In Episode 3 of the epic Star Wars saga (the one where Anakin turns into Darth Vader), there’s a precious scene where he goes to Yoda for advice. On his love life.
Yep, it turns out just as how most shaykhs, imams, rabbis and priests, spend half their time answering questions about love and marriage… Jedi Masters are the same way.
At this point, aside from a few angry impulses, his main issue is that he’s in love with Padme and the Jedi aren’t meant to get married so he did it secretly. Also, he keeps having scary, insecure dreams where he loses her and she dies.
He doesn’t say any of this to Yoda – people often don’t open up properly to their spiritual advisors – but Jedi Master Yoda somehow gives him the perfect gem of advice.
This spiritual wisdom from Yoda is great advice for all of us who ever get fearful or insecure of future outcomes or losing what we’ve got…
Yoda’s advice:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Brilliant.
And, if Anakin took that advice (which probably seemed theoretical and unrealistic to him at the time), his life would have turned out a lot better…
- He would have dropped all his fears, doubts and insecurities about Padme Amidala and had a wonderful relationship
- He would have got to see his twins grow up and had the joys of being a #TwinDad that I’m now experiencing… in fact, my guy would probably have been changing nappies using the Force.
- He would have been a much better husband and father without all that neediness, expectation and attachment he had to Padme (and presumably his kids)
- He could have quit living a double life, levelled with the Jedi Council, and been a Jedi not on the council (like Quai Gon Jin)… or ended his Jedi training and been a renegade do-gooder with the skills of a Jedi, but none of their restrictions (Think: Mandalorian but with Jedi skills)… or just carried on being a Jedi (given that his wife died anyway) and put his kids in Jedi-school from a young age, raising the greatest family of Jedi masters ever.
- He wouldn’t have lost anything that he didn’t lose anyway – Padme died so his attachment to her didn’t help anyone – it just drove them apart right before it happened.
- The Emperor probably wouldn’t have beaten the Jedi without Darth Vader, so just by sorting his head out and straightening his love life out, Anakin could have saved the Galaxy. (Talk about inner-change leading to outer-change!)
- And, in all likelihood, addressing this inner-conflict is the ONE thing he needed in order to master himself and progress much further on the Jedi path, with spiritual mentors like Yoda and Obi Wan guiding him along the way – to the point where he could have become the ultimate, most powerful, most spiritually connected Jedi, who surpassed his teachers.
Granted, if all this happened, he would have lived a much happier, less angry, and all-round more drama-free life.
Which wouldn’t have made for great cinema.
But it would have been amazing for him!
Now the important question for you, young Padawan:
How do you actually implement and live by Yoda’s advice…
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”.
There’s only one way I know of that has proven to work for me and thousands of my clients and students over the years.
The training required is what I now call: “The Psychological Switch”.
So grab your lightsabre and head on over to the early notification list so you get a huge discount on your Jedi training when it opens up:
