Synchronicity

                                                               Synchronicity

                     

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.”

                                
Charles de Lint

C.G. Jung described synchronicity as meaningful coincidents, I have extended that idea to include “Awareness of one integral whole.” This is a concept that I am never far away from both in my personal and professional life. I find this concept and practice immensely useful. Let's unpack this idea.

Everything begins with awareness, I will often describe my approach as a personal trainer of awareness. Building awareness is the way to building power, freedom, and fulfillment in our human life. Because we are organisms that have adapted the ability to reflect, interpret and observe ourselves in our many endeavors and processes, we have access to a meta awareness that other organisms don't have. This meta awareness is attentional currency that builds upon itself when exercised and becomes a storage of potent psychic fuel.

The way that awareness is inflected is crucial, as predators in the animal kingdom we have an “orienting response,” which is an evolved capacity of attentional awareness to respond to novelty. This means that when something comes across our radar screen of awareness that is new and unexpected, there will be a part of our attention that “checks it out”, just like if you wave a twig in front of a cat. All the technology companies know about this and are mining our attention treating us as if we were cats compulsively following a moving piece of yarn. But if we practice focusing and maintaining our attention, which the practice of meditation is all about, we can inflect our attention where we want it to go.

One of the best places to inflect your awareness is on the unity of reality, the oneness of all creation. You can reference this experience by the oneness you've felt in nature, making love, getting lost in music, art, a movie, playing with a child, or communing with your dog. This unitive state of mind is a hallmark of enlightened beings such as the Dali Lama, but is becoming more and more the purview of quantum physicists that know, from a scientific perspective, about the oneness of reality. When you start looking for unitive reality you will begin to experience and see it at every turn.

When a client comes for a session, I “know” that whatever they bring up for discussion will connect to their whole life. I help them connect the dots, and this brings about greater awareness and relationship of the parts of their life to the whole. When we are thinking of someone we haven't seen in a long time and out of the blue they call, we see and feel a connection to these seemingly unrelated events. What we generally miss is that these connections/synchronicites are happening all the time, we just aren't aware enough to make out any particular connection, but I assure you it's there! Carlos Castaneda said; “Everything is an Omen!”

Begin to play with the idea of ultimate connectivity and the oneness of all creation, not merely as a concept, but as a felt experience and a process of awareness. Look at events, circumstances, and encounters as unfolding unity through the guise of diverse and “accidental” cause and effect. Know that you are playing your part perfectly in the drama of existence and you are always at choice as to how you want the next scene to go.