...Synchronicity is when two or more things happen close together in time that seem strangely connected, when there is no obvious way, in our conventional understanding of reality, that they could be connected.
For example, I was on the phone once with someone who was on the other side of the U.S. from me, and who was saying, "It's like being a butterfly," just as a butterfly flew past my window. And, it's very rare for me to see butterflies out my windows.
Another example -- I was reading a biography about a woman who lived in Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp in Florida, which I had never heard of. That week, I was idly flipping TV channels, and stopped at a police series I had never even heard of before. I started watching it, and this episode turned out to be about a murder at Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp in Florida. On top of that, there was a plethora of synchros for my life in the episode, including a plot point of the FDA approving a drug it shouldn't have.
There is debate over whether these events are statistically rare, but essentially meaningless, random coincidences, or whether they show that there is an underlying framework to reality that we don't fully know about yet.
Some people think that synchronicities are caused by unconscious psychokinesis. In other words, I wanted to see a butterfly at that moment, so I unconsciously dragged one over from wherever it was before.
Interestingly, there is an explosion of books and conferences going on right now about synchronicity!
Back in the 1900s, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung did a lot to popularize the idea.
"Following discussions with both Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, Jung believed that there were parallels between synchronicity and aspects of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Jung was transfixed by the idea that life was not a series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order....This deeper order led to the insights that a person was both embedded in an orderly framework and was the focus of that orderly framework and that the realisation of this was more than just an intellectual exercise but also having elements of a spiritual awakening." (Wiki)
What does synchronicity have to do with w/d?
...Some of us got on these meds in the first place because we were trying to keep going along a socially- and familially-approved path. Some of us got on these meds for different reasons, but I think the issue of feeling pressured to conform is pretty universal.
For awhile, the meds supported our attempts to fit in, perform, keep up. But, of course, the cost was tremendous -- our adrenals were mined, and, in the end, we still became unable to keep up and fit in, after all.
Having to get off these meds and then recover from them is forcing us to take better care of ourselves than we ever have in our lives. We're all looking around us and reconsidering things we had taken for granted -- starting with the role of doctors and Big Pharma in our lives, and proceeding from there to the big questions of what our lives are about and what to do with them.
I feel like I have learned the hard way that my life works better not when I try to conform to what is considered normal, but when I do exactly what I want to do. This is a lot harder than it seems! I was raised in a country founded by Puritans and in a family that's very driven. I have been so trained to make myself do what I "should" and to "do my homework before I go out and play" that it's super-hard to trust that if I follow my intuition, I will be safe, have enough money, be a good person, etc.
(You may be thinking that you or someone you know does *too much* of what they want to do, and is not disciplined enough. I would argue that when you're doing what you really, really want to do -- ie pursuing your dreams -- you're not so interested in over-indulgence.)
As I emerge from the depths of w/d, and try to live in a new way, I am finding that I have a lot more synchronicities than ever before. When I get too caught up again in "shoulds" or when the w/d symptoms flare up too much again, the synchros stop happening. So, it seems that when I am healthier and following my inner lights, I get synchronicities. And they are a sign that I'm in the flow, where I'm optimally supposed to be.
So, being forced by SSRI w/d to live better has led me to discover synchronicity. Synchronicity, in turn, is leading me toward other intriguing things! More on that later!
[Originally posted by moi April 2011 on SA]
