Jose AIID LENA STEVENS 111Appropriate Destruction: Habits
Now that you have started thoroughly cleaning up your
beliefs, you are ready for the more difficult challenge of
eliminating habits that do not serve you. These include all
those behavior patterns that you perform mechanically and
unconsciously and that keep you deadened to the greater
web of power around you.
Heyokas are Native American shamans whose job it is to
keep the people from becoming too entrenched in their set
ways. They do everything backward and upside down just to
show that nothing has to be done a set way. They dry them-
selves with water and wash themselves with dirt. They walk
backward, sit when others would normally stand, stand when
others would sit, cry when they are happy and laugh when
they are sad. This destroys the habits and patterns that keep
them and others asleep. Secondarily, they make people
laugh, a process that in itself breaks up old patterns and set
ways.
Exercise #4: The Heyoka s Way with Habits
Try being a Heyoka to yourself for just a couple of hours
and you will learn a lot about your patterns. This is best done
when you have some private uninterrupted time. You will
need to go slowly to get used to the unfamiliar approach of
doing everything backwards. You will find that with a little
thought, you'll see new possibilities of reversals that surprise
you. For example, take your shoes off to walk around and
try eating your meal in the reverse order. Walk backwards
through the house or yard. Practice saying out loud what you
don't mean. This is great fun with a friend or housemate that
agrees to do it with you. The possibilities are endless and
the process can be enormously funny. On the other hand,
you may find some of your actions or sayings sobering when
you discover that your reversal is more true than what you
usually say or do.
Realize that set patterns and habits are convenient struc-
tures set up to make life easier and more comfortable. For
example, if you have formed the habit of avoiding grapefruit
because it upsets your stomach, you have probably saved
yourself a lot of stomachaches. On the other hand, you have
made your world a little smaller with that belief. It may be
that grapefruit once made your stomach upset but now, due
to a change in your metabolism, it no longer does. From a
shamanic perspective, it is a good idea to adopt a questioning
attitude about any pattern or set way that is done just be-