Inner Jedi Notebook Week 3

I’ve been working on my Inner Jedi Notebook for three weeks now, and I’m really enjoying the experience.

Here’s the question for Week Three:

Yoda assigns Anakin Skywalker a Padawan in Ahsoka Tano, in the hopes that mentoring a young Jedi would help Anakin discover his own best traits.

Decades later, Yoda would implore Luke Skywalker to pass on what he has learned to a new generation of Jedi. How can you be a mentor to people in your own life?

I answered with this:

“The obvious example that comes to mind is my daughter. We care for our children, protect them, play with them, but I think we also hope that we can guide them, teach them, impart some wisdom. My daughter is thirteen, so is probably at an age where she doesn’t quite want to listen to my lessons, lol. But I’m hoping, throughout the years, that a few things sink in that she can later retrieve: Be kind, always (she’s already pretty good at this; in fact, she’s got the biggest heart in anyone I know). Love yourself. Stand up for yourself. Listen to your intuition. Respect yourself. Believe in yourself. These are actually things I’m still working on. I’m hoping by imparting these lessons to her, I will also learn them. Be the example. Like a Master and a Padawan, the hope is that you can learn from each other. I know that eventually I will need to learn to let go, to teach her to be independent and send her out into the world. This terrifies me, lol, but is probably the most important lesson of all.

Yoda says over and over, especially in the High Republic books, that Padawans teach Masters the hardest lesson: to let go. Yoda ought to know–he’s probably had dozens of Padawans over his long life. And he had to let each one go. People with multiple children must guide and protect them, and then let each one go, one by one. I only have one child, and that seems hard enough!”

I got up to fifteen minutes of meditating this week, at least until Wednesday, but then I didn’t feel well, and didn’t do it for a couple of days. But I’m better and back on track, so I’m planning on fifteen minutes every day next week. It’s a habit I want to get into, like brushing my teeth; and also work my way up to thirty minutes, if I can. It seems impossible now, but so did meditating in the first place, so we’ll see.

Are you a mentor to anyone? If you’d like, let me know about it in the comments and we’ll talk about it!