Experienced TMSers, I need a little clarification, please.

I think that affirmations would almost certainly work best said in your own native language.

My mother tongue is English and when I say the word 'vinegar' just once or even think the word, hear it or read it, my salivary glands always salivate because, when we eat food pickled in vinegar, the acetic acid in the vinegar tends to makes us salivate quite a lot...It's a Pavlov's dogs-type anticipatory physical reaction/learned response that my subconscious (automatically) causes. However, I learned/studied German and Russian at school and know and remember from those days that the German word for vinegar is 'Essig' and the Russian word is 'уксус', but thinking them, saying them, reading them or hearing those words doesn't make me salivate at all. What 'gets' to my brain and can create a physical reaction/response is my mother tongue. (Maybe it would be different if I spoke German and Russian regularly - or had studied them when I was at junior school, rather than just at senior school when I was older - but I have my doubts about that.)

How is it for you - do you salivate when you say 'eddike' (if Danish is your mother tongue) and 'vinegar'? Or, if neither gives you a physical response, you could perhaps test things out using a word in your mother tongue that does usually create a physical response for you when you say it or think about it, and compare it to the English word for the same thing.

Not that I remember. I've got their books on kindle and have just done a search for you using appropriate key words to double check and there's nothing specific about mother tongue language compared to learned language in either Kehoe's book or Helmstetter's book. Kehoe, however, does mention about one's mother tongue being 'imprinted' in one's brain.

 

Wow BloodMoon, you just did a little search in the books! Thanks so much! I guess you are right, our brains have developed with our native language and that is also what works directly. I am wondering if this is one reason why it takes so long time for me with the TMS work. Although I live with Danish as my everyday language and English as a professional language, both are not my native languages. My native language is German - Essig, yes, although I am not particularly fond of vinegar Lol. I think I need to do my TMS work in German. Otherwise I might simply not reach my brain? Living abroad for a long time makes me a bit a language hybrid.

 

I'm not a particular fan of vinegar either, but the word still makes me salivate because that's what eating/drinking it does to the salivary glands and my brain automatically associates the two.

I would think so...

Time to say those affirmations in German...

„Es geht mir mit jedem Tag in jeder Hinsicht immer besser und besser!" - Émile Coué

 

Again wow! I am deeply impressed! So, I will say that to myself from now on: es geht mir mit jedem Tag und in jeder Hinsicht immer besser und besser. Important is that it is not just ‘every day’ but ‘with everyday’ which enforces the accumulation of getting better and better. Really good! Thanks so much!

 

Bitte sehr.