The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.

– Naomi Wolf

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Recently, a very dear friend from out of state came for a visit. We hadn’t seen each other in almost three years. I had forgotten an essential element of our friendship chemistry – when she is around, I often feel like the rug is pulled out from under me. She questions things that I don’t even notice myself assuming, she calls me out when I am headed down a self-defeating path.

All of this has a pretty disruptive impact on my life, and I have to admit a few times during that visit I felt like it would have been easier if she hadn’t come! But I dearly love this friend, and know enough about her and me and our dynamic to trust that we find our way through it. And I know that what’s waiting for both of us on the other side of those glitches is a beautifully expanded sense of who we are, and a deeper appreciation of each other. It’s the gift of a deeply honest and loving friendship.

As I was sharing this experience with another friend, the phrase “positive disruption” came to me as a way to describe it. I thought that was so incredibly original until I googled it and found it’s been around for quite a while. In 2013 there was even a whole TEDx event themed around positive disruption (check it out here). Here’s how they describe it:

Disruption is usually unwelcome. It represents conflict, chaos, and potential danger. We discourage disruptive behavior in our homes and our societies, often favoring passivity and compliance instead.

 

But disruption can be a positive — sometimes vital — catalyst for change. It can challenge old assumptions, ignite conversations, activate authorities and expose new possibilities. Disruption can shed a unique light on difficult issues, giving a fresh urgency and perspective to the challenges of our global community.

Even though this is positive disruption, it can still be pretty damn uncomfortable. Sometimes to the point of painful. That’s the defining characteristic of disruption, right?! I would venture to guess that positive disruption is what sets in motion the benefits that come from neuroplasticity.

So developing a capacity to hang out in those uncomfortable zones for longer than we are used to can be incredibly helpful in harvesting the rewards that await us there. (Hint: contemplative practice is a great way to do this!)

We can carve out some pretty deep grooves in the ways we think and act, and some of those grooves carry a lot of pain and dysfunction. Positive disruption, whatever form it comes in, helps shake us out of those grooves so we can make healthier and more wholesome choices about how we live our life.

By being unapologetically who you are, and by not complying with another’s maladaptive stories and behaviors, you will inevitably disrupt patterns.

You become an accomplice in their liberation, if they are willing to lean into that disruption. And the same thing can happen to you when a positively disruptive force shows up in your life – again, if you’re willing to lean into it instead of shutting it down.

We do this with each other as individuals, and it also happens collectively. Black Lives Matter is a great example of a group, a movement, that has disrupted our usual narratives around race and privilege. In the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, activists started using the phrase #BlackLivesMatter on social media every time a police killing of an unarmed Black man or woman took place. In doing so they made abundantly clear that the mainstream narrative that’s been in operation for so very long is exactly the opposite.

We can see how uncomfortable this has made so many white people. Tone-deaf responses like “All Lives Matter” are evidence of this discomfort and the unwillingness to sit with it and learn something.

We live in a time when we absolutely need positive disruption in order to complete whatever lower vibration we’ve been operating in and move into a place where love, justice, and courage are the norm.

So the next time someone (or some group) pops up in your life and your discomfort radar is wildly going off, stop and ask yourself…

• Might this be a case of positive disruption?
• What is it in me that is getting so deeply questioned?
• Is it time to evolve from those beliefs and behaviors?
• Can I stay open to something new, marvelous, and as-yet-unknown being born in me and my culture?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with positive disruption…

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