One of my favorite things about learning anything new is looking around the world with the light of a new perspective and seeing that what you’ve just learned had been there all the time, or had been taught to you before. A case in point for me is the mindfulness of Yoda. Sure, I always appreciated his wisdom, the obvious contrast of his stature to his power as a Jedi master, and the subtle humor and childishness he would flash at times. I’ve always especially liked his instruction to “do, or do not. There is no try.” Today while exploring mindfulness, Yoda has been visiting me often. Like a parent or an old friend, I have Yoda’s words popping into my mind all the time. I find myself thinking “wow, Yoda said something just like that.”

I’ve put together a little list of some of Yoda’s more awesome quotes.

You will know…when you are calm, at peace. Passive.
Fear is the path to the dark side.

“Fear is the path to the dark side” – Yoda

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.
All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing!
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
Already know you, that which you need.
Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.
Oh. Great warrior. Wars not make one great.
To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not.
Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.
You must unlearn what you have learned.

Whatever you may think of Star Wars, you gotta admit Yoda is awesome, right?!

That last one I really like, because in many ways I see mindfulness as a whole lot of unlearning. So many of the patterns I’m starting to see in my thought need to be unlearned before I can reclaim my grey matter. I need to unlearn the habit if letting my stories move me out of the moment all the time. I need to unlearn the judging of everything I perceive, and instead learn to first accept and experience life as it unfolds. I need to unlearn the making of assumptions while communicating, and instead learn to tune in to what is being said, and to the person saying it. And of course I need to unlearn all the behaviors that only serve my ego.

It sounds like a lot when I write it down, but I’m starting to believe that every bit of it starts with being present. All the problem behaviors, my anxiety, fear, anger. They all just fall away when I’m truly staying in the moment. So lets start with that.

May you be well, happy, and peaceful today.

Walking my dog around the block this morning, I tried, as always, to enjoy the moment and to stop myself from pulling my little friend around. That’s a tough job though, because as a terrier, she naturally has extremely strong “opinions.” In fact, we walk her with a harness instead of just a leash because she pulls so much that she would hurt her neck otherwise. This morning, as usual, I had only about ten minutes to devote to the walk, so I was trying to get her at least a block down the road (why going some distance seemed important is a question for another time). But when I tried to encourage her to move up the street, she pulled back on the leash like she wanted to go home. So I walked around her and tried moving her back toward the house, only she didn’t want to go that way either. So I tried to get her to move out into the street, only to have her pull me toward the curb. Once I allowed her to go to the curb, she quickly changed her mind and pulled back toward the center of the road. It seemed we were at an impasse.

I’m going anywhere you’re NOT going!!

So I stood there wondering – why doesn’t she ever just go along with me? Why does she always resist my every movement?

As she pulled away from me once more, this time back toward the curb, I started paying more attention. First I relaxed the leash a bit, and she took the inch I gave. So I gave her a little more, and she took that too. It seemed she was just desperate to get to the curb, her body in a full lean-away stance. Her neck was straight, with her muzzle nearly kissing the pavement, her front legs were straightened and dug in like we were playing tug of war, and her back legs were bent low for maximum torque. But where was she going?

So I gave in to her. I let the leash go slack. After nearly rolling backward, she regained her balance, forgot about going to the curb, and looked up at me with a confused head tilt.

At that moment, two things dawned on me:

1. She just doesn’t want to be told what to do
2. Neither do I

Seeing this obvious similarity made me wonder just how much energy I waste doing what she was doing (albeit in perhaps a slightly less obvious way). How much do I resist the events and things around me just because they aren’t what I have chosen? I suspect it’s a lot. And I also suspect that I have subtle ways of convincing myself that I’m justified in my resistance.

So today I’m going to stop myself before I say “but” when replying to a colleague at work. And I’m going to ask myself – what is the reason I  have in resisting what was just said? Is it my unshakable need to be right coming out again? And about that – how much of my need to be right is actually the need to have been the one who said it first?

Am I alone here? Is anybody else pushing back just for the sake of pushing?

Lastly, when I figure this out, can I re-purpose those CPU cycles into something more productive, like getting this blog off the ground???

Thanks for reading. May you be well, happy, and peaceful today.