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  • C.G. Jung, Synchronicity and how to find your ULP

    C.G. Jung, Synchronicity and how to find your ULP

    About Synchronicity

    An unknown word appeared in my life, and it was the project name called “Halcyon Days.” I had to spell this word several times as I mentioned it on several occasions, and I always got it wrong.

    So on a Monday night, when I watched a documentary on C.G. Jung and synchronicity, I noted the correct spelling. I hoped to spell it correctly. That evening I learned that there are a few “coincidences” between C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien. That was quite a fascinating discovery as I feel these two come from two completely separate fields of my life. However, the connections are intriguing. 

    Kingfishers and Butterflies

    Then, I heard from a friend about an old seventies TV series that I binged on. It was one of those cold Saturdays and Sundays when going out of the house was not an option. Guess what? 

    One of the prominent families in the series had the last name “Halcyon”. I then learned how to pronounce it and found out that it is a special kind of tree kingfisher (bird). I finally checked Wikipedia: “Halcyon Days is an oblique reference to the Greek mythological figure Alcyone”.

    “Ovid and Hyginus both also make the metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for “halcyon days“, the seven days in winter when storms never occur. They state that these were originally the 14 days each year (seven days on either side of the shortest day of the year[5]) during which Alcyone (as a kingfisher) laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she could do so in safety. The phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time. Its proper meaning, however, is that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity; just as the days of calm and mild weather are set in the height of winter for the sake of the kingfishers’ egglaying.”

    You know that Wikipedia is not scientific, but it is often a good first reference for discovery, especially if you are looking for connections. Today, I read an article in which Ellie Goulding was mentioned. And she has an album called “Halcyon Days”. Yes, it’s a coincidence, maybe…maybe not. 

    The point is here: “Where our attention goes, energy flows.” (adapted from Tony Robbins)

    Synchronicity

    What C.G. Jung would say, though, is that I assigned a deeper meaning to this, which is why it is synchronicity. I was ruminating on whether I should continue editing my Bollywood-meets-Bond-style novel “Double Happiness”.

    Maybe you don’t know, but I ventured into creative writing a few years ago, and I keep putting off this life as a writer to earn an income and sustain my living. I keep falling back into the trap of being too busy to breathe. So, this year I want to change something. I want to use a half day for creation. Cancelled myself again. Took the blocker out of the calendar. Procrastinated. Asked Tom Robot, my AI buddy for help instead of JUST DOING IT.

    And then, I always “run into” C. G. Jung. Even on YouTube.

    “Synchronicity is a phenomenon in which people interpret two separate—and seemingly unrelated—experiences as being meaningfully intertwined, even though there is no evidence that one led to the other or that the two events are linked in any other causal way. Though many people perceive signs or spiritual meaning in synchronistic events, most scientists believe that such events are more likely coincidences that only seem meaningful due to aspects of human thinking, such as confirmation bias.”

    When you suddenly see kingfishers and butterflies everywhere is it synchronicity? Or is it just well-done marketing brought to you by Google and AI? OR is it really just a perception error?

     

    I never fully finished “Double Happiness.” Fear took hold of me, and I did not see immediate success, so I decided to quit. Part 1 was published, and Parts 2 to 4 are draft manuscripts on my computer. I did not even know if I still had them. And then, out of the universe, I get a sign that reminds me of India. The Kingfishers are everywhere, and my favourite Indian beer brand is “Kingfisher”. I cannot remember a time in my life that was so mellow and calm. So, if I wanted to lay my artistic eggs, this fasting period up to Easter would be the best time.

    The Lens of the Writer and the Paintbrush of the Artist

    We look at life from a different angle. As writers, we have a lens. We make the normal day-to-day visible with words, just like a painter who brushes a situation in a shopping centre into a piece of art or a photographer who captures a war story in one image. What we do with our writing is to paint a world inside your head, and sometimes we touch your soul. And when we touch your soul, we feel connected through the words. There is beauty in that.

    I did not know about C.G. Jung until their recent explorations that he painted, and I was interested in mythical topics. When I picked up the archetypes for the second time, his words about cultural separation seemed so up-to-date that they were almost scary.

    “Unser Intellekt hat Ungeheures geleistet, derweilen unser geistliches Haus zerfallen ist….Schliesslich graben wir die Weisheit aller Zeiten und Völker aus und finden, dass alles Teuerste und Kostbarste schon längst in schönster Sprache gesagt ist.” (Carl Gustav Jung, Archetypen, originally 1934, 2010 ed., p. 19)

    Can you grasp that there is a collective unconscious in this world and that we can tap into it like a radar? There is a painting in Jung’s red book that symbolizes the channel to the collective soul. For a while, when the Internet was pretty new in the 90s, and only geeks knew about it, many of them thought of it as our collective consciousness. For me, Twitter, for a long time, was my access to the collective consciousness (These days are clearly over since X has become the new Propaganda machinery that lets Joseph Goebbels look like a schoolboy. )

    Access Your Intuition

    Through intuition, I hope to access the collective unconscious, and there is one way to do that: through relationships and in connection with other human beings. The Internet is now the collective, global expression of our fears, prejudices, and biases.

    Most of us are stuck in a loop and an echo chamber, where what we put out there echoes back to us.

    Did I find Halcyon everywhere because I was looking for it? Is it just selective perception, or is Google spying on me? When we widen our perception, we can also ask better questions. We see more, and we take in more. When we connect with formerly unconnected concepts, we can be creative, find better solutions, and create what is later often considered art. (Art is original, whereas most AI art is reproduced; it would typically be considered “KITSCH”). 

    If you are looking for ways to access your unconscious and want to use synchronicities to find deeper meaning in your life’s purpose (and if you aren’t spiritual or religious), you might want to test my worldly and perception-enhancing methods below. These will help you increase and challenge your “frame of reference.

    Actual growth only happens with more self-awareness. In today’s world, I would also suggest that acquiring philosophical, religious, and mystic knowledge of the past can help form a worldview that is not just polaristic. 

    1 – Start with a Vision Board

    Finding your purpose, or your “why,” as Simon Sinek calls it, is not easy, and it’s not something you will have from the beginning. So, we usually recommend that you start with a vision board, which could be a flip chart or poster canvas in your working space. Use images posted on it and ideas from everything that comes to your mind.

    Add things that you would like to see in your future holidays that you would like to take and things you would like to have, like, you know, the best part that you always wanted or the VW hippie bus that you’re craving for the holidays in the Maldives. Add anything that brings happiness to you and add it to that vision board, and you will notice that some parts are about your life goals and relationship goals, and other parts might be about your professional goals, in determining your why, it also helps to look at pain points that you see in the world in your industry or in your immediate Community for example in your religious Circle. 

    If you then, from those pain points think about the future solution you can probably write up your vision like of the future State and where you would like to be in the future. from that you write your one page mission statement so this would be a more short-term idea for example how you know how you would like to work towards your vision and I can give you an example from our website so the vision that we defined was about peace and prosperity for all people quite – We also wanted to see peace in the world.

     

    “We aspire for peace and prosperity for all people! Through global mobility expertise, executive coaching and intercultural training, our clients build sustainable relationships across the globe and act as responsible leaders.”

    Angie Weinberger

     

    I still like the vision, and I think it is still relevant, but it’s not something that you can work towards in a short time frame. So that people understand the true purpose of being in the world, helping you know with peace, it needs to be translated into something more tangible. That’s what we usually refer to in the business world as a mission. So, what we have to find is that. For myself, I’m on a mission to bring the human touch back into Global Mobility through digitalization.

     

    2 – Define Your Mission for the Next Five Years

    What I usually recommend in workshops instead is that once you have a few ideas about your mission, and this could be a time frame five years, then you you try to word it exactly as I mentioned earlier you start with I’m on a mission too and then you add it you add your goal for the next 5 years to that sentence. believe me this is really powerful, especially for social media for LinkedIn for your bio it’s really good to have that one-sentence mission statement ideally it should fit on a Post-It note.

    “I’m on a Mission to Bring Back the Human Touch into Global Mobility through Digitalization.”

     3 – Summarize Your Seven Main Values and Principles

    It is also helpful to go deeper and better understand your values. You probably know what brought you to this stage, so I encourage you to research your values. You’re getting everything you already had when you were probably 16 and formed as a character. 

    What are my values?

    1. I Encourage Humanism and humanistic thinking,
    2. Put Clients First,
    3. Accept that relationships matter,
    4. See that Quality Counts,
    5. Interact personally,
    6. Value my Work and my Time.
    7. Approach Life with an Abundance Mindset.

    We also find it essential to check our biases and privileges regularly. 

    4 – Brainstorm Your Unique Selling Proposition

    Once you have assembled your values, mission statement, and why, or deeper, higher purpose, you could also consider how this translates into a unique selling proposition (USP) in marketing. A USP differentiates you from other providers that offer the same service or program as you do. So, if you are an expat coach, you could bring your unique experience, your academic background or research, or your target group might be exceptional. Hence, it is worth thinking a bit deeper here and defining that USP at this stage. I think it’s okay if you have a draft idea. I don’t think you need to perfect it yet, and remember that all of these things develop, so as your business evolves, your mission will evolve as well.

    5 – Turn it into a Unique Loving Promise

    As we work with human beings and because there is such a lack of “Human Touch” in an AI-driven social media world and a corporate world driven by metrics and tickets, I have decided to move from USP to ULP, which stands for Unique Loving Promise. In other words, it’s how I would like to be treated by an Expat Coach, and I have made this the way I will love my clients, with all their little quirks and issues. Tell me about your synchronicity experiences, please.

    Sign up here to be invited to my upcoming book launches and related workshops http://eepurl.com/dpfrrf.

    The Global Rockstar Album – 21 Verses to Find Your Tact as an Inclusive Leader by Angela Weinberger  https://www.angieweinberger.ch/the-global-rockstar-album/

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/synchronicity

     

    Kitsch – Wikipedia

    Carl Jung: What is the Collective Unconscious? 

    Carl Jung REVEALS why someone is ALWAYS on your mind

    Intuitive Introverts – “One Of The Most Difficult Types” – Carl Jung’s Typology | Jungian Psychology

    Train Your Mind: Understanding Synchronicity Will Change Your Life | Mel Robbins Podcast

    13 Signs Your Aura Is So Powerful It Can Disturb Others | Carl Jung

    How to develop an abundance mindset | Tony Robbins

     

     

     

  • Wanderer

     

    There was once a wanderer. He came across a pear and asked her if he could taste the

    sweetness of her flesh for once

    so she agreed and let him bite
    the soft skin of yellow greenish
    color.

    She then lacked a part of her
    luscious body that would never
    be given back to her and walked
    to the other fruits who started
    asking silly questions.Poor pear once a beauty was now
    bitten and damaged forever.
    Never again could she enter the
    garden and hallway of innocence.

     

  • Double Happiness – A Masala Love Story – Promotion on Amazon

    Hello!

    We will have a promotion of Double Happiness starting 12 January 2014. You can buy the book for 0.99 USD for a very short time. Check here and please leave a review.

    Thank you.

    VMS

  • Is networking overrated?

    Diary
     
     

    As a professional career coach I often advise people to build up and maintain a network as it will help them find a new role or start a new business venture faster. I consider myself an effective networker (online and offline). I really enjoy connecting people and I often bring people together who would not have met otherwise. Even two Twitterfriends in Islamabad suggested I was helping them getting engaged J.

    Still recently in a bleak moment of self-doubt I asked myself if I had overrated the power of my network and wasted my time helping others. Then I looked back at my past year and all the wishes that I had sent to the universe:

    1)   One business contact recommended me internally so I got my first big contract that pays my rent now.

    2)   One of my best friends introduced me to another friend who rents out an office to me now. My coaching lounge is ideal: quiet, discrete and looking into a green garden. We have our own entrance and I have a „colleague“ I can have a chat with when I feel like taking a break.

    3)   The same friend sent me an announcement for an apartment that led me to the apartment I moved into in November. A dream place and even though it is Zurich I got it.

    4)   Through networking I found all the trusted partners and consultants I work with in my company.

    5)   As part of a women’s network I get to meet wonderful women across the city and these connections inspire further ideas.

    The only surprise that did not come through a network was the man of my dreams. He just saw me and said: „I have been waiting for you.“ Seems not everything in life can be done through networks but a great deal of it. In the professional world though I feel it is essential no matter whether you work in a large organisation or run your business. In some cultures such as the Chinese culture the network is even seen as your capital. What I have also learnt is that as your network grows you need to slow down your pace as otherwise you will not be able to keep in touch.

    What is your experience with networking? Please like if you agree that networking has helped you a lot in the past.

  • Sometimes I cry for no reason – an open heart

    IMG_0279 IMG_0278 IMG_0277 IMG_0253

     

    Anjuna Beach, Goa India

    by Vivienne M. Sharma

    My heart is open for the first time in months. I sense people’s emotions and I laugh with the receptionist Sajan, the driver and guy at the check-in. One immigration person greets me with “Guten Morgen”. I am amazed and say “Danke”. Tears almost here. I blink and put on the sunglasses. “Don’t cry Vivi. Keep yourself together.”

    Ideas are flowing through my head and I feel like I am missing structure. My head is spinning. The reality of the wonderful time with my loved one and once again India has touched me in so many ways. I feel like on cloud nine. Vivi has fallen in love. My love. He reminds me of my father. Why is that? He is so loving, so caring and still so funny.

    “In the West we live our lives as if we could plan it.” I said to him.

    “…and in the East we wake up in the morning and thank our God(s) for having given us another chance to live a day.” He told me with a big smile.

    Once love touches your heart it is difficult to think straight. India does that to me every time. I come back to Switzerland and I am still in analogue-mode* like someone who has been on a ship and the earth still moves for several days after. “My” India is full of color and loving people, full of time and energy, full of buzz and opportunity. It is so different from the India that is in our Western minds.

    In my perception of India relationships are in the centre of everything we do. In my own inner world this is the same but for years I have lived in cultures where the task seems more important than the relationship. This creates friction. In India I am at ease. I go with the flow. Most of the time I am even patient with people (which is clearly none of my strengths). In India I am happy to appreciate people for their efforts and I smile at strangers.

    Let’s hope I can keep it up for a while in this culture too and see what happens :-). What is your experience with analogue and digital mode?

    Yours,

    VMS

    *analogue-mode is a concept I learnt from a Japanese intercultural researcher. You find more information here: http://web.usm.my/aamj/17.1.2012/AAMJ_17.1.6.pdf

  • Field Research in India

    IMG_0359

    My dear friends,

    Most of you know that I have spent the last three weeks in my “home” country India to research and relax. Goa’s beautiful beaches helped immensely. In Dubai I made the last edits of “Double Happiness” (Part 1) and sent the novella to my editor. She will run the final edits this week. Then the book is off to the publisher. It has been a long birth (more than 10 months). My other life came in between. In February I got so busy with the other job that I could not even touch the book. I am really looking forward to seing the final version. I hope you are too?

    Looking forward to your comments and feedback.

    Yours truely

    VMS

  • How to change your life so you have more time for writing

    IMG-20120706-00461

    Café Kashi in Cochin, Kerala, South India – one of my favorite hangouts. 

    Vivienne M. Sharma

    Tom J. has been fired. He still gets up in the morning at 6 am, has a shower, starts dressing and leaves the house in a suit. The embarrassment of telling his wife and kids is so high that he rather spends the whole day at the employment office. He also goes to Starbucks every day for two hours. Tom has a dream: He wants to be writer. Even though he is a bit worried about his finances he buys a new laptop and gathers information about writing workshops.

    When you are in the workforce and have a full packed diary there’s nothing you desire more than a day without meetings and conference calls. You would like to have days where you can get into and remain in a creative flow for more than two minutes and where you can freely decide when to take your coffee break or lunch.

    Tom found out after a few weeks that job search is a full-time job. Still he has some time now during the day to consider what he really wants to do.  He realizes how hard it is to create your own world. Your motivation has to come from within and not from your boss or from your diary that he used to follow like it was the holy bible.

    When you decide that you want to lead a self-determined life you need to learn to master yourself and take responsibility for your actions a lot more than in the past. Every success you can attribute to yourself but every failure as well. If you do not manage to understand your readers you might be delivering a result that is mediocre. Tom also realized how much he had to learn. Then he planned to spend about three hours with free flow writing every week. It works for a few weeks and Tom has a manuscript ready.

    Then a new day job comes along. The efforts of finding a job have been worth while. Tom needs the income to sustain his family.

    Suddenly the three hours are used for operational day to day activities again. On the weekends Tom wants to spend time with his family. He still has his dream but somehow he is not pursuing it the way he wants to. So he puts the manuscripts in a drawer and postpones his dream for another year…

    How do you make time for writing?

  • What inspired me for “Double Happiness”?

    A symbol of eternal love
    Agra, India June 2012

    Dearest friends,

    Without creative space there is no room for your inner voice to submerge from the deep holes of your subconsciousness. For years and years I had been living in a world of target orientation and performance. I was tired constantly and worked my butt off. Then in 2006 I came to India for the first time. The experience changed my views on the world and myself. I knew I had to change something. So I started a long journey to myself. Within a few years my mother was very sick and got healed, I got married and I went through a long self-discovery journey. On 1 January 2011 I re-discovered writing. It was a hobby I had lost. As a 15 year old I did more creative writing than in 15 years of my professional life. I started my first blog: World of Rose – (http://worldofrose-angieweinberger.blogspot.ch/?zx=b8fb61d008200eb8). This is a pure mini-poetry blog. In the meantime I am only opening it to readers. Writing poetry inspired me for short stories.

    On a business trip I started to write “A winter’s journey”. When I finally changed my life completely by resigning from my last job, I decided that I needed to go for a long-term dream: I wanted to visit Rajastan and take a longer break in India. I did that and for the first time in two years I travelled without my beloved macbook (yes, we have a true relationship). I left the computer at home. Then many impressions on the journey were hard to capture other than by writing about them. I did not want to write a blog and I did not feel like journalling either. I enjoyed taking bits of the journey and interwove them with my fantasy.

    Initially I wanted to write a short story but the nice friends around me thought I was writing quite a lot for a short story. They wanted to know what I was doing and some of them even gave me input (Yes, thank you LARA!!). Others only later realized that they wanted to be in the story (Astrid, Damian, Anna and Sajin). Some were never really asked (Arjun, Samir and Raj). In the end it is all fiction but there might be a hint of a true person or several persons in my characters. Anyway, most of them are good friends. I hope they won’t mind. Those of you who know me well understand that I have a huge imagination and that my fascination for everything Bollywood has an impact on the story. I am now dreaming of a Bollywood Epic of “Double Happiness”. That’s why sometimes I have mentioned my dream cast for the characters already.

    You have any questions? Feel free to leave a comment.

    Bid hugs

    VMS

     

  • Damian

    Damian is not only my uncle but he will also be my father-in-law soon. As per Indian tradition I shall move to the house of my in-laws soon. Damian is a real Aussie man with tattoos, white skin and blond hair. He loves fishing, motorbikes and loud music. I can imagine him young on a surf board or scuba diving but when I met him he had been a bit more settled already. He came to our house often when I was a kid. Then we moved to Mumbai and we could not hang out so often. What I would say about uncle Damian is that he is a lot deeper than you would think at first sight. He needs a few drinks (kingfishers) before he opens ups but then he can actually be quite chatty and charming. I would say he is a manly man with a soft touch. My sister Leyla told me he cried at my mum’s funeral. Well, that shows how much he valued her friendship and that he missed her.

     

  • Astrid

    “Auntie” (and soon-to-be my mother-in-law) Astrid has always been a very strong help in my life. Since I never met my mother, Astrid was the female role model that I needed when growing up. She is strong, intelligent and very warm. Astrid left her family together with her husband Damian in 2012 when they started a world trip from Australia. Who would have thought that they would fall in love with Kerala and return to live there?

    If you wonder why she is my soon-to-be mother in law I recommend you start reading the first chapters of Double Happiness. You might find an indication there.

    Big hugs

    VMS