Meditation

Do you meditate?  I try to meditate.  I was doing a short meditation each night for about a week or two.  My mind wanders quite a bit and I have to bring myself back to the breath quite often.  I've tried seated meditation and counting my breaths.  I've tried walking meditation, which I liked.  I bought a meditation cd  set by a renowned leader.  The first cd was helpful and I felt really good after it.  Once I stopped listening to the mouth noises she makes and she makes a lot of them.  You can see how my mind just takes off and I'm reeling it back in.  I didn't love the second cd.  Okay, the part I listened to made absolutely no sense to me and I found myself getting aggitated and speaking back to the cd.  Not really how meditation should go.  I did not feel good afterwards.

So what's the resistance?  Is it the sitting still?  The trying to quiet the mind?  Not wanting to hear what my innermost voice has to say?  Could be that it's all of it.  I'm going to keep trying.  There is a form that will work for me and I plan on finding it.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

Misguided healthy foods or just plain marketing abuse?

Lately everyone seems to be jumping on the healthy choice bandwagon. Where does it end?  Soda made with sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup, sugar cereals made with whole grains, and fruit oatmeals made without any real fruit added to it.  My new favorite is potato chips - gluten free, vegan and made with 5 ingredients or less.  I had to laugh, they were handing them out at a health expo I was attending.  They're still potatoes fried in oil. 

Perhaps the most disturbing is the ad for organic cigarettes.  It came in a magazine and was a large color pull out ad.  The produce was free of pesticides and organically grown so you could "feel safe" about buying the product.  Really?  Does it take those pesky carcinogens out too?  Nope, on page 2 of the ad there was a block noting that the risks of smoking cigarettes are still the same.  I purposely looked for this and I wonder how many people flipped the ad over to see that.  I also wonder how many people will think this is a safer smoke. 

I'm not saying never eat any of these foods but don't mistake them for being healthy choices.  Read the ingredients.  If you cannot pronounce it or don't recognized it as a real food you probably should not eat it.  As for the cigarettes - you know they're bad for you and nothing is going to make them a good healthy choice.