Jedi Code: Line 1
Written by Xhaiden
There is no emotion; there is peace.This does not mean a Jedi can not feel emotion. A Jedi must learn how to control their emotion. When emotions are not controlled you begin to react and make decisions on those emotions which can lead you down a dark path. Have emotions but do not let them cloud your mind and interfere with your decisions.
The first step in this is to learn how to turn on and off your emotions at will. It can take a bit of time. Some padawans will learn this very quickly and for some it could take years. Don’t rush yourself through any of these exercises. A great one to start with is sadness. Think of something that makes you very sad. Really get into that mindset. It might be a family member that passed away, a pet, etc.. Let yourself be absorbed by the sadness. Don’t just feel what it is like but really understand what it is like. You have to be able to understand how the emotion feels before you can learn to turn it off and on so to speak. What is the sadness you are feeling doing to your body, your mind, your reactions. When you are in that mindset try doing some simple tasks and see how the emotion effects how you perform each task. Don’t pick complicated tasks. The results will vary from person to person but some things you might notice are it takes you extra time to complete the task, you move more slowly, the result of the task is sloppy, and so on. While you are still in this mindset, begin to breathe deep, very slowly. Breath in for 5 seconds steadily, hold for 5 seconds, breathe out steadily for 5 seconds, hold while lungs are empty for 5 seconds. Repeat this about 5 -10 times. While doing this, concentrate on the air moving in and out of your lungs. Feel the Force coming into your body with each breathe. Once you can feel that, then begin to let go of that sadness. Don’t forget about it, just let go of it. When you breathe out imagine the emotion of sadness just leaving your body with each breath. For some people this might take as little as 5 cycles through the deep breathing and for others it could take 20. The more you do this the shorter amount of time it will take. Once you feel the emotion is gone or is at least not clouding your mind any more do another cycle of the deep breathing and just feel that positive energy of the Force filling you up. When you stop, do the same task you did when you were feeling sadness and see if there was any difference in the result. It might be a minor difference depending on the task but you will observe and notice a difference between when you were feeling sadness and when you were at calm with yourself. Try this same exercise just with as many different emotions as possible. Learn how you act with each emotion and then learn how to let it go. In a nut shell you are learning how to turn on and off your emotions. Take a little time each day and practice this and record your results in a journal so you can keep track of your progress. This will take time to accomplish as in months or even possibly years. Once you learn how to turn on and off your emotions you can move on to the next part of the lesson. I should clarify, by turning on and off your emotion I do not mean you become a zombie who has no emotion. By turning it off I mean simply you can recognize that the emotion is there and then you are able to turn it off so you can approach a situation and a task from a standpoint where emotion will not be a factor. A Jedi can feel emotion but can not let it interfere with their decisions. If you have any questions please send me an email or private message and I would be more then happy to help you in any way I can.