POTJ Ep#3 - "Your Focus Determines Your Reality"

Though we were only originally exposed to him in the movie Star Wars - a Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn left a lasting imprint with his willingness to share his beliefs and philosophies openly and freely.  In this episode we get a glimpse of the depth of Qui-Gon's wisdom with his quote, "Your focus determines your reality."

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Transcript

[Intro soundbite]

Your focus determines your reality.  Let's just start talking about the nature of reality , Anakin.  I mean we're about to go into a battle anyways right?

[Intro music/main podcast]

All right, welcome to Episode 3 of Path of the Jedi.  Yes!  We have made it to Episode 3.  Thank you guys for tuning in to today's episode and continuing to support this fledgling podcast.  I really, really appreciate it especially since it's been such a steep learning curve for me.

In today’s episode we are going to discuss a quote from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  But before we get into all of that, a little bit of housekeeping.

First some updates on our social media assets.  We now officially have a Facebook page.  Yes, Path of the Jedi is now officially on Facebook.  So if you’re on Facebook, all you have to do is search for Path of the Jedi and you can find us.  Please like the page.

I’m excited about this page because what I envision and what I want it to become is a place not only for you guys to get more information and details from us expanding on the episodes.  I also want it to be a place where you can give us your feedback, where you can give us your reflections, your thoughts, especially on the topics and things we discuss on this show.

So again, if you are on Facebook, please look us up.  Just search Path of the Jedi and you’ll be able to find us there.  The other stuff like the YouTube channel and the blog and Instagram are still works in progress so stay tuned.  I'll give you guys updates as soon as those things are up and running.

Now I'd like to take a quick moment to give a shout out to a very, very special individual who… I was going to say he encouraged me to do this podcast, but it was actually his idea that I should do a podcast in the first place.  Without him there would be no Path of the Jedi.  So here’s shout-out and thank you to Mr. Chris McCoy.

Chris is actually the VP of Business Development and a Master Trainer and Advisor with Trusum Visions.  If you’d like to connect with Chris and see what he’s doing over there at Trusum Visions and Growth-U – it’s an amazing company, it's an amazing community that’s they’ve put together there – I will leave his contact info, his social media outlets in the show notes for this episode.

[Qui-Gon Jinn soundbite from The Phantom Menace] “Always remember.  Your focus determines your reality.”

All right, let's get into it.  This is one of my favorite quotes from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  It was Qui-Gon Jinn speaking to Anakin on a landing pad on Coruscant right before they heading back to Naboo.

This is a pretty big one so let’s just take it one step at a time.  There’s a lot of deep layers to dive into with this.  So, let’s just take it slow, take it easy one bite at a time and build on a foundation of firstly defining what Qui-Gon meant in the broadest sense.

“Your focus determines your reality,” I think we can safely interpret “focus” meaning the things that you put your attention on.  The things that you’re thinking about the most become the things that we experience in life, because what is life but our perspective of the things and the world around us.

Let’s just start there as our foundation: “your focus determines your reality” means that whatever you're putting your attention on, whatever you're thinking about the most becomes your life experience.

Now, I want to look at this from two different angles – and this will make more sense as we get into the discussion – but the two angles are OUTSIDE IN and INSIDE OUT.

Number one: OUTSIDE IN – what does that mean?  I’m pretty confident that most of you have learned about the RAS Filter or the Reticular Activating System.  It’s a little part of our brain that, the way I understand it, filters out information.

All our senses are taking in tons and tons of information at any given moment and if our brains didn’t have this RAS filter, we wouldn’t be able to function.  We wouldn’t be able to discern what is important and what is just noise, what is unimportant to us at any given time.  And so our RAS filter allows us to concentrate and hone in on the things that are pertinent.

In real world application, it's that thing when somebody tells you to think about a blue Toyota truck and then you start seeing blue Toyota trucks everywhere you go for the rest of the day.  It's the Reticular Activating System.  It’s given an idea, or an image, or a thing to focus on and it filters out everything else in the outside world so that you can hone in every time you see a blue truck.

So it’s outside-in because everything exists outside of us.  The material realm, all the information, everything that we can potentially experience exists outside of us and our focus instructs our RAS filter to pick out the things that we want to experience.

Qui-Gon is saying that if we’re looking at it from an outside-in perspective, we should be careful with what we’re focusing on because, well... It’s that saying, “Be careful what you wish for.”  The thing that you’re focusing on, it’s already out there and the more you focus on it, the more you think about it, it becomes like this self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s outside-in: everything is already out there.  Everything already exists in the material realm and whatever it is that you’re focusing on, whatever it is that you’re thinking about the most is what you end up seeing and experiencing.

What then is INSIDE-OUT?

We’re going to take this a little deeper now and talk about things from the quantum physics standpoint.  A quick disclaimer though: I am not a scientist.  I am not a physicist or a mathematician or anything like that.  This is just stuff I’ve read and have been exposed to over the years on my journey.

My basic understanding of the quantum realm is this: all potentialities exist in the quantum realm because everything is mostly just space and energy.  And so our thoughts, our awareness is what collapses the quantum realm into physical matter.  The awareness creates the matter, the awareness creates the reality.

In this sense, “Your focus determines your reality,” in a very real way could be interpreted as, “Everything that you think about, everything that you focus on you actually manifest and create.  You collapse it from the quantum realm into physical matter, into life experience.  Very, very big stuff, like I said.

This is a big and important passage because Qui-Gon is basically talking about the nature of reality to this little kid!  He’s talking about the nature of reality to Anakin.  This is one of the reasons I love Qui-Gon.  It doesn't matter who you are or how old you are.  He’s going to talk to you the same.

He never talked down to Anakin.  He was willing to share his wisdom and his knowledge with Anakin from the very beginning.  Your focus determines your reality.  Let's just start talking about the nature of reality, Anakin.  I mean we're about to go into a battle anyways.

When you think about it in that regard, it gets really interesting.  And when you factor in some of the other interactions that Qui-Gon has through the movie, things start to make sense as to his belief systems and why he says the things he says.  Especially to a little kid like Anakin.

In the beginning of the movie he has this interaction with Obi-Wan.  They're serving as Republic ambassadors that have stumbled into a hostile situation.  And he tells Obi-Wan, “Don't center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan.  Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.”

Why is this important?  What information does it give us?

There are two things right that can pull our focus away from the here and now, away from the moment.  One of those things is worry, or anxiety as Qui-Gon put it.  And the other is regret.  Regret is having negative thoughts about something that happened in the past and worry is thinking about a potential negative future that hasn’t happened yet.

Regret pulls you into the past.  Worry pulls you into the future.  If you’re focused on these two things, you’re bringing those negative thoughts, those negative either past events or future potentialities into your present moment.  Why?  Because your focus determines your reality.  And again it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whether or not it's an outside-in or inside-out, either way.  You're attracting it or you're manifesting it.  Your focus determines your reality.  We have to really be careful and be in the moment, remain in the here and now like Qui-Gon said.  Terribly, terribly important.

Now I want to share with you guys something that I learned from Trusum Visions and Growth-U in the time that I spent with them in the programs and learning from their advisers and their coaches and that is the Four Laws of Focus.

The Four Laws of Focus are:

- What you focus on you find

- What you focus on grows

- What you focus on seems real

- What you focus on you become

Having these Laws of Focus can really help you grow your awareness around the things that you're putting the most attention on.  Is it something that's in the future or is it something in the past?  Is it worry or is it regret?  You have to really be mindful of that because those things really lead to fear patterns and we all know that fear is the path to the Dark Side.

When Qui-Gon told him to keep his concentration on the here and now where it belongs, Obi-Wan responded, “Well Yoda always said that I should be mindful of the future.”  To which Qui-Gon responded back, “But not at the expense of the moment.”

If you find yourself experiencing negative emotions like sadness or regret, then your focus is on the past.  If you find yourself experiencing a negative emotion like anxiety or worry, your focus is in the future.  And if you use tools like the Four Laws of Focus, then you can grow your awareness around those things.  You can grow your awareness on whether or not you're thinking too much about the future or thinking too much about the past, so that you can get back centered to the here and now.  You don't have to experience those things anymore.

Here's where we crack this thing wide-open, guys.  This whole time we've been talking about our thoughts, our focus, our attention and how those things create and determine our reality.  And Qui Gon – really in essence, the deepest part of this, the most important layer to this whole thing is that he’s telling Anakin, “Anakin, you have a choice.  Be mindful of your thoughts because they determine your reality.”

Growing our awareness around the things that were thinking about, around what we're focusing on gives us the ability, if need be, to shift that focus thereby creating different outcomes, different realities.  So in essence, our ability to choose what we’re focusing on is an ability to choose and determine our own realities.

[Outro music]

All right, well that does it for Episode 3.  Thank you guys so much for sticking with me on this one.  A lot of heavy, big stuff that we tackled today on this episode so if you have any questions about anything or if you’d like to discuss things further, please by all means email me at info@pathofthejedi.com

Remember that you can also go to our Facebook page.  Just search on Facebook “Path of the Jedi” and we can have a discussion there as well.  If you want to learn more about the Four Laws of Focus and the Growth-U Community and Trusum Visions, I'm happy to talk about that as well.  Again, email me at info@pathofthejedi.com

Of course if you haven't yet, please go ahead and subscribe to our podcast.  If you like what you heard, please feel free to rate and review.  That'll really give us a leg up and getting found in the searches.

And that’s going to do it for me, guys.  It's been a pleasure being here as your host for Path of the Jedi.  We will see you next time.  Until then, everyone be well, be safe and may the Force be with you all.