How to put your soul on a diet


by Rabbi Goldman - Date: 2007-01-23 - Word Count: 999 Share This!

Several years ago the floating trophy on the dieting circuit was held by The Zone Diet conceived by Dr. Barry Sears. The Zone intrigued me, not so much because I was interested in losing weight, but because it adopted a rigorously scientific approach to achieving optimum physical performance. In particular, it bucked the trend of dumbing down the instructions to make it user-friendly, and instead required the prospective dieter to bring out the measuring tape and start fiddling around with mathematical formulas and ratios. Was the public put off? Well, you'd know the answer by taking a look at the New York Times bestseller list.

It occurred to me some time later that if so many people were enticed to put all that effort into preserving their physical health, surely they would want to work just as hard at preserving their metaphysical health - at controlling their intake of all the media imagery and commercial hype invading the modern mind. So I developed The Soul Diet: Ten Steps towards Metaphysical Health. Dieting for the soul or the mind would also entail a structured, pragmatic plan to make our inner selves function smoothly and cleanly without being sidetracked by "spiritual junk food."

It took a lot of work but The Soul Diet is finally here. There are ten essential steps to this diet, which takes approximately nine weeks to complete:

1. The Media Fast.

The unthinkable (for some) is right up there at number one. For two whole weeks the Soul Dieter will go cold turkey on the news, prime-time shows, sitcoms, internet videos, blogs, forums and all things cable, satellite, virtual and cyber - all that drowns out, diffuses and clogs the mind so that we cannot think straight. Even email (gasp) is rationed to once a day, because doing email is like eating the harmless little crumbs scattered around the cheesecake: "Well, while I'm about it, would it be so terrible if I took just a nibble out of this delicious looking web site?"

Obviously where business calls for an umbilical connection to certain electronic sources, many of the above restrictions won't apply. But even so, any dieter knows that cheating on a diet is only cheating oneself and if there is an opportunity, even in the workplace, to cut down on any unnecessary stimuli, one should grab it.

2. The Schedule Slimming.

As the name implies, this step asks us to curb our tight schedules, packed so because there is just so much going on, so much to do, so much more than ever before - just another symptom of the deluge of extraneous information out there that aims to enlighten but ends up stifling. A Schedule Slimming enables us to step back and evaluate just how we spend our week, and helps us to actualize those very important activities that have been relegated to the "garage" of our minds. This period also lasts two weeks and can be undertaken concurrently with the Media Fast.

3. The Ledger.
This is where the accountant in us springs to action, working with the "debts and credits" of the mind and tabulating everything in a very large chart that I have called The Satellite Map. I really enjoy showing people this map because at first glance it looks like a cross-section of a silicone chip, but in reality it is nothing more than a daily progress chart that monitors our successes and failures at each point in the diet. It is a satellite map in the sense that it enables a birds-eye-view of the mind. I have always found it helpful to see how a myriad details come together in one unit and so, in my workshops, I hand out this very large sheet of paper ready for people to fill in as they make their way through the diet. To download segments of the map at no cost, see the contact information below.

The remaining steps of the diet all involve defining, with acute clarity, exactly what are our personal challenges. This is perhaps the most distinguishing feature of The Soul Diet - that clarity will come, not from eliminating our challenges, but from defining clearly what they are. Now that we have done a Media Fast and a Schedule Slimming we can much more clearly and effectively understand our challenges which are all represented on our large Satellite Map. The dieter works on each of these steps one week at a time.

4. Order and Fitness

Recognizing that internal order begins with external order and at the same time recognizing that one can have an unhealthy obsession with order and fitness at the expense of other important things.

5. Anger Control

Identifying root causes of our anger so that we can understand it more clearly.

6. Speech Control

Discerning the difference between healthy and unhealthy speech and just how much it affects us and others around us.

7. The Giving Factor

Recognizing to what extent our egos determine our motivations, and understanding the vastness of altruistic application.

8. Intimacy

Zeroing in on a core understanding of the most confounding physical urge so that we can better navigate our relationships.

9. Goal Control

Understanding that goal-setting must follow only after completing all these steps so that we don't set goals that compromise our principles and the principles of those around us.
10. The Happy Factor.

Making a clear distinction between external superficial happiness, which is only temporal, and inner happiness which takes a lot of work but is infinite.

These ten steps towards Metaphysical Health tackle the very depths of the mind, soul and spirit, helping us to hunt for clarity in all that makes us tick. I hope that you are able to find clarity with these tools. Happy hunting and happy dieting.

Rabbi Yitzchak Goldman serves as speaker and outreach coordinator for the Seattle Kollel, an institute for the promotion of Jewish learning and experience. He is the author of two allegorical novels (Targum/ Feldheim); has taught many adult and youth groups and has been the featured speaker at events across the Northwest. The Soul Diet is his latest work and can be viewed at http://www.souldiet.com






Related Tags: diet, book, soul, hype, media, steps, overwhelmed, clarity, practical, direction, confused

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