Anyone else been frustrated or angry lately? I know we’re in the midst of eclipse season and that our good friend Hermes (Mercury) is in Retrograde, so maybe I was in denial about how this was going to hit me. My ego thought I was going to get through this unscathed and that I would be sitting around a campfire with smores singing kumbaya. Instead, I feel like torching the smores and setting the world on fire with Linkin Park’s “Faint” as my soundtrack. How’s that for a visual?

Yup, it was like that.

I was angry for a few days. Not sitting in it really, more like festering without taking the time to really look at myself or ask any questions. You know how that is, right? You hate everyone and everything, picking at every situation and person in your path. You look for flaws in the things around you and then inflate them into these giant issues, complaining to anyone who will listen about how awful something is. Special note to my circle who has graciously held space for me while I did this over the last few days, thank you. I appreciate you more than you know. The storm is passing, so you’ll get your levelheaded friend back now.

Shadow work. It’s so much fun, said no one ever.

There have been things coming up over the past few days that I thought I had already processed. Looks like the universe wanted to make sure that wasn’t ego talking and I was legit. While I have processed major feelings with certain situations, that doesn’t mean that it’s not still a trigger point for me. I sat and wrote in my journal today for a while. Being honest with myself had me facing a mirror again and asking myself, “Taryn, why are you so angry? Where is this frustrating coming from?” The answer is fear. A tricky yet powerful emotion. Ego loves to run with it and use it as its tool to keep you in check and get you to do what it wants you to do. Fear that I am not enough. Fear that I won’t be seen. Fear that I’m on the wrong path. Fear of being lonely. Pick your poison.

Anyone else relate? I can’t be alone with this.

When we’re on a new part of our journey and it seems dark, we start to get scared because we have no idea where we are going. Most times we have created space for the new to enter. While that new energy heads our way to fill the space, what do we do with that hole that’s there? As humans, we want to fill that hole up right away. Think about it – whether you experienced a heartbreak and you want to fill the space with someone or something else so you don’t have the time to think about it, or you are in between jobs and you’re so used to working you don’t know what to do with yourself, we’re constantly looking for some sort of stimulation to keep us occupied instead of sitting with the space we’re in at that current moment.

I find that I’m in the current phase of my next cycle where I’m impatient and looking for what’s next. I feel like I have been sitting around forever now, wallowing even, and the time for mourning is now over. My soul is ready for the next part of the journey and because it’s not spelled out for me or given to me on a map, I’m starting to get antsy. My ego is coming around to play in a not so nice way; there’s a projector screen in my mind that plays the events that got me to this current place on a loop. My ego pokes and prods at me asking me if I should have done something different… am I sure this is what I want to do? Don’t I want to go back to what’s comfortable and familiar?

Why do we want to scare ourselves so much? I can’t change the past even if I wanted to. Last time I checked, I don’t time travel either. The good news is the festering period only lasted a few days and I was able to get my head out of my ass faster than I would have in prior years. Go me. This is where I’m going to plug having a daily routine whether it’s spiritual or not to check in with yourself. No distractions, just you with yourself. It makes getting out of the festering period go faster. I can tell I’m disconnected the moment I stop my own routine. I have a process every morning where I light my candles, say how grateful I am and talk to my ancestors and then I cleanse and protect my energy. If I’m skipping that, something is off. I had been skipping that lately. My intuition was nudging me to go back, but I’ve been pushing her to the side in my anger. I’ll tell myself I don’t have time to do it or that I’m just not feeling it today.

Those moments when you don’t feel connected? Those are the most important moments for you to get back to your practice. That’s the only way you will plug back in.

So, this week I promised myself I would do my routine every day. No excuses. The first day, I didn’t notice a difference. I was still yelling and carrying on with my bullshit. The second day, I calmed down some. I got more introspective and found myself fighting my ego and the excuses I was making for us. The third day, I was finally about to admit that I was my own worst enemy. Instead of scrolling on my phone for hours at the end of the day, I picked up a book I haven’t finished and read for a while. Today, the fourth day, I finally surrendered. I was able to write in my journal and get words out on my page to be honest with myself. I find myself shifting my perspective and looking through a clear lens again. Now, I can sit with these emotions and honor them.

Did you notice the change in wording too? I’m no longer festering in them, giving in to the heaviness of them and lashing out about any and everything. Instead, I’m now sitting with them. Showing myself the same love that I would have to a friend or family member and talking to myself the way I would to them. The journal entry became so much more productive once I was able to ask myself some hard questions. It seems my mind is 2 steps ahead of my body when it comes to the healing I just went through. We’ll get where we need to go, T. One step at a time.

So happy retrograde, fam. If you can use the energy wisely and push fear aside, you can examine the things that come up from your past, peeling back another layer to the onion to see what lies beneath. I promise you everything that comes back around during this time is doing so for a reason. You just have to be brave enough to figure out what that reason is.

Just don’t text your ex.

Always love,

T