Fall 2022 Essential Wellness magazine

resources for inner peace, health and healing

When You Say “Coincidence,” What Do You Choose It To Mean?

By Bernard Beitman, M.D

TThe definition of meaningful coincidence continues to evolve.

The term  coincidence became a household word following the simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after each had signed the United States Declaration of Independence.

They died in different places, Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia and Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts. The simultaneous deaths of these two men called out for an explanation. Did they each independently decide to leave this world on this auspicious anniversary? Or was it just a coincidence? Or something else?

The U.S president at that time was Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, who called the coincidence of their deaths on the nation’s anniversary “visible and palpable remarks of Divine

Favor.”  Meaningful coincidences carry in their surprises hints of an elusive explanation. MODIFIERS COMMONLY USED WITH “COINCIDENCE”

• Mere, only, and just suggest that the coincidence should be disregarded.

• Coincidental also suggests that the event be disregarded.

• Meaningful, remarkable, and  amazing suggest that the coincidence deserves further attention.

SYNCHRONICITY AND SERENDIPITY

Both synchronicity and serendipity coincidentally begin with “s” and end with “ity.” Each reflects the interests of its inventor—Jung’s clinical focus on the mind and Walpole’s intrigue with finding things he needed. Each word highlights a different aspect of meaningful coincidences.

SYNCHRONICITY

Carl Jung coined the word from the Greek syn— with, together—and chronos—time. Synchronicity literally means moving-together-in-time. Jung created two primary definitions—the first is descriptive; the second refers to an explanation.

1. Descriptive

a. The fundamental characteristic that makes a coincidence into a synchronicity is the intense emotion produced in the coincider. Jung called this emotion “numinous”—intensely religious, spiritual, divine.

b. Some Jungians define synchronicity by its pragmatic effect. A meaningful coincidence must assist in psychological change—individuation—to be called a synchronicity.

c. Since the term has become popular more definitions have emerged. For example, “Synchronicity to me is an intentional message from the universe.”

2. Explanatory Jung also used the word synchronicity to explain synchronicities. He proposed that the mental and environmental events of a synchronicity are created by their shared meaning. Meaning was part of “an acausal connecting principle” that he put on equal status with causation.

Because of the varying definitions Jung gave to his term, the meaning of synchronicity has been stretched in many different directions. I use synchronicity for

high impact psychological coincidences. What do you mean by “synchronicity”?

SERENDIPITY

Horace Walpole, a member of the British House of Commons in the 18th century, recognized in himself a talent for finding what he needed just when he needed it.

He based the name on a fairy tale called “The Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Sarendip.” Sarendip is an ancient name for the island nation Sri Lanka. The king of the fable recognized that education requires more than learning from books, so he sent his sons out of the country to broaden their experience. Throughout the story, the clever princes carefully observed their surroundings, and then used their observations in ways that saved them from danger and death.

For Walpole, serendipity meant finding, by chance, something valuable using informed observation (sagacity). The three ingredients of serendipity are, then, chance, informed observation and valued outcome.

Serendipity takes several forms: 1. Looking for something and finding it in an unexpected way. Microbiologist Alexander Fleming was looking for an antibiotic and found it in 1928 on a petri dish in a laboratory sink.

2. Looking for something and finding something else. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sought East Asia and landed in the New World.

3. Observing something in one situation and recognizing how that something can fill a need in another situation. In 1941, Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in 1941 wondered why Burdock seeds clung to his coat and invented Velcro.

SERIALITY AND SIMULPATHITY

Also beginning with an “s” and ending with an “ity”, seriality and simulpathity apply to smaller groups of meaningful coincidences.

SERIALITY

Biologist Paul Kammerer spent hours sitting on benches in various public parks in Vienna noting repetitions among the people who passed by. He classified them by sex, age, dress, whether they carried umbrellas or parcels, and by many other details. He did the same during the long train rides from his home to his office in Vienna. Kammerer was not particularly interested in meaning—only repeated sequences of numbers, names, words, and letters. Two examples can illustrate his thinking: His wife was in a waiting room reading about a painter named Schwalbach when a patient named Mrs. Schwalbach was called into the consultation room.  A second example involved his friend Prince

Rohan. On the train his wife was reading a novel with a character “Mrs. Rohan.” She then saw a man get on the train who looked like Prince Rohan. Later that night the Prince himself unexpectedly dropped by their house for a visit.

He defined “seriality” as “a recurrence of the same or similar things or events in time and space” which, “are not connected by the same acting cause.”  To him these repetitions were simply natural phenomena.

In his 1919 book  Das Gesetz Der Serie (The Law of the Series), Kammerer outlined these laws along with a broad set of classifications of their types and qualities. Seriality, in an expansion of Kammerer’s definition,  applies to observable sequences of similarities like the three Rohans. The Rohan series could have been seen by another person. Synchronicity and serendipity usually involve a private mental event and an observable environmental event.

SIMULPATHITY

I coined simulpathity to describe a personal experience shared by numerous people.

Simulpathity — from the Latin simul (simultaneous) and the Greek pathos (suffering)—differs from “sympathy.” The sympathetic person is aware of the suffering of the other but does not usually feel it. In simulpathity, one person suffers along with the other person and may feel some form of that suffering. The two people are not in the same place. Only later is the simultaneity of the distress recognized. Some twins know when and why they are feeling pain—the other twin is

now feeling it. Simulpathity is emotional/physical and usually subconscious empathy at a distance.

Often, the two people share a strong emotional bond especially twins. Mann and Jaye interviewed 20 adult twins who reported that sometimes they shared the symptoms one illness.

Simulpathity suggests that the individuals are more closely bonded than current scientific thought holds possible. Evolving

Definitions of words evolve as their users find innovative ways to apply them. The study of meaningful coincidences is enhanced by trying out possible definitions that can expand our understanding of them.

Bernard Beitman, M.D., is the first psychiatrist since Carl Jung to systematize the study of coincidences. A graduate of Yale Medical School, he did his psychiatric residency at Stanford University. The former chair of psychiatry of the University of Missouri-Columbia medical school for 17 years, he writes a blog for “Psychology Today” on coincidence and is the coauthor of the award-winning book “Learning Psychotherapy.” The founder of The Coincidence Project, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia

The Multivagal System: A New Paradigm of Safety

By Michael Shea, PhD

IINTRODUCTION AND ANATOMY

The Multivagal System is a new paradigm. It integrates the Vagus nerve above the respiratory diaphragm with the Vagus nerve below the respiratory diaphragm. The Vagus nerve is a critically important physiological and metabolical part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in the middle of the human body. It is a superhighway of information with four lanes going up and down the middle of the body. It is 80% sensory and 20% motor.

Structurally the Vagus nerve arises from two nuclei on both the right side and left side of the brainstem. It is also called the tenth cranial nerve (X) since it is the tenth pair of a total of 12 pairs of cranial nerves. Not only does it have a right and left side but each side also has two sites of origination thus making it four nerves in one, two emerging on the left and two on the right.

SOCIAL SAFETY

Safety is the most fundamental principle of the Multivagal Safety System. The term Social Safety is what Stephan Porges calls neuroception. This is the way in which the brain interprets social signals from other people as safe or not, especially their faces, posture and movements. Neuroception is determining people safety. Are people safe to be in relationship with? At the neurological level, neuroception is largely unconscious but it can trigger significant physiological changes, especially in the heart. Neuroception is determined by the Social Engagement System (SES) which involves facial expressions, the eyes and hearing. Facial cues constantly give information to the brain via the Vagus.

EMOTIONAL SAFETY

The heart represents emotional safety, a deep safety,

integrating three levels: at a metabolic level (molecular exchange of 02), at the physiological level of the SES (behavior), and at a spiritual level (loving kindness and compassion). Thus, emotional safety is spiritual safety.

Spiritual safety is a vital component of our health and well-being. The basic phenomenological experience of the heart is one of vulnerability. This simply means that everyone has a soft, flexible, tender spot in the front of their heart derived from embryonic development. The heart is designed to be able to expand, especially the anterior portion that connects with the sternum. It is part of the natural and normal biology of the heart.

The heart needs to be soft and flexible in front, and this produces sensations of vulnerability while it is firmer posteriorly. Vulnerability is not weakness or the lack of boundaries but rather it is associated with openness, confidence and authenticity when felt consciously and non-judgmentally.

The heart also has a very exquisite pleasure capacity stemming from positive social engagement with other people, which raises vagal tone (feelgood experiences that stabilize and lower heart rate). This heart-pleasure system is further integrated with one’s sexuality including arousal and orgasm. The Vagus nerve transports pleasure information from the pelvis (via the hypogastric nerves) up through the abdominal aortic ANS plexi to the heart and brain. The transport of pleasure and relief via specific hormones such as oxytocin and neurotransmitters is

a very important function of the Vagus nerve and an important experience of the heart. Joy and happiness are associated with this pleasure system as are health and well-being.

METABOLIC SAFETY

The abdomen via the Vagus nerve is about metabolic safety. This specifically relates to the proper care and feeding of the gut microbiome, the detoxification of the large intestine and a complex interaction with the cardiovascular, enteric, endocrine and immune systems located in and around the lining of the gut. One very important function of the Vagus nerve is to constantly monitor the gut microbiome, liver, spleen and endothelium of the viscera for inflammation and sends this information to the heart and brain and back down for an anti-inflammatory response in the liver and spleen. However, once inflammation is in place metabolically starting in the gut, the feeling of inner safety erodes. That internal “something is not quite right” feeling is often constant.

The same inflammatory processes being monitored by the Vagus include monitoring for excess glucose in the blood stream associated with inflammation. Consequently, we can become conscious of the garden of metabolic safety in our belly by eating real food.

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Metabolic safety is a living part of our biology since the gut microbiome is now linked to our psychological wellbeing. Metabolic safety is a deep form of psychological safety. We can feel the earth and all its activity in our belly, including the weeds and delicious fruits. From the earth our body is built and maintained and thus the viscera is the center of the universe inside the human body.

MORAL SAFETY

Then we arrive at the Pelvic Organs. I call this the three Rs: reproduction, recreation and relief. Moral safety happens in an environment that allows for urination, defecation and orgasm. Although the Vagus nerve does not directly connect to the organs in the pelvis in the human, it is indirectly connected via the pudendal nerve, the sacral outflow of the PNS and the sacral plexus as listed at the very bottom of the infographic. These three sacral nerve plexi contribute to sexual arousal and orgasm, urination including defecation and flatulence. But where does the Vagus nerve interface with the pelvis?

VAGAL MANEUVERS

One of the most popular vagal maneuvers is a broad category of breathing techniques such as Eliot Cohen’s coherent breathing, six seconds of inhalation and six seconds of exhalation. Box breathing is also a vagal maneuver when the inhale is for X amount of seconds,

the breath is held for X amount of seconds after inhaling, exhaling for X amount of seconds and holding the breath at the end of exhalation for X amount of seconds. Belly breathing consists of filling the lower lobes of the lungs first and feeling the umbilicus expand out during the inhalation and fall back naturally during the exhalation. Another type of vagal maneuver with belly breathing is to inhale into the abdomen for X amount of seconds, purse the lips and exhale for X amount of seconds. These breathing techniques can be practiced for 5 to 20 minutes and in general stretch the Vagus nerve especially its connections in the respiratory diaphragm. Vagal maneuvers are designed to create inner safety, improve vagal tone and heart rate variability.

Michael J. Shea, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in somatic psychology from the Union Institute and has taught at the Upledger Institute, the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and the International University for Professional Studies. He is a founding board member of the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America and the International Affiliation of Biodynamic Trainings. He is the author of several books, including Somatic Psychology, and lives in Juno Beach, Florida.

To learn more: sheaheart.com

Forgiving Mother

By Lynne Renoir

LLynne Renoir, the author of the memoir  Leaving Faith and Finding Freedom, writes about her mother. A woman who stood by and did nothing while her husband, a religious zealot, viciously beat his daughter. In this article, Lynne tries to reconcile her feelings for her mother with the reality of the situation she faced.

My mother was a mystery. She had married the wrong man but could never admit it, even to herself. In her eyes, her husband was such a good man. He was a preacher who spent much time praying for the sinners outside his church and his four daughters. This “gift” of daughters created a problem for him. The way he read the Bible, only sons could signify divine blessing.

Having been raised in a devoutly religious family, my father formed the view that his father was a true man of God. Nothing could change this view, even when my father was severely beaten by his father. Unfortunately for me, my father believed that his wonderful upbringing

had caused him to become an amazing man. Feeling spiritually inferior to her husband, my devoted mother accepted his opinion of himself and never questioned his views or behavior.

As a fundamentalist Christian, my father believed that God had dictated every word of the Bible. Because of the way he had been raised, my father was attracted to the words of Solomon that he must not “spare the rod” in disciplining his child. At first, he used his bare hands to smash me across the head and face. This treatment began at four when I had forgotten to put my toys away. Soon after, I was hit on the bottom, bending over his bed.

My parents believed that evil entered the world through Eve’s temptation of Adam and that women have been the downfall of men ever since. This meant that because of Eve, the Devil causes us to sin. Whereas most believers regard sin as a deliberate attempt to disobey God, according to my parents, sin encompassed any

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behavior that fell short of perfection. As a result, I was hit if I forgot to say goodnight or accidentally knocked over a glass of water on the table. Also, I was punished whenever I put forward a view that was contrary to an opinion my father had expressed.

Then when I was nine, my father went out into the bush to look for a small tree branch from which he could make a cane. He felt that just using his hands was failing his duty in not using “the rod .” My first experience of this form of punishment was when I tripped and fell into a hole in the street, breaking three eggs. I badly hurt my leg, but when I limped home, with blood pouring from the gash, my father beat me before attending to my injury. On this occasion, my mother made a weak attempt to get my father to treat my leg first, but to no avail.

Another sin that led to punishment was my absentmindedness. I had left a cardigan at school but could not think where it could be. My father grabbed me, and we walked a mile in silence to the school. When I eventually found it, my father wasted no time telling me that when we arrived home, he would give me “a father of a thrashing.”

My mother never attempted to protect me from my father’s cruelty, but her rejection of me became even more evident when we discussed my future. I had

done well at school and wanted to become a teacher. But in her eyes, I was sinful because she saw me as “aggressive.” She quoted a verse from the Bible where a woman is required to have a gentle and quiet spirit. As she saw it, my ambition was a weakness in my character that would worsen if I followed my desired profession.

I equated my mother’s failure to stand up for me with her inability to love me. I rejected my father completely. Yet, I desperately needed my mother’s love, but I could never have it. Despite this reality, up until the time of her death, I was still seeking it. On many occasions, I would ask her, “Do you love me?” but the answer was always the same, “All mothers love their children.”

Many years later, reflecting on her response, I saw two kinds of love. One is the kind of unconditional love that most parents have for their children, no matter how much they disapprove of their behavior. The other is the delight parents have in the qualities and characteristics that make their children unique. My mother’s inability to love me in this second way was no doubt due to the dominating influence of my father and her adoption of his belief that anything less than perfection represented sin.

One thing that puzzled me about my mother was that although she could not tolerate my personality, she did everything she could to practically make life easy for me. She made all my clothes and even did my

washing and ironing. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone outside the family how she had spoilt me. And despite her inability to love me the way I needed her to, she disciplined herself to be interested in what I was doing and to spend time talking to me. It even seemed that she had some compassion for me when I was upset. But how she truly felt about me, I could never fathom.

I wondered whether my mother’s kindness to me was some compensation for what I had to endure at my father’s hands or perhaps even a way of making up for her inability to love me.

The beatings from my father continued right throughout my teenage years. My mother had previously told me that my father would beat me until I came of age at 21 years old. But the saddest day of my life came when I was 23. I had forgotten to be at the place and time I had agreed with my father to pick me up. When I arrived home, my father unleashed his fury with the cane.

I confronted my mother, reminding her of her previous promise that the beatings would stop when I came of age. Her response chilled me to my core. “The age of 21,” she said in the coldest voice imaginable, “is merely something recognized by the state. It has no relevance in this home. As long as you are under his roof, your father has the right to discipline you in any way he chooses.”

It took me a long time before I could forgive my mother: for that episode and failure to protect me from my father’s previous excessive beatings. What helped was a growing awareness of my mother’s terrible upbringing. Her father died when she was a toddler, and her mother, a cruel woman, oppressed her.

Perhaps when we can empathize with what our mothers had to endure, we can be more accepting of their failures and love them despite their limitations and the pain they have caused us.

Australian author Lynne Renoir, MA, has lived a life in contemplative service to humanity. She is the author of two books.  God Interrogated: Reinterpreting the Divine and her memoir,  Leaving Faith, Finding Meaning: A Preacher’s Daughter’s Search for God. (Oct. 2022)

To learn more: lynnerenoir.com

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