“a star fall, a phone call, it joins all, Synchronicity”
-- Sting
Most of my blog posts include one of my photographs. In some cases the digitally captured vision inspires the thoughts; in some cases the thoughts expressed in the post bring the image into focus. Most of the time I can’t tell which came first; it feels like the thoughts and images hover out there somewhere and converge in my brain/view simultaneously and just in time.
When I embarked on this experiment that has become my blog I didn’t really know what it would be but just had an intuition that it needed to be. I had no idea how I was going to keep it going. I didn’t think I had that much to say. And there it is every month, I have a thought, or a client is coaching on a topic and then another says a similar thing and then I look up and there it is, the picture, the perfect visual metaphor and the words begin to flow.
According to CG Jung, synchronicity is temporally coincident occurrences of a-causal psychic and/or physical events. When you notice these “coincidences” happening again and again, it begins to take on meaning - this is synchronicity. Great thinkers and writers in psychology, quantum physics, metaphysics, math, spiritual studies and religion have written extensively on this topic. The idea that there is some force, or some collective unconscious for us to tap in to is not only a poignant idea but coincident with my experience.
I started seeing the number 11:11 on my bedside digital clock every night beginning at the age of 16 after my grandmother passed away. I still see that number often today, on the clock and in many other places. My grandmother’s birthday was 11/11/11. I often think of someone and then they call or I call someone and they say, "I was just thinking about you". It’s not uncommon in the course of a week of coaching for similar themes or even the exact same inquiries to come up. Last week I was reading about synchronicity in “The Artist’s Way” and at dinner on Friday night my friend and my husband started talking about (and singing) the song, synchronicity – events that are causally unrelated that happen at the same time…
On January 17th I entered the yoga studio with a gentle knowing that the time for writing this post was rapidly approaching. I was not going to write a trite New Year’s resolution post – I knew I could do better than that! I was actualizing my commitment to a regular yoga practice and thinking about my dreams and intentions in this new year when I looked up and saw this reflection from the window in the distance, out of my view. RE – the image took my breath away. What was it about this that captured me so?
According to dictionary.com, RE indicates return to a previous condition, restoration, repetition of an action. Again, again and again, back and backwards. A flood of words came to me and RE became a way of thinking forward by looking backwards and playing with words and ideas that unleash dreams and inform action. It’s not about static resolutions that we expect to achieve and check off a list but then abandon by February (an idea spoken about just 3 days earlier at that very same yoga studio) but rather opening the flow, circling back, beginning again and again and again in a spiral that moves you gently forward and upward.
Here are some musings inspired by the synchronicity of RE…
RElax – be a child again…find and claim whimsy and calm
REstore – make something old, new again… an idea, an object, a relationship
REunite – get together again… with a long lost friend or even one who hasn’t been lost for that long
REmark – speak up again… be heard, say what needs to be said, make your mark
REjoice – look backward…note the joyous moments. What are you grateful for? What brings you joy? Do it again and again.
REact – don’t sit there again…do something
REdesign – design it again and again…until you love it
REconsider – think back... to a rejected idea. Ponder it, reframe it, find a new perspective, now what do you see, know, think?
This list could go on and on. I Googled “RE” words. There are more than 4000 of them!
Here is my New Year’s challenge and wish for you:
Choose one.
Set it as your intention for 2018.
Reflect on this intention regularly.
Be open to joy and fulfillment.
Notice the synchronicities.
Let me know when things gently fall into place!
photo by Lynne Bernstein © 2017