I had a request from somebody to do a video about slow talk so I want to share it to you here.
Slow talk is a technique I learned from Dr. Thomas A. Richards in his Overcoming Social Anxiety Step by Step Program. He is a therapist who suffered with social anxiety for over 20 years. He’s been treating and helping social anxiety sufferers for 23 years now.
Slow talk is one of the techniques I used and continue to use to manage social anxiety when it comes up. Overcoming social anxiety to me is when you reach a point where you can do what you want and even though it comes up, you know how to manage it and act inspite of it.
This is one great cognitive tool where you read something like a handout of affirmations and rational statements aloud in a slow manner. To let those statements get into your ears and let it in your mind and have it come out your mouth.
One type is when you do it in front of the mirror and you read affirmations and rational statements slowly than the normal pace.
Determined slow talk is another type which would be really slow.
One handout of rational statements you may be interested in is from Dr. Richards which you can find in his course called Accepting Myself as I am Right Now which is one of my favorites. I used some of these statements in the video below.
See how normal, slow talk and determined slow talk differ. Also learn how to do mirror type.
For people who would speak aloud in a presentation with fear of public speaking, slow talk probably would be the way to go.
This technique has helped me a lot including some more tools I mentioned in the video. Hope it helps you too.
You can try it out and some other techniques to get rid of social anxiety on the spot at home or wherever you feel safe.
– David
