Conscious Discernment: Distinguishing Your Values

Conscious Discernment:Distinguishing Your Values The essential foundation for distinguishing who you are begins with recognizing, appreciating and honoring your prized individuality. Although this may sound simplistic, it is highly significant because oftentimes we are conditioned to give into subtle peer pressure and comparative mentalities that do not serve our highest good. It would only stand to reason that if you cannot honor that what is best for yourself, then how would you possibly expect other people to do it for you? This unique totality of your being encompasses your emotional, physical, spiritual and social self. Author Marc Gafni refers to this impression of authentic expression as one’s actual “Soul Print” that we are each born with. This consists of interconnected aspects of your true essence, impacting one another in reciprocal and interactive ways. Each and every one of us are biophysical and metaphysical beings experiencing life here in the now moment. As your journey continues to unfold, you’ll be able to practice using Conscious Discernment skills by tuning into how your feelings serve as indicators for your well being and benevolent guidance. They inform you as to whether or not to engage and embrace, distance and digest, avoid or plain outright reject that what is not beneficial to you. You will progressively improve your ability to ascertain your actions in any given moment by respecting the meta levels of feedback received. It goes without saying that: The scope of this endeavor involves learning about your own patterns of behaving, along with identifying what triggers raise issues and life lessons that you are here to learn. In fact it is not surprising that even the best intended planning, hypothesizing and analyzing will never be quite enough to face a fragile or critical life situation. There are just so many other variables that can unexpectedly impact your responsive posture. Let me give you a brief example; Let’s say that you were planning on visiting a sick relative in the hospital because you found out that their illness is fatal and you haven’t yet seen them. You realize how truly meaningful the visit would be for the both of you; however, you woke up that day with a fever and flu like-symptoms. You feel that you have ample energy and willingness to still make your visit as planned; however, you now are questioning what detrimental effects this may have on your relative whom you love. It is clear that your positive intent to offer loving support to cheer up this individual is now overshadowed by the immediate question on hand. Will you further jeopardize their health condition by the contagious germs you know you have? Or will you temporarily uplift their spirit to help them feel better while you also have the chance to say your goodbyes? Since this may be the last time you have the opportunity to see them, as you know that you will be away on business for at least a month or mores time, what is more important? What takes precedence? It is a delicate matter that addresses sensitive issues and equally honorable values. If the patient is already diagnosed as fatal anyway, does it still matter if they catch this flu like condition? These are valuable questions that question your values. They are pivotal to your decision-making. This predicament raises valid question as to where exactly one’s healthy boundaries begin and end. Are there times when they need to be crossed over for a higher cause? Does Life and Death Issues make boundary setting null and void? Under what circumstances would you and would you not agree? Where may you draw the line in how you would interpret this scenario and others like it? This may be just one of a myriad of moral/ethical dilemmas that occur in life circumstances that really have no clear right or wrong interpretation. Life is not all or none thinking, nor is it black and white issues. There are many shades of good causes for gray. When Love is involved only the heart can choose wisely. I hope these questions have fostered an increased Self Awareness regarding the nature by which you prioritize your core values. These are the values that create the underpinnings for an ongoing discernment process. Before you can discern amongst other people’s actions, situations and events, you must be proficient at discerning who you are within yourself. Reflecting on your innermost values requires a great deal of self-honesty, compassion and empathic understanding for the human condition.