The Role of Data in Discernment
3/2/21
Dear friend,
We've been talking about discernment lately—what it is, how we can approach it, and different ways of learning our inner knowing. (If you've missed the previous entries, you can find the archive of past issues on my website here.)
Today I want to talk about data.
Does data matter when it comes to discernment? If discernment is spiritual and deeply personal, does concrete information—things like numbers and facts—really matter?
If it feels true for us, must it be?
I believe data matters in discernment, and I'm going to share why by telling you a story about my previous life as a book editor and book coach.
I've shared before that I previously owned a company called Bookwifery that helped people birth their books and that periodically I would run discernment workshops that helped people answer the question, "Are you pregnant with a book?"
For most people, the answer was no. They weren't pregnant with a book.
But they usually thought they were. That's what brought them to the workshop. You could say their inner knowing was burning with the knowledge that something wanted to come out of them, and usually they believed it was a book.
Something transformative had happened in their life. They had grown, changed, gone through something major, grown in wisdom, been inspired—and they wanted to share that growth, inspiration, story, and transformation with others.
It was a beautiful desire. It was a true desire.
But it didn't mean they were pregnant with a book.
A book was simply what their minds and hearts had been conditioned to believe was next. It's like what happened virtually every time I sat on a plane or in a coffee shop next to a stranger who found out I worked in book publishing. I could almost guarantee the next words out of their mouth would be, "I've always wanted to write a book."
It's what we, as a society, have come to believe is the thing to do if something significant has happened to us. It's also the thing we've come to believe is the thing to do if we want to serve others through what we've learned.
A book means something. It carries a weightiness that feels equal to the weight of what we've lived—a worthy repository for holding all that hard-earned truth.
This is where data gathering comes in as important to our discernment.
My job in the workshops I used to lead was partly to help people notice their ways of inner knowing, their ways of discerning, the language of their soul and spirituality that helped nudge them along in life.
But the other big part of my job in those workshops was filling in the gaps.
What did they need to know about the industry of book publishing that would help them know if the path was really for them or not? What was essential to that path? Did it coincide with who they were, what they were being invited to do with their life, what they had the capacity and willingness to do for many, many years?
We have an idea about something, but what is the reality of it (to the extent we can know it)?
My husband, Kirk, and I often use the language of distinguishing between the mythic and the specific.
What is the mythic desire people usually have when it comes to holding a book in their hand with their name on it? I'd say it's usually one or both of these:
To be known in the fullness of their story
To help others with what they've learned
The question is, Is that desire meant to be specifically expressed in a book?
So often, for the people at my workshops, it wasn't. Once they learned all that was involved in not only writing a book but also getting it published and marketing it, they could see that wasn't the path their life was leading them to take.
Or maybe it was, but not for quite some time. There were other pieces that needed attention first, usually having to do with growing authority and visibility in their subject area.
Many folks needed permission to broaden their view, to consider other mediums that would be a better fit for them and the mythic desire they held inside them.
And some came to realize what they ultimately needed or wanted was simply more places in their life where they could be known in the fullness of their story—that it wasn't about becoming a visible authority on anything, nor was it about writing their whole story down. They just longed to be known. Where was that invitation wanting to lead them instead?
All of this was beautiful and okay. It was about finding the true invitation that lay at the heart of the desire that was plucking away inside of them.
Data gathering, in this instance, helped. It can help in many instances.
Is there some way it can help you in what you're discerning right now?
Yours in the gathering of data,
Christianne