Have you ever run into a person you haven’t seen in many years, and you came across them in another city or country outside of where you know them from? What do you think this means? Is there unfinished business with this person from a spiritual cosmic phenom or a lesson here to learn? Or is it just an unexplained encounter that doesn’t mean anything? Many people believe there are all types of coincidences and some even call them synchronicities thanks to the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. I recently became curious about all of this as I looked back over my life and noticed that I hadn’t had what I would call a coincidence, for a very long time. I remember these would frequently happen to me so much so that my family and close friends would comment on how I couldn’t go anywhere without running into someone I knew. I always felt significant when this happened and it got me thinking, have I blocked whatever mojo I had in this department, or do I even have control over this? I also wanted to know if certain fearful experiences I had could also be termed coincidences with regards to time and place.
I’ve been blessed with many opportunities over the years to travel Canada, the U.S, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. On my trips, I have had situations where I run into the most random people in various places all over the world. I can remember back to being in my early 20’s and travelling 3 hours away to go to a concert and seeing people from High School or the same town I was from and that’s expected but when you travel 2500 or 4500 miles away it catches you by surprise. This happened a lot more to me when I was in my 20’s and 30’s then it does now in my 50’s and I wondered if it was because I’m not getting out and about as much now or have I switched something off internally. I wanted to know why this was and decided there had to be something I could learn to my advantage on my “becoming” journey.
When I googled this online, I found countless stories of people from all over the world having the same experiences of bumping into old friends or work mates half- way around the world. With 7.9 billion people, how can 2 individuals out of that number be so lucky to bump into each other when they never planned it or even talked to each other in years. When people experience this the usual thoughts are “it’s a small world” or “what are the odds” so what does this mean really, and why is the world small for some and not others?
One article by Mark Boyd called Mapping the 7 Types of Coincidences sums them up as a range of distinct types of phenomena that reveal patterns of life (or potential pathways to pursue in life) lessons. He goes on in this article to list out different types of coincidences and says we tend to lump anything we can’t explain into that bucket; coincidence. Julie Beck wrote a fantastic article, Coincidence and the Meaning of Life, and she says, “The surprising chances of our lives can seem like they’re hinting at hidden truth, but they’re really revealing the human mind at work. She goes on to mention a quote by a professor at the University of Cambridge, David Spiegelhalter, “A coincidence itself is in the eye of the beholder” and if a rare event happens in the forest and no one notices and no one cares, it’s not really a coincidence. Spiegelhalter has a website where people can send him stories of what they have experienced for coincidences and with about 4000 to 5000 stories submitted, he categorized them into common themes and I’ve listed some: such as feeling a link with someone you meet, simultaneous occurrance of events, repetition of very similar events, meeting someone you know in an unlikely place, and parallel stories with multiple matches. He believes the amazing part is not in the coincidence or event itself but that we notice them. Beck also mentions Bernard Beitman, a psychiartrist at the University of Virginia, and in his research he has found that certain personality traits are linked to experiencing more coincidences-people who describe themselves as religious or spiritual (or likely to relate information from external world back to themselves), and people who are high in meaning-seeking are all coincidence prone and people are also likely to see coincidences when they are extremely sad, angry, or anxious. Beitman believes “Coincidences alert us to the mysterious hiding in plain sight”. Robert H. Hocke says there are no accidents in his article titled Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives. I had to see what the online dictionary’s version had to say on this and it terms coincidence as a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.
My most vivid coincidence story involving what I now see as a “lesson” or opportunity to improve myself, was when I was 18. I had just moved back home from a semester at college and got a job at the local army base in Wainwright Alberta. After a few months, I was able to afford my first used car. I was heading out on a road trip 3 hours from home with a friend who had also just turned 18 and we felt the freedom of the road and from our parents. Two very excited teenagers telling stories of boys and what we wanted in life, we just felt on top of the world as soon as we pulled onto the highway and off for the weekend. Unfortunately, two hours into that 3-hour trip, our feeling of excitement for adventure became one of panic as we encountered a drunk driver who was literally coming at us on the wrong side of the very dark and remote highway. We were freaking out and going over all the possible scenarios in that couple of minutes we had before his lights would be fully upon us. What would happen if he didn’t wake up or see this and course correct himself? As the on- coming car got closer, I remember contemplating that I could veer the car to the left and get into the opposite side of the road but then there was always a risk the driver could realize they were in the wrong and course correct and then I would hit them on their side. These moments seem to drag out as if in slow motion. I felt so much pressure in that one decision that would determine if we survived past the next few moments.
Both of us had experiences with family members being in severe car accidents; my co-passenger had lost an older brother in one two years prior. I had a sister that was left with a severe brain injury and is a quadriplegic living in a government facility from an accident. All of this and so much more ran through our minds. It’s amazing what happens when we are faced with danger or moments where you are aware that life as you know it can change forever. I knew I only had one option and that was to pull into the ditch on my side of the road and figure things out from there to avoid a head on collision. Unfortunately, as I did that, so did the on- coming car. I couldn’t believe it, this other car was in my ditch, and we collided with the front of the other vehicle and the back end of my car, thus pushing us up into a barbed wire fence and immobile. The other vehicle then proceeded back out of the ditch and drove up onto the highway and kept driving off into the night. Fortunately, my friend and I were okay physically and just shook up in disbelieve that this had actually happened and how lucky we were to come out of this unscathed. It was the end of our fun adventure road trip and we spent most of the evening at the police station with my vehicle towed an hour away to the nearest town thanks to passers-by that helped. We had to call for her parents to come pick us up and take us home. So much for the freedom of the open road and from our parents! The teenager that hit us was found by police a few miles up the road with blown out tires otherwise he would have kept on going, never to be found. I didn’t get called to go to court and he was charged with impaired driving, so I had no idea who he was except for his name on the accident report mailed to me a few weeks later. The guy was driving mommy’s car and not insured so mine took the hit. For years I kept thinking that it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I couldn’t make any other sense of it.
About 7 years later, I had moved 5 hours away to the small city of Red Deer. I was out with some girlfriends, and we ended up going for food after a night out of dancing and drinking. Long story short, we ended up meeting some guys from out of town in the afterhours diner at the next table. They were in the city for the weekend and none of us knew each other we just started chatting. We get swapping stories about crazy things we have done, when suddenly, I hear a too familiar story from one of the guys. He was bragging about how he got away with drunk driving and went into the ditch and hit some girl and took off but got caught down the road. He got off his impaired charge by paying an expensive lawyer, I was numb when I heard this. He was joking about it and making fun of the poor suckers he hit. There was this shit thinking he was untouchable, and his buddy’s all thought it was funny. I never said anything but concocted a plan in the bathroom with one of my girlfriends I noticed he seemed to be hitting on. When I shared that I was the person he hit, she was on board with my plan for revenge. Not to give to many details here but let’s just say it didn’t take much convincing to get him to take a drive with me and my friend down some back country roads and we may have left him stranded, naked with no cell phone as this was in the early 90’s. Had he showed some sense of remorse for what he had done, I probably would have reacted differently. Knowing more of who I am today, I would have handled the situation to ensure I spoke up in the moment and shared how that experience made me feel and the impact it had on our lives. In that I maybe could have done some healing from that situation by expressing my feelings but back then I was not really working on improving myself. I was a twenty something, partying and enjoying life. At the time I felt he got what was coming to him and he had a lesson to learn in this coincidence. It never crossed my mind at the time that there were lessons it in for me and that it wasn’t just an opportunity for revenge!
Another encounter I had in the Bahamas on the small island of Freeport, and I was now married and had moved 1200 klm away. I hadn’t been in touch with friends from Red Deer in a few years. We were vacationing for someone’s wedding and sitting in the town square our first day there on this tiny island, admiring the beautiful town and weather the Caribbean offers. Out of the blue, a guy that used to live with my best friend 10 years prior was there on his honeymoon and he spotted me. It seemed so random to run into him there I couldn’t believe it. Fast forward another 15 more years and I am leaving Amsterdam after being in Spain for a few weeks and my friend and I were split up due to the plane being overbooked as they do on most European flights. I head down one isle and my travel companion the other. I should also mention we had stayed the night before in Amsterdam and took in all the red-light district had to offer and had not been to bed in over 24 hours. Very exhausted and needing the plane in the air so we could get some sleep on the 7-hour flight back to Calgary. All I can think about is sleep, but then I hear someone calling my name and I look over at my friend walking down the aisle across the 6 seats between us as we each search for the comfort of our own seat and her lips aren’t moving but why do I hear my name being shouted repeatedly? I am so confused and tired. I then notice an old friend I hadn’t seen in a few years coming into focus approaching me. She was coming back from Austria with her husband and my seat was right in front of theirs. Needless to say, we chatted all the way back to Calgary and got caught up on what’s happening in our lives and me still with no sleep! At the time, both encounters and many more like this didn’t really feel like unfinished business or lessons but more like the small world we live in and the dictionary version of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.
Another story comes to mind when I think how the universe works to get people to come together for whatever reason. I have a male friend who is also an Aries like me and with both of us being fire signs, we can be very passionate in our discussions. Let’s just say we may have type A personalities and don’t always agree to disagree. Sometimes we have fallen out and been friends off for awhile over situations, people or events we didn’t see eye to eye on. Both of us were too stubborn to reach out sometimes, and we would avoid each other for long periods of time. We have worked on this over the years and have grown in our mutual respect for each other and have a better understanding of how to manage ourselves with emotional triggers, setting boundaries and in our communication. I believe it’s in part to what we experienced in this story I’m about to share here. The first 4 years of our friendship, we were single and active on the dating scene trying to find the one that would stick which always led to great stories we shared with each other about our dating successes, mishaps etc. On a side note here, it is very beneficial for me to to have a guy friend to bounce ideas off of and get that male perspective on relationships! Anyway, at some point, we had not spoken in about 6 months to a year due to a disagreement. I was just coming out of another failed relationship and I’ve always been of the mindset that if you are actively dating and a relationship ends, the responsible adult thing to do is go to the STD clinic, get checked out and do your part before carrying on into another relationship. Apparently my friend did as well. As I walked into the small waiting room of the clinic, the first person I see is my guy friend, the only other person in the waiting room! Since we had not talked in a long time this was definitely not planned by either of us. With over a million people in this city and in the middle of the day, mid week and out of all the clinics in the city we could have went to, we ended up at this one that isn’t even in our neighbourhood. It was so random that both of us started laughing out loud and commented on how we both must have just ended a relationship. When something is this random, you go for lunch and have a chat about what went down, the part you had to play in it, apologize and discuss how to improve yourself so the next time you are triggered, you can react in a healthier way. All I could think of was that this friendship was in my life so I could become a better person and the universe was going to go out of it’s way to make sure of it! Ten years later we still laugh about this coincidence and how it was the catalyst in bringing us back to being friends again.
What has really stood out for me in all of this was the following story that took me awhile to believe circumstances show us that life is happening for us and not to us, if you are willing to see the lessons we can take away from all encounters, coincidences or whatever the term is that fits best for the individual. Most recently (5 years ago), a friend and I had stayed downtown after work and had a nice meal and caught up with some great conversation. We were headed to the train platform about 7pm and since rush hour was over, the train only came every 15 minutes. As we approached the stairs up to the platform there was a train there and we ran to catch it, but the door wouldn’t open, and it soon pulled away. While we were waiting on the platform with about 4 other people, we couldn’t help but notice a young girl maybe 18 years of age waiting as well. What stood out to us was that she had placed her backpack several feet from where she was standing and didn’t seem too worried that someone would come along and take it. As we continued to chat about our own stuff, we could see the train coming about a block away and as we go to move closer to the edge of the platform to prepare to board, this same girl backs up a few feet and gets herself in the stance as if you were about to run a race and you are waiting for the starting gun to go off. At the time we just thought how weird, we never in our wildest dreams expected what was about to happen. As the train approached, this girl took a running jump in front of it in a suicide attempt. It was as if the world had stopped, and time stood still. I can still see the graphic images of how her body hit the windshield and the momentum of the moving train bounced her body off the train on to the platform and then she was propelled onto the side of the train and was lodged between the tracks, train and raised platform. We called the ambulance and waited for the police to give our statements; I think we were in shock for many hours later. This was such a tragic situation and all we could think about was could we have done something to prevent this. Were we too caught up in our own lives to really notice she was sad depressed or whatever the mental state she was in that drove her to take her life like that and impact the unfortunate driver that would have to live with this the rest of his life? All of this was going through our minds, and we spoke about it for days later trying to make sense of what the meaning behind this was for us being there at that moment? Were we supposed to chat with this girl instead of each other and maybe we could have prevented this from happening? Was it a coincidence that we missed that first train by seconds as we were to be her saviors or was it so we would witness this horrific moment and learn something? What was the lesson in that for us? We talked about how life is too short and to not be taking anything for granted to enjoy the gift of waking up each morning alive and let’s not forget the grace to have choice and free will. To reach out to others that we may think are going through a hard time and see where we can support them. All the above was a focus for me for several weeks after, trying to make sense of it all.
Reflecting on all this and the stories I’ve shared here, I’ve come to realize, when I’m looking through the lens that life is always happening for us to experience all it has to offer, if we are willing to see it for just that, we can then understand these coincidences for more than just unexplained events and circumstances. They are here to guide us, warn us, and confirm us on our journey. Some to leave a more lasting impression on us depending on the life lesson to be learnt. They will always be present in our lives and it’s a matter of paying attention to them. It can become another tool in my toolbelt to aide me in understanding who I want to become and the direction I want to go in my life. I don’t believe these coincidences stopped being as frequent in my life, I think I just stopped being aware of them and utilizing them for their intent. For a time, I had flipped over to the side of expecting life to be or look a certain way and instead of taking it in for all it has to offer me, I was cheating myself out of making connections with others and leveling up. Especially when I really think of the two stories about running into friends halfway around the world and commenting on there being no lessons in them, well I don’t’ think that’s true. Every opportunity for conversation we have is a reminder of how to treat someone when we are connecting with new friends or old friends and if it’s up the street from where you live or 5000 miles from home. There’s always something to learn or give to another person in just being kind or generous or in making someone laugh or feel valued. This universal concept that we are all connected is apparent in these coincidence situations. Viewing it as being in the right place, right time instead of looking at it from the negative way. I think this is what it’s all about.
I am going to make more of an effort to look at life from that perspective and I think it is in this that the random run-ins or “coincidences” will begin to become more frequent as I lift my vibration and focus on the intent of where I can be better and make a difference. In this, I may see more pop up in my life. It’s exciting to even think of it in these terms, that every time I step outside my door in a thoughtful and grateful mindset for being alive, that I can attract more encounters to change my life or someone’s else’s. We may not be able to control what the circumstance will be, but we can in how we conduct ourselves, what we take away from the experience and appreciate what comes our way!