“Call it luck or fate if you will, this type of synchronicity has occurred so many times that I now take it as a principle that whatever I need will turn up if I am patient and have the awareness to perceive it.”
This is a quote by Robert A. Johnson, who was a Jungian analyst, author, and speaker. He wrote several books about inner work, Jungian theory, relationships, and other related topics. I have been reading his book Balancing Heaven and Earth, subtitled “a memoir of visions, dreams, and realizations.”
The quote above is from that book. Those words appear after Johnson tells of how, when he was a young man, a friend saw that he was struggling. His friend gently pointed him in the direction that led to Johnson working with a Jungian analyst. He writes that he didn’t realize how much he needed to do that until after the work began and that the analytical work led to other meaningful experiences.
Throughout the book he tells of other unanticipated occurrences that provided help and direction. He refers to such synchronicities as the “slender threads” that have guided his life. The title of one of the chapters says it well: “Unexpected Friendships; Unexpected Blessings. Slender Threads at Work.”
In his memoir Johnson relates the full picture, never suggesting that things flowed along easily all the time. Staying on our path and inner change always involve some challenges and adversity. He shares times when he felt disheartened, without direction, and even depressed. But he had an awareness that something larger than himself was directing his life, and he shares many examples showing how that was the case.
As he says in the quotation above, patience and awareness are needed to perceive when help from the universe is given to us. It’s essential that we set aside the idea that we’re in control of our destinies. It simply isn’t true. Holding on to that idea takes away our ability to be aware of when help is being given to us and thus our ability to embrace that help. That is a great loss.