Positive Defiance

Positive Defiance

Written by Adam Ginsburg, MA, LCPC

When we think of what it is to be defiant or to display a level of defiance in our everyday lives, more times than not, this isn’t exactly viewed from the lens of being a desirable trait that one would possess in their arsenal. After all, when’s the last time a friend got back from a social engagement, perhaps a first date of sorts, and when pressed for details on what their counterpart was like, jubilantly exclaimed, “Oh, it was magical! They were so defiant!” Yeah, not so much *shrug emoji*

To take this a step further, according to the upstanding, grade A humans at Merriam Webster, of both dictionary and thesaurus notoriety, defiance and/or defy can be defined as:

A.) The act or insistence of defying
B.) Disposition to resist and/or a willingness to contend or fight
C.) To confront with assured power of resistance
D.) To resist attempts at
E.) To challenge to do something impossible
F.) To combat

Well, yikes! Not an overflowing, overabundant amount of positivity in this term defiance, yet, what if I were to spill all sorts of tea everywhere, whether it be chamomile, jasmine, or hibiscus, and shared that there’s actually a defiance that’s, well, positive? What if I were to also be brazen enough to take it a step further and speculate that perhaps this level of, what we’ll call from here on out as positive defiance, is something that can be leveraged fully in your life to use as the very vehicle to guide you from the disappointments of the past and perhaps even present, towards the hope that emerges in the future? All sorts of outlandish, I know, but hear me out on this as there’s more to it than might meet the eye.

I’m going to go rogue for a bit here, and make the perhaps emboldened claim, that at some point in your life, dearest and most beloved blog reader on the world wide web, there have been points in your life where negative thing have occurred. Chances are, they weren’t simply negative things, but heavy, emotionally dense things that dragged you to figurative waters that were so deep it was almost impossible to swim within.

So what gives? You were dragged to the figurative deep waters but you didn’t drown; neck deep in hardship and circumstances yet still able to carry on, all the same. Chances are, at some level, there was an aspect of positive defiance that emerged against the hardship, where you made a determination that you simply weren’t going to give in. Think about every aspect of your life to this point, whether it was the hardships of an upbringing that saw a level of neglect, abuse or trauma, a situation that happened where something or someone you deeply cared for was ripped away from you, or even just the perpetual disappointments that happen day to day.

You got through it. Take a moment to acknowledge that and receive that. You! Got! Through! It! As if that wasn’t enough, this is the potential that positive defiance has in this process, as it allows you to not just get through difficult things, but to actually use the very things that sought to overwhelm and destroy, as the very foundations for continued growth for yourself and others.

So let’s take this negative upbringing example that was previously referenced; chances are very high that level of pain and discomfort shaped you, illustrating thoroughly what you’re not seeking for your life or the lives of those significant people that are around you. Positive defiance therein takes this experience, and makes a commitment to not pass along those hurts to others in a way that’s inconceivable, because you yourself can identify the pain, the brokenness and the hurt that emerged from that and couldn’t possibly fathom inflicted that on another.

Think of this as the bizarro version of a generational curse, where one generation of a family experiences a particular behavioral pattern and passes it along to other generations in a vicious cycle that leaves a path of dysfunction and brokenness in its aftermath. Positive defiance ends that, all of it. Positive defiance plants a flag and makes the proclamation that one won’t be held to the hurts of the past, but instead will confront them head on, ensuring that others within their relational sphere will not have to encounter them personally.

There’s a crux to all of this that’s a vital piece of this positive defiance puzzle: before any positive defiance can be exhibited, there has to be the understanding in place that everything that’s happened in your life has been necessary, as you don’t get the current version of yourself without first walking through the past versions, each & every past version.

All of your experiences matter. Not just the ones we proudly speak to, even the ones we’d rather forget, bury deeply within ourselves and attempt to forge ahead in spite of them. Your past can be a prison or a pathway, the decision is yours to make and yours alone. On that pathway though, positive defiance awaits, with the ambition to reshape and repurpose those negative situations into something that stops the harm cycle and ushers in a healing cycle that’s beyond comprehension. So get after it, let’s get defiant with our past!

​If you are interested in counseling, call OakHeart at 630-570-0050 or 779-201-6440 or email us at [email protected]. We have counselors, psychologists, and social workers available to help you at one of our locations in North Aurora, IL, Sycamore, IL, and/or via Telehealth Online Therapy Services serving Kane County, DeKalb County, Dupage County, and beyond.