Capricorn Tales

Hello, I am back.  I took a wee break simply because the thought well needed a break and I think it ran dry just a bit. I mentioned that I would blog about a daily mantra, but I think I will do that sporadically.  I believe everything happens for a reason and on those days I post a blog that corresponds to my Daily Mantra on Twitter and Instagram (facebook too, for those of us who are friend's), I believe it will be in the divine right time to do so.  So keep a look out for those.  If you want to see the daily mantra...some have been given to me, others just pop into my head, I am on instagram and twitter, @goaliefan1973.  Moving on to the subject of the day, I had to write this twice, because the first time I sounded like I was scolding people.  Let's see if I can get this right.  As humans, we hurt, we cry, we laugh, we get excited, and many times, someone else is involved in all the cause of these emotions.   The other day, a friend...

There are times in life when you come upon a situation that no matter how hard you try to fix it, it just won't fix and quite possibly, the more you try to fix it, the worse it gets.  I had such a moment this morning, because like everyone else, I am human, and sadly I let it affect a good part of my day. I admit, I am a sensitive human being by nature. I am one of those silly people that actually cares what people think about me and when it isn't in balance with the way I feel about myself, it hurts a bit.  I am not perfect, I am not trying to be perfect.  Over the past few months I have been grown some confidence, but today I let myself down by caving, instead of standing up for myself.  In short, I had a moment of weakness, seen in abundance in my own past. People will sometimes say things that might hurt you.  A lot of times it is just a misunderstanding and no bad harm is intended.  When this happens, you can do one of two things.  Let ...

Today's mantra: I forgive those who have harmed me in my past and peacefully detach from them.   This one speaks for itself.  I have spoken about letting go of things that do not positively serve, you in the past blogs, forgiveness of a person or a situation, can help you do this.  We all have a lot of things that we can forgive to help us move on and I was reminded of that tonight.   I have had to do a lot of forgiving on this journey, from people that hurt me, to myself for not believing more in me, and situations changed my life.  That is right, a situation can be forgiven, because forgiveness isn't just about making someone else feel better, it is about making you feel better.  If someone else is given a reprieve, because you chose to forgive, even better.   Tonight I was reminded of an anger I have carried inside for a long time.  Almost seven years ago, on December 8, 2008, one of my best friends, that was a soul siste...

Making a choice can be easier than you think, but sometimes we hold on to certain ways of thinking, because it is what we are used to, what has become the 'norm', if you will.  Now, imagine you can make a choice and make it stick. It's possible, you just have to believe it is possible.    Life isn't always what you expect it to be, but it can be.  I thought by now I would be a 'paid' writer, but instead I am still working in an office and blogging, however, while I work on my stories, I have made a conscious choice to have peace in my heart about where I am at.  Since it is 'Back to the Future' month, I will pull a name from the movie.   I have always used this term when referring to my writing, I have what I call "George McFly" Syndrome, in other words, I love to write, but I am worried people won't like what I write.  That being said, I made choice to stop worrying about what others think and start pursuing the things that ma...

  Hi!  I am back.  I posted my summation blog yesterday, talking about my thirty day meditation journey. I mentioned I would also blog about the daily mantra, but alas, I forgot.  Oops. Sorry about that.  I do believe everything happens for a reason though, after all how could I possibly write two separate blogs, about two things that go hand in hand so well?   I choose to be happy.  I choose to be excited.  I personally feel these two can be fused together.  I mean what moment of excitement didn't result in happiness, or what moment of happiness didn't result in excitement?  Though we usually associate excitement with something big, the littlest of things can also make one excited.   A few days ago, my dad called me up and we chatted for a bit.  Recently back from a trip to Hawaii, I asked my dad to bring me back a pen or two.  I love pens, they are my weakness.  It is also something small when people...

Well, I am sure Bob Dylan meant something completely different when he sang those lyrics, but from day one until yesterday, I really found that my times, well they were a changin'.  That is what I am going to focus mainly on during this blog, as well as giving my opinion on the meditation challenge.  I went back through the thirty days and I picked my favorites.  Including the staying in the moment meditation. It was short, but for me, it is a way to re-find my balance and center myself.  For instance, if you are having one of those days when you just need step away and breathe, do it literally.  For those moments when you are feeling "less than", do the love meditation, or the self-confidence meditation.  There are so many and I am grateful for the J Bittersweet meditation challenge.  In some cases I edited, for lack of a better word, the way the meditations were done, as I found so many variations of the same thing.  So, if there is somet...

The other day we learned the Zazen meditation, which primarily focuses on keeping ones concentration.  Today's meditation is more of the same, but with a twist.  In the monasteries and temples I spoke about the other day, meditations tend to go on for longer than the 5-30 minutes people dedicate to this daily practice.  In order to maintain focus and to keep the good QI (chi) going and remain in concentration, the Kinhin (kin-yin) meditation is also practiced.  Kinhin is the practice of mediation while walking in a clockwise circle, be it slowed paced or at nearly a jog.  Kinhin is loosely translated into, 'walking back and forth'.  When practicing Kinhin, create a fist with one hand, then cover it with another and keeping it in front of your energy center, roughly two inches above your navel.  This area is also where you Solar Plexus chakra is located.  If you are having trouble picturing this, think of the stance a martial artist takes ...

Twenty-nine days down and one more to go.  I am enjoying meditating everyday and find that sometimes I just do it for a few minutes when I need that energy pick me up, or to release those tense moments. When I first saw the meditation for today, naturally I became excited.  Will this help me find Mr. Right? Will this lead me to find the one?  Well, I completely misinterpreted this meditation and was pleasantly surprised when it began.  This meditation isn't about finding anyone other than yourself.   "To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance."  -Oscar Wilde.  How true are those words?  When you love yourself, you open yourself to love others, whether it be family, friend's or a significant other and this is partly because you are creating a positive energy, or vibe.   This meditation is also about forgiveness of those who have hurt you, and releasing that pain, as well as an exercise in ...

  Zazen is commonly practiced in Zen temples and monasteries, as a form of meditation that focuses on concentration.  Breathing for this meditation is done from the hara, or your navel area, the center of balance, and helps beginners focus by using a counting method.  One, inhale to the count of ten; two, exhale to the count of ten; three, inhale to the count of ten; four, exhale to the count of ten and so on until your reach ten, then repeat, beginning at one.  This process can continue upwards of twenty to thirty minutes.  Your position for Zazen should be in a lotus, or half lotus position, with your spine straight, but relaxed. It seems impossible right?  You can do. Trust me, if I can, you can.  You got this.    The concentration factor of Zazen is to allow your thoughts, judgments, words, idea's or anything passing through your head to do just that, pass through, while you keep your mind clear and focused on your breath...

  *Proceed with meditation with caution if you choose to use a candle, in other words, don't burn your house down. Also, these opinions are my own and are meant in no way to persuade one to think or believe in the things I do.  We're all individuals, so you can choose what tickles your brain and what doesn't.  :D   As we near the end of the thirty day meditation, I have found that the majority of the meditations were to my liking, and less than a handful, not so much, but I feel that this is a good thing, if you want it to be.  What better way to continue meditation, than to look back and continue to practice the ones that did resonate with you and to already know which ones did not.  This meditation was one of my favorites.   Gazing meditation is meant to help you focus and concentrate.  It is also thought to improve eyesight and is used to enhance psychic abilities, almost like scrying, the art of staring into a candle, or reflective ...

Today's meditation was to help open the seven chakra's and to keep them balanced.  Over the last twenty-six days many forms of meditation techniques have been learned, including seven days that were dedicated to working on each individual chakra.  What I have also learned is that these light centers, once opened, can be very powerful and not for everyone, so today let's explore how to get them going, centered and balanced, without opening them too far. First, let's refresh ourselves with the basics of each chakra; the color, the meaning, the position.  The first Chakra is at the base of your spine, this is the Root and is red in color.  The root chakra helps you reconnect with nature and as it becomes balanced, you release fear and learn to take a more calm approach to things, as opposed to 'fight or flight'. Next is the Sacral chakra.  Orange in color, it sits about two inches below your navel.  Some might call this the pleasure center, since it i...

Today's meditation didn't seem like a meditation to me, instead it felt more like a lesson on eating.  I promise there is no sarcasm implied there, as many of us inhale our food because we're naturally fast eaters, we have to be back to work within a certain time frame, or we have to be somewhere in general. Mindful eating was the name of today's meditation and it was a good exercise in learning how to eat slow.  We've all heard the tips; put your fork down while you chew, chew your food into bits, don't watch tv while eating.  Perhaps you've been told to drink eight ounces of water before a meal?  All of these are good habits, but how often do we do it enough to create a habit out of it?  This exercise promoted ways to look at your food before eating it.  Example, hold a piece of fruit in your hand. What color is it? How does it look? Is it heavy or light?  It's a great idea, but again, how many people are going to make a habit out of this? ...

Disclaimer:   If you have heart disease,  high blood pressure or a hernia, please do not attempt this exercise without consulting a physician or a professional yoga instructor. Disclaimer 2:   If you begin to feel dizzy or faint, STOP! No one needs an injury from this exercise.  Crunches work just as well. :D That being said, I mentioned previously that I have a repaired heart, but I did make it through this exercise with flying colors and enjoyed it, though it did make me giggle at first.  This meditation breathing exercise called, Kapalbhati Pranayama,  is a yoga breathing technique aimed at weight loss (yay me!), strengthening tummy muscles and improving circulation.  One of the older yoga breathing techniques, this form of breathing is not designed to relax you, but instead bring energy to your body, so I would suggest doing it in the morning.  The meditation will consist of three breathing reps.  Now, before we beg...

  I am going to preface this blog with, if you have a medical illness please seek professional medical treatment.    Many people believe that a healing meditation is going to miraculously cure you. I am not saying it won't, but I also can't say that it will. I know this seems sketchy as an opening line, but the majority of the alternative medicine practitioners out there, will tell you to use this form of healing in conjunction with conventional medical treatment, not as a replacement.   As the meditation days progress,  they seem to be more detailed and not as easy for me to translate into words, so again, I will post the link later in the post, so you can meditate peacefully, listening to the guide and the soothing music.    What I liked about this meditation is that I felt energized afterwards, as if I had a spurt of energy, after a long day of running in nine directions.  Funny enough it shows the person lying down in the evenin...

Stress.  It has several meanings, but the one we will be focusing on today is the strain it puts on ones physical and emotional state.  High blood pressure, heart attacks, etc.  Stress can lead to many unhappy events, but it is preventable.  Day to day worries don't go away when you stress about them. Chances are you don't come up with a solution while in the midst of stress attack either, right?   There really is something to the phrase, "Cooler (calmer) heads prevail".  I was born with a heart defect called Tetralogy of fallot.  It was repaired when I was three and I live a fairly normal  life.  Why do I mention this?  Well, stress can be my worst enemy.  Like everyone else stress affects my heart, but since my ticker is patched up, and for along time my face could have been the picture next to the word in the dictionary, I needed to find a way to find stress relief.  Now don't get me wrong, I am fine, I just have to tak...

For twenty days I have been blogging my interpretation of each daily meditation, as well as how it affects me or pertains to my life, but today I am going to paste in the link for the meditation, because I think it is important that you follow this word for word.   Self-confidence comes easier to some than others.  It does not come easily to me, but as I have mentioned in the past, sometimes life events might condition how we think about ourselves, even when we have family or good friends that do their best to give you confidence.  Mean words hurt, mean words from peers that you want to like you, can hurt even more. So how does one move past this?  Hear only the positive words, feel only the positive vibes. Mean words hurt yes, but people spewing nastiness, are people that do not positively serve your life and so you must let them go.   I am beginning to believe that everything happens in divine right time.   That being said, I can honestl...

  Since breathing is one of the key components to clearing the mind during meditation, today's meditation makes perfect sense...for the most part.  I learned today about anulom vilom pranayama, a type of breathing technique used in yoga that is supposed to be helpful for beginners.    I am not exactly sure how to write about today's lesson or even how to comment on it, since I am still new to this, but it was a fascinating exercise and one I think might be good for one to utilize every few days to balance your body and strengthen your lungs. We breathe everyday, so why not be good to that internal breathing machine?   This exercise is a little different and lasts for close to twenty minutes. I think that is to build a steady rhythm.  I would do it for as long as you feel the need, unless of course you know yoga, then do it for the amount of time the instructor believes to be a good amount of time.  Honestly, Yoga is something I have alw...

Well, it looks as though I am sliding in right under the midnight radar and getting this in today, or at least starting it before it is a new day.  Speaking of new days, I kind of like to think of the crown  chakra as seeing each coming day as new, once the chakra is balanced and open. Purple in color and located just above the Crown of your head, this chakra is the seventh and final of them all.  This chakra allows you to connect to your higher self and intuition and allows you to receive guidance and enlightenment.  I also believe it is essential to maintain full trust in whatever you believe in to allow this chakra to remain balanced and open. Some believe that many do not achieve the full experience of the crown chakra, but perhaps that is because we have programmed ourselves to not trust everything.  In this day and age we might think "trust" is hard to come by, or have, in many situations, but is it really?  I put the word trust in quotes in ...

  I will preface this blog with this thought, I am not yet into the chanting meditations, but I tried this meditation and ended up stopping it part way through. I thought perhaps it was because I have an issue with chanting, but I still wanted to keep up on this blog, so I did some research.  According to one article from the Spiritual Research Foundation (Google is an amazing tool!), "chanting only Om, can have adverse effects if the person is of a lower spiritual level (ie. spiritual novice) as [they] may not have the capacity to tolerate the spiritual energy generated from the chant."   It is also believed that women should not just chant Om by itself as this energy creates a wave of heat that can have adverse reproductive effects.  They should only use the word 'Om' when coupled with other words.  I know this might sound crazy, but if chanting 'Om', creates a high amount of energy due to the vibrations created b...

Welcome to day 17 of the  30 day meditation.  Today's meditation is about opening the third eye chakra.  Located between the brows, it is indigo in color and is the sixth of the seven chakra's.  The third eye is connected to psychic abilities, the Universe, wisdom and knowledge.   First, you can't see the third eye if you look in the mirror, if you can, consult a physician.  Just kidding, just trying to keep it light.  Seriously though, you often hear about the third eye when you hear people speaking about psychic abilities.  With the influx of medium shows on television these days, there is no doubt this term has surfaced somewhere.  When balanced with your other chakra's, this sixth in the "chain" of seven, can help you decipher between your reality and your imagination.  This is not a chakra to be dealt with lightly, it deserves the utmost respect, as you are essentially opening a doorway of sorts to another dimension, or a h...

Today's meditation is about beating insomnia and is meant for bedtime, so I thought I might take the opportunity to recap the first fifteen days of this challenge.  I'm not going to take us through day by day, instead let's focus on how we feel.  Do you feel like you're making progress? Do you feel different? Has the way you approached each day changed? I can honestly answer yes to all three of those questions.  Though I had a happy childhood and can't complain, there are events during that time that took place that I can't change, but that had molded me into someone I did not want to be anymore, negative and self-loathing.   There have been times that I felt like a feral animal, scared and feeling trapped and then verbally came out lashing.  It has been quite some time since I have been this way, though "ugly" me slips out for an appearance from time to time, but it is fewer and far between.  I had been attempting meditation for some tim...

Feeling a little shy or insecure? Or maybe you have a loud or pompous way of talking to people?  Well then your throat chakra might be out of balance. I admit I have been both at times, but I'm usually under active, which is shy and insecure.  So how can you change this? Well, you could try balancing your throat chakra. The throat chakra is blue in color and is the key to you speaking up and being heard, but without being aggressive in your speech or words. As with the other meditations, breathe in to the count of five and breathe out to the count of eight. three times, or until you feel your mind is clear.   I still use the pinwheel idea to breathe light into my chakra while inhaling, so if you have come up with your own way, then do what is comfortable with you.  Balancing this chakra can help with boosting your confidence and raising your self-esteem. Get your throat chakra spinning at a good steady speed and glowing again.  When you are done with your m...

I have a dilemma.  I spoke in an earlier post about not treading on people's beliefs and not trying to push mine on others, aside from my sharing my meditation experience.  Today is a bit tricky, because it is about Guardian Angels, so while I probably won't tread lightly, if you believe in angels, great. If you don't believe in Angels, use your imagination and make up something in your mind that helps you feel at ease and at peace. For me, meditation is about connecting with God, the Universe and most importantly myself.  It's about connecting and looking deep inside my soul to weed out the things in there that serve no purpose, except to cause damage.  Though baptized and raised Catholic,  I also grew up with a father that questioned the existence of all I was taught to believe, so this helped me open my mind and question things too.  Right now I find I connect to the ethereal super powers that be much better outside in nature, or in a quiet room, ...

"The Heart Never lies." If you ever need an answer to a question, listen to what your heart says.   It doesn't overthink, it doesn't come up with crazy scenarios, it tells you what you want to know, good or bad.  That being said, it is important to keep your heart chakra balanced. If balanced, you feel worthy of unconditional love and give the same. If imbalanaced, you could be emotionally closed off or overly needy for love. The meditation is the same as the other chakra meditations, but I altered it a bit for me. As I said in an earlier post, breathing into sometbing while inhaling messes with my mind, so I imagined that with every beat my heart got brighter, until I felt it was balanced. I still have work to do, but I think it won't be long until it is running at the speed it should be. Green is the color of healing, as well as the heart chakra.  If you really think about it when your heart is healthy and happy, so are you.  As with your health, take car...

"Water is the softest thing yet it can penetrate mountains and earth.  This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness." - Lao Tzu The mindful meditation suggests that we do our daily meditations in the shower.  Why? To let the water wash away the troubles of the day.  When you float in the ocean, or a lake, or a pool, there is calm right?  Even if it is just for a moment, so imagine an entire shower of water running over you.  The shower is the one time in the day that we are alone with our thoughts.  For me, I come up with some of my best story idea's in the shower.  This exercise is to heighten your senses.  Breathe in the smell of the shampoo and the body soap, breathe in the clean and fresh feeling you get.  Breathe out any negativity.  It does not serve you well, so don't hang on to it.  The meditation, after you clear your mind with your relaxation breathing, is about staying in the moment while the ...

Are you ready to learn about your Solar Plexus today?  As with the Root and Sacral chakra's, today's meditation is the same, so let's refresh with that now.  So you know where to "look" or focus your attention, the Solar Plexus is located two inches above your navel and when balanced is a beautiful yellow.  What's the difference between Beautiful yellow and yellow, you ask? Nothing, in my mind when something is balanced, it is just beautiful.  (big smile!)  Meditation:  Do your relaxation breathing exercises three times, (more if you need some time to clear the mind), then breathe naturally.  Now,imagine you are looking at your Solar Plexus. Is it dim?  If so, with each inhalation, imagine you are breathing life into your solar plexus.  For me, this was tough, because when I hear breathe life into the something, I think outward breath, so I imagined that the Solar Plexus was like a pinwheel and every time I took a breat...

So what is a blog?  My definition of a blog, is that it is taking life's experiences and sharing them with people.  We all find information everywhere and in every situation we are in, then we turn to our family members or friends and share the experience.  To me a blog is pretty much the same, except that you are hoping to reach a broader audience and maybe help someone in the long term.  For the last ten days I have been doing the 30 day meditation challenge for beginner's.  It is hosted by J Bittersweet on Youtube.  I was looking for a different meditation, but then poof, there it was and it has been the best experience, because now I am learning how to meditate without falling asleep, along with gathering information about meditations.  That said, each day I was excited about the meditation, but this morning, well...not so much.  I did learn something from this experience and that is what I am going to share, since the meditation ...