Building Synchronistic Momentum

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Is there a “right path”?

What is “the right path”? How do you know if you are on it? Trying to answer this question has led me to the study of synchronicity. I remember trying to choose one evening between going out to an open mic event and staying home and studying. Which will be more beneficial to my long term goals? Which is right? On this night I chose the open mic, and ended up getting invited into a jam session that was totally awesome. Clearly I had chosen right. But the next time this came up, I stayed home to study, and happened upon a big breakthrough in my work. Clearly I chose right again!

Maybe “right” is not the best word? If the cosmos is actually responding to the choices we make, then any choice will likely lead to something interesting. The question shifts to “What am I trying to create right now?” From this mindset, our experiences become a series of ascending plateaus, lessons we can learn that serve as gateways to new life. Synchronicities show up as seemingly random circumstances which nonetheless fit meaningfully into this path of growth. Life is a process of building symbolic momentum towards what we want to experience.

In the Living in Flow Course, launching next month, we examine this in detail. Let’s walk through an exercise to find out what momentum you are building in your life right now.

Building Momentum on the Apple Tree

Imagine you are standing at the base of a big, beautiful apple tree, staring upward.

Let’s say you received some feedback from a spouse or someone at work that you are really wound up. So you (reluctantly!) set an intention to loosen up, and decide to take an action such as going out with some friends. This action is aligned with your intention, meaning that going out with friends has quite a few branches leading off of it which involve you having a fun experience and loosening up. The action you take places apples on the tree which correspond to branches on which you experience a sense of ease and looseness. One of these might be dancing to a song you haven’t heard in 30 years. Another might be running into a friend from your past. These apples are spread across the tree as in the diagram.

There are different amounts of apples on each branch. If you go out with friends, you end up on the left branch with lots of apple opportunities. If you stay home (the right branch), there are still opportunities to loosen up, but not as many. Sure, you might watch Game of Thrones, but compared to dancing with friends to your favorite songs, this does not quite capture the wholehearted “loosening up” that is possible...Synchronicity works best when it stretches your comfort zone!

After choosing to go out with friends, you end up on the left branch.

Here, suddenly, there are more apples around you. By trimming off the right branch, you’ve gotten rid of a lot of empty branches, and you’ve increased your likelihood of a situation showing up which aligns with your intention…you step away from your friends to order something at the bar, and realize that the bartender is your friend from college!

This is possible because the history of everything around you is flexible. In this model you are navigating a multiverse of possibilities, and the weight of the apples on this particular branch made it more likely that you would end up in this particular bar on a night when this particular person was working. You built momentum by making intentional choices. Yet you didn’t know what the “right” thing to do was. There was no right choice, only aligned choices. You made a choice to do something which aligned with your intention to have more fun, and synchronicity became more likely in that direction.

What momentum do you have?

So there’s no right or wrong, only aligned or unaligned actions. What are you currently aligned with? What momentum do you have? Try this exercise to find out.

Start by brainstorming a list of the activities you have invested in significantly this week. You can list anything you’ve done: making dinner every night, going to work each day, preparing for meetings, helping a family member, even brushing your teeth! Each of these actions builds momentum toward something. Next to each activity, write the general outcome that you would expect this activity to lead to. For instance, next to “preparing for meetings” I might write “Lead a successful meeting and build trust in my leadership”. Or next to brushing teeth I would write something like “Having good hygiene, making good first impressions, avoiding expensive dental visits.” Pretty simple, right?

Now repeat this exercise for a few activities you have taken over the past year. I might write, “Visited my sister and her toddler weekly for three months,” and the outcome from that is “develop a stronger relationship with my sister and my niece.”

Now, circle the top two activities you have invested in. These are the ones you spent the most time on, either recently or over the course of the year. Separately, box your top two most desired outcomes. These are the situations that are really important to you.

Examine your list. Are you engaged in the activities that will lead to your boxed outcomes? Are there activities you are engaged in that aren’t aligned with your highest priority goals? Write down two actions you want to do more frequently this week or this year in order to build momentum toward the outcomes you really want.

The “right” path is defined by your inner alignment

By investing yourself in an activity consistently over time, you build momentum in that direction. You are bound to experience opportunities out of the blue, apples which fall into your lap. You don’t need to do the “right” thing, just make sure your actions are aligned with your intentions, do the work, and be on the lookout for the unexpected. You will know you are on the “right path” because you are clear on where you are trying to go and you are choosing to do things which build your skillset in that direction!