The Talking Traveller

MISSION STATEMENT

I am Hein van der Merwe, a recovering stutterer.

For 17 years I have lived my life as I chronic stutterer. I've been blessed with wonderful parents, a brother and sister, who will love me no matter what I do, where I go, or how I speak. I've been able to go through life loved and cared for. I've been well educated and have been able to support myself entirely. I've had good relationships, still have, with friends and loved ones.

However, because I stutter I feel that I have always had to hold back, hold back thoughts, opinions and emotions. I feel that I have not fully developed certain skills that I desire to be better at, skills that I feel that I am supposed to have. I've constantly lived in a certain kind of fear, fear of getting stuck on or not being able to say certain words. This has led to humiliation and other negative hurtful emotions that are now associated with my verbal communication.

I recently became part of a speaking program for stutterers that have shown me the road to freedom. A technique that can give me total control if correctly applied and frequently practised.

I have finally been able to translate my thoughts, Ideas and emotions FULLY to other people without fear or struggle for the first time in my life. It is called the McGuire Programme.

My progress has been TREMENDOUS since I've joined this program and I've had plenty of enjoyable speaking situations.

Unfortunately I still have situations where I hold back, where I avoid, where I stutter uncontrollably and experience the fear I hate. I not am willing to accept this anymore, I refuse to regress to the way I used to speak and have the same experiences. My current living status does not allow me enough speaking situations to improve myself as a speaker, therefore I declare the following.......

I hereby declare war on uncontrolled stuttering.

I declare that I am going to devote a certain amount of time (and money) in my life to improve my speaking skills. I am going to travel the world with the focus on improving my verbal communication skills.

I declare that I am going to do the following.......

• - To let go of my current living status,
• - To attend as many of the McGuire program courses and support groups as possible,
• - To speak to as many people as possible and make friends worldwide,
• - To always practice controlled eloquent speaking,
• - To enter situations I have always feared, to deliberately use words that haunt me,
• - To try and help other stutterers on their way to eloquent speaking,
• - To learn as much from other people and experiences, using that to help and inspire.
• - To improve my skills that I desire to be better at and become a better and eventually eloquent speaker
• - To see the world, grow as person and enjoy my life journey.

I feel that this is an opportunity, necessity and life adventure that I now am able to do and should grab hold of. I believe that by doing this I will conquer my fear of speaking, my fear of people, fear of myself, because that fear will prohibit my survival ......and I WILL survive!

I pray that GOD will guide me on this mission, and I thank all the people in my life that support me and has inspired me to undertake this.  

Hein van der Merwe             18-03-2006            Brooklyn, Pretoria, South Africa