How to Heal: From Moral Injury Pt. 2–It’s actually a 'soul injury'

Let’s clarify what I mean by ‘moral injury.’ Perhaps I don’t even really mean moral. But I kind of do, there is an aspect of that. When what we think is moral is violated, that can feel like a great hurt.

We keep seeing people including children being completely dehumanized, violated, degraded and endangered in every sense of the word. Before long, wave after wave of pain starts desensitizing us. Each time we realize we are experiencing another layer of desensitization, it creates another wound. Vacillating between numbness, shock, or even disappointment in ourselves, let alone the rest of the world, has a way of eroding our sense of self.

This kind of injury results from the torture of our morals. The torture is happening out in the world and sometimes also internally, when we realize that the horrific things that used to keep us up at night are now just another Tuesday.

So, while this may begin as an injury to our morals, this particular pattern seems to produce a larger soul injury, not just a moral one.

I am not a religious person, at all, but I do believe we each have a soul. I never thought our soul could suffer from injury, but I have realized, it can. It’s not the kind of injury like a punch in the gut, a cut, or even feeling sad in our heart. A soul injury is a loss of a piece of our soul.

It’s almost like it gets so shocked by the fear, anger, or pain that a piece of it runs away. We feel drained and not like ourselves, but can't quite put our finger on it and don't understand why.

I’ve done grounding exercises with people to call their energy back to the present moment. Sometimes, our energy gets split. Regrets of the past, worries about the future make us have less energy in the present. We feel tired, fatigued, unmotivated, procrastinate, second-guess ourselves, and are more prone to getting sick. This is one way of looking at it: “our energy becomes split.”

If it happens all of a sudden, in response to a surprise or traumatizing shock, then it might not be an energetic splitting. I think it’s us losing a piece of our soul.

Trying to figure out how to get it back would be a whole separate series that might feel a bit more esoteric, and I’m not sure if y’all ready for that. So, let’s leave it here for now, but in the next post I can cover a little of what’s at stake and then we can get into how to navigate those moments.

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