By: Janette Dalgliesh – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
26 April – 2 May 2020
This week starts with radiant Sun meeting up with fast-change agent Uranus in early Taurus, shortly to be met by messenger of the gods Mercury as he travels into Taurus midweek.
Our thinking becomes down to earth, solid, tangible. Common sense shifts into centre stage, along with a kind of doing-it-my-way pragmatism.
Underpinning all are the rebellious, paradigm-shifting powers of Uranus, enhanced by Sun’s fire and illumination.
We can stand a little aloof, contemplating our own thoughts, our own habits and our old ways of doing things, all helped by the entry of Pallas Athena into Aquarius later in the week.
This asteroid goddess is the mistress of strategic thinking and high level wisdom.
In Uranus-ruled Aquarius, Pallas unlocks intellectual curiosity, as a brilliant platform to get strategic about our own lives, and about the world around us.
She’ll be dancing with taskmaster Saturn from now until July, and then again October to early 2021, so she brings a laser light to your relationship with your work in the world, your own ‘life mission’.
Now begins the process of wondering, with another wave to come along later in the year to boost the effect.
If you’ve been in the habit of thinking “I don’t know” or “I’m stuck” – especially in relation to your sense of purpose, or your career and working life – this week is a cracker of a time to exercise curiosity instead. And that’s great news, because nobody wants to feel stuck when it comes to their work.
Those old brain habits of “I don’t know” or “I’m stuck” are merely opinions, not solid facts – but since we’re INSIDE those stories, they feel utterly real.
Our experience of life is delivered to us all day long by our own brains.
And that experience of reality is filtered, based on our prior experience and our own beliefs, our habits of thought.
And when we’re not aware of those thoughts, they can trigger habits of emotion we don’t like.
The boss frowns as he walks past. Your habitual thought might be ‘he doesn’t like me’ and your emotion is anger or fear. It might turn out, he was thinking about that nasty customer complaint he just read and didn’t even notice you.
Your sweetie doesn’t answer when you offer coffee. Your habitual thought might be ‘he must be mad at me’ and your emotion is righteous indignation or outrage. It might turn out, he was listening to music on the earbuds you didn’t see, and he just didn’t hear you.
At least – that’s how it works when we’ve forgotten how to activate curiosity.
Curiosity lets you distinguish between opinions and facts. It reduces those painful emotions and assumptions.
But so much of the time, we’re not in the habit of using it.
So this is a GREAT week to begin building curiosity as a deliberate skill. Because when you can go from angst to curiosity, you’re way more powerful.
How to start?
Easy.
Notice when you could apply some curiosity – a post on FB that gets your goat, the numbers on your scale, the figures in your bank account, the way you feel about your job.
And then – have some handy curiosity questions you can use on a regular basis, and USE them.
Sun and Uranus and Mercury in Taurus = new thoughts and new possibilities, illuminated in new ways, bringing pragmatic, tangible approaches to getting stuff done.
Pallas Athena (and Saturn) in Aquarius = new ideas and new strategies for how to move forward in innovative ways, showing leadership with the collective (especially to do with your career), fuelled by intellectual curiosity.
My own favourite curiosity questions often start with “I wonder…”
- I wonder what there is I don’t yet know here?
- I wonder what Love would say about this?
- I wonder what the science says about this?
- I wonder what I can learn here about myself?
- I wonder what thought I had that made me feel so bad?
- I wonder what new thought I could choose instead?
- I wonder if that thought is actually true (trick question because if it made you feel bad, it’s a lie!)
There is much upheaval going on in the world, and we don’t yet know how things will unfold, which makes our brains anxious.
They don’t like to feel out of control, and they don’t like to be unsure what’s happening.
But brains DO like being asked interesting questions.
This week, what interesting questions could you ask YOUR brain?
Exact times (US Eastern timezone):
- 26 April, 5:01 AM – Sun conjunct Uranus at 6º Taurus
- 27 April, 3:53 PM – Mercury enters Taurus (until 11 May 2020)
- 29 April, 8:21 PM – Pallas Athena enters Aquarius (until 8 March 2020)
Janette Dalgliesh has one mission in life – to wreak more joy in the world. That means no more shuffling through life like a zombie, doing the job-from-hell, twisting yourself into a pretzel to suit other people. Janette uses her unique blend of astrology and neuroscience-based coaching to help people find their purpose and live it. To get these articles along with some fabulous coaching tips in your inbox weekly, sign up to her emails today.
