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When Your Job Violates Your Soul · Moral Injury Support Network Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start today by asking you to imagine a specific kind of pain.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean, you know, a broken leg or something physical.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even really talking about grief, though that's obviously heavy.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, I'm talking about a pain that hits you when you look in the mirror.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's that uh sinking feeling that comes from doing something that just goes against the very core of who you are.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell It's a heavy place to start, isn't it?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Usually when we talk about work stress, we're talking burnout, exhaustion.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Yeah, needing a vacation.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: But today it's different.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking at what happens when your job doesn't just tire you out, but um actually violates your soul.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Violates your soul.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is a terrifying phrase.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it brings us right to the topic of this deep dive.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus It does.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We are unpacking a concept called moral injury.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, when I first saw that term in our source material, this training deck from the Healing Path project, my brain immediately went to like war movies.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell, which is a very common reaction.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: For decades, moral injury was a term we we really only use for veterans.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Solders in combat.
• 1:04
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Soldiers who had to do terrible things to survive, or who saw things they couldn't unsee.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: But the fascinating thing about this research is that they're blowing the doors off that definition.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: How so?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: They're arguing that this isn't just a military issue, it's a human issue.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And that's the mission for today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to find out how this weight of what's right shows up in the ER in a newsroom.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the one that really threw me for a loop in prisons.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Among the prisoners themselves.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It really shifts the whole conversation.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're moving away from asking what is clinically wrong with you and asking a much deeper question.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like is what happened to your moral compass?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And can it be fixed?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into the weeds of this training session.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The title is The Weight of What's Right.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And right off the bat, I kind of ran into a wall with the terminology.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We hear PTSD all the time, post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people, myself included, assume moral injury is just a fancy synonym for it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But they seem pretty adamant they're different things.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell They are very different.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that difference is crucial.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about PTSD, the engine driving it is fear.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right, fight or flight.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's a survival mechanism.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: You hear a loud noise, you duck.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Your body thinks the tiger is still in the room.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Pure biology.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: But moral injury, it isn't about fear.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's about judgment.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: The core emotions aren't I'm scared.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: They are guilt, shame, and a sense of betrayal.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if PTSD is I am in danger, then moral injury is what I am.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Moral injury is I am a bad person.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or I did something unforgivable.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a loss of your moral identity.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're not looking over your shoulder for a threat.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking inside and hating what you see.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: That distinction hits hard.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am a bad person.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: That feels infinitely harder to treat than just, you know, calming down a nervous system.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And while there's overlap, sure, both people might have nightmares, insomnia, depression.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: The route is completely different.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just medicate a moral crisis.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: The presentation breaks down how this happens.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they use these terms that uh frankly sound a little legalistic to me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Acts of commission and acts of omission.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds legal, but it feels incredibly personal.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Think of commission as the act of voice.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I did this.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled the lever, I signed the paper.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I followed the order.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: You took an action that violated your own conscience.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the act of wound.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's omission?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Omission is the passive ghost that haunts you.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I stood by, I watched it happen, and I didn't scream.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't stop it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's the failure to act when your gut told you that you had to.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the slides mention two others betrayal and targeting.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Betrayal is the external force.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's when the leadership or the system you trusted, it just turns out to be rotten.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: The people in charge are the ones forcing you to compromise your ethics.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell That feels like a perfect segue into the real world.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because theories are great, but the stories in this material are what actually kept me up last night.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about Emily.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Emily's case is just heartbreaking because it's so relatable.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: It takes us back to June 2020.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell The early scary days of COVID.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all have a visceral memory at that time.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Emily's an ER nurse, 17 years of experience.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So not a rookie.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's seen it all.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But she has a medically fragile son at home.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So she's going to work every day, terrified that she's going to bring the virus home and kill her own child.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell So that's her baseline.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: She is already operating in a state of high moral stakes.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Her duty to patients versus her duty to her family.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a war.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then comes this specific incident.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: She has a critical patient dying.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The family is calling the ER, begging, I mean literally begging, to come in and say goodbye.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Emily wants to let them in.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Her humanity is screaming, let them in.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the hospital protocol says absolutely not.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And there it is, the act of omission.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: She couldn't advocate enough.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: She couldn't break the rules.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: She had to be the wall keeping a family from their dying father.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it gets worse.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: A doctor orders a treatment that Emily disagrees with.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: She thinks it's the wrong call.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But she's exhausted.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: The hierarchy is rigid.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So she does it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the act of commission.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: She physically performed an action she believed was harmful.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because the system demanded it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Two days later, the patient dies.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Alone.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where we see the difference between burnout and moral injury.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Emily didn't quit because the hours were long.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: By 2022, she was showing symptoms that looked like PTSD.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can't sleep, crying in therapy.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: All of it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: But the loop in her head wasn't I'm scared of the virus.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: The loop was I killed him.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I failed that family.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: That narrative, I killed him.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's the moral wound.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just stress, it's a verdict she's passed on herself.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: She eventually left nursing.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: We lost a 17-year veteran to the weight of those decisions.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the authors of this training, Gina Hernandez, she actually shares a story from her past life as a journalist.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, man, it made me sweat just reading it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a perfect example of how fast this can happen.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's 2001.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Gina's a reporter covering a car accident.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty standard stuff.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Standard stuff.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: She gets to the scene, but then she sees a police officer she knows, a friend, and she realizes the victim in the car, the DOA, is the officer's father.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine that moment.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Your human instinct is to back off, offer comfort, protect your friend.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But Gina has a producer in her earpiece.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the producer wants the name.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need to go live.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Get the scoop.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: The producer doesn't care about the friendship.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Gina knows the name, but the police haven't officially released it yet.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the dilemma.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: The system, the newsroom, is demanding an act of commission.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Report the name.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: But her internal moral code is screaming, you do not scoop a friend's tragedy before the family is even notified.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's that split second where your career says one thing and your soul says another.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that friction is the injury.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever she chooses, she loses a piece of herself.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you have the nurse who can't save everyone, and the reporter who has to invade privacy.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the job where you're legally required to break up families?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: The training deck moves into child protective services.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: CPS, yes.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this looks like a factory for moral injury.
• 7:13
  unknown: A factory.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is one of the most systemic traps we see.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: The sources describe it as a damned if you do, damned if you don't environment.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was really struck by the evidence trap.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: The slides talk about the guilt of knowing a child is in danger, your gut tells you, but you don't have enough legal evidence to remove them.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the weight of that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: You are a protector, that's your identity.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the supervisor says close the case.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not enough proof.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to walk away, leaving a child in a house you know isn't safe.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is a profound act of omission forced on you by the law.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the flip side is just as bad.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Removing a child who is screaming and begging to stay with their parents.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even if the parents are abusive, the trauma of that moment and the worker has to be the bad guy.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It creates what we call a fragmented self.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: You have to shut down your own empathy just to do the job.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: There was one specific point in the CPS section that really twisted the knife for me this idea of betrayal of a child's confidence.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yes.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is devastating.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: A child trusts you.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: They whisper a secret because you're the nice lady.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: But as a mandated reporter, you have to use that secret to open a case.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Which might blow up their entire world.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell So the child feels betrayed and you feel like a traitor.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the system weaponizes your kindness against you.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell That's a powerful way to put it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of systems, this next part of the deep dive honestly changed my entire perspective on this.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We usually think of moral injury happening to the good guys, the helpers, but the sources discuss moral injury in prisoners.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my first thought was wait, aren't they the ones who caused the injury?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a common bias.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: We view prisoners solely as perpetrators, and yes, they may have guilt over their crimes, but Dr.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Roberts and Gina Hernandez highlight something fascinating called the prison code.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell This idea that to survive in prison, you have to become someone else.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's a quote in the materials from Kurt Danish.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: He explains that moral injury in prison comes from witnessing the brutality of incarceration, but being unable to act.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the code.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the code.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you see someone being beaten, or if you're told to do something violent to prove you aren't soft, you have to do it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Not because you want to.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: But to survive.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have to act as a prisoner willingly.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: You put on a mask, you adopt this persona of violence or indifference.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: But the tragedy is that the mask, it sticks to your face.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: That image is terrifying.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The source says this mask is hard to shed later because of the shame.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine getting out after 10 years.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be a gentle father, a loving partner, but you have spent a decade violating your own moral code every single day just to stay alive.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when they try to reintegrate, they aren't just fighting the stigma of being an ex-con.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're fighting this internal belief that they are fundamentally a violent, uncaring person.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a spiritual wound.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: This theme of doing what you have to do to survive leads us to the final group, and this is the most delicate one.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Victims.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, victims of sexual assault and sex trafficking.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is where the concept really explains things that a traditional PTSD diagnosis often misses.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: We ask, why didn't they report it sooner?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or why do they blame themselves?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: The case study of Amy is the example here.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Assaulted at a college party at 19.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't tell anyone for six years.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Six years of silence.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And why?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the distorted narrative of moral injury.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Amy wasn't just hurt, she judged herself.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: The source material says she told herself I was drinking.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I went with him.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I did this to myself.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So in her mind, she committed an act of commission.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: She framed her own victimization as a moral failure.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am a disgusting person.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's the symptom?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not fear, that's shame.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the case of Maria, the trafficking survivor, this one is a labyrinth of betrayal.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maria's story shows how the system fails.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: She was 14, she went to a school counselor for help.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: She trusted an adult.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the counselor did what they were supposed to do, reported it to CPS, but that scared Maria, so she ran away.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Straight into the arms of a trafficker.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's betrayal by system.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: The attempt to help actually pushed her into hell.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: But once she was in the trafficking ring, the moral injury got even more twisted.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: The sources mentioned she was forced to recruit other girls.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is the part I just can't wrap my head around.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: To survive, she had to become a perpetrator.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: The traffickers force victims to victimize others.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's the ultimate control mechanism.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: She had to lure other girls in.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: The source labels this as a forced act of commission.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And an act of omission because she couldn't help the girl she was recruiting.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: This creates a deep, profound self-loathing.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even though she was a victim, she carries the guilt of a perpetrator.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: You have to address that specific moral wound.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the so what?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've covered so many groups.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's clear this is everywhere.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't just leave people bleeding.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: The sources list protective factors.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do we actually fix this?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: The training highlights three main pillars.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: The first is strong ethical grounding.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds a little like just be a good person.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's more practical than that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: It means knowing your lines before you get to the crisis.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know this is what I will do and this is what I will never do.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you wait until the producer is screaming in your ear to decide your ethics, you lose.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that makes sense.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-deciding your values.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's number two?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Psychological safety and social capital.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: This just means having a space where you can say, I think we did the wrong thing today without getting fired.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Breaking the silence.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Unlike Amy, who held it for six years.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Moral injury thrives in the dark.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you can turn to a colleague and say, I feel like we betrayed that family, and they say, I feel it, that shared burden is so much lighter.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the third one, institutional integrity.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is the hard one.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is on the bosses.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hospitals, newsrooms.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: They have to stop putting their people in impossible situations.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can't demand efficiency at the cost of humanity and then wonder why everyone is quitting.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say the system doesn't change.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say I'm listening to this and I'm already hurt.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: The authors have a very specific take on healing, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this is probably the most important takeaway from the whole thing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: They say moral injury is not a mental illness, it is a moral wound.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Uh that sounds like semantics, but I feel like it changes the treatment.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It changes everything.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you treat it as an illness, you try to cure the symptoms, take a pill for the anxiety, do breathing exercises.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's a moral wound, you have to treat the soul.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So what does that look like?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like meaning making.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like uh atonement.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Atonement.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very old school word.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is, but it's necessary.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it means writing a letter to the family you couldn't help, even if you never send it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it means forgiving yourself for doing what you had to do to survive.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So it's about integrating that scar into your story.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell You can't just say it didn't happen.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: You have to say it happened, it hurt, I am imperfect, but I am still good.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I am imperfect, but I am still good.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the destination.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: That is the healing.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've talked a lot about these extreme professions today, but I want to bring this right into the listener's lap.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we demand a lot from people.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: We expect the nurse to follow orders, the reporter to get the scoop, but we rarely ask what the cost is to their soul where that duty conflicts with their humanity.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell And more importantly, we rarely ask ourselves that question.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Exactly.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge to you listening right now.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Where in your own life, whether you're a parent, a manager, or just a friend, are you carrying the weight of what's right in silence?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: What is the conversation you haven't had because you're afraid to admit that a choice you made still keeps you up at night?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Recognizing the wound is the first step.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: You aren't broken, you're just injured.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And injuries can heal.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's time to put down the illness label and start treating the wound.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for diving deep with us today.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Take care of yourselves.