We can know that honesty, care, and responsibility matter to us and still need to understand how to live them together. In a conversation with someone we care about, we may recognize a concern that deserves attention, the importance of understanding their experience, and what we can genuinely offer. Our response is still forming as we consider each of these means within the relationship.
Discernment involves this process of coming to understand. We are making sense of the situation alongside what it brings forward within us, so that the response we offer reflects our Self. What we know, feel, anticipate, and value belongs within that understanding, together with the circumstances we are actually facing.
Acknowledging these considerations gives us more to work with. As we understand how they relate, we can become clearer about what our participation is asking of us.
Discernment Involves Our Whole Self
Through the lens of The SIRE Model™, discernment is the result of an integrated mind operating with conscious presence. It is the ability of our Self to settle with all the information being processed across our mind, nervous system, and body, and make the call that reflects our Self Inspiration in the present moment.
Settling involves allowing ourselves to recognize, process, and understand what is happening within us while remaining connected to what is happening around us. Our cognition, emotion, and all three layers of consciousness (conscious, subconscious, and unconscious) participate through the ongoing communication of our nervous system and body. Our experiences, learning, expectations, and present capacity are involved in how we receive what is happening now.
This gives us a fuller understanding of why the same experience can carry several meanings. Something may matter because it connects deeply with our purpose. It may also touch an expectation formed through an earlier experience or bring us into contact with a responsibility we are trying to understand more honestly.
As these connections become clearer, we have more context for our response. We can recognize how an expectation has influenced what we heard, why a particular concern matters, or where further understanding is needed. Our attention remains with the present circumstances as we come to know more of our own participation within them.
Discernment develops through this relationship among what we are experiencing, what we understand, and what our Self holds as meaningful.
What Our Response Will Reflect
Our Self Inspiration which holds our values, beliefs, purpose, and inner truth, remains our reference as we discern how to proceed. Knowing what we value gives us an orientation. Understanding what living those values asks of us within a particular situation gives that orientation a form.
That understanding can change as we settle more fully with our experience. A belief we have carried may deserve reconsideration. A direction may become more meaningful as we recognize its connection with our purpose. An inner truth we have acknowledged may influence what we are prepared to choose.
Our present responsibilities, our available capacity, and the impact on others remain involved. They help us understand what a response would mean in the life we are living, rather than considering it apart from that life.
There can still be unanswered questions. We may recognize something that needs clarification before we respond, alongside something that will become known only through experience. Discernment gives us room to understand what is sufficiently clear for now and what remains open.
A choice can also ask something difficult of us while reflecting our Self Inspiration. Understanding its demands allows us to consider the support we may need and remain attentive to how we are living it. The presence of difficulty belongs within our discernment, alongside the meaning that makes the choice important.
How Discernment Strengthens
Our capacity to discern develops through the relationship we continue building with our Self.
Within the ecosystem of Self Reflection, we can return to an experience and understand connections that were less visible while the scenario was unfolding. We may recognize how an expectation influenced what we anticipated, how our capacity affected our ability to remain present, or how something we valued shaped our response.
The depth of our Self Awareness grows as we understand these relationships. We become more familiar with how an experience moves through our mind, nervous system, and body, and what helps us remain connected while it does.
That familiarity can become available during another experience. We may recognize an expectation while it is influencing what we hear. We may notice that our attention has moved toward preparing an answer while there is still more to understand. What we have learned about our Self now gives us context while our response is taking shape.
The present situation still deserves its own consideration. An earlier experience can inform our understanding without providing a ready-made answer for a different person, relationship, or set of circumstances.
Our capacity matters here as well. After a demanding day, remaining with several considerations may require more effort. Recognizing that can help us understand what would support our participation. Self Regulation supports the internal space in which we can stay engaged, while Self Reflection helps us understand how these capabilities are working together in our life.
This strengthening is lived through our everyday participation. We are becoming more familiar with our Self, more able to understand what is being processed, and more able to let that understanding influence our response.
In Season 3, Episode 28 of Catalyze Your Self, When We Strengthen Discernment, I explore how this capacity develops through The SIRE Model™.
We stay with the relationship between what we discern within us and what becomes visible through our Self Expression. We also explore what living a choice continues to reveal, including how the experiences of others can bring something into our awareness that we had not yet understood.
There is further learning within how our understanding becomes part of the life we actually live.
A Reflection
As we consider a situation that matters to us, I invite us to give attention to how our understanding is forming. We may already recognize several relevant considerations. Giving our whole Self room to settle with them can help us understand their relationship more fully, with Grace for what is still becoming clear.
What are we beginning to understand about how our feelings, expectations, and present circumstances are influencing our response?
How is our Self Inspiration participating in what we are preparing to say, choose, or do?
What have we learned about our Self that is becoming available while an experience is still unfolding?
Listen to the full episode of Catalyze Your Self, Season 3 Episode 28: When We Strengthen Discernment.
Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5kZZAsSb7CaEdikvAe9e5j?si=6QVkOlezSN6oPhO1zXeSCw
Apple link: https://apple.co/3TD025L
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/DdwjBAbBMks