There’s a lot of hype around Mercury being in retrograde the last few weeks. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I chose to start my full-time coaching gig in the middle of it.

If you don’t know what Mercury being in retrograde means, you’re probably in the wrong place as I’m not an astrologer. That being said, I can tell you that generally speaking, it’s a period of a few weeks a few times a year when everything seems to go wrong. Appliances break, appointments get deleted from calendars, you get lost or turn up in the wrong location for an event or meeting, and generally you feel really stressed out.

I’ll be honest, when I first made the decision to launch full time into the coaching world and give up my bridge job in May, it was over six months earlier and I had no idea it would land me slap bang in the middle of a retrograde, let alone one of the biggest in our lifetimes. When I realised, there were a few things I thought about:

1. I could change the date – my employer would have happily had me work a bit longer, and I could wait until after.
2. I could still leave on the same date, but take an extended holiday and wait it out.
3. I could plough on anyway with my original plan.

Here’s the thing about a retrograde – everything seems to go wrong and you feel like you have no energy because it’s a period of time when the Universe encourages you to let go of all the stuff that is no longer serving you. You’re probably thinking, ‘Surely I could let go of stuff without my life turning itself upside down?!’. If you could let it go that easily, do you think you’d still be holding on to it? Nope.

The messing stuff up is to force you in to a corner. It brings the unconscious into the conscious and makes you aware of your pain points and the parts of yourself you hide away from and makes you face up to them. With this new awareness you can (hopefully) embrace the changes you now see are needed in your life.

With this in mind, whilst it’s not normally advised to start anything in a retrograde, I decided that there was a lot I needed to let go of myself in terms of my expectations and hopes for the business and that perhaps starting my business in Mercury retrograde might force the issue and allow me to let go of my attachment to certain outcomes.

Whilst there were a few hiccups (not least my online sales partner deciding to take the payment option offline without any warning in the middle of my new e-courses launch), overall it was pretty smooth sailing business-wise. The biggest things for me were redefining my days without a fixed ‘work’ schedule and the freedom which that involved. There were some mindset shifts too and I worked hard with my meditations and hypnotherapy audios to release my blocks and adapt my beliefs around my definitions of success, work and money to take into account a new world where anything is possible.

If you’re thinking retrogrades are the time you hide away and don’t do anything, maybe open to the possibility of using it to your advantage instead. There are a couple of really well known businesses (erm….Apple….anyone?!) who started in the middle of a recession. Supposedly the worst time to start but business they were aware of what was going on, they were able to use the turmoil to their advantage.

If you know you need some stuff clearing out or addressing, schedule in some time around the next retrograde for meditation, energy clearing, EFT, yoga or whatever it is that serves you in this purpose and use the ensuing turmoil to stir up the feelings and believes from the bottom of your soul which are no longer serving you.

Is there anything that you can think of straight away? I’ve recently started reading the Akashic Records which are great for accessing deeper level soul stuff and clearing energy, past hurts and trauma. I’m finding this super useful for myself and may start offering readings at a future date so if this interests you ensure you’re on my list and you’ll be the first to know when I’m available to book 🙂

I’m Emma Brooke. I work with beautiful, intelligent, compassionate and spiritual ladies who have somehow stepped away from their true selves and aren’t entirely sure how to get themselves back again. In my signature program, I take you step by step over an eight week period from overwhelm and mental exhaustion to selfish-centeredness – knowing what you want, what you need and how you can make yourself and those you love feel fulfilled and complete. Schedule a chat with me.