How to go from Surviving to Thriving Mercury Retrograde

When I was a full time astrologer, I used to run a pop-up group during Mercury Retrograde called Thriving Mercury Retrograde. It was a support group for making the most of this time, and despite it staying pretty small, I'm proud to say I do think all those who participated went from doing their best to survive to truly thriving during these transits. 

What made the difference?

1. We got clear on who Mercury is

Each planet, in its cosmic dance, is taking us through a human, energetic experience. The more we embrace the dance, the easier things will feel. It's when we go against what's coming up for us that we run into issues. 

Mercury governs a couple of domains of our life. The first is going to be anything mental or communicative. So this is our thoughts, mindset, and ideas, as well as our communication and conversations. The second is going to be anything routine or systematic. So our work, schedule, and chores, as well as our health, personal development, and relationship with reality. Mercury also rules your hobbies and projects, so anything you're working on falls under its domain. 

A fun thing to know about Mercury is it rules your arms, so it covers everything within arms reach- in all directions! Mentally, it's not your college thesis but rather the conversations you're having at your friend's birthday party that will be most affected by Mercury-although the college thesis is still fair game in its own ways (presenting it, organizing it, storing it digitally, getting your point across, etc.) Practically, this gives it that day-to-day life focus. It's less about your long-term goals and more about the lifestyle maintenance you're doing today! 

2. We worked to understand and accept a retrograde for what it is 
A retrograde is a temporary transit that gives you energetic permission to pause, reflect, rework, and recenter yourself instead of just focusing on moving full steam ahead all the time. 

If you don't give yourself this permission, and try to keep moving forward, it will instead give you problems, hiccups, challenges, and obstacles in hopes you take the hint to be a bit more intentional with your approach. 

A retrograde is a period where from our vantage point on Earth, it looks like a planet is going backward. It's not technically, but that doesn't matter much to what we feel. When Mercury is in Retrograde, it's going to be a lot harder to embrace business as usual when it comes to your mind, communication, work, routine, or self-growth. These are all areas of your life where you may be called to slow down, think things through, reflect, and make some shifts as needed. 

It's also important to know that because you have to take the extra time to do the internal work during a retrograde, you have less energy for the external work! That may seem scary at first, but it's a good thing because what you do during this time is going to be so much more meaningful to you because of the extra time, intention, and focus poured in. 

Mercury Retrograde isn't a guarantee of computer issues, car problems, and conflicts. But if we're experiencing those things, we can guarantee Mercury is trying to get us to slow down and think about things differently. Even if it's uncomfortable, we should be able to walk away from this transit thinking Mercury at least did some good for us! 

3. When things went wrong, which they always did, or when we were having a bad time (hello anxiety around the beginning and end especially!) we reminded ourselves of how different this time is and changed our approach. We met our needs in the ways they needed to be met. We gave ourselves grace, time to think things through, and an opportunity to try again. We also gave ourselves permission to let go of some things that don't matter. 

And from all of that, plus a little tailoring to each unique birth chart the lessons of the retrograde, no matter what came everyone's way, we thrived.

And you can use this same mentality with your Twin Flame!

Understand what mercury retrograde wants from you but think about it from an inner union lens.

• What does a union mindset look like? What preconceptions do you have of what this means, and as you try them on, what will you actually end the retrograde thinking about this?
• How does your routine influence your relationship with yourself? Your twin flame? Is it a space of union, or could you bring it more into balance?
• Are you working to maintain things that are out of alignment with you? How can you shift that? How do you know when it's time to let something go?
• Where can you take a deeper look into communication with your Twin Flame? What old energy are you ready to sort through? What about conversing with their higher self or your inner self? Is there room to make progress on a 3D communication front? 

When you go to talk to your Twin Flame, go slow. Don't rush the process. Think things through, but also don't hold back if it's important to you! 

Realize that there is a communication, reality improving, self-growth portal open for the next few weeks, and the more you embrace it for what it is, the better your experience of this time, and the more you will truly thrive Mercury Retrograde (even while everyone else is struggling to survive!) 

(Want some structure to diving into the communication work? Check out the communication toolkit for Twin Flames for plenty of practices to help!)