Echolalia and Echopraxia

Since February of the year 2014, I have experienced something that is called echolalia. Echolalia is the automatic repetition of vocalizations made by another person. It can be a symptom of Tourette's Syndrome, but is also a symptom of aphasia, schizophrenia, dementia, catatonia, and epilepsy. There is also a phenomenon called echopraxia that has not been my personal experience, but relates to mirroring physical behavior which is also a symptom of all of the 'disorders' mentioned above.

I realize how, within my life, how I have adopted other people's behaviors and mannerisms, but I might not be fully conscious in these moments of this process of adopting other people's behaviors and mannerisms. Because I adopt these particular behaviors and mannerisms, it is like a process where I actually, on an unconscious level, separate myself from that individual, in other words, seeing that individual within my mind as a 'separate entity'. And also I realize how, within this how I, because of seeing other people 'separate' from me, how this point is 'mirrored' within myself where I see my own self as a separate entity -- meaning that there are things within myself, within my mind, that I believe have to be fulfilled, and so I adopt other people's behaviors and mannerisms to attempt to fulfill the point that I believe needs to be fulfilled. It is like separating myself from myself, within my mind on an unconscious level, and creating myself as who I 'want' to be contingent upon the behaviors and expressions of others, and so within that, adopt other people's behaviors and expressions to 'fulfill' that want / need / desire that I see myself 'lacking' -- on an unconscious level. When I say 'on an unconscious level', I might not be consciously aware of this process, but it is something that has been a consistency within my life -- and this is, in a sense, no different that Echolalia and Echopraxia even though echolalia and echopraxia are termed as medical or psychological conditions or disorders. So the question is, doesn't everyone have Echolalia and Echopraxia to some extent when looking at it from the perspective of how other people's behaviors and mannerisms are copied / duplicated within ourselves?

There is also the phenomenon where even things that we have encountered, experienced, and / or walked within past moments in our lives is copied -- in which, what we are essentially saying is that our expression as individuals is dependent on past circumstances because of how our behaviors and mannerisms that were expressed in the 'past' is re-enforced, and re-lived through our minds that then gets siphoned into and as a physical behavior that we adopt. So it is like -- our individual expressions and our relationship to the 'present' is not actually lived nor even fully recognized or understood, but what is recognized is the 'who we are' that is defined through past circumstances that we adopt over and over again in our lives like a broken record into the present 'reality', and because it is lived and expressed within the present reality, we believe it to be who we really are. The question is, isn't this the same as Echolalia and Echopraxia in a sense -- where our past behaviors and mannerisms are relived and reinforced over and over again to the point that it becomes automated as part of our 'personalities'?

And also, according to research that has been gathered from the Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta, it was shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in the DNA. During tests they learned that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences – in this case a fear of the smell of cherry blossom – to subsequent generations.

So it is a point to consider also how our genetic factors can additionally play a role in how our behaviors and mannerisms can be duplicated to members within our family. For instance, I never realized how me saying the word 'dang' within my life is equal to how the word 'dang' is also expressed by other members of my family in a similar fashion. The point here is not so much the knowledge and information of how particular words and behaviors are transferred from one individual within the family to other individuals, but it is to realize how our words and behaviors that we accept as our individual expressions are already compromised when we are not aware of why we in-fact speak the words that we speak, and how / why we express the behaviors that we 'express'. It is not such a point of fearing to be a 'drone', and feeling as though to be free -- one has to 'deprogram' the genetic structures and the DNA that is responsible for the duplication of particular words and behaviors of other family members, but instead, wouldn't it be cool to -- instead of blindly duplicating words and behaviors from others -- to understand our relationship to the particular words and behaviors that we speak, and why we speak them?

This, thus, brings a new awareness to ourselves in which, with this new awareness, we can thus, redefine our relationship to what and how we speak and how we express ourselves to others through our physical behaviors. In that we, we no longer remain as a 'reaction' to words and behaviors', but realize ourselves as the 'creator' of how words and how behaviors are expressed within us as us.

In the next blog, I will provide some self-forgiveness statements in relation to how we can understand our relationship to particular words and behaviors that we speak and why we speak them.