Transcript: Path of the Jedi – Where Star Wars meets Personal Development

Episode #5 – The Concept of Identity in Star Wars

(Intro soundbite) It’s at this moment that Anakin decides, “This sucks. My life sucks. I don’t want to do this anymore.” And so he leaves his old identity behind as Anakin Skywalker. He leaves that entire life behind and become Darth Vader.

(Intro music/main podcast)

All right welcome to Episode #5! We have made it to episode number 5. You know, I really should have thought this thing out a much better when I decided to start a podcast. Launching it this time of year, which typically is the busiest time of year for me… or at least one of the busier times of year for me… and on top of that I just was on a massive two week road trip… so, juggling creating what I didn’t realize would be as time-intensive of a project as a podcast is, with everything that’s been going on, has been a little bit of a challenge… on top of this whole adventure being a massive learning curve.

However, now that I am at Episode 5 I think that is much cause for celebration because we made its number five! I would even though that seems a small win I will take it. Starting to get into a groove as far as recording goes. My technique, balances are a little bit better. And as I said guys, this is just going to get better and better as we go. So thank you for tuning in to our 5th episode of Path of the Jedi.

Okay so let’s kick it off with news and updates. Another massive… well not really massive, in the grand scheme of things not massive… but relatively for me because this is a brand new podcast, it’s big news! As of this recorder we have reached a hundred and fifty downloads! Thank you so much! Again, that is cause for celebration, and it really is thanks to all of you who have supported us from the very beginning and continue to support us. Even though we’re just two weeks in, I can’t express enough how grateful I am for you guys. And I promise I will continue to work harder and harder so that I could get better and better at providing you guys value and content and a podcast that you will continue to enjoy for years and years to come.

Next piece of news, we are officially on Twitter! That’s right. Path of the Jedi has a Twitter account now. You can follow us at @potjpodcast. Again @potjpodcast Twitter account. We now have another place for you guys to send us questions, comments, insights, reflections… anything that you want to talk about under the sun. You can reach out and connect with us on Twitter. Again if you are on Twitter find us at @potjpodcast.

A little bit of Star Wars news for all my fellow geeks out there. Congratulations to the Mandalorian for their 7 Emmy Award wins this past weekend. They had actually a whopping 24 nominations in all and took home 7 of those. You can find out more details and then read the the longer article at starwars dot com. I will leave the link in the show notes of this particular episode. Again congratulations to everyone involved in the Mandalorian!

I mean it’s a phenomenal show, guys. In my opinion this show alone, the Mandalorian, is worth the cost of the Disney+ subscription. So if you haven’t seen it, sign up for Disney+

This isn’t like a paid endorsement or anything. I’m not getting paid by Disney or Lucasfilm to say any of this. I just loved it that much. And I think if you guys hop on this – if you haven’t seen it yet that is – you’re going to absolutely love it.

In other Star Wars geek news, if you happen to be on the market for another podcast, I just happened upon a new… well it’s not new. They’ve actually been around way longer than I have. In my homework so to speak, in my own self education as I’m trying to expose myself more to the social spheres and the Star Wars spheres and the fandom spheres, I happened upon this podcast called the Geeky Bubble Podcast. It’s a daughter and mother duo, Johna Marie and her mother Maria. First of all, incredibly fun and entertaining. It’s just full of laughter and is incredibly enjoyable to listen to. Also incredible in-depth analysis and insights of all things Star Wars.

They started off reviewing and and giving their reaction to Star Wars Rebels. Those are the episodes I’m on right now. In the current episodes I believe they’re they’re covering the Star Wars: the Bad Batch. Again incredibly entertaining, incredibly insightful. They really know their Star Wars stuff. It’s so much fun and you can tell that they have a deep – they BOTH do right, and it’s incredible that it’s a daughter mother duo. You don’t really see that very often. You can tell they have a deep love for all things Star Wars. So again go check them out, the Geeky Bubble Podcast. I will leave the link there link in the show notes for this episode.

And now it’s that part of the show that we dedicate to shout outs! (You know what? now that I think about it I should include some kind of music for this – anyways next episode) For today I want to give a huge shout out to my niece Jade de Leon. I just wanted to send a thank you to Jadee for well, being Incredible for one. Ok so, I don’t want all my other nieces and nephews to get jealous. I will say and admit that all my nieces and nephews are amazing.

But I wanted to give a special shout-out and thank you to Jade because she called me the other day to say how much he is enjoying the podcast. And you know I just wanted to recognized her on here publicly and let her know how much that means to me, how important it is for me to hear that kind of feedback especially from somebody that I care about.

So thank you again Jadee so much for, yeah well for listening right? For listening to your crazy uncle ramble on on this podcast about Star Wars. And two, for letting me know how how much you’re enjoying it. Guys, Jadee is an amazing realtor here in North Carolina so for any of you guys here, any of my listeners here in North Carolina looking for a realtor to represent them, I will leave a link to Jade’s Instagram in the show notes of this episode.

All right, in this episode I want to tackle the concept of IDENTITY in the Star Wars Universe. Now this idea popped in my head because I was listening to episode of the geeky bubble podcast in fact on our long road trip. Johna Marie and her mother Maria were discussing Anakin vs. Darth Vader, whether Anakin no longer exists and how that fits into play with Darth Vader, or vice versa… is it one person or… all kinds of questions because there’s always that conversation: Is Anakin still around?

And that got me thinking, the Sith are always the ones creating new identities for themselves. When they fully embrace the Dark Side of the Force, they create a whole new identity, a whole different name.

Sorry, I got to backtrack here. For all my non-Star Wars listeners, a Sith is an individual who uses the Dark Side of the Force. They’re the Dark Side Force wielders. You have your Jedi, they use the Light Side. Sith use the Dark Side, like Darth Vader, the Emperor, things like that.

Sith go through this process when they fully embrace the Dark Side, they give themselves Sith names, give themselves new identities. Count Dooku is Darth Tyranus. Of course Anakin becomes Darth Vader. The most recent is Ben Solo, he becomes Kylo Ren. So you have this pattern with the Sith. Individuals who through some kind of acceptance of and fully give themselves to the Dark Side create new identities. That really got my brain churning about identity and what the concept of identity in Star Wars really is.

So that’s what I want to dive into today and touches back on Episode 1 when I was introducing myself to you guys and explaining to you or at least answering the question: Who am I? Now in terms of identity, I think in the broadest sense we can say that identity is the definition that we have of ourselves. For example, referencing back to Episode 1 of our podcast, again I am a Network marketer, I am a musician, I am an actor, I am a podcaster, I am a male, I am Filipino, I am American… I have all these definitions of myself. Am I really all those things? Am I none of those things? The questions that I asked in episode 1.

Now I think we can dissect that a little further and ask: what are those definitions comprised of? Identity I think it is mindsets, belief systems, behavioral patterns that make us or that make up “who” we are. This conversation is important because it’s that identity that we have of ourselves consciously and unconsciously – mostly unconsciously – it’s the identities that we hold of ourselves that really determine our outcomes. The outcomes and results that we have in our lives are determined by our identities because it is those belief systems, it is those mindsets and therefore the behavioral patterns that dictate our actions and our habits and our day-to-day decisions and those things are what create the results in the outcomes that we have in our lives. Where we are in our lives is a direct result of the identities that we hold and half of ourselves, again consciously but mostly unconsciously.

As an example, let’s take a look at Anakin Skywalker. We’ve been talking about Anakin and Darth Vader anyways. When we meet Anakin in Episode 1: Phantom Menace, he and his mother were slaves, they were slaves that belong to the character Watto and that was pretty much it. That was their existence. He didn’t have a father. It was just him and his mother and probably would have lived out the rest of his existence as such, as a slave because that was all he knew. That was the only life he knew that was the identity that he had of himself.

Now, this is all disrupted when Qui-Gon Jinn and Padme Amidala come into their lives. Qui-Gon senses that Anakin is very strong in the Force and finds a way to win Anakin’s Freedom. At this moment Anakin goes from being a slave to being a young boy who is free but is now an orphan because Qui-Gon takes him away from his home planet of Tatooine to Coruscant so that he can go see and meet the Jedi Council.

So all this time his identity during Phantom Menace is as an orphan in this crazy crazy adventure, completely foreign world with people that he doesn’t know, in the care of the wise and powerful Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Anakin is further orphaned when at the end of phantom menace Qui-Gon gets killed by Darth Maul.

Fortunately, Obi-Wan Kenobi takes him under his wing as his Padawan. And so from here forward, Atkins new identity is that of a Padawan, as a growing Jedi, as the Chosen One, as one of the most powerful Force users in the entire Jedi Order.

There are some very important lessons we can learn from Anakin’s example. The first is that a lot of our Identity or identities are formed during our developmental years and sometimes even into our younger early adulthood. We get our identities modeling the people that were around the most, through a significant emotional events, through things that we’re told repeatedly. All this stuff, all this information, all this input through those years we’re taking in and we’re forming our identities.

With Anakin, the fact that he was a slave, the fact tha he had to leave his mother at a very young age, the fact that he was told that he was the Chosen One, the fact that he became a very powerful Jedi… and when you look at his role models and the people that were around him growing up: you have Obi-Wan Kenobi, you have Yoda, you have the Jedi Council, he’s always surrounded by politicians, he has Chancellor Palpatine… these were his role models.

What’s funny actually now that I think about it, you never really see Anakin around any contemporaries, anybody his age, any of the other Padawans or younglings. So you have this messy soup of influences that make up who Anakin is and so it’s no wonder that he is the most volatile individual in the entire galaxy. It’s not so much an issue when he’s younger. I think our responsibility as adults to children is to teach them, to show them, to guide them, to be an example for them.

But as Anakin gets older and as he starts thinking for himself, the world around him becomes more and more restrictive in his eyes as his power grows. All the while Chancellor Palpatine is manipulating him more and more. The war against the separatist is ever escalating. And to top it all off his secret wife who is pregnant with twins decides to leave him.

It’s at this moment the Anakin decides, “This sucks. My life sucks. I don’t want to do this anymore.” And so he leaves his old identity behind as Anakin Skywalker, he leaves that entire life behind and becomes Darth Vader.

Which brings me to my second lesson that we can learn from Anakin: Identities aren’t permanent, they’re not concrete, they can change over time. They can actually change very abruptly if we want them to. So if you hear anybody say “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “I’m just set in my ways,” you can call BS on it because it’s just not true. not if you don’t want it to be.

And in fact all of us go through some sort of evolution and change of identity through the course of our lives. It’s just a natural progression of thin. It may seem imperceptible because the change of identity is very, very gradual but it’s is there and it happens none the less. You can see this gradual changing of identities or evolution of identities with any one of the Jedis if you look at it. Obi-Wan for example. He starts off when we first meet him in Phantom Menace as a Padawan. Then he becomes a Jedi Knight and eventually becomes a Jedi master and part of the Jedi Council. When we see him in Episode 4 after everything that happens with the Clone Wars and the Empire is formed, he goes into exile and then becomes a hermit on the desert planet of Tatooine.

With the Jedi we see a more gradual and perhaps intentional and purposeful evolution and change in identity. It’s really more of a path of growth. With the Sith, it’s more abrupt, it’s more conflicted, it’s more violent. And not only do you have to figure… figurative… that’s a hard word – FIGURATIVELY kill all the things that you were holding onto in the past to become this new identity, but you have to actually kill some things LITERALLY, like we see in the Force Awakens when Kylo Ren in the very heartbreaking moment when he kills his own father, when he kills Han Solo.

The thing about identities isn’t so much that they can’t change. Rather it’s that they’re very difficult to change intentionally because, and I learned this from my mentor Rod Harrison, the strongest force in human nature is to stay consistent with the identity you hold of yourself. That’s why we have sayings like “I’m just set in my ways” because it’s easier not to change than to change. It’s easier not to grow than to grow. So if you want to make a change in your life, if you want new outcomes, it’s going to take WORK. The good thing is, what we’ve learned from Star Wars has actually given us the exact formula.

Number one: be mindful of your environment, be mindful of the people you spend the most time with because you will ultimately start modeling and adapting their mindsets and belief systems. Anakin grew up around the Jedi, he grew up around the [Jedi] Council, he grew up around soldiers, he grew up around politicians. He never really was exposed to any children at all or spent much time with them. So not only did he grow up and have a tumultuous childhood, he actually didn’t really have much of a childhood in the first place.

Number two: be mindful of your conditioning, the things that you’re listening to, the things that you’re hearing and seeing and reading on a regular basis, the things that you’re even telling yourself on a regular basis, those things you affirm to yourself. This is very very important. Again with Anakin, the Jedi and the Jedi Council were always telling him conflicting things – you’re very powerful but you’re too emotional, you’re the Chosen One but you’re too unpredictable, we’ll let you become a Jedi master but you can’t be on the Jedi Council. And all the while Chancellor Palpatine was just feeding his anger, feeding his frustration, feeding his doubts.

The last one: significant emotional events. Significant emotional events, good or bad, really make an imprint on our identities. Once again using Anakin as the example, it’s one significant emotional event after the other. He was taken away from his mom and orphaned at a very young age. He was taken off the planet, was thrust into a war and then the individual that was supposed to take care of them gets killed. And this is all just in the first movie! In the second movie not only does he lose his mother AGAIN, but he loses his arm as well. In the third movie not only does he lose his best friend, not only does he lose his pregnant wife, but he loses his two legs AND his good arm.

It’s all these things – his environment, his conditioning, his significant emotional events – these are the things that culminated in the creation and forming of his identity as Darth Vader. So it’s not that Anakin died and became Vader and that they’re two different people. Anakin the person is alive, he just changed. He changed as a result of all the trauma that he continually experienced – from his very early childhood to when he got his arms and legs cut off – he developed the identity of Vader to protect himself from all that pain and suffering that he experienced.

Hopefully none of us have to go through the things that Anakin went through in his life that caused him to change into Darth Vader. The point is we can change if we want to. We can develop new identities if we want to. Now you might be asking, “Well why is this even important? I’m good. I don’t need to change my identity.” To which my answer would be this:

Number one, this episode primarily is for people who as I mentioned earlier are looking to create new results and outcomes in their lives, people who are setting new visions and setting new goals because the fulfillment of those visions and those goals will happen sooner and much more freely when you create an identity that is congruent with those visions and those goals.

Number two, you might think that you don’t need to change and that you’re good, but I guarantee you that the people and the world around you are changing and evolving. And if you don’t evolve with it you’re going to wake up one morning and you’re going to find that the world has left you behind. So change, grow, evolve. The path ahead of you isn’t it fixed. You can start taking steps right now to create the future that you want, any future that you want. It all starts with creating a new identity. And luckily you don’t have to have a Jedi cut off your limbs to make it happen.

And that’s going to do it for today’s episode. What do you guys think? Did you have any questions, comments insights, reflections? Let me know! You can send me a letter… letter, who does that anymore… send me an email or an mp3. You can send it to info@pathoftheJedi.com or if you’re on Twitter youcan connect with us there again it’s @potjpodcast. If you’re on Facebook come join our Facebook Community it’s facebook.com/potjpodcast

It’s been an incredible pleasure hanging out with you this week. We will catch you again next week with another awesome episode. Until then, be well, be safe and may the Force be with you.