Synchronicity

 There are very few among us who believe that life is a series of random events.  Different religions and schools of thought call it different things.  I used to hear a lot of, “It’s a God thing!” in my evangelical days.  Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra believes that coincidences are a gift from the Universe.  As a student of Carl Jung, I tend to like his simple yet effective term at things that are not just random, that seem to be of some sort of higher design.  He called it “synchronicity.”  The definition is very simple, two words that are very powerful-meaningful coincidences.  Carl Jung believed in a level of consciousness which allowed humans to be interconnected with each other and the world around them.  Me personally, I am at the time in my life where I have issues with Christianity but still feel the presence of something.  I like the idea of feeling that there is something operating at a greater level which I do not have to refer to as happening from the Biblical god.  And so, this definition is desirable to me. 

But what really is synchronicity?  It is the idea that two different phenomena-physical (from the world around us) or psychological (dreams, understanding, etc.) collide in someone’s life to bring them some sort of answer, some sort of gift, or in some other way affects their life in a meaningful way.  It doesn’t have to be some life-altering revelation, although you never know what could be.  In fact, he came up with the idea when he was working with a patient.  The patient described having a dream about a scarab-an insect which was more native to the warmer climates than his.  On that same day, a scarab collided with his window, and he found the idea very fascinating.  Apparently, his patient was not responding to her treatment or had somehow become stuck in her progress.  But this prompted Jung to explore the idea, and a positive one, that there are meaningful coincidences in this life that could add enrichment to someone’s life.  Could patients be helped?  Could people find answers to complex problems?  Were things just random on this earth, or was some greater force involved?  Jung believed that such events only helped the person experiencing synchronicity.

Synchronicity can also occur between people.  Some people report “knowing” immediately that they will have a strong connection to another, whether it is a friend, a spiritual person, or romantic partner.  And the ways that those special people come into our lives is not just by mere coincidence.  There was something greater at work.  Some people do have very strong connections to each other and know when the other is having trouble, something might have happened, etc.  People who have strong connections to each other like significant others, twins, longtime friends, family members, can all experience some sort of feeling or knowledge about the other.  They have more than just a basic understanding of what is happening.  They really know deep down on some level not known to most about the one they care about. 

I have had a lot of synchronicity events in my life, probably too many to list on here.  But I will talk about some examples just as recently as the other day.  As far as people, I had an acquaintance of mine who maybe I was not super close to, but I respected tremendously.  This person added something positive to my life.  Unfortunately, they lost their job a few years ago.  When I heard about it, I had this sense that they were going to switch careers and end up in a totally different career.  I even knew what industry it was.  I’ll be damned if it happened, and I wasn’t too far off about the place where they eventually became employed.  I kind of even spooked myself after that because it was way too weird that I had essentially “known” it.  I also had a relative who when they were a juvenile, did something stupid and committed a minor crime.  I was away from home when it happened attending a seminar, but I developed this tremendous headache.  It was painful, and it was like something had come over me.  When I got home, everyone seemed tense, and I didn’t know why.  Nobody wanted to say anything.  Eventually it was disclosed, but my body was apparently sensing something.  And then there were the numerous times which I wrote about in another post where I knew someone was no good, only to have them prove they were indeed no good.  Murderers included. 

As far as myself, I have gotten a lot of wisdom and answers to things that have troubled me, or I didn’t have a good answer for at the time.  But especially of late, I have been shown things that have reflected on how I was feeling at the time.  I have had some very difficult challenges in my life which can sometimes leave me feeling like the future is uncertain, and I was having that feeling very strongly a few months ago.  I journaled about it and the very next night, I watched a television program where another person was struggling with those very same beliefs.  I looked at them and realized that the way they were describing their life was unnecessarily negative.  I could absolutely see no reason for that to be true about this person.  And I realized that what they were saying was a mirror of myself.  I was given that to see that how I was feeling was not based in reality.  But I had to see it in someone else.  That event was given to me, in my opinion, for that very reason.  Just this past week or so, I have had to confront the realities in my life about some of the things I had planned did not happen the way that I wanted them to, and in the time frame I expected.  Some of it was due to bad advice I was given, some was just me making the best choice I thought I had at the time, and it cannot be changed.  As synchronicity would have it, I came across a podcast featuring a famous individual whose life experience had mirrored mine.  And I realized that I was not alone in my experience.  I felt the same way when I saw the aforementioned television program.  If I could sum it up in one sentence, it would be, “You are not alone.”  And how neat is that?  Whoever or whatever had enough compassion to bring me those messages, it sure was appreciated.  Whether that source is the Universe, some sort of loving deity that is not the nasty Biblical god, or something else, I just realized that some force did care to show me things about my life.

I love synchronicity events, and every time they happen, it makes me feel connected to the world around me.  It does make me believe in a higher power, or some force that cares enough to gift us with bigger things.  Believe me when I say, this doesn’t happen all the time.  One of the reasons that I left evangelical Christianity was because the idea that a god was always answering every prayer, every need, etc. did not even remotely come true.  I think times will come and go where we may not have our needs met by a deity, or too much time will take place between the answers we need and when we receive them.  But I still do believe that things like synchronicity show us that life is not random, and that there are special things in store for all of us.  If you are reading this, I encourage you to reflect on those meaningful coincidences you have encountered in your life with the same wonder I have found in mine.