Discernment:"Discretio" according to Benedict of Nursia - by Anselm Grun, OSB

"The gift of discernment does not simply assume a good assessment of the situation or much in the way of knowledge and experience, but above all a distance from oneself.  The judgement should not be clouded by one's own desires and needs.  It must be free of what psychology nowadays calls 'projection': of unresolved problems, emotions, and drives that one does not clearly discern within oneself and therefore projects into the world outside.  Discretio therefore presupposes that one has come, through careful self-observation, to know one's self and one's own needs, and has seen through one's own emotions and aggressions."

 From: "Benedict of Nursia: His Message for Today", by Anselm Grun, OSB., Linda M. Maloney, trans.  Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN. 2006. P. 38.