Sovereign Path Series: Part 5. Discernment Is the Gateway to Sovereignty
Not everything that appears whole is rooted in truth.
Some circles shine with light on the surface - while decay spreads quietly underneath.
Discernment is the skill of seeing what’s behind the reflection.
It’s the soul’s way of saying: “I no longer choose beauty over integrity.”
There’s a moment on the healing path - one that feels less like liberation and more like psychic surgery - where you realize:
Not everything that glitters is gold.
Not everyone who holds space is clean.
And not every woman in your circle is your sister.
Discernment is the fire that rises when the soul says:
No more pretending not to see.
Discernment Isn’t Judgement. It’s Protection.
Let’s clear something up:
We’ve been conditioned - especially as spiritual women - to blur the lines between discernment and judgement.
Having a boundary is being called “closed”, “pushy”, or “b$tchy”.
To notice and call out a distortion is seen as “projecting”.
To walk away from someone misusing power is labeled as “unhealed”.
But here is the truth:
Discernment is your body knowing before your mind does.
It’s the quiet voice inside you saying “this doesn’t feel right” before the betrayal fully reveals itself.
It is your innate gift - and the most underdeveloped tool in many spiritual circles because of groupthink, sisterhood glamours, childhood conditioning & conservative stereotypes, and bypass culture, that teach us to override it.
How I Lost & Reclaimed My Discernment
I once sat in circle with women I loved - women I learned, shared, and felt community with.
I felt the power. I felt the connection.
But somewhere along the way, I started to doubt what I felt in my gut.
I overrode the red flags in favor of spiritual ideals, community belonging, and a sense of being “relatable” and “kind”.
I called it “giving grace”, giving the “benefit of the doubt”, being “nonjudgemental”. I called it “unconditional sisterly love”.
I called it many things.
But deep down? I was really just abandoning myself.
And when the veil dropped - when I saw the manipulation, the subtle power plays, the very real maliciousness that lie underneath the sweet exterior and smile, and the cloaked control -
I realized I wasn’t crazy.
I was trained to suppress and dismiss my discernment in order to belong.
That is not sisterhood. It is not community. That’s spiritual submission.
And, like it or not, some people exploit and prey upon this sisterhood wound, because it is far more common than you’d like to think.
5 Discernment Keys for the Sovereign Path
If you are building sovereignty for yourself - a path for yourself rooted in truth, clarity, and sacred leadership - you need to hear this.
Here are the five keys I’ve learned through the fire:
Watch the Energy, Not the Words
Spiritual distortion is often dressed in poetic language and polished “light”.
It tells you want you want to hear - but leaves your body feeling tight, drained, or confused.
Discernment isn’t about doubting what is said - it’s about reading what’s underneath.
The energy never lies. Learn to trust what you feel.
Your Body is the Oracle
Tension in your gut? Heart constriction? Throat tingling or tightening? Head fog around someone?
That sudden headache after a Zoom circle?
The nervous system spike when they compliment you?
The subtle withdrawal that you feel when they enter a room?
These are just a few of the somatic signals your body may send you to pay attention to a dissonance in energy.
It is not your trauma speaking. It is not paranoia.
It’s perception.
Or in other words, it is your discernment radar lighting up. And it is screaming for your attention.
Your body is the most accurate lie detector you will ever meet - if you’re willing to stop overriding it.
You may hear this a thousand times, but it’s worth bears hearing again - the more you yield to listening to your body - taking that sacred pause to get really present with yourself and attune to it’s message - to really learn to trust yourself - the more this gift will strengthen and surprise you. It is like a muscle - the more you use it and learn to rely upon it, the stronger and more reliable it becomes.
What Happens When You Say No?
Healthy people honor boundaries. Distorted ones punish them.
If someone shifts when you say no - pouts, withdraws, criticizes, or reframes your truth as a “shadow”. Or, in any other way violates or tries to push back a strong boundary you hold in your life - you’re being shown something.
Discernment asks: Is this dynamic safe and honoring for my no? In my gut, am I truly okay with this?
If not - it’s not sovereign.
Look for Emotional Transactionalism
Does support only come when you’re useful?
Do you feel obligated to offer energy just to be seen or stay “in” the group?
Are you giving more than you’re receiving - energetically or emotionally; or even in your time, services, and generosity - but gaslit into calling it “service”?
Is generosity always repaid in visibility, loyalty, or gossip protection?
That’s not love. That’s energetic debt disguised as “community”.
Check the scales - and don’t dismiss them. Truth and true healthy relationship are balanced and reciprocal.
Sovereign bonds don’t require emotional payments to stay valid.
If It Can’t Withstand Truth, It Wasn’t Real
Can you ask hard questions without being shamed or dismissed?
Can you name what you feel without being flipped into the role of the wounded one?
Can you speak your truth without someone rushing to silence you in the name of “unity” or some other covert cause?
Are criticism or questions met with victimhood or truth?
If a bond only works when you stay small, silent, or continue to self-sacrifice -
you’re not in sacred space - you’re in a controlled one.
Discernment reveals the difference between true sisterhood and community - and energetic submission.
And while you may think this is radically obvious - it can often be much more subtle on the surface than you might think.
Discernment will help you spot this no matter how small the dissonant frequency is.
Discernment isn’t a weapon.
It is the boundary your soul sets to protect your becoming.
If someone calls that a threat,
they were never aligned with your truth -
only your compliance.
Let this be a gift you protect, honor, and stay highly attuned with. How others receive you and honor this part of you back, speaks volumes energetically.
Inner Reflection:
Take a breath and ask yourself:
Where am I still betraying my body’s knowing in exchange for connection?
What truths am I avoiding because I’m afraid of what they’ll cost me?
Where do I rely on my intellect and logic instead of my own inner knowing?
Where do I let my ego hold me back or override my intuition and discernment? Am I okay with acknowledging I may be wrong? If not, what lies underneath that?
What would it mean - what would it really look like - to let discernment lead in my life?
How can I better honor more pause, presence, and discernment in my life and allow this gift to strengthen?
These aren’t easy questions - but they are the ones that will set you free.
How To Rewire Your System To Feel Truth Again After Spiritual Betrayal
Most people teach discernment like it’s a checklist or a mental muscle.
But if you’ve ever said, “I knew something was off - but I stayed anyway.”
then you’ve already discovered the truth no one tells you:
Your ability to discern truth has nothing to do with your mind.
It isn’t intellectual - It’s energetic. Its cellular.
And it lives in your nervous system, your trauma imprints, your ancestral memory, your fascia, and your subtle body.
And, when you’ve been glamoured, gaslit, or groomed in a spiritual space, your frequency gets hijacked. Your field gets crosswired. Your body begins to associate control with safety…and sometimes, safety with love.
Here are 5 steps that will help heal your instrument so that you can get your signal back - so you can feel what’s true again and learn to trust yourself.
Not in theory. Not intellectually. But, in your body - your gut, your breath, and your bones.
Step 1: Understand How Energetic Hijacking Works
When you join a group or teacher with manipulative structures, several things often happen:
You get slowly conditioned to override your instincts: you abandon your no to stay included, you confuse intensity with intimacy, you mistake nervous system regulation for truth.
You disconnect from gut-level knowing (HPA axis and vagus nerve dysregulation)
You begin deferring to external cues (mirroring the group, fawning, over-attuning)
Your energy field contracts or expands incoherently (a key insight of glamour or charisma abuse)
Your subtle body becomes confused. Your energetic body starts mistaking nervous system regulation for safety- and safety for love. But these are not interchangeable. This confusion is how illusion enters. In other words, when trauma patterns are reinforced, your system may confuse calm for truth, control for safety, and approval for love.
Your discernment didn’t vanish. It was just overwritten.
Your signal became scrambled.
Step 2: Regulate to Reconnect; Regulation is the Portal, Not The Proof
You can’t discern truth in a dysregulated state. Your body has to feel safe enough to access truth.
Most people are trying to “tune in” while dissociated, anxious, or over-attuned to predators.
But here’s the catch: you can feel calm and still be in danger.
It’s possible to feel held and harmed at the same time. Many systems offer a sense of regulation - but if it’s paired with disempowerment or distortion, that “peace” is a performance:
Trauma bonded dynamics often regulate your nervous system just enough to keep you hooked - while bypassing the deeper dissonance in your soul. It feels calm, but it costs you clarity.
Some spiritual spaces soothe the parts of you that crave belonging….while subtly asking you to betray the parts of you that carry truth. That betrayal isn’t loud - its slow erosion.
Some spaces offer you comfort - but only if you abandon your core self to receive it. The nervous system calms while the soul withers. That’s not safety. That’s seduction. That’s often how cultic spaces work.
Real discernment begins when your nervous system no longer needs to belong in order to survive.
Step 3. Detox the Energetic Bond That’s Not Yours
Even after leaving a spiritual group, remnants often linger:
Cord entanglements
Thoughtforms looping in your head
Guilt tied to breaking silent contracts
Chakra distortion or entanglement (especially crown, solar plexus, and sacral)
Somatic patterning of fawning or compliance
Ground yourself daily. Call back your energy. Cord cut - as often as needed.
Step 4: Rebuild Self-Trust (Your Inner Oracle) with Pattern Recognition
Betrayal often installs shame: How did I not see it?
Most people understand the need to “trust themselves” again after betrayal and try to do so - but trust isn’t a decision. It is a pattern recognition system.
The antidote isn’t hypervigilance - it’s pattern tracking over time. So that next time you understand what to look for and help prep your body to wire to the clues.
Tool: The Pattern Map Journal
Track the moments when you:
Overrode your gut (that constriction you felt) and said yes….and why
Betrayed your knowing to stay included
Silenced yourself to be “spiritual”
Ignored body signals in favor of approval
Places where you confused resonance with recognition of an old wound
And then, write the reversal:
Next time I feel ______ I will ______.
You’re not shaming yourself - you’re updating your system.
You’re training your field to follow truth instead of trauma.
Step 5: Energetic Discernment Is Devotion - Not Division
One of the most damaging distortions is the idea of discernment becoming weaponized in some spiritual spaces:
You’re projecting.
You’re not trusting.
You’re in ego.
That’s just your trauma talking.
This is spiritual gaslighting.
Because here’s the truth:
Judgement divides. Discernment refines. And refinement is a sacred act of devotion to truth.
And truth is the goal. The real medicine is learning that discernment is sacred.
It’s the root of spiritual maturity.
It’s not about deciding who is “bad”.
It’s about tending to the truth within you like a holy fire. And learning to tune and protect your field and body so that you are not able to be glamoured again.
It’s about never ever again self-abandoning.
You don’t need to judge others.
You need to become the clearest frequency in the room. Boldy yet humbly confident and certain of yourself.
You were never meant to follow.
You were meant to feel.
And once you trust your own frequency again, you become unglamourable.
Every time you choose truth over performance, clarity over charisma, soul over any tether to belonging - you reclaim your inner temple.
The teacher you were seeking? The one you thought abandoned you?
She has always been there. Curled up inside your chest and waiting for you to return.
The Gift Of Aligning With Discernment
Discernment is sacred. It is not cold. It is not cruel. It is not too pushy.
It is a flame.
And the more you feed it, the more your field
becomes a temple
that only truth may enter.
And if you choose to align your life - your deepest inner self - with truth,
you will see abundance, joy, and fulfillment in levels. you could only dream of for yourself.
If you’ve ever doubted yourself - I see you.
If you’ve been gaslit in the name of spiritual “hierarchy” - I believe you.
And, if you’re walking away from a situation or community that is tough to say goodbye to, to honor your own discernment - know, that I see and honor your self-love and courage.
Let this be your line in the sand.
This Is the Sovereign Path
To walk the Sovereign Path is to choose truth over comfort.
It is to stop outsourcing your own inner knowing to teachers, lovers, friends, or groups.
It is to reclaim the original oath you made with your own soul - that you would never abandon her again.
Sovereignty means you are the final authority in your own field.
It means your no is sacred, your yes is embodied, and your silence is never for someone else’s comfort.
This post is part of my Sovereign Path Series - a collection of posts to support those waking up from distortion and stepping into clean power.
If you have ever doubted your intuition or stayed too long in a space that drained you - this is your permission to burn the script and begin again.
More empowered. More Attuned.
More in alignment than ever before to claim the path before you that was always yours, waiting and ready for you to finally walk away from all the distractions and wounds that held you back- and embrace your future ahead with clarity, courage, and sovereignty.
With So Much Love,
Seraph
When Spiritual Power Becomes Control: A Story Of Spellwork, Silencing, & Sovereignty
When truth shatters illusion, the sacred reclamation begins.
Sovereign Path Series - Prologue: Overview
There is nothing more whole than a heart that has been broken open by truth. - Rumi
Let’s be clear.
This isn’t just about drama or hurt feelings.
This is about spiritual manipulation - the kind that hides in plain sight behind soothing words and performative wisdom.
The kind that wears the mask of mentorship but feeds on power and dependency.
Distorted leadership and twisted teachings that prey on trauma rather than truly heal it.
I discovered something I wasn’t intended to see on the Scorpio Full Moon.
Something that at first I thought couldn’t possibly be true.
Something that once I saw, I could not unsee.
My spiritual teacher deeply, intentionally manipulating others to rob, distort, and cast illusion for a false sense of power and control.
For a long time, I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing.
Because it meant acknowledging that someone I once trusted - that I sincerely believed was a friend and had even invited to vacation and stay with my family - was actively using their power to control, confuse, hurt, and divide.
And the damage? It ran deep.
A gross misuse of power. Betrayal. Creating opposition, energetic depletion, physical ailments, and deep wounding.
And, in some cases, altering life trajectories, gift expansion, and relationships.
The Pattern: Charm, Control, Collapse
She cloaked herself in goddess-like energy, but behind the scenes, it was all strategy:
Find your vulnerability
Mirror your pain
Tether onto your deepest wounds and insecurities, masquerading as the “ideal” antidote
Offering healing in exchange for loyalty
And if you don’t comply?
Erase. Smear. Attack. Distort. Discredit. Deplete.
This is narcissism in spiritual clothing - using divine language to disarm, then dominate.
People called it community and initially it truly felt that way.
But in reality, it was curated hierarchy,
And when someone shined too brightly - or threatened to step out of line in any meaningful way - the web tightened.
That’s what happened to me.
I was watched.
Talked about.
Lied to and lied about.
And when I started forming deeper connections that weren’t part of her plan - that somehow threatened her power and plans to misuse our gifts to grow her community- they were cut at the root through glamour magic, emotional triangulation, energetic manipulation through reiki and spellwork, and group manipulation behind the scenes.
Spiritual Warfare Is Real - and It Doesn’t Always Look Like What You Expect
This wasn’t just emotional.
This was energetic.
This was very real spellwork with intention - the kind that distorts perception, entangles clarity, and turns people against their own intuition.
I know what it feels like to be gaslit psychically.
To have your life path invaded.
To feel your own energy being used against you.
And what’s worse?
When others see the control, but say nothing because they are either afraid they will be next, fear rejection, or don’t want to be embroiled in the “drama”.
This is the dark side of spiritual communities that no one wants to talk about:
Where “peace” is used to silence.
Where “light” and distortion - that is intentionally crafted to play on your own wounds and insecurities - is used to blind.
Where gaslighting and spiritual bypassing protects the abuser and shames the truth-teller.
What It Took To Leave
When I saw the truth in full - the manipulation and underlying magic - I couldn't unsee it.
At first, I wasn't sure how to move.
The fixer in me rose up. The protector. The sacred rage. The part of me who once believed that if I just showed enough care or clarity, people would understand.
I kept asking: How could I possibly walk away from friends I cared about, when I could see they were caught in something they couldn’t yet name?
But the deeper truth was: they had to see it on their own.
They were being called to reclaim that truth in a way only their soul could lead them to.
So I made a choice - one of the hardest spiritual decisions I’ve ever made or felt equipped to fully make.
To walk away in silence.
Not out of fear, or any inkling of not wanting to get involved, but ultimately out of respect.
Respect for each of our own sovereignty, life path, and individual discoveries and lessons.
To fully trust in the outcome I was shown and to stop pouring energy into a battle of distortion that wasn’t mine to fix.
I began quietly reducing engagement. I held energetic support for the truth and for each person in the group, excluding the triad of those involved at the top.
Twelve cord cuttings.
Not in anger - but in deep spiritual reverence.
Clearing entanglements. Releasing attachments. Weakening the dark magic that lie at the undercurrents of the spellwork and psychic spying being used.
Honoring connection without rescuing.
Then I erased every trace of my presence in the group and private text with the leader. Not to disappear, but to prevent my words, memories, and shares from being twisted and used.
That’s when the real attacks began.
Daily.
Sometimes multiple times a day.
Relentless.
It was my first real exposure to spiritual warfare - and I had a steep learning curve.
At one point, I faltered. I let emotion reopen a door I’d sealed shut. And I felt the energetic blowback immediately. That was the final lesson.
And so I left. Quietly. Completely.
Not with bitterness - but with a fierce trust in divine timing.
Knowing that the truth would reveal itself in the right way, at the right time, to all who needed to see it.
But even then, the smear campaign grew louder.
The lies and twisted truths multiplied.
I don’t know every word that was spoken - and honestly, I’m grateful.
But I know enough to say this with certainty:
This was unprovoked warfare.
And its roots were power. Control. Fear.
Fear of being exposed. Fear of losing image. Fear of losing control. Ultimately, fear of losing money.
And let’s be very clear -
This isn’t about one person being manipulated.
It is about a systemic pattern of spiritual abuse.
One I’m certain began long before I arrived in the group….and may very well continue unless truly seen and recognized for what it really is.
At the core of it?
Narcissism.
Unhealed Wounding.
Jealousy.
Spiritual bypassing.
The kind where charm masks control.
Where “healing” and the level of “teaching” you allow others becomes hierarchy.
Where power feeds on praise and insecurity and hollow praise becomes currency.
It’s a toxic loop.
And when it’s cloaked in spiritual language and a false sense of security within a teacher-student relationship, it is far more dangerous.
Because it seduces the seeker - and silences the truth-teller.
What This Really Is: A Return to Power
This isn’t just my story.
It is a collective wound resurfacing: the distortion of feminine power, cloaked in control, envy, and quiet manipulation.
It echoes the sisterhood wound.
The witch wound.
Where sacred circles fracture under the weight of shadow - and the distorted narrative is propelled at all costs - even if it means there is a scapegoat so that another can preserve her illusion of power.
This isn’t personal.
It’s ancestral.
And, it’s time we name it.
But something is shifting.
Truth is rising.
The spells are breaking - not because we fought back, but because we refused to stay silent.
There is a sacred kind of rage that purifies.
There is a clarity that cuts cords.
And there is a voice that, once claimed, can never be caged again.
Mine has returned.
Maybe yours is rising too.
And that is the unexpected gift that comes after the fire.
To Those Still Healing
I’m not here to convince anyone.
I’m not here to smear, point fingers, or cast blame.
I’m here to affirm what you already know deep in your bones:
You can trust again
You weren’t crazy
You were never the problem
You became a mirror too clear for someone still hiding from their own shadow
You weren't difficult - you we're uncontainable, and that was never part of their plan
Truth doesn’t need approval.
True healing doesn't bypass shadow.
It walks straight through the darkest parts - torch in hand.
If these words stir something within you - whether that be grief, rage, or relief - you are not alone.
Truth is not always comfortable, but it is always clarifying.
May your body be a safe place for this knowing to live and land.
And to those of you who are still unsure, who feel something is off but can’t yet name it - I honor your journey.
Awakening is often not a lightening strike, but a slow, aching thaw.
May you trust the quiet wisdom in your gut.
May you know that when you are ready, truth will not abandon you.
This is my story. It is my truth. This was the wild, unexpected, initiatory event in my own Chiron Return.
I do not speak to be believed or validated. I speak to be free and to never forget what this lesson has taught me.
Truth, once voiced, becomes a lifeline - not just for me, but for anyone waking up from illusion.
Let this post be a flame. May it burn away illusion, and light the path back home - to truth, to integrity, to sacred remembrance - for us all.
Together, we rise - not in competition, but in reclamation.
For true feminine fire is bold.
She is radiant, unwavering, and unapologetically whole.
She does not chase. She does not shrink. She does not silence truth to soothe ego.
Let the full truth surface.
Let what was hidden be seen.
And may what is seen be fully healed - at last.
More soon.
The path forward has only just begun.