Loving Kindness

     Where to begin??? First of all, I have to admit that I wasn't able to practice the loving kindness exercise until yesterday.  All of last week I was in Canada for my grandmother's funeral and my mom was here through the weekend. I have spent yesterday and today playing catch up in both of my classes. That being said, I did finally get a chance to listen to the Loving Kindness mp3 and found it to be pretty difficult.  I was able to still myself and focus, but I had a hard time actually doing what I was told to do.  I really couldn't seem to 'send loving kindness' to other parts of my body, or to 'observe' my inner thoughts and feelings. The water in the background was very disturbing to me and not at all relaxing.  It actually reminded me of the ocean and I found that I kept feeling cold whenever the water sound would replay. I have found from experience that I prefer to do my meditations in complete quiet, without any background music or noises. I'm not sure if I would recommend this to others simply because I had such a hard time with it.
     To me, mental workout simply means practicing control over your thoughts.  By meditating and focusing our directing our minds on a daily basis we can in turn see progress toward a more complete level of psychospiritual wellness.