From @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“There is no excuse for the world to stand by and watch two million human beings suffer on the brink of full-blown famine,” the chef José Andrés writes about Gaza.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) July 27, 2025 at 2:25 PM

Until recently, I had never heard the term moral injury.

But the moment I did, it felt like someone had given shape to a feeling I’d carried for years: a persistent knot in my chest, a silent grief that roars inside me like the figure in Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.”

Moral injury, in simple terms, is what happens when our deeply held moral beliefs are violated. This can happen through our own actions, through what we witness, or simply by being part of a system that contradicts everything we believe to be right.

The term originally came from the world of military psychology, used to describe soldiers who returned from war not only traumatised, but ethically shattered. They carried guilt, shame, and disillusionment after witnessing or participating in acts that betrayed their conscience.

But the concept has since expanded. Now, many psychologists, spiritual leaders, and activists recognise that many of us are, to some extent, experiencing moral injury simply by living in a world that feels increasingly out of alignment with our values.

People like Dr. Brett Litz, one of the first psychologists to define moral injury in veterans, and Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, who brought the term into theological and social justice contexts, have broadened its meaning.

Spiritual teachers like Father Michael Lapsley, and activists such as Joanna Macy have also explored how collective grief, ethical dissonance, and the wounding of conscience affect our emotional and spiritual well-being in the face of injustice.

And suddenly, that heaviness I have felt in my body made sense. I wasn’t burned out or purely suffering from compassion fatigue. I most definitely wasn’t just being “too sensitive.”

I would now describe experiencing a moral injury as akin to a spiritual wound that comes from witnessing harm over and over and feeling powerless to stop it.

For me, this ache deepened in recent years, as I watched global tragedies unfold, most painfully, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which I wrote about here. I saw Western governments justify the starvation of children. I heard political leaders use twisted language to explain away violence. I watched people who once spoke out for justice choose silence.

It’s safe to say that something inside of me cracked.

Moral injury is not only about witnessing suffering of course. It’s about the unbearable dissonance we feel between our inner values and the external world we live in. It’s the emotional and ethical toll of moving through life when we’re constantly being asked to suppress our conscience.

It can show up in different places:

>> In healthcare workers forced to follow inhumane policies, like those in U.S. states where abortion is now criminalised, even in life-threatening pregnancies.

>> In teachers witnessing children fail within broken school systems, especially in low-income districts where students face trauma, hunger, and systemic racism. Teachers are often required to enforce standardised testing and punitive discipline, despite knowing it harms students.

>> In climate activists labelled as extreme and jailed for peaceful protests.

>> In spiritual seekers told to “avoid low vibrational topics” and to “rise above it all” instead of feeling it.

This dissonance creates pain. It asks us to pretend we are okay in a world that is everything but okay.

Us Germans have another word that describes the ache I am feeling quite well: Weltschmerz. It translates to “world-pain.” It’s the sorrow of realising that the world we live in does not match the world we know is possible.

Weltschmerz beautifully describes a deep sadness for what has been lost, ignored, or destroyed. It’s the ache of the idealist who still believes in love, in justice, in beauty, and sees how far we have strayed.

I believe Weltschmerz and moral injury are kindred spirits—one speaks to the soul’s heartbreak, and the other to the conscience’s wound. Together, they describe something that many of us feel but struggle to articulate.

When people say they are tired, numb, disconnected, or angry in ways they can’t explain, this might be why.

For those of us on healing or spiritual paths, this can be especially confusing. We have often been taught to stay calm, to think positively, to focus on inner peace. But peace at the cost of truth is not peace.

I have sat in spiritual circles where people asked me not to talk about genocide because it “lowers the frequency.” I have seen teachers and influencers with large platforms say nothing while ICE is deporting immigrants without due process and built Alligator Alcatraz, which is nothing else than a horrific concentration camp.

I have been told to “hold the light,” even as the darkness demanded we face it.

This, too, is a form of moral injury when we are asked to prioritise appearances over integrity, comfort over truth, neutrality over justice.

But naming it matters to me because that means we are not broken. Nor are we “too much” or “too sensitive.” Naming it means we are not alone because there’s many of us out there feeling the same damn thing. We are people with intact hearts and a well-functioning conscience. We are people who haven’t lost our humanity.

So what do we do with moral injury and world-pain?

We begin by acknowledging them. We stop gaslighting ourselves for caring. We honour the ache as a sign that we are still human in a world that often forgets how to be.

We find spaces to grieve where our grief is welcome. We allow ourselves to feel angry without apology. We connect with others who are awake in similar ways.

As a healer and grounded spiritual mentor, I know that ache is a potent doorway because it leads us back to what matters. I found that underneath moral injury is a longing for wholeness, for alignment, for a world that doesn’t ask us to abandon our values just to survive.

If you have been feeling this heaviness lately or for a while, you are not imagining things. Your body is not betraying you, and your spirit is not collapsing. You are responding wisely, painfully, beautifully to a world out of sync with love.

The ache we have been carrying is not a weakness but a compass and guess where it’s pointing? It’s pointing home.

If this speaks to you, I invite you to share it. We are not meant to carry this wound in silence.

Sometimes, just knowing the name of what we feel is enough to begin the healing.

~