What the World Between Worlds Can Teach Us

After falling into the oceans of Seatos, Ahsoka’s consciousness travels to the World Between Worlds – a dimensional realm that transcends space and time. There, with the help of her former master Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka revisits some of the most defining moments from her past.

But why? What is there left for her to learn? For Anakin to teach?

A very important lesson it seems.

And a lesson we could all benefit from as well.

Through Ahsoka’s World Between Worlds journey, we are taught the importance of facing our difficult pasts so that we can better face what’s ahead.

The very thing holding Ahsoka back are the things she hadn’t addressed yet. And because she hadn’t addressed those things, they became a burden she was unknowingly carrying. Only after she faces those things is she able to then move forward – as a new, wiser version of herself.

We can all learn valuable lessons from the past, lessons that can help us face what lies ahead. This is how we gain wisdom. We all have or will experience adversity and challenges, so why not learn from those experiences?

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Transcript: Path of the Jedi
Ahsoka Part Five – Shadow Warrior

[Show intro: “You’re listening to Path of the Jedi with your host, Ronnie Cruz.”]

All right, welcome to Path of the Jedi, the podcast where Star Wars meets Personal Development. My name is Ronnie Cruz, your host for this… I’m not really sure what kind of adventure this is.

All right, so welcome, first of all.

If you’re new to the show, thank you for tuning in and welcome. I usually start the show off with a word of the episode, so to speak. It’s a word that ties into everything that we talk about thematically for the episode.

It’s a word that some… often describes what the characters are going through, what our Star Wars characters are going through. And oftentimes, it also aligns with things that are going on in my life.

But today, it just, yeah… I can’t seem to come up with anything.

There’s a lot.
There’s a lot going on.

Well, it’s not really a lot going on, per se, but there’s a lot coming at all of us, including our characters that we’re going to talk about today.

So maybe, I don’t know, uncertain?
Uncertain adventure?

Yeah, welcome. Welcome.
Welcome to this uncertain adventure.

Both Hera and Ahsoka are faced with a lot of uncertainty. And a lot of questions. A lot of questions in the self-reflection that they’re both experiencing in very different ways.

And I guess, yeah, for me, uncertain in that I just… yeah, it’s so hard to kind of pinpoint and hone in on the things that, well… I don’t know… yeah, see, it’s just so uncertain that I don’t even know where any of that is going.

So let’s just call it, let’s just leave it at that.
It’s an uncertain adventure.

And I think part of it, by the end of the discussion today, one thing I’ve really tried to work on a lot lately is leaning into that uncertainty.

I generally do that pretty well and pretty easily through practice, having been an entrepreneur and a business person for the majority of my career, you just learn to lean into the uncertainty. I think by nature and also by nurture, by training and discipline, I am a risk taker.

But yeah, there’s something different about this uncertainty on this go-around.

So I’m just going to leave it there.

But the point is that by the end of today’s discussion – that’s what I was getting to – I hope to communicate to you that uncertainty is something that we all should lean into because it’s ever-present, no matter what’s going on in our lives, no matter how, quote-unquote, stable things might feel or how good life happens to be.

Or, as a lot of people are experiencing right now, myself included, how uncertain and crazy and just nuts life is right now.

So yeah, we got to lean into it, we got to trust it and we got to surrender to it.

That’s what we’re going to get to today, which is really interesting because, and this is a complete aside, but in my other podcasts, the Redefine Podcasts, I’ve been talking a lot about leaning in and trusting and surrendering to the unknown, to the uncertainty.

And it actually works thematically here for today’s episode.

We’re talking about Ahsoka Part Five.

Now, this is an incredible episode. It’s an incredible episode. If you haven’t seen it, spoilers, okay? And I don’t know why you wouldn’t have seen it by now.

But if you haven’t seen it, stop this episode, stop the podcast, go watch it, and then come back, because I don’t want to ruin anything for you.

I’m a – complete tangent – I hate spoilers, so I do my best to not give spoilers. But this show has been around for so long. And I want to be able to talk openly about it and what happens, because it really ties into our discussion today.

[Rey soundbite: “Classified, really? Me too. Big secret.”]

Okay, so are you back?
You’re back.

So Ahsoka is in the World Between Worlds, and she’s having these interactions with Anakin.

And okay, so let’s just start there.

It’s amazing. It’s amazing to have Hayden Christensen back as Anakin in these scenes that we get from the Clone Wars, right?

Like, these are live-action reenactments of scenes and battles that happen in the Clone War.

And so it’s really… it’s just… for nostalgia reasons, it’s just so great to see this stuff, on so many different levels.

But to see these interactions and to understand what has been going on in Ahsoka’s head in the show, the things that she’s been carrying this entire time through the first five episodes, it gives us a real peek into the things that she’s kind of been wrestling with.

We see in the World Between Worlds scenes and her interactions with Anakin, that Ahsoka is actually carrying a lot of guilt.

She’s harboring a lot of guilt about stuff that she’s done in the past, decision that she’s made when she was participating in the Clone Wars. Mind you, she was still a child and she had command of all of these troops.

But it seems that she’s harboring guilt about having lost lives, right? Having lost lives. And fair enough, and fair enough.

And so she questions her own abilities, she questions her past decisions, she questions her leadership.

A lot of this also kind of points to that burden of leadership and questioning whether or not she was an effective leader and whether or not she can continue to be [a person] of example.

There’s a little bit of a parallel to this with Hera in herself questioning what kind of general she is, having always, you know, going against orders and defying the higher-ups, defying the admiralty, if you will.

Yeah, yeah… so there’s all this kind of conflict, well, inner conflict and inner turmoil. And as a result of this inner conflict, inner turmoil, you know, the questioning of self, there is an uncertainty as far as like, how am I going to proceed forward?

I don’t think either of them are really certain how they’re going to proceed forward, so there’s a lot of question marks.

Now, along with this inner turmoil and this questioning of self, Ahsoka, I think, is also questioning the legacy that she’s a part of.

In another World Between World scene, Anakin explains that I’ve handed down my legacy to you as it was handed down to me by my master and to him, his master, etc., etc., all the way back to the beginning of time, right?

And I think Ahsoka really is not comfortable with that, given that that legacy has seen a lot of turmoil and conflict and even violence. I mean, heck, Anakin ultimately ends up becoming Darth Vader.

So I think Ahsoka really fears that she’ll make the same mistakes and that’s the legacy that she’s a part of.

Anakin’s response to this is beautiful. I think it’s one of my favorite Anakin scenes ever.

He tells her that, yes, we are a part of a long legacy where things have been handed down to us, but we are also our own individuals, right?

We are also our own people.
And so you have to decide.

He makes her decide.

Basically, the question this entire time through all these World Between Worlds scenes is that, do you want to live or die?

And literally, he’s asking that because Ahsoka is underwater.
But I also interpret that as him saying, do you want to go on?
And more importantly, how do you want to go on?

At the climax of the World Between Worlds segment of this episode, at the climax of her scenes with Anakin, she’s at a crossroads, right?

She’s at a figurative crossroad and a metaphorical one at that. I mean, the World Between Worlds is a metaphorical crossroads. But she’s at this figurative crossroad where she has to make a decision.

Anakin gives her the ultimatum – not really the ultimatum, but the choice of “do you want to live or do you want to die?”

And so there’s that crossroad.

But she also has a crossroad of if she decides to live, how is she going to live, right? What kind of life is she going to have? What kind of person is she going to be if she continues to go on?

And it’s kind of subtle… I don’t know if I’m the only one that caught it… I’m sure everybody did. But in that very last scene, after she’s disarmed Anakin and taken his lightsaber, it’s the red lightsaber, by the way, Anakin’s eyes are, you know, Sith red. He’s got the Darth Vader eyes already.

And as she’s holding the red lightsaber to Anakin’s throat, you see in Ahsoka’s face, you see the red light shining on Ahsoka’s face, and her eyes are, you know, have that kind of shade of red happening.

But it’s a great visual representation of the internal conflict that she’s experiencing, right? Of the crossroads. This imagery of her with red-tainted eyes… red-tinted eyes… it’s just like, which way is she going to go?

It’s a beautiful, beautiful scene.

I mean, the entire episode is absolutely beautiful.

But, you know… the world between worlds culminating in this decision, and, you know, her facing this internal conflict.

Ultimately, she says she chooses to live, and turns off the red lightsaber, tosses it over the side. So her eyes go back to the normal color, and even Anakin’s eyes transform back to his normal eye color.

And this is what brings Ahsoka back to this side of the World Between Worlds.

Lesson learned, and now she is a stronger, more powerful, and wiser Jedi for it.

[Wicket soundbite: “Yub yub!”]

I think this episode raises the question, “Are we doomed to repeat the past?”

Right? Repeat the past in a sense of being part of a legacy, being part of generational… things [laughs]… being handed down baggage, trauma being handed down from one generation to generation. Are we doomed to repeat those things in our own lives?

And also, are we doomed to repeat our own past mistakes, the things that we regret from our own personal past and the decisions that we’ve made?

Are these things inescapable, and are we a sum of our past?

I think Ahsoka has come to accept that the answer to those questions is no. No, we are not doomed to repeat our past. We are not the sum total of our past, and our pasts aren’t necessarily inescapable.

Of course, the past is inescapable in a sense that you can’t change what happened.

However, you also don’t have to carry those things with you, and the weight of the guilt, and the pressure, and the burden of all those things that you may have regretted doing, or all the decisions that you may have regretted in the past.

But the caveat is, if you take the time to face those things, right, reflect on those things, and learn from those things, and grow from those things.

To me, the scenes in the World Between Worlds [are] Ahsoka facing all these skeletons in the past that she’s been carrying with her this entire time.

In real-world context, it’s self-reflection, reflecting on our past, introspection.

In doing this, Ahsoka was able to shed her own inner turmoil, her own inner uncertainty, her self-doubt, and then move forward with more confidence and more assuredness.

Sure, there’s still a lot of uncertainty externally, right, external uncertainty.

They don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t even know where Sabine is at this point, or if they’re going to be able to save her.

But Ahsoka has developed so much internal certainty and trust in herself and trust in her own instinct and trust in the wisdom that she’s gained from her own past experiences that she’s willing to get into the mouth of this purrgil and ride it to whatever galaxy that they happen to be going to.

She has no idea, but again, she’s trusting that. She’s leaning into the uncertainty. She’s surrendering to that unknown.

That, I think, is the lesson that Ahsoka leaves us in this episode, that we’re not doomed to repeat history, that we’re not doomed to repeat even our own past.

Trust what you’ve gone through.
Trust what you’ve learned.
The things that you’ve gone through, you’ve gone through for a reason.
Trust that hard-earned wisdom.

With that trust, you can then surrender to what the journey brings you.

And like Ahsoka, you can face any uncertainty and any unknown.

[Outtro music begins]

Okay, so I hope some of that made sense. Definitely, I felt a little scattered there, and there’s so much to talk about.

It’s a very heady, heady themes and heady topics. So it’s a lot to wrangle in, and it was definitely a challenge for me to park that bus.

So hopefully some of that made sense…

I think for me, this episode in watching Ahsoka’s journey in the World Between Worlds, it’s her shedding the weight of the past decisions that she’s made, the weight of those decisions, as well as the guilt from those decisions, and the resulting self-doubt coming out of those decisions.

Because there are some very difficult decisions she had to make in combat as a child. And so carrying all that and having that self-doubt, I think she finally faced it, with the help of Anakin, she finally faced it and was able to shed all of that weight.

And now trust herself again. Actually trust herself quite a bit.

To the point where she is thrusting herself into literally the unknown, right? The literal unknown with this purrgil. She has no idea where they’re going to be traveling to, but she has developed so much internal trust that she’s willing to take this journey.

And so, yeah… yeah… it’s a beautiful journey, and there’s a lot we can learn from that.

I think we can carry a lot of self-doubt, especially if things haven’t necessarily worked out for us in the past.

But what I do want to remind you of is that if you’re listening to this… you’re here, right? You’re here and you got through whatever that thing was that you’re feeling, [the] weight [that’s] still on your shoulders, right?

Whatever that thing, those challenges were, and those adversities were in the past, that you’re still carrying with you, understand that they’re past already. And so that, to me, tells me that you were able to get through it.

So trust that whatever you’re facing right now or whatever you’ll face in the future, that you will be able to get through that [as well].

And the more you can trust that, the more you can lean into the unknown, right?
The more you can lean into the uncertainty.

Yeah. Yeah… yeah.

It helps to reflect and go through your own personal World Between Worlds and in that self-reflection.

And really, that’s all it is, right? It’s reflecting back on our past so that we can learn from those things.

Because if we don’t, then nothing is going to change, right? Nothing is going to change.

But we can really work to grow our own self-confidence and trust in our own ability to make wise choices by learning from the past.

And so it’s, yeah, this is, this is… these are the messages that this particular episode of Ahsoka has shown me.

Anyways, again, I’m rambling and I’m summarizing after the fact. Let’s go ahead and move on to the Shout Out.

[Star Wars soundbite: “I’m going in. Cover me, Porkins.”]

Okay, this week’s Shout Out goes to Nate, Ryan, Zack, and the team at Loth Cat Cafe.

That’s right, Lothcat Cafe. Now, what is Lothcat Cafe? Hey, what’s a Lothcat Cafe?

Well, if you’re wondering, it’s a podcast. Yes, it is a podcast Fellow podcasters, Nate, Ryan, Zack, and the rest of the team.

Yeah, I just want to shine some light on them. I encourage you to check them out. I’ll leave a link to their show in our show notes today.

But I wanted to shine some light on them and celebrate them today for a few reasons.

Number one, when I first joined Bluesky, they were literally the first account that connected with me. They interacted with my very first… they were the first account that interacted with my very first post on that platform.

So, if you guys are looking for another platform to connect on that doesn’t have the level of toxicity that some of the other social platforms sometimes can have, find me on Bluesky.

I’ll leave a link to that in the show notes of this episode.

But it’s a great place. And I’m slowly building up my connections there and building a community of like-minded individuals who love Star Wars.

And of course, these guys were the first to reach out and connect. And I will always remember them for that.

But then, you know, in checking out their show, I mean, it’s impossible not to love.

It’s, you know, conversations about Star Wars. That’s number one, right?

I mean, it’s called Lothcat Cafe. And so, you know, I always love and appreciate hearing other people’s love and appreciation for Star Wars, right? Hearing their perspective and hearing them share their own love for Star Wars because everybody’s perspective is different.

And with Star Wars fandom– at least the non-toxic Star Wars fandom – that perspective, those perspectives all kind of unify together around this beautiful thing that is Star Wars.

So they are definitely that.
They love to celebrate Star Wars.

They’re currently doing an episode by episode analysis and discussion of Andor, leading up to the season two that’s coming. Man, it’s a matter of weeks… if not… well, months, if not weeks. I don’t have, I don’t remember the exact day, but it’s coming up soon.

So they’re doing Andor, and again, you know, they’re sharing their love and appreciation and passion for Star Wars, all while having their cats present in the room.

At least that’s my guess. They don’t take breaks. They don’t edit out the cat interruptions, which I love.

I have dogs. I’m not a cat owner. I’m an animal lover in general, but I have dogs, and my dogs often interrupt the show as I’m recording it.

You can sometimes go back to the past episodes and hear dogs snoring in the background or dogs walking around on the hardwood floors, etc, etc.

So the fact that their cats are totally integrated into the show, I think, is it’s just fun. You know, it’s just fun. It creates for a very comfortable – at least for me – comfortable atmosphere.

You know, you’re not hearing something that is necessarily super edited and.. what’s the… what’s the word I’m looking for… put on? Yeah, that’s a better.

That’s more accurate. It’s not very put on.

It’s very natural. And it seems very authentic and genuine, right?

Now, mind you, the production value is absolutely fantastic. I’m jealous of all their music and their sound and the quality of the show itself. So that’s not lacking.

But in the way they deliver their content, again, it’s high level content, all about their love of Star Wars, while also feeling very warm, inviting, genuine and authentic.

So there’s that.

The other reason – and a very, very important to me reason – why I wanted to give them a shout out this week was from last week’s episode, I shared that I was having a difficult time, and you know, yeah, it’s just been rough.

Even recording today’s episode, like it’s just, ah, you know what I mean? And partly, I should probably get off the social feeds, or at least not scroll as much, or tune some of the stuff out that I see.

But anyways, that’s neither here nor there.

They reached out to me the day after last week’s episode was released.

Now I don’t know which one in particular, which one of them from the team reached out to me, but they messaged me the day after the episode released.

And just to check up and just to see if I was doing okay.

And honestly, that means so much to me. That means so much.

Individuals who are, I mean, for all intents and purposes, are complete strangers. We’ve just connected on the socials very recently so know nothing about each other, but [they were] willing to spend, you know, the 30 seconds to a minute to reach out and just be a compassionate human being to another human being who’s struggling, right, who’s having a hard time.

And so what might seem like an inconsequential gesture really does have profound impact. At least it has a profound, has had a profound impact on me.

The fact that I don’t know these guys that well, and they don’t know me very well either, I think it makes their gesture that much more impactful.

It’s a real, real true show of their character and their heart. And again, it just speaks to their, their compassion and the authenticity and the genuineness of that.

So, you know, I really, I really… hopefully they’ll hear this… I mean, obviously they listened to last week’s episode.

One of my two listeners [giggles]

But hopefully they hear this and they know that that really means the world to me for them to have reached out to me last week.

And I just wanted to reflect that light back on them.

So go check out their show when you get a chance. Again, it’s Loth Cat Cafe.

The link will be in the show notes of this episode.

Let’s, yeah, let’s celebrate them.
Leave them the five star rating, five star review, and let’s just show these guys how much we appreciate them. I certainly appreciate them.

So Nate, Ryan, Zach, and the team at LothCat Cafe, this week’s shout out goes to you.

OK, one last thing before we go. If you could, I’m going to ask a favor. If you don’t mind, please think of one person, just one person who you think would appreciate and enjoy today’s content, today’s episode or even the entire show.

I’m trying to get the word out. I’m trying to build the show.

We’re still a relatively small show, but I’m also trying to build a community of people who support each other that also have a love of Star Wars and are willing to celebrate that and celebrate each other and celebrate that love.

So yeah, again, please, if you could just pass this on to one person, it will take you three seconds. It will really go a long way to helping us grow.

And of course, you’ll have my undying gratitude.

[Rey soundbite: “That’s just Tito wants you for parts.”]

Okay, so that’s going to do it for today. Thank you for sticking around.

Hopefully, it made sense, but if not, there’s always next week. [giggles]

So enjoy the rest of your week.
Enjoy your weekend.
We’ll catch you next week with a fresh new episode.

So until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and may the force be with you.

[Disclaimer]
This podcast is not endorsed by the Walt Disney Company nor Lucasfilm Limited and is intended for entertainment, educational and informational purposes only. The official Star Wars website can be found at www.starwars.com. Star Wars, all names and sounds and any other Star Wars related items are registered trademarks and or copyrights of Disney and their respective trademark and copyright holders.

All original content of this podcast is intellectual property of Path of the Jedi unless otherwise indicated.

[Yoda giggle soundbite]