How To Conquer Stammering And Blushing

Just be confident!

- T. Rajagopalan

Stammering and blushing are apt to occur simultaneously, and need it be said that both are highly embarrassing especially while talking to a stranger. When I was in school, Vijayulu Raju was a precocious student but the teachers never put him any question because of his stammering. When the other students replied or failed to give the correct answer either they were punished or praised but the stammerer escaped both. One understanding teacher Rajasekar sympathised with him and asked him to write the answer on the board and Vijayulu Raju always wrote the correct answer and won accolades. Despite the praise conferred on him he felt deeply embarrassed.

The feeling of embarrassment is itself a complex emotion. It expresses simultaneously two contradictory feelings. It’s saying, “Look at me” and “Please don’t notice me.” The stammer may equally be interpreted as, “I want you to listen.”

The conditions are not only caused by embarrassment but they are the cause of further embarrassment form therefore what is known as a viscious circle. The word “viscious” here has of course no moral overtones.” Viscious circle” is a useful phrase to describe what transpires when cause becomes effect and this effect becomes a further cause. It’s not an endless chain, but it brings you back to where you commenced.

The embarrassment of the blusher or the stammerer incites him to blush and stammer more. It would seem then there is no way out. The sufferer appears hopelessly bogged down.

Yet there must be a solution, or it could not happen that one so often meets people who say glibly: “You know, I used to stammer awfully at one time but it wore off. I suppose I got more confidence in myself as time rolled on.” Which comes first, the confidence confierce or the cure? It is not always easy to say, because another circle is involved, albeit this time not a viscious one.