I am always pleasantly surprised by the synchronicities of life--the small but meaningful coincidences that never seem to be quite random. I often wonder if they actually occur more often than they do, just that I have not always been aware of them. Recently, my friend Gisele had been telling me about a book that she liked very much and how that book had inspired her. The author had also recently given a lecture on creativity and writing and Gisele had sent me the YouTube link to the lecture for me to listen to. I enjoyed listening to the lecture very much and was fascinated by what the author had to say. When I was in NY last week, my friend Bernadette told me that she has also heard the lecture and liked it very much, and that she is friends with the author of this best-selling book. It is a book that can change lives--one of those personal inspirational tales that get under your skin because you can relate to what is going on in the author’s life. Other friends reminded me that Bernadette had mentioned this to us last year when we met for lunch, but for some reason it did not register with me at that time. Or perhaps I simply did not hear her tell us this since we were several at the table and we were all talking. I have been working with Bernadette for nearly a year now and we have connected in a way that has changed my life. The synchronicities of these events are not lost on me. I would venture to say that there is a plan at work here, but I do not really know its outcome, just that working with Bernadette has taken me down a new road that I am enjoying being on. New travels and new adventures--such is the stuff of which life is made. It is the randomness of the twists and turns--shall I turn here or there, and why we turn down some paths but not others--that fascinate me and have always fascinated me.
Bernadette is a friend from my high school days. We knew each other in high school but were not close friends at that time. We re-connected in the spring of 2009 at our thirty-fifth high school reunion, and stayed in touch after that. But it is only when we began to work together this past October that we began to talk and learn about each other and what we have been doing these past thirty-five years. She is an inspiration in her own right, having lived a life up until now that is quite interesting and unconventional. She has the gift of being a great teacher of meditation and personal life change, and the consulting work I have been doing for her has much to do with emphasizing how one can change one’s life in order to promote one’s wellbeing and good health. I believe so strongly in this message of personal change, because I see how changing my diet and my approach to how to live life have impacted positively on me just within this past year. So the consulting work I have been doing for Bernadette (mostly online health-related research and some writing) is more like a labor of love than anything else--I enjoy it immensely and have learned so much from doing it. The positive energy generated at our high school reunion led to so many positive outcomes and new roads. I also reconnected with my high school English teacher Brendan at the same reunion; it is he who supported my writing endeavors in high school and who still urges me to write. He has also been writing (a play and a novel) in the intervening years since we last saw each other--he is an inspiration to me in so many ways. It is the interconnectedness of all the different events of the past year that have shown me once more that I must stay open to life, to change, to growth, to traveling down new roads, despite the psychological pain and down times involved in changing my life and my direction. Once upon a time I thought that there was only one career road open to me, and now I know that this is not the case. Once upon a time I also thought that I was only a career woman, that my work defined who I was. I know now that this too is not the case. I feel free now in a way that I never felt before and that is the direct result of the interconnectedness of the events of this past year. Perhaps this is God working in my life, and if so I am very grateful.
