Looking backwards, to move forwards. That's how a retrograde rolls

So Mercury retrograde is back in all its badassery. I’ve talked about the ways this planetary cycle can screw up our daily lives, both on this blog and on my Facebook page, so I won’t bang on about it again here. What I do want to reflect on is the way this is actually prompting me to, well, reflect.

Being an introvert and a Scorpio I tend to spend a lot of time in introspection anyway, but when this sort of energetic pull happens, that shift inwards is more pronounced. Retrograde means looking backwards, so it makes sense that this sort of planetary movement would prompt us to look back, in order to help us move forwards. Without making a conscious choice to do so, I’m finding myself naturally looking back on some areas that have tripped me up.

Kris Carr, American cancer survivor and author of Crazy Sexy Kitchen, talks about life going through cycles (nope, not the Circle of Life, but I love that you thought of that. Can we be friends?), similar to the seasons nature goes through. It’s kind of like going through a ‘winter’ – a time of contemplation and stillness – and ‘spring’, a time of renewal and starting afresh, etc. I like this analogy.

Human beings aren’t great at being still, though. When we’re exhausted we drink a Red Bull. When we’re sick, we take a Codral. When we’re bored, we jump on Facebook. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with these things – sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you’ve gotta do to get through what’s ahead of you. But when you consistently ignore the cues your body is giving you to pull back for a while, you’re depriving yourself of valuable time to process and regroup. I’m learning not to feel guilty when I just really need to cancel my plans and spend a Sunday in my pyjamas eating chips, and not to panic that there’s something wrong with me when I’m exhausted despite getting lots of sleep and not being overstressed. That’s just what my body needs in that moment. Sometimes, doing nothing is doing everything.

I don’t know for sure that my current quiet time is due to the Mercury retrograde, but I do know it’s beneficial. Over the past few days I’ve noticed how my attention is being drawn to attitudes and behaviours that I need to address. It's also highlighting things that I’m clinging onto that are no longer serving me. Here are some of the things that have come up for me:

·         * Yesterday I noticed myself fobbing off a younger colleague who had asked me for advice. I realised I was doing this because I felt threatened by her talent and wanted to keep an advantage. That’s an insecurity thing – an ongoing issue for me – and it’s not cool.

·         * While filling out some complicated online documents, I threw a tanty and chucked my phone across the room. (So very mature!) A familiar pattern – I realised I have a tendency to give up too quickly when things seem too hard. I’d been obeying that voice saying ‘you’re stupid’, which is on regular rotation in my internal jukebox. I gave it another go, with a little more patience, and eventually I got there (with some swearing… OK, a LOT of swearing).  

·        *  I noticed how much my attention wanders on the reg. I’m not even talking about long meetings, I’m talking about how in conversation with someone my brain will start thinking about where I need to go next. While I accept that I’ll probably always have this tendency, I do want to learn some techniques to improve my focus. This seems like a good time to work on that.

        I think I’ll use this reflective period to observe these things without judgment, and some of the other stuff that has come up. If I’m aware of them, I can choose different responses. May as well do something useful while I sit and wait for those buses that don’t show (thanks again, Mercury). 

This is what I do. What do you do? (Not talking about your job, BTW)

Last Saturday I woke up early, basking in the delicious joy that comes from having absolutely no plans. The

house was empty, silent. I did my meditation, my oil pulling, brushed my teeth and headed to the park with just my keys, a pen and a notebook. There was a gentle breeze flirting with my ponytail and the trill of cockatoos squabbling over territory. The light was muted, the day still withholding its secrets. I sat cross-legged in the dewy grass and watched the eager dogs and their less-eager owners. I listened to the water slapping the seawall and the bitter sigh of running shoes doing time. I felt wider than my skin, as if the emotional rigours and quenchless demands of the past week had been experienced by someone else. I opened my notebook and wrote. Not work pitches nor blog posts nor notes-to-self, but a fictional short story that has been gnawing at my imagination for weeks, urging me to sit still long enough to bring it to life. What I wrote was neither good nor clever, nor even finished. But, as with any meaningful endeavour, the product matters less than the process. Whenever I am writing something that doesn’t have a deadline, prescribed format or specified word count, I am where I am supposed to be. My soul rises up and the would-have-should-have-could-have in my brain falls away. This is what I do to feel like me. To feel right. 

For me, writing is coming back home. I know with absolute certainty that telling stories and playing with words are what I am here to do. I hope you have something that brings you back into alignment with your soul, too, and I hope you value yourself enough to make that a priority.

What are you doing with your time that could possibly matter more? 

On selling myself short – financially and personally

For more than a month now I have been getting the message that I needed to put my prices up. For more than

a month I have resisted. In terms of my main profession (I’m a freelance journalist) rates are set by the industry and I have very little room to manoeuvre. But in terms of my work as an angel card reader, I have set my rates at well under 50 per cent of what other readers charge, and I have justified this ridiculous state of affairs with the flimsiest of reasons. 

I told myself that because I am fairly new to professional card readings it wouldn’t be fair to charge the same rate as more experienced readers. This is a lie I told myself because – as is the case with many lies, I’ve realised – it was convenient. It was convenient for me not to face my fear that I am not good enough. This lie allowed me to feel OK about delivering a service that might not be as polished as other readers could offer, and only feel semi shitty about it (as opposed to completely shitty).

Basically, I didn’t want to let anyone down. But in doing so, I’ve been letting myself down. Badly. Which makes no sense, because charging a rate that is fair for me is not the same thing as ripping people off. And all the feedback I’m getting – plus the coaching I’ve been having – indicates that I am, in fact, good enough. I am providing people with real insight and messages that are helpful to them. So why not charge market rates?

Of course, this is not really about money at all, it’s about value. It’s the value I advertise my skills as having – and by charging a low rate I’m pretty much telling people that the information and insights I can offer them are worth about as much as the Sunday brunch they kinda enjoy but won’t remember afterwards. This is also about how much (or little) I value myself.

I’ve written before about my tendency to measure myself against other people, to my detriment. I am now

trying to redefine my understanding of the word ‘value’. I have challenged myself to stop measuring my value by other people’s standards and expectations – which is a sure path to low self-esteem. If I compare myself to the waifish-supermodel shape that society tells us is the ideal (do not even get me started on how wrong this barometer is!), I will always see my body as lacking. If I regard the marriage-mortgage-maternity formula as the determinant of a successful life, I will see myself as a failure. If I regard a high-flying job as the measure of career success, I will never see my professional abilities as holding value.

Instead, I’m trying to understand that my value comes from internal measures. I’m trying to recognise the value that I hold simply by virtue of being myself, and through the ways I’m honouring that individuality. I hold value when I am meeting my own set of – for lack of a better word – values. These include kindness, fairness, holding fast to hope and making meaningful contributions to a better world (in small and significant ways). When I honour those, and all the other virtues I hold dear, I hold value. And when I recognise my own value I am more likely to make better decisions about everything from what food I put in my mouth to what type of relationships I pursue and, yes, how much I charge for my work.

My decisions about the rates I set for my services are inextricably linked to the way I feel about myself. Both are overdue for an overhaul. My challenge is to learn to back myself, so that others will too. 

Salute to people who speak from their hearts

I've been thinking a lot about speaking our truth, and the potential ramifications of that. This is something that we've seen come up in the news lately, with Bruce Jenner's tell-all interview, and here in Australia, a sports reporter hit headlines for pointing out some uncomfortable – but valid – truths about war in a series of tweets. 

In the case of Bruce, his honest account of transitioning has earned him praise for his bravado. In the case of the sports reporter, he was slammed for being disrespectful to our armed forces and lost his job. 

In a completely different category, I recently read an incredibly candid first-person account of a young American girl living with herpes. Instead of hiding away, she has written a blog about the challenges of carrying a transmittable disease with such social stigma. Through her candour, she is helping to slowly rid the taboo around this condition, one reader at a time.

These situations are very different, but there's a common thread – a willingness to speak the truth, even though it’s uncomfortable and risky. It would have been easy for these individuals to stay silent out of a fear of rocking the boat, but for their own reasons, they spoke up and said what they believed needed to be said. In a society that worships conformity, this is an act of radical courage. 

In order to do this, they had to let go of expectation or fear about how other people would respond. They had to embrace the uncertainty of what consequences their truth telling would have. They had to decide that the cost of not speaking their truth was greater than any adverse effects of standing up for who they are and what they belief.

This is such a powerful thing to do. It isn't about forcing your opinions on other people, it's about being

authentic about who you are and what is right for you. It isn't, either, a licence to offend people or cause ill feeling. 

Being authentic is about not contributing to bitchy conversations your workmates are engaged in, that make you uncomfortable. Not sticking with a career that your parents expected you to do, but you’re bored with. Not going to the pub every Saturday night/Sunday morning with your mates when you’d rather be at home doing a jigsaw puzzle. You can speak your truth without being provocative or offensive. It takes practise and it takes self-belief but there are always people willing to show us that it's possible – and beneficial – to choose the path that honours your own light. If you don't, you're doing yourself an enormous disservice. Life is short, but it'll feel very long if you're committed to being someone, or everyone, else. 

The planets are throwing you a curveball. Just roll with it

There are a lot of intense energies around right now, and you can blame the moon and planets for that. I have to say, I do find it quite bizarre that I'm writing a blog post about this as it seems like something that few people would be on board with, but every time I mention full moons or planetary events, my blog traffic spikes. So it seems that a lot of you really do notice, and care about, astrological dynamics. 

But perhaps that's not surprising. Even people who are dismissive of spiritual concepts seem to be aware that the full moon has an impact on human behaviour (nope, not talking about werewolves!). 

A policeman I used to know told me that incidences of violence and disorderly behaviour have a massive increase during a full moon – to the point where cops in his station were wary about being rostered on for night shift at full moon. And many emergency room doctors can attest to a similar effect. That’s because the moon is associated with our emotions, and some people don’t process highly intense emotions in healthy or respectful ways.

BTW I'm not an astrologer. Everything I've written here is collected from what I've read lately (I'm fascinated by this stuff). And remember that you can't actually blame the moon for your behaviour – even though we are influenced by different energies, we are all responsible for our own actions. 

The full moon this week (it started on Monday night) is extra intense because it's in the house of Scorpio – that's the sign associated with deep thinking and emotions. If you know a Scorpio well (I'm one!), you'll know what I'm talking about – we're all about delving into what's really going on, and exploring what actually matters. You will never have a conversation about the Kardashians with a Scorpio – shallowness bores us to tears.

So if you're feeling extra emotional this week, and you're being confronted with deep issues you've been burying or simply hadn't been aware of, that's the full moon at play. The good news is, it's shining a light on stuff you need to process and clear. It’d be helpful to take that on board. 

But wait, there's more! We're also in the shadow period of the Mercury retrograde – something that happens three times this year. The retrograde proper starts on May 18 but its effects start to be felt in the two-week lead-up. The planet Mercury is to do with communication and travel, so when it goes into retrograde (until June 11) it can wreak havoc. This is a time when your computer may melt down*, emails go missing in cyberspace, buses and flights will constantly be delayed and you'll get caught in unexpected and inexplicable traffic snarl-ups. Last year during a Mercury retrograde, the whole of Sydney Airport lost power for three hours, for reasons officials could not identify, sending the entire flight schedule into disarray for the day. And in the Mercury retrograde in January this year, a leading telco in Australia randomly changed its entire network into daylight savings time, meaning that people living in states which do not observe daylight savings – hello, Queensland! – got woken up an hour before they should have been, and rocked up to work early (robbed of an hour's sleep –how gutted would you be?!).

Also during Mercury retrograde, your interactions with others may be fraught. You'll find yourself – and them – saying things you don't mean. Misunderstandings will be commonplace, and will cause conflicts. Your thoughts will be muddied and you'll struggle to get your message across. In short, this planet is a bit of a shit-stirrer.

But it has a fun side too – Mercury is also associated with playfulness, so fun activities that have maximum laugh value are highlighted over this period. Channel that inner child – there's a trampoline and a silly movie with your name on it. 

The best way to get through a Mercury retrograde cycle is to be patient. Be forgiving of people around you – especially when it comes to communications. Focus on ways to find calm – meditation, herbal tea, long walks in the park, whatever floats your boat – as this is more important now than ever. 

The planet Mercury up close.

If you still don't believe in this astrological stuff, I get it – it does seem pretty far-fetched. But remember that everything is made of energy, which, by its nature, is subject to ebbs and flows. Emotions themselves are a form of energy. So it makes sense that what happens in the solar system, with its associated powerful forces, could also affect energy flow within and around us. The moon controls the tides, so it stands to reason that the moon could also affect the flow of emotions within our body – especially when you consider that our bodies are about 75 per cent water, an element which is associated with emotions (that's why Scorpio, Cancer and Pisces, the water signs, are the emotion-driven signs of the Zodiac). Oh, I've lost you, haven't I? Too airy-fairy? Yeah, I know, it's pretty out there. But do try to keep an open mind. 

* Pro tip: if you haven't done a computer back-up recently, do it now.