Synchronicity

I've been reading Shirley MacLaine's book, Sage-ing While Age-ing. In the book there's a chapter dedicated to synchronicity. Here's a little excerpt from her book:

The term "synchronicity" was coined by one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Jung defined synchronicity as "any apparent coincidence that inspires a sense of wonder and personal meaning or particular significance in the observer. It is a perceived connection between two or more objects or events or persons without any recognizable cause."

Why do I care about synchronicity enough to write about it? Well, it's EVERYWHERE. The thing about synchronicity is that it can be so minor you don't even realize it, or it can be huge and possibly life changing. I believe that once you make yourself open and aware to it's existence you will realize how often it takes place. Some examples:

Recently I thought of my friend Kirk. He and I briefly worked together when I worked in Downtown LA. We worked together for maybe 1 month, but we bonded pretty quickly and enjoyed each other's company at work. Eventually we fell out of communication after we stopped working together and I haven't seen him in about 5-6 months. Just a few days ago as I walked to work and I was thinking random little insignificant thoughts, an image of his face came into my mind. Nothing major...I just thought of him for a split second. About an hour or two later while I was at work I received a text message from Kirk seeing how I was doing.

Was this moment life changing? Not at all, but it got my attention...so maybe it was life changing after all. Up until this point I was starting to become aware of synchronicity on a larger scale, understanding how things work themselves out, why things happen. But I was not aware of how synchronicity is a constantly recurring part of my life.

After hearing from Kirk I started to be aware of little things that would take place. I pulled out a form that was under a large stack of books and accidentally pulled out an extra form. I thought to myself, damn! Now I'm going to have to pick up all of these books to put that extra form away. But I didn't put it away, I left it out and thought I'll deal with it later. This was a form I didn't have to pull out often. Not even an hour later I had a patient that needed this form and the extra form that I pulled out went right to her. Funny how these little things happen.

Synchronicity is such a huge part of our lives, but unless we are open to it's existence, we miss it. Look back at a something that seemed terrible at the time but turned out for the best. Synchronicity. Or what about an insignificant event that actually became life changing. Synchronicity.

Just a few months ago I was watching Oprah and heard about her Masterclass episode. This episode for me, was life changing. She was answering questions that I had been asking myself. And the biggest thing that I walked away with after watching the episode was 2 realizations:

1. Karma is real and exists 2. You have to give up control to have a greater understanding of the universe.

Not long after watching this I was watching The Oprah Winfrey Show, (I'm a big fan of Oprah) and that day's episode was with Shirley Maclaine. This was an episode I had zero interest in. Normally I would have deleted this episode and moved on to All My Children, but for some reason I didn't. I watched the episode and THAT was life changing for me. Shirley MacLaine talked about synchronicity, karma, color frequency, past lives, the soul, reincarnation, souls speaking through others, psychic abilities, etc. This episode went on and on and the more I heard the more it spoke to me. By the end of the episode I needed more. This was the moment that I realized what I felt I had always been missing was not something tangible, it wasn't a self-esteem issue, it wasn't something that going to my local church could fix...what I was missing was my spirituality, my understanding of my purpose.

Now every day I am aware of my soul, I'm working towards understanding why I chose to come back for this lifetime and what it is I am here to do and to learn.

Synchronicity....