In addition to the extensive Cosmophilia audio and written sign readings, we’ve published a full slate of Featured Articles by Planet Waves collaborators that are fully open for everyone to read. Here is the beginning of Louise Lowrie’s essay about individuating from her twin, its psychological upheaval, and ultimately knowing that witnessing, self-work and healing can happen in many different containers. Read the full piece at Cosmophilia. — Amanda P.
by Louise Lowrie
It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story. — Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
I belong here, as we all do, amongst others but in our own individual vehicle of travel. This is what I now know.
Photo by Eric Francis
My story started somewhat differently. I came into this world with a sidekick: my twin brother. Two minutes older to be precise. My sense of self was about being part of another in a symbiotic relationship.
However, the journey of forming my identity as an individual wasn’t planned, and it felt like it came from nowhere. To cut a long story short it happened when my brother decided to get married. It felt like a loss so raw, cutting, deep and wrenching that it was as though I had lost part of me. My other half was still in this world, but I no longer was part of him, nor he part of me.
It was like I had a silent witness by me as I grew up. Until eleven we were at the same schools, and then made our way to college and university in different parts of the world. We had our respective girlfriends/boyfriends, but still he was there; my best friend, my soul mate.
He was the quieter side of me, but he saw me, knew me, accepted me and loved me. He still does but in a different way now.
My brother’s engagement felt like a severing of all I knew in relationship. It felt like a death. So, I struggled. My sense of self and of belonging in this world felt utterly lost. I felt like I was living on this planet while having been sucked into a vortex. So much of what I saw in myself was through my brother’s eyes.