Three of my favorite pearls of truth from the green little awesome guy are:
“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
“Do or do not…there is no try.”
“You will find only what you bring in.”
1. Overcome your fears.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Overcoming our fears is one of the most important things to improve ourselves and grow. If we don’t we will just get stuck. But how do you do it? Well, first, as Yoda says, you have to stop avoiding your fear. You have to think about it and see what you really fear.
After you have brought some clarity to the situation, here are few tips for actually overcoming that fear.
Face your fear.
Maybe this is not what you want to hear, but in my experience and from what I’ve learned from others this is the best way to overcome your fear. And if you have handled a big fear, whatever it may be, and later realize you actually survived it, many things in life you may have feared previously seem to shrink. Those fears become smaller. They might even disappear. You may think to yourself that what you thought was a fear before wasn’t that much to be afraid at all.
Everything is relative. And every triumph, problem, fear and experience becomes bigger or smaller depending on what you compare it to.
Be curious.
A curious frame of mind makes it easier for us to face our fears. When we are stuck in fear we are closed up. We tend to create division on our world and mind. We create barriers between us and other things/people.
When you shift to being curious your perceptions and the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear.
How do you become more curious (are you curious now? Then you already know how)? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you to discover and experience.
All is one.
Our ego wants to divide our world. It wants to create barriers, separation and loves to play the comparison game. The game when people are different compared to us, the game where we are better or worse than someone else. All this creates fear whether you call it unease, anxiety, worry or concern.
Doing the opposite removes fear. Namely, that there is not real separation between beings, that we are one and the same. This might sound bit corny or new agey but it’s been demonstrated by quantum physics that we all come from the same source.
2. Don’t Try Do.
“Do or do not…there is no try.”
When we tell ourselves and/or someone else we will try we are more likely to give up or just stop when the first obstacle shows up.
When you say that you will do something there is more determination and power behind the decision. When the inevitable obstacles that always show up start to block your path you are determined. You will do this. So you find ways over, under, around and through the obstacles. And that’s what you have to do most of the time to actually get things done. Smooth sailing with no problems at all is pretty rare.
By actually making clear choices to do or not to do something—and putting power behind those choices—you are likely to preserve until you succeed.
3. Your world is a reflection of you.
“You will find only what you bring in.”
That’s what Luke is told in “The Empire Strikes Back” (The best of the original series in my opinion) before he goes into the cave on Yoda’s home planet. Inside the cave Luke battles his demons—more specifically an illusion of Darth Vader—and is confronted with his own inner darkness. The darkness he brought into the cave that could pull him over to the dark side if he allowed it to.
I think this is relevant in our world too. We find in our world what we bring into our world. And in your world you can see yourself—your thoughts and behaviors—reflected. By observing the world around you, you gain insights into yourself and what you may need to change.
Because even though there is a big, big world out there with many possibilities and people—in the end change in your life comes down to changing yourself.
It’s very easy to get stuck in thinking that your perspective, the lens though which you view reality is reality itself. But you can’t really see reality. You can only see if filtered through a lens. And the lens is you.
Changing, for example, a negative attitude to a positive one changes how you view yourself and your entire world. But it’s very hard to convince people of this truth. You just have to choose to try another perspective or frame and use it for a month or so. Your old thought patterns may want to draw you back to the comfortable stability of your old view point.
One of our greatest gifts in life is the power to choose. We can choose to see things differently. And when we do all kinds of great things show up to help us move forward.
May the force be with you.
PM in the AM
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