“To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition.” —Sri Aurobindo
Integration & Fresh Synchronicities
This weekend, I was catching up with folks on an integration Zoom one month after our retreat in Peru together. There was a common ground of sharing positive synchronicities that were showing up in life; some were attracting new people and new opportunities, while others received recurring dream messages that beckoned for deeper layers of shedding old habits after returning home.
Synchronicity: A Mirror, Not a Wishlist
Have you ever thought about a person you haven’t talked to for some time, and then, all of a sudden, you see them on the street? Or maybe you sat next to someone on the plane who happened to be from your hometown, and later would offer you your next big opportunity? I recently had an extreme psychic case of synchronicity where a woman I never met said she heard my name in her dream multiple times from her Guides, and then saw a truck with the name Johnson plastered on its side. As someone who pays attention and listens to these synchronicities, she took it as a sign to join me on my Blue Mountains Retreat in October where we will meet in person.
This synchronicity concept was coined by Carl Jung to describe coincidental events that felt meaningful when no causal link (cause-and-effect) was found. Jung studied the I Ching, an ancient Chinese book of divination, to understand how synchronicities mirrored the state of the psyche at any given moment. He concluded that synchronized messages from oracles like the I Ching, were less about predicting the future and more about offering structured reflections of the mind (inner state), and the situations unfolding (outer environment). Essentially, a multitude of meanings can be found through any situation depending on the perspective you are looking at it from. Each meaning functions like a different TV channel where each channel exists simultaneously with the others, and only activates when you place your attention on it.
For example, if you are in a victim level of consciousness, you may perceive being let go of a job as a negative experience; whereas if you operate in a more developed level of consciousness, you might see it as a positive opportunity to find a job that aligns with your core values.
Synchronicity in the Medicine Wheel
Synchronicity isn’t only a nectar-magnet for positive situations. In the Andean Medicine Wheel, synchronous events are governed by the winds of the North, the fire of purpose, under the guardianship of the Hummingbird. Despite their tiny bodies, hummingbirds make epic migrations from parts of Central/South America to North America and visit up to 2,000 flowers a day. They move from flower to flower with a sense of lightness and trust in the Universe that the next sip will appear. The Hummingbird teaches that when you can tune to the frequency of meaning and purpose, the seemingly “impossible” becomes possible, one conscious meeting at a time.
One of the laws of the universe is that everything in life is a fractal mirror of the greater whole. A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself at different sizes—zoom in, and the smaller parts look similar to the whole. Think of cauliflower, mountain ridges, coastlines, lightning, or the bronchial tree of your lungs: each little section echoes the larger shape.
With that concept in mind, think of the synchronicities in your life as a mirror of your inner state. If you broadcast a heart-centered frequency, you will find yourself always at the right place at the right time, regardless of what crisis is unfolding in the world. If you are broadcasting a signal that is full of negative self-sabotaging beliefs, you will attract negative synchronicities until your lesson is learned—like the same toxic boss in a new body, or the same co-dependent relationship with a new face.
Seeds & Grooves: Vasanas, Samskaras & Fractal Mirrors
Most people who live on autopilot will inevitably be ruled by an inner software that is laden with negative imprints. In Yogic and Buddhist philosophy, these imprints are called vasanas, roughly translated as seed tendencies, or you can think of them as a seed bank of compulsions that may take you away from your highest potential. Those seeds carve samskaras—the grooves or ‘habit-tracks’ laid down by repeated thoughts and actions; the vasana is the impulse, the samskara is the pathway it runs.” Though you are born with these seeds, it is up to you which ones you water—the seeds of fear or the seeds of joy and love. On autopilot, energy follows the old groove; with conscious practice, you lay down a new one.
Positive and negative tendencies are inherited from your parents and your ancestors. For example, during the Great Depression, there was a collective mindset to penny-pinch due to a collapsed economy and global famine, which affected the mind and bodies of your grandparents. This program of scarcity then gets passed down to your parents’ generation, and eventually to yours. With this inherited collective fear of not having enough, why is it that some people let it fester into a scarcity imprint that keeps them playing small, and for others, it becomes motivation to amplify abundance instead?
Rewriting the Signal: Brain, Field & Practice
Think of synchronicity as your brain’s “meaning engine” at work. First, the reticular activating system (RAS), the brainstem filter, acts like a guardian for your attention. It lets in cues that match what you’ve been thinking and feeling—like your doubts and intentions. Then the prefrontal cortex of the higher brain sets what you’re looking for, the hippocampus pattern-matches the moment to your stored memories, the salience network tags surprising or emotionally charged details as important, and a burst of dopamine signals that something matters, which gives you that goosebump “whoa” feeling. Finally, the default-mode network weaves the event into your life story so it feels personally meaningful—and because it matters, you act on it, creating more moments that match it.
However, if you are feeding imprints of fear and scarcity, you’ll become more aware of negative synchronicities because that is where your attention is going. For example, constantly picking out what is wrong, instead of noticing what is going well, reinforces self-criticism and the feeling of not being good enough. You’ll only notice what’s missing, ignore what’s working, and call it ‘truth;’ then your actions repeat more of the same cycle. And because like attracts like, you will attract friends and lovers around you who will be critical of you and constantly challenge your self-worth.
That is why the new-age practice of a gratitude journal is not so woo-woo after all. It can be life-changing because it retrains your awareness to search for the positive. Practicing positive synchronicity invites you to hunt for meaningful associations that fill you with joy, not worry and fear.
My mother has a paralyzing fear of heights that I inherited. She had a deep fear of falling off the mountains when she was running and hiding from the Communist party. She also has a deep fear of drowning, understandably so, as she was forced to swim from mainland China to Hong Kong over 7 days to avoid the coastal police who were capturing freedom swimmers who were fleeing Communist rule. I inherited these fears. There were times that I would feel like I was suffocating when I was only knee-deep at the beach, or when I was standing at the top of a skyscraper looking out.
Though it may seem like a common fear and perfectly normal, it actually wasn’t optimal for the development of my consciousness to have such strong vasanas controlling me. This fear of death would lead to survivalist and risk-averse behaviors that kept me hypervigilant of my surroundings. And it bled into the other areas of my life: I would speak sarcastically about situations that instilled fear in me, and found myself complaining about my circumstances instead of making active choices to change them. My brain was patterned to look out for the worst case scenario, and so I was attracting nefarious ‘friends’ and questionable lovers who would steal, manipulate or even abuse me.
If like attracts like, then how do you grow out of lower states of victim consciousness, and into a state of intentional breakthroughs where you take ownership of your actions? The first step is acknowledging what is and isn’t working. Then, you need to have the willingness and commitment to make the changes. The one key ingredient that most people who are willing to change already have is awareness of the issue; what’s missing is consistent followthrough.
This is because the vasanas that are running your software live in the energy field, and need help in returning to a dormant state, while positive imprints need help in being magnified into your thoughts, words and actions. The more developed your awareness is, the larger your energy field. Conversely, the less aware you are, the more contracted it is. In order to shift from attracting negative synchronicities in your life to positive synchronicities, the missing ingredient is in developing your energy field, aka your chakra system.
You can expand the energy of your chakras through intentional qigong, chakra-focused yoga, breathwork, visualization and somatic bodywork. When your chakra field expands, old identities and patterns that bring you suffering fall away, and you become a vibrational match for your highest potential—attracting the right people, the right job and the right situations that align with your truest values. Practically speaking, you are also rewriting previous imprints in the predictive brain, so attention and action select better matches.
Synchronicity isn’t a wish list; it’s a mirror. Clear the signal, and life meets you where you truly live. When the Root feels safe, the Sacral feels, the Solar leads, and the Heart opens, your Throat tells the truth, your Third Eye dreams with clarity, and your Crown remembers its inherent connection to Oneness—the events that are seemingly coincidental events actually arrive because they are the ones your soul asked for.
Your physical body is part of the energy field of your soul, which is on a journey of ever-expanding awareness. This is the singular purpose of incarnating as Spirit passing through a denser 3D human experience. Ignore the field, and your life force will wither away. Upgrade the field, and vitality will be renewed as meaningful stories are written.
(I will write about the Chakra system in detail in the next post, so you have a clearer understanding of how each energy center correlates with various mental/emotional themes that play out in your life. Stay tuned!)