Averting The Dark “Cursed Fate” Narrative Once Again

Last week, I wrote about a challenging experience that activated old wounds and briefly made me feel like I had cursed fate—before realizing that wasn’t true at all.

As Carl Jung reminds us:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

This past weekend, I had another test of that lesson: two eerily similar, back-to-back debacles that triggered the same old “my life is cursed!” narrative—before deeper wisdom (thankfully) kicked in much faster this time.

On this Substack, I try to walk a fine line: share enough to tell the story without oversharing personal details. So here’s the short version of actual events that transpired.

On both Saturday and Sunday evening, I had plans with two different people. Both were canceled, just hours before.

I was particularly excited about the first one—something I’d been anticipating all week. Ironically, both of us came down with health issues in the days leading up: I developed a bizarre acid-reflux-induced sore throat and fever, and she had an agonizing migraine. By Friday, we were both better, and I felt relieved. But the saga continued: on Saturday evening, just two hours before our plan, her key got stuck in the door and the whole ordeal left her too stressed to follow through.

My family found this hilarious. “She made it up—she’s just not interested,” they teased.

Then Sunday arrived. Different person, different plan, same pattern. Two hours before meeting, another sudden health issue—canceled.

Cue more jokes from my mom: “She totally made that up too!”

Meanwhile, my close friends assumed I’d be in total despair. My group chat lit up: “Rav, life is worth living.” “Don’t take it personally.” “Call me, I’m here for you.”

I couldn’t resist trolling them with a faux-nihilistic poem of the kind they were imagining that I would come up with:

Religion is opium of the masses

Spirituality is an illusion of transcendence

Love is a mirage

Life is meaningless

My existence is worthless

All tongue-in-cheek, of course.

The Inner Story

Here’s the real part worth sharing.

After Saturday’s cancellation, as I drove to meet a friend who subbed in last-minute, I felt the familiar surge of anger, sadness, and betrayal. That same old inner script started running:

My life is cursed. I’ll never get what I want. I’m meant only for intellectual, not for joy or love. I hate my life. This is my dark fate.

I leaned into this dark inner abyss. I let myself feel the pain in my gut, observed the mental storm, and sat with it.

Within 30 minutes, it fizzled out.

The old narrative lost its grip. “Of course, this isn’t my fate. I’m making real progress in changing my inner narratives and I’m slowly starting to attract the people I want in my life.”

By the time I met my friend, I could say with genuine calm: “It sucks this got canceled, but it’s not my destiny. Let’s have fun tonight.”

What struck me afterward was how quickly the storm passed—not because I did some major intervention in the moment, but because of all the groundwork I’ve been laying over the past few years.

Joe Dispenza’s teachings—that thoughts and emotions shape our reality—have helped me recognize repeating patterns as reflections of faulty inner beliefs. Combined with four years of steady psychotherapy, I’ve been slowly re-wiring those beliefs.

The result? When disappointment hit, I didn’t spiral for days or weeks. I felt it, processed it, and moved on. That’s new.

By the time Sunday’s cancellation rolled around, I barely dipped into the doom-and-gloom mindset at all. And unlike my family’s cynical interpretation, I believe both people were sincere in their apologies—it was just bad luck.

Fate, Tests, or Just Bad Luck?

In previous posts, I’ve explicitly rejected the idea that painful experiences should be read as fate. But the question lingers: if not fate, then what? Can certain events—especially repeated patterns—be read as signs from the universe?

People often interpret good fortune as providence or blessing, so why not consider the reverse?

I’ll admit, part of me is tempted to see these two eerily similar back-to-back cancellations as a kind of sign or test. Maybe the universe was saying: “Let’s see if you can handle disappointment without spiraling.” And, in some sense, I did. That in itself felt like evidence of progress—like I’d leveled up in this strange game of reality.

Or perhaps the universe handed me these unpleasant experiences not as punishment, but as proof: proof that the inner work I’ve been doing is paying off. Proof that I can endure disappointment without being consumed by it.

What I felt over the weekend was almost like a spiritual calling: to meet these events exactly as they were—unfortunate, shitty circumstances—not as signs of a cursed destiny of loneliness, bad luck, or doom. And I was able to do that. I was also able to laugh, alongside my family and friends, at the darkly comic idea that this string of events somehow meant I was cursed.

Of course, these interpretations are conjecture. Maybe it was just dumb luck. Maybe it means nothing at all. Or it means whatever I want it to mean.

But here’s what does matter: I didn’t let these events define me. I didn’t collapse into old patterns of neurotic rumination. I didn’t mistake disappointment for fate.

I’m re-writing the code of my life—a code shaped not just by my own experiences, but by generations of unhealed trauma. The abuse and unrest I’ve heard about on my great-grandparents’ side, for example, is almost nightmarishly bad (perhaps one day I’ll explore this). That legacy doesn’t disappear—it gets transmitted in ways we can and can’t see. But I’m learning to interrupt it. To choose a new path. To refuse to let it dictate my fate.

The Integration:

As promised, this Substack offers an inventive integration component in order to facilitate gradual but real transformation in your life. That’s kind of what we’re all after: liberation from dark forces that limit and parasitize our psyche.

Here are today’s prompts based on the themes of this piece.

Conversations with Fate

1) Think of “Fate” not as a fixed script but as a metaphorical mirror — reflecting back the unconscious beliefs, fears, and longings that shape your experiences. Imagine sitting across from Fate at a candlelit table. What questions would you ask it about the disappointments in your life? What answers might it give — teasing, cryptic, or brutally honest? Journal both sides of the dialogue and see what hidden patterns or truths emerge.

2) Is “Fate” — perceived patterns of experience in your life — something that happens to you or are you a co-creator in it? Think of bad things that have happened in your life repeatedly almost like an algorithm. Reflect on your own contribution to it which you may have not realized or seen before. Even if the other person (or people) is largely to blame, did you do anything to perpetuate this outcome?

Plug this into Chat GPT or another LLM and say “I got this prompt from The Meta Mystic and I’d like to journal this in therapeutic fashion.”