“Implicit memory doesn’t feel like memory - it is perceived in the present”
So wrote Marilyn Morgan in “Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy” (Weiss, Johanson, and Monda (eds) 2015)
Hakomi is a form of psychotherapy which combines body-centred techniques and mindfulness principles in its treatments. I will write more about the body’s role in healing later.
But today I want to explore that statement from the perspective of a language learner, teacher, and lover.
“Implicit memory doesn’t feel like memory - it is perceived in the present”
Doesn’t that describe the feeling of using languages you are fluent in? Speaking doesn’t feel like an act of remembering. Of straining. Of casting your mind back.
Speaking feels like it is happening now. You start a sentence without knowing how it will end. Without composing it in your mind. You open your mouth, and the truth comes out.
On rare occasions, the hairs of on the back of your neck stand up as you listen to what you say.
To acquire a language is to put it into your implict memory, not your explicit memory. It’s not consciously trying to memorize and regurgitate facts. It’s effortlessly understanding what you are hearing or reading.
If you do that enough, one day you will 说心里话 - speak from the heart.