TISA Bangalore Shg meeting: 11/08/24.
Note: The following is the report from the self-help meeting in Bangalore on 11th August. The report is from Praneeth Gadari, one of the participants. These self-help meetings happened across India- Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, etc. More information can be found on the TISA website. The joining details are at the end.
Participants: (From left) Pallavi, Gayatri, Sakina, Ananth, Tapan, Dinesh, Gowtham, Sohan, Shalin, Naveen, Praneeth.
Praneeth: 11th August 2024 , one of the intro sessions to Speech Craft 2. This series is being conducted at Samarthanam NGO building which is housing facility for visually impaired students and few senior citizens.
I was late to the SHG meeting at 9 AM since I was travelling the previous day and reached the venue in a hurry. Asking a senior citizen for directions to the meeting hall, launched a flurry of questions from him which ended with him physically verifying the SHG meeting and letting me go . This place has responsible residents 🙂 !!
The meeting started with a turn-by-turn paragraph reading from “Apna Haath Jagannath”, my para was about the false belief that stammering is punishment for sins committed. I smiled internally over the times I used to have this thought from time-to-time and how we make up things to rationalize everything. Previous SpeechCraft series resulted in false beliefs falling off like old dried leaves.
Further we had group activities and at the end, time for Psychology interns to talk.First group activity was to add an adjective to our name and also repeat all the names to the left . This game always leads to humorous mixups and a nice ice-breaker. So the participants were “Poetic Praneeth, Notorious Naveen, Good Gowtham, Simple Shalin, Straight forward Sohan, Tactful Tapan, Daring Dinesh, Adorable Ananth, Soft Sakina, Polite Pallavi, Generous Gayatri” with last 3 being the Pysch interns.
Next group activity was “What are things you blame on Stammering ?”
Each one went turn-by-turn and gave diverse answers which covered Low Career growth, Limited interaction with opposite gender, Not pursuing MBA due to stage fear, Low self esteem and low confidence, avoiding speaking opportunities, not having impactful communication. Pyschology interns also shared something which they felt limits them.
This group activities always make you feel that you are not alone and live example of non PWS Pysch interns sharing things which they are insecure about, brought this fallacy of “Happily ever after conquering the stammering mountain” forward and set the tone for next activity.
“What are the other things you blame in life apart from Stammering ?”
This evoked few funny responses like lack of ancestral wealth to, nothing to blame apart from stammering to , really insightful views like lack of can-do attitude, lack of taking initiative and standing up for yourself. Few members shared deeply personal stories about the things which have hurt them in past.
Dinesh went last and summed up that we always find something to blame in life. To move forward we should take responsibility , “Our Karma is our doing”.
Psychology interns listed down potential workshop topics and some art forms will be used in workshop to make it experiential.
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Self Esteem : To avoid negative self talk and practice self compassion.
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Self Concept : Self perception and image.
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Understanding and managing emotions : Identifying conditions, triggers and using techniques.
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Stress and anxiety management.
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Boundary setting and building safe space.
Based on the time consideration ,we can plan for 2 workshops before September.There were followup queries to understand how these workshops would be weaved with regular SHG sessions . Speech Craft 2 already looks exciting with combination of planned speeches and workshops !
Dinesh gave the closing notes above utilising this series and how serious participation is needed to make the most and further continuity. See you next week !
-A report by Praneeth.
Do you stammer or do you know anybody who does? and do you want to join such groups?
You can join by reaching out to us on any of the below channels:
TISA-Bangalore Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tisabangalore/
Email: tisabangalore0@gmail.com / info@stammer.in
Contact: Tapan Samantha: +91 99001 62098.
Check out the TISA Newsletter “SAMVAD”: Samvad | The Indian Stammering Association
