Never think like a victim, think like a fighter..

        Meeting report of the Bangalore SHG meeting – March 11th 2012 , as follows:  

As usual, we started the meeting around 10:00 at the same location.

Place:
Paradygmlaw Coaching Center
2nd Floor, 322/ 2 Hosur Main Road,
Above RNS JCB/ Hedege Securites
Adjacent to Wipro Parking Bay, Madiwala
[Landmark – On the same side as the Wipro office, there is a leftlane just before you hit the flyover. The first building when you take that left lane]

We had 12 attendees including two new comers – Abinav andPrasad. And also we had a special guest Aruna.

We started with a reading session until others joined. Wemainly followed the slow speaking method. This went on for around 20 minutes.

The theme for the week was observing the Body language whilewe stammer.

Then we had the introduction one by one, where each person has to say about themselves and the techniques they follow. When a person isdoing the introduction we all noted what happens when he/she stammers and gavefeedback. Also we insisted all the people to speak slowly so that they have acontrol over their speech. We also had a short discussion about what isacceptance of stammering. This introductory session went on for more than 1hour.

After that, we had the speech by Aruna. She explained abouthow she got the stammering. She shared about the techniques she followed toimprove her stammering like meditation and yoga. She gave a brief speech onchakras and energy flow and how to attain a good energy flow throughmeditation. She also practices Pranayama daily.

Followed by the speech from Aruna, Dinesh played a musicvideo “Say what you need to say..”  whichwas very inspirational. Dinesh also read the lyrics of the song.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&feature=youtu.be&v=E_J1fGlPcFI

After this we had a Speech from Murali. He spoke aboutancient Greek orator Demosthenes who was a stutterer and the techniques he followed. He also give a hint of other celebrities who recovered from stammering. Here we discussed that any technique followed with determination will yeild the expected results.

Then we had a discussion on how to improve our communicationskills through day to day activities. The key points are as follows:

–   “Don’t think like a victim, think like afighter” – All PWS have to change their thought process. There is no point inblaming somebody or god for the stammering. We have to start accept our stammeringand move on how to overcome it. This change in the thought process is the important step.
–         Practice – Follow a technique and practice it daily for around 30mins. Like pranayama,meditation, speech practice,etc.,
Here we discussed that practice done just before going to sleep is the most effective. The practice done at this hour seeps in to the subconcious mind and is the most effective.
–         Physical exercise – Try to jog or do some exercise daily for about 30mins. Jogging improves your breathing and exercise akes the body fit. Fit body will have a positive impact on our mind and thought process.
–         Develop a hobby – Hobbies will divert our attention from stammering and other stress. This will provide much needed space to calm the mind.
–         Organize yourself – Don’t delay the work/tasks you have to do either in home or in office . Keep yourself organized, so that you can concentrate on the important tasks without distraction.
Being organized and keeping up time, can ease the tensed mind.
Having lot of pending tasks can weigh on your mind and can keep you under stress.
A relatively free mind will be calmer and will respond better when needed.
–         Grab/create opportunity – Try to take initiatives and share your knowledge as much as possible.
–         Be kind and listen to other’s problem also.
–         Have healthy food and sound sleep.
A better relaxed body is in better equipped to handle stress and work out new solutions.
–         A word a day keeps stammering Away!
Try to learn something new every day.  It may not be a complex technical stuff but smallthings like trying to learn a new word daily. With many words at our disposal it becomes easy for communication and a feared block can be replaced with something simpler to utter and meaning the same.
–         Finally Earn your self-respect.
Be disciplined and responsible for your acts. This could go a  long way in building a strong character and a unshakable will.

The session ended by 1 pm. It was a informative session and for a consecutive 3rd week we had a good no. of participants.

Attendees: Dinesh, Alok, Abinav, Murali, Prasad, Sairam,Manoj, Anbu, Jittu, Suresh, Aruna and Biju.

Write-up Sairam and Dinesh