I’ve had many people try to tell me how to best live my life.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to many of them.
While I don’t think that judgment is very beneficial, I do still recognize discernment as a necessary means for spiritual maintenance. In the last post, we spoke of the difference between judgement and discernment. Heart discernment is the propensity to use your own inner intuition to guide you. We each have a natural inclination to our souls unique path— an inner wisdom that guides, nurtures and discerns by helping to decipher what is beneficial to us and what is not. This discernment comes across as a feeling-tone relationship where the individual is directly connected to their heart. This means that our heart may lead us to spaces where others have not been or prevent us from moving forward/making decisions against our best interest.
Heart discernment is important because it enables us to place boundaries. Boundaries empower us to be clear on who we are and what we accept which helps us move through the world freely. A lack thereof boundaries is a sign of poor spiritual hygiene. When we place clear boundaries, we are able to maintain a level of self-respect, wisdom and high vibration. Very often when people discuss being “open”, they neglect to recognize that too much openness leaves room for unwarranted company. And as we each know—all company is not good company. To practice spiritual hygiene means to be able to place boundaries around things that we understand bring lower vibration, lead to hedonism, mindlessness and/or just egoism. There is, however, a fundamental difference between discernment and judgement that allows for continued and deeper spiritual growth—which is humility.
Humility entails the character trait of modesty. To be humble. Practicing humility constitutes a lack of pride that we often are able to witness through judgement; the “I know better than you, so that means you are wrong and/or less than me” perception. With maintaining humility, one is able to understand that though they have a clear picture of their own life— experiences that shaped perspectives, perspectives that support realities—they cannot tell anyone the “correct” way to live because we each have unique conclusions to personal experiences. This means one must take a back seat in another persons reality and give them rightful sovereignty over their decisions. It does not mean that we cannot counsel, we cannot provide wisdom if asked—but we are not attached to our inner wisdom as “being right” because we understand that each individuals unique guidance can be correct even when it sounds different from our own.
Recognize that we have created morals and values each shared by a culmination of socio-cultural standards. But when many us come from different cultural and social backgrounds, which opinion is correct? When we do not give space for each person to speak of their inner and outer experience that may have shaped a perspective, we stunt our own expansion. And in that place of judgement, we further invalidate another persons experience just so that we can validate our own.
Tapping into a greater sense of understanding means that at times we will make decisions and place boundaries that others will not have the wisdom or capacity to understand. But judging another for ignorance, lack of wisdom or even an ego-based consciousness is counterproductive. Not only is it counterproductive but it is also completely egoic. The ego needs to be right so that it can triumph over others. It judgement leads to shame and guilt which can further perpetuate another person into misery, resentment and often times isolation. Then, your own judgements may begin to make others distance themselves and lead you to isolation as opposed to opening the road for deeper connection, intimacy and well, love.
My favorite saying has always been, “if you get quiet enough you will be able to hear God’s guidance”. In this, I reflect that to keep a heart full of God, you must empty yourself. In this emptiness, you do not have the false authority of condemning another, judging another, blaming another. The “other” becomes a blending of yourself; where you recognize their sovereignty and likeness. You are called into a space of providing mercy, forgiveness and humility as opposed to self-righteousness. And just like that haughtiness begins to fall away as you are called into the deepest place of purity. In this purity, you answer to none but the Creator – nurturing the God that lies within, the subtle intuitive nudges, the wise inner voice that leads you along your perfect soul path and further allows you to meet another in their own path as well.
When we truly submit to our Creator’s wisdom, we leave no room for ego. It can not come with us where we are meant to go. And in practicing humility, arrogance becomes a thing of the past while judgment falls away to the recognition of our very own imperfections. When gazing at these extensions of ourselves and witnessing behavior that doesn’t resonate with us, we maintain boundaries still ushering respect and unconditional loving. And in this respect, we give space for another individual to show up exactly as they need to be in that moment. This doesn’t mean that bad behavior is pardoned, but that we do not exalt ourselves for their apparent “bad behavior”— all the while nursing our own inner evils behind closed doors. We are keen to remember our humanness, our fallacy and many times our lack of wisdom that gives space for forgiveness. And in this forgiveness, we can reinforce deeper kindness, mutual respect, and still maintain boundaries for ourselves that preserve a sense of peace without condemning or needing to change another.
The ultimate judgment is left up to the One who Created us. No one on this earth has the right or even ultimate wisdom to judge as if they are All-Knowing, All-Encompassing. In a space where judgement lies with God, we can instead nurture inner wisdom by tuning into what we can discern for ourselves, for our own lives and leave the rest up to The One who manifested creation from absolutely nothing.
This is heart discernment.
Genuinely Jannah 