Living On Purpose and Synchronicities

Synchronicities can feel like magical gifts: you think of a friend and then they call or text you...you cross the path of a stranger in a grocery story and it turns out they work in a company you've been wanting to network your way into...you attend an event and it turns out the person sitting next to you turns out to be someone who knows a friend of yours that you haven't seen in a long timed and wanted to reconnect with...

Synchronicities could be called "being in the right place at the right time." And they can also be taken as demonstrations that everything in life is interconnected. There really are six degrees of separation, or perhaps fewer. And when we focus on something that really matters, even if it is subconsciously, life moves to support what really matters in its own timeframe.

Some people consider them random and call them "coincidences." But I have found that they are not quite as random as we might think if we find ourselves connected to a thread of purpose driving our lives. As we grow a connection to our spiritual core--becoming clearer and clearer who we are at a very fundamental level, what really matters, and what living from what really matters means, our lives become more purpose driven. And the thread of personal purpose directs us to take actions that align with our spiritual core. These actions lead to meeting people, being in places and having experiences that are more likely to help us live into what really matters, what we feel in our hearts, and ways we want to bring deeper meaning and service into our lives.

I remember a refrigerator quote when I was in my 20's from Goethe whose message was that if you act from a place of purpose or divine guidance, life will move with you and support you. When you think about it, if you are trying to live a meaningful, spiritually driven, grounded life, and you are trying to make a positive difference through your words and actions, why wouldn't life support you?

Life will throw us all curveballs along the way. No one is imagine from difficult times or challenges. And enough trauma or big enough trauma can certainly feel spiritually crushing, and may be truly isolating to the point we question is we still have a spiritual foundation. But often the spiritual core of our human beingness is still deep enough and strong enough to help us prevail.

I think of the boys' soccer team that got trapped in the cave in Thailand a year or two back. The boys' coach had a very strong spiritual core and engaged in a meditation practice. By sharing this meditation practice and his spiritual strength with the boys, together, they managed to survive grueling conditions. And miraculously, the team of divers that braved life threatening conditions to find them, DID find them. And all of the boys and their coach were successfully rescued in a miraculous way. When the news of the rescue was in the news, I was not at all surprised.

Even when David Ortiz was shot, something I have written about both in words and in music, I had a feeling that there would be divine intervention to help him stay alive. David has an extraordinarily deep and big heart. And he is someone who has also struck me as a deeply spiritual human being. That a man near him in the nightclub has been shot himself, and recognized the urgency of getting David to a medical clinic within minutes of the shooting was an incredibly synchronicity. It saved his life.

The song "From A Distance," talks about God watching us and looking out for us, which may be harder to relate to for people who do not consider themselves religious. Yet, whether religious or not, when one goes deeper, it is hard NOT to notice or crave a connection with some sort of spiritual life force. Having a purposeful life is important to many if not most people, because purpose gives life meaning. Living a meaningful life brings happiness. Lack of meaning eats at the spirit and at our healthy.

Whatever our method and whatever our journey, as a sense of personal purpose gets clearer, it is easier to believe that God is watching us and choreographing much of what will unfold in our lives. And call it universal energy if you like, but this kind of spiritual dimension is at the heart of synchronicities. When I find myself having a series of synchronicities, including in unexpected places and ways, I take it as a sign that I am moving in the right direction.

Life's Fine, Fine Line

At the St Louis Cabaret Conference, one very rich element was hearing the songs my fellow singers chose to work on. I had heard the song "It's A Fine, Fine Line" from the musical Avenue Q once or twice. However, I had never really thought about it deeply, until my fellow singer, Meri Ziev, from Florida worked on it during our coaching sessions at the Cabaret Conference.

The lyrics to the first verse are:

"There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend. There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend. And you never know til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb. There's a fine, fine line between love and a waste of time."

So much of life is defined by fine, fine lines. Love. Major life decisions. Even life itself. I remember being profoundly aware of this as a child. And I kept writing about it in poetry, songs and eventually my first book.

When I was 16, I wrote some short pieces of verse to accompany photographs in the high school yearbook. "A thin line stands between dream and reality. And only the heart knows the characteristics that correspond to either side," was one of them.

I became aware of how many dimensions of life were literally a matter of being on one side of a very fine line or another. I learned that even when a woman was in her prime fertile time, there is only a 20% chance of conception taking place. One synchronicity in life--being at the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time--can be the difference between life and death. One of my college roommates was originally scheduled to be on the plane that crashed in Chicago that year. But last minute circumstances prevented her from making the plane.

Sometimes we are responsible for which side of that fine line we land on through our choices. When something is challenging, do it give it one more try or give up? When we have a dream, do we start to define and take steps in that direction or do we stay where we are? Many times, a divine force, a higher power greater than us, has a hand in which side of the fine line we find ourselves on.

As a teenager who loved the Red Sox, how did I know that a security guard who saw me often at the games would let me know there was a job opportunity to work there? Or even more special in the divine choreography that led me to work at Fenway Park, that the concession company needed a female employee unrelated to anyone already working there at the moment I walked in the office to apply for the job?

When life's synchronicities open doors for me or even present me with simple poignant moments where I get to be a magical stranger in a simple way, like helping a stranger, my heart is touched and grateful. Learning to be open to synchronicities, recognizing a moment of opportunity when consciously working towards a vision, or having the courage to say "yes" or "no" to a new direction ask us to dance with life's fine, fine lines.

And often we never know the final outcome until after we have made the choice. "You never know til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb." Listening to our hearts and guts, and having them help us discern which steps to take or not as we face the fine, fine line, can at least help us find a true path. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it is life changing. Other times it is of smaller proportion. Yet, over time, I have come to cherish those fine, fine lines, that thin line that stands between dream and reality. And I have have come to realize that the very act of facing and walking across those lines is at the heart of being fully alive.