Are People Seeing the Real You? Stuttering, Avoidance and Self-Actualisation

“The intention is there, but the behaviour isn’t.” – Stuttering, Avoidance and Self-Actualisation

A McGuire Programme member recently used those words after a workshop on self-actualisation during an intensive course in Reading, UK.

It’s a simple sentence, but for many people who stutter, it describes something that can affect far more than speech.

Imagine sitting in a meeting.

You have an idea. You know what you want to say. You want to contribute.

Then another thought arrives.

What if I stutter? What if I block? What if I can’t get the word out?

Your hand stays down.

The meeting moves on.

To everyone else in the room, perhaps you didn’t have anything to contribute. Maybe they perceive you as quiet, shy, hesitant, disengaged or lacking confidence.

But none of those things accurately describes what was happening inside you.

You wanted to speak.

The intention was there.

The behaviour wasn’t.

When stuttering changes how the world sees you

This is one of the less obvious consequences of living with a stutter.

People hear the speech that comes out, but they don’t hear all the speech that never happened.

They don’t hear the question you decided not to ask.

They don’t know that you changed the restaurant you wanted to suggest because its name was difficult to say.

They don’t know that you substituted an easier word for the one that actually expressed what you meant.

They don’t know that you avoided introducing yourself, making the telephone call, telling the joke, disagreeing with somebody or joining the conversation.

They only see the resulting behaviour.

And over time, those behaviours can create an impression of who you are.

Shy.

Timid.

Quiet.

Disinterested.

Secretive.

Socially awkward.

Unapproachable.

But here’s an important question:

Are those really personality traits or have they become behaviours built around your stutter?

Who you are versus who you present to the world

During the Reading course, members explored an idea from John Harrison’s work on self-actualisation.

Imagine two circles.

One represents who you really are.

The other represents how you present yourself to other people.

Where those two circles overlap is self-actualisation.

For somebody whose speech has become dominated by fear and avoidance, those circles can move apart.

Inside, you might be funny, opinionated, ambitious, sociable, creative, assertive, passionate and determined.

Outside, people may experience someone much quieter and more reserved.

Not because the real personality isn’t there.

Because you’ve learned behaviours designed to protect yourself from stuttering.

Don’t put your hand up.

Don’t make the call.

Change the word.

Keep the answer short.

Let somebody else order.

Pretend you’ve forgotten what you wanted to say.

Laugh instead of contributing.

Say “I don’t mind” rather than risk saying what you actually want.

Avoidance can be remarkably effective in the short term.

You escape the difficult word or situation.

But there is a price.

Every time fear decides what you will and won’t say, the gap between who you are and who the world gets to see can become a little wider.

You don’t wait for confidence

This is where the McGuire Programme approach becomes important.

The answer isn’t to sit around waiting until you feel confident enough to speak.

And it isn’t simply:

“It’s OK, just stutter and don’t worry about it.”

We actively work on changing the physical and psychological behaviours surrounding our stutter.

That means taking action.

Put your hand up.

Make the telephone call.

Introduce yourself.

Say your name.

Say the difficult word instead of substituting it.

Disclose rather than conceal.

Enter situations you’ve previously avoided.

Use your physical techniques.

Counteract the block rather than surrendering to it.

Challenge the behaviours that fear has taught you.

You may still feel nervous.

That’s not the deciding factor.

The question is what you do next.

Behaviour can come before belief

People often imagine confidence working like this:

I become confident → therefore I behave confidently.

But change can work in the opposite direction.

I change my behaviour → I accumulate evidence → my perception begins to change → my confidence grows.

You put your hand up despite the fear.

You speak.

Perhaps it isn’t perfect.

But you contributed.

Next time, you do it again.

Then you make the telephone call you’ve been putting off.

You approach somebody you don’t know.

You say the word you would normally substitute.

You discover that you can enter situations that previously controlled you.

Those actions provide evidence.

And evidence is much more powerful than simply telling yourself to “be confident.”

The goal isn’t to create another personality

There’s another important distinction.

The objective isn’t to create a special McGuire personality that appears whenever you use your techniques.

We don’t want one person underneath and another carefully managed speaking personality presented to the outside world.

The techniques are tools.

The work is about integrating those tools until they allow your personality to come through more freely.

Your humour.

Your opinions.

Your enthusiasm.

Your assertiveness.

Your vulnerability.

Your intelligence.

Your spontaneity.

Your voice.

That’s why changing speech is about considerably more than producing words.

It’s about changing the behaviours that have accumulated around speaking.

Bringing the circles closer together

Self-actualisation is a huge concept, but in this context we can make it very practical.

Ask yourself:

What would I do differently today if I wasn’t allowing my fear of stuttering to make the decision?

Would you speak during the meeting?

Make the call?

Start the conversation?

Say the person’s name?

Order what you actually want?

Tell the longer story?

Disagree?

Ask the question?

Say exactly what you mean?

That gap between intention and behaviour is where the work is.

And every time you deliberately enter that gap and take action, the two circles move a little closer together.

Who you really are.

How you present yourself to others.

The aim isn’t perfection.

It’s greater alignment between the two.

Because overcoming the restrictions created by stuttering isn’t only about changing how you speak.

It’s about making sure stuttering no longer gets to decide how much of you the rest of the world gets to see.