Discernment: The Bridge Between Skepticism and Faith
I’ve been highly sensitive my entire life.
Even before I had words for it, I felt it — the weight of energy in rooms, the invisible threads between people, and the unspoken sentiments that fill the space between us. As a child, I could never quite look people in the eyes for too long—not because I was shy — but because I could sense things I wasn’t ready to understand: truths that weren’t spoken out loud like wounds, fears, contempt, or even desire. I felt the current beneath the surface of every conversation and every subway ride, and it was overwhelming.
In school, I often flowed in harmony with the world around me, picking up on subtleties that others missed. But slowly, like many of us, I was told to box myself in by being “more rational",” “follow the structure,” “stick to facts, not your impressions,” and “be more logical.” I began to conform to what others do which is to trust only what you can see and touch.
And for a while, I did. I played the game society wanted me to play. I chased certainty because it felt safer for everyone but myself. If I couldn’t observe it, measure it, or explain it, I dismissed it as my overactive imagination.
But here’s the thing: when you study deeply enough, especially fields like physics, you begin to notice that the more we “know,” the more we uncover mysteries we cannot explain. Contradictions appear like cracks in our carefully built structures and certainty unravels—and you realize: our tools are not yet sharp enough to measure everything that matters.
Think about it: love moves people to the greatest heights and depths of existence. It shapes lives. It births courage. It fuels sacrifice. And yet — you cannot weigh love. You cannot bottle it, or calculate it to the decimal. Yet we trust its existence without question.
This realization was a turning point for me. My internal pendulum, once swung hard into skepticism, began to shift—but I didn’t swing blindly into faith, I found something far more valuable:
I found discernment.
What Is Discernment?
Discernment is the quiet wisdom that lives between doubt and certainty. It’s not overpowering skepticism, that rigid gatekeeper of only what can be proven—and it’s not blind faith, which leaps without question.
Discernment holds both at once — and chooses carefully.
It says: Yes, I honor what I know and can see.
And it also says: Yes, I make space for what is still beyond my understanding.
Discernment is our ability to listen deeper than fear and deeper than ego.
It asks not only Is this true? but also: Does this feel true for me?
When we move through our lives with discernment, we inspect, investigate, and actively question while feeling for the answers. Discernment is where our intellect and our hearts align.
Why Skepticism Alone Fails Us
Skepticism has its place.
It protects us from manipulation, from blind belief, and from harmful systems that demand unquestioning obedience, but unchecked skepticism can also become a cage. If we believe only what we can measure, we shrink the universe to the size of our own limited tools. We forget that human senses are limited — that our eyes see only a fraction of the light spectrum, our ears hear only a sliver of sound. There is so much beyond us.
Skepticism alone dismisses entire dimensions of experience simply because they are not yet provable. And in doing so, it can disconnect us from wonder, from awe, from the very magic that moves life itself.
Why Blind Faith Can Mislead Us
On the other side, blind faith tempts us with certainty because it feels comforting to believe without question. It’s a relief to not have to expend the time and energy to think and have thoughts run circles in our brains, but blind faith can open the door to bypassing — ignoring red flags, suppressing intuition, or surrendering power to external authorities without consideration.
It replaces trust with dependency.
Both extremes — blind skepticism and blind faith — disconnect us from our own inner knowing. Discernment, however, reconnects us.
How Discernment Guides Us
Discernment lets us walk between the seen and unseen worlds with open eyes and an open heart. It lets us recognize signs and synchronicities without abandoning logic by allowing us to hold paradox, nuance, and contradiction as part of a more holistic story.
It says:
I don’t need to see everything to know that some things are real.
I can feel truth before I can fully explain it.
I can trust the resonance in my body as much as the evidence in my hands.
With discernment, you will be able to hold space for deeper knowledge, more truth, and more experiences. Relationships become richer, our knowledge more precise and expansive, and our lives more balanced and whole.
There are a few ways to begin to build the practice of discernment:
Pause before assuming: when you encounter something at the edge of your knowledge, give yourself time to feel it fully.
Listen to your body: resonance often speaks through the body long before the mind catches up.
Ask: Does this feel true for me? Not: “Is this true for everyone?”
Balance curiosity with caution: stay open, but grounded—if something sounds right but doesn’t feel right—pay attention.
Accept what is not yet explainable: leave room for wonder and possibility.
Discernment is the Compass of the Soul
Discernment has changed my life—it lets me honor science while also honoring spirit.
It has allowed me to trust my intuition while respecting my intellect. It has given me permission to honor the things I feel deeply, even if I cannot yet explain them. It has brought me back into relationship with the unseen — the energy of life, the rhythm of the veil, and the whispers of the universe. And perhaps most importantly: it has restored my faith not in solid answers, but in perception. I now have a deep trust in multifaceted truths that shape the whole story, that intuition will resonate before it is reveals itself, and that I am capable of sensing what is real, even in a world filled with noise.
Discernment is the filter—helping us distinguish noise from message, anxiety from intuition, and wishful thinking from deeper truth. I found that discernment is essential foundation to communicating with the universe. And before we can speak with the universe, we must learn to trust our instincts—we must tune in to something beyond our senses to find that compass inside ourselves that will let us know what feels true.
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Next in the Series: The Art of Prayer