Chapter Meeting – Oct 18, 2016

We were 5 people at this meeting, with one newcomer, Luis.

We talked about how we deal with anxiety.  Do we stutter more when we are stressed out or anxious?  Everybody handles stress and anxiety differently, specially when we are faced with a stuttering block.  We agreed that is OK to be selfish and take a brief time out to focus and take control.  What looks like an eternity to us, it is really not as long as we think (just a few seconds).  Especially if it helps us deal with the situation.  It is important to recognize when we are stressed and take a few seconds to breathe and relax.

Someone made a reference to the Buddhist term of “taming your monkey mind”. Monkey mind is the constant chatter inside our head that is always jumping around and chattering non-stop.  It prevents us from slowing down and enjoying the present.  Taming your monkey mind helps you focus and take control.  There is a lot of information online and YouTube regarding this topic.

We also talked about the ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) concept of “dropping an anchor” .  This refers to using a strong feeling of good and reproduce it in a moment when you are finding difficulty.