When Relationships Start to Drain You—Using Discernment to Stay Connected Without Losing Yourself
Episode Notes
Episode Shownotes
Connection matters deeply — and yet for many of us, it’s never felt more confusing.
In this solo episode, Dr. Alison Cook explores a quiet tension many people are navigating right now: how to stay open and loving toward others without losing clarity, discernment, or yourself.
Many of us were taught that love means endless accommodation, that boundaries are unkind, or that distance equals failure. Others, weary of being hurt, find themselves pulling back — unsure how to stay connected without feeling drained or unsafe.
This episode sits right in the middle of that tension.
Rather than offering formulas or quick fixes, Dr. Alison invites listeners to slow down and notice what’s happening beneath the surface of relationships — especially the ones that feel confusing, heavy, or hard to interpret.
If you’ve found yourself asking:
- How do I stay loving without losing myself?
- How do I know when to lean in — and when to pause?
- What does wisdom look like in real, imperfect relationships?
This conversation creates space to reflect without pressure to decide everything right away.
Sometimes awareness is the first step toward freedom.
More Resources:
📥 Download 3 free chapters + guided journal of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way and the FRAME exercise here.
If you liked this episode, then you’ll love the following:
Episode 191: The 5 Most Important Things I've Learned About Faith, Attachment, & The Inner Life
Episode 179: Building Wise Trust - How to Protect Your Heart Without Closing it Off
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
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While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
TRANSCRIPT
We're living in a moment in a season where connection is deeply longed for and
needed and yet can be really confusing. We hear things about sort of setting
boundaries as cutting people off. There are divisions, there are polarizations, and so
often the quiet work of connectedness and what that really means can get lost.
Without discernment, connection can become unsafe. Without connection, discernment can
harden into isolation. A formed life, a deeply formed life emotionally and spiritually
always requires both. And that's what we're going to explore in today's episode.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm Dr.
Allison, and I'm so glad you're here with us this week. If you're new here, I'm so
glad you found your way. podcast is a space where we come together each week
faithfully for thoughtful conversations about inner formation, the slow,
often unseen work where emotional healing meets spiritual growth, right?
We bring together the emotional, the mental health, and the spiritual health in one
integrated place. We draw on attachment theory, parts work, scripture,
and lived experience to explore what it actually means to form a secure, the vibrant
inner life with God. This isn't a performative faith. This isn't a place for quick
fixes. This isn't a place where we spiritualize everything. This is a way of living
that is increasingly marked by safety, discernment, wisdom,
and grounded love, all the way from the inside out into our relationships with other
people. If you're joining us on YouTube, you might notice we're in a different space
today. I'm in Boston this week, where my family continues to spend a little bit of
our time each year. And it feels really fitting to be here in Boston as we talk
about place, presence, and connection. There's something grounding about New England
for my New England listeners, especially in the middle of winter. And it's not only
because of the Patriots, and that's my apologies to the rest of the country if
you're sick of the Patriots. But because of the way life settles in here,
even when it's cold outside, there's a rooted feeling here, a historical feeling
here. The trees are tall. The roots go deep. You have a sense of the history of
where we've come from in this place. And that's one of the reasons I love kind of
hunkering down here, even for a few weeks in the middle of winter. If you're
listening today, chances are you're someone who wants to grow. You want to heal.
You've been noticing some painful patterns. You want to love others, but not at the
cost of yourself any longer. You care deeply about relationships.
You want to stay open, loving, and faithful. And at the same time, you may be
realizing that being good or responsible or kind or the listening ear has sometimes
come with a quiet cost to your own clarity, peace, or sense of self. This podcast
exists for people who are asking these questions right now. Questions like, what does
wisdom? actually look like intense cultural moments? How do I stay connected to
myself without self -abandonment? How do I listen for God's voice, not just outside
of me, not just through other people, but within my own spirit? There's never been
a time where wisdom and discernment is more necessary when we're just flooded with
so much noise from all different kinds of people all around us, from social media,
from the news, from media, from our friends, from even people in our community.
Hopefully we're surrounded with wise voices with wisdom and discerning eyes and ears
but we also have to learn how to be discerning within our own selves Last month,
I spent some time talking with you about the deepest lessons I've learned about
formation and growth, what shapes us over time and how interchange really happens.
And moving forward, I want to be intentional about having some of these sort of
cornerstone conversations, these four core areas of growth we return to again and
again on the podcast because they show up in every season of the spiritual and
emotional life. As I've done this work and as I've been synthesizing so many ideas
these past few years on the podcast, I've identified four sort of cornerstone areas
that we do continue to return to time and again from different angles. These are
sort of the key areas of growth. First is safety and healing, where we learn to
feel anchored in our inner being. This is where we focus on nervous system repair,
trauma -informed healing, and the slow work of regulation, resilience, and integration.
Number two is connection and discernment. This is our topic today. we learn how to
stay open to others without losing ourselves. This is where we talk about relational
clarity, secure attachment, boundaries, mutuality, and repair when things rupture.
And then we get into hope, joy, and delight, rediscovering aliveness, not just
survival. This is where we practice what it means to thrive, not just survive.
We look for wonder, meaning, savoring, and the return of vitality,
beauty, and play. And then the last one is formation and growth. This is the slow,
often unseen daily work where we tend to our souls regularly because life is always
throwing things at us in the present moment every single day whether it's your kids
your spouse or friends something going on in the world around you right even after
we've healed there's still ongoing work of healing we've never fully arrived and so
this is where we name the patterns that have shaped us in the past and also are
aware of what's shaping us in the present so that we continue to move forward in
life with increasing clarity and wisdom and always grounded in a deeper and deeper
understanding and rest in God's love Over the coming months, I'm going to be sharing
a couple of longer solo episodes that take a deeper dive into one of these areas,
each one grounded in psychology, especially as it relates to attachment theory and
parts work and shaped by a spiritually formed imagination. And today we're going to
begin with connection and discernment, because this may be one of the most important
and most misunderstood skills of emotional and spiritual maturity. And we're living in
a moment in a season where connection is deeply longed for and needed and yet can
be really confusing. Many of us are aching for belonging, intimacy, and a sense of
meaningful community. And at the same time, there are so many mixed messages all
around us. We hear things about sort of setting boundaries as cutting people off.
There are divisions, there are polarizations, and so often the quiet work of
connectedness and what that really means can get lost. Many of you are recovering
from relationships that have left you feeling anxious, diminished, or quietly doubting
your own perceptions or your own sense of self. Some of you are carrying questions
like, why do I keep ending up in relationships that drain me? How do I stay open
to people? I want to be open to other people, but I'm afraid. I don't want to
lose myself again. I don't want to get hurt again. How do I know what's actually
safe or good or true? Because people are imperfect. I want to be gracious. And also
I want to know what actual safety really is. And at the heart of these questions
is attention where rare taught to hold. And that's connection and discernment.
It's two different things, connection and discernment. And this is an ongoing
practice. It's not one and done. It's not, this is a safe person. I never have to
think about them again, right? We know that's not true, especially in marriage,
especially with our kids, even in our closest relationships. Connection always comes
hand in hand with discernment. Even with the people we love most, it's never static.
We're always holding both. Without discernment, connection can become unsafe.
Without connection, discernment can harden into isolation. A formed life,
a deeply formed life, emotionally and spiritually, always requires both. And that's
what we're going to explore in today's episode. So why is discernment so hard for
so many of us? One of the reasons discernment is so difficult, number one, is that
it's rarely taught, right? We're rarely taught this skill of staying open, staying
discerning, this both and, right? We're taught to love others or we're taught to
protect yourself. We're never taught that the two often live side by side, right?
There's an art to this. Also, many of you listening are deeply relational,
deeply empathetic, caring, sincere people. And so you were taught, whether explicitly
or implicitly, to always give the benefit of the doubt,
endlessly, to always be patient, accommodating and understanding, to prioritize harmony
and service over clarity and wisdom. And this is not a bad thing,
right? I don't want you to change that aspect of who you are. I'm working on this
myself, right? I have to always hold both of these things in tension. We want to
be loving people. We want to be gracious. We want to be open to others. Many of
us learned that being loving meant tolerating discomfort or minimizing harm.
questioning someone's impact on our souls meant being critical or judgmental, that
setting limits meant being unkind. And if you grew up in environments where emotional
needs were dismissed or spiritualized or overridden, discernment may never have been
modeled for you, right? You didn't see a parent or an adult modeling wise
discernment, pulling back when there was harm or setting a boundary when it was
needed. We didn't see that happening, many of us in our homes, and so we just
didn't learn in our muscle memory what that looks like to be a kind person, to be
a loving person, and also to have wise, healthy boundaries around us. Add trauma to
the picture and discernment becomes even more complicated. Trauma can teach us to
confuse intensity with intimacy, familiarity with someone with safety,
chemistry. with trust right it can pull us toward what feels known rather than what
is actually good for us
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Think about someone you trust, a friend, a spouse, your own kids. You trust that
their intentions are good, but you don't turn your discernment off. You're still
noticing, paying attention, checking in. Discernment in a healthy relationship doesn't
sound like suspicion. It sounds like curiosity, like care. It sounds like I noticed
something seems off with you. You seem more weary or run down lately. You've felt a
little distant, so I just wanted to check in. That's not mistrust. That's pressure.
staying present to the ones you love. Discernment isn't about assuming the worst.
It's about staying connected to reality, inside yourself and between you and another
person. So one kind of discernment is just the everyday attentiveness inside a
relationship that's already safe, that we already trust, but it's what keeps that
relationship going. It's what keeps that relationship safe over time. Other times,
discernment is doing something a little bit different. Sometimes it's when you're not
sure when someone is. actually trustworthy, when the relationship feels confusing,
inconsistent, or even a little bit destabilizing. And this is where many of us get
stuck, especially those of us who are, again, empathetic and sincere. We want to
assume the best. We want to focus on intentions. We want to give one more chance.
But Jesus gives us a really practical way to discern trust in the big picture of
things. Jesus tells us that we recognize people not by their words, not by their
intentions, not by their spiritual language, but by their fruit, right? That's
important because Jesus doesn't say by how convincing they sound, by how sincere they
appear, by how charismatic or how popular they are. He says we'll know them by
their fruit. He says, look at what their life produces over time. And this is where
discernment often gets misunderstood. Fruit isn't about perfection. Everyone ruptures,
everyone misses the mark, everyone causes harm at times. The question isn't, do they
ever fail? The question is, what happens next? Healthy fruit includes the capacity
for rupture and repair, humility when confronted, accountability without collapse,
honesty. about limitations and growth over time. Discernment isn't about asking,
is this person flawless? Does this person always make me feel amazing? That's not
realistic. Discernment is asking what consistently grows in my life when I'm in
relationship with this other person. Do I feel clearer, more like the best version
of myself? Or do I feel more confused? Do I feel more grounded in general over
time? Or do I feel increasingly anxious? Do I feel more like myself? and wanting to
strive to be a better version of myself, or do I feel smaller or diminished? Fruit
shows up in ordinary moments, in the grocery store lines, in private conversations,
in how frustration or disappointment is handled, in whether repair is possible, or
whether you feel deceived or manipulated, right? Where you don't feel like someone's
being honest with you. Over time, do you feel safer, or do you... begin to doubt
yourself. This isn't a judgment on the other person. This is an observation about
impact on your own soul. And this is where Jesus steps in and invites us not to
condemn other people, but to tell the truth about patterns. What is the fruit that
this relationship bears in my life? It's primarily an account for my own soul. Am I
becoming more like the person I want to be here? Or am I becoming increasingly
anxious, diminished, stressed out, clinging, avoidant? Whatever the things are that you
notice, you notice that first and foremost within your own soul. Because again,
it might be a statement about the other person. But what you can notice for sure
when you're discerning is the fruit it's bearing within you. one of the reasons
discernment gets overridden is because we're taught to treat it as a purely cognitive
exercise we get in our heads about it right we override what our nervous systems
are telling us but discernment is embodied your nervous system is constantly tracking
safety predictability congruence character integrity long before your mind has language
for it your body is registering data this doesn't mean every uncomfortable sensation
is a red flag growth can be uncomfortable conflict, can be activating, repair,
takes effort. We have all of the data from our past that's influencing our nervous
systems perceived danger. Remember what I said at the beginning, our nervous systems
can sometimes register what is familiar as safe when what is familiar is actually
not healthy for us. It's just familiar. We recognize it from our past, right? So we
have to be careful when we're paying attention to the cues our body is giving us.
And again, we're always assessing what's happening in our own soul. We might always
say, even if we say, I don't think this other person is doing something wrong
necessarily, but what I know is it's activating my nervous system. And so I've got
to go on a journey to discern that, to figure that out. Why is that? How do I
match the facts of the situation, the data with what my nervous system is
registering? That's not getting up in my head about it. That's saying I'm aware of
two things simultaneously. My nervous system is activated here. That's just a fact.
anxious I feel disconnected I feel distant whatever the feeling is in the nervous
system I'm not sure yet what the facts and the data are that tell me what maybe
this person is actually being the best they can be they're not doing anything wrong
but however they are doesn't doesn't feel good to me and so I need to just pivot
and move in a different direction or maybe my nervous system is registering something
that's really unsafe maybe this person is really mistreating me and I need to Pay
attention to that because then I'm going to behave differently. And this is a lot
of what I was trying to teach you in my book, I Shouldn't Feel This Way, where we
have the name, frame, brave model. That framing model is that really important middle
step of discernment. It's saying I notice something. Naming is saying I notice
something in my nervous system. I'm naming it. And then you take that step of
framing to try to understand what are the facts? What's my past that might be?
influencing my present? What belongs to me? And what do I think belongs to this
other person? You do that framing step often inside your own soul before you even
take action with the other person. And that's that braving step, right? That's why
that framing step of the name, frame, brave model in I Shouldn't Feel This Way is
so important. It's the discernment step. It's the step we often want to skip over.
We want to get to the solution. We want to fix the problem. We want to have the
conversation. We want to set the boundary. taking time to go, what does this
actually mean? But that framing step means paying attention to the signals your
nervous system is giving you. Discernment is the capacity to stay present to what
consistently happens inside you around this other person without rushing to explain it
away, to act on it, to fix it, to solve it, to make a judgment, right? It's
staying present to what's confusing, what's unclear. That's actually what discernment
is. It sounds like I notice I feel uneasy. edge after spending time with them. I
notice I second guess myself more. I notice I feel smaller, quieter, less clear.
I wonder what that's about, right? That information is important and we need to
discern what's happening here. This is how growth happens is in this discernment
phase. And scripture never asks us to override those signals in the name of love.
Discernment isn't avoidance. It's also not rushing to fight, to fix, right? It's
grounded. awareness. It's staying present to what feels confusing,
and it's essential to maintaining healthy relationships over the long haul. One of
the hardest truths to accept is that discernment doesn't always lead to deeper
connection. It doesn't always lead to the nice bow -tied resolution that we long for.
Sometimes it leads to clarity, right? We get really clear that this person is really
trustworthy. I'm so glad I had this conversation with them. Sometimes it leads to
distance. Clarify that this isn't a relationship that's going to go deeper in a way
you maybe wished it would have. Sometimes it leads to grief. Like, oh my gosh,
this isn't what I thought it was. Right? And that's not punishment. That's not
rejection. That's not judgment. That's aligning your soul with the reality of what is
true. Distance isn't punishment. Boundaries aren't rejection. And stepping back isn't a
failure to love. Even Jesus didn't entrust himself to every single person. Jesus
showed healthy boundaries. He understood what he needed and he understood his mission
and his higher purpose. Discernment allows us to recognize when a relationship,
however meaningful to us, doesn't bear good fruit in its current form. And again,
that doesn't mean you're critical, judgmental, or unloving. It means you're honest. It
means you're wise. And that is the essential need for real love. You can love
someone and recognize this relationship isn't healthy in its current state because
you're loving that person enough to say, we need to shift. I need to shift. I need
to move in a different direction. And we'll see what happens. I'm not God. I can't
control the outcome. But what I can do is take steps to move toward good fruit,
health, wisdom in a loving way that honors the other person in the sense that it
also is an invitation for them to figure out where their soul needs to shift, where
their soul needs to grow. This is where maturity lives. Emotional maturity lives in
this tension between openness and clarity. Connection without discernment leads to self
-abandonment. Discernment without connection can lead to isolation and just no
relationships at all. A formed life, a deeply formed life holds both.
open and anchored, compassionate and truthful, present and boundaried. This is slow
work. This isn't quick fix, memeable, you know, shareable work. This is the slow day
-to -day work of learning to stay with yourself even as you stay present to other
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As we close today, I want to offer you some words from the framing chapter, and I
shouldn't feel this way. I love this quote from the poet Rilke, who says, framing
is a time to be, quote unquote, patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves. This place of discernment is a place where
you ask. questions. Sometimes questions you can't answer right away. It's a place
where you connect with the gentle whisper of God's spirit. And when you move into
the work of framing a challenging relationship or situation, you're trying to unearth
some of the following things. What is the actual problem here? It could be so many
different things. It could be that the other person is behaving in a toxic matter.
It could be that you're behaving in a toxic matter, right? It could be that your
own patterns are getting in the way. It could be that the dynamic between the two
of you is toxic, right? Where you're not bringing out the best of each other and
you need to disentangle that, which is actually going to be better for both of you,
right? So often, if you look on social media, it's sort of like they are the
problem or you know, often inside our own souls, we blame ourselves. I am the
problem. When a lot of times there's a dynamic at play that isn't quite healthy and
God is in the business of healing. He's in the business of getting in the weeds
and rooting out those things to bring health, right? So we want to be discerning
what is the actual problem here? What's my part in it? What is not my part in it?
What is absolutely not my part in it? What are the obstacles that are real? It
could be long distance. It could be. communication styles. It could be that the
other person is going through something in their lives and they just can't be
available in the way that I would like, right? We need to look at the realities
and the obstacles. What has to be faced that can't be changed, right?
What can't be changed? is what it is, as they say, what are the resources available
to me? This is all part of framing, right? It's all part of staying with the
questions themselves. And I give you an acronym, and I shouldn't feel this way,
that's called FRAME, right? Because this is the framing step. This is that... in
between where we've named something, something isn't working here. Something doesn't
feel right. My nervous system is stirred up in this relationship or in this specific
situation, right? Braving is that third step of I'm going to do something about it,
right? I'm either going to speak up, I'm going to set a boundary, I'm going to
initiate a conversation, I'm going to get out of the relationship. That's the
braving. We want to get there. But this framing step is all about this discernment
and it's so crucial. So here's the acronym. You can get it for free.
We'll link to the show notes how you can get this acronym for free. But it's
something you can work through in your time alone when you are reflecting, taking a
walk, when you take the music or the podcast out of your ear and you're kind of
paying attention, you're attuning to what's going on in your own soul prayerfully
with God's Spirit. The F in frame is facts. What are the different facts of the
situation to help you gain objectivity? And sometimes this is just so clarifying to
lay it out. What are the facts? You know, this person is working really hard right
now. A lot of pressure is being put on this person in other contexts so they can't
be available for me. Or this person lives far away and we just can't see each
other enough. And so that's... stress or pressure on the relationship. These are
examples of facts, right? That are just facts. They're just realities. The R is for
roots, right? What are the deeper things going on there? What are my own attachment
wounds from the past that might be coming into the present relationship? It doesn't
mean they're wrong. It's just helpful to name them. You know, I'm someone who, when
I don't hear back from someone over text for a couple of days, I... abandoned,
is a part of that from my own past, right? And I know this person, I know
sometimes they're just slow to respond, but that's hard for me, right? That's holding
two things together, right? I don't think this person is being a jerk, but that's
hard for me because this is something I've dealt with in the past. So how do I
hold those two things at once, right? So roots is what we bring in, right, from
our past that we need to be honest about and aware of. And then A in frame is an
audit, right? review strategies you've tried in the past when I feel this way,
right? Am I the one that always pursues, right? I always initiate the conversation
and how has that gone for me? Or am I the person that has always tended to avoid
and how has that gone for me, right? You're kind of auditing. What have I tried in
the past when I felt this way? What's worked and what? hasn't worked and again
you're just taking inventory inside your own soul this is all toward discernment and
then m are the messages what are the messages i'm telling myself this is crucial
because so often when we're in that confusing space of discernment we're guilt
tripping ourselves we're shaming ourselves what's wrong with me why can't i just
figure this out why can't i just leave why can't i just be braver or we're or why
can't i just not care right we're so often giving ourselves messages that don't
really help. And so when you look at your messages, just take a minute to notice
them. This is what I'm telling myself and see if you can get some space from those
messages. To just look at the facts of the situation. Shaming yourself, guilt
-tripping yourself, belittling yourself, criticizing yourself doesn't work. It doesn't
lead to healthy discernment. And then lastly, the E in frame is to expand.
Expand your understanding through research, through expert opinions, through listening
to this podcast, right? Or maybe bringing in a trusted friend to say, hey, here's
what's going on. I'm confused. Can you help me kind of... Get the big picture here.
You know, you know this other person. Again, you're not gossiping. You're not
venting. You're not triangulating. These are real trusted people when you pull them
in, right? Because you're saying, I hear the truths as I see them. Do you see them
similarly? Am I missing something, right? You're trying to expand your knowledge, not
to vent again, not to gossip, but to gain greater clarity, right?
That's the difference. You're trying to gain greater clarity so that you can see the
situation more clearly because we all have blind spots. We all have blind spots when
it comes to challenging relationships. And I just want to close with this story I
share and I shouldn't feel this way. And it's kind of a silly story, but it really
illustrates why this discernment is so important. Imagine you live in a house with
someone. It could be a roommate. It could be you're a newlywed. It could be even
one of your kids, right? You've got a roommate and you keep coming home day after
day after day after work or whatever. And you come in and the kitchen's a mess and
they've used all your stuff and they've been in your space and you're just... know,
you're just like, my nervous system is like, I can't do this. This isn't okay,
right? So right there, we could immediately place a judgment. What a jerk this other
person is, right? What a jerk, right? That could be an easy judgment to place. When
I look at that situation, what I've learned from years of hearing stories like this
is there's usually three things going on. One of three things. And we won't know
which one it is until we do this work of discernment, this work of framing, right?
Option one is it's two people who've never communicated. One person, this is how
they live. It doesn't bother them. You could be in their space. You could be trash
in their room. They wouldn't care. They don't know because you've never told them
you don't like this. This doesn't work. you so that's option one is you haven't
figured out how to say this isn't working for me I need to have a conversation
about this I need something to be different will you come alongside me that's option
one option two is you've tried repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly to say this isn't
working for me I can't do it this way and they're just overruling you. They don't
care. They might be giving you lip service, but they keep doing the behaviors. They
might even be gaslighting you. You're crazy. Why does this bother you? You're too
sensitive, right? That's toxic, right? That's toxic. But we don't know that until
we... Go deeper into framing. Option three is there's a variable that you don't have
control over, right? Maybe there's something going on with this other person in their
life where they really do mean well, but they're not keeping it together very well.
Maybe there's a diagnosis. Maybe it's a child who's going through a season where
they're just having a hard time holding it together, right? And so there's a third
path through that. There's a negotiation. that is needed that accounts for an outside
variable, right? They can't trash your stuff. They can't use your space. But maybe
they do need a space where they can be really messy, right, in this situation. And
so I talk about it and I shouldn't feel this way as often there's these three
options. One is I need to leave the situation because it's toxic. Two is I need to
fight for change because I haven't used my voice. I haven't spoken up. And I don't
think this person is a bad person, but I need to say, hey, this isn't working for
me. and see what happens. And then that third option that's trickier and more
complicated, but often the reality for some situations is I've got to figure out how
to suffer it wisely, meaning I can't get exactly what I need met here,
but I can put other kind of boundaries and other parameters in place that are
enough, where I can stay in relationship with this person, honoring what's hard for
them right now. And I can also equip myself in other ways so that I can stay
healthy in this moment. It's not ideal, but I can suffer it wisely, right?
Those are those three options. It is so crucial to work through this discernment.
So that we don't impose an option onto that situation that isn't the right fit.
So as we close today, I want to just ask you to sit with this challenging
situation that you might be experiencing in a relationship right now. You know, where
do you need to speak up? Where do you need to sit with something that's not quite
right, but you don't yet understand why, right? And you don't wanna jeopardize
something without fully understanding what's happening. And where do you need to
figure out the reality that this is the best it can be? And therefore I have to
work to support myself in other ways and reduce my expectations. of this person,
right? This is the heart of discernment where we stay connected to what we want and
also connected to reality. And here's the biggest thing. You don't have to decide
everything right away, right? A big part of discernment and connection is growing
that tolerance for that in -between place. Awareness is the beginning of freedom and
learning to sit with it even in the discomfort is what will eventually lead to far
wiser, braver decision -making. Today, may you grow in the wisdom to stay open to
others without losing yourself. May you learn to trust the patterns over time,
over words and promises. And may your relationships be shaped by honesty,
clarity, and love. And may you become increasingly rooted in what bears good fruit
over time. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It
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