TLDR
- Being disruptive is not being rude. It is living so authentically that it interrupts what other people expected of you, and that is a feature, not a flaw.
- When you do something real (reading in public, skipping the drink, living by your own values), you will disturb some people. That reaction is about them, not you.
- The reflex is to shrink the second someone reacts. You do not have to. You get to keep going.
- Disruption moves energy. Stagnation is the actual problem, and a little disruption clears it out.
- If everything around you is always calm and agreeable, there is a good chance you are hiding a part of yourself. Let it out.
I am Sara Walka, and since 2016 I have been helping witchy women come home to themselves through The Sisters Enchanted. And I have to tell you about something that has happened to me over and over this summer, because I think it is happening to you too, you just might not have a name for it yet.
Here is the thing. I have spent this summer being disruptive. Not on purpose, exactly. I was just living my life, reading my books, skipping the occasional drink, taking my kids into the woods, posting the way I post. And four separate times, people stopped to let me know I had disrupted their peace. Some of them were kind about it. Some of them were not. And every single time, I felt that old familiar pull, the one that says, oh no, I have made someone uncomfortable, I should stop.
I did not stop. And this is the episode where I tell you why you should not either.
DEFINITION: BEING DISRUPTIVE
Being disruptive means living so fully in line with who you are that it interrupts other people’s expectations of how things are supposed to go. It is not aggression and it is not attention-seeking. It is authenticity that happens to disturb somebody else’s sense of what is normal, and it moves stagnant energy the way dusting a shelf sends the dust flying.
What does it actually mean to be disruptive?
Being disruptive means you are living authentically enough that it interrupts what other people expected. That is it. It is not about being difficult or loud or in anyone’s face. Most of the time I am not doing anything to anyone. I am reading a book. I am drinking water. And that alone is enough to disrupt someone, because it is different from what they are doing or what they think they should be doing.
I want to be really clear, because this matters: disruption is not a personality problem you need to fix. When you disrupt someone just by being yourself, you have not done anything wrong. You have just moved some energy around. And moving energy is good. It is the whole point.
“Disruptions are not a bad thing. They move energy around.”
— Sara Walka, Founder of The Sisters Enchanted
Why does living authentically upset other people?
Living authentically upsets people because it disrupts their sense of what is normal, and that lands right in their nervous system. When you do something different from what they would do, especially if it is something they secretly wish they were doing, it pokes at their own choices. So they stop and they comment. Sometimes it comes out as “that is so inspiring.” Sometimes it comes out as “way to make the rest of us feel bad.”
I have felt both this summer. And I want you to hear this part slowly, because it is the whole game: their reaction is about them, not about you. When somebody stops to tell you why the thing you are doing is wrong, or to explain how they do it differently, or to remind you that you should be worried, they are telling you that you disrupted something inside them. That is theirs to hold. Not yours to fix.
“When somebody stops to say, yeah, but you’re wrong because, or let me tell you how I do it, you have disrupted something in their internal nervous system.”
— Sara Walka, Founder of The Sisters Enchanted
What are some real examples of harmless things that disrupt people?
The most ordinary things disrupt people, and this summer I collected four of them. None of them were dramatic. All of them stopped somebody in their tracks.
1. Reading in public
Reading, of all things, has been the most disruptive thing I do. I am an avid reader (I was an English major, I have a master’s in education, I once dreamed of teaching twelfth grade English and pulling classic literature apart with a room full of teenagers). We are an RV family, and when we are at campgrounds, I read, and my kids read. We have been working through The Hobbit out loud this summer. And people cannot handle it. Some ride by and say it is inspiring. Others stop to say “way to put us all to shame” or “let your kids out to play.” My kids are allowed to play. They are choosing to read, probably because they see me doing it. When I was in high school, my best friend caught me reading at lunch and called me a freak, and I put my book away. As an adult, I did not. Read in public, y’all. Literacy rates are declining. Grab a coffee and a book and be gloriously disruptive.
2. Posting on social media
I post for The Sisters Enchanted as part of my work (I am not much of a personal-life social media person, and shout out to Pati on our team who actually answers the comments). I put up a few reels with the tagline “things I don’t do as a witchy woman married to a non-witchy man.” I do not put rosemary in his truck. I do not cast spells on him. I do not get mad when he does not surprise me with a tarot deck. And people came unglued in the comments. Some told me to “just marry someone supportive.” A staggering number told me all about the spells they cast for their husbands. These reels reached six and seven hundred thousand people. Did the pushback make me stop? No. I did it again, and again, and again. Because clearly it was moving something. To me witchery is energetic, it is holding my husband with love every day and being loved back, and I am not about to dim that because a comment section got activated.
3. Not drinking alcohol
I still drink sometimes. A margarita at my favorite Mexican place, a beer, a glass of wine. But I do not drink often, and I have a history with binge drinking plus some digestive stuff, so one drink can leave me feeling terrible. This summer, at barbecues and family gatherings, somebody would show up assuming everyone would partake, and when I said “no thanks, I am good,” you could feel the pause. Recently my husband told a host “she’ll probably just drink water,” and nobody knew what to do with that. No one gave me a hard time exactly. They just did not know how to hold something different. Learning to stand in that discomfort, to be the one everyone is looking at like I have four heads, and to stay with my own decision anyway, is one of the most powerful skills I have. My body is a sacred vessel. I get to decide where the yes is and where the no is, and being disruptive cannot be the thing that makes me fold on that boundary with myself.
4. Letting my kids be in nature
We are outdoorsy people. I want to be on the water, in the forest, touching grass, watching the sky. That is my spiritual climax of any given day. I also have a very healthy fear of nature: there are bears on our trails, poisonous snakes in our area, and rivers in New England that look shallow but move fast over slick rock and take lives every year. So I am not careless. And still, four separate times this summer somebody watched me on the river or the trail with my kids and stopped to say “that is brave” or “aren’t you worried” or “I could never do that without my husband.” I always have grace for it, because sometimes people are genuinely trying to protect you, and I would offer a stranger a spare life jacket myself. But often it is just someone whose sense of good parenting I have quietly disrupted, and that is okay too.
“Just because you are doing something different and you’re disturbing somebody else’s peace and their sense of self doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you’re doing.”
— Sara Walka, Founder of The Sisters Enchanted
Why is the instinct to dim yourself so strong?
The instinct to dim yourself is so strong because it is a survival reflex, and for witchy women it has a name: the witch wound. It is the deep, conditioned fear of being seen and then rejected for it. So the second your authenticity disturbs someone, your body offers you a shortcut back to safety: just stop doing the thing. Put the book away. Take the drink. Do not post it. Do not let anyone look at you like that again.
I learned that reflex young. A friend called me a freak for reading at lunch, and I closed my book without thinking. That is the wound running the show. The work is not to never feel it. The work is to feel it, recognize it, and keep going anyway. This is the same fear I dug into in my posts on the witch wound and caring what other people think, and it is worth understanding, because once you can name it, it loses most of its grip.
If this is landing, read the witch wound and caring what other people think and its follow-up on what your birth chart reveals. And if the disruption showed up around your spiritual practice specifically, being a witch married to a non-witchy partner is the one that started that whole comment-section storm I mentioned.
How do you stay disruptive without folding?
You stay disruptive by getting back into your body the moment someone reacts, instead of getting back into their opinion. When somebody lets me know I have disturbed their peace, I drop in. Hands on my body if I need to. Back to my heart, back to my center, back to my own knowing. And then I ask a simple question: is there actual wisdom here for me? If there is, I take it. If there is not, I let it be exactly what it is, which is someone else’s peace getting rustled. Not my job to smooth it back down.
The bigger practice, though, is this: I create energy, I do not just react to it. That is the whole witchy posture. When everything around you is glassy and calm all the time, that is usually not peace, it is avoidance. It means some part of you is being kept quiet so nobody gets disturbed. So surround yourself with people who will not punish you for disrupting them, and then, honestly, go looking for a few chances to be disruptive on purpose.
“I am all about creating energy, not responding to it.”
— Sara Walka, Founder of The Sisters Enchanted
This is the same muscle I talk about in stop urgently reacting to your life, and it is the beating heart of a Good Witch Bad Bitch Summer: tend your foundations, and then say a loud yes to the things that make you feel alive, disruption and all.
“If everything is peaceful and calm waters around you all the time, my guess would be that there is some element of your personality or your truest self that you are hiding and you’re not letting live.”
— Sara Walka, Founder of The Sisters Enchanted
So here is my invitation
Be a little disruptive. Read in public (please, actually, literacy rates are declining and I am on a one-woman campaign about it). Skip the drink if your body says no. Take your kids into the woods with the right life jacket on. Post the thing. Live like this is one beautiful, precious life, because it is. When you disrupt somebody’s peace, do not rush to hide the evidence. Just notice it, stay in your body, and go on with your bad self.
And if the reason you feel like you can never be disruptive is that you are the one holding everything together for everyone else, start with my free Reclaim Your Time and Energy challenge. You cannot make magic when your cup is empty. Until next time, stay magic.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to be disruptive in a spiritual or witchy sense?
In a witchy sense, being disruptive means living so authentically that it interrupts other people’s expectations and moves stagnant energy. It is not about picking fights or demanding attention. Most of the time I am doing something completely ordinary, like reading a book or drinking water instead of wine, and that alone disrupts someone because it is different from what they are doing. I think of it the way you think of dusting a shelf: the moment you move the books, the dust flies everywhere. That is disruption. It is not damage, it is movement. And movement is exactly what we want, because stagnation is the real enemy. When I stay true to myself and it ripples out and unsettles someone, I have not done anything wrong. I have just cleared some energy, mine and theirs, and made room for something more honest to settle in its place.
Is being disruptive the same as being rude or difficult?
No. Being disruptive is not the same as being rude, and this distinction matters a lot to me. Rudeness is aimed at someone. Disruption usually is not aimed at anyone at all. I am not trying to make a point when I read at a campground or say no thanks to a drink. I am just living in line with who I am, and the disruption is a side effect, not a weapon. Rudeness diminishes another person. Disruption simply declines to shrink yourself for their comfort. You can be warm, kind, and full of grace (I try to be, and I genuinely understand that some people commenting are just trying to protect me) and still be deeply disruptive, because the disruption comes from your authenticity, not from your attitude. So if you have been told you are “too much” for simply being yourself, that is not rudeness. That is you refusing to dim.
Why do people get upset when I set a boundary or do something differently?
People get upset when you do something differently because it disturbs their own sense of what is normal, and that lands in the nervous system before the brain ever catches up. When you make a choice they would not make, especially one they secretly wish they could make, it holds up a small mirror to their own life. Most people do not enjoy that, so they react. Sometimes it sounds supportive and sometimes it sounds like criticism, but underneath both is the same thing: you disrupted something inside them. The key insight, and the one that changed everything for me, is that their reaction belongs to them. When someone stops to tell me I am wrong, or to explain how they do it better, or to warn me about all the ways my choice is dangerous, they are showing me their disruption, not diagnosing a flaw in me. I get to let it be theirs.
Should I stop doing something just because it makes other people uncomfortable?
No. You should not stop doing something you love or believe in simply because it makes other people uncomfortable. This is the whole reason I wanted to share my summer. Just because you are doing something different, and you are disturbing somebody’s peace and their sense of self, does not mean you have to stop. Here is my actual practice when it happens: I drop into my body, put my hands on myself if I need to, and come back to my own knowing. Then I ask whether there is any real wisdom in what the person said. If there is, I take it. If there is not, I calmly acknowledge that I disrupted their peace and let that be okay. The only time disruption becomes a problem is when we panic about it and rush to hide the evidence. Staying with your choice, gently and without apology, is the skill.
How is being disruptive connected to the witch wound?
Being disruptive is connected to the witch wound because the wound is what makes you want to stop. The witch wound is the deep, conditioned fear of being seen and then rejected for it, and its number one pattern is intentional invisibility, quietly dimming yourself so no one has a reason to turn on you. So the moment your authenticity disrupts someone and they react, the wound offers you a shortcut back to safety: just stop doing the thing. Put the book away, like I did in high school when a friend called me a freak. Learning to stay disruptive is, in a very real sense, healing the witch wound in real time. You feel the old fear rise, you recognize it for what it is, and you keep going anyway. Every time you refuse to dim, you teach your nervous system that being seen did not actually destroy you, and the wound loosens its grip a little more.
What is a Good Witch Bad Bitch Summer?
A Good Witch Bad Bitch Summer is a free annual practice I lead at The Sisters Enchanted where you tend your practical foundations and also do the wild, alive things that make life feel enchanted. The Good Witch side is the grounding work: making your home feel like a sanctuary, keeping your rhythms steady, taking care of your body. The Bad Bitch side is the permission slip: say yes to the river, read in public, skip the drink if your body says no, post the thing, live like this is the one precious life it actually is. Being disruptive fits right in the Bad Bitch column, because so much of living fully out loud will naturally disturb other people’s idea of how you are supposed to behave. That is not a warning sign. It is proof you are participating in your own life instead of quietly managing everyone else’s comfort.
KEEP READING
- The witch wound and caring what other people think (part one)
- What your birth chart reveals about caring what people think (part two)
- Being a witch married to a non-witchy partner
- Stop urgently reacting to your life
- Good Witch Bad Bitch Summer: how to have the summer you’ll remember
- Good Witch Bad Bitch Summer: why “just participate” is the witchiest thing
- What really happens when you tell people you’re a witch (the 3 people you’ll meet)