Rachel Fell: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Existential Tetherball. Whether this is your first time listening or you've been with us for a couple episodes, we are delighted you're here. I am Rachel Fell. To my left is my co-host Gordon Smith. And today we are super excited to be exploring synchronicity as our tether and our topic. Synchronicity as defined, or one way of defining synchronicity as the meaning we make. of meaningful events that are not easy to explain. So we're super stoked to dive in today with our guest, who Gordon will now introduce for us. Gordon Smith: Thank Thanks, Rachel. ⁓ Welcome, Karine. It's a pleasure that you're here. And I'm going to introduce you to everybody before we tear the duct tape off your mouth and allow this to begin. Karine Eglinton is a psychic reader, energy healer, astrologer, spirit worker, coach, and mentor. She believes in magic and that life is a spiritual adventure. Karin Eglinton: you you Gordon Smith: Those are her shorthands to describe the wildly complex realities of belonging in a living, loving, communicating, enchanted multiverse. Through her holistic practice at KarinaGlinton.com, Karine supports people whose minds work a little or a lot differently from the majority to understand themselves, reclaim the inherent magic of life, open to their intuition, and walk their souls' unique purpose for being on Earth at this pivotal time. Karine is devoted to the reclaiming of natural human psychic capacities and to direct ways of experiencing the divine mystery as pathways to collective change. She writes about these and other metaphysical topics at her substack, You Are Multidimensional. Welcome. Karin Eglinton: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I am very stoked about what we're going to be discussing today and also just spending time with the two of you. Gordon Smith: Yeah, yeah, so I know you ⁓ originally via Intergifted when you were kind of a more official mentor within that organization. ⁓ And you work directly with me as part of my process around my own neurodivergence and individuation. ⁓ And then I returned to you later to Rachel Fell: Yeah. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: avail myself of some of your other talents and capabilities in regards to ⁓ the divinatory exploits of astrology and of past life stuff. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm, that's right. And how fun has it been? This is the stuff I love. I just love to work at the soul level, essentially. And that's what it's all about for me. Rachel Fell: Hahaha Gordon Smith: Hahaha Rachel Fell: you Beautiful, The soul level. I mean, same. else, everything that Gordon said also applies to me, which is really funny that we have like that very similar, right? And so it's great to come back around and space time to bring us into this confluence of exploration. But yeah, absolutely. I have adored getting to know you and work with you and really excited to talk about synchronicity. So yeah, you sent over a beautiful unpacking as a starting point for Gordon Smith: the soul level. Karin Eglinton: Yeah. you Gordon Smith: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: It'd be awesome to start there, I think. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, so ⁓ what I had shared with you behind the scenes was one of my favorite definitions of synchronicity and now typically people know that synchronicity comes from Carl Jung ⁓ who created depth psychology and yet I feel like his formulation which is defined as an a causal connecting principle and that sounds kind of clinical and cold versus what we often feel in our hearts about synchronicity. So I'm gonna share with you and with those of you listening this quote from Jeffrey Kreipel who is a scholar of religion and has in his recent years in his career focused specifically on the paranormal. And so I'll read you this quote which is synchronicity is all about what we could easily and accurately call meaning events. That is a moment in space and time where and when the physical world becomes a text to be read out and interpreted. Where and when the event is structured not by causal networks of matter but by symbolic references producing meaning. So that's Jeffrey Kreiple and I think he couldn't make it clear that the point is not so much that When we think of synchronicity, it's like, ⁓ things coincide. And what is it that makes a coincidence important to us ⁓ versus to, let's say, the clinically detached objective of server? It's actually what it means to us, what symbolic emotional representation we have of the event. Something usually in a synchronicity. Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: from inside our thoughts, from inside our feelings, is being mirrored writ large out there somehow. ⁓ And the just kind of basic, typical synchronicity that happens to people is like, ⁓ I'm thinking about someone, I haven't seen them in years, and then that person contacts me within 24 hours. And so it's like, well, if we detach from from that reality a little bit. We're like, okay, will coincidences happen? And that's that kind of more, ⁓ you know, the universe is random kind of view. I don't take the universe is random as my view, but that the universe is meaningful. So yeah, so that's the starting point. And I particularly love this thing about it, which is the idea of reality as a text to be read. Gordon Smith: business. Karin Eglinton: So the two of you know that I'm a psychic reader and the word reader in psychic reader is really meaningful because it literally looks as though we can when accessing our psychic faculties and I say our because I believe everybody has them. You know, I can look at somebody's energy and I can read it as a text. It doesn't look like letters or words, but it looks like colors, symbols, associations. that strung together create also meaning. So then if we extend that to reality and then we can say, ⁓ every moment in which we are present in this particular way, we can start to look around and be like, this means that. And it means something that has to do with our growth, with our connectedness, with our evolution. ⁓ with our greater joy and thriving and contribution to life. So I feel like that's an exciting and hopeful way to look at life. Rachel Fell: Hmm, beautiful, beautiful. Gordon Smith: Yeah, are we done? Should we just close it up right now? Like that was great. Rachel Fell: Hahaha! Karin Eglinton: Yeah, that's it. That's all I had to say. Gordon Smith: No. Rachel Fell: The more you know, star flies and then the episode just ends. Gordon Smith: It's really beautiful and it Produces this contrast. I don't want to dwell in the contrast for too long, but I do want to name it that that What Richard Tarnas and Cosmos and Psyche calls a knowing superiority of the rationalist? Who is Attempting to exert control over meaning Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: Mmm. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: ⁓ And to assign randomness or assign some causal meaning ⁓ out of some other agenda ⁓ whereas what we're talking about here is about that ⁓ symbolic language of ⁓ everything we're experiencing and the subjective nature of that experience Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I like you naming that because I think it's a pervasive view and something that especially many of us who are in the neurodivergent world, you know, who have complex intellect, we learned that the way that we can exert our intellect well is by engaging in that scientist, I'm going to call it scientist, way of looking, which is not science, but that superiority of a ⁓ kind of rationality that ⁓ views the universe as purely matter and random occurrences of how matter bumps around it. And that's the underlying philosophy where in that playground we can unfold our intellect, we can explore and we can also gain some respect for intellect. And so I see this as an interesting paradox, especially for people who have complex minds, that then that skepticism and that materialism comes in, in contrast to... Rachel Fell: Yeah. Gordon Smith: Mmm. Karin Eglinton: oftentimes, you know, their own intrinsic intuition or the appearance of fascinating synchronicities in life and then we're like, wait, I'm torn in two directions, which one should I believe in? So I think that's a it's very real thing. Rachel Fell: Mm, absolutely. You used the word detach at one point, detached, and that really stood out to me. And this, you know, this, this sort of, I call it holistic inclusion as a sort of alternative to reductionism. So there's like the control aspect, I think that can be there at play. It's like, there's, there's, need to know, I need to know now I need the certainty. There's also this desire for like single pointed attribution, and how like, Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mmm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: you know, we need to kind of like control variables to isolate and sort of stop time for, you know, this sort of reductionism and a more like scientific approach, which is one method we have of like exploring the universe and our relationship in it. But this this other paradigm suggests this sort of like reciprocity and interplay like this aliveness and this like opposite of detachment. You know, it is it is like implicitly non-dual. It's like Karin Eglinton: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. it. Rachel Fell: energy and matter are two forms of the same thing and what happens when they start playing around. I can't measure that, but we know that to be true scientifically. So it's a really interesting, it asks us to spend some time, I think in this bridge space, moving out of reductionism and into something else, perhaps. Karin Eglinton: And I love what you're saying because it really kind of calls us to put ourselves in the picture and to know that it's safe, that doesn't mean that we're going crazy if we're putting ourselves in the picture of the universe is speaking to me. You know, and what is this called in psychiatry? You know, like, ⁓ was it like ideas of reference or something like that? That this is about you. ⁓ And so I think that we also have a fear that it means that we're we're putting ourselves in a paradigm that is going to lead potentially down a slippery slope of error, whether that is going to be just plain kind of silliness, superstitious silliness or Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Thank Karin Eglinton: that it's actually gonna lead us down to mental illness. And we do have a fear of that. Rachel Fell: Yeah. Gordon Smith: That shadow side of all of this can be that egoic reinforcement of like, I'm special, the universe is talking to me. And on the other end of that shadow spectrum is a paranoia, like, ⁓ shit, like the universe is talking to me and it's terrifying. Whereas the other side of that is around like, ⁓ I'm participating. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: brush. Karin Eglinton: Yes. Gordon Smith: in a ⁓ co-created, co-occurring reality that I can't fully comprehend and that my knowledge is not the only knowledge. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah. And when you say that, Gordon, it highlights for me something that is implicit in a lot of participatory knowledge models, but that actually doesn't get named as such as much as I would like it to be, which is the idea that just as we human to human, Rachel Fell: Yeah. ⁓ Gordon Smith: Mmm. Karin Eglinton: have to learn to have good relationships with each other. We need to learn to have a good relationship with the universe. Boundaries, you know, with life. For instance, boundaries in which we know, okay, I'm participating, I am one of many, I'm co-creating, but it doesn't mean that I'm the pinnacle of creation. And it's the same as you think about having, you know, relationship with a romantic partner. Same idea, same tools. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can't help but be taken to, you know, I'll use religion specifically ⁓ here, like, you know, two kind of like foundational existential models that I can hold up and maybe compare in my own sort of lived experience and also study is like, we have like sort of this original sin model, and then we have this other model that's sort of like, Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: Mmm. Rachel Fell: know, humans have, you know, power and limitation. Humans are like co-creators of reality. And so I think these like foundational existential and spiritual, like you can call them philosophies and call them beliefs, understandings of how reality works really become the basis for if somebody can engage this with that sort of like healthy individuated, like I am part of all of this. I am extension of, and I am creation and I am also the universe. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: there's a flowing through kind of thing happening as opposed to like a closed system thing happening that is somehow like separate and like more or less. So when y'all are kind of banding back and forth with that part, I'm like really taken to that foundational place of like how we understand what it is to be human, which is like really, yeah, like a place worth staying with probably. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Mmm. Rachel Fell: Yeah. Anyways, just offering that a little bit as like a... Yeah. But that reciprocity you're speaking to, that shows up everywhere. Coming back to what you're saying about relationships, it's like that I am influenced and I'm influencing. There's this flow that's happening. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Gordon Smith: So. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Gordon Smith: And, and as you've been practicing this, ⁓ just as a way of being for I don't know how long. ⁓ I'm curious as to like how it has ⁓ just changed the way you move through the world. Like how does this practice look and feel? Karin Eglinton: Thank ⁓ First of all, it's a very fun way of living life. I want to start there. It's a more fun way of living life, I think. I prefer it. ⁓ And so what I personally have experienced and I think, you know, I've always been a person to whom weird things happen. it's just like I... There's always some kind of weird story unfolding around me and that's been like that since I was very small so it's kind of my normal in some ways and because it's like a phenomenon that's been knocking at my door for so long it almost forced me to embrace it in a bigger way. So ⁓ that being the case there was a shift in my in my life experience because I met a mentor who lives a very synchronistic life. And then I started working with her for a little bit and then my levels of synchronicity skyrocketed. And then I was like, ⁓ this is the only way to live. Because I started to realize that the more intentional I became about nurturing those strands or streams of meaningful coincidences in my life, the more positive occurrences would happen as I started to read the text. you know, not just enjoy or marvel at strange things happening, but actually use it as guidance points to make my next decisions. And then that became a reliable way of navigating life. And Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: it made me have a lot more trust in life. That's a huge piece of it is recognizing that more positive things can be happening basically to any of us, the more we are listening to that partnering from the universe. And yeah, so it gave me more faith that even though sometimes things don't go the way I want them to, I can... Gordon Smith: you. Karin Eglinton: listen for what signs and symbols arise and let those guide me to a better place than where I am in the moment. Or be more wildly creative. And so, you know, it's like if I'm in a good place, then the synchronicities take me to an even more expansive, more surprising place. So it can be both, you know, getting yourself out of places that maybe are like... you know, not so exciting or when we're not thriving to a place where we are. And when we are thriving, there's just like this creativity that starts to unfold, this surprisingness that starts to unfold. And so that's that's kind of how I live life. And I feel like all of us can access that. And there's also a depth that emerges once again, because Gordon Smith: Thanks. Yeah. Karin Eglinton: When we are, and I'm sure most of your viewers are going to be people who are like self-reflective and self-aware. And so when we're very self-aware, typically, you we look towards, let's say, psychology or spiritual traditions and so on to give us kind of guidance on what to work on next or what healing looks like, what ⁓ wholeness looks like, what individuation looks like. And then that's all great. That's fantastic. And there's an element that comes from the synchronicity stream that is foreign in a way to the human mindset or the cultural mindset that we're all steeped in. So it's information from the outside, literally, from a greater perspective. So sometimes it's all that element of surprise that I'm talking about and direct connection and direct relationship. Rachel Fell: So, yeah. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Thank Karin Eglinton: can actually open up our models of what life is like, help us discover things that are not known in the psychological models or in the spiritual models that we already have. And so that's why I say it's fun and exciting because it's not only, you know, fulfilling or meaningful. It's also, ⁓ here's some information you didn't know was possible or could exist. And that's pretty cool. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Wow. Rachel Fell: Hmm... yeah. Gordon Smith: So many thoughts in my head. How about you, Roach? Rachel Fell: Always, always, always. I mean, a couple like just little sound bites, bits and bobs that are showing up. Karin Eglinton: Hehehehehe Rachel Fell: you know, what we're talking about is, ⁓ you know, the reciprocity of these experiences and forming a new understanding of intelligence. And that is definitely like really foundational to the work I do in the world with clients and in general and this place of like sort of the art of noticing relationship with awareness, ways of knowing, and these sort of models that we've been conditioned and enculturated with around like, you know, how human intelligence and processing works. And I always go right to like, Karin Eglinton: Mm hmm. Rachel Fell: physics and physiology, not as dogma, but as inspiration. And that you're really speaking about this sort of like allowing and these experiences, these events, it's like they become these doorways to being really curious about all those things. So like for somebody, especially with a very like, let's say active intellect who has maybe it was maybe like coming out of that very like dogmatic or reductionist paradigm around, it's like, it's an invitation to explore all of that. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, yeah, it's infinite. Rachel Fell: And that's like really, that's a heck of a playground. Yeah. Gordon Smith: It is. It's taken me back to ⁓ the story episode that we did with Laura Hope Gill, because it's really similar to some of the stuff that I'm doing in my practice. I hadn't been calling it synchronicity, ⁓ but I guess I can, which is around what I've been calling the little hop, which is just this subtle shift of attention. ⁓ Rachel Fell: Yeah. Gordon Smith: to activate this associative reasoning style ⁓ where we can perceive connections ⁓ and enter into relationship rather than like witness or observer role, but into relationship with our lives and all of the constituent ⁓ things that can feel separate. Karin Eglinton: . Gordon Smith: to instead be in this relationship with. ⁓ To go from this isolated, like, am a consciousness in a meat suit and I'm all by myself to, ⁓ no, I'm in this gigantic story I can't begin to comprehend. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, which isn't that exciting? Is that mind-blowing? Yes. And when we were discussing in Gordon Smith: Mm. Yeah. Karin Eglinton: in preparation for this conversation and I said something about cosmic tail and so I think we're really talking about the same thing which is you know over time my own spiritual model of the world has evolved from when I was much younger you know a view of like there's laws and systems of the universe which maybe I still believe I don't know to more like Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: there is a story unfolding. And then the logic or the so-called laws are more, ⁓ they're contextual to the story. They're not universal per se. That's how I see it. And so when there's synchronicity sometimes, and I'm just going to share in specific, you like I talk with clients all the time about synchronicity, because they come to me they're like, what does that mean? And we might figure out what it means together, but we might... Rachel Fell: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: but there's an element in synchronicity about this kind of like outrageous notice me factor. it didn't have to play out like this. It played out in a circuitous way that takes you on a journey. And it could have been much more of a linear, okay, so, you know, spirit says to you kind of like, ⁓ from now on you should become a plumber. The end, you know, that's your path in life, whatever. But instead you get Rachel Fell: Yes. Karin Eglinton: taken on this thing where you end up in ⁓ a plumbing store and you meet somebody, an old person with mysterious knowledge and they blow your mind and then that takes you to this other thing. So it's like this kind of like a quest of sorts where you're being sent to all these places to look for clues. And I think that is part of the point. In those moments, I feel like the universe wants to tell a really good story. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: And that's part of the point. It's not so much what you end up doing, but the fact that you went through that story and that you could tell that story and fascinate yourself and others with it. And then we can all go, wow. And that's part of our relationship to the universe, that awe that I can't even begin to comprehend how vast this is. That that is a good relationship with the universal intelligence. Gordon Smith: you Rachel Fell: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Gordon Smith: Beautiful. Yeah, we get to go wow. Karin Eglinton: We get to go out and sometimes that's the whole point. Rachel Fell: Yeah. Gordon Smith: Ha Rachel Fell: Well, that's exactly where your story, you know, this example of the plumber and the discovery or the learning or this back to like the art of noticing. ⁓ The, I was telling Gordon earlier, like the autistic part of my odd DHD often gets railroaded by the DHD part. But one part that is very like awe about me, AWE is like taxonomy, like not in a rigid or dogmatic way. Karin Eglinton: you I'm sorry. Rachel Fell: But it's like, am I open? And I mean that in terms of consciously held belief or interest, is my body, is my nervous system open to, and the ⁓ overtness or the subtlety of these meaningful events. So when I was kind of prepping, I wrote down meaningful how. How does that meaning register? When do I notice that meaning? Does it have to come like, Karin Eglinton: So. Mm. Rachel Fell: ⁓ come in that there's these circular events that lead in this scavenger hunt sort of way, circuitous instead of direct. Sometimes it is this small little somatic sense. Sometimes it feels like a glitch in the matrix or deja vu. So I started playing around with taxonomy, weight, density. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: you Rachel Fell: like in my own experiences of what you could class as synchronicity. And then I've also had experiences that like, I feel like are bigger, like I wouldn't call them synchronicities, I would call them transcendent experiences. And for me, that would like not fit inside that word. But at the same time, it's like this exploration of these meaningful events that are unexplainable, or that you sit with them and you're like, huh, that's this invitation to like a next step, somehow, you know? So Karin Eglinton: ⁓ I find it. Rachel Fell: It's really interesting how there's various like, for some people that can be really subtle. And for some people, it might be like very overt or we all have different types of them. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, you know, the sort of. Karin Eglinton: fascinating that you have this taxonomy system evolving about synchronicity. ⁓ I love that and in fact it is also part... yes! Yes, that's the way to go. Gotta classify those things, man. Yes, yes, yes. Rachel Fell: Yeah. So dirty. Gordon Smith: Thank Thank Rachel Fell: just relationships, right? Like, there's a bigger shape here. There's a there. And, you know, there is a shape here. There is a form here of meaning that is like composite around these things, I suppose. Yeah. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, yes, absolutely. And it makes me think of the idea of like form follows function in the sense that in practice, like pragmatically speaking, you know, again, I work with people who are like, weird things are happening in my life, help me. And then we actually do have to go to that taxonomy. We do have to go to, let's figure out what exactly is happening. And for that, we need some categories. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: And this is ⁓ one of the ways where I feel like we were talking about this more observer detachment side of our mind, what we could call our left brain versus the right brain for an easy, easy handle. And the left brain is really helpful in these particular ways in service of that right brain connected contextual intelligence. ⁓ And so for instance, one of the things that I noticed And this is a little different from what you were saying, Rachel, although I really like that idea of like, how does it register in my body? How do I know what? ⁓ That I see synchronicity as not one thing, but as ⁓ collection of uncanny events that could be traced to different sources. And so, for example, one really, really classic one is when people have signs from deceased loved ones. That's a really, you know, like a super common thing when you ask a deceased loved one, please send me a sign. And then, you know, there's a very typical one. The cardinal is like a very typical one. Butterflies, feathers, and people are looking out for those things. My dad passed away in 2024 and I said, you need to send me a really good sign. My dad was a, he was an atheist, skeptical person. He just didn't believe in anything. And I said, you got to send me a really, really good sign. And at the time I said, know, okay, let's try for a cardinal. And I got in my head this picture of Burger King, because when I was little, my dad used to take me to eat burgers and that was a bonding experience for both of us. And so I got a picture of Burger King and then I started finding Burger Kings in places where I never expected them. And so that was my dad's sign. I was Burger King. And then, you know, down the line, I had a time where like my car broke down and then we got towed and there was a Burger King and I just knew my dad was with me at the time. He was helping somehow. He was supporting at a time where I was in distress. And so that's one kind of synchronicity that I see you have a direct conversation with ⁓ a disembodied being. Could be a spirit guide, could be, you know, somebody that you knew in life and you loved. Gordon Smith: Hmm Rachel Fell: Yeah. you Karin Eglinton: ⁓ There's with the spirit guides another, you know, super typical kind of like new agey spiritual thing is like seeing repeating numbers and Do I think that those numbers maybe have intrinsic meaning? I don't know, but they work So ⁓ another time also related to death ⁓ My dad-in-law passed away and beef and it was a big deal in our lives because he was living in another country and he died in a very bizarre accident and he was by himself. on, you know, shortly before we learned of his death a couple of days, I saw the number 555 repeating and it struck me. I had that somatic resonance and I tried to intuitively tune in and I got a feeling of like, you know, something's gonna change in your life radically and 555 tends to pretend change as you know like in the the angel numbers lore 555 is a number of big change so I was like something big is going to happen and then we learned of his death and We had to go take care of his affairs figure out how he died and all these different things So, you know truly it was a message from the universe something you prepare yourself something big is happening ⁓ then there can be things that have to do with, let's say, our dreams. The classic Jungian synchronicity of there's a dream and then you see the dream symbol reflected in waking life. And then in those cases, I find the call is to really understand or create a sense out of what does that symbol tell us for ⁓ personal growth, for instance. What is that telling us to do? Gordon Smith: That's a, and that's that, ⁓ there's two things in there that I just want to like pull apart real quick. And one is that relationship to one's own sub and unconscious. ⁓ And that, that internality of experience, this relating with oneself in this very internal way, alongside the larger whole of life, this ⁓ living matrix of Karin Eglinton: Go for it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah, and almost as though the inner cosmos is like, you know, just it is as vast as the outer cosmos and lots of things are happening in there and we get to discover how the two interlink and mirror each other. ⁓ Gordon Smith: potential synchronistic meaning is also it's happening by direction. Rachel Fell: Yes. You heard? Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: And so in those cases, oftentimes what I see is there's a huge potential for change inside of us. So for us to become more of ourselves, become more whole. And so it's not always like a practical dialogue in that sense, but it is something that is gonna bring about a big transformation inside of us. ⁓ Another one that I see a lot is when there's Gordon Smith: Mmm. Hmm. Karin Eglinton: It's a flash of psychic intuition. So let's say, ⁓ you know, like something, an image pops into your head, a weird image that you don't think about. then, you know, two days later, that actually happens. And that might not be a sign from anybody like an intelligence, other than the fact that your future self sent an image to your past self and you picked it up. To me that also hints at the nature of our psychic abilities always running in the background and sometimes the filter lowers enough that we can notice it. Rachel Fell: Beautiful. Beautiful. Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, there's also, this is something I, I don't often have like, premonitions of danger. Sometimes I do, but it's not as common. But I have other people who have like, a lot of kind of like, an attunement to, you know, crisis states. And so they, they get all these like, signs telling them something bad's gonna happen. And if they listen to those, they can avert the situation somehow. Rachel Fell: Nah. Gordon Smith: you Rachel Fell: As I am kind of swimming in your taxonomy and some of your examples of different types, and I'm taken to this place that I know we all share experiences in and of with neurodiversity and neurodivergence. And one of my particular areas of interest is to really, you know, bridge that sort of, ⁓ you know, reductionist materialist divide of psyche and body. And so this like, Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: porousness, the sensitivity, this openness, ⁓ the conditions for being open to one's own intelligence beyond what we've been told it is and conditioned to believe it is. So that's such an interesting space. And I'm really curious on your thoughts around sort of like, you know, what you would call individuation. We can talk about like trauma healing. We can talk about, know, we have Karin Eglinton: Okay. Thank you. Rachel Fell: somatic and we have cognitive and it's like we go hunting around for our trauma and like what is trauma really is like a question I ask myself often because you know I'm for me trauma and this katsugi metaphor it's like we each have our own unique neuro fingerprint and this flow and this reciprocity this openness and like what is possible with human intelligence when we open up to that ⁓ I know some people really talk about ⁓ is it my is it my trauma or is it my intuition right and there's this confusion Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: For me, it's like nervous system state and awareness and experimenting with that stuff. But I know I'm kind of asking an ill-formed question here, but just sort of curious on your thoughts on this space of like opening up to a bigger, a wider possibility, a wider range of what's possible in and through us. And then maybe some examples or experiences or ideas you have around that journey from like, let's say being blocked in that way. Karin Eglinton: Thank you. ⁓ Yeah, you just threw so many cool things at me. I don't know which one to grab. Rachel Fell: or not being open to becoming more open. Gordon Smith: You Rachel Fell: Sorry. We're not organized at all. like, like not like just kind of anything. Like any of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Like a, like a truck delivery. Yeah, exactly. Gordon Smith: Yeah, you can choose anything from that menu and it's okay. Karin Eglinton: Here's a smorgasbord. Grab it. Yeah. Okay, ⁓ but... Gordon Smith: That's the nature of this, of existential tetherball is like we keep coming back to like anything is everything and everything is anything and so here we are again. Yeah. Rachel Fell: Yeah, and I just had the tether ball and I was like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, I don't know. But I think I've got like a messy shape for you that I've offered back. Karin Eglinton: Here we are. ⁓ mm-mm. Yeah, so let me see which one feels more juicy. So like you were talking about, A, there's the divide, the cultural divide between body and spirit or body and mind. However, people want to conceptualize that and that's a whole can of worms. And then there's the question of in trauma integration, how can I know what the sensations that I'm picking up mean? Rachel Fell: Okay. Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: if it's coming from a trauma thing, especially if you know like what I said signals of danger that could be trauma, right? ⁓ And then you were saying how can we go from being more closed off to being more open? And I feel like these are connected and distinct. ⁓ Rachel Fell: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Thank you. You synthesized my mess for me. I appreciate it. Karin Eglinton: Like I said, it's very juicy. It's worthwhile. So let's see. Where does my mind go with all that? Here's where my mind goes, I'm gonna throw something else at you. Okay, so personally, I had a history of, well, I still do, ⁓ but one of these big narrative threads of my life were as a child I experienced a big, big trauma in school and a social trauma where I was humiliated repeatedly and became as a result socially anxious, like just... Constantly expecting that to repeat and guarding myself against that ⁓ Repeating ever again. And so I entered my early 20s with this feeling of I have to heal my anxiety. That was the the the directive in my mind. I have to heal my anxiety and I did lots of things to heal my anxiety and it didn't work and I was frustrated and the anxiety remained and Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: In my mid-20s, I had an experience and it blew my mind a little bit and I had to unpack it for many more years. So mid-20s, I had just gotten together with my partner Merlin and we were visiting a cool store that he said I should go check out because there was just kind of like a slightly new agey store with musical instruments and he's like, let's go see it, it's going to be cool. And I walk into that store and I can't bear to be in it. I'm like, like the social anxiety meter is deep into the red. The beeping alarms are going in my head. I'm sweating. I can't be in this place. So I kind of quietly, stealthily moved out of the store while he was chatting with the owner and just kind of stood outside and, you know, I was like paralyzed, rigid like this. And then Rachel Fell: Mmm. Mmm. Karin Eglinton: I was like, you know, just waiting for it to end. And then Merlin comes out of the store and we go out to eat and he sits down and he says to me, I couldn't even speak German at the time. I was new in Germany, so I didn't understand any of the conversation. He says, ⁓ you'll never guess what the owner told me. This store used to be a torture chamber in World War Two. And I was like, what? Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. What? Karin Eglinton: because I could not bear to be in this space. And it occurred to me for the first time in my anxiety story that maybe not all my anxiety was anxiety in the psychological sense, but that it could be a signal about something. And then, you know, if this ties into what you're saying, Rachel, you can tell me where I did have trauma. It was real. Rachel Fell: Thank Gordon Smith: Hmm. Karin Eglinton: And my stories about it had an internal logic and certainly some part of me must have been afraid in the way that I was used to. But some other part of me was picking up that there was something to be very afraid of actually. And I just didn't know what it was. And so that actually that that experience initiated me into this question of how much is mine and how much is not mine? What's coming from the outside and what's coming from the inside? And so there's not easy answers to this question because I find that oftentimes trauma opens up our psychic abilities and the sense that when we feel powerless, there is something within us that opens up that additional layer of power, of information sensing. Rachel Fell: Yes. Karin Eglinton: in order to navigate dangerous situations. And so a lot of us, when we're young and we're in unsafe places, we not only open up our emotional and kind of like a hyper vigilance at the nervous system level, but that also goes, extends beyond the body into our soul senses to notice when things are gonna be safe and not safe. And so in a way, there is a long path for us Gordon Smith: Mm. Karin Eglinton: who have been traumatized to discover that we can trust those signals, but that we can also divorce them from the past danger and to start to learn to discern what's what. It's completely individual. Oftentimes I do find that if there's something that reminds us of our original trauma archetypally or energetically, then we're gonna be more wide open. And then it- Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: It gets messy. It's difficult to tell apart. So yeah, tell me if that spoke to what you were thinking about. Rachel Fell: it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, you brought it all together in that story. Thank you. Yeah. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, yeah, happy to share. I know this is a common experience. Rachel Fell: Yes. And when people that have the various sort of, sometimes I'll say like the universe is flirting with me and other times you find yourself in the upside down. And so there's like this spectrum, let's say of like, how unmoored one can become or one out of their center and having and experiencing these sort of unexplainable events, synchronicities, moments. And Karin Eglinton: Mm. Rachel Fell: you know, if we're forged of or part of, we are consciousness, matter and energy are two forms of the same thing, but we're also swimming in it. You spoke to something that I think is really important, which is this sort of like, ⁓ there's these hidden operators almost, that are almost invisible to like, you can't see them, but you start to notice them. It's right, this pension for attribution to self and to trauma, when it's like, yes, absolutely, we do have this unique sort of, ⁓ you know, neuro-somatic Karin Eglinton: Okay. Okay. Rachel Fell: each of us, neuro-somatically diverse, all of humanity. And then it's sort of like, and I am swimming in a sea of space and time. Like, it's all wave forms, essentially, right? Like I'm a collection of condensed wave forms that is alive through time and I'm also swimming in it. So that's just such like, that story is such a beautiful example. And there is this sort of journey to like, know, inhabiting that openness, let's say. Karin Eglinton: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: And not, you I think that what you said about the nervous system and that vigilance and that sort of threat arousal matrix thing, it's like, well, can I tolerate being open and can my body learn that it's not a threat to experience these things? And that journey, yeah, sorry, go ahead, Gordon. Gordon Smith: Yeah, that toggling over the hyper-attunement that you described, ⁓ Karin, of ⁓ terrible things are happening. And so I'm going to adapt through heightened perceptivity ⁓ and pattern recognition and, over time, hyper-attune for the purpose of identifying threat in order to protect. ⁓ Karin Eglinton: Mm. Gordon Smith: Now the skill of the attunement is developed. ⁓ And what you described there is an expansion of its application from threat to this creative possibility. And a piece of that is just noticing the somatic, use the term somatic resonance. ⁓ So we've talked a little bit about meaning making, which ⁓ tends to feel a little more prefrontal in the cortex. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Whereas there's this other knowing ⁓ that is more intuitive, ⁓ it is subliminal, ⁓ that as we hyper attune to the world around us, we include ourselves in that and attune also to creative possibility. That's where all of this flourishing can come about. That's what I'm hearing. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yes, you're absolutely right. And there's that, the piece of healing. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: And I think you were asking about that too, Rachel, know, where how can I tell the difference? And that the piece of healing is that in the trauma states, we are disconnected from goodness. We're disconnected not just from safety, but I, in a spiritual sense, I want to say we're disconnected from source, from love, from ⁓ that all nourishing, all loving, all holding matrix of all existence. Rachel Fell: Is Karin Eglinton: And so in that upside down kind of dimension, when we're in trauma, we could be using our psychic openness as well as our somatic openness. all we're picking up is the bandwidth of threat, danger, psychological awareness that is going to give me an advantage to be safe, to be okay, to control the situation. And then the... expansion that you're talking about Gordon happens when we start to train ourselves to recognize that even though we've been in a place that is literally hell, that is not all there is to the universe. That it is one place we can be in and then we can exist and start to consciously connect ourselves with something that is not hell and that is actually paradise. Gordon Smith: Right. Rachel Fell: Right, right, right, right. Karin Eglinton: Choosing that. Yes, go ahead. Gordon Smith: ⁓ and there's a shift in there of shifting from a projection, like I'm going to project whatever traumatic event it was onto every experience I have ⁓ into this more ⁓ relational place of, ⁓ I'm carrying things and I've got this partner in the rest of the universe. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: Right. Right. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and oftentimes with the, with the, you know, psychic awareness, I talk to people about our filters because, you know, the way I see it, it's like I imagine, you know, ourselves in our little consciousness egg, you know, if you want to say it's our aura or whatever, however you want to picture it. And then there's a signal and it could be like a pure signal of information and it hits my little psychic egg and then it gets colored by that. Exactly. And then Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yeah, concentricity. Gordon Smith: Then you're a little Easter egg. Karin Eglinton: It's my little Easter egg. It's Easter here in Greece. It's like orthodox Easter, so it's perfect. So I'm going to say this like a little more neutrally. once again, referring to my own experience, breeding energy. Let's say I'm looking at somebody's aura and I see a color and that color to me is associated with a lot of information, a lot of things that I connect to that color. And so I can tell that person I'm seeing this color for you and that means that you have certain signatures that I recognize as this and this and that and I can list that out. That doesn't mean that there are as objectively that color. It is an interrelational thing that is happening where the signal gets read by my filter as that color in the same way that our eyes do. And so... It's a subjective experience. you know, like I don't know that we can objectively read energy because we're also creating a meaning together ⁓ And in traumas you're saying Gordon that filter is so so ⁓ Like just it's just one tone basically, it's you know threat safety danger ⁓ vulnerability, etc. And so that's what the filter is reading for. then when we expand the possibilities of that filter to perceive other things, and start kind of taking that leap of faith that there's goodness in the world, then we can start to, I really do visualize it like we're in an enclosed space in trauma, like a pocket of darkness. And then the rest of the universe is just waiting for us, that creative participatory place is just waiting for us to take that leap to open up again, to choose the positive ⁓ and to relearn to embrace that where it's not to erase the badness that some of us have had like really evil things done to us. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: And it's not to erase that, but to put it in context with a much greater proportion of creative, exciting stuff. Gordon Smith: Wow. One of the things I love about this conversation is there is like an infinite number of mics for Karin to drop. Like you've had just so many moments over this last 53 minutes. There's like this infinite mic machine so you could just keep dropping them. Rachel Fell: beautiful. Thank you. Karin Eglinton: you Gordon Smith: And I really appreciate how you have been able to bring together all of your own experience into something that is so, that can be communicated as clearly as you're communicating it. ⁓ I don't ⁓ think of myself as somebody who has these types of sensitivities that you're describing in a psychic sense, but I know enough people who do where I'm like, ⁓ well, that shit's real. ⁓ And what ⁓ I do possess is around that ⁓ creativity and intuition, that felt sense relationship relating to experience ⁓ that can perceive synchronicities as they arise and can move out of threat into possibility. ⁓ Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: and has my version of this has more to do with deja vu than anything else. And that as deja vus occur for me, ⁓ there's a co-occurring sense of, I'm on the right track. Like that's the thought that pops in immediately. Like, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. And it's this really settling, ⁓ safe feeling when it happens. Rachel Fell: Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. Karin Eglinton: Mmm. That is so cool. I'm so glad you brought that up. Deja vus, I experienced them the same way. I'm like, ⁓ yeah, this is happening. Good. Yay. That's super cool. Do you have a particular story of a cool deja vu? Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Gordon Smith: ⁓ spot on. ⁓ Go Rachel while I think of one. Rachel Fell: Yeah, I have them not often, but when they arise, they're one of the more palpable in my taxonomy of synchronistic experiences and events. And then we're having a very strong sense of deja vu flying into a glacier landing in the Alaska range right next to Denali and landing next to this glacier, like the landing, the process of coming down and in. Karin Eglinton: Okay, no pressure. Mmm, yeah. how cool is that? Rachel Fell: and just this deep recognition, this deep, deep, deep recognition. And I remember asking my friend, the pilot, I was like, I'm having this really powerful moment of deja vu. And I was like, what do you think deja vu is? And he's like, a sign you're on the right track. Gordon Smith: Interesting that there's a commonality of that experience. So here's a deja vu. thought of one. I did like to chill out and allow one to bubble up. ⁓ But it was during the blizzard of 93 in Asheville, North Carolina. ⁓ Rachel, withhold your judgments about what a Southern blizzard is. but it was the most snow anyone's ever seen here. Rachel Fell: Yeah. Karin Eglinton: . Okay. Okay. Gordon Smith: was whipping wind and I was stuck at my university. It had been spring break and a lot of people saw this thing coming and got out, but there were about 20 of us who didn't. And then the storm hit and everything was shut down. The power was out, the roads were, we were stuck. And we were college students and we didn't have any beer. And so I got, I got, put on every item of clothing I had and I went out with this fella Francis and we pulled the hood off a John Deere trailer, ⁓ tractor, tied a rope to it and walked through hip deep snow, ⁓ dragging this tractor hood to the store, hoping it would be open and it was, bless. We loaded up. the tractor hood with all the beer we could buy with the money we had and started dragging it back. During that dragging back, the wind was coming directly at us. ⁓ It was an active blizzard. We were in the blizzard. It wasn't after it. And in that moment, I had this like, ⁓ I've done this. Like this is very familiar. Like I know this experience. Karin Eglinton: Okay. Okay. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: And in that moment, you know, was re-energized because it was pretty tiring what we were doing. ⁓ And that kind, that deja vu particularly stands out to me because I don't have, I never had an experience with a blizzard. I grew up in Florida. This experience was in no way familiar and that happened. So there's my. Karin Eglinton: Okay. Rachel Fell: Mm. Karin Eglinton: Wow, that is so cool. That is so cool. Yeah, and so you can't attribute it to, yeah, I've been through so many blizzards dragging things in the snow, hip deep. No, no. It's something else. Rachel Fell: That space of acceptance of a synchronistic experience event and to like be with it and you know, we're talking really quickly. I want to jump back like we were talking about trauma isolation. For me, there's like an existential distinction that's true. Like everything is connected and then there is this like distinction. that is like me and I'm having this experience, but I'm a porous being, right? And so there's this sort of like detachment and like my egg, my cosmic egg that I live in, I'm gonna like close it all down. And if I do that for long enough, I'm gonna be alone. I'm going to feel alone and maybe everything will be a threat, but there's this way that we can like open to and sit with these experiences and allow them just to like move around. Karin Eglinton: . Rachel Fell: and maybe we can open to the possibility of them being something or meaning something good, let's say, but to just kind of like be with it, right? And so in Gordon's example, it's like, I've never been here before. Like my thinking mind can't make sense of why I'm having this experience, but I'm going to like not only allow it, I'm going to allow it to register as something meaningful skewing positive, meaningful skewing uncertain, meaningful skewing awe or wonder, right? Karin Eglinton: Yeah. Yeah. Rachel Fell: And I think in that way, these kinds of experiences can really open us up, you know, if we're like kind of guided in how to like be with that place and just kind of sit with it maybe. don't know. I mean, coming back around to that, the concentricity and the closed off-ness ⁓ piece kind of, like, yeah, I just, you know, it's like his registering without needing it to like mean something specific as a positive event unto itself. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that speaks to what you were saying, Rachel, about the somatic sense because, you know, as Gordon was saying, we think of meaning-making very much as a mental, you know, like maybe we're free associating or maybe we're looking on a symbol dictionary about what things mean. But there... Rachel Fell: Yeah. Karin Eglinton: It sounds to me like in your case, Gordon, and yours, Rachel, as well, it sounds like there was an immediate and intrinsic good feeling. Like, let's just call it good feeling, you know, like there's a good feeling that arises. And so it's like the meaning is in that. It's, you know, the meaning is in the felt sense. Gordon Smith: Yes. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Gordon Smith: Meaning is in the felt sense. And that is a level of like self-attunement and trust in one's own experience that this practice of attuning to synchronicities nurtures. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Karin Eglinton: 100%. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And which brings me to the point, like this is not lightweight, frou-frou, know, like frilly stuff. It requires to develop that ability to attune what you're saying, Rachel, to open up to the possibility that it could be meaningful and positive. And that requires so many micro skills to pile up in our repertoire. Gordon Smith: No. Hehehehehe Rachel Fell: Yes, Acceptance, being with like relationship with uncertainty, you know, and I experienced like, you know, when people talk about the observer being detached, I experienced that differently. I experienced is how like zoomed in or out is the whole of my consciousness. And so, you know, in these moments where stimulus renders and to just kind of not in a trying way, not in a forceful way, but this like art of noticing Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: Nice. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm. Okay. Rachel Fell: ever deeper and perhaps more like subtle within, it will show you, I think, and take you into the questions, the places, the thoughts. It's like, I use this language of bottom up sometimes and Gordon's like, that's jargon and it is jargon. And because it like, what does it mean? It's like, well, these undifferentiated signals or stimulus emerging into my awareness as a different thing than like the claw machine of my thinking mind trying to figure something out this way, right? And I think there's sometimes a fear, like if I allow that, what is that? How does that work? Right? And it's like, well, just that being with what arises and kind of not placing it too soon kind of thing. Karin Eglinton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: before we close up, there's just one more thing I want to just drop into this conversation. It's a bit of a non sequitur. but for all of the materialists and rationalists who are listening to this, and you've managed to get through a whole hour of this shit, even though you're like, what are they talking about? ⁓ I do want to bring in the simple truth of the mathematicians and scientists who are observing spooky action at a distance and quantum entanglement. Karin Eglinton: Yeah. Rachel Fell: Hahaha Mm-hmm. Yeah. Gordon Smith: and simultaneity of ⁓ phenomenon across vast expanses ⁓ that don't have a rational explanation. ⁓ it is observable. So we know now, even from inside the lab, that this stuff is so. So this is not just a bunch of us. ⁓ Rachel Fell: and Karin Eglinton: ⁓ Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Gordon Smith: superimposing ⁓ a type of meaning. ⁓ But it's more of a recognition that there are these co-occurrences. It's just question of whether we're going to allow ourselves to notice. Karin Eglinton: Yeah, absolutely. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yeah, beautiful way to kind of bring us together. And I just, I got so lost in it that I didn't notice that we are, yeah, probably around like time to bring things together. So yeah, just carry us, Karin, if there's anything else you want to share, say, related to synchronicity or this exploration and jam today. Karin Eglinton: Thank Thank ⁓ I just want to say thank you to you two because I love what the richness that you're each bringing to the exploration and you each have that you're both exemplifying so well what Rachel was saying that like there's a uniqueness in the neurosomatic self and then there's like that sense that then each of us is like speaking almost our own language to that relationship with the universe and something so cool and ⁓ individual and creative and diverse is produced from that unique access. And that's what I want to see more of in the world. I want us to bring more of that in the world. So you both have ⁓ illustrated and shown so beautifully how you each access this. Rachel Fell: No, no. Karin Eglinton: You Rachel Fell: Thank you. And thank you really quick, I want to say for like being somebody who is on the edge of this like work and being in this work deeply and living your own neuro fingerprint and how inspirational that is to so many of us who like would like to step more towards this place that is very non dual, very non dual embodied and like you're living it. And living your work is like really inspirational, for sure. Gordon Smith: ⁓ Karin Eglinton: Thank you so much. Gordon Smith: And for anyone who's listening who wants to learn more, it's kareenaglinton.com. You can find it in the show notes, wherever you are at Substack, it's ur-multidimensional. ⁓ And this wisdom that you're hearing today is shareable. Rachel Fell: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yes. One of my favorite follow alongs. Thank you both so much. This was lovely. yeah, hopefully everybody listening enjoyed as well and going out into the world and like being open to these sort of meaningful experiences and events is a that's the invitation. Karin Eglinton: It's terrible. Yes. Thank you. Gordon Smith: Mm-hmm. Karin Eglinton: You Gordon Smith: So yeah, pay attention. Also, if you're into it, like and subscribe and follow and share with friends. Do all that stuff. It actually allows for more and more people to access what we're doing, especially in all the algorithmic noise that we get to create that signal that others can pick up on. And we do that together. Karin Eglinton: Yeah. you Gordon Smith: Okay.