Let me guess. You saw “Mercury Retrograde” on your calendar and immediately started blaming it for everything that’s about to go wrong. Your tech will crash. Your ex will text. Your carefully laid plans will implode. The universe is conspiring against you for the next three weeks.

Except… no.

Mercury Retrograde gets blamed for a lot of sh*t it has nothing to do with. Meanwhile, the actual opportunity it’s offering that could genuinely help you gets completely missed because everyone’s too busy backing up their hard drives and side-eyeing their exes.

So let’s talk about what Mercury Retrograde actually is, what it actually does, and why you may have been getting it wrong.

What’s actually happening

Mercury is the planet of communication, thought, perception, and how you process information. It moves fast, zipping through the zodiac, gathering data, making connections, forming opinions, declaring truths…

Three to four times a year, Mercury appears to slow down, stop, and move backward through the sky. (It’s not actually moving backward. It’s an optical illusion based on our position relative to Mercury’s orbit. But the symbolic effect is real.)

When Mercury “retrogrades,” it retraces the ground it just covered. It’s reviewing, reconsidering, re-examining. Think of it like your mind hitting the pause button on forward momentum and asking, “Wait, did I miss something? Is what I just declared actually true? Do I need to rethink this?”

From November 9 to 29, Mercury is retrograde. It starts in the sign of big-picture beliefs, philosophical certainty, and confident declarations, and backtracks into the sign of psychological depth, hidden truth, and what you’re not saying.

Translation: You’re about to question the things you’ve been loudly certain about. You also might realize the beliefs you’ve been broadcasting need editing because the truth you thought was obvious is more complicated than that.

What Mercury Retrograde isn’t

Let’s get the myths out of the way first.

It’s not cosmic punishment. The universe isn’t targeting you. Planets don’t have opinions about your life. This is a natural, predictable cycle that happens multiple times every single year. If it feels like punishment, that’s because you’re fighting it instead of working with it. (How? Keep reading.)

It’s not the reason everything goes wrong. Your computer didn’t crash because Mercury is retrograde. Your computer crashed because it’s old, you haven’t updated it in six months, and you’ve been ignoring the warning signs. Mercury Retrograde just makes you notice what was already breaking.

It’s not when your ex magically appears. Your ex texts you during Mercury Retrograde for the same reason they text you any other time: they’re bored, lonely, drunk, or suddenly remember you exist when they’re between distractions. The retrograde just makes you more likely to respond because your judgment about “should I engage with this person?” gets a little fuzzy.

It’s not a reason to put your entire life on hold. You can still travel, sign contracts, and make decisions. You just need to be more careful, more thorough, and willing to revise if new information pops up.

What Mercury Retrograde actually is

I always think of Mercury Retrograde as a three-week review period. It’s a chance to catch what you missed the first time through and an invitation to reconsider, revise, and recalibrate before moving forward again.

It’s when your mind slows down enough to notice the gaps in your thinking and the assumptions you didn’t question. Reconsider the conversations you thought were finished but actually need a follow-up, and the beliefs you adopted without examining whether they’re still true.

This particular retrograde is especially interesting because it moves through two very different territories.

It starts in the sign of confidence, optimism, big declarations, and philosophical certainty. This is the energy of “I know what’s true, let me tell everyone about it.” So, it’s expansive, sometimes blunt, and occasionally self-righteous.

Then on November 18th, Mercury backtracks into the sign of depth, secrecy, psychological complexity, and uncomfortable truth. This is the energy of “what am I not saying? What’s hiding under the surface? What’s the truth I’m afraid to name?”

So you’re moving from public certainty to private doubt. That means from loud declarations to quiet questioning. Or, said another way, from what you’re willing to say out loud to what you actually think when no one’s listening.

And that’s the gift.

Most of us live in the gap between what we say and what we know. Between the confident version we broadcast and the uncertain human we actually are. But Mercury Retrograde closes that gap and forces the private truth and the public performance to meet. And yes, that’s uncomfortable. Yes, that means admitting you were wrong, or that you don’t actually know, or that the thing you’ve been confidently declaring is more complicated than you made it sound.

But it’s also honest. And clarity is always more useful than performed certainty.

So, here’s how to actually work with this

Expect delays and miscommunications, but don’t catastrophize them. Planes, trains, and automobiles will be late. Emails will get lost. Conversations will be misunderstood. That’s not a crisis as much as an invitation to slow down, double-check, and make sure you’re actually being clear.

Revisit unfinished business. This is prime time for returning to projects you abandoned or ideas you dismissed too quickly. The retrograde creates the conditions for second chances, if you’re willing/wanting to take them.

Question what you’ve been certain about. What have you been loudly declaring that you’re not actually sure about? What have you been performing that doesn’t quite fit anymore? What “truth” have you been clinging to that’s more complicated than you want to admit?

Pay attention to what comes back. Old ideas resurface. Past connections re-emerge. Themes from October (especially late October) come around again. That’s the universe giving you another shot at something you weren’t ready for the first time.

Don’t make permanent decisions based on retrograde clarity alone. The insights you have during a retrograde are valid, sure, but they’re also partial. You’re seeing what you missed before, but you might not be seeing the full picture yet. So, note it, sit with it, then decide when Mercury goes direct on November 29th.

Get comfortable with “I don’t know.” This is the retrograde’s real lesson. You don’t have to have all the answers or be certain. And you certainly don’t have to perform confidence when you’re actually confused. “I’m reconsidering” is a perfectly valid position to take.

Now, here’s what this week specifically demands

You’re at the very beginning of the retrograde, which means you’re in the disorientation phase. Things feel off, communication gets weird, your brain feels foggy, and plans that seemed solid suddenly feel shaky.

Don’t panic or try to force clarity that isn’t there yet. Don’t make big moves just to prove you’re not affected by the retrograde (spoiler: you are, and fighting it makes it worse).

Instead, slow down, double-check, ask clarifying questions, admit when you’re uncertain, and let yourself not know for a few weeks.

And if your ex texts you? Read it twice, sit on your response for 24 hours, and ask yourself if this is actually what you want or just what feels familiar during a period of confusion.

The bottom line

Mercury Retrograde isn’t happening to you. It’s happening for you. It’s giving you permission to reconsider, revise, and get honest about what you actually think versus what you’ve been performing.

The tech crashes and travel delays are just symptoms of a world moving too fast to notice what needs attention. The retrograde forces the pause that should have happened already. So for the next three weeks, slow down, question your certainties, revisit what you thought was finished, and stop blaming Mercury for the fact that you needed to reconsider anyway.

The retrograde isn’t the problem. The problem is that you’ve been moving so fast you forgot to check if you were headed in the right direction.

Now you get three weeks to figure that out.

Jonni

P.S. Mercury Retrograde may end November 29th, but the fog doesn’t lift immediately. And two days later, December starts, and it doesn’t care if you’re still processing. So, I’m opening something for real-time support through the entire season because it’s the month that activates every family pattern, obligation, and performance pressure you’ve been working to heal. It’s the kind where you text or email me before you respond to that triggering comment. Details next week. You might need this one.