Synchronicities

I was feeling very off & down today. Not depressed, just an involuntary preservation of energy. 

As usual, I chalked much of it up to seven days straight of work, money thoughts, and relational navigations of the daily nature. 

I thought about going to Bota Bota last minute, a retired boat turned hot and cold experience (one that I have dreamed of incorporating into Toronto). I still dream of it. I decided on 1940, so it would give me time to get to the hotel from the train station, eat then get there unrushed. 

I got to Mechant Boeuf at 1840 and was eating an absolutely incredible beef tartare that had an egg yolk in the middle. The mix with sourdough bread was sensorial insanity.

After the meal, I walked to Bota Bota and checked in. For an hour I didn’t look at anything new media-wise to give my mind and body a space between the things, an opportunity to drop into now with less of any things still needing subconscious or unconscious processing. I’ve found that 1-2 hours of no tech input gets there. 

I got into the steam, and thoughts began surfacing. Parts of me, alive. I reflected on the theory that ‘synchronicity brought me here’. It felt like a baseless statement, but rapidly a part of my inner world, past me, still alive in me came forward with a face. Mr UBD. His eyes looked at me from the memory I had of him gasping in tripod position. He was infarcting and I didn’t feel I managed him well. I remember feeling a psychosomatic shock index of freeze and disorientation that then was brought back by my responsible part. He made it, he survived, he went into cardiac arrest a week after he was catheterized, and also resuscitated. That was in May of 2023. 

Yesterday, before coming to Montreal for this Advanced Airway course, on a rare quiet afternoon in the ER due to the first wet rain causing slippery roads, Mr UBD came rolling into the ER calmly on the ambulatory side. His eyes met mine and I was immediately taken back to when he was my patient in Resus Bay 1. “People trust their lives with me?” Crossed my mind that day and many since then. It crossed my mind again. I felt a visceral refusal to want to take care of him at this visit. But why? I wasn’t even sure why he was there. Well, in that steam room, I processed it further. Connecting to that part of me, he shared that he felt he let him down. He felt untrusting of our capacity to care for him or other urgent patients. I remember feeling a sense of demoralization that almost persisted since that day. But today, I could be with it. I told that part I understood, and that we didn’t let him down, that he survived, that he made it, and many others have been tenderly cared for since then. 

The experience of the hot, and the cold subsequent to that was affecting my system more. I felt more sensitive and vulnerable to fluctuations. More parts of me alive now that this part was seen, heard and acknowledged, understood and most importantly witnessed. I promised him to work on strengthening that experiential muscle, which is what the conference was for tomorrow. 

It all felt like a synchronicity. A coincidence that felt too connected for it to be accidental. For us to cross paths again, for me to be coming here, for me to be feeling that specific term just before the arising of that reflection and insightful inner dialogue. I was fascinated to discover that Carl Jung, the psychiatric psychotherapist and father of Jungian psychology had coined the term. But that’s for another entry.

I felt lighter. An ease and trust in myself felt rekindled. I thanked my inner world for opening up.

I then went and cold plunged.