The FlyLady: You can teach an old dog new tricks

Most of

my life I have been very self-conscious of reading aloud. I automatically

assumed that it was not blessed with that ability. In fact it was very painful

for me and everyone who would have to listen to me. This past week I have been

reading aloud the book that Leanne Ely and I wrote, Body Clutter. Leanne and I

were in a recording studio. At one point I was just about in tears over my

inability to say a whole sentence smoothly.I decided to take a break and

breathe. That is when Leanne told me a little secret about how to read a

sentence, paragraph and even a whole page. She said for me to read phrases. Then

she came over to my music stand and read as she took her finger and went from

the start of the sentence to the first comma or conjunction. She made little

swooping motions. We called the phrases scallops. She asked me to read the

paragraph in scallops, and I did it — the very first time.I was blown away

by the simple fact that I just did it effortlessly! It flowed as if I were

standing on stage talking to you. I could even talk with my hands because I was

feeling the words, not just saying them. I could not believe the difference in

how I felt and the quality of the oral interpretation.Why had I always

assumed that it was me? Because that is what we do! We decide that we just can't

do something and we either don't even try or beat ourselves up when we don't do

it to suit ourselves. What I was doing was not loving to me! Even though I knew

I was smart; not reading well made me feel stupid. I could get up on stage and

talk for three hours but I could not read one line of text without it feeling

awkward.I started to think about other times when I had that awkward