Discernment and Decisions Making

Journey to Inner Wisdom

Welcome to A Journey to Inner Wisdom. I am Crystal Kotow-Sullivan and your host of this Podcast. I am a Wisdomologist and I will be exploring Wisdom and the journey to our own inner wisdom.

As with any journey, there are many ways to get to where we are going. In this journey there are many tools available to guide us on the journey as well as people who will guide and mentor us.

I am going to talk about the ABCs of a Journey to Inner Wisdom…Awareness, Beliefs and Balance, Curiosity and Creativity, Discernment and decisions, the Enneagram and energy centres, Focus, Flow, and Flourish and Gratitude, Generosity and grace. At this moment it is the ABCDEFGs of a Journey to Inner Wisdom. I will get the rest of the alphabet with time!

From time to time, I will invite guests to join the conversation and share their journeys and the tools they use and guides who have journeyed with them. And you will hear about my own on-going journey.

I hope you will join me on this adventure.

Discernment and Decision Making

Welcome to this episode of a journey to inner wisdom. I started my podcasts with wisdom and transitions and then went into the ABCs of the journey…awareness, beliefs and curiosity/creativity and today I will talk about discernment and decision making…so far I have been able to follow the ABCs with the little diversion into transitions…but then when we are in transition whether emotionally, physically, spiritually, or mentally…it is usually the time we are seeking to tap into our inner wisdom.

So often we look for answers outside of ourselves and make decisions on what society, family or friends expect of us. Living from other people’s expectations is part of the conditioning that we experience as human beings…it adds a layer to our limiting beliefs.

When we find ourselves unsettled in our work or relationships, it is often because we are there to satisfy someone else’s expectations.

A journey to inner wisdom is about tapping into your expectations, your desires and de-conditioning your mind and beliefs.

As we gain clarity about what we truly desire, we begin to make decisions and trust our intuition and instincts. We begin to trust our inner knowing.

We make a multitude of decisions every day. Some are simple and unconscious, like getting out of bed, brushing our teeth, heading to the gym. Some are more complicated…what to wear… although my pandemic wardrobe has been pretty basic, so my daily decisions aren’t that complicated!!! I recently went out to a small gathering and it was a big deal to make a decision about what to wear!! Seriously, though, then there are those life changing decisions like work, where to live, relationships, kids or not kids, etc. How do we make those decisions?

First, we need to be awake and aware, we need to be clear about how our beliefs could impact our decision making and finally in the process of making a decision we need to be curious.

Most of us when making a decision will list the pros and cons of whatever it is that we are deciding upon. This is a good way to clarify what we want and don‘t want.

I want to explore a tool of discernment that gives us even more information about the decision at hand.

As always, let’s look at the words: decision and discernment …

The Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Decide:

: to make a final choice or judgment about

: to select as a course of action

: to infer on the basis of evidence

decide (v.)

late 14c., "to settle a dispute, determine a controversy," from Old French decider, from Latin decidere "to decide, determine," literally "to cut off," from de "off" (see de-) + caedere "to cut" (from PIE root *kae-id- "to strike"). For Latin vowel change, see acquisition. Sense is of resolving difficulties "at a stroke." Meaning "to make up one's mind" is attested from 1830. Related: Decided; deciding.

Decision

: a choice that you make about something after thinking about it : the result of deciding

decision (n.)

mid-15c., "act of deciding," from Old French décision (14c.), from Latin decisionem (nominative decisio) "a decision, settlement, agreement," noun of action from past-participle stem of decidere "to decide, determine," literally "to cut off," from de "off" (see de-) + caedere "to cut" (from PIE root *kae-id- "to strike").

Meaning "final judgment or opinion in a case" is from 1550s. Meaning "quality of being decided in character, ability to make prompt determinations" is from 1781; sense of "a resolution, a fixing of purpose" is by 1886. Decision-making (adjective) is recorded by 1946.

Discern:

: to detect with the eyes

: to detect with senses other than vision

: to come to know or recognize mentally

Discernment

: the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure

: skill in discerning

: an act of perceiving or discerning something

Origins of discern

"perceive or recognize the difference or distinction between (two or more things);" also "distinguish (an object) with the eyes, see distinctly, behold;" also "perceive rationally, understand;" late 14c., from Old French discerner (13c.) "distinguish (between), separate" (by sifting), and directly from Latin discernere "to separate, set apart, divide, distribute; distinguish, perceive," from dis- "off, away" (see dis-) + cernere "distinguish, separate, sift" (from PIE root *krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish"). Related: Discerned; discerning.

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