Empathy
Many womb twin survivors have a problem with empathy - too much or too little. I came across this material today among my computer files on healing, and I think I may include it in the new book, but here is a taster:
Definitions of empathy
Empathy is bothering to guess the inner experience of another with the help of intuitively obtained information. Empathy is trying to see into the mind of the other. Empathy is the desire to know and understand the nature of the interior world of the other person.
There can be no empathy if there is no desire to reach out to the other. There can be no empathy if there is no wish to create emotional intimacy with the other. There cannot be empathy without love. There cannot be love without empathy.
When a twin dies before birth, the sole survivor needs help and understanding. Womb twin survivors are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy. This group, 1 in 10 of the population, includes survivors of a stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion and a "vanishing twin" pregnancy. It is a story of a twin bond broken by death, leaving a lonely survivor.
Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Narcissus: why empathetic failure hurts
Imagine that you are a tiny twin embryo, for many weeks moving in perfect synch with your identical twin:
But then, because your twin dies, you are left alone.....
What would you miss?
But then, because your twin dies, you are left alone.....
What would you miss?
Saturday, September 03, 2011
MZ womb twin survivors : mirrors and reflections
It can happen that a zygote may split into two miror images, creating mirror twins.
Here is a picture of mirror twins as adults.
Among mirror twins, one is right handed and the other left handed. One my even have organs displaced to the opposite side, even the heart. There are variations though, in the degree of mirroring between mirror twins. Its an inexact thing - like so much in human reproduction where the number of variables is enormous.
Yet the mirror twin, a sure and always available mirror image of oneself, is a beautiful image to be found in song and poetry, as this beautiful poem shows:
Do you seek out a mirror to yourself? Do you have an obsession with mirrors, or maybe you have an aversion to them. Do you talk im the mirror for ages, talking over your problems with your mirror image? Is your mirror image not you but a dear friend?
It has been written that
Faced with someone who claims to be your friend, but who doesn't REALLY understand, who doesn't seem to listen to what is there in your heart, (so obvious to you that surely they MUST see it) is a terrible and painful betrayal. It precipitates you into your Black Hole where your mirror image is no longer there and you are left - alone.
Here is a picture of mirror twins as adults.
 | ||
| Notice that one twin is taller, the other one more muscular. Identical twins are never truly identical! |
Among mirror twins, one is right handed and the other left handed. One my even have organs displaced to the opposite side, even the heart. There are variations though, in the degree of mirroring between mirror twins. Its an inexact thing - like so much in human reproduction where the number of variables is enormous.
Yet the mirror twin, a sure and always available mirror image of oneself, is a beautiful image to be found in song and poetry, as this beautiful poem shows:
Do you seek out a mirror to yourself? Do you have an obsession with mirrors, or maybe you have an aversion to them. Do you talk im the mirror for ages, talking over your problems with your mirror image? Is your mirror image not you but a dear friend?
It has been written that
....we seek forever that which one's imagination is creating, that which corresponds to one's own image: likeness. The identity of sameness must be overcome, because it threatens one's own barely emerging separate being with becoming swallowed up again. Otherness, on the other hand, is too dangerous, for disagreement or even definition of oneself, would remove the mirroring which one needs in order to belong. What one looks for from the other is acknowledgement of one's perceptions and one's thoughts and feelings, one's body and of the world one has created as being one's own while yet being within the range of possible experiences of the other. This creates likeness between self and other while, at the same time, confirming the separate existence of each.If you constantly seek out a mirror image of yourself in others, and if it upsets you terribly when people do not see the world the same way as you, or even disagree absolutely with your perception of reality, you may be a mirror MZ womb twin survivor. Only a perfect mirror image of yourself will do - someone who "gets" you absolutely, with absolute empathy, verging on telepathy. With them you are safe, for they just know how you are feeling without you having to explain. Then the Dream of the Womb is fulfilled and your mirror twin is back again.
Faced with someone who claims to be your friend, but who doesn't REALLY understand, who doesn't seem to listen to what is there in your heart, (so obvious to you that surely they MUST see it) is a terrible and painful betrayal. It precipitates you into your Black Hole where your mirror image is no longer there and you are left - alone.
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