“I know the effects of Mercury retrograde can be annoying because nobody wants to get stuck in traffic, but they are not permanent. “Retrograde is by no means like doomsday or apocalyptic,” she explains. If you’re certain that Mercury retrograde has the potential to basically ruin your life, Kelly has some solid advice.

Are you holding off on having a big talk with your partner because it’s Mercury retrograde, or is there a bigger reason behind your hesitation? Is Mercury retrograde really to blame for that less-than-stellar work presentation, or did you just not give yourself enough time to prep? The tension between what appears to be happening when Mercury is retrograde and what is actually happening can be an apt metaphor for how many of us interpret the planet’s hold on our lives. “Sometimes when we're searching to make sense of something…and we stop at the first thing that makes us feel comfortable, we're missing the opportunity to figure out what's really going on,” McLean says. But if you’re having major Mercury-retrograde-related jitters, McLean suggests digging a little deeper. This can all be harmless if you’re just a bit on edge before and during the retrograde period (especially if, ahem, your entire job is based on communicating effectively via the internet). “The kind of satisfaction that comes from that stability, predictability, and confirmation is pretty strong,” she says. While McLean’s work doesn’t involve astrology, she says that people often employ these types of beliefs to help make sense of what’s happening around them.

McLean, whose research focuses on how people interpret important events from their lives to maintain a coherent sense of identity, explains that human beings are naturally inclined to categorize and predict events so as to make the process of interpreting reality a bit quicker. We'll forget the information that doesn't fit with the schema that we have,” Kate McLean, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Western Washington University and an associate editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tells SELF. “Across different fields of psychology, there's lots of evidence that we will distort information, or misremember information, or do things that make us feel comfortable and confirm our worldviews. This is especially true if your more astrologically inclined friends are blaming your life mishaps on Mercury retrograde. This is why it’s not unusual for horoscopes to warn against making major decisions during this time.Įven if you don’t really believe in astrology, ubiquitous conversations about the retrograde planet might still make you feel like life is a bit more chaotic than usual in these times. Kelly says that since mercurial energy governs such big parts of our daily lives, these retrogrades don’t bode well for the natural order of our overly communicative world.

Ex coming back during retrograde 2020