The Force

I was seven when the first Star Wars movie came out. I saw it in the theater. Yesterday, I saw the last one in the theater at age fifty. Let’s just get this out of the way- I love Star Wars. It’s not so much with a geeky obsession (although I certainly understand where that impetus comes from), but more out of reverence. I remember the first one clearly opening up my sense of what was what not only in our Universe at large, but within me. I felt validated and seen somehow. It’s that sense that we all have when we are younger that something magical is going on here, before we manage to reduce it and ourselves to something less than. The Force, from our more primordial state, is somehow not quite so fictional, or remote and unreachable as the case may be. I think Star Wars is so beloved because it reminds us of what we inherently know when we are not busy covering ourselves up. Regardless of how old we are when we see a Star Wars movie, we exit with a greater sense of who we are and what is possible.

As you might imagine if you have read enough of this blog, the Force is not only a real thing for me, it is The Thing. Star Wars explains it as the universal energy that connects all living beings. I often simply refer to it as God. George Lucas would, I believe, say the same. He brilliantly took the concept out of all religious and contextual language referring to God so that we might see it anew… without defaulting to argument. He succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination at showing us that we all, regardless of culture or religion, believe in the same, well… Force… even if we describe it differently. When we strip away the layers of dogma that we are all buried in, we intuitively and naturally just know. The proof is in the stories that we tell. Be they fiction or non-fiction, they are based in reality as we understand it. I might argue that fiction generally does a better job at revealing that reality because it doesn’t get hung up by the rational mind. I think in the case of Star Wars, it has over the course of its unfolding reached into a depth of understanding that we hardly knew was there when it started.

So, yes, the Force is the field of energy that supports all of life. It is just another name for Prana, Chi, Ki, or Universal Energy. Yet I take it a step further to say that it is life itself, that there is no differentiation between matter and energy. Our science now supports that assertion. Even if Star Wars doesn’t take it that far, it is a great entry point nonetheless. By the way I just have to say this. Yoda is my favorite! That artwork above is hanging on our wall. And, yes, I did in fact wear my Yoda t-shirt to the movie yesterday. O.K., maybe I’m a little geeky. I’ll admit it! My brother and I also played religiously with our Star Wars action figures when we were kids. When we were kids, people! We were kids!!

Speaking of kids, I took my daughters to see their first Star Wars movie when they were kids. I remember wanting to share that same sense of opening and possibility with them as I had experienced when I was a kid. My eldest daughter Madison also went to see the Rise of Skywalker this week. She texted me to say “I think I love Star Wars so much because of you taking us to Tinseltown a long time ago to see either Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, can’t remember which episode exactly.” You see, it’s a family thing this Star Wars business. It’s about mothers and daughters and fathers and sons. I have watched as both of my daughters have fiercely wielded the Force in their own lives, both of them overcoming great odds not so much to become some heroic figure, but simply to heal.

I would like to therefore use this opportunity to make the case that healing is, in fact, the most powerful thing that any one of us can ever do. To go there we are going to have to talk about the Dark Side. What is it, exactly? I think this is one of the most brilliant aspects of Star Wars, as we discover over and over again that the Dark Side isn’t the external force of evil that we think it is- it’s a part of us. To be more specific, it is our shadow as posited by Carl Jung. It is the part of us that we hide in shadow because we cannot face it or accept it about ourselves. It is our pain that we have swept under the rug, hid in the attic, and locked in the basement…. leaving it alone to fester in darkness. Of course it makes its presence known nonetheless. It does so through projection into the outer world, into the people and events that we attract into our lives so that it, our Dark Side, can be seen and heard. Our shadow doesn’t do this to torture us. It does so because it actually wants to be healed. The Dark Side is always seeking the Light of Day.

The Force is collective in nature, whether we are talking Light or Dark. Therefore when one individual activates the Light, she does so for everyone and everything. When one individual activates the Dark (most often by ignoring it rather than intentionally doing so), she does so for everyone and everything. In this sense, the human story of good versus evil is really about how much of the one we are activating as opposed to the other. But make no mistake- we are in complete control of the narrative.

Families are the most powerful vehicles that we have for this collective narrative. When a family hides away its Shadow, the whole family gets locked into it… for generations. That is to say that the Shadow is passed from parent to child endlessly until somebody decides to heal it. Fortunately, when that one person decides to face and heal the Shadow, she does so for everyone who came before her as well as everyone who will come after her. If that isn’t powerful, then I don’t know what is.

The Star Wars saga portrays this perfectly. I sincerely hope that it inspires each of us to go within, face our Shadow, and carry it to the Light. The hero that we are in need of right now lies within each of us, and it has to do with healing our own story. I am in no way suggesting that this is easy work. In fact, it may be much harder than destroying the Death Star seems to have been. It takes true courage, persistence, dedication, will-power, undying love, and this one thing that we resist most of all- vulnerability. To be vulnerable is to admit that we need help. We truly cannot do it alone. The Shadow is collective in nature and requires a collective response. Hell, we can’t even see it without the reflection offered by those who are closest to us. How can we get to something that we can’t even see? If Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father, Luke never would have been able to see it in and as himself. He most likely then would have fallen to the Dark Side himself. What we can’t see consumes us.

Now to offer something tangible in this quest. One of the most powerful realizations for me came out of my Regenerative Practitioners training. It is a simple way of understanding how we are framing life. In this framework there is an internal and external world on the one hand and a locus of control and a considering on the other. The question is which is being paired with which, and it makes all the difference.

In our adolescent culture we frame the world with an external locus of control and an internal considering. Let me explain. An external locus of control says “the world is happening to me” and I have no control over it. I therefore react to what life is throwing at me through internal considering. In short, I consider what I need to do for my own survival in response to whatever hostilities life is throwing my way. What else could we possibly do in this scenario after all? We have to survive! Yet this framework traps us in victimhood. It prevents us from seeing how our own choices guide our life’s unfolding. It prevents us from taking responsibility for the world we are creating. Instead, we hustle to survive at any cost. This framing of life will never lead to healing, evolution, or thriving. In fact, it will be the death of us if we continue along this path.

A mature culture- one that has truly achieved adulthood- frames the world with the opposite pairing: an internal locus of control with an external considering. In this view, we take responsibility for our world. We assume our true role as creator. Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that anyone is responsible for how somebody else is showing up. That could only be perceived to be the case if the locus of control of that other person were framed as external. Just because other people may perceive the locus of control of their lives to be external to themselves does not mean that we have to or should corroborate that story. The most powerful thing that we could do would be to help restore that person’s power, by gently guiding her to an internal locus of control.

With an internal locus of control, we return to a place of safety wherein we can shift our considering to be inclusive of external factors. In other words, since we are no longer consumed by our own survival in a hostile world, we are able to reconnect with the broader world in such a way that our decision making shifts to considering what is in our collective best interest. That is external considering. It recognizes that our personal wellbeing is interdependent with collective wellbeing, that our self-actualization is dependent upon system-actualization. Yet this is where we tend to get tripped up, so let me explain a little more here.

Our Shadow is individual in the sense that we contracted it through our individual experience and are continuing to host it through our individual choices. That much is true. However, we can’t forget in this that the Shadow is collective in nature. That is to say that we each have to do our part to heal it, but just because one person heals it doesn’t mean that it automatically disappears from the human condition, or even from our own lives. As long as anybody is hosting it, it will still be there (albeit weakened, most notably in those closest to you.) It is wise, however, to remember that most likely millions if not billions of people are still hosting any one given aspect of our Shadow at any given time.

It is critical that we understand this because, for example, just because one person may overcome the belief in scarcity does not mean that scarcity isn’t deeply embedded in our culture to the degree that it is extremely difficult for individuals who grow up in poverty to escape it. Let’s be clear about that. We ultimately have to transcend scarcity together. That means that we have to face the Shadow “scarcity” together- as a culture, as a community, as a country, as a species. It should be obvious, but I’m afraid it’s not. One person’s way of holding scarcity may be to hoard all manor of wealth, while another’s is to be devoid of any such wealth. The one is dependent upon the other and until we face that reality we will continue to support systems in which some have way too much and others don’t even have enough to survive.

Maintaining a clear awareness of our interdependence (external considering), we must still realize that our true power is within us (internal locus of control). It is through each of us individually that creativity meets the grounds. Creativity can only come through us. There is no way to get to collective wellbeing without going through individuals (including individuals of other species, incidentally). System-actualization cannot occur by any means other than self-actualization (and vice versa). I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it ad nauseam, either we all make it together or nobody makes it. That is, incidentally, one of the central themes of this last Star Wars episode. Yet if we want to heal the planet, whether we are talking the health of Gaia herself (ecology) or we are talking simply our relationship to one another as a species (sociology), the fact remains that the only way to get there is through… you.

Yes, you. You have to heal the parts of the Shadow that you are carrying. That is the only way that we are going to make it. It is the single most important thing that we must do. Yes, changing our personal habits to be in alignment with our ecological systems is absolutely necessary. So by all means, reduce, reuse, recycle, and so on. Yet we will fall short if that is the crux of our focus. That is aiming too low. We have to go deeper. What we have to aim for is regeneration. To achieve that, we will have to assume our responsibility as creators.

Let’s help each other. It’s delicate work, of course, and we will trip all over ourselves in the process no doubt. I sure do!!! So be it. We have no other choice. Here is a guide good enough on its own to help us to find our way: internal locus of control + external considering. Aim for that and self correct as necessary. Each of us will have to face really scary, painful things along the way. For that, we need the help. Here is just a short list of resources that I have found helpful: psychotherapy, reiki, meditation, reading (self help, spirituality, ecology, sociology, sustainability, etc.), online personal development courses (DailyOm, Charles Eisenstein, Pachamama Alliance, to name just a few), tai chi, yoga, workshops and retreats (Kripalu, Omega Center, Esalen, Metta Earth, Mystica, to name just a few), drumming circles, training (permaculture, Regenerative Practitioners), homeopathy, sound therapy, acupuncture, and I could go on and on and on. There is no shortage of resources out there!

But you want to know what my number one resource is? The reflection that my relationships, particularly my most intimate ones, offer me. Those are critical, as they provide me with the eyes that I need to see what I need to heal. They also provide me with the support that I need to heal. From there, I can “use the Force.” To use the Force is to center into an internal locus of control while simultaneously tapping into the realization that we are One with all that seems external to us. When we master that, we abide in the All That Is. That is to say, we achieve enlightenment, or Heaven on Earth. I won’t give away how the Star Wars saga ends, but let’s hope it is a vision that we will live into. May the Force be with us!