Sometimes our language is simply too narrow.
We have one word when we need several with more nuance.
‘Disturbance’ is one of them.
There’s a world of difference between being disturbed by something repulsive and something that questions our mindset, enabling us to see with a healthier perspective.
The word also doesn’t allow for timeliness.
Initially, the disturbance may be too much for us; at a later point, it may be just what we need to overcome our inertia.
David Whyte explores this kind of disturbance in his poem ‘Sometimes’, from Essentials. Here is the last part:
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
andto stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,questions
that have patiently
waited for you,questions
that have no right
to go away.
This is a place that requires courageous vulnerability.
But we are not alone.