Discernment

Discernment is defined as the ability to judge well. I had an insight about this during a coaching conversation recently. You see, all day every day, we are in the process of discerning; working out the quality of what passes through our heads and sussing out which thoughts to follow and which to ignore. But there is often something in the way and that is the meaning we give our feelings.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today's word is discernment and that came out of a conversation,

A coaching conversation I was having yesterday where it struck me that that is what this conversation helps us to do.

It helps us to become more discerning around what is passing through our heads.

So there's a lot of confusion in being a human being.

You may have noticed there's quite a lot of confusion isn't there?

And a lot of the confusion is around what we think our feelings are telling us.

In fact I think that is the thing when you look at it,

And I'm having a moment myself now,

That that is the thing that creates the most confusion for people is a misunderstanding of where our feelings are coming from and how that then determines our behaviour via the thinking that we take seriously in that moment.

So if we think that it's the outside world creating our experience that when I feel something here or usually for me it's in the gut,

When I feel something,

When I feel angry or upset or whatever,

If I think that is the outside world creating my experience,

Creating my feelings,

Then the thought I must do something in the outside world,

I must say something to that person who's annoyed me or whatever,

That thought looks completely and utterly legit and real and valid.

So we'll follow that thought and we'll do what makes sense to us from that level of understanding of our feelings.

So that's almost like the real pure outside in paradigm.

My feelings come from the outside world,

So I'll need to do something,

I'll need to take that thought seriously that says I have to do something in the outside world in order for me to feel better.

And we can see that playing out all day every day in our own lives,

In other people's lives,

On the news,

On social media.

It's unavoidable to see that.

Even the drinking of a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day is coming from a place of misunderstanding where our feelings are coming from and that wine can take those feelings away.

But don't think we haven't all done that because we have.

Might not be wine,

Might be something else.

So that's kind of the first level of which our ability to discern is off because we are misunderstanding where our feelings are coming from and our feelings really do drive,

Don't they,

How we behave.

So that's the first one.

I think the second misunderstanding,

Which for me kind of came,

I went through this journey step by step.

My,

The burnout I experienced came from a place of trying to control the outside world so I could feel okay.

That's how it went.

That's why I burnt out because it turns out you can't control the outside world and whilst you're trying to do it,

You're doing a lot of things and not sleeping enough and thinking too much and worrying too much and then you end up burning out in a nutshell.

That's a mini version of what happens when you burn out,

By the way.

So that's where I was a few years ago.

Now the next,

The next level that I fell into was the misunderstanding that my feelings were telling me that something in the world was off.

Something sorry,

That something in me was off.

That was the next level.

You know,

We've talked about the outside world.

Then I thought,

Oh,

This feeling,

That feeling off that's to do with me.

I'd got that.

I'd got this sense that it was me,

But,

But,

But the me that I saw was this broken individual who needed to be fixed.

So,

So when I didn't feel okay at that level of ability to discern,

I thought there's something wrong with me.

There is something to do to fix me.

And again,

It was still in the outside world because it would still be doing meditation,

Doing affirmations,

Doing tapping,

Doing therapy.

It was all in this seeking to,

To fix myself because that was still a misunderstanding.

And my discernment was still off.

My ability to discern my thoughts was still being led by a misunderstanding of where my feelings were coming from.

And that's happening all the time.

We have a huge mental wellbeing and self development industry based on that premise that people are broken and need fixing.

So if we think that feeling we have is coming from our own brokenness,

Our label,

Our malfunctioning,

I guess in a way,

Our past,

Whatever,

Then we will,

The thoughts that will look real to us from that level of understanding will be,

I need to fix myself.

So there's two levels and I think we fluctuate between the two,

Don't we?

Sometimes we don't think it's us at all.

It's definitely the outside world.

And other times we think it's completely us and not the outside world.

And we fluctuate between the two.

But for me,

It definitely felt like different stages,

But that's just my perception,

I suppose,

Of what I experienced.

So both those are coming from a huge misunderstanding about where our feelings really come from.

So here's the truth,

Folks.

When you feel something,

It's only got one lovely juicy piece of information for you.

When you feel something,

When you have an emotion,

It's telling you that your thinking is related to that emotion.

So if I have a sad feeling,

I have sad thinking.

If I have an angry feeling,

I have angry thinking.

If I have an anxious feeling,

I have anxious,

Worried thinking.

And the flip side,

If I have a happy feeling,

I've got happy thinking.

It's really that simple.

And what that helps us to do by knowing that is to just become more discerning around what's going on in our heads.

And I know that you've done this yourself without even knowing you're doing it.

Who hasn't,

Like when we think about the outside world,

Who hasn't written an angry email or an angry text and then gone,

Do you know what,

I'm just going to leave that in drafts for a while or I'm going to delete the text and I'll come back to that.

We notice,

Don't we?

There's something in us that knows this really well already.

And we sometimes just leave something,

Don't we,

And don't do anything.

And that is useful,

Really,

Really useful.

But the more we can do that,

Imagine what's possible when we see it more and more and more.

And when it comes to the idea that we're broken,

Some of the time when we're misunderstanding that feeling,

We think that feeling is because we're broken,

We don't do anything about it because we haven't got time or we're too busy or we haven't got time to meditate.

And have you noticed what happens?

It just passes on its own,

Especially when we don't interfere with it.

So there's something here around becoming more discerning in terms of what's going across your head.

And for me,

It's a bit like the Tinder experience.

And if you haven't experienced Tinder,

Then lucky you.

But it's a dating app and you swipe left if you don't like something and you swipe right if you do.

And it's just,

I think it's a nice metaphor for this is that when we understand our feelings,

It gets easier to swipe left on the stuff that is unhelpful,

The stuff that's saying,

Oh,

You need to do something in the outside world now to feel better quickly.

Come on,

Do that.

Or the thinking that says,

Oh,

You're broken,

There's something wrong with you,

You need to fix yourself.

You know,

All of that's just off thinking.

It's more off thinking on top of the off thinking that was already there,

Because it's a misunderstanding of feelings.

Your feelings are like a little,

I don't know,

A little alarm going off,

A little tap on the shoulder.

There's something coming from a higher power or,

You know,

Deep wisdom.

Your feelings are just telling you your thinking's off.

Listen to them and don't misunderstand them.

And in that way,

You can become so much more discerning in terms of what thinking to take seriously and what to just leave on the shelf.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now,

But bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been The Calm Cast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

I love that word discernment. Thank you for this very insightful talk!