Switched BEFORE Birth

Being a womb twin survivor, I had grown accustomed to the term “slipping into a black hole” and to the idea of switching alpha/beta roles with one’s vanished twin – these concepts and behaviors were just as ordinary to me as blinking.

Then….something quite startling happened, to shake this up and make me realize its true meaning beyond my previous level of comprehension. I would like to share it, in case it is helpful to others to know about this subtle distinction which turned out to be hugely powerful in understanding my story.

It was during an NET session (neuro emotional technique), I was re-experiencing my gestational reality from conception to birth. Like other womb twins, I was finding this modality to be a helpful tool for accessing and releasing womb memories & emotions, but I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced during the 5th month in utero.

(note: my twin & I were born premature at 6 months, she died the next day)

My twin & I made a pact – she would go and I would stay. She would wait long enough for me to be healthy enough to survive, which turned out to be one more month - at which point she asphyxiated on her cord and went into distress causing our birth and then I never saw her again. We did say goodbye, which was incredibly comforting to know. But there in the 5th month when we were making our little agreement, I actually felt myself switch roles with her!
I BECAME HER SO THAT I WOULDN’T HAVE TO LOSE SOMEBODY!!!
In this NET session, I fully recalled myself switching places (as twins do) with my twin in the womb – as if I got up, went over to her side, stepped into her body, zipped up my Jennifer suit and became her, the beta, at that point.

My journal entry after the session reads:
5 months in utero = paralyzed will, blocked. Breakthrough: I thought I suffered from low or no self esteem but I realized that I have plenty of self esteem. I thought I didn’t because I switched roles with her out of survivor guilt! I knew she wouldn’t stay so I became her so as not to lose her. I went Beta!

It was amazing to re-witness myself doing this because it speaks to two things:

1) the power of survivor guilt is so strong, that even a defenseless unborn baby knows how to defend itself from it.

2) slipping into the beta space isn’t just a temporary thing for me like I thought, it is every thing to me. I’ve been there my whole life, living her weakened beta state so that I wouldn’t have to feel survival or guilt. I bypassed it from day zero!

So if I have lived a black hole beta life all this time, my momentary lapses downward must have been a “blacker hole” – no wonder it felt so horrendous!

Further, this realization brought a deeper understanding about my clutter. I realized that in becoming her in the womb – there still remained a body next to me (my real body which was one pound bigger than her body) to take the place of the emptiness which would eventually represent my lost twin (surprising that I could anticipate that and recall all this from my body memory at 5 months gestation, not from my current mind. I could feel the difference!) Because I was already traumatized by her impending death, even though we agreed to it and she was still there alive, the dynamic had already been activated – I would be the little helpless beta surrounded by the placebo-like comfort of a bigger twin who wouldn’t disappear. This was my comfort zone and this is still being played out today in the form of clutter.

For example: A few weeks ago, my son left our home for an extended stay with his Dad. Ever since he left, these womb dynamics have played out exactly - I barely exist/function there (beta), don’t cook for myself (if I’m her, I have to be one pound lighter), fill up the empty space with clutter so there are signs of life, shrink down intimidated by the clutter that becomes bigger than me. It always seems so huge in my mind but when I finally get down to tackling it, it only takes 10 minutes to clean up. I build this ‘bigger than me’ thing in my head, and now I know why.

This also explains why it's hard for me to delegate, I have to do everything for everybody because that's what I did for my twin - I became her and did everything "as" her because she couldn't do it herself from that body. No wonder upper management is so difficult for me and I've sabotaged career success to stay the small underling who perfers to be mighty behind the scenes!

I am currently learning just how much of my life I have lived through my twin’s beta lens, while I learn to own MY self esteem and build on it so that I can fully step into my power. Who knew I was operating from my twin’s lack of self esteem all this time and how reassuring that I have my own. Now I have to learn how to use it and stay in it.

Alphaville here I come!