Synchronicity: You Know It When You Feel It

 

You feel it in your fingers, in your toes and especially in your skin. It is, first and last, through our feelings that we know that coincidence is going on, and that it is meaningful. It can tickle, it can punch you in the gut. It can stop your breath or make you jump with delight. It can give you cold chills or warm shivers. It can feel like a pat on the shoulder, like a bisou on your cheek, like a jab in the small of your back.
     Feeling is your clue to meaning. I made an informal survey of 800 people who follow my work. I asked them the following question:

When you encounter significant coincidence (aka synchronicity) what do you feel and what do you say about it?

Here are some of the responses:

Usually I say, bring it on! I feel I am being shown I am on the right path.

I say thank you. I feel motivated to be alert and to be present.

 I shudder. I feel a tilt in the world. I say, "Hot damn!"

For a moment, the whole world stops and I am at one with the universe.

I always feel deeply grateful and special.

Often coincidences are very playful in my life. I smile or laugh, then look a little deeper. Is there something here I need to look at? Do I need to take action or just relax and enjoy the play?

Sometimes I giggle, sometimes I feel awe and oneness. The biggies I share with those who may appreciate or gain from it, and I try to note them all in my gratitude journal to keep 'em coming.

 It's like hearing the bell when the angel, Clarence, gets his wings in the movie ‘It's a Wonderful Life.’

 I feel very happy because I feel conscious and awake.

Chicken skin!

I feel lucky and supported and connected and I tell other people, to remind them of the story that we are collectively woven into

I just say, ‘Dang!’

I tell everybody about it, to remind them that life is magic.

I give thanks and gratitude for something far more sacred taking place than I had ever realized before .

Laughing and expectant, I say, Yes! and Thank you!

I feel it is my higher self and the universe conspiring to bring into my life all that is needed in just the right moment.

I feel things are working in the direction they should be.

I feel euphoric, giddy and scared. I know there’s magic afoot.

I get the warm fuzzy feeling like the universe is allowing me to see a few of the strings behind the special effects.

It’s like waking up suddenly.

I feel I’m on the right path, in touch, connected.

 I feel like I'm being nagged by something with a peculiar sense of humor. I generally chuckle and say, Alright then.

The message for me is, Pay attention

I say, Ah….someone is listening after all.

amused and supported 

I smile and enjoy the feeling of having my senses open. It's everywhere all the time and I just love it.

I say thank you to the universe and spirit, and then I always wonder what I might have been missing when I wasn't noticing a synchronicity around me.

I say, Gimme more please! Thank you! And what can I do with this? It makes me feel alive, enchanted and the world becomes sharper.

What is most striking in this informal survey is that no one who responded described the experience of synchronicity as scary. They find it thrilling and exciting. They did not speak of synchronicity as strange, either in the sense of being foreign to normal experience or in the sense of being a rare phenomenon in their lives. On the contrary, they spoke again and again of how the experience makes them feel at home in a conscious, benign universe where they are recognized and supported. Some talked of receiving “divine winks” or “secret handshakes”.   Nobody described the experience of synchronicity as “weird” until I introduced focused discussion of that word later on. Again and again, we heard responders saying, Gimme more please, Bring it on! What was “weird” to them was not the phenomenon of synchronicity, but missing out on it.

I see I must add the wisdom of Laotzi, in the Tao Te Ching, to the counsel on navigating  by synchronicity I presented in my book Sidewalk Oracles: "The sage is guided by what he feels". 

 

Photo by RM from Sibiu, Romania