You know those moments, something goes wrong, not as smooth as wanted or even fails totally and then it gets your attention. It seems that as long as all goes as planed and expected, we surf on a wave of unnoticed accomplishment and confidence – life just passes by –moment by moment, day by day. Then, something unexpected happens, and we are out of our flow. We start to question if it is our fault, or someone else’s, if the system works as it should …I could go on and on.

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I’m sure you have seen a natural pearl once in your life. It recently has been brought to my attention (again) that the starting point of such beauty is an active disruption in the life of an oyster. In earlier days’ people thought a grain of sand was the origin. Today we know it’s a parasite or another foreign matter, which actually needs to hurt something very specially inside of the shell to get a pearl as end result.

Use this analogy and take a look at what currently happens around and in politics. It seems to me that there are lots of ‘foreign matters” that disrupt systems in their core matter and understanding. I hear statements driven by fear resulting in negative proclamations of what those disruptions might result in. Thinking of what has happened just in the last few weeks let me reflect on my own personal story and how I deal with disruptions. Thinking retrospectively; aside from momentary pain, unproductive thoughts, and disbelief, the biggest grain of sand in my life brought me a strong call for action – a call to do something now or never. This lead me to awaken from my day by day passing life, and allowed me to actively steer my own path, being aware of what is going on around me, and where others try to influence what I shall do, think, and say. By paying attention to my own actions, to the different perspectives that different people have, and by allowing full trust of nature’s and humans’ ability enabled me to let go of many things such as  formed opinions and a desire for control regardless of my reach of influence.

I learned that disruptions by definition are neither positive nor negative; they simply disrupt the system, the actual flow. There is always a possibility that beauty can grow out of it if we let it happen rather than letting fear obstruct the growth of new things. Sometimes the more it hurts, and the more it disrupts, the more profound the change can be, as foundations, and long standing belief systems are challenged. This is currently happening both in Europe with the Brexit, and in the US with the two candidates nominated for presidency. It also happens in our everyday life on a smaller or larger scale.

It is up to us if beauty can be a result of the disruption in our life, in our systems.  Actively assessing if it’s fear, comfort or anything else that holds us back rather than faith in what can happen is my outlook on current challenges. Actively pursuing the path, you want to walk, asking what is possible, what new option we have not thought of yet that could happen. There is never just an “either / or” situation; there are always way more options available if we just let them arise while containing our fear.