hey there everybody and welcome to this video on yoda's 12 rules for living
i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes practices for a rich and meaningful life can be found in a variety
of different doctrines including that of the jedi some of the quotes that i'm using
come from the movies some from the books there are many others that are also worth pondering
not everyone embraces a particular doctrine so sometimes looking to popular culture can
provide a non-threatening way to begin to approach topics and find common ground
i encourage you as you go through these quotes to explore your life doctrine
and identify ways it's similar to other doctrines including that of the jedi
rules for life and these are not in any particular order number one anger fear and aggression
the dark side of the force are they easily they flow quick to join you in a fight if
once you start down the dark path forever it will dominate your destiny consume you
it will here yoda's really talking about the challenges of anger anger is a feeling feelings
are okay feelings are good they're motivating you to get up and look and see if there's a problem
and if so make a decision about how to address it to improve the next moment anger
fear and aggression are not meant to be held on to not meant to be nurtured when you hold on to those
it takes a lot of energy and sometimes i refer to anger and fear as the dog poop of the soul
because it's kind of like that when you hold on to anger it's kind of like carrying around a smelly
bag of dog poop with you and eventually it starts to repel people and it probably is
going to make you feel somewhat unpleasant so anger and fear are emotions emotions are good
anger and fear are designed to motivate you to do something positive to help you move
toward your rich and meaningful life number two named must your fear be before banish it you can
oh this is mindful awareness 101 we cannot improve the next moment we cannot address whatever's
triggering our fear our anger our sense of threat until we identify what it is we've got to be
mindful and be willing to step back and take a look and say what's making me feel this way
once you've done that then you can figure out all right now what do i do about it
number three you will know the good from the bad when you are calm and at peace i've talked
about this in a lot of other videos that i've done when we are in fight or flight
we are being doused in adrenaline if you will and it's difficult to engage our executive
reasoning system when you're in fight or flight you are in defense mode in order to
know the good from the bad in order to be able to name your fear in order to be able to
identify your options for handling the situation to improve the next moment it's essential that
you first get out of that adrenaline haze get into your wise mind your calm mind so you can
better assess what's going on truly how wonderful the mind of a child is i love this quote children
are curious they ask a lot of why questions they don't assume they know the answers they don't pass
judgments they just take things that face value they are wide-eyed they haven't experienced
all the things that we have so they are just drinking in everything and we lose that for
some reason as we get older we stop being as mindful being as aware and using that beginner's
mind that mind that says maybe i don't know everything maybe i could learn something here
five a jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense never for attack it's important to be
prudent in what we do when we are aware of what's going on we can choose to take steps
to protect ourselves to keep ourselves safe but a lot of times attack means invading someone else's
space invading someone else's boundaries so what we want to do is keep our own safe space and allow
other people to have their safe space number six a decision is yours alone to make yet remember
you should you should that you make it also for the silent ones who stand at your shoulder
when we make decisions it impacts all of those around us when we make decisions about what we're
going to do today when we make decisions about how we're going to handle a situation when we make a
decision about whether we're going to scream at somebody or we're going to take a breath
and handle it more assertively all of those things often have at least tangential impacts
on the people around us so it's important that we recognize that we are empowered to make decisions
however every decision we make will affect other people at least
slightly so we want to consider in the big scheme of things is this decision going to
help me achieve my rich and meaningful life and is it going to help those that are important to me
number seven if no mistake have you made yet losing you are a different game you should play
sometimes we get so caught up trying to do the same thing and sometimes they refer to
it as banging your head into a wall you are continually repeating the same thing
and continually failing and you continue to repeat the same thing again thinking that
maybe this time it'll work and yoda's point here is that if it didn't work the first time probably
not going to work the 21st time so maybe you need to step back and examine exactly what's going on
maybe for example let's take that wall instead of trying to go through the wall which is
obviously not working maybe stepping back and thinking all right instead of trying to figure
out how to get through the wall maybe i should try to figure out how to get over it or around it
so sometimes it's about perspective and in recovery one of the things they say
is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results so sort of the same thing here number eight
when you look at the dark side careful you must be for the dark side looks back and that's true
we look at everything but our enemies if you will the threats and they are they do exist we don't
live in a complete utopia um they're sizing us up they're trying to figure out how can i
manipulate the situation so it's important when you look at the dark side whether it is evil
whether it is anger whether it is anxiety when you're looking at that it's important to remember
that it can come back at you and this is one place where jealousy and envy can be very um toxic
they can be very inspiring sometimes we see people that have things that we want like
the power of the force but we don't have them and when we are consumed with envy and
jealousy a lot of times we don't make good decisions and we can be easily led astray
number nine a jedi always sought to avoid a conflict infinitely more ways there are to
reach a goal try them are you should keep an open mind not every door is meant to be walked through
not every solution is going to work for every person it's important to be aware of the fact
that there are many ways to reach the same goal and sometimes if you're both going in the same
direction and one person wants to do one thing and the other person wants to do something else
sometimes it's worth compromise because ultimately you're going to get to the same place even if you
don't do it your way sometimes your way is not as important as actually getting to the goal
10 never step in the same river twice you can each time the river hurries on each time he that steps
has changed so true every day changes us just a little bit
every experience we have changes us just a little bit so the person that you were
a moment ago is not the exact same person as you are right now your mind has changed your thoughts
have changed a little bit your body has changed some cells have died some cells have renewed
you are not the same person you were a few minutes ago so it's important to remember when you engage
in situations no two situations are ever exactly the same so it's important to be mindful of
what is going on in this moment what are the facts in this context at this point in time
11 pass on what you have learned strength mastery but weakness folly failure also yes failure most
of all the greatest teacher failure is i love this quote because so many of us get hung up
on failure we hate to fail and we certainly don't want to tell people about when we failed
but some of the greatest lessons can come from hearing how people have failed made mistakes
and overcome them learned from them we can learn a lot more by seeing someone's process
than necessarily by just seeing the end point this is what i know all right well how do you know it
well let me tell you how i got there so it is important to help people
understand you know what was the process that you went through what was the experience
that you went through that helped you arrive at this piece of knowledge at this place
and number 12 you must unlearn what you have learned so true every time we experience something
we learn from it we create a memory but it's important to remember that
everything changes so what was accurate what was helpful what was on point six months ago may not
be accurate helpful and on point now likewise we tend sometimes tend to learn bad habits
and we can unlearn those but we do need to update our schema if you will update our expectations
based on the current facts and the current context in the situation and not
assume that we know exactly what's going to happen or exactly how someone's going to react
as i said yoda had a lot of wisdom that he imparted throughout the books and the movies
and there are a bunch of bunch more rules for life but this gives you 12 to kind of think about
think about what they mean to you you may have a different interpretation than i do but think about
how if you embrace some of these rules it can help you reduce wasted energy it can help you
free up energy to devote to to those things that are important in your rich and meaningful life