Serenity be Your Own Avatar
By: Jedi Seven
If you get depressed sometimes, feel alone, lost, like there is nothing you can do to change events, see the future stretching out before you like a hopeless highway - and if you wonder what you'll do, and why no one loves you and why all this is happening - This is for you.
"Through the filter of love everything seems possible.
Through the filter of fear the task doesn't seem worth undertaking." - Seven
So one of my little friends tried to commit suicide. She's the great age of 17 and I want to drive down there and hijack her and let her spend a couple of weeks of "Seven's bootcamp for becoming an empowered female." But alas that's probably fairly illegal.
I saw a lot of hopelessness and risk taking behavior teaching high school and I want to talk about that today because it's very common in teens who are creative, higher order thinkers and who have a highly developed sense of empathy and compassion. In other words - the best our human race has to offer - those are the kids who suffer most and it just absolutely breaks my heart.
So let me start out by saying that if you are a teen and you're feeling terrible, alone, have no one to talk to and feeling desperate and suicidal - reach out for help. Even if that means e-mailing JK or I - or talking to someone in your life. The people I know on this forum will set aside time to help you - and we don't want anything bad to happen to anyone.
Becoming a Jedi and being at this forum isn't about being tough and trying to build a large pathological block around your normal emotions. With any luck you'll pick up a few tools to help manage your emotions, accurately identify what they are and what is causing them. It's very human to try to push bad feelings to the side or think - I'm not supposed to feel this way. Then to pause in life and meditate and ask - "how am I really feeling? Why?" Then challenge you answer -- "is that really why or could it be...?" (Personally I always feel better with a couple of options because usually I end up blaming it someone or something and the real issue is myself - I feel out of control, I feel overwhelmed, I feel ignored, since I have full control over the 'I' part of anything, it makes fixing it simpler.)
Rule #1 of life --> You must be your own advocate.
I.e. be your own best friend, be your own parent, that voice inside your head that won't shut up is the left hemisphere of your cerebral cortex - so make it behave. If it gets abusive, "you're stupid" -- you can't afford that. Everyone inside your brain needs to be on your team. Cut the negative chatter, it will always sabotage your progress.
Rule #2 of life --> People only treat you and love you as much as you love and treat yourself with respect.
People stay in abusive relationships because internally they have justified the abuse, "well he looks at other girls all the time, but I am a little heavy. I'm a size 10 - if I was a size 4...." , "I wish she wouldn't flirt with all my friends but I guess I am pretty lame..."
Instead a better internal dialog.. "I'm not your dream Goddess? There's the door loser." "Hu, I suddenly remembered I need to go sort my Star Wars posters and eat pizza with my uncle Luke who I actually ENJOY hanging out with."
Be your own advocate first and foremost and it will get you through every situation in life.
Additionally when you can forgive and let yourself off the hook when you do mess up and do something stupid - you'll find you cut other people slack (like parents). You start to be the bigger person in conflicts and your resiliency, the ability to recover when something bad or a setback occurs increases exponentially.
Value what you're good at, value your skills, you sense of humor, who you are as a person and recognize where you shine. Be your own best friend and kick your own butt when you need to.
That's my parental advice for the day.
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