July 17, 2025 • 54 mins
What happens when a man decides to stop performing and start feeling?
In this groundbreaking episode, Kathy sits down with James Burden, a trauma-informed coach and facilitator for men, to unlearn the dangerous conditioning that teaches men to disconnect from their feelings, dismiss their pain, and stay emotionally guarded.
✨ Key Highlights:
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🧠 Crap to Unlearn: “Men don’t cry. Men don’t feel. Men don’t need help.”
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👨👦 James’ personal journey from emotional suppression to powerful vulnerability
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🚨 The societal crisis of emotionally unavailable men and generational shame
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🧱 Signs you’re emotionally blocked (and how to begin releasing it)
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👊 Myths around strength, masculinity, and what it means to “man up”
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⚙️ Trauma responses like freeze, fawn, shutdown — and how they manifest in men
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💥 The hidden grief under anger — and the liberation in facing it
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🎁 James’s resources for men ready to feel, heal, and reclaim their wholeness
James Burden:
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“I thought being strong meant being silent. Turns out, it meant being disconnected.”
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“Every man I’ve ever worked with has been grieving something. They just didn’t have the words.”
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“Masculinity doesn’t need to be fixed — it needs to be felt.”
Kathy Baldwin:
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“We’re not raising boys. We’re raising future men. And the world doesn’t need more shutdown souls.”
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“If our boys don’t learn to feel, they’ll grow up thinking control is connection.”
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“The unlearning begins when we admit the pain was never ours to carry in the first place.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Ready?
(00:01):
I am.
Okay.
Welcome to another episode of Unlearn the Crap
and Level Up Your Soul is Calling.
My name is Kathy Baldwin.
I am your host.
I am here so excited because I was
(00:22):
in the middle of having a conversation with
somebody who I immediately asked if we could
stop our conversation and we could share it
with you, the audience, because this conversation was
getting so juicy and so awesome and so
aligned with the Unlearn the Crap message that
(00:43):
we just stopped everything we were doing and
we are now going to continue our conversation
together.
As you know, Unlearn the Crap is about
unlearning the conditioned responses and automatic programming that
goes into our disempowerment, to our misalignment, that
(01:03):
creates disease.
But Unlearn the Crap is also about the
societal expectations that we're all supposed to fit
into a box, that we're all supposed to
be vanilla, that we're all supposed to be
the same.
And that could not be farther from the
truth.
(01:24):
While I like vanilla, I think vanilla is
a base.
I think vanilla is a place that captures
the essence of what is around us.
As an interior designer in my previous life,
we would need the vanilla to create the
(01:44):
space for the diamonds to shine.
And my guest, James Burden, we are going
to have the most amazing conversation that is
going to show you just how amazing all
the other flavors in the box there are
and how every part of what we do
matters.
(02:05):
Welcome to the conversation, James.
Thank you for having me, Kathy.
I got chills in our previous pre-podcast
conversation and it just got so good.
So I'm glad we're doing this off the
cuff and just going for it.
Absolutely.
I love that when we can capture that
energy that's happening because sometimes when I'm having
(02:27):
pre-interview conversations, we can't replicate and duplicate
the magic that was happening.
And this was just so awesome that I
wanted to stop and capture it right now.
James, before we get too deep into our
conversation, now that you know what unlearning the
crap is about, can you please tell us
(02:49):
what crap you needed to unlearn so that
you could level up?
Oh, this is such a great question.
I had a lot of crap to unlearn.
I had to unlearn the crap of needing
to be the speech therapist that knows stuff
and starting to just meet people as a
(03:12):
human being and instead of as an expert
and really getting into what they need instead
of what I think they need.
So when I was younger, I was trying
to help people speak a certain way and
now it's way different than that.
It's way more about finding the way that
(03:32):
works for them.
So it's very client-centric.
I had to unlearn that and I could
go, I got some other stuff I could,
I had to unlearn if you'd like to
hear that or we can move on.
However you feel called.
You know, okay.
So one of the things I had to
unlearn was this need to always be responsible
(03:57):
and not take too many risks and make
sure the bank account is at a certain
level and don't go into debt because debt
is bad.
And, you know, sometimes you got to take
risks.
Sometimes you got to put yourself out there
publicly, financially, just let it all hang out
and go for it because what you are
(04:19):
working towards is way more meaningful than staying
safe and making sure that bank account doesn't
dip.
So I've taken some big risks and we
will see where they lead.
So that was another thing I had to
unlearn.
Oh, well that unlearning that you just shared
just tells me that we were making the
(04:41):
right decision by immediately capturing this conversation because
I want to know more.
But before we do, James, could you please
introduce yourself to the audience and tell them
who you are and how you serve the
world now that you've unlearned your crap and
you're leveling up?
Okay, well, thank you.
(05:02):
I'm James Burden.
I'm a seasoned speech language pathologist and stuttering
specialist.
I help professionals and entrepreneurs who stutter speak
with conviction and make effortless connection using my
unstoppable voice process.
So that's kind of me in a nutshell.
I love, love that because on so many
(05:24):
levels, one of them is that the fact
that we can either choose to accept or
overcome any adversity we have in the world.
But the most important thing of what I
think you just said is that every single
one of our voices matter.
And we need to be able to find
a way to get that voice out and
(05:47):
have no limitations or barriers to that voice.
I love what you just said because it
completely echoes the National Stuttering Association's mantra, which
is to people who stutter that your voice
matters.
And if I may for a moment, may
I speak directly to your audience because I
(06:08):
know that one in a hundred people listening
stutters and I would love to just address
you for a second.
Okay.
So speaking to people out there who stutter
themselves or know someone who stutters, I just
wanted to say that the stuttering isn't necessarily
(06:31):
the real problem in itself.
It's about what happens after the self-doubt,
the second guessing, the shrinking away from opportunities.
And pretty soon stuttering isn't just affecting how
you talk, it's running the whole show.
So I've worked with clients who've turned down
(06:52):
promotions because they didn't want to have to
speak in front of a team.
They've ghosted interviews because they just couldn't face
the interview or they've skipped weddings or even
dates with people that could have been, who
knows, it could have been someone out there
soulmate and they skipped it because they just
couldn't bear the thought of going out and
possibly stuttering in front of this person.
(07:13):
And not because they're not capable or lovable,
but because they didn't trust they could handle
stuttering in the moment.
But there is a flip side and this
is what I want.
This is the message I want people to
hear.
Speaking can get easier fast with the right
tools and then the confidence grows even faster.
(07:34):
Influency stops feeling like a fight.
I'm not saying it's easy or that there's
a quick fix, but what I'm saying is
when you are in the right group of
people, when you're around other people who are
working towards the same thing with a positive
attitude and you can actually make pretty quick
gains and even the more severe the stutter,
(07:57):
the quicker the gains.
But here's the thing, a lasting change doesn't
come from controlling speech.
It comes from changing how you think about
stuttering.
I've helped countless professionals break free not by
chasing perfect fluency, but by rewiring the way
they show up.
Not avoiding speaking, but just going for it
(08:22):
whether they're stuttering or whether they're using fluency
techniques and this is the real change I
want to see.
So thank you.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
I'm so happy that you said that.
I feel so excited by the way this
conversation is going to go.
(08:43):
But my very first question is unlearning the
crap for me came from my own personal
journey.
It came from everything that I experienced with
my mental health, my fibromyalgia, the breaking down
of my life and who I thought I
(09:04):
was so that I could break open.
Was this path that you're on part of
your own personal journey?
Is that why you're so passionate about it?
Oh, the stuttering itself.
I stutter sometimes when I'm on podcasts.
(09:25):
I have stuttered when I in grade seven
when I tried to ask the first girl
out that I ever wanted to date.
A little young, maybe grade seven, but I
stuttered through that like crazy and those experiences
stuck with me.
However, I wouldn't say I identify as a
person who stutters.
I haven't had the full lived experience that
(09:46):
many of my clients have.
But let me tell you, I have lived
with shame.
I have lived with everything crumbling around me
and I've come through that and I can
share that story in a minute if you'd
like.
But no, the stuttering apart from a few
incidences of which I think we can all
resonate with, we've all done it sometimes.
(10:07):
I don't want to say I've lived that
full experience though.
Okay, so how did your journey bring you
to this place?
Obviously you were soul or universally guided.
I 100% feel that.
How I got to become a fluency specialist
(10:32):
or a stuttering specialist, however you want to
call it, it started right even before I
was a speech therapist.
I was in grad school.
I started working.
I got invited to be a part of
a practicum, which was a 10-day intensive
stuttering workshop for adults.
(10:53):
So this was my start.
And I watched 10 adults go from intense
stuttering to perfect fluency or close to perfect
fluency in those 10 days.
These guys had to work for it.
I had to work for it.
We were doing eight hours a day, then
(11:14):
they had homework.
It was my job to mark the homework
and make sure everyone was doing their practice
constantly, constantly using this slow, flowy way of
speaking and then speeding it up to make
it sound natural.
Lots of evidence behind it worked like a
charm.
Amazing.
I thought this is the cure.
But as we know, there is no cure
(11:35):
for stuttering.
There can't be a cure for stuttering because
stuttering is a normal part of the human
spectrum.
It's been recognized as a neurodiversity now or
a neurodivergence, much like ADHD, autism.
(11:56):
Left-handedness is my favorite one.
The reason I like left-handedness is because
in the old days, people used to get
punished for being left-handed.
And now everyone looks at people like they'd
be crazy to do that.
And I want the same for stuttering.
People shouldn't be looking at stuttering as something
that's wrong with a person.
It's just something that we all do.
(12:17):
And some people do it more.
And they can be helped to speak more
fluently.
But just because they stutter doesn't mean they're
not confident, doesn't mean they don't know what
they're talking about, certainly doesn't mean they're stupid.
In fact, there was a couple studies to
check out whether people who stutter were actually
smarter than average.
(12:38):
And the evidence didn't come back quite reliable,
but that's what they're studying.
They're not studying to see if they're less
intelligent, but more.
So this is the kind of things we
need to get out there.
Actually, I have a little master class, which
I'll talk about at the end, which gives
(12:59):
you more information directly for anyone who stutters
or knows someone who stutters.
That master class is more directed to the
person and how we can make changes and
what's going on rather than this is more
of a conversation.
But I just want to allude to that
right now.
Absolutely.
So I'm a parent and my firstborn, he
(13:25):
did not speak very early.
And what happened was his nonverbal or guttural
sounds that he made, I understood.
And so we had developed this rhythm that
came about where we just existed.
(13:45):
And at some point, I think my son
was in his third year somehow, finally took
him to a speech pathologist.
And the speech pathologist said to me, we
need to teach you, not him, we need
to teach you.
And what came about was, I was not
giving my son the space to speak.
(14:08):
As a mother who was taught efficiency, the
minute I first understood what my son was
trying to communicate, I just went on and
I didn't give him the time or the
space to allow him to get his message
out.
And so I realized that his lack of
(14:31):
speaking had nothing to do with him, but
the environment that he was in.
Is that kind of what you're talking about
here in helping people to find their voice
and the strength is being given the environment?
That is 100% what I'm talking about.
(14:53):
Now, my program right now is aimed at
adults and the environment that we create is
a safe space where people can come and
make choices on how they want to approach
their stutter.
Do they want to work on fluency and
get it very, very smooth and be able
to go to meetings and presentations and be
(15:14):
able to bang out a full presentation without
stuttering?
That's okay.
It's also very much okay.
And I get really excited by this one
is when people are like, I am okay
to stutter openly, not with everybody, but with
some friends.
And when I'm stutter openly with those friends,
I get some good feedback.
I feel good about myself, or I stutter
(15:36):
openly in the group that I'm creating of
other people who stutter.
And it starts to feel like this is
not a flaw.
This is just a difference.
And taking that strength out into the world
and challenging yourself to go into harder and
harder situations in small increments is how we
(15:58):
build that confidence.
But I loved what you were talking about
because I'm actually currently just to help me
bridge the gap a little bit, but I'm
working with a couple of parents who have
a little two-and-a-half-year-old
who's stuttering.
And the kind of things we're doing, we're
not trying to teach him a way of
(16:20):
speaking that makes him not stutter.
We're giving them special time.
So mom, they take turns.
Dad takes some time with their little two
-and-a-half-year-old and mom's with
the older brother.
And then they switch and each kid gets
their own time and they sit on the
floor and they discuss with each other.
And she follows, they follow his lead and
(16:41):
they don't ask too many questions.
All of these things will help a child
feel like they have the space to communicate.
And it just sounds like a lot what
your SLP, your speech therapist, taught you when
your son was three.
So that totally resonates.
Okay.
So now I have another question.
One of the other components about unlearn the
(17:03):
crap is our central nervous system.
And that how our central nervous system creates
these programs that have our brain saying you're
in safety here.
Is stuttering equivalent to using um?
(17:24):
That is giving space for the brain to
catch up to the thought process.
That it's creating a space is the only
thing I can think of.
Am I understanding and thinking of it correctly?
I would probably caution against that particular line
(17:45):
of thinking.
We recognize stuttering as a neurodiversity.
It is a normal thing that happens.
It's not so much making space for thinking.
There's certainly some ideas that processing speed of
language might have some effect on speaking.
(18:07):
I know if we, especially with children, if
we increase the pressure of language, we will
see an increase in stuttering.
And in some cases, with children especially, you
will see the I, I, I, and then
I want my teddy bear or something.
Because they're trying to think of what they're
(18:27):
going to say.
So in that sense, yes.
But for most adults who have gotten to
this, to an adult age and they're still
stuttering, this is not a strategy.
This is not a habit.
I mean, some people talk about it like
a habit.
I don't think of it as a habit.
It is just something that happens.
Stuttering isn't caused, except in very small situations,
(18:51):
a very minor subset of people that have
had a brain injury or a stroke or
a tumor or something.
That very, very tiny portion, for the most
part, 95% plus, is just a different
way the mind works.
And I think I really want to get
that message across, as opposed to it being
(19:12):
a habit or a strategy.
Because I don't think that will resonate with
the lived experience of the people that I
work with.
Okay, I'm not sure that I meant to
say a habit or a strategy.
Because everything that the brain does, it does
it based on what works.
(19:35):
And so what I was thinking, as I
was asking that question, was, if the brain
has created a way of communicating, that works,
there's no need to learn anything else, because
our brains are designed to be the most
efficient vessel possible.
(19:57):
And it's looking for the recipe to have
us on autopilot.
Are you breaking autopilot?
When you're relearning or unlearning something that no
longer is empowering?
No.
Yeah, because, um, what starts as everything starts
(20:21):
as what worked in the moment, addictions started
by a coping thing that worked in the
moment, and the brain goes, Oh, this is
it.
This is what we do.
This worked.
And we our brain knows it worked because
we're still alive.
And that's all our brain cares about.
Our primal brain is Am I alive?
Am I breathing?
(20:42):
Because that's all it cares about.
It doesn't care about happy, healthy, wealthy, anything
else.
It's just looking for the recipe that says
this works.
Okay, now we can focus in on the
other problems.
This is no longer a problem.
We've got the recipe.
Okay, okay.
So that makes sense to me now.
(21:04):
And in a, you know, maybe in a
traditional, like, back in the old days, when
we were hunter gatherers, and we weren't communicating
so much information all the time, that might
have been a good brain strategy.
It just didn't matter so much if you're,
if you're not trying to communicate these massive
amounts of data and concepts and all this
(21:25):
kind of stuff.
Here's where that broke down.
For the most part, and I can't think
of a culture that isn't like this.
Stuttering is viewed as something wrong, especially by
the people that are doing it.
And there is a shame associated with that.
(21:47):
There is a I'm broken.
And I only can be okay if I
speak a certain way.
And I will do anything in my power
to not seem broken in front of others.
So what ends up happening is so much
of the thought process goes into don't stutter,
don't stutter, don't stutter, don't stutter, don't let
(22:08):
them see you stutter, don't show any weakness.
It even that it is weakness, it's not.
But even that is weakness is part of
that programming, that self programming, unlearning the crap,
in this case, is unlearning a ton of
stuff that comes from trauma, from people teasing
(22:29):
or making fun of you when you're a
kid, from a from a parent who wanted
the best for you, but was really, really
worried and looked really concerned every time you
stuttered to a teacher.
Teachers aren't even always well educated in this.
I mean, I'm not dissing teachers at all.
I love teachers.
I've worked with teachers for years.
But some adults, let's say, in the child's
(22:53):
environment might not know that it's just a
part of normal, and they are not treating
these kids in a way that builds them
up.
So it's I'm not blaming teachers.
I'm not blaming any particular adult.
But these kinds of conversations where I get
to talk about this, and get to spread
the word, this is part of normal.
(23:13):
That's what starts to break down these judgments,
these biases that we have that are not
based in fact.
Love it, love it, love it.
One of the things that you just said,
triggered what actually today's episode that will be
(23:33):
airing on the day that you and I
are recording this, and the episode is called,
You're Not Broken, You're Becoming.
And we talk about those things that are
challenging and painful, and stressful.
The only way that we can come out
of autopilot is to have some of these
(23:58):
things happening around us that say, pay attention,
come to make a decision.
And so that stuttering is sounds like it's
a natural part of the becoming of the
person.
But when we have things like shame, and
shame is the lowest vibration, vibrating emotion that
(24:21):
exists.
And it is a non natural human emotion,
because it's an external judgment.
It is not part of the emotion scale
of fear and anger and happiness and joy,
like any of the other human emotion, shame
is an external judgment.
(24:43):
And that is another thing that hits our
primal brain, because the part of our primal
brain says I must belong, or I'm in
danger.
And so when we have these societal expectations
that we're all supposed to do things the
(25:03):
same way, at the same time, and like
I was saying at the beginning become vanilla,
there's a lot of pressure and a lot
of shame.
And that creates so much disempowerment and so
much disease in our body.
Well, it's funny, you should mention that because
(25:23):
I, I definitely got a disease from overstressing
and feeling too much shame.
I, at least that's where I think it
came from.
I, this last year, three years, I've had
a divorce, I lost a beloved pet, I
had a massive financial crisis, I got diagnosed
(25:45):
with a brain tumor, I waited for surgery,
got surgery on that, recovered from that, all
the while trying to build this business.
Then when I'm building my program, I started
building this sort of based on the way
I'd already done and always had done stuttering
(26:07):
therapy, which was based on this speech.
And I reached out to a past client
who had been an amazing client, really worked
hard at it, had gone from stuttering sort
of moderately to severely, and was at that
time speaking very, very fluently, and was feeling
(26:29):
confident out in the world doing stuff.
So I checked in with him when I
was building this.
And I realized, he looked at me through
the Zoom screen and he said, James, I
don't know what happened.
I just started slipping back into old habits,
avoiding words, avoiding speaking situations, avoiding opportunities to
(26:51):
grow in my career.
And he almost like was talking to me
as if he'd let me down.
And when I heard this, there was a
rock in my stomach.
And I was like, I have failed this
person.
I have failed this person I consider a
friend.
And I was not able to help him
in the long run.
(27:11):
So I went on my own shame spiral,
just to add to all of the tumor
and the divorce and the financial crisis.
Now the one thing that I had to
hold on to, which was that I was
a good stuttering therapist, that also crumbled.
And I ended up meeting with another friend
who told me, sent me down the path
of looking into ableism.
(27:32):
What is ableism?
Like the idea that people who are disabled
are somehow less.
When it comes to stuttering, if you don't
talk right, you're less.
It's total BS.
It's crap, actually.
And so I went on a shame spiral
(27:53):
thinking, now I'm a bad therapist.
But instead of giving up, instead of throwing
in the towel saying, I'm not going to
work on this because I'm not good enough,
which is what every fiber of my being
was telling me to do.
I was like, absolutely not.
There's so few stuttering specialists compared to the
amount of people who stutter in this world.
(28:14):
And if I take my voice away, especially
my voice, which is now starting to get
it, then I'm doing a disservice to the
world.
So I had to keep going.
I had to take those financial risks and
I had to put myself out there and
risk people not agreeing with me and telling
me I have stupid ideas or whatever it
(28:34):
is in order to bring this message home.
But people like you are letting me do
that and I really appreciate that.
Oh, my pleasure.
Can I share my perspective on what you
just shared?
Please.
I think you hit a place that I
(28:57):
hit as well, which was you hit a
level of competency and the world says, no,
we need you to level up, which means
you had to break down that complacency.
You had to face some of some things
that allowed you to look at how it
(29:21):
could be different and better and evolve.
And that what that shame spiral was, thank
God you caught it.
And instead said, what is the lesson from
this and how can I use it to
level up?
And you actually honed your message and your
(29:45):
expertise and leveled it up into the world.
Is that what happened for you?
Because that's what I heard.
I'm getting chills right now.
Yeah, because I literally just had them.
That is the journey.
And in order to make it through that
(30:05):
journey, it wasn't just sitting at my computer
working.
I went traveling.
I went to Nepal.
I did volunteer work.
I went and did this thing called Vipassana,
which is a 10-day silent meditation retreat.
I went to India and searched out my
grandfather's home.
He used to live there when I was
(30:26):
a kid.
No, long before I was born.
He was a tea planter in India.
And then I came to Mexico and sat
with one of my friends, who's kind of
like my spiritual guide.
And all of those things allowed me to
move through the shame.
It wasn't easy.
And I think, and I think there's a
(30:48):
possibility I might get some irritated people who's
deader with me for saying this, but I
think that this could be for some people
the same thing that I needed to move
through to level up.
If I can help other people move through
something as hard and traumatic and terrible, and
(31:11):
I don't take away any of that, but
if I can help people move through that,
then I can help them level up.
And who knows what they can do.
And we need everybody's voice in this world.
It is getting messed up and awesome at
the same time.
And we need the awesome to outweigh the
messed up.
And we'll need everybody's voice.
(31:32):
And people who stutter are some of the
voices we absolutely need.
I could not agree with you more.
I believe we're in a massive paradigm shift.
And we, our society for the last couple
of thousand years, since the dark ages, has
been on a trajectory that has taken us
(31:54):
so far off center.
And we have the rise of technology and
AI and robotics that are undoing the societal
structures that were built all around the industrial
revolution, where we didn't need everyone's individual voices,
because it was all about conformity and replaceability
(32:16):
and all of us being duplicatable and replaceable.
And we're moving into a place that I,
well, futurists are predicting that in the next
10 years, we're going to see the equivalent
of the last hundred years of advancements.
(32:36):
And what I see happening with that is,
if technology and AI and robotics are going
to take over the manual repetitive laborious jobs,
where does that leave us?
And that leaves us as humans.
(32:56):
That leaves us to bring the whole depth
of our human experience to level up, where
our love and our empathy and our compassion
and our imagination and our creativity and our
problem solving and our empathy, all of these
(33:17):
things where we work in collaboration and cooperation,
where one of us who is having a
spiritual awakening or a difficult time, or struggling,
we create safe space and safety for them
to have that in place.
And we hold that space because we say,
(33:38):
you matter.
You matter.
And we're going to help you through this
by giving you the space and resources because
we need you to level up to be
your best because your voice, your message, your
gift matters.
I couldn't agree more.
(34:00):
I think this is where we're already seeing
the rise of coaching as an industry.
What is coaching?
Coaching is human to human.
I'm going to help you with a problem
that I understand.
It's not a construction or a physical job
that could be replaced by computers or could
(34:22):
be replaced by AI or robots.
This is human to human.
And this is why we're seeing a rise
in it.
And I think we're going to continue to
see a rise in it.
And the way a human can help another
human is just not even possible to be
(34:42):
done by AI.
And there's so many things that are possible
to be done by AI.
I use it all day, every day.
I'm well vested in AI.
I'm not anti-AI.
But I know it's the current limitations.
Maybe that'll change.
I don't think so.
Can I share a client story with you
(35:04):
which I think kind of speaks to this
point?
My current client joined about a month ago.
She's not even finished the program yet, but
she is already just thriving.
She started out a bit hesitant because she
(35:25):
didn't try things before, being a speech therapist,
and it hadn't worked out.
She wanted change, but she just didn't know
it was going to work.
But she showed up anyway.
She's been showing up every day that we
have a session.
She shows up and she puts her full
game in there.
But honestly, apart from meeting with me, it's
(35:47):
only 15 minutes a day.
And her stuttering has dropped off really fast.
That's only part of the process.
As I say, controlling the speech is only
half.
But that's what steady, consistent practice can do
with an evidence-based system which has been
around for a long time.
The trouble that people think it doesn't work
(36:09):
because of not having the mindset piece in
there.
So sometimes long term, it won't be effective
if you're not also working on feeling safe,
feeling grounded, feeling okay as a person who
stutters.
And that's the biggest shift I'm seeing in
my client, her mindset.
(36:30):
She's finally realizing she doesn't have to sound
perfect, especially not with close friends, family.
And letting go of that constant pressure in
the low stakes moments is exactly what's giving
her the confidence to rise in the high
stakes ones.
And that's counterintuitive to many people who stutter,
who are living in this world where they're
(36:53):
just trying not to stutter at any time.
And I think what happens, I've heard this
from many clients, they worry that if they
start to stutter, they won't be able to
stop.
Whereas I'm saying it actually kind of works
in a different direction.
If you allow yourself to stutter and feel
okay with it with people that you are
close to, you can start to feel like
(37:16):
if you stutter in front of somebody, it's
not going to throw you off.
It's not going to send you on a
spiral or a snowball of stuttering.
Because here's the thing, stuttering, stumbling, it doesn't
mean there's something wrong.
We all trip over our words sometimes.
(37:37):
And speech is one of the complex things
that we do.
It takes, we have to coordinate your brain,
lungs, vocal cord, tongue, what am I forgetting,
lips, jaw, all in real time.
And when there's a breakdown, we think it's
a problem.
(37:57):
Yeah.
Sorry, one of the things I love about
these different conversations is that even though your
particular expertise is on speech pathology and focus
in stuttering, is that we have these life
(38:18):
lessons that we can apply for so many
other circumstances.
And so while you were talking about being
given permission to not be this polished perfect
ideal of what we've, the crap we've been
taught that it has to be.
One of the other things that we were
(38:39):
taught was don't show your emotions.
And we were not taught that our emotions
are our information.
And so for me, for example, when I
get really passionate about something, I tend to
cry, or I laugh.
(39:01):
And these are nervous system things that happen
that our body is bringing us back into
homeostasis back into a state of rhythm.
But it's that acceptance that yes, I may
get emotional and I may have a tear
come.
But that's okay, because that's how I'm living
(39:23):
in alignment of my authenticity, and that it's
okay to be open and vulnerable.
Is that what your client is getting the
message that she's okay, just like she is?
Yes.
And I'm not saying that she's going to
(39:43):
go out and like go to a job
interview and stutter through it or make a
presentation.
She might use her skills for that.
But at other times, friends, family, even coworkers
that she's closer with, it's not such a
big deal to let one out once in
a while.
And if you're living in this place where
(40:05):
you can't ever let one out, then the
fear actually builds up, because there's no evidence
of stuttering and someone not reacting to it,
just being like, whatever.
And as we spread the word, as the
National Stuttering Association does its thing, as more
(40:27):
people watch things like my masterclass and start
to realize what stuttering really is, and what
isn't, the need to constantly protect ourselves goes
down, and we can show our flawed selves.
(40:49):
And there's so much real connection comes from
showing that.
I've had conversations, and because we have a
vulnerable conversation like this, the camera turns off,
and then we have a really close connection,
and I've started to build relationships with people.
Podcasting isn't just about, you know, here's my
(41:12):
thing, try and sell it.
It's like creating relationships, spreading the word, being
a part of this movement that is moving
us towards what you were talking about as
a society, people changing the world.
I know I'm excitable, but it's real.
Oh, well, that was the whole reason that
(41:34):
we decided to immediately capture this, because I
wanted that passion, and I wanted that excitement
that is coming out of you.
I'm going to share a story that I
just recently saw, okay?
Part of the crap that I needed to
unlearn was this thing that I had in
(41:58):
my head, the bodily functions were not acceptable.
It turned out it came from a joke.
My mother, my whole growing up life would
say things like, I'm so perfect that I
don't even have bodily functions, and she would
say it in the voice, right?
So it was so sarcastic, it was so
(42:21):
dramatic, it was so anything, but in my
head, I had taken that, that if I
have bodily functions, that I'm not perfect, and
there's something wrong with me, and I created
disease.
Well, I recently saw a video on one
of the social medias, and this woman was
(42:43):
in a gym, and she was in the
women's bathroom, and somebody, there was a couple
of women in the stalls, and one of
the women let out a massive fart, a
big gas in it, and all of a
sudden, she said, you could feel the energy
in the bathroom, and a woman beside her,
(43:04):
in solidarity, let out a fart, and the
woman who was at the sink said, it
was such a moment of saying, it's okay,
it's okay, you do not need to be
ashamed that you had a bodily function, it's
okay, you're in a safe place, and I,
(43:29):
as you were talking, about this acceptance of
not having this plastic version of who we're
supposed to be, that story came into my
mind, and that's why, if you saw me
break out into a smile, it was because
part of the way I work is I
(43:50):
get stories that come to me, and so
I trust when the universe is giving me
something that seems totally unrelated, that I need
to share it.
Um, that's what that was about.
I know, I love it, I love it.
You know, you use the word acceptance, and
that, that, I'm in a lot of stuttering
(44:12):
support groups online, and just to lay the
finger on the pulse, so to speak, and
I have mentioned stuttering acceptance, and got some
pretty serious blowback, and the blowback is being
like, I don't want to accept this, I
want to speak fluently, I don't, I don't
(44:32):
accept this, and I wanted to, I just
want to speak to those people, because I
think when I talk about acceptance, I'm not
saying passive acceptance, I'm not saying resignation, I'm
not saying that you should just accept it,
you're good enough as you are, just go
ahead and stutter, and you know, it doesn't
(44:54):
matter, and you're fine, and that, that is,
that is just, that's dismissive, is what that
is.
What I am saying, but yeah, it's dismissive
of all of the things people have been
through, all the trauma they've lived through, everything
that they've gone through, and I'm just saying,
oh, it's not a big deal, that is
not what I'm saying.
When I talk about acceptance, I am talking
(45:17):
about accepting oneself, accepting oneself, one's own humanity,
and if you wish to change an aspect
of yourself, you can, but do it from
a loving place, for yourself.
(45:38):
Self-love looked at the way we look
at a child.
Well, you don't love your kid because they
get good grades, you don't love your kid
because they're a pretty kid, you don't love
your kid because they are always, they keep
(46:01):
their room clean, right?
Those are things they do.
Sorry?
That's conditional, that's conditional love.
Exactly.
We, when you love, most parents love their
kid just because they're their kid, and that
kind of love, or you love your dog
just because you, because they're your dog, even
(46:22):
when they poop on the floor, you can
still love the dog, right?
Unconditional love, and we can accept ourselves, and
that's the kind of acceptance I'm talking about,
and the way I get there in my
program is acceptance and commitment therapy, which is
(46:44):
all about, it's got a lot of stuff
to do with accepting what is, and you
know, you're going to have thoughts, you're going
to have thoughts about stuttering, especially if you're
a person who stutters.
They're not going to necessarily be positive, and
the point is not to suppress those thoughts,
(47:07):
or get rid of those thoughts, it's to
observe those thoughts and realize that they aren't,
you don't have to believe them.
We always have random thoughts.
It doesn't mean they're true.
Absolutely, absolutely.
(47:29):
We have dark thoughts, we have light thoughts,
we have random thoughts, but they're fleeting.
They come and they go.
It's only what we put our focus on
that matters, and I want to draw a
connection to what you were talking about with
acceptance in forgiveness, and because so many times
(47:52):
people say, I can only forgive if that
didn't happen, but getting to forgiveness is saying,
I accept it didn't happen.
I accept it was bad, or it was,
it didn't work, or whatever it was.
I accept that that was my reality, and
(48:16):
I let it go.
I choose to cut the ties of disempowerment
to that, and that's what forgiveness is.
So if we can get to a place
of personal forgiveness, which in my own personal
healing journey was the most difficult thing I
had to do was look in my own
(48:37):
eyes and say, I forgive you for not
being perfect.
I forgive myself for letting myself down.
I forgive myself for betraying myself, and if
we can get to a place of acceptance,
free of judgment, of unconditional love, I'm pausing
(49:00):
because you're going in and out.
Okay, let me know when I'm back.
If we can get to a place of
true self-love, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, free
(49:20):
of judgment, where we beat ourselves up for
not meeting this ridiculous externally imposed upon ideal
of what we are supposed to be, and
we just accept we are, perfect just the
way we are.
(49:43):
I love this.
I love this sentiment.
Well, I think we've come to a perfect
place for me to ask James, for those
people who are listening, and they're looking for
coach, mentor, support, because we all need help,
(50:06):
and the greatest point of strength is accepting
that I need help in this and asking
for it.
How do you serve, and how can they
find you?
Well, currently, I'm serving using an online coaching
(50:27):
service, so you can do it from the
comfort and privacy of your own home.
We're all about getting people together, working on
stuttering together, and I think the best way
is to start by watching the master class.
It's only 19 minutes.
It's called Discover the Three-Step System that
(50:49):
Helps Professionals and Entrepreneurs Who Stutter to Speak
with Conviction, so they can confidently stand out
in meetings, impress clients, and go after their
goals without constantly worrying about their speech.
So, if that resonates with you, or even
if you're not a professional and you just
want to reach out and check out the
(51:11):
master class, that'll send you to a link,
and maybe you can put this link to
book a time with me.
It's always free to talk to me at
first.
I just want to get to know people
and see if they're ready for this, because
it's a very personal journey, and I'm not
going to pressure anyone to start it, but
if you invite me to work with you,
(51:32):
I'd be honored.
Oh, I love that.
James, thank you for your ability to go
with the flow and capture the passion and
excitement of our conversation, and meet with me
today.
Thank you for your passion in helping others
(51:54):
step into their zone of genius and remove
any of the roadblocks that are in their
way through their speech so that they can
find their voice, because I believe with all
of my heart and being that every single
one of us is here for a reason,
that we all matter, and that it is
(52:16):
when we step into our zone of genius
and we accept where we need help and
we're being challenged and we reach out and
we work together in collaboration and cooperation that
we're going to create the world that the
world is calling for.
Thank you for being with me.
(52:36):
Thank you for having me.
Until next time, remember to challenge everything so
that you can accomplish anything.
You matter, your voice matters, and the world
is waiting for you to level up.
Make sure to subscribe, share, comment, share a
(53:00):
review, and continue to join us on Unlearn
the Crap and Level Up Your Soul's Calling.
My name is Kathy Baldwin and I thank
you for being with us.
Ready?
(00:01):
I am.
Okay.
Welcome to another episode of Unlearn the Crap
and Level Up Your Soul is Calling.
My name is Kathy Baldwin.
I am your host.
I am here so excited because I was
(00:22):
in the middle of having a conversation with
somebody who I immediately asked if we could
stop our conversation and we could share it
with you, the audience, because this conversation was
getting so juicy and so awesome and so
aligned with the Unlearn the Crap message that
(00:43):
we just stopped everything we were doing and
we are now going to continue our conversation
together.
As you know, Unlearn the Crap is about
unlearning the conditioned responses and automatic programming that
goes into our disempowerment, to our misalignment, that
(01:03):
creates disease.
But Unlearn the Crap is also about the
societal expectations that we're all supposed to fit
into a box, that we're all supposed to
be vanilla, that we're all supposed to be
the same.
And that could not be farther from the
truth.
(01:24):
While I like vanilla, I think vanilla is
a base.
I think vanilla is a place that captures
the essence of what is around us.
As an interior designer in my previous life,
we would need the vanilla to create the
(01:44):
space for the diamonds to shine.
And my guest, James Burden, we are going
to have the most amazing conversation that is
going to show you just how amazing all
the other flavors in the box there are
and how every part of what we do
matters.
(02:05):
Welcome to the conversation, James.
Thank you for having me, Kathy.
I got chills in our previous pre-podcast
conversation and it just got so good.
So I'm glad we're doing this off the
cuff and just going for it.
Absolutely.
I love that when we can capture that
energy that's happening because sometimes when I'm having
(02:27):
pre-interview conversations, we can't replicate and duplicate
the magic that was happening.
And this was just so awesome that I
wanted to stop and capture it right now.
James, before we get too deep into our
conversation, now that you know what unlearning the
crap is about, can you please tell us
(02:49):
what crap you needed to unlearn so that
you could level up?
Oh, this is such a great question.
I had a lot of crap to unlearn.
I had to unlearn the crap of needing
to be the speech therapist that knows stuff
and starting to just meet people as a
(03:12):
human being and instead of as an expert
and really getting into what they need instead
of what I think they need.
So when I was younger, I was trying
to help people speak a certain way and
now it's way different than that.
It's way more about finding the way that
(03:32):
works for them.
So it's very client-centric.
I had to unlearn that and I could
go, I got some other stuff I could,
I had to unlearn if you'd like to
hear that or we can move on.
However you feel called.
You know, okay.
So one of the things I had to
unlearn was this need to always be responsible
(03:57):
and not take too many risks and make
sure the bank account is at a certain
level and don't go into debt because debt
is bad.
And, you know, sometimes you got to take
risks.
Sometimes you got to put yourself out there
publicly, financially, just let it all hang out
and go for it because what you are
(04:19):
working towards is way more meaningful than staying
safe and making sure that bank account doesn't
dip.
So I've taken some big risks and we
will see where they lead.
So that was another thing I had to
unlearn.
Oh, well that unlearning that you just shared
just tells me that we were making the
(04:41):
right decision by immediately capturing this conversation because
I want to know more.
But before we do, James, could you please
introduce yourself to the audience and tell them
who you are and how you serve the
world now that you've unlearned your crap and
you're leveling up?
Okay, well, thank you.
(05:02):
I'm James Burden.
I'm a seasoned speech language pathologist and stuttering
specialist.
I help professionals and entrepreneurs who stutter speak
with conviction and make effortless connection using my
unstoppable voice process.
So that's kind of me in a nutshell.
I love, love that because on so many
(05:24):
levels, one of them is that the fact
that we can either choose to accept or
overcome any adversity we have in the world.
But the most important thing of what I
think you just said is that every single
one of our voices matter.
And we need to be able to find
a way to get that voice out and
(05:47):
have no limitations or barriers to that voice.
I love what you just said because it
completely echoes the National Stuttering Association's mantra, which
is to people who stutter that your voice
matters.
And if I may for a moment, may
I speak directly to your audience because I
(06:08):
know that one in a hundred people listening
stutters and I would love to just address
you for a second.
Okay.
So speaking to people out there who stutter
themselves or know someone who stutters, I just
wanted to say that the stuttering isn't necessarily
(06:31):
the real problem in itself.
It's about what happens after the self-doubt,
the second guessing, the shrinking away from opportunities.
And pretty soon stuttering isn't just affecting how
you talk, it's running the whole show.
So I've worked with clients who've turned down
(06:52):
promotions because they didn't want to have to
speak in front of a team.
They've ghosted interviews because they just couldn't face
the interview or they've skipped weddings or even
dates with people that could have been, who
knows, it could have been someone out there
soulmate and they skipped it because they just
couldn't bear the thought of going out and
possibly stuttering in front of this person.
(07:13):
And not because they're not capable or lovable,
but because they didn't trust they could handle
stuttering in the moment.
But there is a flip side and this
is what I want.
This is the message I want people to
hear.
Speaking can get easier fast with the right
tools and then the confidence grows even faster.
(07:34):
Influency stops feeling like a fight.
I'm not saying it's easy or that there's
a quick fix, but what I'm saying is
when you are in the right group of
people, when you're around other people who are
working towards the same thing with a positive
attitude and you can actually make pretty quick
gains and even the more severe the stutter,
(07:57):
the quicker the gains.
But here's the thing, a lasting change doesn't
come from controlling speech.
It comes from changing how you think about
stuttering.
I've helped countless professionals break free not by
chasing perfect fluency, but by rewiring the way
they show up.
Not avoiding speaking, but just going for it
(08:22):
whether they're stuttering or whether they're using fluency
techniques and this is the real change I
want to see.
So thank you.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
I'm so happy that you said that.
I feel so excited by the way this
conversation is going to go.
(08:43):
But my very first question is unlearning the
crap for me came from my own personal
journey.
It came from everything that I experienced with
my mental health, my fibromyalgia, the breaking down
of my life and who I thought I
(09:04):
was so that I could break open.
Was this path that you're on part of
your own personal journey?
Is that why you're so passionate about it?
Oh, the stuttering itself.
I stutter sometimes when I'm on podcasts.
(09:25):
I have stuttered when I in grade seven
when I tried to ask the first girl
out that I ever wanted to date.
A little young, maybe grade seven, but I
stuttered through that like crazy and those experiences
stuck with me.
However, I wouldn't say I identify as a
person who stutters.
I haven't had the full lived experience that
(09:46):
many of my clients have.
But let me tell you, I have lived
with shame.
I have lived with everything crumbling around me
and I've come through that and I can
share that story in a minute if you'd
like.
But no, the stuttering apart from a few
incidences of which I think we can all
resonate with, we've all done it sometimes.
(10:07):
I don't want to say I've lived that
full experience though.
Okay, so how did your journey bring you
to this place?
Obviously you were soul or universally guided.
I 100% feel that.
How I got to become a fluency specialist
(10:32):
or a stuttering specialist, however you want to
call it, it started right even before I
was a speech therapist.
I was in grad school.
I started working.
I got invited to be a part of
a practicum, which was a 10-day intensive
stuttering workshop for adults.
(10:53):
So this was my start.
And I watched 10 adults go from intense
stuttering to perfect fluency or close to perfect
fluency in those 10 days.
These guys had to work for it.
I had to work for it.
We were doing eight hours a day, then
(11:14):
they had homework.
It was my job to mark the homework
and make sure everyone was doing their practice
constantly, constantly using this slow, flowy way of
speaking and then speeding it up to make
it sound natural.
Lots of evidence behind it worked like a
charm.
Amazing.
I thought this is the cure.
But as we know, there is no cure
(11:35):
for stuttering.
There can't be a cure for stuttering because
stuttering is a normal part of the human
spectrum.
It's been recognized as a neurodiversity now or
a neurodivergence, much like ADHD, autism.
(11:56):
Left-handedness is my favorite one.
The reason I like left-handedness is because
in the old days, people used to get
punished for being left-handed.
And now everyone looks at people like they'd
be crazy to do that.
And I want the same for stuttering.
People shouldn't be looking at stuttering as something
that's wrong with a person.
It's just something that we all do.
(12:17):
And some people do it more.
And they can be helped to speak more
fluently.
But just because they stutter doesn't mean they're
not confident, doesn't mean they don't know what
they're talking about, certainly doesn't mean they're stupid.
In fact, there was a couple studies to
check out whether people who stutter were actually
smarter than average.
(12:38):
And the evidence didn't come back quite reliable,
but that's what they're studying.
They're not studying to see if they're less
intelligent, but more.
So this is the kind of things we
need to get out there.
Actually, I have a little master class, which
I'll talk about at the end, which gives
(12:59):
you more information directly for anyone who stutters
or knows someone who stutters.
That master class is more directed to the
person and how we can make changes and
what's going on rather than this is more
of a conversation.
But I just want to allude to that
right now.
Absolutely.
So I'm a parent and my firstborn, he
(13:25):
did not speak very early.
And what happened was his nonverbal or guttural
sounds that he made, I understood.
And so we had developed this rhythm that
came about where we just existed.
(13:45):
And at some point, I think my son
was in his third year somehow, finally took
him to a speech pathologist.
And the speech pathologist said to me, we
need to teach you, not him, we need
to teach you.
And what came about was, I was not
giving my son the space to speak.
(14:08):
As a mother who was taught efficiency, the
minute I first understood what my son was
trying to communicate, I just went on and
I didn't give him the time or the
space to allow him to get his message
out.
And so I realized that his lack of
(14:31):
speaking had nothing to do with him, but
the environment that he was in.
Is that kind of what you're talking about
here in helping people to find their voice
and the strength is being given the environment?
That is 100% what I'm talking about.
(14:53):
Now, my program right now is aimed at
adults and the environment that we create is
a safe space where people can come and
make choices on how they want to approach
their stutter.
Do they want to work on fluency and
get it very, very smooth and be able
to go to meetings and presentations and be
(15:14):
able to bang out a full presentation without
stuttering?
That's okay.
It's also very much okay.
And I get really excited by this one
is when people are like, I am okay
to stutter openly, not with everybody, but with
some friends.
And when I'm stutter openly with those friends,
I get some good feedback.
I feel good about myself, or I stutter
(15:36):
openly in the group that I'm creating of
other people who stutter.
And it starts to feel like this is
not a flaw.
This is just a difference.
And taking that strength out into the world
and challenging yourself to go into harder and
harder situations in small increments is how we
(15:58):
build that confidence.
But I loved what you were talking about
because I'm actually currently just to help me
bridge the gap a little bit, but I'm
working with a couple of parents who have
a little two-and-a-half-year-old
who's stuttering.
And the kind of things we're doing, we're
not trying to teach him a way of
(16:20):
speaking that makes him not stutter.
We're giving them special time.
So mom, they take turns.
Dad takes some time with their little two
-and-a-half-year-old and mom's with
the older brother.
And then they switch and each kid gets
their own time and they sit on the
floor and they discuss with each other.
And she follows, they follow his lead and
(16:41):
they don't ask too many questions.
All of these things will help a child
feel like they have the space to communicate.
And it just sounds like a lot what
your SLP, your speech therapist, taught you when
your son was three.
So that totally resonates.
Okay.
So now I have another question.
One of the other components about unlearn the
(17:03):
crap is our central nervous system.
And that how our central nervous system creates
these programs that have our brain saying you're
in safety here.
Is stuttering equivalent to using um?
(17:24):
That is giving space for the brain to
catch up to the thought process.
That it's creating a space is the only
thing I can think of.
Am I understanding and thinking of it correctly?
I would probably caution against that particular line
(17:45):
of thinking.
We recognize stuttering as a neurodiversity.
It is a normal thing that happens.
It's not so much making space for thinking.
There's certainly some ideas that processing speed of
language might have some effect on speaking.
(18:07):
I know if we, especially with children, if
we increase the pressure of language, we will
see an increase in stuttering.
And in some cases, with children especially, you
will see the I, I, I, and then
I want my teddy bear or something.
Because they're trying to think of what they're
(18:27):
going to say.
So in that sense, yes.
But for most adults who have gotten to
this, to an adult age and they're still
stuttering, this is not a strategy.
This is not a habit.
I mean, some people talk about it like
a habit.
I don't think of it as a habit.
It is just something that happens.
Stuttering isn't caused, except in very small situations,
(18:51):
a very minor subset of people that have
had a brain injury or a stroke or
a tumor or something.
That very, very tiny portion, for the most
part, 95% plus, is just a different
way the mind works.
And I think I really want to get
that message across, as opposed to it being
(19:12):
a habit or a strategy.
Because I don't think that will resonate with
the lived experience of the people that I
work with.
Okay, I'm not sure that I meant to
say a habit or a strategy.
Because everything that the brain does, it does
it based on what works.
(19:35):
And so what I was thinking, as I
was asking that question, was, if the brain
has created a way of communicating, that works,
there's no need to learn anything else, because
our brains are designed to be the most
efficient vessel possible.
(19:57):
And it's looking for the recipe to have
us on autopilot.
Are you breaking autopilot?
When you're relearning or unlearning something that no
longer is empowering?
No.
Yeah, because, um, what starts as everything starts
(20:21):
as what worked in the moment, addictions started
by a coping thing that worked in the
moment, and the brain goes, Oh, this is
it.
This is what we do.
This worked.
And we our brain knows it worked because
we're still alive.
And that's all our brain cares about.
Our primal brain is Am I alive?
Am I breathing?
(20:42):
Because that's all it cares about.
It doesn't care about happy, healthy, wealthy, anything
else.
It's just looking for the recipe that says
this works.
Okay, now we can focus in on the
other problems.
This is no longer a problem.
We've got the recipe.
Okay, okay.
So that makes sense to me now.
(21:04):
And in a, you know, maybe in a
traditional, like, back in the old days, when
we were hunter gatherers, and we weren't communicating
so much information all the time, that might
have been a good brain strategy.
It just didn't matter so much if you're,
if you're not trying to communicate these massive
amounts of data and concepts and all this
(21:25):
kind of stuff.
Here's where that broke down.
For the most part, and I can't think
of a culture that isn't like this.
Stuttering is viewed as something wrong, especially by
the people that are doing it.
And there is a shame associated with that.
(21:47):
There is a I'm broken.
And I only can be okay if I
speak a certain way.
And I will do anything in my power
to not seem broken in front of others.
So what ends up happening is so much
of the thought process goes into don't stutter,
don't stutter, don't stutter, don't stutter, don't let
(22:08):
them see you stutter, don't show any weakness.
It even that it is weakness, it's not.
But even that is weakness is part of
that programming, that self programming, unlearning the crap,
in this case, is unlearning a ton of
stuff that comes from trauma, from people teasing
(22:29):
or making fun of you when you're a
kid, from a from a parent who wanted
the best for you, but was really, really
worried and looked really concerned every time you
stuttered to a teacher.
Teachers aren't even always well educated in this.
I mean, I'm not dissing teachers at all.
I love teachers.
I've worked with teachers for years.
But some adults, let's say, in the child's
(22:53):
environment might not know that it's just a
part of normal, and they are not treating
these kids in a way that builds them
up.
So it's I'm not blaming teachers.
I'm not blaming any particular adult.
But these kinds of conversations where I get
to talk about this, and get to spread
the word, this is part of normal.
(23:13):
That's what starts to break down these judgments,
these biases that we have that are not
based in fact.
Love it, love it, love it.
One of the things that you just said,
triggered what actually today's episode that will be
(23:33):
airing on the day that you and I
are recording this, and the episode is called,
You're Not Broken, You're Becoming.
And we talk about those things that are
challenging and painful, and stressful.
The only way that we can come out
of autopilot is to have some of these
(23:58):
things happening around us that say, pay attention,
come to make a decision.
And so that stuttering is sounds like it's
a natural part of the becoming of the
person.
But when we have things like shame, and
shame is the lowest vibration, vibrating emotion that
(24:21):
exists.
And it is a non natural human emotion,
because it's an external judgment.
It is not part of the emotion scale
of fear and anger and happiness and joy,
like any of the other human emotion, shame
is an external judgment.
(24:43):
And that is another thing that hits our
primal brain, because the part of our primal
brain says I must belong, or I'm in
danger.
And so when we have these societal expectations
that we're all supposed to do things the
(25:03):
same way, at the same time, and like
I was saying at the beginning become vanilla,
there's a lot of pressure and a lot
of shame.
And that creates so much disempowerment and so
much disease in our body.
Well, it's funny, you should mention that because
(25:23):
I, I definitely got a disease from overstressing
and feeling too much shame.
I, at least that's where I think it
came from.
I, this last year, three years, I've had
a divorce, I lost a beloved pet, I
had a massive financial crisis, I got diagnosed
(25:45):
with a brain tumor, I waited for surgery,
got surgery on that, recovered from that, all
the while trying to build this business.
Then when I'm building my program, I started
building this sort of based on the way
I'd already done and always had done stuttering
(26:07):
therapy, which was based on this speech.
And I reached out to a past client
who had been an amazing client, really worked
hard at it, had gone from stuttering sort
of moderately to severely, and was at that
time speaking very, very fluently, and was feeling
(26:29):
confident out in the world doing stuff.
So I checked in with him when I
was building this.
And I realized, he looked at me through
the Zoom screen and he said, James, I
don't know what happened.
I just started slipping back into old habits,
avoiding words, avoiding speaking situations, avoiding opportunities to
(26:51):
grow in my career.
And he almost like was talking to me
as if he'd let me down.
And when I heard this, there was a
rock in my stomach.
And I was like, I have failed this
person.
I have failed this person I consider a
friend.
And I was not able to help him
in the long run.
(27:11):
So I went on my own shame spiral,
just to add to all of the tumor
and the divorce and the financial crisis.
Now the one thing that I had to
hold on to, which was that I was
a good stuttering therapist, that also crumbled.
And I ended up meeting with another friend
who told me, sent me down the path
of looking into ableism.
(27:32):
What is ableism?
Like the idea that people who are disabled
are somehow less.
When it comes to stuttering, if you don't
talk right, you're less.
It's total BS.
It's crap, actually.
And so I went on a shame spiral
(27:53):
thinking, now I'm a bad therapist.
But instead of giving up, instead of throwing
in the towel saying, I'm not going to
work on this because I'm not good enough,
which is what every fiber of my being
was telling me to do.
I was like, absolutely not.
There's so few stuttering specialists compared to the
amount of people who stutter in this world.
(28:14):
And if I take my voice away, especially
my voice, which is now starting to get
it, then I'm doing a disservice to the
world.
So I had to keep going.
I had to take those financial risks and
I had to put myself out there and
risk people not agreeing with me and telling
me I have stupid ideas or whatever it
(28:34):
is in order to bring this message home.
But people like you are letting me do
that and I really appreciate that.
Oh, my pleasure.
Can I share my perspective on what you
just shared?
Please.
I think you hit a place that I
(28:57):
hit as well, which was you hit a
level of competency and the world says, no,
we need you to level up, which means
you had to break down that complacency.
You had to face some of some things
that allowed you to look at how it
(29:21):
could be different and better and evolve.
And that what that shame spiral was, thank
God you caught it.
And instead said, what is the lesson from
this and how can I use it to
level up?
And you actually honed your message and your
(29:45):
expertise and leveled it up into the world.
Is that what happened for you?
Because that's what I heard.
I'm getting chills right now.
Yeah, because I literally just had them.
That is the journey.
And in order to make it through that
(30:05):
journey, it wasn't just sitting at my computer
working.
I went traveling.
I went to Nepal.
I did volunteer work.
I went and did this thing called Vipassana,
which is a 10-day silent meditation retreat.
I went to India and searched out my
grandfather's home.
He used to live there when I was
(30:26):
a kid.
No, long before I was born.
He was a tea planter in India.
And then I came to Mexico and sat
with one of my friends, who's kind of
like my spiritual guide.
And all of those things allowed me to
move through the shame.
It wasn't easy.
And I think, and I think there's a
(30:48):
possibility I might get some irritated people who's
deader with me for saying this, but I
think that this could be for some people
the same thing that I needed to move
through to level up.
If I can help other people move through
something as hard and traumatic and terrible, and
(31:11):
I don't take away any of that, but
if I can help people move through that,
then I can help them level up.
And who knows what they can do.
And we need everybody's voice in this world.
It is getting messed up and awesome at
the same time.
And we need the awesome to outweigh the
messed up.
And we'll need everybody's voice.
(31:32):
And people who stutter are some of the
voices we absolutely need.
I could not agree with you more.
I believe we're in a massive paradigm shift.
And we, our society for the last couple
of thousand years, since the dark ages, has
been on a trajectory that has taken us
(31:54):
so far off center.
And we have the rise of technology and
AI and robotics that are undoing the societal
structures that were built all around the industrial
revolution, where we didn't need everyone's individual voices,
because it was all about conformity and replaceability
(32:16):
and all of us being duplicatable and replaceable.
And we're moving into a place that I,
well, futurists are predicting that in the next
10 years, we're going to see the equivalent
of the last hundred years of advancements.
(32:36):
And what I see happening with that is,
if technology and AI and robotics are going
to take over the manual repetitive laborious jobs,
where does that leave us?
And that leaves us as humans.
(32:56):
That leaves us to bring the whole depth
of our human experience to level up, where
our love and our empathy and our compassion
and our imagination and our creativity and our
problem solving and our empathy, all of these
(33:17):
things where we work in collaboration and cooperation,
where one of us who is having a
spiritual awakening or a difficult time, or struggling,
we create safe space and safety for them
to have that in place.
And we hold that space because we say,
(33:38):
you matter.
You matter.
And we're going to help you through this
by giving you the space and resources because
we need you to level up to be
your best because your voice, your message, your
gift matters.
I couldn't agree more.
(34:00):
I think this is where we're already seeing
the rise of coaching as an industry.
What is coaching?
Coaching is human to human.
I'm going to help you with a problem
that I understand.
It's not a construction or a physical job
that could be replaced by computers or could
(34:22):
be replaced by AI or robots.
This is human to human.
And this is why we're seeing a rise
in it.
And I think we're going to continue to
see a rise in it.
And the way a human can help another
human is just not even possible to be
(34:42):
done by AI.
And there's so many things that are possible
to be done by AI.
I use it all day, every day.
I'm well vested in AI.
I'm not anti-AI.
But I know it's the current limitations.
Maybe that'll change.
I don't think so.
Can I share a client story with you
(35:04):
which I think kind of speaks to this
point?
My current client joined about a month ago.
She's not even finished the program yet, but
she is already just thriving.
She started out a bit hesitant because she
(35:25):
didn't try things before, being a speech therapist,
and it hadn't worked out.
She wanted change, but she just didn't know
it was going to work.
But she showed up anyway.
She's been showing up every day that we
have a session.
She shows up and she puts her full
game in there.
But honestly, apart from meeting with me, it's
(35:47):
only 15 minutes a day.
And her stuttering has dropped off really fast.
That's only part of the process.
As I say, controlling the speech is only
half.
But that's what steady, consistent practice can do
with an evidence-based system which has been
around for a long time.
The trouble that people think it doesn't work
(36:09):
because of not having the mindset piece in
there.
So sometimes long term, it won't be effective
if you're not also working on feeling safe,
feeling grounded, feeling okay as a person who
stutters.
And that's the biggest shift I'm seeing in
my client, her mindset.
(36:30):
She's finally realizing she doesn't have to sound
perfect, especially not with close friends, family.
And letting go of that constant pressure in
the low stakes moments is exactly what's giving
her the confidence to rise in the high
stakes ones.
And that's counterintuitive to many people who stutter,
who are living in this world where they're
(36:53):
just trying not to stutter at any time.
And I think what happens, I've heard this
from many clients, they worry that if they
start to stutter, they won't be able to
stop.
Whereas I'm saying it actually kind of works
in a different direction.
If you allow yourself to stutter and feel
okay with it with people that you are
close to, you can start to feel like
(37:16):
if you stutter in front of somebody, it's
not going to throw you off.
It's not going to send you on a
spiral or a snowball of stuttering.
Because here's the thing, stuttering, stumbling, it doesn't
mean there's something wrong.
We all trip over our words sometimes.
(37:37):
And speech is one of the complex things
that we do.
It takes, we have to coordinate your brain,
lungs, vocal cord, tongue, what am I forgetting,
lips, jaw, all in real time.
And when there's a breakdown, we think it's
a problem.
(37:57):
Yeah.
Sorry, one of the things I love about
these different conversations is that even though your
particular expertise is on speech pathology and focus
in stuttering, is that we have these life
(38:18):
lessons that we can apply for so many
other circumstances.
And so while you were talking about being
given permission to not be this polished perfect
ideal of what we've, the crap we've been
taught that it has to be.
One of the other things that we were
(38:39):
taught was don't show your emotions.
And we were not taught that our emotions
are our information.
And so for me, for example, when I
get really passionate about something, I tend to
cry, or I laugh.
(39:01):
And these are nervous system things that happen
that our body is bringing us back into
homeostasis back into a state of rhythm.
But it's that acceptance that yes, I may
get emotional and I may have a tear
come.
But that's okay, because that's how I'm living
(39:23):
in alignment of my authenticity, and that it's
okay to be open and vulnerable.
Is that what your client is getting the
message that she's okay, just like she is?
Yes.
And I'm not saying that she's going to
(39:43):
go out and like go to a job
interview and stutter through it or make a
presentation.
She might use her skills for that.
But at other times, friends, family, even coworkers
that she's closer with, it's not such a
big deal to let one out once in
a while.
And if you're living in this place where
(40:05):
you can't ever let one out, then the
fear actually builds up, because there's no evidence
of stuttering and someone not reacting to it,
just being like, whatever.
And as we spread the word, as the
National Stuttering Association does its thing, as more
(40:27):
people watch things like my masterclass and start
to realize what stuttering really is, and what
isn't, the need to constantly protect ourselves goes
down, and we can show our flawed selves.
(40:49):
And there's so much real connection comes from
showing that.
I've had conversations, and because we have a
vulnerable conversation like this, the camera turns off,
and then we have a really close connection,
and I've started to build relationships with people.
Podcasting isn't just about, you know, here's my
(41:12):
thing, try and sell it.
It's like creating relationships, spreading the word, being
a part of this movement that is moving
us towards what you were talking about as
a society, people changing the world.
I know I'm excitable, but it's real.
Oh, well, that was the whole reason that
(41:34):
we decided to immediately capture this, because I
wanted that passion, and I wanted that excitement
that is coming out of you.
I'm going to share a story that I
just recently saw, okay?
Part of the crap that I needed to
unlearn was this thing that I had in
(41:58):
my head, the bodily functions were not acceptable.
It turned out it came from a joke.
My mother, my whole growing up life would
say things like, I'm so perfect that I
don't even have bodily functions, and she would
say it in the voice, right?
So it was so sarcastic, it was so
(42:21):
dramatic, it was so anything, but in my
head, I had taken that, that if I
have bodily functions, that I'm not perfect, and
there's something wrong with me, and I created
disease.
Well, I recently saw a video on one
of the social medias, and this woman was
(42:43):
in a gym, and she was in the
women's bathroom, and somebody, there was a couple
of women in the stalls, and one of
the women let out a massive fart, a
big gas in it, and all of a
sudden, she said, you could feel the energy
in the bathroom, and a woman beside her,
(43:04):
in solidarity, let out a fart, and the
woman who was at the sink said, it
was such a moment of saying, it's okay,
it's okay, you do not need to be
ashamed that you had a bodily function, it's
okay, you're in a safe place, and I,
(43:29):
as you were talking, about this acceptance of
not having this plastic version of who we're
supposed to be, that story came into my
mind, and that's why, if you saw me
break out into a smile, it was because
part of the way I work is I
(43:50):
get stories that come to me, and so
I trust when the universe is giving me
something that seems totally unrelated, that I need
to share it.
Um, that's what that was about.
I know, I love it, I love it.
You know, you use the word acceptance, and
that, that, I'm in a lot of stuttering
(44:12):
support groups online, and just to lay the
finger on the pulse, so to speak, and
I have mentioned stuttering acceptance, and got some
pretty serious blowback, and the blowback is being
like, I don't want to accept this, I
want to speak fluently, I don't, I don't
(44:32):
accept this, and I wanted to, I just
want to speak to those people, because I
think when I talk about acceptance, I'm not
saying passive acceptance, I'm not saying resignation, I'm
not saying that you should just accept it,
you're good enough as you are, just go
ahead and stutter, and you know, it doesn't
(44:54):
matter, and you're fine, and that, that is,
that is just, that's dismissive, is what that
is.
What I am saying, but yeah, it's dismissive
of all of the things people have been
through, all the trauma they've lived through, everything
that they've gone through, and I'm just saying,
oh, it's not a big deal, that is
not what I'm saying.
When I talk about acceptance, I am talking
(45:17):
about accepting oneself, accepting oneself, one's own humanity,
and if you wish to change an aspect
of yourself, you can, but do it from
a loving place, for yourself.
(45:38):
Self-love looked at the way we look
at a child.
Well, you don't love your kid because they
get good grades, you don't love your kid
because they're a pretty kid, you don't love
your kid because they are always, they keep
(46:01):
their room clean, right?
Those are things they do.
Sorry?
That's conditional, that's conditional love.
Exactly.
We, when you love, most parents love their
kid just because they're their kid, and that
kind of love, or you love your dog
just because you, because they're your dog, even
(46:22):
when they poop on the floor, you can
still love the dog, right?
Unconditional love, and we can accept ourselves, and
that's the kind of acceptance I'm talking about,
and the way I get there in my
program is acceptance and commitment therapy, which is
(46:44):
all about, it's got a lot of stuff
to do with accepting what is, and you
know, you're going to have thoughts, you're going
to have thoughts about stuttering, especially if you're
a person who stutters.
They're not going to necessarily be positive, and
the point is not to suppress those thoughts,
(47:07):
or get rid of those thoughts, it's to
observe those thoughts and realize that they aren't,
you don't have to believe them.
We always have random thoughts.
It doesn't mean they're true.
Absolutely, absolutely.
(47:29):
We have dark thoughts, we have light thoughts,
we have random thoughts, but they're fleeting.
They come and they go.
It's only what we put our focus on
that matters, and I want to draw a
connection to what you were talking about with
acceptance in forgiveness, and because so many times
(47:52):
people say, I can only forgive if that
didn't happen, but getting to forgiveness is saying,
I accept it didn't happen.
I accept it was bad, or it was,
it didn't work, or whatever it was.
I accept that that was my reality, and
(48:16):
I let it go.
I choose to cut the ties of disempowerment
to that, and that's what forgiveness is.
So if we can get to a place
of personal forgiveness, which in my own personal
healing journey was the most difficult thing I
had to do was look in my own
(48:37):
eyes and say, I forgive you for not
being perfect.
I forgive myself for letting myself down.
I forgive myself for betraying myself, and if
we can get to a place of acceptance,
free of judgment, of unconditional love, I'm pausing
(49:00):
because you're going in and out.
Okay, let me know when I'm back.
If we can get to a place of
true self-love, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, free
(49:20):
of judgment, where we beat ourselves up for
not meeting this ridiculous externally imposed upon ideal
of what we are supposed to be, and
we just accept we are, perfect just the
way we are.
(49:43):
I love this.
I love this sentiment.
Well, I think we've come to a perfect
place for me to ask James, for those
people who are listening, and they're looking for
coach, mentor, support, because we all need help,
(50:06):
and the greatest point of strength is accepting
that I need help in this and asking
for it.
How do you serve, and how can they
find you?
Well, currently, I'm serving using an online coaching
(50:27):
service, so you can do it from the
comfort and privacy of your own home.
We're all about getting people together, working on
stuttering together, and I think the best way
is to start by watching the master class.
It's only 19 minutes.
It's called Discover the Three-Step System that
(50:49):
Helps Professionals and Entrepreneurs Who Stutter to Speak
with Conviction, so they can confidently stand out
in meetings, impress clients, and go after their
goals without constantly worrying about their speech.
So, if that resonates with you, or even
if you're not a professional and you just
want to reach out and check out the
(51:11):
master class, that'll send you to a link,
and maybe you can put this link to
book a time with me.
It's always free to talk to me at
first.
I just want to get to know people
and see if they're ready for this, because
it's a very personal journey, and I'm not
going to pressure anyone to start it, but
if you invite me to work with you,
(51:32):
I'd be honored.
Oh, I love that.
James, thank you for your ability to go
with the flow and capture the passion and
excitement of our conversation, and meet with me
today.
Thank you for your passion in helping others
(51:54):
step into their zone of genius and remove
any of the roadblocks that are in their
way through their speech so that they can
find their voice, because I believe with all
of my heart and being that every single
one of us is here for a reason,
that we all matter, and that it is
(52:16):
when we step into our zone of genius
and we accept where we need help and
we're being challenged and we reach out and
we work together in collaboration and cooperation that
we're going to create the world that the
world is calling for.
Thank you for being with me.
(52:36):
Thank you for having me.
Until next time, remember to challenge everything so
that you can accomplish anything.
You matter, your voice matters, and the world
is waiting for you to level up.
Make sure to subscribe, share, comment, share a
(53:00):
review, and continue to join us on Unlearn
the Crap and Level Up Your Soul's Calling.
My name is Kathy Baldwin and I thank
you for being with us.
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