Learn from mistakes, don't kill the messenger.

I didn’t think I would have to say this, but apparently I do. We talk about drum protocol in the manner of traditions. This group may circle the drum clockwise, that tradition may allow women, this group allows rattles…but we usually don’t talk about the things that are really important. They are things we think do not need to be said.

We always explain to people that the drum is like a small child or your grandmother, not to do things around it that you wouldn’t do in front of them. Drummers, and other energy workers, are expected to be humans, not Bliss Ninnies, so we expect you to have a bad day, get upset, swear, or any other human action. Yet, when it comes to the drum there are some rules that are pretty easy to figure out.

We had some of those rules broken the other day. This resulted in people being removed from the drum. The first broken rule was a major one, it was the singing of NA songs while intoxicated. The person thinks they were removed from the drum for being intoxicated, not so, there would be a lot less drummers on this planet if any intoxicated person were never allowed to drum again.

Singing NA songs, especially certain traditional , family or prayer songs, while intoxicated is akin to blasphemy. Put in simple terms it is BAD, VERY bad. DON’T ever do it. Some call it “bad medicine”, it brings more bad into you, it is REALLY REALLY BAD…hopefully that is simple enough. We had to tell a person four times to stop and they were so intoxicated they kept doing it. That is immediate removal, with ANY drum.

The other is that the drum keeper and any elders/teachers are always treated with respect. You do what you are instructed, even if you think you know better, or don’t want to. When things are to a point where you are that uncomfortable, you do not slander the teacher / elder, you walk away. You don’t have to agree, but you do have to respect, and in the NA way, totally. You can argue, but if someone is your teacher, your elder, you have to do as told until and if you decide to walk away. When that person is a woman in many traditions, you don’t even question her.

Last night I was talking to a reader who was having an issue with a friend. The friend thought that is was OK to always run to other friends and badmouth her when she didn’t get her way. Apparently some people think that you will then be repentant or embarrassed enough to do something different and allow the bully, because that is what they are, to have their way. They don’t see their actions for what they are.The reader friend ended that so called friendship last night.

 I had a similar circumstance last night….must be the full moon on Saturday. The funny part is that the people who suffered the consequences of being removed think it is because one of them got drunk. I guess you could equate the getting drunk with the inability to stop singing the songs while intoxicated, but the fact of being drunk in and of itself was not the cause of either one of them being removed.

People want an excuse, they want one that they can say “everyone does”, they think it helps them not to look bad, but as my reader friend and I were saying last night…it makes them look worse. Then something else happened to them, and it was immediately deemed my fault, even though I didn’t do it….but that is the way things go, look for the easy out, look to slander the person who hurt your feelings, look to put the blame on another person , not yourself. As I have written in the blog many times, people live their lives stating to themselves, “it HAS to be someone’s fault other than me”.  They are the people who never get anywhere. 

When we make mistakes in life we don’t get to choose what happens as a result of those mistakes. We just have to live with them and say “I will never do that again”. We don’t spread lies, we don’t trash the person who delivered the sanctions, we say “oops”, and move on.We most importantly never do the same mistake again, we learn.

I suppose it makes people feel better for a minute to trash someone else when they do wrong. However, it doesn’t change a thing to make a situation better, it makes it worse. When you make a mistake own it, deal with the consequences, and move on, but mostly learn from it, never repeat it. This is what wise people do, and they becomes wiser from having made mistakes.

Mistakes aren’t deadly, it is how you respond to them that can be.

Peshaui Wequashimese

(C)2013 Dr R M Wolf. May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior written permission.