How It Feels To Stutter

How It Feels To Stutter

Out of the mouths of babes – Inspiration from Robyn Fielding Aged 8

A reminder of the simplicity of understanding our ‘inner landscape,’ a landscape that we as coaches navigate through our Coaching and NLP processes

 
Here at Simply Changing, we always say that Coaching with NLP gives us communication skills that go beyond words.  What we experience on the inside is what matters, and NLP allows us to work really effectively with the inner experience that, as we say, goes beyond words. 
 
Here’s an example.  When I think of chocolate, I think of the delicious smell.  I know the quality of chocolate from how much cacao there is. Detecting notes of cacao for me is like following a rich dark river as it falls, thickly, into a tropical pool.  If my chocolate is good quality, then I’m in the pool.  If the chocolate is a mainstream bar like a KitKat or a Bounty, delicious nonetheless, then I am in a different place, it’s no longer a river, rich and dark.  This chocolate takes me to a place that is fun and sweet, light and cooler.  
 
On a recent Friday morning, I was listening to Radio 2 were I heard a fabulous story by Robyn Fielding who is a finalist in the 2015 short story competition, 500 words.  She is 8 years old and she has written a fabulous story about how stuttering feels on the inside. 
 
Enjoy this and as you do, stay curious as to how your Coachees' experience things in their 'inner landscape.' 
 
The word that wouldn’t come out by Robyn Fielding aged 8
 
I am a word. An ordinary, plain, word. I am the word “and”, I told you I was nothing important. I live inside a brain, owned by an 8 year old girl called Bella. You might not know this but all words live in a brain pond. A brain pond is like a normal pond except there are no fish, there are only words instead. The pond in Bella’s head is very cramped, because she reads a lot. There are always words falling in our pond, like rain. When she’s is reading a good book the words come down like hailstones. Me and my friend “the” like to swim together, because we’re the same size, and we like to avoid big words like “because” and “explosion”, everyone tries to avoid crashing into words like “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
 
Bella’s brain pond is extremely comfy in comparison to most other peoples, so some of the words don’t want to come out, including me. This means Bella stutters. The big, squishy, slimy thing comes from Bella’s mouth fishing for certain words and sometimes it pulls me out. Bella calls it a tongue. There are these big white guards just before the exit and that’s where I like to hide. Bella’s tongue wants to push me out, except I don’t want to go out. I like to hide behind the big square guards right at the back. Sometimes she finds me there and gets the first bit of me out, but then I dart back in again and hide behind the pointy ones right in the middle. Bella tries again but I hide behind the rectangular ones at the front. That means that Bella sounds like this “a….a….a….a”.
 
When I am being really tricksy and good at hiding Bella takes a deep breath and it gets really windy. I try my best to cling on to the guards in front of me but it’s too hard and I get sucked to the very back of Bella’s mouth. By this time all the other words in the sentence are getting angry and try to push me out. “The” says “come on we’re getting impatient”, “is” says “get out of here”, and “story” says “hurry up slow coach”. I argue with them and the wind gets stronger and stronger until eventually Bella breaths out, the words behind me push too hard, and I come exploding out like a bullet
 
….”and this is the end of the story”
 
Isn’t that fabulous!!!
 
A big thank you to Robyn for this wonderful story which reminds us of how important it is to explore the 'inner landscape', through submodalities.  
 
Louise x