instead took control of the situation.And it felt good,really really good !!! And the good thing was we started normally again after a while like nothing had happened.No self pity for me today,just a feeling that I can take care of myself.
Now a lot of people would say that it was a wrong thing on my part to reply back in such a manner but my motto from that day is-"Never make fun of anyone's problems or shortcomings but dont allow anyone to do the same to you as well !!!Face up to the few jerks you encounter !!!!"
One thing more that I desire to adopt in my life is that after facing a situation bravely I forget all about it and live in the present(just like our very own desi Eckhart Tolle J.P. Sir says)I am trying to work on that.

Well,I am open to criticism on my behavior whether positive or negative.So please feel free to leave any comments and better still leave suggestions on what you might have done in a similar situation !!!!! See Ya !!!

This page was originally posted on my blog http://mystammer.blogspot.com/,if you like this post,do visit my blog !!!

Mr A and Mr B

Imagine a scenario-Mr A and Mr B are both pws who go to the same college.At the end of the semester each student has to give a presentation about a pregiven topic.Now let us go and see both the guys' presentation:-

We will take up Mr. A first:

Mr. A wakes up in the in the morning feeling as abysmal as ever.First thought in his mind-"Can I bunk this ????"Deep inside he knows he cant but still he likes to keep the option open by coming up with various plans.He spends a large chunk of the day brooding and cursing  and then spends some more time cursing the professor for coming up with presentation idea !!!! How unfair,he thinks !!!!(Mind you,he hasnt started his preparation even a bit).He spends most of the day thinking about the various scenarios which could happen tomorrow.Finally ,late at night he opens wikipedia and just copies the content thinking why even bother with it.He already knows whats gonna happen tomorrow.When arranging it in a presentable format,the focus is not on the quality of content but on the maximum inclusion of words he can speak with relative ease(relavant or irrelavant,doesnt matter).He completes the whole exercise in less than an hour,practices it once just for formality sakes and goes to sleep.Oh I forgot-He curses God and the professor again before drifting off !!!!!!

Enough of Mr A,now lets see what Mr B has been upto:

Mr B wakes up in the morning with anxiety.He is also nervous,very nervous for tomorrow.He freshens up and tells his anxiety to give him some rest while he gathers the contents of his speech !!!Anxiety half heartedly replies-"OK FINE !!!!!"Mr B now leaves no stone unturned in collecting the data.He browses every relevant site he can lay his eyes on.He goes to the local library to get some ideas.He even calls the professor to clear some doubts.The Anxiety on the other hand is like-"Hello !!!! I am getting bored in here !!!!!"He finally finishes after arranging it in the desired format !!!! Anxiety is thrilled now to be back again !!! But Mr B says-"Please be patient !!!!I also need to practice it a few times !!!"Anxiety sighs and replies"Ok fine " all the while thinking how long could it possibly take.Now Mr B executes the final portion of his preparation.He practices,practices and practices some more .He practices alone,in front of a mirror,then with his dog,then goes to bother his mom and then goes to a friends house to practice with him !!!!Late at night he finally finishes being extra sure that he has done all that he could !!!!Anxiety,finally relieved says-"Can we play now ????? "Mr B just pulls the covers of his bed and says half asleep-"Are you kidding me ??? I am very tired !!! Let me sleep !!!!"Anxiety feeling very cheated decides to leave his long time friend for the night and hopes it can come some other day.But seeing Mr B's attitude it knows they will never be the friends they used to be and after some time it may have to say goodbye to him.Mr B on the other hand sleeps like a log not before praying to God for tomorrows presentation.

Now I wont tell you what happened the next day,you probably know that but I can tell you that after the presentation the expression on both of their faces were quite contrasting !!!!! Thanx for bearing up with such a long story !!! Before I forget I would like to share a quote with you which probably will have a long lasting effect on me for life-Success and Excuses never go hand in hand !!!! See ya !!!!

This page was originally posted on my blog http://mystammer.blogspot.com/,if you like this post,do visit  my blog !!!!:-):-)

Its time to do some introspection

Most of the pws are forever complaining !!!!! Life is very hard,people make fun of me,people think I am  not confident,people do this people do that,and what not !!!!! Well I am not saying that there is no truth in this,it does hurt when people make fun of you and life does become pretty hard sometimes but you need to realize that u need to get out of the "I am the Victim mindset" and take control of your life.Lets take a few examples.

Life is hard when you stammer.-to be frank,no one has a perfect life,every one has his own baggage of problems ,if it wasnt stammering,it would have been something else,God gave you a problem in the form of your stutter but   might have taken away several problems he gave to millions of people(take poverty for instance).

People make fun of me-To see this objectively,a very very few people are jerks who might have made fun of you,you should concentrate on the majority who understand your problem and dont bias (positively or negatively) because you stammer.And even when someone does make fun of you,my advice would be to give him a piece of mind then and there itself,this would show your self-assertiveness and take you out of the "victim mindset" by letting you take control of the situation rather than just be silent and let the person make fun of you.

People think I am not confident-Well people are not fault here,you wont agree with me on this but its your own behaviour which makes people think that you are not confident enough.The reason-You stay silent when you should have made a valid point,you let people take you for a ride,you think a hundred times before saying something radical about a guy even when you know he deserves it,you never raise your voice.All this because You might stammer.I want to tell you something buddy,you are stammering anyways,so why not still stammer but do it confidently,Just listen to your heart and say what you want to without having second thoughts and you will see a miracle change in how people perceive you.Take my word for that !!

I hope I have been a little bit helpful to you guys.See you later!!!!! :-):-):-) 


This page was originally posted in my blog http://mystammer.blogspot.com/.If you like this post,do visit my blog !!