SYNCHRONICITY

SYNCHRONICITY

 

Synchronicity is at play in every moment,

and it manifests through our life's experiences,

wherein we are given repeated opportunities

to find our path back to God,

to joy, to inner peace, to true happiness.

It is seen in an event,

a circumstance,

a chance encounter,

an accident,

a relationship,

which sometimes literally stops us in mid-stream

to enable us to confront

our conditioned way of thinking and our attitudes.

The choice to heed the message of Synchronicity is always our decision.

At times Synchronicity questions our beliefs and our values,

and threatens to push us to the very edge of our awareness.

Brenda De Lene

Some considerable time ago I talked about how synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences, came into play in our lives 20 years ago, resulting in unexpected, but perfect outcomes. First there was my commitment to leave my soul-destroying job and do what would make my heart sing, write and teach. Then there was the public declaration and commitment by my wife, Brenda, to free herself from the insidious influence of her ex-husband by relinquishing her car after he had reneged on an arrangement to transfer legal ownership of it to her.

   You may recall that, after her car was written off in a bizarre accident, miraculously we managed to obtain the finance to buy a brand new compact motor vehicle. Well, that wasn’t the only miracle relating to cars. Let me tell you what happened after that.

   For the next two years, Brenda and I struggled to establish ourselves, running seminars on personal growth subjects and teaching. However, because of our resistance to correcting our entrenched wrong-minded attitudes and behaviour, we were unsuccessful in attracting viable numbers of participants. How could we tell someone else how to run their lives, when we hadn’t yet sorted out our own stuff? 

   The upshot of this was we weren’t making ends meet and the payout from my last job rapidly dwindled, as did the proceeds of my marriage property settlement. In the end, income from groups wasn’t enough to pay for the advertising and promotional costs sustained for our programs.

   All the while I was applying for numerous jobs in senior management, but without success. You see, this was the time of economic rationalism and globalisation and many companies and organisations had gone through the process of downsizing and restructuring to remain competitive in the market place. The first people downsized were managers over the age of 45, so the chances of someone in their 50s finding a job in that environment were minimal. 

   For a while we existed on credit card debt, always hoping the next course we ran, or talk we gave, would attract a crowd and we’d be able to pay off our mounting debts. In August 1997, we even had to vacate our apartment and move in with Brenda’s son and fiancee.  We were not only broke, but up to our ears in debt as well.

   We kept developing self-improvement programs, not only for the public, but also for companies and other organisations and although we managed to present our programs to four or five organisations, we didn’t get their acceptance to run them.

   In between time, I got part-time work as a consultant to a removalist/self-storage company, for a small weekly fee. The warehouse subsequently burnt down destroying all of our furniture and household effects that were stored there, leaving the inadequately insured owners broke, and us without compensation for our losses. Not only had I lost my small income, but also most of our possessions!

   I had also written three books that kept being rejected by publishers. So, despite our efforts, our financial position worsened.

   In between time, I continued applying for positions, mainly in senior management roles and never even received an invitation for an interview. As previously mentioned, discrimination in the workplace against job applicants, because of age, was running rampant.

   Our little car was due for re-financing, or replacement or relinquishment in October 1998. However, one of the credit card organizations had lost patience and obtained a judgment from the court against me for the money owed. This, of course, was a black mark on my credit rating and it was with some trepidation I returned to the car dealership to see what, if anything, could be arranged.

   Yes, the finance company had been alerted to the judgment made against me and refused to re-finance a car until I’d paid off the credit card debt. This I couldn’t do. Although it was less than $2,000, we just didn’t have the money. Things weren’t looking good. A car was essential for our dwindling work.

   Not for the first time in my life, help came from an unexpected quarter. 

   Brenda and I had established a good rapport with the business manager of the car dealership. He was determined to overcome the tricky problem of the outstanding debt owed by me to ensure we got a new car and, of course, ensure his dealership got the sale. He had little to gain from the huge efforts he put in on our behalf to arrange re-financing of our current car. However, he wheeled and dealed behind the scenes, until two months later he managed to persuade another finance company to come to the party. In between time, we had the use of the car for those two months without having to make any monthly payments. Just before Christmas too, when money was especially tight. A miracle indeed!

   So, there we were driving another brand new little car, perfect for our needs. Providence was surely smiling on us.

   So, would you believe, here we are 20 years later in similar circumstances. No job, no money, no permanent place to stay and our car about to be repossessed. I guess we weren’t open to learn from our previous experiences and were destined to repeat them.

Seemingly, the only thing going for us (like before) is our hope, faith and trust that things will turn out for the best. Let’s see if the Unseen Hand of synchronicity comes into play again.

   Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how things turn out.