How To Turn Betrayal Into Discernment

Sometimes I miss my innocence. There once was version of me that didn’t know how well people can pretend.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and warn myself that love means nothing coming out of the mouths of minds that don’t believe language is alive.

Liars don’t taste the dishonesty in their breath.

They don’t hear their sentences beg to be rearranged in truth. They betray their words just as easily as they betray themselves.

The best I can offer the innocent version of myself is future discernment and a promise that no matter who lies to me, I won’t lie to me.

Why You Might Lack Discernment

No one, I repeat, No one, taught me to be discerning. In fact, I was trained to be the exact opposite. Trained to gaslight myself. Trained to see myself as being sensitive for calling out wrong doing. Trained to see myself as disrespectful for setting boundaries or having preferences. Yes, I paid the iron price to develop the discernment I have today. So these lessons come from my marrow. Here are some reasons you might lack discernment:

You don’t yet know what your body’s signals mean: It took me getting to the point of having full blown nightly panic attacks to start paying attention to my body (Here’s That Story). Your body IS impacted by your relationships. It speaks in signals like repeated headaches, feeling drained after spending time with someone, gaining weight after starting a relationship, etc.

You were conditioned to (or had to) prioritize social cohesion over accuracy: If you grew up in environments where you were chastised for having a “smart mouth” or “thinking you were better” than other people for expressing when you noticed dysfunction this teaches you that it’s not safe to call out harm. Overtime, your perception becomes blurry because your body has learned that clarity is dangerous.

You were surrounded by normalization of dishonesty: When dishonesty is a way of life in your early environments, it becomes a familiar feeling rather than an alarming one.

Skills That Build Discernment:

✅ Observation — noticing what is actually happening instead of what you hope or fear is happening.

✅ Emotional tracking — recognizing your own body’s signals (tightness, ease, warmth, contraction) as data, not noise.

✅ Pattern recognition — remembering what certain behaviors or dynamics have led to before.

✅ Critical thinking — asking “Is this true? What evidence do I have?” before accepting information.

✅ Boundary setting — practicing small yes/no decisions until your system trusts your own authority.

✅ Perspective shifting — being able to view a situation from more than one angle before judging it.

✅ Slowing The Fuck Down — notice your first inner signal about something and give yourself time to synthesize that information. Pause after experiences to see what you learned and what you missed.

✅ Writing — writing makes you intellectually dangerous (and very very sexy). Developing the practice of articulating your thoughts whether you are a writer or not strengthens your self knowledge, communication skills and thinking skills.

Homework: Brain TV Exercise

This is an exercise from my workbook The Millionare Mindset Journal called brain TV. Your challenge is to practice observing + categorizing (not analyzing) your thoughts.

By observing and labeling your thoughts, you begin to separate yourself from them. This is a practice of seeing yourself think. This shift is critical because if you can see your thoughts, you can change them.

Instructions

Set a Timer for 3 Minutes.

Imagine Yourself Watching Your Brain TV and let your thoughts roll freely

Each Time a Thought Appears, categorize it. (for ex: “That’s a worry” , “That’s a memory” ,“That’s a fantasy ” etc.)

Write down your observations and anything you learned about yourself.