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Start Healing from Moral Injury · Moral Injury Support Network Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're surviving.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: The fear and fog of your abusive relationship are fading, but you still feel like you're moving without direction.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are surviving one day at a time, but that's all you're doing.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Surviving.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even remember who you are anymore.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: That warm, compassionate, hopeful go-getter?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: What if, and stick with me here because it may not feel believable yet, but what if you could wake up each morning knowing you could find more joy in each day, find more meaning in each day, knowing you are showing up and modeling the importance of authenticity and integrity to your children each and every day.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: All because you know who you are and what you stand for.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Join us on Thursday, October 5th for the Journey Back to You mini Retreat.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is a one-day in-person gathering in beautiful golden Colorado where you can find you again.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The details are still being ironed out, but I wanted to give you time to plan.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's not easy to take a full day off from work and childcare responsibilities.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you are at all curious, join our wait list by going to the link in the show notes, and I'll make sure to send you all the details as they become available, including some wait list-only specials.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is possible to reclaim your power and sense of self, and I want to help you get there.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea is these thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that are keeping you stuck in this cycle of guilt and shame.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: What I try to do is help people say, hey, let's look at those ideas and say, we can't change what happened, but is there a different way to look at it?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way to reframe it and say, how do I gain forgiveness for myself?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, how do I let go of things?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you can't change them, you can't change them, but you also can't keep punishing yourself forever.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can't live, you cannot live in this state of despair.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have to, we have to escape that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Rising Beyond Podcast, where you can find hope and healing after a toxic or abusive relationship.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sybil Cummins, a licensed professional counselor specializing in working with victims and survivors of domestic violence and narcissistic abuse, including the youngest witnesses.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past decade, I have been honored to witness victims, move to survivors, and men to thriving in their lives.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel alone in your healing process or dealing with the onslaught of post-separation abuse, or just needing some validation that you are not crazy, you are in the right place.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dan, thank you so much for being here and being with us on the rising beyond community today.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sybil.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be on your show.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to speaking with you today.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be fun.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so several episodes ago, I did an initial introduction to moral injury as I am learning more about it and how it shows up in this space.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a ton of feedback, a lot of emails, wanting more information on it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then again, just for my own learning, you all listening don't know this, but I did do a little LinkedIn stalking of Dan because this is what he specializes in.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, Dan, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do and who you work with and how this really shows up in your work?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh, sure.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm uh president and CEO of Moral Injury Support Network for Service Women Incorporated.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mouthful.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we do education training, research, and direct support to service women related to moral injury.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: We also do some research on moral injury in families.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have a current research project that's going with that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what the way it shows up for us is well, let me say this.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So our education and training is focused on organizations as well as psychologists, social workers, and chaplains that are working with oftentimes veterans, but doesn't have to be veterans because moral injury is not just a military thing.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it happens, it can happen to anyone in the world, actually.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: We could get more into moral injury, exactly what it is and stuff like that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But our organization is primarily focused on moral injury as it affects service women, military women, and family members.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so for military women, moral injury often shows up in sexual assault.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people think sexual assault and moral injury are synonymous, they aren't.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sexual assault could be a moral injurious event, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or a context for moral injury.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But sexual assault, sexism, harassing behaviors.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have had women that women have been in combat too, so it can show up that way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But most of the women we've worked with talk to research that moral injury has been a result of corrosive behaviors that can happen within the force, like sexual assault, harassment, hostile work environment, and that sort of thing.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: For spouses, moral injury can often show up after just continuous year after year of mobilization, moving husband deploy, or not just I shouldn't say husband, but spouses deploying constantly, and then a husband with PTSD can then create, or I should keep saying husband, but a spouse with PTSD can then create an environment where then the the spouse, the civilian spouse, can feel harmed, unsafe.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot to unpack there, but that's sort of a little bit, I guess, if you will.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what you're researching.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I think it would be helpful.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you can go back and listen to my previous episode, but how do you define moral injury?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had a great discussion with one of the I host a group called the Canadian Moral Injury of Community Community of Interest meeting.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: We meet once a month and we have a lot of great discussion.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: That group includes chaplains, clinicians, medical doctors, and all that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: So moral injury often can be defined different ways, and there's a very clinical approach to it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's because I work in the chaplaincy field, I like a broader, more general approach.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I do want to say, first of all, the definition of moral injury is still being argued about by researchers, and it gets operationalized in different ways.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the way I kind of look at moral injury is a traumatic event that affects someone or that violates someone's deeply held moral beliefs, and it may be as a result of something someone did themselves, maybe to someone else.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: It could be because they are the target of some kind of activity that violates their deeply held moral belief, or they could observe it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So many times we have women veterans who observed some very morally violating things during their overseas deployment, and they were powerless to do anything about it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so it's beyond just observing it, but being powerless to do anything, like really violate or harm them.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Or by example, one woman she retired as a very senior ranked person, and she looked back and thought, you know, all those times I knew things were happening to my fellow women, but I felt disempowered or wasn't willing or able to like use my rank to help them.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So she after retirement, she definitely had no power in her mind, and she really felt felt bad about uh maybe I should have done more kind of thing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, so those kind of three elements the trauma, the deeply held moral belief that's violated, and then what the context was, you know, was this something happened to you, something you did, something you witnessed.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's sort of a combination of definitions from from various researchers.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of plucked, you know, what was useful for me.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that that is so similar.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this parallel thing within what is domestic abuse or domestic violence.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: There is not one single definition of what that is.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Every state has their own definitions, there's like legal definitions, there's therapeutic definitions, there's different language.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the thing that I'm holding from what you're talking about is there's a sometimes a feeling of powerlessness to do anything or to make change and being almost forced or told to do things that just feel absolutely completely against everything you stand for.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to do them anyways.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you see that we find we often don't talk about military leaders, but military leaders often get put in positions like that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's pressure from above higher headquarters or higher ranking person to make decisions or do things that they feel are unethical and are harming their own soldiers, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or are toxic in some way, but they feel powerless to do anything about it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're is this something you lose your career over?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Could that happen?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of pressure oftentimes to to lie on reports and that kind of thing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and so military leaders can be in positions where they feel like they have to do a thing.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a choice between bad or bad.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that that is where so many of my audience lives, that there isn't a win.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Either decision, you know, any decision they make is not good.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Any decision they're kind of forced to make.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so Dan and I have talked about this, but the women who, and and men too, but again, the rising beyond community specifically is for women, but who share children with their abusive partner.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: They know their abuser is harmful and they're no longer a buffer to protect their children when they have separated.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the courts have told them you have to send your children into the home unsupervised 50% of the time.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so they could choose not to follow the court orders and then would potentially be arrested, held in contempt, lose full custody of their children, or they can make the decision to send their children into a place where there's a high likelihood that their children will be abused.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's just not a win in that situation.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I see this come up so extremely strong with the survivors I work with.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: But something you brought up, which is really interesting, and I think there's we talked about there's like a continuum of things before it kind of reaches moral injury.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were talking about like everyone has kind of moral decisions, and then it can move to like a greater, I don't know, intensity.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's quite the right word.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then it can move even further to moral injury.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can you kind of share maybe what that continuum looks like?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about a moral conflict, moral distress, and moral injury.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now I didn't borrow, I didn't create those terms.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I borrowed them from others.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But so moral conflict we we experience every day, probably most days, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, working in the chaplaincy, you you expect chaplains to behave well, to be ethical, to be moral, and you can kind of forget like they're human beings, and and sometimes you you see them make decisions that that are dishonest or whatever, and so that creates a moral conflict.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how can this person be a call themselves a minister and yet they're doing this, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's bothersome because you know it's wrong in your mind, or you see see something on the news that's really troubling, like it's bothersome, but you know that happened, that kind of stuff happens out there, and it doesn't really affect your life in a way that you might lose your faith over it, or or you might lose all faith in human beings, or you know, you turn off the news and eat a Snickers bar and forget about it, or whatever, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So so you know those things, then there's moral distress, and and I don't I don't have these terms operationalized, so it's just a feeling, but moral distress, it's it's really bothersome for me, like to the point of I'm I think maybe I should do another career or quit my job.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is just more than I, you know, I'm having a hard time going to work every day looking at these people in the face or something, as an example.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you see your spouse or partner do something that you really have trouble with, and you might even consider like maybe I should divorce this person.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just I can't live with this, right?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's troubling enough that it bothers you to the point of potentially taking drastic action or losing some sleep at night, that kind of thing.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's distressing.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then, but then moral injury, I think where I would say it's different is inability to cope, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Moral injury is to a level where I really sort of like PTSD, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kissing cousin to PTSD, if you will, but it's like now I'm having a hard time actually coping with this.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I need help.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so filled with guilt and shame that I really need some help.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or I've lost completely lost my identity or my sense of self-esteem because of this.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I think you get into the moral injury area where this is so distressing.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like a moral distress, I might be really upset with my boss enough to think about quitting my job.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe for myself, if I quit my job, find another job, I could get past this, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I need to separate myself from this issue, whether it's a spouse, a boss, whatever, right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can pay a fine and take care of it or something like that.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas moral injury, they I can't figure this out by myself, or I need more help than that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: I need counseling, I need a chaplain, I need a social work, I need a psychologist, counselor to help me work through this.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is beyond what I know of what to do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like the amount it it affects your life is kind of how we look at it on that continuum.
• 15:05
  unknown: Right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the word that you brought up, there's actually a couple things that just fit with survivors of relationship abuse is shame and loss of identity.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then previously the loss of any faith in our larger systems or in humanity.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that's where so many of my clients, community members, that's where they sit.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is in that space.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Shame of I was this strong, I'm educated, I have all of these amazing things in my life.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I found myself in one of these horrific relationships.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: How could that happen?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the thing that's taken, and I talk about this a lot, the thing, one of the most important things that's really stolen from a survivor of relationship abuse is their identity.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's slowly over time just taken away, squashed out from that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, with the way our system reacts to and kind of supports abuse to continue, there's a significant loss of faith in humanity, in those that are there to protect us.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this idea like, oh, you know, these are the people that are gonna protect me and my children.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they actually cause more harm.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that all of those things is really impact this population.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So what are some of the things that people can, you know, again, they're not gonna listen to this podcast and be like, oh gosh, I'm gonna do these things and I'm just gonna heal.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be all good.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's not how it works.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: But where can someone start as they are addressing this moral injury piece in in their world?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think one of the things we that I try to do is help people reframe, you know.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm counseling somebody, I want to hear their story, and then as I hear their story, I'm looking for beliefs, assumptions, or statements that that let me know that this is where they're stuck, this is where they're disempowered, or this is where, you know, this is a trigger point for them, that kind of thing.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Forgiveness is a word I like to use, and not not the sense of, well, you know, yeah, they raped me, but they're supposed to forgive them and forget, and that's stupid.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: But forgiveness in the sense of letting go, right?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do I let go of things to be able to have some level of peace of mind, mental health, emotional stability, whatever?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So so I'm I'm looking for those pieces, and it's it's about reframing.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to do for yourself, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because you you can be really stuck in this cycle of thoughts that I shouldn't have done this.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: You you think about what happened, or I should have done this, I should have that, da-da-da.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you just keep revisiting that over and over.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: But what we want to try to do is look at that incident or look at the situation I'm in in a totally different way.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about here, here you have a mother or a father, whatever the case is, that has to give up their children half the time to somebody they feel is abusive, and that could be just the guilt from that could be just killing them, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's very heavy.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: But can they really do something about that?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a corridor.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: You you frame it yourself, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: A court order that if you disobey, you go to jail, then you lose your kids 100% of the time, and you're a convict and you lose your job.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's the serenity prayer, right?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: The idea of doing what I can control and letting go of what I can't.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: But what can we let go of?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: What can we what can we let ourselves off the hook for?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm a really good mother and I really love my kids, if I had a choice, I wouldn't give them up to this person, but I don't.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: So what I have to do is when I have them be the best mother I can be, and when I let them go, from my standpoint, I'm gonna pray for them, and I'm gonna let go the guilt that I can't do anything about it and hope they're gonna be okay.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when they come back to me, I'm gonna love them, cherish them, I'm gonna get them therapy, whatever help.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can say, hey, rather than guilt, I can be not happy about this situation, but I can let go of the things I can't control and say, I'm doing everything I can, and that's honorable, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: For a lot of rape survivors feel like, well, I should have done some, somehow I should have stopped it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, were you really empowered to stop it?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: The person was a friend, the person was somebody you trusted.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: When this happened, you were so shocked, you weren't even sure what was happening to you at the time, right?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: All that none of those things sound like I am empowered to do something about it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're not the one to be guilty, they are, so let's let ourselves off the hook, kind of very oversimplifying things, but but the idea is these thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that are keeping me stuck in this cycle of guilt, shame.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I try to do is help people say, hey, let's look at those ideas and say, we can't change what happened, but is there a different way to look at it?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way to reframe it and say, how do I gain forgiveness for myself?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, how do I let go of things?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you can't change them, you can't change them, but you also can't keep punishing yourself forever, or you can't live, you cannot live in this state of despair.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have to, we have to escape that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because living there is hell.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Living in that space, you're not going to be able to be present with your children when you have them do that healing process.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to reiterate for you all listening, because sometimes that term forgiveness just puts up defenses because everyone's like, oh, you know, forgive and forget.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we are talking about forgiving yourself.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is not forgiving the other.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is not forgiving the court system, it's not forgiving your abuser, it's not forgiving your rapist.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're forgiving at all.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're forgiving ourselves for what we could not control in that situation.
• 21:11
  unknown: Well said.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well said.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: The other, the other piece, too, is we can teach people mantras, we can teach people meditation techniques, we can teach people those kind of things so that in the moment when you you're feeling triggered or you're feeling overwhelmed, you're going about your day driving your car on your way to work or something, and you feel like overwhelmed because you're thinking about this situation, what happened, you know, things like mantras can help, affirmations.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea is to a friend of mine calls changing the channel of just getting your mind refocused on something else so that then you can think clearly and you can re re remind yourself like, wait a minute, I'm letting go of that, I can't do anything about that, I'm being the best mom I can.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever cases, right?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And mantras can be just statements you say over and over, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm gonna be okay, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're religious, you can quote certain scriptures or whatever.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: For years I've kept in my pocket little handwritten notes, little affirmations and stuff, and I would just pull them out and read them.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, not to sound like pop psychology or anything, but those can be really powerful just to help somebody flip the emotional switch so that they can they can go about their day, go about what they're doing, remind themselves, hey, I've already I've already actually thought through all this.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and this process of self-forgiveness happens like all the time, constantly.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like okay, I do this one time and and I'm good, right?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's a process you keep revisiting.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I really think it's important for me to talk to clients about you're establishing new habits of thinking, and those old habits or this old cycle, that's not gonna die easily, right?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you really do have to establish a daily routine, and early on, it might be every hour, every you know, like you really have to put some effort into it to change your your emotional state and your your habits of thinking and stuff.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: But this is not gonna be easy, and it's gonna Lord knows how long it's gonna take, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're yeah, and we talk about loss of identity and stuff, you're actually in some ways trying to rechange your personality is sort of that level of change that we're seeking to do often.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's gonna be tough.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely this long-term process, which is infuriating in so many ways when it's been someone harming you on purpose and you're having to do this work, but just that idea that you are the one doing the work and that you have some control over that piece, that you get to choose to do that work.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how this kind of fits with identity, but the loss of faith and trust in overall humanity or again the systems that are supposed to protect, because this is really strong, this idea of, you know, I thought this was my with regard to relationship abuse, I thought this was my person, this was my soulmate.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that they that was a scam.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were never my soulmate.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's this self-doubt of I can't even, I can't even pick a soulmate, you know, I can't even see the signs there.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the they don't, I will say that my clients, community members, they don't trust anybody.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a really, it takes a lot of work to gain their trust back.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do you work with people?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be from a faith-based perspective, or kind of just in general, how can you, I guess, help support someone gain their faith?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things at play there.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: One is self-esteem, and most people could you could use a lot of self-esteem improvement, myself included, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so what happens for a lot of people is this sense of worthiness of that if one person can, because of their betrayal or whatever, can cause you to lose all sense of your own self-value, then that's a clue that it probably wasn't good enough in the beginning, right?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, so I want to help people with their self-esteem.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that you know, if you have somebody you trusted, you loved, you you deeply invested in, it's gonna hurt when they betray you.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get me wrong.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's gonna take that's a deep wound that's gonna take time to recover.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm always gonna try to repair, help repair the self-esteem, help give them a new identity as part of building that trust, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the sense of it kind of goes to the idea of I have to first feel safe or strong enough to then be vulnerable to other people, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so so I want to repair that sense of self-esteem so that they can have enough strength within themselves to even be okay in a relationship with people that are imperfect, because peep that's people, right?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna do things to hurt us intentionally or unintentionally, and if we're already super weakened or harmed, that even the slightest snub or or perceived snub will trigger us, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's number one, but number two is then the idea that most people are decent.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the person you encountered that did that to you is actually a rare person, thank God.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are decent, they may not be worthy of the trust level of another kind of a deep relationship like that, and you really can't have deep those kind of relationships with most people.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But most people are decent.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: They want to, they don't want to harm other people, they don't want to be harmed, they have their own hangups and that kind of thing.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to help help them think about the idea.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, this person deeply harmed you, but there's not a whole bunch of those people running around, right?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the other people that you want to have some level of trust with, not that you're gonna go straight to that same kind of level of trust, but you can start with the idea, at least in my head, that hey, this pro person is probably decent.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: They probably like me want to have a positive relationship with other people, they want to be happy, they're not seeking revenge, they just want to get along with other folks, and so I can approach them with the idea they're probably like me, at least in the sense they want to just have some kind of relationship, decent relationship with another decent person.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And all that is just a sort of like normalize life to the sense, because you can you can get this sort of dark feeling about life because you had this really troubling experience, everything else looks colored in this really dark lens.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to try to change the lens and just lighten it a little bit so that we're not afraid of the next disaster because disasters are rare.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's there's definitely, I don't know if this is the right word at all, but a skewed sense for specifically those going through post-separation abuse, because it's continued harm over and over and over.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a part of your life that will be like you have to be on guard and you have to, you know, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: But outside of that relationship, and maybe it's not just a relationship with that one person, it could be their family and all their flying monkeys that they have helping them continue to abuse you or whatever, but there are gonna be people in your world that you can trust.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate that because we talk about this a lot in the in the community of like, who are my safe people?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a different kind of I I always describe it, it's almost like concentric circles.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna have certain people, just a few in that innermost circle of support that you can share all the things and you can trust.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's gonna be people further out on that that maybe you can trust them with certain things, but you're not gonna share details.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna be the first person you go to for support and then out and out and out.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's getting kind of really good at assessing where do they get to be in my circle?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do they get to come into that inner circle?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: How do I know that?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: But even from what you were saying before, is it it starts with you more so than it starts with other people.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you trust yourself to make decisions?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's just taken from anyone who's had any sort of relational harm, so a sexual assault, domestic violence, any of those relational abuses, because there are the would-could's and should've, right, that are that are there, which are, y'all, those are really traumatic actually to do to yourself all the time.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Would-coul's and should've are not usually helpful.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're just not helpful.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I wanted to kind of get your take on this, which is um one of my clinicians at my therapy practice, she talks about moral injury and kind of before we knew the terminology, but she calls it like a soul wound.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is, it's like as you're thinking about this, this is not post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to be in a near-death type situation or anything like that, but your soul was just wounded.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this work is really deep.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it's like finding a professional that can help you with this, which is harder because I mean, I've been in the field since, you know, I graduated in 2007 in the mental health field.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a newer area, and I say newer with research.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you find someone that understands or maybe better is like, where is this research going?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's mostly with civil or with military populations, but it doesn't just affect military.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you can talk a little bit about that of like, where's this research going and what should clinicians be learning and knowing about?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: At our annual conference each year, this last one was June 5 through 8 in Atlanta.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we had we had medical doctors, we had an attorney from New Zealand who is doing research on moral injury and the law practice.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: We had chaplains and psychologists and social workers.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things we've recognized is, and that's why we do the conference, we bring in experts from a lot of different fields that talk about moral injury from a lot of different angles, because from my standpoint, it's a human problem that's a recent research phenomenon, but it's always existed in humanity, regardless of your profession or you know, gender or whatever, whatever, right?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think to your question about where research is going, I think a lot of different professions, industries, etc., are starting to hear this term and applying it and doing research.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think where it's going is a great question.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are there are folks that really want it to be go in the clinical direction, and folks that want to, hey, it should be in the DSM, it should it should be a diagnosis, that kind of thing.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure about that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not clinical, but I am a researcher, so I understand the importance of operationalizing things.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: But by nature, when you did when you turn something into a diagnosis and you limit it, and you you by nature limit it, and I I think moral injury is a thing we need to wrestle with a lot more before we decide what it is.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think there are, you know, of course, researchers and practitioners look at things often differently.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas a researcher must operationalize a term, really narrow it down to be able to make it usable for research.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily helpful when you're talking to a client or you're sitting with a client who doesn't need to know the research definition of moral injury, they just know they're really hurting.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And as you've experienced, when they can you tell them what about moral injury and now it has a name, all of us that helps.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Just being able to identify, oh, that's that's I think what I have.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have a name for it, because these other things that I had heard weren't really getting it, getting at it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the research is the other piece I would say about that is there's always tying things to money, right?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so really, most in most cases, you can't get money for things unless you can really make it a diagnosis, at least in the clinical field, make it a diagnosis, get people labeled as it.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so for monetary reasons, there's like a reason to do that with funding and stuff, but that also creates a lot of angst about, you know, there's a whole group of folks that don't want to diagnose people, they don't want to label people.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this is I think we're gonna wrestle with this for a long time, a lot of different ways.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes sense.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if we can kind of move away from that clinical space and that this is a human problem.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I think that is exactly right, and it's been with us forever, yeah, probably that then there's not this additional almost shame of like, oh, you have this, like you are disordered.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because so many people feel like, wow, I have a mental health disorder, and they'll take on shame for that just because of stigma in general, or it's used against people with my clientele, it's used against people in in court, of like, well, you know, they're mentally unstable because they have PTSD or an anxiety disorder.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: So are they capable of taking care of their children?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I could see it going that direction.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's so important because, right, I've been doing this for a long time now, over a decade, kind of specializing in working with relationship abuse and child abuse and neglect.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always this something like if I can diagnose someone with PTSD because they do fit and it, you know, it fits the bill, but then there's sometimes where it it almost fits.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all the trauma work in the world isn't quite touching what needs to be touched.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I started to kind of look at this moral injury terminology, this language, I was like, oh my gosh, this is what is this is where people are so stuck because there's a lot of stuckness within this population.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I really think that this is where pe where my clients are stuck, is in this moral injury piece.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it is, it's it's just kind of that constant learning and being curious.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's so important to me, is just to be curious about just humans in general, but how we can how we can help.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other piece I think as we wrap up, because this is so important to me, is and you touched on it with the research piece, is so many people work within silos.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like researchers are over here working in silos because they need to focus on this, and people in the field are focusing here and they're in a silo, and you know, the medical professional is in a silo and legal is in a silo and nobody communicates together.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if we we could get rid of the whole money financial side of things, everyone would be able to kind of work together to learn what they need to to help people.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think each silo is in it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I say that with a caveat with the legal system, but the other ones, I think everyone's in it specifically to help people.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, again, nobody's talking to each other.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that, I think that is so important is that we reach out to people who know what we don't know and we're willing to listen, and maybe it fits and maybe it doesn't.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that piece is is important.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that there will be that wrestling of is this clinical?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Does it look this way?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Will it be in the DSM?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then insurance will cover it if it's in the DSM.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these, you know, pieces is like, oh my goodness.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, well, it's funny you mentioned the legal because the lawyer she did her research piece, and I was sitting there thinking, like, wow, lawyers have souls?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, just I know it's but it's sad.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she made a good point, and she said, and and I never really realized this, but she talked about that much like I can't got in the chaplain C, you got into therapy and counseling to help people, lawyers did too, right?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, especially ones working in the criminal system, whether it's defense lawyers or district attorneys, they got into trying to help people and they realized they're not helping, you know.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And part of their moral injury, they're working themselves to death, but they're they don't feel like they're helping people.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of the people they defend, if you're talking about defense lawyers, they they are, I mean, it's not like maybe some, but a lot of their clients are not people from the middle class who had everything going for them and just decided to be a thief or a drug dealer or whatever.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the case, right?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: They they feel trapped or pushed into this and they're just trying to survive or whatever.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or if they're trying to help people who have been abused or whatever, whoever it is they're trying to help, and they just don't feel like they're making a difference, you know, because the system is not working for people and that kind of thing.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so she did a great presentation.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, wow, I never, but I can totally see that.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of that's right, like part of, I guess, an L the element of moral injury is the fact that whether we're talking to people who joined the military or whatever, they joined something for a noble cause.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: And because it's almost like their their optimism, their their high ideals made them vulnerable to moral injury because when they experienced something that was such a violation of it, now they're really, really hurt.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you find that with obvious cases, military law enforcement, but almost any field, right?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are doing it because they they feel they're doing something good.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're a mother, you want to be a good mother.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where where moral injury, and I think to your piece about disorder, right?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Moral injury is a normal reaction for somebody who is a moral person, right?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so that's one way to look at it is like, hey, at least I'm good enough of a person to be injured by this.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm a psychopath or sociopath or something, like, yeah, who gives a shit?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but yeah, it wouldn't be harmful.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually moral enough that this really bothers me.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's that in itself is something to, you know, applaud yourself for and say, hey, I am this hurt because I'm a good person.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love that.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to kind of end on that because that is really powerful.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: That because of the good person you are, yeah, you are more likely to have something like this happen.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't want that to take away that part of you that that makes you you, right?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like all the good parts of yourself, right?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like empathy and optimism and things like that.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas something that is morally injurious can try and take that from you.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: You it can.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal is to not let it win and not let it take that, that you can still be this wonderful, empathic, moral person with really high values that want to add to the world and have experienced this moral injury.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that yeah, I love ending kind of with that, that visualization or that, that feel because I think that's really important.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: We could probably talk about this forever because again, I'm still learning, but wanted my audience to like learn side, you know, alongside me because it's something that they are experiencing.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so who am I to like hoard the information till I'm an expert?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's so weird.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, they're learning alongside me and we could just continue.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: So where could they reach you if they want to know more about you?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the easiest way is to go to our website, missions.org, which is misns.org, and then or I can be emailed at droberts at chaplinconsultants.com.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can also call 910701 0306.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Those are some ways to reach out to us.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the website has a lot of different information on it, has resources, books, articles that have been written, links to our YouTube page with some videos and stuff.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's probably the easiest way.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were driving or you're folding laundry or whatever, no worries because it's in the show notes below and wherever you're listening to this.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it will all the links will be there.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: But again, Dean, thank you so much for just sharing your expertise in this.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: I say budding field, but I don't think it quite is because it's yeah, like we've talked about, it's just this human condition.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I really do appreciate you being willing to hop on and share with my audience.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was really, really great.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, we could talk about this for the rest of the day.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, yeah, again, thanks for having me.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was really, really fun.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so thank you all for listening.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you're gonna have more questions.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can always reach out to me directly if you have more questions.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I will catch you on the next episode of the Rising Beyond Podcast.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're healing from relationship abuse and are looking for support and sisterhood during this journey, I'd love to invite you to the Rising Beyond community, where you will get expert guidance, connection with others going through similar experiences, and a safe place where you'll always feel seen, heard, and believed.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more and to join, go to www.risingbeyondpc.com.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to be a part of your healing journey.