Meditative fast food analogies: In the Starfireverse at least, guided meditations are like "Subway"

I listened through another of the Dragon Rising meditation audios last night. I'm not going to review it today, because (due to constant convulsions of coughing that will throw a damper onto my focus in *any* meditation) I'm not 100% sure of my reactions to it. I'm going to aim to listen through it again this weekend, and then I'll write a review once I've been able to give it a fair chance.

I also reinstated my Meditainment.com membership earlier on in the week too: something I'd let lapse a while back because I'd already downloaded all the files they had, and they hadn't put up enough new content to make renewing worth it to me. When I went back this week, however, I discovered there was enough new stuff on the site that I'd happily join up again - so you can expect to start seeing some of their guided meditations reviewed over the next little while as well.

That's not, however, the purpose of this post. That honour is reserved for an amused thought I had as I was finishing writing up my responses to the Dragon Rising "Winds of Change" meditation in my offline meditation diary last night.

It occurred to me that that meditation audios are, for me, very much the equivalent of eating semi-healthy fast food (e.g. a "Subway" wrap, for example).

• Work involved: They don't require me to actively think or prepare myself (kind of like Subway comes to me ready-prepared without requiring me to actually do any work to create it)
• Short-term effectiveness: They're good as far as they go, but they rarely have the inner impact of a journeying I design myself or that I spontaneously drift into; or a pure mindfulness meditation (kind of like Subway's not bad as fast food goes, but it's still not as good for me as a balanced meal I prepare myself)
• Long-term effectiveness: They're fine every now and then for fun and enjoyment, but they're not really going to take me closer to my meditation goals, especially if I do nothing else for my practice but use them (kind of like Subway's fine occasionally, but wouldn't be so healthy if it was all I ate!)
• Unnecessary expenses: They're not cheap. OK, they're not horrendously expensive, either; but if my goals are to meditate regularly and to improve my meditation focus and 'stamina', they also cost money I don't have to spend to move me closer to my goal (kind of like the way that Subway costs more than making the equivalent thing on my own would, and is totally unnecessary for me to have a balanced diet - it's basically an extra expense)

I know it's a bizarre analogy, but I've realised that this is what guided meditation audios are for me -a kind of guilty pleasure that I'm not really guilty about. They're fun things I play with that benefit me through the pleasure they bring me, rather than necessary tools of my meditation practice.

I know for some people, though, they're a critical tool without which they couldn't practice at all. And others don't use them at all, finding them too structured, or just generally annoying. That's fine - it takes all types.

How about you? Do you use guided meditations at all? If so, what part of your practice do they form? If not, what *are* the tools you use?

I'm interested to see just how different the responses I'll get to this question are.

Curious blessings



Starfire