Below is Part 2 in our Synchronicity Lessons series on how to find awe and utilize the power of synchronicities in everyday life — written by Anne Heleen Bijl, board member of The Coincidence Project and leadership consultant.

(Find Part 1 in the Synchronicity Lessons series here: Believe in the Butterflies)

One pattern I’ve noticed over the last 50 years of my life is that the frequency and clarity behind the meaning of coincidences increases when I’m working on something for the greater good, beyond my own gain.

When the intention is service, the universe seems to respond.

I’ve long been a member of Greenpeace, an organization whose ships sail the world’s oceans to bear witness, protecting ecosystems and standing for environmental justice. A few years ago, they announced a competition to name a new vessel joining their fleet.

The moment I read the announcement, a name surfaced almost immediately in my mind. It felt right, and yet I hesitated. Was it too simple? Too obvious? Not bold enough?

On the morning before the submission deadline, I told my husband the name that had been circling in my thoughts. We went for a bike ride through our Dutch neighborhood, where small wooden cabinets sit outside homes for passersby to take books.

As we approached one, I said, “Let’s stop. Perhaps there will be a sign in a book if I should submit the name or not.”

I pulled out a book filled with black-and-white photographs from the 1980s. I almost put it back. This won’t help me, I thought.

Then my husband looked more closely at the author’s name on the cover of the book.

“Ton Regtien ,” he said. “He was on the Rainbow Warrior or wrote about it”

In 1985, that Greenpeace ship was bombed and sunk in New Zealand by French secret service agents to prevent the crew from protesting nuclear tests. A photographer on board was killed in the explosion. The attack shocked the world and became a defining moment in environmental activism.

Finding that book was a deeply meaningful link to Greenpeace. It was not random.

That evening , I shared the story of the book with a neighbour.  He listened, paused, and then said, “You won’t believe this… but that exact same 40-year-old book is on my bedside table right now.”

Two improbable intersections in one day.

The hesitation dissolved.

I submitted the name.

So I guess you’ll know that I won the name contest out of over 2,000 entries!

The ship is called Witness. A smaller research vessel that now travels the globe documenting pollution and environmental harm. I was invited to baptize her myself. 

I will never forget standing at the bow of a ship named from a moment of doubt transformed into trust.

———

The beauty of a meaningful coincidence is this: it does not need to matter to anyone else to be real. It only needs to awaken something inside you.

When you align yourself with service, you seem to enter a different current. The signals sharpen. The timing tightens. The right people and the right symbols appear.

Perhaps synchronicities are confirmations.

The accumulating signs often seem to initiate an event that has importance on the longer run, for yourself or others. 

Look for the signs. Work for something greater than yourself. Connect to what you feel you have to do. And you may find that when your intention is clear, your own ship of synchronicity will come in.

Image source: Greenpeace