Moral injury is not a danger- or fear-based response to an event.  Moral Injury is tied to a sense of betrayal, a breaking of social trust, and transgression of one’s values.   “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” -Khalil Gibran   Is it possible to take a painful and negative event from our past, and 're-purpose' it to become an empowering feature of our story, of our identity? The process of re-organizing neural circuits to integrate a negative past event into a more complex and mature perspective is tied to cognitive flexibility.  This flexibility is a major aspect of the healing process for moral injury. Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry   What is Moral Injury? I offered an overview of moral injury in the last article, but here’s a quick recap... As  Jonathan Shay defines it, "moral injury occurs when there’s a betrayal of ‘what’s right’, either by a person in authority or oneself, and in a high stakes situation." Litz and colleagues divide moral injury into three types:  * bearing witness to, * perpetrating, or * failing to prevent events that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.   As we see from studies by pioneering researchers such as Ruth Lanius, Moral Injury is an emerging frontier in neuroscience and psychology to help us understand... * humans as a socially cooperative species * the importance of social trust and what happens when those bonds are broken * the importance of cognitive and psychological flexibility.   What's beautiful about the exploration of moral injury is that it helps us find ways to bring negative events into a new light.  In doing so, it exposes resilient and powerful aspects of the human response to stress.  The processes used to navigate moral injury shed light on how to help help all of us be more empowered and find new ways to contribute to the greater whole. As we talk about moral injury, it’s also helpful to explore the idea of morality  What is morality? Jonathan Haidt, a professor of moral and political psychology at NYU describes morality as “interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make cooperative social life possible."