Practicing Discernment

How do we discern whether, what, or how to say something in situations, especially challenging ones? 

Some of us take a cognitive approach, thinking through the pros and cons of what to say or do. Others decide based on their emotions. Still others simply follow their gut or their intuition. 

The older I get the more I know that integrating all four approaches helps me discern what to say along with an essential fifth: being aware of the environment or field in which I am operating.

In Space Is Not Empty: How Hidden Fields Are Shaping Your Life and Our World, Alan Briskin and I define fields as places where interactions take place that are filled with both visible and invisible forces of energy and information.  

Discernment Involves Five Ways of Knowing

Practicing discernment involves five ways of knowing: being aware of body sensations, emotions, thoughts, and intuitions, along with sensing the energy and information in the fields in which we are operating. Integrating the information in all of these can lead us to some kind of inner truth or knowing. 

“Discern” originates from the Latin discernere, meaning to distinguish or recognize differences. How can we distinguish inner truth or knowing from our desires, aversions, and biases?

The first step is to pause and allow ourselves NOT to know. However, the brain usually doesn’t like this. Developed to keep us alive, it craves certainty. So we need to practice the art of pausing, feeling vulnerable, and trust that underneath all the falderal of trying to figure it out primarily through thinking or feeling, knowing will emerge. 

Sometimes that knowing emerges without words. Because the body’s and heart’s wisdom surfaces more slowly than the mind’s, we need to stay present to what is emerging and move more slowly than we are accustomed to.

The second step is to honor one’s inner truth that can be sensed inside underneath all the brain’s incessant chattering. Practice noticing body sensations, emotions, thoughts, and intuitions as they arise. Expand your awareness to the space around you and notice what your inner space is sensing in the field in which you are living. Wait for the integration of all of these ways of knowing into a subjective truth. As Carl Rogers said, “What is most personal is most universal.” Speaking your truth aloud might surprise you since it will likely be recognized by others.

The third step is to hold our ideas about the world, ourselves, and others in abeyance, suspending judgment and living with curiosity. “I wonder what she meant by that or what she might need” instead of “What a silly thing to say. It does not make sense.” So you might say, “I don’t understand yet. Would you be willing to say more to help me grasp your point of view?”

It’s not always easy. It takes practice.

This does not mean that discerning what to say or do will be easy. As Joy Harjo* wrote in Poet Warrior: A Memoir, “When I listen, I am always led in the right direction. That doesn’t mean the resultant path is easy. It might be the more difficult path. You may have to clear boulders, walk through fire after fire, or try to find footing in precarious flooding.” 

If we are to evolve as human beings and not destroy one another and our planet, we need to expand and integrate all ways of knowing. We need to practice discerning what’s going on inside and around us so we can more wisely choose what to say or do in any situation. 

Alan Briskin and I wrote Space Is Not Empty to help us expand our ways of knowing so we can access deeper truths and behave accordingly.

*Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the first Native American to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate.