Setting My Words Free

Stuttering is a complex, often misunderstood speech disorder that affects over 3 million people in the United States alone. For many of us, our stuttering not only impedes our ability to communicate with others; our speaking difficulties can often be outright debilitating and incredibly embarrassing to us. As a result, we understandably develop attitudes and emotions related to our speech that tend to inadvertently make our stuttering worse. Often compared to the concept of an iceberg, the physical, observable aspects of stuttering are what lie above the water, while the multitude of strong attitudes and emotions are what lie beneath that continue to sustain the physical habits of stuttering. Setting My Words Free is a compilation of 300 inspirational messages written to encourage us to take daily efforts to holistically address the social, emotional, and attitudinal components of our stuttering as we continue to take efforts to make physical changes to our speech. The book also encourages us to engage in practices and routines that promote our overall wellness and ability to manage stress, further complimenting our efforts to improve our fluency. In taking a more holistic approach, we are likely to discover improved self-acceptance, freedom from fear and shame, openness with others, and hope that can bring us to a place where we can make permanent improvements to our fluency that we never thought were possible.