Jedi Training

Added 2022-08-08, Modified 2022-08-11

Reframe stressful situations as Jedi training. How this helped me deal with my brothers on vacation.


In the first 2-3 days of my Italy trip I literally wanted to strangle my youngest brother. Staying up till 2am complaining at full voice, never doing what we tell him, embarrassing us in front of relatives, etc.

Now I view all annoyances as good, Jedi training in fact—with the goal of remaining calm in all circumstances. Combine that with the meditation I've been doing; I haven't gotten that upset since1.

Am I ignoring my emotions? Possibly. I think what I'm doing is closer to reframing annoyances as mind training (I really want to get good at keeping my cool) to the point where I'm sometimes happier in stressful situations because of the training plus the feeling of self-control.

I'll end with a quotation from Man's search for meaning on reframing the meaning of suffering

Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, "What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?" "Oh," he said, "for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!" Whereupon I replied, "You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering - to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her." He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

Footnotes

  1. Edit: this doesn't always work, but it helps