"Get in the Flow"

"Going with the Flow" on the Cheat River, West Virginia

"...the river holds the answers to the questions in my mind" (from Jonny Lang's "The Levee")

Enjoying life involves learning to "get into the flow".  "In the flow", we can experience SynchronicitY and have an intuitive sense that affirms we are connected to the Universe.  We achieve this universal connectedness through our relationships with loved ones, nature, God and ourselves.  This is often a very spiritual phenomenon.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung defined SynchronicitY as "meaningful coincidence."  SynchronicitY is knowing we are at the right place at the right time.  It is knowing there is a reason why we just met a new person or the awareness of the meaning of something that most would call "coincidence".  It is the moment of full and complete awareness that we are part of something far greater than ourselves.  During the moment, complete calmness and peace or extreme exhilaration are experienced.

SynchronicitY is being  "in sync" or "in tune" with ourselves and our environment.  It can  be experienced in the tranquility of watching the sunrise over the Ocean or in the adrenaline surge of maneuvering a kayak down a Class IV whitewater rapid.  It is achieved not in surfing a wave but rather as feeling part of it, as in a Zen experience.  SynchronicitY is manifest in our most intense, complex and creative moments as well as our experience of the peaceful simplicities of life such as the beauty of a smile on a child or the scent of a fresh flower in Spring.

Life is often a complex balancing act as we attempt to balance the needs of ourselves with those of others and the needs of our environment.  It is about balancing work and play, intimacy and solitude, family and friends, pleasure and pain, physical and mental activities, intuition and logic and all the other possible paradoxical dualities and polarities of life that exist and that are part of our internal and external worlds.  In our internal world this can include the complex mental processing of conflicting emotions such as love and hate or joy and sorrow.  In our external world, the balancing can be as mundane as trying to balance our checkbook.   In moments of SynchronicitY, our internal and external worlds are in complete and ultimate balance.

Through SynchronicitY, we can more easily accept the boundless diversity, range and possibility of human experience.  In addition, we also achieve peace and health of mind and body, and become in harmony with ourselves and with the Universe in which we live.

Life is a Journey, so make the best of it.  Along our Journey we will meet many people and experience many things.  Life is also like a river.  It flows and can lead us to a variety of destinations and paths.  There will be many decisions and many choices to make in our lifetime.  We must decide when to relax and float and when to paddle or take action.  If we don't get on the river however, we will never leave the shore.  The choice is always ours.

"Life is a river - Wisdom is knowing when to paddle and when to float"

Click on the paddler below to continue your paddle through the River of Life and your Journey of SynchronicitY.