May the Force Be with You: 8 Mindfulness Strategies for the Emotional Jedi
The coolest part of Star Wars is the portrayal of a connecting force that binds us to something bigger, to meaning, and to strength. THE Force. Tapping into The Force, translated from lore to life is, hear me out, a well-honed emotional/sensory awareness that beckons us to a place of meaningful connection with ourselves, people around us, and the whole universe.
You might say people with heightened emotional sensitivity have a special aptitude for plugging into The Force. …This, of course, is the other side of the same coin of a special susceptibility to having your emotional wiring sometimes go spectacularly cattywampus.
So, the question is, “How do we harness our emotions to access The Force?” To move in this direction, Emotional Jedi must learn how to connect to their inner wisdom in a calm, present state. Without further ado, let’s dive into these 8 Emotional Jedi mindfulness strategies.
1. Take a Time Outs
A “time out” for mindfulness can be a full-stop, Om chanting, crossed-legged on a meditation pillow, essential oil infused, spa playlist affair. But, more practically, a “time out” can be a walk outside, trip to the office bathroom, or a deep, soft sigh and shift of your awareness to the breath while standing in place prompted by the observation you’ve gotten a little annoyed. Time outs don’t have to overtly interfere with your life. I recommend utilizing time outs of various forms all the time: An undercover “time out” lifestyle to regulate down the high frequency of our lives and create more “space” and calm to enable access to The Force.
2. Get into the Spirit
Imagine your thoughts, feelings, and sensations as though they were the cars of a train. Mindfulness is the spirit of observing with interest and curiosity the cars as they pass. Mindfulness is not jumping on a car, barreling down the track with it, and opening up a whole can of beans. Here, you are limited in what we can observe of the train to the inside of only one car, surrendering emotional perspective and control!
To avoid riding the rails, we must set the intention to move towards the spirit of flexibility, openness, curiosity, and acceptance with regards to our observations. We cannot approach mindfulness with anxiety, impatience, or judgment. I’m not saying don’t ever feel anxious, impatient or judgmental. That’s just gonna happen. Anything less would be insincere. I’m suggesting seeking to step outside of anxiety, impatience, and judgment when they start to carry you off to see if you can take in the full view. Maybe you notice the anxiety, impatience, and judgement and ponder “Oh, that’s interesting. I seem to have a lot of F’s to give about that. I wonder what that’s about…” And then just hang out with that inquiry.
Observing uncomfortable and upsetting things in the spirit of acceptance might seem absurd. I think it does. But time and time again I find the most valuable information in these uncomfortable feelings. Admittedly, sometimes, those places seem too difficult to explore. Sometimes the timing isn’t right. This doesn’t mean we abandon mindfulness. Simply acknowledging the challenge of being with those feelings is a big deal. We can always kindly choose to direct our awareness onto something else. An Emotional Jedi adapts.
3. Steer the Mind
In mindfulness, we gently direct our attention to the sensations, thoughts, or things in our environment. We can choose to steer our minds towards anxieties and sorrows to move towards greater understanding of ourselves, we can also choose to turn the mind towards giving someone a heartfelt hug, or we can choose to turn our mind to performing kick ass karaoke. The discipline of feeling out when and where to best turn the mind to deepen our connection to The Force is key Emotional Jedi training. The mind will wander, the Emotional Jedi practices gently guiding it back over and over and chooses to shift attention as needed.
4. Mind the “Mundane”
It’s said we are not truly living our actual lives when our minds are somewhere besides the place life is being lived at this moment. Sure, there are times to sit with deep feelings and all that but the Emotional Jedi flexes mindfulness as a way of life. The most profound mindfulness is simply being in the right here and now. It’s that thing where whatever your body is doing or experiencing, your mind and soul are also synced to just that thing as well. There is so much in this present moment to experience! Me, I throw my whole self into picking up dog poop. Spotting all the poops in the yard, trying to get all the poo bits into my jaw-clamp-pick-up-tool-thing, feeling the breeze on which all the yard smells are carried. Why would I spoil this meditation with thoughts about something else? I’d be missing out on my own life!
5. Use the Breath to Calm and Ground
Breathing is a life sustaining function that is both controlled at will like the movement of your arms and legs and controlled involuntarily like the beating of your heart. Without thinking about it, your body makes sure you keep breathing. Turning awareness to that breath can be very soothing. Changing the breath by deepening and lengthening inhales and exhales can send a signal for the body to move towards calm. Breath is an ever-ready subject for the mind’s eye to focus on. Its observed pace, sensations, and sounds all have the capacity to evoke calm and soften distractions that pull you away from the here and now. This helps anchor you to the present moment and calms the mind during emotional turbulence and an important tool of the Emotional Jedi.
6. Watch Out for Mindfulness “Fill In’s”
It sometimes happens we slip into the mindfulness Fill In’s: Hypervigilance or dissociation.
Hypervigilance is a heightened alertness and sensitivity to potential threats in one’s environment even in situations where no one or no thing is coming for us. It can be confused for mindful awareness.
Dissociation is a numbing disconnection or detachment from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity. It can be mistaken for the detached observation characteristic of mindfulness.
Hypervigilance and dissociation are a type of bullet proofing to protect us from harm. They are strategies the mind and body adapt to cope with having been hurt before. They help us get through and survive. Thank goodness for them. But connecting to The Force is deeper than survival. It’s about living real and full. After their time, Fill In’s alienate us from feeling and disconnect us from The Force. The question remains, however: How do we distinguish them from mindfulness?
The best way is to check your senses, look to your body and felt experience for information. Mindfulness will move you towards a physical state that is both relaxed and can experience emotions including those that are uncomfortable. To assess where you’re at, try asking yourself “Are my muscles tense or relaxed?,” “Where are the muscles tightened in my body?,” “Does it feel like I’m activated, ‘turned on’ or in a hurry or am I OK being right here as I am?,” “Am I emotionally shut down right now?,” “Are there a lot of thoughts bouncing around explaining stuff that are distracting me from feelings?,” “What sensations am I experiencing emotionally and physically?”
7. Use Mindfulness Guides
Mindfulness is a felt experience. This makes it difficult to explain it well in just words. Unfortunately, Emotional Jedi training is often not a part of our upbringing. I can’t recommend strongly enough that you seek guides to lead you through mindfulness practices: Yoga, spoken guided meditation, martial arts, certain psychotherapy interventions are some. Especially if you’re starting out, the mindfulness experiences created by a guide can help you get to mindfulness and eventually a “muscle memory” you can use on your own.
I have learned a lot about presence by participating in studio yoga classes. Also, Tara Brach has created beautiful content and really meant a lot to me. Some of her meditations can be found on Youtube here.
8. Plan to Practice for a Lifetime
Adopting a mindful lifestyle is not a switch but a discipline practiced over the course of our lives. There will always be more to discover about ourselves and The Force. Those most connected to The Force are the most stunned, baffled, and humbled by what they don’t yet know. So if you feel stunned, baffled, and humbled, this could be an indication you’re on the right track.
Patience and understanding are the Emotional Jedi way. Emotional Jedi cultivate their inner wisdom to navigate the complexities of life with grace and purpose through the practices of mindfulness. The path of the Emotional jedi is one that acknowledges light and dark, joy and sorrow, love and fear, embracing all with courage and compassion. This is the true essence of our humanity, The Force that resides within us all.
