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Writer's pictureTunde Valiszka

Synchronicity in Bangkok: The Path to Myself - Reflections in Photography and Self

Updated: Dec 4, 2024

For my birthday this year, I wanted nothing external—no gatherings, no gifts, no distractions. What I craved instead was presence. To strip away the noise and find clarity in something simple, something real. The universe, as it often does, delivered exactly what I needed—but not in the way I’d imagined. Bangkok had been calling me for months. Two reasons drew me there: to photograph the city’s neon-lit streets at night and to spend my birthday at a meditation centre and learn more. Photography and meditation are two practices that ground me in different ways. Together, they felt like a way to reconnect with myself.



bangkok street photogrphy



My work as a photographer is rooted in the idea of reflections—not just visually, but metaphorically. I use puddles, glass, or polished surfaces to show a world we often overlook. Reflections distort reality but also reveal it differently. They create a space where opposites—chaos and calm, light and shadow—coexist. For me, they echo Carl Jung’s shadow: the parts of ourselves that remain hidden until we’re willing to look closer.


When I arrived at the meditation centre, I found myself alone, apart from one other participant: a girl from Canada named Destiny. (Yes, that was her actual name.) It felt like a story unfolding. And then, as if orchestrated by something larger, the monk who had taught me in London walked into the room.


I froze. He wasn’t supposed to be there. We hadn’t kept in touch, and I had no idea where he was based. But there he was, calm and still, as though his presence in this moment had always been inevitable. I was in shock, he wasn't surprised to see me at all. When we recognised each other he smiled and said, “I am you, and you are me. There is no difference. We are one.”






At that moment, I felt something shifted. His words were simple, yet profound. In Buddhism, this is the principle of anatta—the absence of a fixed self. The boundaries we draw between “me” and “you,” “mine” and “yours,” are illusions. Jungian psychology mirrors this through the collective unconscious, reminding us that we are all interconnected. What we see in others is often a reflection of what we hold within ourselves.


This realisation mirrored what I’d been seeking in my photography without fully realising it. When I capture reflections, I’m not just documenting a scene—I’m documenting synchronicity. Jung described synchronicity as meaningful coincidences, moments where inner and outer worlds align.


My work isn’t planned. I don’t set out to find reflections; they find me. And when they do, they feel like a quiet conversation between me and the universe—a reminder to look beyond the surface. But while I was capturing reflections externally, I had been avoiding my own inner reflection. The months leading up to my trip were marked by burnout. I had thrown myself into endless projects, filling every moment with tasks, convincing myself that this was ambition. But in reality, it was avoidance.






Gabor Maté writes that addiction—whether to substances, work, or even achievement—is a way of numbing pain. My obsession with productivity wasn’t about success; it was about running from the stillness where I’d have to confront myself. Healing, Maté says, begins with recognition: recognizing the pain, the avoidance, and the stories we tell ourselves to keep running.


Burnout forced me to stop running. It was my reckoning with the chaos I’d been avoiding. Jordan Peterson describes this process as confronting chaos to create order in our lives. When we confront what we fear—our shadow, our pain—we create space for transformation. Jung teaches that integration, not perfection, is the goal. To become whole, we must bring together the parts of ourselves we’ve tried to suppress.


The synchronicities didn’t stop there. On the night of my birthday, a childhood friend I hadn’t spoken to in decades messaged me out of nowhere. He told me he had just checked into a hotel in Bangkok that day. A hotel 5 minutes drive from mine. By sheer coincidence—or synchronicity—we were in the same city at the same time. That night, we met for the first time in 20 years, and I celebrated my birthday in style at one of the most beautiful rooftops in Bangkok. (It's all about finding balance, hey ;)





It wasn’t just a random meeting; it felt deeply significant. Jung would have called it another thread in the invisible web that connects us all. These moments—so perfectly timed they feel beyond explanation—are reminders that life is more interconnected than we can comprehend.

Throughout the day, the monk’s words echoed in my mind: “I am you, and you are me. There is no difference.” They reminded me that the parts of myself I had rejected—the workaholic, the perfectionist, the one who feared stillness—weren’t my enemies. They were parts of the whole. The more I tried to cut them away, the more I fragmented myself.


My photography mirrors this process of integration. Reflections are chaotic, distorted, yet undeniably beautiful. They remind me that meaning isn’t found in perfection, but in the spaces where contradictions meet: light and shadow, chaos and calm, order and disorder, beauty and imperfection. They’re real yet distorted, chaotic yet ordered, ordinary yet otherworldly. They remind me that life’s meaning isn’t found in perfection but in the spaces where opposites meet.



Bangkok wasn’t just a destination; it was a turning point. It was a moment to stop and see myself clearly—not through accomplishments or labels, but as I am. Buddhism teaches that everything we seek is already within us, waiting to be uncovered. Life is constantly offering us gifts, often hidden in plain sight.


Buddhism teaches that the source of suffering is desire, yet it was my desire—the longing for clarity, connection, and understanding—that led me to this moment of awakening. Perhaps the question isn’t whether we should desire, but rather: can we desire without attachment? Can we long for truth while letting go of the need to control how it unfolds? The answer, I think, lies in surrender. In trust that the universe, in its chaos and mystery, will guide us—not to what we want, but to what we need.




bangkok tuk tuk street photography

bangkok carl jung synchronicity

1 Comment


kelly cannon
kelly cannon
Dec 02, 2024

Very well written. Thank you for sharing this experience.

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