The Power of Coincidence (14 page)

We think back on what we consider our wasted, unconscious years. Were they perhaps the rising of the dough, the necessary darkness? Were they the necessary pause, like the one before the finale of fireworks? This is an appropriate metaphor since what is a pause to us watching from afar is a busy time to the pyrotechnician whose operations we do not see but whose results astonish us.

Another threshold of grace is in the hero’s sometime inability to perform the task at hand. This is a metaphor of how the psyche is sometimes unconscious of her powers. An example is the miller’s daughter unable to turn straw to gold in
Rumplestiltskin
or Psyche’s inability to sort the diverse grains that Aphrodite presented to her in Greek mythology. The ego is incapacitated because the Self is unready or asleep. Grace is the awakening of hidden powers. A legitimate part of the heroic struggle is containment. Sometimes the task is to hide or sleep. The ego’s work is simply to sit, be taken blindfolded, or be under spell. Examples are Jack in the cupboard of the giant’s wife, Snow White in her glass casket, Christ in his tomb, Dorothy asleep among the poppies, and Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison. This is not wasted time but the simmering necessary for the consommé to be ready. It is also the dough rising in the dark, like dreaming in which psychological and spiritual work are being done while we remain unconscious.

We fear a visit to the far side of the ego, where control dissolves and action is ineffective. Quiet gaps seem ominous, boring, or lacking the adrenaline rush to which we are accustomed or addicted. We fear having no story, no identity if there is no dramatic excitement. Yet marvels happen best in the pause between plot developments. This pause is serene attentiveness: “Be still and know.” At the same time, we hear a summons to activate ourselves: “Be swift my soul . . . be jubilant my feet!” These recommendations seem contradictory but only to the linear intellect. In the psyche’s world they deftly combine apparently opposing but truly legitimate phases of our work. The result of such a combination happening in us is the inner rainbow with its shades of bright and dun to release the full spectrum of the light.

The key to our deepest happiness lies in changing our vision of where to find it.

—S
HARON
S
ALZBERG,
Lovingkindness

W
HEN THE
T
IME
I
S
A
LL
W
RONG

As I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. . . . He did not know then that it was already behind him.

—F. S
COTT
F
ITZGERALD,
The Great Gatsby

Asynchrony is the opposite of synchronicity. The timing of events or opportunities is mismatched with safety, creativity, or positive results. Things do not work out because the time has not come. We may then become aware, through a series of negating coincidences, that this is the wrong time for ventures. Nothing works; doors keep closing; obstacles arise that are not challenges but blockades. If we fight on, we find ourselves involved in wars of attrition, forced to obey laws of diminishing returns.

At the end of
King Lear,
the Duke of Albany offers to share his authority with Kent and Edgar, both of whom refuse:

K
ENT:
“I have a journey, sir, shortly to go / My master calls me; I must not say no.”

E
DGAR:
“The weight of this sad time we must obey. . . .”

Both characters read their own times accurately. Reading the handwriting on the wall is often a way of describing a respect for asynchrony. Accepting the given of change and endings makes us aware that our time is almost up and we are ready for new options elsewhere. We have to tune our ear to be able to distinguish reveille from taps. We can yank the figs from the tree in early summer and find only an insipid taste. The message in the lack of sweetness is “not now but later.” In late summer and early fall, the figs will yield with ease to the slightest tug, that is, they will be synchronously sweet.

Asynchrony is also a challenge to the “little engine that could” or the “any man can be president” ego-inflating (or ultimately egodeflating) mentality that we may have inherited from public school. The danger is in the absolutizing of those messages in such a way that trying hard becomes the only acceptable plan. It is sometimes true that effort is expedient. However, it is also sometimes true that letting go for now or for good is necessary. We were not meant to win all the time; we learn from losing too, so we get that chance. For those in tune with the universe, messages will come to us in synchronicity, in dreams, and in inner images that reveal which is the appropriate path. It will not be based on maxims but on the maximum series of messages that point to a particular path.

Asynchrony appears in relationships in a variety of ways. It is in the mismatching and incompatibility of some partners. It shows itself in frustrating games of intimacy and distance between partners: I draw near when you pull back, and vice versa. We may keep doing what does not work no matter how we try. We may stay in a relationship that cannot work no matter what we do. Asynchrony can appear in a relationship when one partner fears abandonment so much that he continually clings while the other partner feels engulfed and goes away even more.

Sometimes, synchronicity and asynchrony combine in differing directions. At the end of
Romeo and Juliet
we discover that what is asynchrony for the young couple is synchronicity for their families. A harsh end for Romeo and Juliet leads to a reconciliation for the rest of the family. Our own lives show interstices like that, especially in relationships. We endure pain with no possibility of change, and when we finally believe we have a right to happiness and we move on, the pain becomes a path to personal growth.

Paying attention is the first requisite for finding asynchrony. The second is letting go of the inflated ego belief that “it has to be my way,” or the belief that “it has to be one way.” I cannot force a butterfly to emerge before its time. I cannot successfully pull the budded petals of the rose away to make it look as if it were in bloom.

P
RACTICING IN
T
IME

1. Look at the time it took for you to work through the important issues in your life, to find the solutions to the important questions, even to know the questions. Look at the time it took to meet the people who could teach you just what you needed to learn, especially in relationships. How are you respecting or dishonoring your timing now? Do you allow time to take its course and remain patient while at the same time arising to action in a timely way? Find an example and practice this blending of movement and pause. Classical ballet uses precisely that same alternating combination.

2. Our timing is respected by simmering. Here is the test of time in the making of important choices: having to want something for thirty days straight before you trust that you really want it. How would your life be different if you had slept on all your important decisions in that way? Can you commit yourself to such a plan today? Others have timing that may be quite different from yours and may frustrate you. You especially want those you love to move forward and be successful. You sometimes try to force them to move more rapidly than they choose to. Respect of others is shown in respecting their readiness or unreadiness. When someone seems ready and is choosing not to move ahead, it is not appropriate to force or push her, but to grieve and allow. Gentle encouragement, giving information once, and then a “hands off policy may work best. Can you apply this to any relationships in your life now?

3. In exploring asynchrony in your life now, do you notice that nothing works or falls into place, one dead end after another? Putting in all the effort you can is a good rule. But when do you draw the line and say, “That’s it. It’s time to let go and move on”? There is no infallible way to know if you would do better to keep at it or to give up and move on. These criteria of asynchrony may be helpful.

Let it go if your efforts:

Are depleting you and destroying your self-esteem

Becoming dangerous or intrusive to others

Feel forced—kicking against the goad

Yield less and less

Explode in your face over and over

Prevent you from trying a whole new option that awaits you elsewhere

Seem anachronistic—no longer in character for you at this age or at this level of consciousness

Are based on childhood messages of how you are supposed to succeed or be the strong—or weak—one no matter what

Contradict the clear message of someone who is saying No to you in every way he can as you keep trying for a Yes

Are based on wishful thinking rather than what the record shows

Apply the above criteria to something you are trying hard to accomplish: What are you trying to get your children, partner, friends, parents, or work associates to be or become? What are you trying to make yourself into? What are you pushing at achieving with no result? Is this stubbornness or intelligent effort? Ask for feedback from someone you trust.

Asynchrony is often unnoticed. Yet, synchronous graceful exits have dignity. Here are some hints that help us know when it is time to go:

I give much more than I receive.

I do more and more and see the success of less and less.

I feel that I am giving up something rather than giving and receiving something.

My health is suffering because of the stress of staying.

Even what I once liked doing—and can do well—is now flat, stale, and uncomfortable.

I am no longer effective.

My bliss and enthusiasm are gone.

I no longer come up with creative ideas or even see alternatives.

I have been doing too much for too long for too little thanks.

I work on changing things but nothing gets better.

Things keep going wrong and never quite right themselves, no matter how much effort I expend.

I keep finding myself left with my finger in the dike.

The same ineffective pattern keeps repeating itself.

Money or prestige has become my central or sole motivation for staying.

I do not move on because I am afraid to risk a change.

I see no alternatives to what I have.

I doubt ever finding anything better than this.

I have no assisting forces encouraging me to stay.

Does this apply to me in my job, relationship, commitments, etc.? If it does, what is the program for change that I may know exactly how to implement but am not implementing? Take one baby step in that direction and another tomorrow or next week. If you find it extremely difficult to mobilize on your own, consider asking for help from someone you trust or in therapy. Not all the work can be done alone, or else why were we born into a world?

5

Fate or Destiny
?

O
UR
D
ESTINY
F
ULFILLED

We are dragged along by fate to the destiny
we refuse to walk toward upright.

—C
ARL
J
UNG

Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate’s skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons.

The ancient Greeks used a personification for fate: the three spinning sisters who decided on the length of each person’s thread of life, love, and power. Lachesis controlled the length of the thread; Clotho spun the thread; and Atrophos cut the thread when the time for ending had come. This is a metaphor for the presence of a transcendent force or power that disposes what the ego proposes. Each human project, lifetime, relationship, power bond, consolation, grief, etc., has its own life span. There is a sense of something “greater than” myself that is at work beyond my control. This plan is my
fate
when I am at its mercy, that is, caught off guard, fighting tooth and nail, shaking my fist at heaven. It is my
destiny
when I join in with it with choice, consciousness, and cooperation—although there is no harm in trying to massage and cajole the fates for some extra time too! Synchronicity is what shows me where the thread is leading, how long it is, and who or what in my life is spinning it at the moment.