The Importance of Discernment

Jan 5, 2023

Now that I’ve touched on the topic of starting to actively work with projections (aka The Hall of Mirrors) with the goal of owning and thus defusing those projections, I want to now mention a skill set which is vital to starting and truly mastering this type of work. Fortunately, it’s a topic that once again I’m thrilled to hear being echoed by many of the high quality spirituality and personal growth teachers – though it is by no means limited to that sphere. That skill is Discernment.

What exactly is discernment? Well, it’s a learned skill that is a hallmark of critical thinking capacity and emotional maturity which leverages keen insight, evolved intuition, and sound judgment in order to reach well-rounded conclusions. All of these elements – intuition, insight, and judgment – are by-products of a willingness to be reasonably widely educated, to keep learning, and a dedication to making time for self-reflection. Discernment is the ability to take multiple different perspectives, see the merits and flaws of each, weigh those together with inner guidance, and reach some form of decision – be that a conclusion, an action plan, or a recognition that more information is needed.

The Story

My favorite comic book character is actually Doctor Manhattan, from The Watchmen – because he went from being a regular human to his evolved form by first completely and thoroughly loosing himself. Why do I mention that? Because he actually became something of a role model for me, one that I still use. See, when I first descended fully into the Hall of Mirrors and began to realize just how much of my life was actually nothing more than projections, I will admit that I got lost – totally and fully lost. Seriously walking full bore into the Hall of Mirrors was for me a recipe for completely loosing myself. Let me pause for a moment and set the stage for you.

Imagine that your sense of self, your identity, has just been obliterated. What this means is that:

• I had no idea who I was in truth, with all concepts of identity crumbling into dust
• my means of self-evaluation had just proven itself to be based on falsehoods and was completely untrustworthy – I couldn’t trust my self
• I also couldn’t trust the evaluations of those around me – did they see ME, or just projections of themselves that I was wearing?

I questioned everything, and I had zero idea of what was really true about myself versus what was just a reflection of what I thought I was, or wanted to be. It was like finding yourself bobbing in the deepest parts of a word-salad ocean: no boat, no paddle, no life vest, no provisions. Fortunately, I had family around me that knew what I was doing and supported me during those few years (yes, I said years) in which I utterly floundered while I deliberately first unmade myself to the foundations, and then slowly rebuilt myself into something much stronger. Those were what I eventually dubbed my “Dr. Manhattan years”, and while I can say it was seriously un-fun, it was also by far the best thing I have ever done for my personal growth.

How was it that I managed to eventually rebuild myself? In a word: discernment. I had to learn some mega-level discernment skills, even as I learned how to navigate with multiple perspectives – the key skill being learning how and when to trust my own perspectives. No one story, no matter how much we might looooove that story, tells the whole of it. This process of unmaking and then remaking confronted all of my projections en masse (which I do not recommend, by the way!), shattered my perspective of myself, and opened the door to a much larger world. My ability to now see multiple perspectives and points of view without having any attachment to those is a foundational skill from which discernment is then brought into play.

If I had listened to some of the toxic folks in my life during that episode, I would have likely never rebuilt my sense of self. By ‘listened to’, I mean ‘accept their sole perspective into myself as now my truth’. The moment one source becomes the sole source that I listen to or trust is the moment that discernment flies out the window. Why? Because discernment means that I’m thinking about and evaluating things for myself though not in a vacuum. When I stop being discerning, then my own thinking stops, and I start blindly accepting what I’m being told. When this happens, I become easily led. When I start being led around, I’m also throwing away my personal sovereignty – giving away my power, my potential. See discernment is possible once emotional maturity begins. Remember the definition of emotional maturity from the Hall of Mirrors episode? It being the ability to work with potentially volatile emotions without unnecessarily escalating them, and this happens as projections start getting owned. Discernment, when fully developed and honed, is very stable. It also means that a person with a good sense of discernment is not easily manipulated; is much harder to be led around by the nose with fear mongering and the like; and is more than willing to consider multiple concepts without being threatened by them.

As I started to rebuild myself from this unmaking process, I had to learn how to evaluate information and perspectives and stories and personalities and recognize potential agendas behind the stories that I was being told – whether those were internal or external stories! I didn’t know it at the time, but my education in History helped tremendously. I spent many years in college learning how to evaluate sources, and this is precisely the skill that I fell back on when it came to further developing discernment within the sphere of emotional intelligence. If you were not taught how to critically evaluate sources, I would highly recommend that this be something that you seek out and teach yourself. It’s beyond a valuable skill, and while I wish it was taught in schools critical thinking itself is not really taught either.

Understanding where the information is coming from as well as recognizing the flaws and strengths of each source combined with being able to take in diverse sources and perspectives is the skill set which I ultimately relied upon to find my way through the Hall of Mirrors and back to a position of equilibrium. An upcoming episode addresses looking at triggers as a gift, as invitation, so if you currently have issues with listening to some sources, this would be an episode to listen to.

Discernment is why diversity can be such a strong positive – the ability to work with very different ideas, recognize the merits and drawbacks of each, and pull together the best of everything to make something new or be inspired in a new direction. Without discernment, diversity is a wedge that destroys instead of builds.

The Point

I am doing this post now for two reasons. One is that it definitely goes hand in hand with the Hall of Mirrors as the story above illustrates. The second reason is due to the culture in which we find ourselves right now. There are many voices, and it’s hard to know which ones to trust and which ones would like to lead us astray. What I see is that a large part of humanity is striving to reach higher, but that means a massive shifting of the old way of doing things. There are forces which very much like the old way, the way of the unconscious self, and will do just about anything to preserve it. The solution to ‘misinformation’ and attempts to corrupt, as always, is not less personal responsibility but more: more education, more emotional maturity, more discernment, more listening to each other and trying to understand, more of our potential manifested. Indeed, it is diversity with discernment, not a mono-culture of information.

I have faith in the core of humanity because I’ve seen it – I know exactly what lies at the core of you and it is beautiful. Let that light shine, and encourage others to shine. When we individually begin to do this, we raise our individual frequency and by extension start to raise the overall human potential that can be brought into being. All the ideas on economic models and governmental controls being bandied about right now are over a century old, when the last big jump in collective frequency occurred. Those ideas have been tried and tested for 3-5 generations and all have failed in the most painful way they can. It’s time to hold a higher vibration, and open the door to the new ideas which we can see glimmers of but that haven’t yet been born.

TL:DR

Discernment is our ability to critically and dispassionately evaluate diverse sources in order derive personal value. It is clear insight, intuition, and good judgement in action. When feeling lost with seemingly untrustworthy information, developing your own skill of discernment is the solution.

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