Trusting in the Synchronicity of the Universe (Satya Doyle Byock)

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Satya Doyle Byock is a psychotherapist and a great teacher of Carl Jung’s work. She wrote the book Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood, which we covered together on Pulling the Thread back in 2022. Satya and I happened to grow up together in Missoula, Montana; and I was in the same teeny, tiny class as her older sister. It’s been so fun getting to know Satya in this chapter of her life.

I wanted to have her on the podcast to talk, for starters, about the I Ching, which is an ancient Taoist divination system that Satya uses as a tool to guide her life—as others might consult tarot, or astrology, or Human Design, and so on. Satya taught me how to use the I Ching, and throw coins and build a hexagram, and it’s been so fun. I love it. (Satya’s Class on How To use the I Ching.)

We ended up covering a lot more than the I Ching in this conversation. Although, in a way, as you’ll see—it’s all related. We talked about how everyone is seeking some combination of meaning and stability in their lives; a balance of the inner world and the outer world; and more harmony between rationalism and irrationalism.

I learned some new things about Carl Jung; and his theories on the unconscious, archetypes, and synchronicity. We talked about moments of meaning that can’t be fully explained. And where the instinct in our binary, polarized brains comes from to either dismiss science or the sacred.

And ultimately, we went back and forth on what a larger paradigm might look like if we made space for all of it: for expanded science, for synchronicity and meaning, for the masculine, and for the feminine.