Recently, I came across an article written by Shauna Janz on “positive disintegration.”
There are different ways of thinking of the concept of positive integration, and I like the one Joanna Macy has come up with that says that disintegration is simply another form of feedback for a system, telling it that it has become dysfunctional and that, most hopeful, the system responds by changing.
Our world is in unprecedented chaos and climate change has accelerated the danger many of us feel as a matter of course. It is heartening for me to believe that, when old ways of doing things are no longer adaptive or effective, that a disintegration process ensues precisely so that new ways of doing things can emerge that are positive for a sustainable life.
What Janz emphasizes in her article, is that we have a choice in the face of chaos and disintegration. She tells us that positive disintegration can only happen if “we stay aware, open, and conscious to see the potential that lies within the chaos, and to then act to create new ways that are sustainable.”
For me, this potential to create new ways is about releasing our potential to give, to give not from obligation but in a way that is free-flowing and comes from our inner joy.
This song captures perfectly the direction.
And these closing words of the song give us the direction: What is your medicine? What do you live for? And what really matters?