Synchronicity
Are you on the right path?
Chat GPT prompt : Explain synchronicity.
“Synchronicity is a concept introduced by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe the meaningful coincidences that occur without any direct cause-and-effect connection. These events are linked by meaning rather than by physical or causal relationships. Jung believed that synchronicity was a way of understanding the connectedness between internal states (such as thoughts, feelings, or dreams) and external events.”
While technically correct, AI of course lacks the human aspect. How can I explain synchronicity, I think, as my son runs around the courtyard of our breakfast spot, chasing a little girl.
In that moment, I notice the girl’s shoes. She has the same bubbly soles as my son’s new Adidas. My eyes do a double take, and I realize that they are wearing the same shoes. Hers are for girls, white and pink. His are for boys, black and white. Yin and yang. Synchronicity illustrated in front of me, while I ponder synchronicity. Uber synchronicity.
I believe that synchronicity is an indicator that, at any given time you’re on the right path. Since beginning the process of moving to Mexico, our life has been filled with these indicators.
These guideposts have been present at every step of the way, subtle winks reminding us that this profound shift in our journey was the right path to follow.
The other day we were listening to Pink Floyd, our son’s favourite band. As soon as we stepped out of our car and the music stopped, we walked by someone wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt. As we walked down the street, we noticed a cool looking coffee shop. They had a vinyl record player displayed prominently in the centre of the place, with LPs hanging on the wall. Of course, Pink Floyd’s - Wish You Were Here, our son’s very favourite album of the band, was resting right beside the turn table.
Another of our favourite albums these days is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. It kind of became an anthem of our life and our relocation: “You can go your own way…”
On our 11 day road trip from Canada to Mexico, I walked into a 7-11 in Tennessee as the song blasted, “…you can call it another lonely day.”
We bought our son a rainbow umbrella. The very same day, we walked into one of our favourite coffee shops and saw a couple sitting there, with the very same umbrella leaned against their table.
“Hey! it’s like my umbrella! It’s the same!” gleefully exclaimed our son.
And on, and on, and on.
“We often dream about people from whom we receive a letter by the next post. I have ascertained on several occasions that at the moment when the dream occurred the letter was already lying in the post-office of the addressee.”
― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
Some people claim synchronicity is a sign of the universe telling you you’re on the right path. I’ve also heard it described as “God Winks”; God winking at you to let you know everything is okay, you’re on track.
Back in college, in my Psych 101 course, I recall the professor explaining a similar psychological concept, though its name escapes me now. I remember him explaining how we notice external things that are specific to our current psychological landscape. For example, if you have just broken up with your boyfriend, all you see around you are happy couples. If your dog died, you notice puppies wherever you go. But this does not really explain synchronicity, nor is it the same thing.
Is synchronicity, in a way, a widening of your perception, that allows you to merely perceive more coincidences? Or is there something more spiritual, and kind of magical to it?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the lack of synchronicity. What happens when you stop having these moments? What happens when you stop seeing meaning around you, in coincidences that weave the cosmos together, and reassure your soul?
I remember episodes in my life when I stopped having moments of synchronicity altogether. I was feeling stuck, like I was being sucked into an emotional black hole.
I had stopped noticing the winks guiding the way.
Synchronicity had disappeared.
Why it disappears is a mystery. Maybe our senses are dulled, noticing things less. Or maybe the magic actually stops happening. Maybe God stops winking at us, or the universe stops speaking to us, to make us aware of the absence. Maybe we are simply just less in synch with ourselves, and therefore the external world.
Once I realize the things blocking my happiness are internal, I start to get back in synch with myself. And then, the little synchronicities inevitably reappear.
As I sit here writing in café #2 of the day, I think about some new friends we met this week while out and about. A family with a son born two days before our son, whose mom was wearing a sweatshirt that said QUEBEC on it— the place we come from.
As that family moved out, another two families moved in. They were from Venezuela. Their twin children were born just a few days apart from our son, again! And it turns out, one of the men had the same name as my husband, William. The more they spoke, the more we realized they had many more things in common: both liked to scuba dive, we left our respective countries for the same reasons, they were homeschooling their kids, and were bitcoiners.
In Mexico, we are slowly finding our people, by the grace of little coincidences, guiding us along the way.
But the most exceptional instance of synchronicity happened before we arrived here. For almost three years, we attempted to get residency in Mexico, but it didn’t work out. First, our appointment at the Toronto consulate in 2021 was cancelled indefinitely. Then, the Ottawa consulate we made an appointment at in 2022 sent us home, because of an appointment booking error.
We put our dreams of Mexico on the back burner, until one day in January 2024, my husband was cued into some insider scoop: the Leamington consulate was apparently the best place in Ontario to get residency approved.
It was a seven hour drive away. We managed to book an appointment with the consulate within 48 hours, something we weren’t able to do for over a year with the Toronto consulate. We put all our paperwork together, booked a hotel room, and headed to Leamington. When we arrived, the agent working on our file let us know that we were missing some photocopies, and a common-law affidavit. She said she could only approve one of us— and since I was first in line, that was me— and my spouse and son would have to make a new appointment. The next available spots were a few weeks (and hundreds of kilometres) away.
As she was about to officially refuse our application, her computer froze. With temperatures hovering around zero degrees that day, there was freezing rain. Ice had accumulated on the consulate’s internet antennae, and their system was down.
William looked at me, a twinkle in his eye. The agent had taken a liking to us, and we made a deal with her: we could come back within an hour, and if we had gathered all the documents required, she could approve us all.
We flew out of there, stopping at Staples and furiously printed out the missing photocopies. We scoured google maps for local lawyers’ offices, and called around. It was lunchtime and the offices were closing, but despite the odds, we managed to find a fifteen minute window to get in and out of a lawyer’s office with a signed affidavit. It worked. By some miracle, everything worked in our favour.
We pulled back into the consulate with everything we needed, and by the next morning, we walked out with residencies approved for the three of us.
The next week, we booked our flight to Mexico City, and came to get our official residency cards. We almost missed our flight, because the last time we flew we were in the aviation industry, and used to use crew bypass lines, so totally miscalculated the amount of time it took for ‘normal’ people to travel.
Especially with a toddler.
The Air Canada agent refused to check both our bags in, because we had missed the cut off. Standing in the airport feeling desperate, with our son crying because his bag wasn’t going in the belly of the plane, about to be defeated, another agent subtly beckoned me over.
“Next time, get here earlier.” he said, with kindness lining his voice.
We raced through the terminal and made it just in time for boarding.
Everything is working out, even though we made so many mistakes, I thought. Even though it shouldn’t have worked, somehow it did.
When it came to Mexico, we were nudged along by synchronicity.
The way that everything unfolded led us to believe that we were, indeed, on the right path.
“Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.”
― Carl Jung
Coming out of my memories and into the now, my gaze shifts to the records adorning the turntable shelf in front of me. Promesa café is a very hip spot, where you can come chill, enjoy some records while you eat, drink, hang out and work. They encourage their guests to choose a record to add to the queue. Our son just chose a Led Zeppelin album, and when he took the record off the shelf, uncovered the one beneath it to reveal: Synchronicity.
It might sound new age-y, weird, or crazy. But these moments keep happening. There are many times in my life where I can recall strange coincidences or idiosyncrasies that are simply too extraordinary to be random. I have learned to take them as signs that the path I am on is the right one, because these always intensify during great internal and external shifts.
It’s all very curious and mysterious. But then again, so is life. Not everything can be explained, but in trying to find explanations, we often find meaning. And that’s enough for me.
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What are your thoughts on synchronicity? Have you experienced anything like this before? Are you experiencing them now?
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The ultimate synchronicity, of course, is the fact that I was just thinking about synchronicities transpiring in my life in the last couple of days when I read this post...
Leamington, what're the chances they'd have a consulate there, not Windsor, and that they'd handle this type of matter. Who knows, probably the Quebec guy wanted to wet his beak with a couple of bucks off you. Niece and I have this weird thing going, whenever we check the time, invariably it's 9:11.