Sprenge deine Fesseln

This book is currentliy only in German avaiable. Here you'll find a translation from the first chapter. Part 1 - Starting with a Positive Belief Mirror Neurons and Emotions Speech is an essential characteristic for us humans, setting us apart from all other beings on this Earth. Thus, we are the only species capable of conveying our own thoughts to others through language. The human species Homo sapiens has existed for three hundred thousand years, while language in its present form has likely existed for at least one hundred twenty-five thousand years. Our initial form of communication is through facial expressions. For this reason, the human brain has developed a neural system that allows us to interpret the facial expressions and body language of others. The so-called mirror neurons – certain nerve cells located in the hypothalamus of our brain – discovered in 1996, enable us to perceive and mirror the emotions of other people. They play an immense role in human evolution and thus in the development of our culture. Mirror neurons govern and influence our social life. Depending on our family and cultural environment, we automatically adopt the behaviors of others. Even the slightest facial expression of others is perceived. Once our brain detects a change, the mirror neurons are activated. They work unconsciously, meaning we don't have to think about it; they trigger a natural process within us. We are practically brought into resonance with the emotions of the person we are interacting with. The same emotions we perceive in others are literally transferred to us, regardless of the underlying emotion. Mother Tongue The mirror neurons in our brains ensure that we are compelled to speak from birth. We practically have no other choice. It also doesn't matter whether we grow up in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, or Australia. Through this resonance with others, we begin to adopt the language of those around us. A baby can distinguish the mother and father acoustically from everyone else within a few hours of birth. Of course, during this phase, other significant factors such as love, eyes, mouth, smell, physical proximity, etc., contribute to our ability to distinguish our parents from everyone else immediately. Our auditory channels for vocalization in the head are already laid out and prepared. They just need to be activated. In our initial phase, we only listen to our parents. As toddlers, we don't speak a single word. Our subconscious takes control, and we simply store the sounds we hear. At this point, these are not yet words but only sequences of sounds, which vary greatly depending on the continent. Only through the constant repetition of these sound sequences does our brain get used to them and begin to interpret these sound sequences as words. These words are not only stored as pure sounds but also associated with the feelings and images we experience at that moment. If, for example, we hear a hundred different sequences of sounds, i.e., words, and we remember three of them beforehand, we will immediately recognize those three sequences of sounds every time one of them appears. The hundred sequences of sounds could be played in a new order each time, but we would always pick out the three learned sequences of sounds. As time goes on, our brain memorizes one sequence of sounds after another, meaning one word after another, connects them with images and feelings, and this is how we gather our basic vocabulary in our mother tongue. Let's not forget that up to this point, we have not spoken a single word, yet our brain already recognizes the different words and reacts to them. We start speaking our first words independently at the earliest around one and a half years old, meaning our first word comes out of our own mouth. Automatic Sentence Recognition This function is inherent in each of us because, again, our mirror neurons are working at full capacity. After the first words leave our mouths, not only do others hear these words, but we also hear ourselves. This process is not conscious to us. Thus, we check ourselves to see if we have understood and learned the words correctly. When we speak a word we have never learned before for the first time, we are automatically unsure. We maintain this uncertainty until we are satisfied with the result. Once this word is stored as learned, the mirror neurons are no longer activated. Now, another phenomenon occurs: when we reach this stage – namely, when many words are stored as learned – we become aware that the individual words always appear in a certain order, which repeats constantly, i.e., they are the first sentences. There is always a small pause between each sentence. The mirror neurons come into play again. We remember that at the beginning, the words were just sequences of sounds. Therefore, a whole sentence for our brain is nothing but also just a sequence of sounds, but on a larger scale. Our brain now memorizes these sequences and pauses. Now, if we have heard the sentence often enough, we know the individual words and their respective positions in the sentence precisely. This is another important intermediate step towards spoken language. The Path to Spoken Mother Tongue Now that our brain recognizes sentences, it still needs information about the affiliation, meaning what do we want to achieve with the sentence? The general purpose of language is to exchange messages or experiences and events with each other. How do we do that? Again, this is part of our human nature. The mirror neurons come into play again. Through them, we've already heard, we transport our feelings directly to the other person. The other person already knows the message before we speak it because we resonate. If a sentence is spoken exactly at this moment, our brain anchors exactly this sentence to this feeling, and every time we are in a similar situation, we recall this sentence. This process also works completely automatically