Jedi Mind Tricks for Good Mental Health
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
Those words first scrolled across the screen in a small number of theaters on May 25, 1977. It wasn’t long before Star Wars: A New Hope became a sensation that was followed by The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. More movies, TV series (we’ll just overlook the Star Wars Holiday Special, though I remember it being my first peek at Boba Fett), comics, novels and more would follow in the decades to come.
Inspired by westerns, samurai films, and World War II movies, George Lucas and crew created a fanciful modern take on the classic Hero’s Journey. This same narrative device that involves the transformation of an often naïve and unworldly person into a figure that would bring change to the world around them through their struggles and victories can be seen in literature such as The Iliad , The Odyssey, the tales of King Aurthur, or the Mistborn series and other movies like The Hunger Games and Spirited Away.
But Star Wars holds a special place for many as an example of this journey of transformation as well as many pearls of wisdom that people apply to their own lives. I won’t deny there is a special kind of joy when I work with a client who is a fan of fantasy or sci fi, because there’s usually an opportunity to work these fanciful bits of insight into our counseling work.
Perhaps its simply because Star Wars has been around for a long time and has seen more work created over the years, but there are many ideas presented in Star Wars that relate to solid counseling concepts. Here are a few examples.
Mindfulness and Present Focus
In another recent blog post, I shared John Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness as, “paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgement.” This is presented often in Star Wars. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda chastises Luke Skywalker for his lack of present focus, saying,
“All his life he looked away. To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! What he was doing!”
Yoda’s point was that Luke struggled to learn the ways of The Force because he was always mentally elsewhere, even during his training. Anxiety about the future or thoughts about the past can take you out of the life that you’re living right here and right now. Mindful focus on the present can help shift our thoughts away from anxiety and overthinking to engage meaningfully in the life we want to be living.
This is also highlighted by Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn’s advice to Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace when he tells him,
“Don’t center on your anxieties. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs. Be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment.”
Qui-Gon echoes Yoda’s advice to focus on the present, but makes an important addition to the idea of mindful focus. We can be think about the future rather than ignoring it, but anxiety often leads us to focus more on a future that may or may not happen in ways that can cost us in the present.
For example, you may find it difficult to study if you struggle with test anxiety. You sit down to prepare for a test and start to think about when you’ll be taking that test. You imagine yourself sitting there, nervous and sweating. You can picture yourself struggling with the test and your feelings of fear as you see the teacher handing you your test back and seeing a big, red F on it.
Instead of studying, you close your book up and go play video games because you’re so consumed by anxiety that you can’t concentrate. You distract yourself to avoid feeling the unwanted feelings. The work you need to do in the present moment is affected because you got so focused on a future that may or may not happen.
Have you ever noticed how often characters talk about “destiny” in Star Wars like they know what’s going to happen – only then what they predicted didn’t happen?
Anxiety is kind of like that. It tells you, “It is unavoidable. It is your destiny,” only to later be proven completely wrong.
Thoughts and feelings like anxiety have a light side and a dark side. They serve us well, warning us of danger and things we care about - but they can also become our Sith masters if we are not mindful and attuned to the present.
Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness is a powerful ally in the ways of The Force as well as in mental health. The path of the Dark Side of The Force is basically one of getting tangled up in emotions like fear and anger to the point that they lead you blindly along into automatic and unhelpful reactions. Next thing you know, you’re sporting yellow eyes and engaged with a lightsaber duel with your best friend or hurting someone you love - or at least arguing and hurting them with your words and reactions rather than Force powers.
In The Phantom Menace, Anakin meets with the Jedi Council where they consider whether to accept him as a Jedi trainee.
Yoda: Afraid, are you?
Anakin: No, sir.
Yoda: See through you, we can.
Mace Windu: Be mindful of your feelings.
Ki-Adi-Mundi: Your thoughts dwell on your mother.
Anakin (defensively): I miss her.
Yoda: Afraid to lose her, I think. Hmm?
Anakin: What has that got to do with anything?
Yoda: Everything! Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.
One of the tools many of my clients find particularly helpful is called “Noticing and Naming” in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In short, this technique involves mindful focus on the present moment to notice what thoughts or emotions are showing up in you and then giving it a name. This helps you to become more aware of your patterns of thinking and feeling so that you can start to change how you respond to those thoughts and feelings rather than trying to avoid them or make them go away.
For example, if you feel angry because someone corrected your form on your lightsaber technique… or maybe your golf swing or how you write… you might notice what actually lies beneath that anger is a feeling of embarrassment and thoughts like, “I’m no good at this. I’m no good at anything.” So you get defensive as a result and say something you later regret.
With Noticing and Naming, you might tell yourself something like, “I notice I’m having the thought that I’m no good,” or “I notice the feeling of embarrassment.” I personally like to take it a step further based on something I read in Zen in the Vernacular by Peter Coyote and simply name it as, “Embarrassment exists.”
This is a powerful Jedi mind trick that can help you untangle yourself from your thoughts and feelings without trying to stop them, control them, or argue with yourself.
In the scene described above, Anakin was pulled by his fear into reacting angrily to the council members’ comments. Had he paused to notice his fear and even name it, he might have calmed himself enough to admit that, yes, he was afraid to lose his mother rather than try to cover up his feelings with defensiveness.
Behavioral Engagement
Here we come to one of the most often used counseling-related quotes of the entire Star Wars franchise to date. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker notices his spaceship is sinking into the swamp where it crashed earlier in the movie. Yoda uses this as a teaching moment, encouraging Luke to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp using The Force.
Luke is convinced this can’t be done. (If he were to apply Noticing and Naming, he might have told himself, “I notice I’m having doubtful thoughts” as a way to bypass his doubting mind.) Turning to the swamp, he says, “All right. I’ll give it a try.” Yoda then utters that immortal phrase,
“No! Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try.”
While this may sound like a rigid mindset, Yoda is actually onto something. When we attempt to make changes in our life, the idea that we try to do it can actually sabotage our efforts in a couple of ways.
First, telling yourself that you’ll try to do something like breaking a habit can feel half-hearted and prevent you from taking committed action. You might be tempted to make an attempt that is more performance than sincere. For example, if you try to manage feelings of anger with breathing, grounding exercises, and using Noticing and Naming you might take a couple of breaths, look around, and casually say, “Yeah, yeah… you’re darn right I notice anger.”
You may also be assuming your efforts won’t succeed before you even make the attempt. Just like how Luke tried to raise the X-Wing with the assumption that it wouldn’t work, you might try to manage your anger with techniques you’ve already decided won’t work.
In a situation like that, you may just be going through the motions without any sincere commitment to the action. You tell yourself you tried and it didn’t work. You might even decide there’s no use in trying ever again and you’re just a lost cause. This gives you a pass to fall back into familiar old patterns of behaving instead of continuing to challenge yourself.
When you adopt the mentality of “do, or do not” you can make a commitment to making an honest and focused effort.
This leads into the second bit of wisdom behind Yoda’s statement.
When you think about it, trying is doing. So long as you are trying with a spirit of genuine commitment, you are actually doing the thing. But sometimes saying, “I tried,” is a way of protecting the ego when things don’t go as you expect from the very start. This can be especially important if you struggle with perfectionism, which is a form of anxiety focused on always getting things just right to ensure success so you never feel disappointment.
When you first use one of the mental health tools you learn with a therapist, it may not be as successful as you originally hoped. But that’s okay. The act of taking sincere action gives you a place to start and evaluate. The outcome is irrelevant, because you can always learn from your efforts as you reflect on them. What worked well? What didn’t? What needs to be changed to get the results you seek? It’s all helpful insight!
Regardless of your success or failure, sincere effort is always “doing.”
The Power of Intentional Focus
There is a powerful line from The Phantom Menace that is often overlooked when it comes to the wisdom of Star Wars. As Anakin Skywalker and Qui-Gon Jinn are leaving for the planet Naboo, Anakin expresses his fears and doubts about what’s ahead of him after leaving his home planet of Tatooine. Qui-Gon tells him,
“Your focus determines your reality.”
Before going further, I want to highlight that we are not talking about “toxic positivity” here, which is the idea that if you just think positively then everything will be all right. Toxic positivity is its own form of denial and attempt at suppressing unwanted and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
What Qui-Gon Jinn was actually talking about is how you can choose where you put your attention in both the world around you and the world inside of you.
Take Luke Skywalker making an attempt to lift the X-Wing discussed in the previous section. He “tried” and did not succeed. If Luke were struggling with self-doubt, negative thought spirals, and poor confidence he might start to think, “Gah! I suck at this! Why did I have to be the one with these stupid powers?! I can’t do anything right. I should just go back to that hot, dry planet and give all of this up. Sure, I blew up the Death Star, but that was just dumb luck. I stink!”
If that’s where Luke placed his focus then that would determine his reality. It may become a self-fulfilling prophecy and he may very well go back to Tatooine and try to forget The Force and the Rebellion.
But what if Luke were to change his thinking and accept that he finds things challenging but also acknowledges that he’s still learning?
He might shift his thoughts to something like, “Okay, I didn’t really give it my all. This is hard stuff and I’m having to totally change the way I think about things. Sure, I’m struggling right now but I’m still learning. I blew up the Death Star, after all, right? I know the potential is in there somewhere. It’s just going to take time and training to really bring it out.”
Training in the ways of good mental health can be challenging, but worth it.
Putting it All Together
Let’s use another example that’s grounded in this galaxy in the present day.
Say you struggle with social anxiety and low self-esteem and have been invited to a party by someone you know. You might get nervous about going and think to yourself, “I’m so awkward. I don’t know how to talk to people! They’re going to hate me and laugh. I’ll be stuck in a corner with everyone staring at me because I’m such a loser. I’ll always be a loner. It is unavoidable. It is my destiny.”
You focus on those thoughts and decide that is your reality. You cancel your plans and don’t attend. Over time, you turn down more invitations and find yourself more and more alone. Your thoughts did indeed become your reality.
With the Sith, there are always two – you, and the Sith Lord inside your head that tells you these things.
But let’s flip the script and apply those Jedi Mind Tricks we’ve talked about.
Present Focus
Heeding the words of Qui-Gon Jinn to focus on the present, you ground yourself in the here and now with some breathing exercises and mindful focus on where you are. You are not at the party right now. That is in the future. This helps bring you out of the stories your mind is telling you and back to the present.
Emotional Awareness
As you shift your thoughts from the future to the present, you search your feelings and notice your anxiety. You might tell yourself, “I notice I’m having anxious thoughts about the party.” or “I notice fear exists.”
(Bonus points if you do a sci-fi crossover here and use the “Fear is the Mindkiller” mantra from Dune!)
Intentional Focus
You might also use Noticing and Naming with your thoughts and say something like, “I notice I’m telling myself the ‘I’m Awkward’ story.” As you notice all of this, you remind yourself that your focus determines your reality. Instead of getting caught up in your anxious thoughts, you take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
You might tell yourself something like, “I recognize fear exists, and that’s okay. This is a challenge for me, but one I want to take on because social connection is important to me. I’m nervous because I want to make a good impression. I may not be the smoothest talker, but I’m learning. And I can’t learn if I don’t challenge myself. I will know some of the people there, so that can help me feel a little more relaxed.”
Behavioral Activation
Having come into the present, noticed your thoughts and feelings, and chosen your focus you call your friend back and tell them you’d love to go to the party with them. You might even admit you’re nervous so they know to be supportive. You go and make an honest effort to talk with people. You feel a little overwhelmed at times and step out to use some breathing and grounding to help calm your nerves and physical reactions.
Even if you decide to leave early, you put your best effort into it. You didn’t just try to do it, you did it! You learn some things that helped and noticed some areas you still have work to do.
Congratulations. You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.
Do You Seek the Wisdom of the Jedi?
Modern mindfulness-based counseling can help you cultivate your own Jedi Mind Tricks and learn the ways of The Force within you to overcome the challenges you face in life. If you seek Jedi training in Arkansas, MoonPath Counseling, LLC offers online counseling no matter where you are in the state. Use the button below to schedule a free, 20-minute consultation with Master Quinn* or contact them through intergalactic relay (phone, text, or email) to talk more.
*Obviously not an actual title! Just stick with me on the nerdy vibe here.I’d love to know what lines from Star Wars have provided you with guidance in your mental wellness journey. Feel free to share below!