Do you ever feel like you’re missing the message?
If you’re only paying attention to the words being said, or the words on the page, you’re missing most of what gets communicated. Words are only a small part of any message.
On June 26, Mercury, the planet of communication, left its home sign of Gemini for the nurturing waters of Cancer. Mercury will swim through Cancer until July 11.
According to the astrologers on The Astrology Podcast,
Planets moving into Cancer shift the energy from doing and talking about everything everywhere all at once to settling on more felt topics and honing in on what’s really important and what really matters to you.
Mercury is the messenger. It represents our thinking mind, and governs the areas of communication, teaching, learning, and sales.
Cancer is a water sign that’s focused on emotions, nurturing, and care.
Mercury’s transit through Cancer helps us communicate with greater care and rewrite the stories we tell about ourselves.
Here are 7 ways to work with the energy of Mercury in Cancer to improve your communication skills:
(1) Hone Your Intuition
“Feeling into it” gets a bad rap in a culture that prizes logic and reason, but there’s a reason it’s called a “gut feeling.”
While Mercury swims through the waters of Cancer, logic takes a back seat to intuition.
Feel into the energy of a room. Listen to your gut feelings and the other signals your body sends.
(2) Practice Empathy and Sensitivity
Infuse your communications with compassion and sensitivity without undercutting your message.
Practice emotional awareness. Before you spill your heart in a conversation, check in to make sure the listener has the capacity to be present.
(3) Communicate Beyond Words
Chani Nicholas writes that when Mercury is in Cancer
intuition trumps logic and we are more attuned than ever to what’s being communicated by a weighty pause, a hand on the back, or a catch in the throat.
Pay particular attention to how you express care or lend support to others.
Sometimes a person needs to hear a verbal expression of care and support, sometimes it’s best communicated through an act of service, and sometimes the most effective way to communicate care is by sitting with the person in silence.
(4) Learn and Teach About Your Lineage
Mercury is about learning and teaching as well as communication. Good time to learn about your lineage or share stories of your lineage with your kids or other younger family members.
(5) Write (or Rewrite) Your Story
Cancer speaks to the part of our lives related to home, lineage and foundation.
Mercury’s transit through Cancer is a good time to start writing your memoir or family history.
The stories that we tell about our past have a profound power over how we see ourselves in the present and the actions we take — or do not take — to create our future.
Every story is a composition of selected facts and chosen meanings.
If the story of your past isn’t empowering you, this is the time to rewrite it. Choose a different set of facts or change the meanings of your chosen facts to create a new narrative that will empower you.
(6) Attune to the Subtext
The words we speak and write are a small fraction of what actually gets communicated.
Listen to what is being said beyond the words.
When a person speaks, what’s their tone of voice? How does their cadence change? Where is the energy?
If you can see them, what is their body language?
Listen and watch for the cues that clue you into their emotional state.
This goes for listening to yourself too. Notice the gut feelings, the shakiness in your speech, the lump in your throat.
As you journal, notice where your hand and the pen flow easily and where your writing gets shaky.
(7) Articulate Your Needs
All care begins with self-care. Feel into what you need to feel safe and supported, and then articulate those needs. If it feels like too much to speak it aloud to others, practice by speaking it to yourself or writing it in your journal.
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