Life In Retrograde: It's All About Perspective
Last week I shared about memories of summer camp and what those experiences show us. If you missed it, check out this journal entry.
Over the weekend, I slept in 6 different beds in one night.
This is not the tale of a wild night out... this is one of motherhood. When our youngest was feeling fevery and just couldn't sleep, or get comfortable. Moving from my bed, to his bed, to finding him out in the living room. Resting on the floor cushion, cuddling onto the couch, getting sweat boxed out and moving to the chair. And ending up in the dog bed...
When morning broke and our new puppy was UP but I needed to lay down longer and tried to get him to cuddle.
When Life is Moving Backwards
This is leaving me with the flashbacks of exhaustion that I felt when my kiddos weren't sleeping through the night yet... like over 5 years ago.
Feeling like my life is in retrograde right now.
Feeling like we are moving backwards.
Retrograde:
describes backwardness of one kind or another. In celestial terms, it is the apparent change in the movement of a planet through the sky.
I had this bleary 'aha' thought the next night (when I only slept in 4 beds, but only catching cat naps until almost 4 am).
This past week has had me leaking emotions over frustrations that things with my business hasn't moved forward like I thought. (the 'am I enough?' shoulds)
Feeling the strain of our summer childcare ending and our hybrid schooling not starting for another month. (the worrying about how the f*ck am I going to navigate this with a semblance of sanity)
Feeling like I'll never catch up with the mountain of things I want (and need) to get done. (the never enoughs and feeling depleted before I even start)
The shoulds, worries and never enoughs adding up.
Feeling like my entire life is in retrograde.
But knowing that truly, everything is still moving forward. It's just that from my perspective, it looks like it is moving backward.
And that somehow, this is happening to reveal something to me.
That it's happening FOR me, not TO me.
It takes patience, a deep breath and stretching my natural optimism to new spaces deeper within myself.
-what does it look like when Mars and Jupiter go retrograde? What can this moment teach me?
Mars and Jupiter show retrograde (backward) motion at some stages of their orbits, though this is only because of the way we see them from the earth, not because of any real backward movement.
Retrograde motion is an APPARENT change in the movement of the planet through the sky. It is not REAL in that the planet does not physically start moving backwards in its orbit. It just appears to do so because of the relative positions of the planet and Earth and how they are moving around the Sun.
Normally, the planets move west-to-east through the stars at night. This is referred to as prograde motion. However, peridiocally the motion changes and they move east-to-west through the stars. We call this retrograde motion. The retrograde motion continues for a short time and then the motion switches back to prograde. This seemingly strange behavior is easily understood within the context of a Sun-centered (heliocentric) solar system. The explanation for retrograde motion in a heliocentric model is that retrograde occurs roughly when a faster moving planet catches up to and passes a slower moving planet.
Seeing that things are happening FOR you, not TO you
Know Yourself
What part of your journey are you in? If you had to name it and put it on a map, what would you call it?
What perspective do you need to help really see what's going on?
And most importantly, what are you going to DO with the insights that you have gleaned?
Thinking and worrying only get you so far. What aligned action are you going to take to help you navigate from this point in your journey? And what is the energetic vibration that you are going to take that action from in this moment?
To help you navigate your own season of retrograde, take a moment to reflect on this journal prompt. How can a reframe or change of perspective help you see that this situation is actually moving you forward?
Sometimes what helps to reorient our perspective is to collect new dots, collect the evidence.
The Firefly Scout Evidence Journal is a helpful tool to ground into an intention and start notice the evidence to back it up.
And help yourself move through that retrograde feeling.
Wishing you a week filled with hours of uninterrupted sleep, chaos suddenly slowing and feeling like things are really moving forward again!
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Stephanie Rose is a mom, wife, business owner and a forever student in finding ways to know herself better. She acts as guide for your own journey, sharing insights, tools and practices to help you remember your magic and live a life that lights you up. Sign up for her newsletter and check out her free resources.