07 Mar USE RETROGRADE TO UP-LEVEL YOUR LEADERSHIP
Are you feeling the big shift happening this week? I can feel it. We are in a time some are calling “The Great Awakening”.
We are crossing a threshold of moving into a new space of power, joy, and alignment and yet there is so much that still needs to be cleared away.
Are you feeling?
Lack of clarity.
Desiring something new but unsure what exactly it is.
Noticing that things that once worked are not working as easily anymore.
Frustrated with your circumstances.
At a cross roads in your life.
Feeling overly emotional and unsure why.
The stars and planets shift and just like the sun and moon shift the tide of the ocean, when mercury goes retrograde its an opportunity to refine, renew, regroup, and realign with your goals and mission. I’ve been using this time to enhance my leadership for years and I want to share what I do to USE it, instead of having it use me. It’s such a powerful time and it generally happens 3-4x a year.
Mercury is the planet of the mind. It’s known for slowing down our technology and causing some noticeable glitches, however I love to think of it as a time to SLOOW DOWN and up-level our leadership.
In 2019 all of the retrogrades are in water signs, and all that really means is that they are designed to bring your awareness of your thoughts, observations, and intuitive insights that you may have overlooked in the months prior.
The current retrograde that we are in will last until March 28th and is an opportunity to rethink old habits and emotional responses to life’s challenges.
It’s a time that you want to make sure your heart and mind are in alignment.
As a leader you may, like me, get caught up in your goals, you’re daily tasks and lose track of your heart. To be a truly empowering leader you’ll want to keep aligning your heart with all of your goals.
Let me give you an example, let’s say that you had a goal (previous to retrograde) and it did not go as you desired. You could either keep pushing (send that email even though it does not feel good) or do the next logical thing ignoring the sadness that you felt (which means that you are doing things ON TOP OF YOUR FEAR, IN ORDER TO GET A RESULT).
OR you could check in with your heart to ensure that your choices are in alignment with what you are feeling and re-align them, maybe noticing that you were going to do something that you did not really feel good about in order to try to “get” your goals met. This is a common use of force over feeling.
As a leader you are CONSTANTLY setting goals and then navigating life, your feelings, others actions, and so much so hat retrograde is a great time to re-trace your steps.
I’ve come to really enjoy and think fondly of this time where the pull from mercury is slowing us down. Here are my go to retrograde rituals that help me make the most of this time: “It’s a time to breathe, refocus, and re-align”
1. REWIND & RESET – I set goals every quarter and I don’t normally hit all of them, actually I rarely hit all of them right out of the gate. During a retrograde I take some time to look over my goals, to acknowledge what I have done AND then look at what goals I did not meet. There’s so much wisdom in what we did not accomplish. It holds a potency in what we are avoiding, what we are scared of, where we need more support, where we need to delegate, or let go of. Many people avoid looking at these unmet goals because they instantly feel shame. If you look at them without the shame you’ll see that unmet goals are full of ACTIONS.
Here’s exactly what I do step-by-step:
1. Look over my goals and write down the goal I had/have.
2. Then I write down the facts of why I did not do it. This is very different than shaming yourself and writing why you think you’ll never accomplish it.
3. Create a future action to reset the goal or let it go.
Example of reseting: Plan meals on Sunday. I have not been eating as well as I want. My energy has been low and I’m not making it a priority. Currently most healthy foods are not even sounding good. ACTION: Plan cleanse at the end of March for family and my team.
Example of letting it go: Set up Meet Edgar for automated posts. I did spend time learning it, consulting with the owner, creating a vision for the future, BUT I still felt overwhelmed and unclear. ACTION: Let it go for now. Focus on posting daily and as I get clearer in my message I will re-visit this amazing tool!
2. COMPLETE INCOMPLETE ITEMS – As a leader you may find that there are times that your to-do list builds up and things that you want to get done did not AND retrograde is the PERFECT time to focus your attention on anything that needs to be completed. When things in our lives lay incomplete it steals our power and feelings of clarity.
In my own life things have been more emotionally heavier than usual. I have lots of conversations, emails, thank you letters, and things I need to circle back to complete. Even though these things can feel like you are going backwards or may not impact your future goals, they are so important to clearing the space for the new things to come into your life. Often after retrogrades are over life speeds up and with that speed there is less time for completions. Use retrograde to clean up.
Make your list. What’s undone? What needs to be completed, said, finished? Completion conversations, looking over messy finances, saying thank you to people in your life, taking the time to do the things you’ve been thinking about.
3. REPAIRING – Often after a season of speed and flury there are things that need some tending. This may be your finances, your relationships, your health. It’s NOT important that you re-vamp it all because it’s not realistic to think everything will meet your ideal all at once. Use your heart to ask what needs tending. This is especially important for any thing that is NOT working in your life. If you are having trouble getting clients/customers, your finances are piling up, you have some relationships that are fractured…look where there’s struggle and re-evaluate so that you can repair this. This non-movement/ hard things are asking you to you to re-align and re-envision what else is possible.
Ask the question: “What needs tending to in my life? What’s feeling hard? How could I repair this area of my life? What would I have to do differently moving forward? What can I let go of so that I can move forward?”
4. REJUVENATE – After making this list you may feel that you need to get right into action to correct all these mis-alignments — It’s not full speed ahead. Retrograde is a time to allow for a bit more relaxation, rest, and time to restore and feel your emotions. It’s not to say that you can’t also get shit done..but you want to balance it with being kind to yourself.
Take a salt bath, bring your computer into your bed while snuggling with your fav blanket, allow yourself to go slower than usual, take your kids to school later – avoid the hustle and give yourself more grace than usual. This will fill you up and allow for a deeper connection to your own heart.
5. RECONNECT & REVISION – Right now we are all finding our way to what gives our heart joy. Things that were working are no longer working. This is the universes way of ushering in change for you. In order to navigate this somewhat confusing time it’s SO important that you reconnect with your soul and FEEL your way through. Your higher self and intuition will know if you need to change course. Retrograde is not a time for overthinking – it’s a feeling time.
Ask the question: Dance. Meditate. Cuddle. Exercise. And then once in your body ask, What feels right in my heart? What’s in alignment with my greatest vision? What is important to me? What do I want to feel less of moving forward? What do I want to feel more of moving forward?