In 2019, after having sold my NYC apartment, I went to Panama on what was supposed to be a 2 week retreat. I ended up staying for 6 weeks. When I returned, I went out to California for what I expected to be a few weeks. It turned into a 6 month stay.
While in California, I worked daily with a physical therapist to correct movement dysfunctions caused by trauma and I completed several yoga teacher trainings.
At the same time, I was trying — mostly unsuccessfully — to pivot my business to launch a coaching practice from the road, while moving over 30 times in a year.
I kept telling myself I needed to boost my visibility, yet I took a complete hiatus from social media.
In retrospect, I acknowledged that I took a sabbatical, but I didn’t call it that until after the fact.
What might have been different had I embraced that concept from the start and truly gave myself the time to just BE in the mystery?
I might have done things much differently. I might have taken a true break from striving so hard and pushing against immovable obstacles.
I may have actually rested more, giving me more energy to take action when I returned.
Some years are for asking questions and some years are for answers. Some years are for rest, and some years are for taking action. Some years are for scaling up, and some years are for scaling back.
The key to making the most of any moment in time is to know what that moment is bringing for you.
Often in life, we only see things from a more clear perspective when looking backwards. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know what a year is about going into it?
This is where astrology helps.
Profections: The Key to Your Annual Focus
According to a timing technique called Annual Profections, which was used by ancient astrologers, each year at our birthday brings a focus to a new House — and a new area of life.
Profections are based on age, starting with the first house in the first year of life. Every 12 years, we cycle back to the beginning.
As it turns out, in 2019 I was exactly where I was supposed to be. That was the year I turned 44. According to the technique of Profections, my 44th birthday shifted my focus to Ninth House topics: exploring, learning, far away travel, wisdom, philosophy, and the education we give ourselves.
This is exactly what I was doing in my sabbatical year.
I learned about trauma in a deeper way.
Through my work with the physical therapist and multiple yoga teacher trainings, I began to understand habitual body patterns. I became a yoga teacher.
Almost every weekend, I participated in workshop or training in a different area, all far removed from my life as a residential real estate broker.
I studied Reiki and became a certified Reiki practitioner. I took my first formal astrology classes.
I took classes and workshops in sound healing and conscious communication techniques. I participated in full moon and new moon ceremonies and rituals.
Living by the ocean for nine months helped me understand the rhythms of nature in a deeper way than I had ever experienced from the concrete jungle of New York City.
I never doubted the value of that year and all I was learning. I knew it was useful and trusted that it would eventually serve a purpose.
How My Inner Conflict Led to Sabotage
I was often conflicted.
Part of me tried to embrace where I was.
But another part of me was striving hard to generate traction in a business, without success.
I was plagued with guilt and shame for not being more successful. I lost confidence in myself. As a result, I shut myself away from public view.
I went into hiding, then I blamed myself for hiding instead of sharing more about my process on social media. I piled on more self-shame.
The shame I felt from 2019 caused me to miss out on opportunities that I could have had in 2020.
When my next birthday shifted the focus to my tenth house, which is about career and visbility, I remained in hiding instead of leveraging my new skills and tools to help others during the height of the pandemic.
What Might Be Different If You Knew Your Season?
As it turned out, my Solar Return chart for 2019 had the Sun in the twelfth house.
The twelfth house is a place of incubation behind the scenes. It wasn’t a year for me to share publicly.
Perhaps if I had known at the time that I was in a year focused on learning and expansion, and a year of behind-the-scenes work, I would have been more accepting of where I was in my journey.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have gone down the rabbit hole of shame and blame, because I would have realized that I was in exactly the right place.
Perhaps if I had fully accepted where I was, I would have been in a better position to leverage all I learned when my next birthday came.
We’ll never know what could have been.
The best I can do now is to acknowledge with compassion that I didn’t know then about Profections then.
In life, we can only look forward. Now I have more tools and techniques to know where I am in time, so I can better plan for what’s coming.
More important, I can help you understand your timing to know what’s coming.
Profections Help You Locate Yourself In Time
When you’re traveling to any destination, you generally pull out a map to orient yourself. But a map only helps you if you’re able to locate where you are on the map.
Just as maps orient us to where we are in space, Astrological timing techniques like Profections orient us to where we are in time.
Profections tells us where to place our focus for the coming year and what planets will be most relevant to us.
When we look at Profections in connection with a Solar Return chart, they show us the energetic “weather forecast” for the coming year and what planetary archetypes we will be invited to grow into.
We don’t need to only connect the dots going backward to make sense of life.
These tools help us direct our focus so we’re driving the wheel of life instead of spinning around it.
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