Many have been asking me why things are not moving as fast as they want or as they planned. Patience, I say, is the greatest virtue we need to learn during the mercury retrograde period where we are right smack in the middle of.

It might feel frustrating, this feeling of impatience, as we think we are ready to go off with our “to-do list”… except everything is moving in slow motion. But this period asks that we pay attention to how everything is moving, identifying micro-adjustments, put in new strategies and go deeper to see the hidden mechanics of winning moves. If this was a race, then this period is teaching us to study how to improve form, endurance and efficiency, so later, we can go faster and farther.

Apart from the practice of patience, the operative action word we must embody is “reflect.” Reflect, because if you do not, you would be caught up in the madness of the shifting world. I can go on with so many examples, but I think, just Googling through social media daily will give you the snapshot of a world in schizophrenic combustion.

I continue to have conversations with people who reflect and make a clear choice: An heir to a pharmaceautical business steps down and becomes an entrepreneur because his conscience cannot take on profiteering from selling medicines and drugs.

Another refuses to return to a high-paying financial position because he values his health versus the stress. Another is already sick, knowing that the stress of work is the reason, but he needs that paycheck.

A woman is raped yet in her anguish, she is courageously taking the will to heal and say, perhaps down the line, she can empower other women, too. Another breaks family ties forever because of an intense difference in value systems. All (so many of us) may even be questioning the foundations on which we have structured our lives whether spiritual, political, traditional and even societal.

The gift of this week is the power of deep reflection. Let us check on not just the feeling, but find the roots from where feeling, mental chatter or stimulation are arising from. It is also a period to reconsider where we are directing our energies, intentions and relationships. This cosmic pause invites us to rethink old patterns, unfinished conversations and decisions we may have done in haste. The period is a check on whether everything we are doing is still on autopilot, or whether they are aligned with who we are becoming in a world also in intense transformation.

The reason why this reflection period is important is because it precedes a period of a world reset. Yes, you read it right. The rare triggering energies are two planets (Saturn the planet of structure, karma and discipline; and Neptune, the planet of dreams, spiritual mysticism, illusions and higher consciousness) coming together, holding hands in the first degree of the zodiac (Aries).