Star Wars Raises some Therapeutic Points (Pretend These Words are Crawling Up the Screen)

I have lately been watching a great deal of Star Wars, between movies and shows it provides endless hours of enjoyment.  I will make no secret of my fandom nor my long-standing love of it as a source of entertainment and storytelling.  Last year, I accidentally (yay task failed successfully) got my daughter into the Star Wars universe thanks to Obi-Wan.  Watching that, and rewatching all of the films and shows though has allowed me to go deeper and to begin seeing things I may have missed the first (or 37th) time around.  There is a great deal of depth to the story in Star Wars, and while it may have its issues here and there, it does a lot of things that may only be talked about on message boards or in spirited fellow nerd conversations.  I could spend countless hours talking about all of these different things, but I want to focus on a few highlights to begin with, purely to ensure this is digestible and hopefully to help those who read this use Star Wars as an allegory for the therapy journey.  A note of warning though, there will be spoilers for movies that have been out for four decades and tv shows as well as movies that have been out for at least a decade.  I will try to hold off on the more recent things being spoiled, just in case.  

Star Wars is not purely about the good versus evil plot, or a light side and a dark side.  Rather Star Wars shows how there is significant nuance that exists in everything and that being present is the path we should be following.  There are so many moments in any individual Star Wars film or episode that lead us to believe hope is lost and that things are only going to get worse.  We see this most powerful Sith, Darth Vader strike down Obi-Wan who we eventually learn was his previous master.  At the time we do not realize that Darth Vader was the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, and when we discover that it is right after he cuts his son’s hand off.  But it’s all going to be okay, because Anakin was sent to destroy the Sith, not join them.  Which he eventually does, just like 20 years behind schedule after also mostly destroying (via Order 66) the Jedi too.  But, I was struck recently watching a few episodes of the Clone Wars series, this actually is very much in balance, just not immediately so.  I often tell clients that in our lives we mostly remember the really good times and the really bad times, that the rest just sort of are there.  That is very much the balance existing in our lives.  Can we always expect a great thing to follow a horrible thing immediately?  No, of course not.  But, as we play things out we can see there is a sense of balance that does start to become more evident when we think in a more macro sense. 

We will endure hard things, and there will be pain involved along the way, even from the people we care about the most deeply in the universe.  Obi-Wan was himself just a padawan when Anakin was found, and he took on the role of his master upon becoming a master himself.  He fought for and vouched for Anakin and worked relentlessly to follow through on his own master’s belief that Anakin was the chosen one.  We see Anakin grow and become cocky and arrogant and we watch as Obi-Wan in almost a fatherly role tries to allow Anakin to be himself while also setting limits and boundaries and reminding him of how a Jedi behaves.  However, as we see Anakin slowly descend into the dark side, and we see the Emperor take him as his apprentice, we see the mourning and the grief, sadness, and sorrow that Obi-Wan is experiencing at seeing his apprentice fall, and feeling like he has failed.  In those moments Obi-Wan is bereft but follows through on what he must do, both in striking Anakin down but also in ensuring these newly orphaned newborn twins are given safe homes and are kept under watchful eyes.  Somehow, despite all of that hurt and pain, Obi-Wan moves on and is able to have a life that is not without connection with people, even if it is not as regular as he would have liked. 

Ultimately, Obi-Wan and Anakin are reunited after Anakin emerges to save Luke from certain death at the hands of the Emperor, which followed through on the mission to destroy the Sith.  He was reminded of his humanity and of his ties to that humanity when his son is there pledging to die rather than to turn, saying he is a Jedi as his father was before him.  As the Emperor goes to kill Luke, Vader steps in saving Luke, ending the Sith, and returning to Anakin at the end, the chosen one.  Just because we are perceived one way, or because we have made choices in our lives, those choices do not define us, nor are we locked into those choices.  We all have the capacity to change and alter our course when we become aware of the need.  While it took Anakin longer to get back to the path of the Jedi, we all see him return as a Jedi and be welcomed with open arms by Obi-Wan and Yoda because they accept him seeing how he returned things to a sense of balance.  Often, we fear change or fear that people will accept us if we change, but if we make changes for the better, then we will be accepted.  Those who do not accept our changes for the better are perhaps people we should be distrustful of, as they could be much like our Palpatine, holding us back from fulfilling our desssssstiny.  We are the ones who decide our fate for the most part, we make the choices that lead us to the next set of choices, and we can always alter course, but we have to remove fear from the equation.  It isn’t that the fear does not exist, it is just that we cannot give into it or else we will always be held back.