NLP for Mixing Up Words in Speech

Mixing up words when speaking is many people’s problem and NLP can solve it.  People look for medical names for mixing words up on the net, yet find none, because it boils down to a simple phenomenon described in this article. How can NLP help?

The problem:

I’ve always talked really fast and stuttered when I speak because I get really excited when I’m telling a story or trying to get a point across. Home remedies and explanations sometimes take over and my grandma calls it Mix Up Mash Up and says that it’s a sign of being smart. So I’ve never paid it attention until I got into a serious relationship. I don’t know whether it got worse or whether my new partner wasn’t used to it. Nonetheless, she started pointing it out every time it happened.

So I started researching a medical name for it – not getting caught up in labels, just curious – and didn’t find one. The research led me to another reader’s question to you on another site.  I don’t always realize when I do it. I think I said the sentence “Is the cake in the oven?”, and others hear “Is the oven in the cake?”. Most of the time others have to tell me that I mixed up the words. I know it’s my brain working faster than my mouth. When I write I think the sentence and write it. And when I read the sentence I see that I missed a word or wrote a word twice. I want to hear your thoughts and advice on it all…

The NLP solution for mixing words up:

My advice is this: you simply don’t connect your speech to your brain. You’re on chronic autopilot. So chronic that the electric impulse [metaphorically as much as literally] between your speech and your brain REALIZING what you say does not happen due to the automation of the autopilot! Just stop, reread, and think about what you read in this paragraph. You’ll see that it will make sense.

The human race has been spellbound by the power of the medical profession. Look at how its spell worked on you! What did you do first? You searched for the medical name of your issue! Yes, you were curious, not caught up in the labels, but if you weren’t caught up in the labels, why would you be curious?  That’s how the Western society is caught up in labels! I wonder how much energy you spent on not finding the medical name of your issue. You could have spent the energy on thinking about how to correct the issue.

The electric impulse of realization

Now back to the electric impulse between what you do and your brain realizing what you do. I’ll give you an example that may make you and other readers cringe, but beautifully illustrates my point. Have you ever visited the restroom at night? If yes, have you ever had a split second moment while eliminating when you hesitated whether you really were in the restroom and not in a dream?

If you have had this happen, you’ll know that once the split second passes, your brain will kick up such strong impulse of realization that you’ll frighten yourself realizing that you lost control over knowing whether you really were sitting there! You’ll then automatically – as a matter of reflex – ground yourself to the toilet or floor and check yourself, perhaps look around, to assure yourself that you really are in the restroom.

By this time you’ll be wide awake! THAT split second is due exactly to lack of the electric impulse between the action and the brain realizing the action! That impulse is also the missing element for people with dementia. It’s again simply autopilot – who thinks about going to the restroom at night three quarters asleep when nature calls?  One has to act, right? We act on reflex without realising. But it’s the not realising that causes autopilots and brainwash to a certain extent, no matter how harsh or offensive that may sound.

Be a pilot, not autopilot. That’s the NLP key to mixing words up.

Start practicing realizing what you say when you speak. Ground yourself and practise. Your brain must register what you say. Then you’ll start hearing yourself and stop mixing up words. I also suggest that you thank your partner for pointing this out to you. Take your partner’s feedback as an opportunity to catch yourself and practise the electric impulse of realization again when you catch yourself. Your partner’s feedback is a barometer of how well you’re doing!  And of course, realizing what you say must only help reduce stuttering, right?

If the issue described in this article affects you or someone you know, you may be inspired to get more help.  Let’s talk about it.