New Beginnings
Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start.
I love this quote and I never get tired of reading it. At any moment we can make the decision that our past experiences will not determine our future. We can decide that we’re going to see things differently and do things differently. We can step out of our old patterns and go about things in a new way. It’s never too late to change the way we habitually do things or view our circumstances.
Sometimes I like to follow the Heyoka* and do the exact opposite of what I would normally do in a given situation. The Heyoka were the shamans of the Lakota tribe and they did things like put their clothes on inside out, walk backwards and dance backwards, and show emotions opposite to the expected ones in an effort to shake up the accustomed and accepted and to oppose the status quo. The did this precisely to push the fold of accepted reality, and sound a wake up call.
So here’s what I would like to propose as we embark on a new season: I am going to use this moment as a fresh start and do like the Heyoka. Everyone who knows me knows that I dread and despise the cold weather; so much so that I start freaking out as soon as the fall weather hits. So I have decided that instead of dreading it and being miserable and unhappy when it starts to get cold, I will do exactly the opposite. I will look forward to the winter the way I look forward to and relish the spring and summer. I will celebrate each cold day and the colder it gets the happier and more excited I will get.
I know what being miserable in the winter gets me and I’ve finally come to realize that what Eckhart Tolle says is true: The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it. So I’m willing to try something different and extreme in the hopes of shifting a pattern that has only added negativity to my life. I’ll be reporting back on my experiment.
*The Heyoka were part of the Lakota Indian tribes. They were known as the “sacred clowns” and were considered shamans. The Heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame–they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness.