During my days as a trainer, I was very fond of using riddles as energizers in between hectic sessions. As such, I was always on the look out for good riddles. Once I found one, which was really good. It taught me the importance of going beyond the frame of reference, when faced with a problem which apparently has no solution.

Draw 9 circles on a paper (see the picture below). Now, try to connect all the nine circles with just FOUR lines, WITHOUT picking up your pen, once you start. For a long time I kept on trying option A in many ways, to no result. Then, I was given the correct answer: option B. One can immediately see how going beyond the 9 points, helps you to arrive at the correct solution.

When I think of stammering, I can see how same principle operates here: For a PWS, fluency is the ultimate goal in life; since it keeps ever receding, it becomes the only goal after sometime. You will check out a therapist ONLY if he promises 'cure', nothing less. Since there is such huge expectation from ourselves, every time we open our mouth, we stumble- and the whole cycle starts all over again. I was talking to some PWS and therapists: therapists offer cure since PWS will not come to them if they did not offer 'cure'. PWS expect a cure because therapists have assured them that there is a 'cure' if they work hard enough! This is a 'chicken and egg' kind of situation. Which came first?

Now the result is, many PWS get so disillusioned by the time they are 20 that they dont want to even consider the possibility of working on their communication, no matter what is at stake. They are fed up, bored and CYNICAL of everything. This is unfortunate and a sad reflection on society: stating and accepting truth has been made so difficult and quite unnecessarily so.

“ Form means limitation. We are here not only to experience limitation but also to grow in consciousness by going beyond limitation. Some limitations can be overcome on an external level. There may be other limitations in your life that you have to learn to live with. They can only be overcome internally. Everyone will encounter them sooner or later. Those limitations either keep you entrapped in egoic reactions , which means intense unhappiness, or you rise above them internally by uncompromising surrender to what is. That is what they are here to teach. The surrendered state of consciousness opens up the vertical dimension in your life, the dimension of depth. Something will then come forth from that dimension into this world, something of infinite value that otherwise would have remained unmanifested. Some people who surrendered to severe limitation become healers or spiritual teachers. Others work selflessly to lessen human suffering or bring some creative gift into this world..” (page 211; A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle)

While reading the above passage, I suddenly realized, why acceptance is so difficult- and why it works wonders when you do approach it finally. But of course, in the case of PWS, acceptance does not mean giving up or becoming indifferent to your stammer. It only means that we stop hiding this fact. We stop being ashamed of it. And start working on our over all communication- not fluency.