3 Dangerous Mindsets You Need To Avoid

Star wars is often referred to as a classic good versus evil story, and it's easy to see why when you have bad Sith characters that say and do things like this. Opposing the Sith are the Jedi, who seem like the obvious good guys, but if you dig into their belief system, there are serious problems in the mindsets that they promote. In fact, you could say that it is the Jedi teachings that ultimately lead people like Anakin Skywalker to breaking and turning totally evil. That's why in this video, I want to break down the biggest flaws in the Jedi teachings, because you may have unthinkingly adopted these good guy teachings that can actually wind up destroying your life. First off in the list of destructive mindsets is that the Jedi Order seem to expect emotional neutrality from their disciples. They do not admit that even the Jedi feel fear. Instead, they frame fear as an emotion that will inevitably lead to violence and suffering.

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.

Anakin internalizes this and learns to hide his obvious fear for his mother. He knows that his fears make him a bad Jedi, so he pretends to be emotionally blank.

You had another nightmare last night. Jedi don't have nightmares. I heard you.

Which brings me to my second point, which is that the Jedi present the emotions that lead to the dark side and the dark side itself as permanent states of being. One slip into fear and the dark side has you forever. Yoda even says so.

Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side of the force array. Easily they flow. Welcome to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

But this obviously isn't true. Luke struggles with dark side temptations and doesn't give in. Vader flips back. At the end of his life, even the honorable Mace Windu decides he'll just go ahead and break the law to kill Palpatine. The point is that the emotions that lead to the dark side are clearly not permanent or forever damning. But the Jedi are so anti those emotions that paradoxically, they create a culture of fear around being afraid. That just serves to compound negative emotions more. Which is exactly what Anakin Skywalker experiences. He hates the Sand People who killed his mother and then hates himself for feeling those things that he isn't supposed to.

To be angry is to be human. I'm a Jedi. I know I'm better than this.

And that brings me to my third point, and the worst thing that the Jedi do In the name of the light, that is that they advise not feeling as a method of resisting the dark side. Not Obi Wan states it flat out.

Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit, but they couldn't be made to serve the emperor.

Anakin took this advice to heart and was able to bury his feelings deep down for many years. But sporadic outbursts from him show that burying is not the same as handling feelings appropriately. Eventually, Anakin's fear, hate and self loathing couldn't be hidden anymore and they boiled over, creating Darth Vader. This three point strategy of first, pretending to have no negative or conflicting feelings, second, exaggerating the permanence of undesirable emotions, and then third, shutting down your feelings as a method of resisting the dark side is actually what drives Anakin to the dark side. He had no outlet to properly express the conflict that he felt inside, so he kept it to himself. Then it bubbled over. He committed these horrible atrocities and gave in totally. It's not that the dark side was so wonderful, but that the light side was so messed up. Now this is a charisma YouTube channel, so I want to take this back to your life and take social anxiety as an example. Imagining that you tried to handle it like a Jedi, which is actually what many people do. So first you would pretend that you have no conflicting feelings. You pretend that you are always confident, all the time in all situations. Maybe you'll pretend so well that you'll even convince a few other people. Then exaggerate the severity of any undesirable emotions. So anytime that you feel a hint of social anxiety, think of yourself as a failure and a coward. Tell no one though, because that would make you weak. Lastly, shut down all those feelings of social feeling completely. Bury them deep down, as Obi Wan says. Now what do you suppose would happen to a person who did that? For a while, this person would probably be able to hold it together and they'd keep that facade of confidence, but on the inside they probably feel a little bit like a fraud and they'd push that feeling down too. Eventually those feelings would probably become too much for them to handle and they'd start to self sabotage in various areas of their life because at a deep level they didn't feel authentic. Other people might think things were working, but they'd know the truth. And this is what so many people do, despite the fact that it is obviously a counterproductive strategy. Same as it was for Anakin in the movies. So what is the answer when it comes to Feelings that are negative, like social anxiety. First, accept and admit your conflicting feelings. There are situations in which you might feel anxious, sometimes welcome to being human. Second, accept that those feelings of anxiety are not permanent and they never have been. In fact, sometimes by leaning into your fear, doing things that made you feel afraid, you found that it wasn't so bad. In mentally digging into your own anxiety and asking, why am I afraid? What's the thing that I'm trying to avoid doing? Deep down, you don't necessarily need to indulge in these things, but by inquiring more into it, you actually make that fear dissipate. Third is to allow yourself to fully experience whatever emotion you don't want. Now, it's cliche, but what you resist persists. So take some time, just a little, to really feel how the anxiety affects every part of your body, from your breathing to maybe even your trembling hands, to your racing thoughts. Whatever. When you just allow yourself to have this experience of being afraid, it washes over you. You, usually in short order. And oddly enough, you are left with this sense of calm because you just experienced the worst thing possible. To reiterate, you don't have to dwell on it, just give yourself a moment or two to experience that thing that you're avoiding. And starting from a baseline of acceptance of any and all feelings that you have, you can actually begin to shift them. And that's really the point. You have to be honest about how you feel in order to change how you feel. Now, without realizing this, I kind of explained a similar technique way back about a year ago in one of my more popular videos, and I'll link to that so you can check it out. So this video is really to make one simple but very important point. If there's an emotion in your life that you don't want, denying it and fighting it from the get go will make it grow in subtle but profound ways. You actually wind up thinking more about how to avoid it, which keeps it constantly in your focus and creates more of it in your life. Instead, try allowing that feeling. Feel it, experience it, and then you can actually let it go and focus on the feeling you'd like to feel instead. That's when you can change. It works with all feelings, from anger to anxiety, you name it. To be clear, I'm not saying you have to live in the negative, but you will have to actually allow yourself to experience it for a moment. Now, I cover this and much more in my new Emotional Mastery course, which I'm going to be launching next week. And if you're interested in that you can sign up to receive some emails about what is included in the description. If you want more videos, I'm going to be doing Jordan Peterson and a Draw My Life in the month of January based on your guys votes in the Community tab. Thank you for those, so make sure to subscribe and check out the Community tab where we're going to be doing more voting for upcoming contests and giveaways of one on one coaching in the next month or so. So hit the notification bell too to not miss out on any of what we have coming. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.