Meridian Magazine :: Bridell's Diet: #36. WOW, Then Thanks, and Then The Bridle Metaphor on a Spiritual Level

DR BRIDELL’S logical and rational & poetic and beautiful & completely guaranteed DIET
#36. WOW, Then Thanks, and Then The Bridle Metaphor on a Spiritual Level
By the Mysterious Dr Bridell

Editor’s note: Wow! Dr. Bridell asked for responses, and you Meridian readers really gave it to him/her. We expected hundreds of requests for the "certain number" of books we said we were setting aside, and instead we are getting thousands. We were at 2100 and counting on Tuesday. As Dr. Bridell said, we will accept all requests until October 15, so if you have not sent your name and e mail address, you have until midnight on Sunday to get it in to DrBridell@meridianmagazine.com.

As we said last week, if the number of requests is larger than the number of free books set aside (250) we will have a drawing. Well, the bad news is that the number of requests will end up being more than ten times as high as the free books available. But here is the good news. Dr Bridell wants everyone who submits their name to have the book, so he/she has instructed that those who have their requests in by the 15th and do not win the drawing will be able to get the book at the author’s discount of 40%, and Dr Bridell will do this for everyone who sends their request, no matter how many there are. He/she gives details below. Because of your enthusiastic response, the good Doctor has added to the conclusions of the column, and there will be two more Friday editions (after this one) to finish the series.

First of All

All I can say is THANKS for your tremendous response. Thousands of you have requested a copy of the first edition, and, as mentioned above, we will get a copy to everyone who has submitted a request by the 15^th — either in the form of a free book for those who win the drawing, or in the form of a book at my author's discount of 40%.

Publishing takes time, and the book will not be available until next year, but we will hold the drawing before the end of the month, and all of you who have submitted will receive an e mail informing you whether you are a drawing winner or one who can get the book at the 40% discount. Everyone who submits will receive one or the other. If you still need to put your name on the list, click here DrBridell@meridianmagazine.com and send your request by midnight on the 15th.

Whether you are a drawing winner or an author's discount receiver, the only effort required on your part is that we may ask you to send a stamped, self addressed envelope so that there will be no mistakes or glitches in getting the books right out to you promptly once they are printed.

Now, as we alluded to earlier, everything about this book will be unique. It will include all that has been in the columns and a substantial amount more, and some of that "more" will be from you. As your e mails have poured in this last week, they have included not only an abundance of testimonials (of how much weight you have lost and how much better you feel — and also of the spiritual benefits and the effect the "diet" has had on your other appetites) but a lot of great ideas on how you have personally implemented various principles of the diet. These, along with some additional ideas and findings of my own will go into the book.

And another interesting thing: Because the book will be for everyone (since its principles are universal), we will also be printing a special "LDS supplement" that will connect the whole approach directly to the Word of Wisdom and give additional insights to LDS readers that might not be understood by the general public.

Don't misunderstand. The book itself will be highly spiritual in nature and will include everything that has appeared here on Meridian, but there will be additional insights and doctrinally related material, especially on the spiritual part of the diet, which will be in the LDS supplement. Everyone who has submitted their name (whether they win the drawing or order at the 40% authors discount) will get both the book and the supplement.

Another way the book will be unique will be in its distribution. It will be available in bookstores, but that will not be the only way to get it. There may be ways for those who wish to do some of the distribution themselves. I would like this book to circulate in personal ways — with someone who has it and lives it introducing it to his or her friends and family. I will mention more on this in the final column in two weeks.

But enough of these logistics! Let’s get back to the diet and to how the bridle metaphor applies (or doesn't apply) to the spiritual diet.

Now, on to Today’s Column

Back in column 23, when we were on the mental diet, I revealed how (and why) I became "Dr. Bridell":

Pseudonyms are great, especially when they contain symbols. I became Dr. Bridell simply because the objective of this column is to find the secrets of bridling our appetites and passions. The bridle metaphor, particularly for those of us who love horses, is perfect.

We put bits in the horses mouths,” said James, an apostle of the New Testament, “that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body.” To become “perfect men,” he said, we must be “able also to bridle” our bodies, our expressions, our appetites. And Alma made the beautiful and provocative statement, “See that ye bridle your passions that ye may be filled with love.”

And further back, in column 11 while we were on the physical diet, we also said:

One reason the horse is such a perfect metaphor is that horses are extraordinary, remarkable and beautiful creatures than can serve us in ways that are exciting and thrilling as well as useful. There is nothing quite like a horse at full gallop, especially if you are on its back, moving with it and feeling its grace and power.

One of the great gifts of mortality is our passions and our appetites. These are not things we should want to kill or to medicate out of our lives. They are not our enemies but our energies. They can be our motivators rather than our masters, and a thrill to ride rather than a threat to ruin.

But only with the bridle! Until we put the bit of our own control between the teeth of our urges and instincts, these appetites can injure us, wound our destiny, and throw us off the path of our dreams and our goals.

The last thing we should want to do with our appetite for food, or for sex, or for any of God's gifts is too dull it, to subdue it, to tie it up or hobble it so it loses its beauty and strength and passion, or to kill it. (This is why things like vows of celibacy are such tragedies.) Rather, we should bridle it, harness it, control it to work with us and for us instead of on us and against us.

Your brain is the bridle, and your mental commitment to eat half as much and twice as slow is the bit that can gradually come to feel natural and accepted in the mouth!"

The Mental diet took the metaphor even further:

Your brain is the bridle." Let's explore that idea further — the brain controlling the body like a bridle controls a horse. Work the metaphor a little deeper: Just having a bridle (or a brain) is not enough. We must learn how to use it to control the horse (appetite). We must practice and learn the skills of riding and develop the strength of will that puts us in charge. Then and only then does the horse or the appetite serve us and give us joy. Each column in the physical diet was on an idea or technique or practice that can give us a better bridle and more skill in using it to control the food appetite. And each of those methods, from sipping and savoring to fasting to poetic awareness can help us learn to bridle all of our other physical and mental appetites as well.

With discipline and the will that is gained through practice and effort, we lift ourselves higher toward Peace and Joy; without it, we plummet toward Obsessions that lead to Addictions and other kinds of Death.

So what is at stake? Everything. Animals fulfill the measure of their creation by following their instincts, urges, and appetites. Humans fulfill the measure of their creation by controlling theirs.

And the difference is the bridle!

Like the little transformer toys that kids play with, which — with a few twists and rotations — go from a man to a spaceship or a race car, we can transform our passions from dangerous (to ourselves and to others) masters to obedient and highly beneficial (and joy-giving) servants.

You already have the bridle. God has given it to each of us just as He has given us the horse. It is up to us to use it. It is up to us to learn to ride!

Bridle them and hold them in check, making them serve our will and give us joy rather than carrying us away.
Cultivate and develop our Spiritual Appetites to the point that they supersede our physical and mental appetites.

As we have discussed before, our Spiritual Appetites need no bridle. They are a different kind of horse that we can totally trust and that will always take us home. (You horse people know that no matter how lost you are, your horse always knows how to get home.)

With spiritual appetites (remember, spiritual appetites are for scripture, for prayer, for peace, for insight to the mind and will of God) there is no excess, no way to "gulp and guzzle." Rather, we "feast" and can never reach the point of too much. We trust this horse to give us line upon line, to take us as far as we can go on any given day, to take us past, or over, or around, or through whatever dangers or challenges lie in the path.

The physical and mental horses still live in our pasture, and we must ride them too because we own them and we love them and we appreciate what they can do for us. We ride them always with a bridle, and always in control, and we are filled with more and more love and over time they become better and more manageable horses because they are ridden well and because they share the same pasture with the Spiritual horse (which we do not own, but over which we are stewards). Somehow though, even as we love and enjoy and use the mental and physical horses more, we long to spend more and more time riding bareback and without reins or bridle on the Spiritual horse.

Over time, as we nurture and magnify the spiritual horse, we begin to learn how to become "horse whisperers" who can communicate constantly and with perfect understanding. Unlike the physical and mental horses, who we keep always under our watchful control, the Spiritual horse has complete freedom, because we trust it even more than we trust ourselves. Thus it reveals things to us, drawing us toward its true owner, and giving us guidance as to how to handle the other two horses.

We learn that if we ride the spiritual horse first each morning and last each night, the other horses behave better during the day. We learn that whenever we are riding the spiritual horse, the other two follow along obediently, giving us no trouble whatsoever.

We take some criticism for riding the spiritual horse. Some say we are extremists, and that we are a little strange, like the horse we ride. They say that they are not even sure that what we are riding is a horse, because it looks different and acts different. Some even make fun of the horse and of us when we are riding it.

We begin to notice that the spiritual horse really is different, and gradually we realize that it is actually not a horse at all, but a unicorn! We tell others that and they scoff, assuring us that there is no such thing as a unicorn, and that we are only imagining things. "Give up on this crazy idea," they tell us. "There are no unicorns, and if there was, you certainly couldn't ride it bareback, so come back to riding regular horses like the rest of us, and don't be so strict with the bridle. Let the regular horses have their head once in a while and live a little."

But by now we know that the unicorn is real and that we can trust it and ride it bridleless and that it will take us to the right destination and give us joy all along the way. We long to meet its Owner. We even get the idea that if we could take along the other two horses that, with the Owner's help, we could turn them into unicorns too.

See you next Friday when we will review the principles and practices of the Spiritual Diet.

Write to (or submit your book requests by midnight on the 15th) to Dr. Bridell at DrBridell@meridianmagazine.com.