I watched a reality TV show where every single contestant wanted to boot off one guy. He was inept, mooched off other people, annoyed everyone, and was consistently in the bottom two. I kept waiting for him to be eliminated but he wasn’t. That guy won the whole competition. It felt like such a fluke and reminded me of two sports stories.
In 2002 at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, speed skater Steven Bradbury lagged behind the other skaters by a large degree and was nowhere near placing in the top three. Then at the final lap, all of the top-four skaters crashed into one another. That let Bradbury literally glide into first place.
He went from dead last to winning the gold on a fluke. What happened to Bradbury was so incredible that his name has become an idiom. When someone stumbles their way into first place or success, it’s called, “Doing a Bradbury.”
Sometimes winning is about “luck.” Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash
The other sports story is Eric Moussambani’s from the 2000 Summer Olympics. He hails from Equatorial Guinea and entered the Olympics via a wild card. He had never seen an Olympic-sized swimming pool before the day of his heat and trained mostly in a lake. He swam the slowest time in Olympic history during his 100 m freestyle but he still won because both of his competitors were disqualified due to false starts. He didn’t advance to the next round but set a new personal best and a national record for his country.
All of these stories run counter to a popular narrative: That you only win and succeed if you’re the best. That’s not to discount Bradbury or Moussambani because they were Olympic athletes. Bradbury spent 14 years speed skating and suffered a life-threatening accident and a broken neck two years before his gold medal. Moussambani trained for hours and hours in a lake. Neither of these men were couch potatoes who walked off the street to compete in the Olympics. The reality TV show guy, well, he’s a different story. And yet with all of these men, something beyond their personal will and determination led to their victories.
Was it a fluke? Or was it something else? My spiritual teacher says there are no coincidences. Things don’t just “happen.” He says, “For each and every incident there is some cause.” We may or may not know the cause, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. He gives the example of an earthquake. Perhaps a huge stone took 10 million years to move from one place to another, but when it fell, the action took only a few seconds and caused the earth to shake. The cause took 10 million years to come to fruition but there was a cause for the earthquake.
When I witness these stories of “flukes,” “chance encounters,” and “luck,” I’m reminded if something is meant to be, it will happen. If it’s the Cosmic will, nothing can stop it. As someone who perpetually worries about the future, I take comfort in remembering what’s meant for me will not run past me – even if it seems the odds aren’t in my favor.
I dream of a world where we remember miracles happen all the time. A world where we understand there are no coincidences. A world where we recognize what is meant to happen to us, will. A world where we revel in supposed flukes, seeing them for the magical way the Divine Beloved enacts its will.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
It’s the Jewish New Year, and I’m wondering what the new year will bring. Will some of my dreams come true? Or will this year be a nightmare? I want to know because I derive comfort when I know what’s ahead. But is that really true? When journaling about this topic I wrote, “You do better left in the dark.” Um, excuse me?
As I pondered it, I realized the statement is true. If I knew the future, I might not live it. There have been many instances in my life where if you told me what was before me, I would have laughed in your face and said, “Yeah, right,” or, “Nope. Not doing that.” If I knew what was in store ahead of time, it would feel too daunting. I only accomplish things when I do the next right action, and then the next, and then the next. When I have the full picture, I’m paralyzed.
You don’t always needs to know in advance. Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash
As if to underscore this point about only focusing on what’s next, I pulled a goddess card and the message was, “Allowing the self to evolve as you go and discovering new things today sets the path for destiny to unfold. The power of the present and how you respond to life’s potential is the potent fertile seed of the future. In order to claim the future, you must attend to the now.”
I’m claiming the future by living in the now. This tracks with what my spiritual teacher says about destiny: “The stars do not control you; your original actions control you. And where the original action is not known to you, but the result is known to you, the result is experienced by you, you say it is fate.”
In other words, for every action, even one from a previous life, there is a reaction, and that reaction is often called fate. My teacher also said we think things are predestined but “destiny cannot be the absolute factor, for if you do not exist, if you do not act, destiny cannot exist either.”
Destiny requires action and actions change our destiny. About 10 years ago when my life was completely chaotic and I kept moving all over creation, I consulted psychic after psychic because I wanted comfort. I wanted to know when the drama would end and where I’d settle down. Not one of them was able to accurately predict what would happen more than six weeks out.
One psychic told me I’d move to Vancouver but then I visited Vancouver and discovered, no, I didn’t want to live there. Another psychic told me I’d be married with two elementary-age children by the time I was 35. That didn’t happen either. I kept putting my faith in psychics only to be let down over and over again.
Instead of focusing on the future, I’m better off attending to the present. Living in the present, taking the next right action, I live into the future, which is constantly changing anyway! For this Jewish New Year, I’m affirming I do better left in the dark, that the future will take care of itself, and life can be surprising in a good way.
I dream of a world where we understand destiny isn’t set in stone. A world where we recognize our actions create our destiny. A world where we remember if we knew everything in advance, we’d likely become overwhelmed. A world where we remember sometimes, we’re better off left in the dark.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’ve told this story to a few people this week so perhaps it’s also worth sharing here. During the Holocaust, my maternal grandmother bribed a farmer to hide her in his potato cellar. When the money ran out, he evicted her. She wandered through the woods half-starved and came across a young boy. Scared he would alert others to her presence, she threatened him but she wasn’t all that intimidating as she looked bedraggled and emaciated.
After the incident, she slid into hopelessness and no longer cared whether she lived or died. She’d already suffered so much and couldn’t take anymore. She spotted an encampment and decided to walk into it whether it was the Nazis or not.
It wasn’t the Nazis, it was the Russians so she was saved. Growing up when I heard that story, I marveled at the “happy accident,” of my grandmother’s “luck.” But recently I started to reframe what happened. What if it wasn’t an accident? What if it was intentional? What if my grandma was led to safety by guardian angels or water spirits or her intuition or some other benevolent force?
Seen and unseen forces walk beside us. Photo by Jad Limcaco on Unsplash
My spiritual teacher says, “There is no such thing such as an accident – everything is an incident. When an action is materialized within a very short time, or when the root cause of the action is not known to us, we are just seeing the reaction, the incident. When the cause, the causal side of the incident is not known to us, or when the causal side is translated into action in a very short time, we say it is an accident. But actually, nothing is accidental, everything is incidental.”
What about car accidents? And stubbing your toe? The cause could be very simple – someone ran a red light. Or you weren’t looking where you were going. But also sometimes, the cause is deeper and more meaningful than that (I think). I’d like to believe my grandmother walked into a Russian camp because she was meant to live. It wasn’t her time to die yet, so no, it wasn’t an accident.
The reframe is asking me to consider the same about my own life. What if I’m also not alone and instead being led to safety in its myriad forms? It’s clear that I pay attention to divine guidance. I notice when bumblebees land on my window or doves perch on my railing. I listen to the inner stirrings of my gut. Paying attention to divine guidance is what this Passover is about for me, a holiday I’m currently celebrating.
Passover is about the escape from Egypt and as a modern-day Jew, I’m escaping from a metaphorical Egypt. The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which also means tight spaces or narrow consciousness. This year the narrow consciousness I’m escaping from is the notion I’m wandering around all alone, lost in the woods. That help is out of reach and unavailable.
I’m recognizing I’m not all alone and neither was my grandmother, nor my great-grandmother, nor my great-great-grandmother all the way back to the time of Moses. I, too, am being led from a metaphorical Egypt to a safer, freer, promised land. Even if you’re not Jewish, maybe the same is true for you.
I dream of a world where we remember there are no coincidences, that instead there is always a cause for everything, even if we’re unaware of it. A world where we recognize we aren’t alone. A world where we remember benevolent beings are walking with us, guiding us where we need to go.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
On Saturday, I heard a delightful story from my hairstylist, Jen, about how she started working at the salon. She recently graduated from cosmetology school and was on the hunt for an apprenticeship because she wasn’t ready to strike out on her own as a full-fledged independent contractor.
While she searched, she continued to cut and style hair, including her friends and family. When Jen’s best friend went to the chiropractor one day, a woman came up to her and said, “I love your hair. Who did it?” The woman was, you guessed it, the owner of a hair salon. It turns out she’d been looking for an apprentice for two years!
I love this story because it reminds me what you’re looking for is looking for you. So often when it comes to searching for a job, a romantic partner, a literary agent, etc., we think it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – arduous and nearly impossible. We think we’re the ones putting in all the effort and if we stop trying, we won’t get what we want. However, what if instead of a needle in a haystack, it’s like a needle and a magnet? The needle is attracted to the magnet and the magnet is attracted to the needle. They’re looking for each other.
There’s a force that brings us together. Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay
Another story for you. Many years ago, before Doreen Virtue renounced all her work and ended the relationship with her publisher Hay House, she created an oracle card deck, which is a deck of cards with messages on it such as, “The angels are telling you to stand in your power,” or “Be kind to yourself today.” Hay House wanted the deck on the market right away but it usually takes an artist a year and a half to paint the 44 pictures needed to accompany the text of the oracle cards.
Doreen needed something immediately and had an image in mind of what she wanted. She went to her computer and said, “Angels, I need to find this artist but I need her to have 44 images available.” I’m not sure what she typed, but Doreen found an artist immediately with 44 images available and sent her a personal email.
On the artist’s end, she previously had high-paying jobs but they’d all dried up and she had to work for magazines doing art she didn’t enjoy. She made a resolution she would never again compromise on her artwork and would say “no” to all jobs unless they involved her true passions. Doreen contacted the artist within 20 days of her making that resolution with a big job to not only license her artwork but license 44 pieces of her artwork.
Why does this happen? Because attraction underpins the universe. When I say “attraction,” I don’t mean sexual attraction, I mean garden variety drawn together. My spiritual teacher says, “[T]he cause of this attraction is the imperative urge for self-preservation. It is only because of this urge for self-preservation that unit beings run after crude, subtle, or causal expressions. And this urge for self-preservation, too, arises due to the desire for happiness in every living being. So it is clear that behind every attraction between one entity and another, which we call by the name of káma, lies the pure desire for attaining happiness. Happiness is the ultimate desire of life.”
We look for one another because we want happiness. Jen wanted a job but the hair salon owner also wanted an apprentice. Doreen wanted an artist but the artist also wanted work. We aren’t solitary beings fumbling around in a forest hoping to run into what we’re looking for. We’re not searching for a needle in a haystack. No. It’s a two-way street. What we’re looking for is also looking for us like needles and magnets.
I dream of a world where we recognize we’re partnering with other people and with the universe in order to be happy. A world where we understand attraction is at the core of who we are. A world where we realize we aren’t needles and haystacks but instead needles and magnets that are inevitably drawn together.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
The cool thing about having a blog for so long is that sometimes things I wrote in the past are applicable to my life today. That happened to me this week when I reread a post from almost exactly 12 years ago. My life is significantly different now – I no longer work at an office job in San Francisco, for instance – but other aspects are the same, and the message in this blog is just what I needed to hear. I hope that’s true for you too.
I often think I’ve missed the boat in life. That what I want can’t happen because the opportunity passed me by. Or maybe I screwed it up. If I hadn’t said XYZ, then I’d have what I want. If I hadn’t made that one mistake, things would have worked out differently. But is that really true?
In 2007 when I worked in Washington, D.C., my coworkers had a Mother’s Day jewelry sale. I went looking for a gift for my mom and passed by a mother-of-pearl shell bracelet with a T-bar and circle clasp. I didn’t think my mom would like it, plus I don’t like buying parts of animals, so I went back to my cubicle empty-handed. But I kept thinking about the bracelet. I wanted it – not for my mom, but for me. I rushed back upstairs and purchased it (and said a prayer for the mollusk who died to give it to me).
The bracelet in question (with a new clasp).
Shortly thereafter I went to a WNBA game with a friend of mine. When the game ended and we started walking toward the exit, I looked down at my wrist and realized my bracelet was gone. (The bracelet is a little bit too big for me and so the T-bar has a tendency to slip from the clasp.) I started searching around me in a panic, checking my pockets, my sleeve, the ground. I retraced my steps, went back to the bathroom to see if it had fallen on the tiles. I scanned the crowded hallway and couldn’t find it. My friend and I went back to our seats and there it was, on the cement, directly below where I was sitting.
Yesterday, while I sat at my desk at work, one of my coworkers came up to me with my bracelet dangling from his fingers and asked, “Is this yours?” I hadn’t even realized I lost it but nonetheless, my bracelet found its way back to me. And then last night on my walk to the chiropractor from work, I realized I lost my bracelet again! I scanned the pavement; I kept my eyes trained on the ground for six blocks searching to no avail. I probably lost it somewhere on my mile walk from work to my apartment. I couldn’t check the office either because today I work from home so I called one of my coworkers and asked her to keep an eye out for it.
What are the odds I will find it? It could have fallen off anywhere. Someone else could have picked it up; it could have been thrown away by someone sweeping the sidewalks. It could have fallen into a sewer grate. In all likelihood my bracelet is gone.
This morning I went to the basement to do some laundry and I looked at the windowsill in the stairwell. Lo and behold, there was my bracelet, waiting for me! (Side note, since this post was first written, I changed the clasp on my bracelet to a lobster claw so it doesn’t keep slipping off.) Of all the places it could have been, of all the possibilities, my bracelet found its way back to me. Some things seem completely illogical, unreasonable, and far-fetched, but if they’re meant to be, they will happen. If you’re meant to have something, you will. In other words, if it’s yours, it’s yours.
I dream of a world where we trust the universe. A world where we shoot for our dreams with full force knowing if it’s meant to be, it will happen. A world where we know magic is real and the impossible is possible. A world where we understand if it’s ours, it’s ours.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Years ago I heard a saying, “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” On the one hand, I appreciate the sentiment because it underscores the necessity of hard work and effort. On the other hand, I think the saying plays too much into the mindset that if only you keep trying, you’ll get what you want. Frankly, that’s not always true.
A close friend reflected to me she’s been actively dating for years and has yet to meet her life partner. What do you notice hearing that? Is your first response, “What’s wrong with her?” Congratulations: You’ve bought into the narrative that each of us in charge of our lives and in complete control of what happens to us. There’s nothing wrong with my friend, or others like her because frankly I know several women who are in her same situation. They’ve gone to therapy, they’ve worked on their attachment style, they put themselves out there, and still they’re single.
The reality is if your will isn’t synced up with the universe’s will, what you want won’t happen. My spiritual teacher says that “whatever happens in this universe of ours is nothing but an expression of Cosmic desire or Cosmic will … when a human desire and His desire coincide, then only does the human desire become fruitful, otherwise it is a sure failure.”
Sometimes the universe says, “No.” Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash.
Just think about that for a minute. What if it’s not true you only need to try harder to get what you want? What if it’s not true that if you’re single, or poor, or without a literary agent there’s something wrong with you? What if it’s instead that your partner is currently unavailable, or you’re meant to work somewhere else, or your literary agent is on maternity leave? Maybe the lack of what you want has nothing to do with you at all.
What keeps coming to mind is how the universe is magical and mysterious. I heard from a bestselling author that she snagged her literary agent not because she wrote a stellar query letter, but instead because she was on a podcast with one of the agent’s authors. This woman landed a literary agent not because she tried really hard, but because of a happy accident.
I’m not advocating that we all sit on our butts and become passive participants in our lives. Instead, what I’m proposing is we take the shame out of our dreams because sometimes you don’t have what you want through no fault of your own. Sometimes you don’t have what you want because it’s not time yet or it’s not in your best interest or there’s something better waiting for you. Ultimately it comes down to syncing our will with the Cosmic will and we don’t usually know when, how, or why that happens.
I dream of a world where we understand trying harder doesn’t always work. A world where we realize we aren’t the masters of our fate and sometimes the best thing we can do is let go. A world where we remember if it’s meant to be, sometimes it’s not up to me but rather up to the universe.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Something funny happened to me. This morning I read in Tosha’s Silver’s book It’s Not Your Money that sometimes when we’re angry we need to break something. She recommends plates but it could be anything – stuffed animals, coconuts, phone books. I felt the urge to break something but then talked myself out of it because I didn’t want to deal with the clean up. Even if I broke plates in my garage I can’t leave shards lying around. I mean, I suppose I could, but people park in there. What would happen to their tires? Therefore I dismissed breaking anything and considered buying a coconut later this week.
I grabbed my water glass and wouldn’t you know it – it hit my counter in such a way that it shattered. Not into a million pieces thank goodness, but enough to mean I pulled out the vacuum cleaner. It was kind of satisfying to hear and see the glass smash AND it was also a pain in the butt to clean up the debris. Some people might think my experience just now was a coincidence but I’m not a butterfingers. I don’t regularly break dishes. In fact, the last time I broke a water glass was more than four years ago, so we can’t chalk it up to me being a klutz.
Not my glasses. Photo by Jana Sabeth on Unsplash
I’m writing about this, I’m making meaning out of the broken glass, because I think it indicates what’s in my best good will happen. I may try to prevent it, but it will happen. Also, sometimes what’s best for me will hurt or be annoying. In this instance, I cut myself. I bled a little. And I had to clean up the broken glass. It wasn’t fun, I didn’t enjoy it, but the part of me that needed to break something feels satisfied. Emotionally I feel better.
I’m also thinking about samskaras here, or reactive momenta. Samskaras are related to the law of karma, or the law of action. As we know, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. But what happens if the reaction takes a second? Or more than a second? That potential reaction, the seed of the reaction to an action, is called a samskara in Sanskrit. According to my spiritual tradition, we carry these samskaras with us from one lifetime to the next. When a samskara is expressed, we often attribute that to luck, both good and bad.
I spend a lot of time thinking about luck. I long for good luck and I worry about bad luck. “Worry” isn’t quite the right word, it’s more like obsess. Especially when it comes to safety. I’m scared to go to movie theaters because I’m worried about mass shootings. I’m nervous attending religious services for the same reason. The first thing I do when I enter a space is notice the exits in case I need to make a quick getaway. Some of this is warranted, I do live in the U.S. after all, but I worry about these things as if noticing them will prevent them from happening. If I’m hypervigilant, then nothing can happen to me, right? Weeeellllllllll.
Another way to think of samskaras is to equate them with a curriculum. There are certain things that are meant for us in this lifetime. We can’t run away from them as much as we try. It’s why the healthiest person you know gets cancer. Or your friend can’t find a job despite applying all over creation. It would be easy to sink into defeatism here. To say, “Oh well. That’s my fate. Can’t do anything about it,” but that’s both true and not true. We make new samskaras all the time. How we show up in the world still matters AND certain things are inevitable. I think what this comes down to is serenity, encapsulated by the serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Right now, I’m figuring out what I can change and what I can’t. I’m working on accepting what’s coming to me, both good and bad. How can I be more serene? That, my friends, is the work.
I dream of a world where we recognize what’s needed in our lives will happen. A world where we understand what’s necessary isn’t always pleasant. A world where we realize someone else’s life curriculum isn’t necessarily ours and vice versa. A world where we live in serenity as best we can one day at a time.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Certain things in my life feel inevitable. What’s going on with my diet right now feels like one of them. Some of you know I have a long list of food allergies that keeps getting longer. The frustrating part for me is if I eat something frequently enough, I become allergic to it.
The other week I noticed when I eat figs, now my mouth burns. Never mind that I’ve eaten figs for YEARS without any problem. Suddenly, they’re a problem. If you know anything about health, you might be saying, “It’s sound like you have leaky gut.” You would be correct. However, following the leaky gut diet (i.e., no gluten, cutting out carbs, low sugar, etc.) hasn’t made a lick of difference and in fact I’m only getting worse.
Yeah, not eating any of this right now. Photo by Waranya Mooldee on Unsplash
I called my doctor in frustration and she recommended the Elemental Diet. The Elemental Diet is food broken down into its most elemental form. It’s a powdered meal replacement. It’s something physicians give to patients with Crohn’s disease and to recovering anorexics, among others. The recommended procedure is to eat only the powder mixed with water for two to three weeks to give the digestive system a break. That means no solid food. I cried when my doctor suggested the regimen and also freaked out, worrying that I’d feel hungry. It’s only been a couple of days, but surprisingly, I feel good. My body doesn’t hurt after eating. The powder is filling. My mood has improved. Will I do this for three weeks? I don’t know — it’s one meal at a time for me right now.
What’s interesting is in my yoga and meditation group we’re supposed to fast 11 days after the full and new moon. Concessions are made for people who don’t have good health, but if someone can fast, they are encouraged to do so. And fasting runs the gamut from consuming absolutely nothing, including no water, to merely abstaining from rice and fried foods. The reason fasting is encouraged is it gives the body a break and also the time spent eating, cleaning, and prepping can be used for spiritual pursuits. I’m finding the same is true for me. Thus far, I’m meditating more and feeling closer to my higher power.
The reason why this whole thing feels inevitable is I’m finally engaging in a practice that is a big part of my spiritual tradition. My life is oriented around spirituality, around moving closer to something bigger than myself, and fasting is allowing me to do that. It feels like I would always end up here. That I would always see the benefit of fasting for my body, mind, and spirit. Because as I’ve seen with other practices, like yoga, eventually something happens to get me to come around. I’m not sure I’m doing a great job explaining myself, but that’s OK. For me and for everyone there are certain things in our lives that feel inevitable, and that’s what I’m speaking to.
I dream of a world where we accept the inescapability of certain things. A world where we recognize we were always going to end up someplace or doing something specific. That there are some things we can’t fight and instead we give in to them. A world where we feel at peace with the inevitable.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I think it’s pretty clear I want to be famous. Not “get my picture taken while eating a hamburger in a car” famous, but “win awards and have people share my content” famous. I know fame doesn’t make anyone happy, I know the goal of my life is not fame, I know aiming for fame goes against all of my spiritual beliefs, and yet it’s still here.
I’ve wrestled with this aspect of myself for decades trying to reason with it, spin it, battle it, push it away. But it’s still here. On Wednesday, I listened to a radio show loosely about surrender and I burst into tears because I finally accepted this part of me. To surrender means to stop fighting and I stopped fighting this aspect of myself. I also started journaling about it, asking why I care so much.
This picture is perfect. Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash.
I seek fame because I want to prove myself, I want to showcase my “enough-ness.” I spoke with a friend about this and he suggested I make a list of all the ways I’ll finally be enough. I’ll be enough when _____. I made my list: “I’ll be enough when I’m a bestselling author. I’ll be enough when I go on Oprah. I’ll be enough when a celebrity retweets me.” I kept going until I reached the point when I wrote, “I’ll be enough when I feel worthy.”
As if to hammer the point home, I listened to another radio show by Nancy Levin, who used to be the events coordinator at Hay House before she transitioned into writing and coaching. To paraphrase, she said nothing on the outside will make you feel worthy if you don’t feel worthy on the inside. I know this. In fact, I’ve written this. But when I look back at my post on self-worth from nearly nine years, I hear a lot of judgment. A lot of dismissing. I didn’t honor my desire then or now.
When I look at the basic philosophy of my spiritual tradition, I have more perspective. The philosophy states we take everything and channel it toward the divine. It sounds like a lovely sentiment, but what does that actually mean? I’m not sure I know, but what I’m starting to understand is I can’t run from anything, including my desire for fame. I can’t escape anything. Maybe to use everything as a vehicle toward my unification with a power greater than myself means first that I have to accept what is here in a loving, compassionate way.
This blogpost deals with my desire for fame, but the concept is applicable to anything. It could be the part of ourselves that’s scared of others, or is greedy, or ashamed, or whatever. We can’t pretend that side doesn’t exist as much as we’d like that to be the case. We have to work with what’s here in order to have any power over it. I’ve likely used this quote before, but Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you’ll call it fate.” I’d rather be an active participant in my fate and the only way to do that it seems is to stop running from the things I don’t like.
I dream of a world where we accept all parts of ourselves with compassion. A world where we realize just because we don’t like something doesn’t mean it goes away. A world where we embrace our inherent tendencies and still work to transform them into something else. A world where we channelize them toward something greater than ourselves.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
It’s been a busy and stressful week. Lots of traveling, lots of activity. The only thing on my mind is synchronicity. I’m resharing this post on the topic from more than a year ago. Enjoy.
The other week, I ended early with my writing coaching client (which never happens) and conducted my usual grocery shopping. As I walked out of the grocery store, I ran into someone I literally haven’t seen or talked to in close to five years. It turns out, a few days prior he mentioned me to his girlfriend and voila, we ran into each other.
Even better, during the course of our conversation I said some things it seemed he needed to hear so in many ways I felt like a messenger. I walked away from our encounter on a high, marveling at the magic and the mystery of the universe.
There are no coincidences.
Some people would say that interaction was a coincidence, a happy accident. I don’t view it that way at all. My spiritual teacher says everything is incidental. “For each and every incident there is some cause,” he says. We may or may not know the cause, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
He gives the example of an earthquake saying perhaps a huge stone took 10 million years to move from one place to another, but when it fell, the action took only a few seconds and caused the earth to shake. The cause took 10 million years to come to fruition but there was a cause for the earthquake, it didn’t just “happen.”
When I look at the synchronistic turn of events from the other week, I am reminded there is a divine intelligence in place. There is some force at work that configured things just so, allowing me to meet this friend. If I hadn’t left my coaching session early, if my friend walked into the grocery store five minutes later, etc. our meeting wouldn’t have occurred. I am truly in awe of all the moving parts that needed to align in order for us to run into each other.
This story comforts me because at the moment there are a few areas of my life where I feel stuck and hopeless. Where I don’t see how they can or will change. I am convinced they will stay in their current state for the rest of my days. But then I think about this “chance” encounter with my friend and am reminded things can and do change unexpectedly. And not only that, there is also a guiding presence in my life, overseeing everything.
If I can run into a friend out of the blue, is there also a chance these areas of life can also change? That things won’t stay the same? That something else unexpected will show up in my life to shake things up? Like the stone that took 10 million years to fall, maybe there are events slowly, slowly unfolding and when they drop will shake the ground beneath my feet. I find that both terrifying and exciting. I cling to the notion though the universe is working for my benefit, that it ultimately wants to see me succeed.
I dream of a world where we realize everything is incidental. A world where we realize we may not know the initial cause but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. A world were we remember there is a guiding force in our life that arranges circumstances and events for our benefit.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.