Last
night, Late Night host Seth Meyers
had his younger brother, Josh, as a guest on the show to help promote their new
animated series, The Awesomes. This
was the first time I ever saw them interact together, and I was immediately
struck by how easy, comfortable and familiar they were. That made sense; not
only are they brothers, they are obviously very good friends. Watching the
interview was less like a promotion for their shared venture on the Hulu® network
and more like being a fly on the wall at a family reunion. It was fun to listen
to them reminisce about their childhood and adolescence, the private names they
call each other and the verbal shorthand they use to communicate. Apparently,
the brothers knew each other so well that when Seth offered to pick up a
sandwich for Josh, the younger sibling immediately knew that the family dog had
died. Similarly, when Josh started a phone conversation by saying “I’m all
right,” Seth knew those words were actually a code for, I’m alive, but this, this and this happened to me on the ski slopes
today, or whatever.
Family
members aren’t the only ones who communicate like this. Good friends, spouses,
romantic partners or military personnel also share a similar verbal short-hand.
Words don’t even need to be spoken, yet a gesture or facial expression tells an
entire story to the other party in this non-verbal exchange. An observer,
someone who is not part of this immediate group, might wonder if the members
are even psychic the way they finish each other’s sentences. Even spookier is
when one person says something and another says, “I was just going to say that!”
and you know it is true. Extra-sensory perception may or may not have a part in
the fluidity of this exchange, but you can definitely chalk up the mutual
understanding to shared experiences and shared subconscious knowns. Siblings are a great example of
this phenomenon.
Consider
this second example of shared, familial knowns versus what we learn from non-family
members (strangers). The popular detective series of the late 1980s and early
1990s, Inspector Morse, got a new
spinoff a few years ago titled Endeavour.
This new series follows Shaun Evans’ rookie detective constable at the start of
Morse’s police career, negotiating department politics while he solves
complicated murders. I think Evans is well-cast as Morse. He has the clear-blue
eyes for which John Thaw’s Chief Inspector Morse was known, and the younger man
has mastered Thaw’s facial expressions, posture and pattern of speech. But Thaw’s
daughter, Abigail, who has a recurring role in the new series, is even more
like her late father than the man who portrays him. In addition to bearing some
physical resemblance to him, Ms. Thaw absolutely has that raised eyebrow, grimace, slow smile that fans remember from
her father’s embodiment of “Morse.” These are not gestures that she would have had
to study and learn so she could mimic them in her role, the way Evans would
have had to do to convincingly portray a younger version of Inspector Morse.
Rather, she would have acquired them over the years while sitting on her father’s
knee listening to a story when she was a little girl or any number of casual interactions
with him during a family get-together.
Whether
or not you are emotionally close to your family, if you were raised and grew up
together you already share more than DNA. You also learned various behaviors
and beliefs from your parent(s)/guardian(s) through the development of your
suggestibility, as did your sibling(s). You learned to associate certain events
or stimuli with pleasure or pain, and these experiences became the knowns that
would create, support and reinforce your subconscious life script. This process
is the basis of Hypnosis Motivation Founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of mind
and development of suggestibility. Whenever someone observes how two “like”
minds think alike, I would say that is true more frequently about family
members’—especially, siblings’—mental processes than that of two “strangers”
such as spouses or close friends. Dr. Kappas’ Theory of Mind probably also goes
a long way to explain the role of nurture in terms of contributing to our
social development.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in
Southern California. She graduated with honors from the
Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about
Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2014
