What Do You Do When You Feel That There’s a “Disturbance in the Force?”
“I felt a great disturbance in the force” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars.
Do you ever feel a pang of envy from not having wise sages, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda from Star Wars, to guide you whenever faced with challenges or difficult decisions?
That’s what Luke Skywalker does when he is in bigtime trouble. Yet, rather than having a long philosophical discussion, Obi-Wan nets it out with one simple directive. Which turns out to be only the next step on Luke’s journey.
Not the whole plan mapped out. Just. The. Next. Step.
“Use the Force, Luke,” Obi-Wan guides Luke, explaining that “force” is energy; life force, your trust, your intuition, the energy that binds the universe together. The force is the belief in yourself to go beyond what your eyes merely see. Explore the unseen in your soul, your heart — and trust that.
Star Wars juxtaposes the theme of good vs. evil, feeling good vs. being right, and trusting one’s instincts as their truth throughout their films.
And C-3PO and R2-D2, those (androids) droids? What’s up with them? They each have purposes in the films that make them valuable to the other characters. C-P30 speaks a whole ton of languages and is very proper, while R2-D2 is a lovable friend and messenger of important things. Both represent goodness, although C-3PO likes to be right, especially with R2-D2. We believe that R2-D2 prefers to feel good, even though both droids have a tendency to exhibit their fears and worries.
We started to play with the idea of being right vs. feeling good, especially when doubt and fear seep in. When we get nervous, all trust in the self seems to disappear.
Why is that? We might believe that we don’t have anything to fall back on to support us as we journey through life on our own Hero’s Journey. No Wookie. No Wise Sage. No Droid.
Poppy used to say a phrase to each one of her four kids whenever they were set to take a test, a final exam or the SAT: “You have everything you need to know.” Basically her version of Star Wars,’ “Use the force.”
It wasn’t a flippant remark yet one we both now truly embrace. We believe that we all have incredible and vast inner knowing that we just forget to access.
This encouraging phrase has stayed with each of them to today, where they sometimes even roll their eyes (still) due to the frequency they heard it as a young child and teen.
Yet what is a developing child all about if not one who questions and pokes their curiosity?
Doubts settle in as they discern information taken in from their external worlds (yes, including info from parents, teachers, and people in their society) and they pair that information with information from their internal guidance.
And often those two sources of information collide. And what results is that disharmony manifests itself in the mind and body. When this happens, we have a choice to want to
a) be right
b) feel good.
Many times, we choose to be right, for the ego (that part of our brain that we allow to drive our thoughts and override our feelings) likes to be in control.
That’s why dreams are so valuable if we can recall them and “sit with” them. Our dreams are purveyors of our inner truth and essence.
When Poppy taught college psychology courses for ten years, the dream units were always engaging and of high interest. We “played” with dreams; not to interpret them as black and white messages, but more as nuances and subtleties to bring in conscious awareness from the unconscious.
For example, we believe that dreams involving a male entity chasing us with a weapon of some sorts are actually not scary. As we have examined those dreams, we allowed ourselves to understand that the ego is part of our left-brained thinking that likes to keep things sorted and linear. We don’t think that our left side of the brain plays nice with organic ruminations that are not neatly put into sequences and linear structures.
So, the masculine part of our brain (or left side of the brain) likes to control and manage those freeform pesky creative insights and intuition. The masculine part of the brain cannot have the right creative brain wandering off into a sixth sense kind of realm where thoughts and ideas might evolve from a deep truthful inner knowing…possibly even inspired by the divine.
The masculine part of our brain is usually a fearful part and that part shows up in our dreams as sometimes dark (Darth Vadar), evil, bad, shadowy, or negative.
When guns and knives show up in our dreams, we take a beat to explore what in our waking life is being ignored from what our inner knowing is trying to tell us. It is a lovely thoughtful practice that usually has us realigning our thoughts and behaviors, and ultimately resetting (our proprietary communication tool,) the Emotional Clock® on the left side of the clock to a combination of Relief, Forgiveness, Hopefulness, Confidence, Joy, and Love/Truth.
In our waking world, we are constantly being tempted to engage into interactions and experiences where we are enticed to tap into our energy that only wants us to be right. Not to feel good. You certainly have felt that when you enter a room, and you feel someone’s energy that feels dark or intimidating to you. (Like the evil emperor in Star Wars.)
Perhaps the hair stands up on your arm because that person or persons evokes an aggressiveness or tension that you hadn’t anticipated. Perhaps you could politely excuse yourself and leave that tense energy. Or perhaps you were in a setting where you felt you couldn’t leave, and felt your insides begin to tighten, and your heart rate increase.
What we do when we stay in that environment, is pause and silently say to ourselves: “I want to feel good in this moment.” We make a conscious effort to move ourselves from the right side of the Emotional Clock® where the negative emotions live, to the left side of the Clock. That redirection of energy shift takes a few seconds if practiced often.
We can then look to those in the setting who have a great need to be right, with compassionate and grace, for they are only behaving from a fear-based position.
We have had several clients with whom we have worked, who had a similar alignment in their suitedness to one another: they both bobbed and weaved for who would be right. Their pathway to get there was always through anger (for there is movement in anger.) The boxing gloves were permanently on even long after they left the ring.
When we witness this dynamic, we gently share with clients that we are coaches and mediators, not referees who would raise one boxing gloved hand in a victory pose. When you think about it, when wearing boxing gloves, the only real move you have is to hit. You cannot really pick up anything, you cannot really hold anything. And you can’t feel someone else’s hand.
Have you ever noticed that when people argue, sometimes they pound their fist on a table or desk? While a fist can be powerful, we like to ask people to look at both their hands and envision a fist or an open (palm up) hand. Which one feels better when you consider your hands?
These kinds of relationships are often founded on a fiery manner of communicating. In other words, they speak a language of anger and that language did not translate well into one of compassion and love. So while they shared an angry connection, that anger appeared in all facets of their lives: they spoke to each other aggressively, they had angry aggressive sex that they believed was dramatic passion, and aggressively attacked one another when one party ”innocently” reached out to an ex-lover.
Like apples and oranges, their communication is fruit, but they each believed that their apple or orange is the superior fruit and the better choice.
Whether we’re speaking of fruit, boxing metaphors, or Star Wars, one tenet underscores the foundation of our relationships, beginning with you: trust in self.
Even when there are disturbances in the force.
And if you need an image to help you along your journey of self-discovery to seek your inner truth, here’s “Chewie,” Chewbacca, Hans Solo’s loyal sidekick and co-pilot, who could not speak the words, yet understood when spoken to.
Have faith to redirect yourself to your heart where the real knowing exists. There you always have access to your inner truth. Your intuition.
Or as Obi Wan says to Luke: “The Force will be with you, always.”
Want help getting in touch with your intuition? Contact us.