Forgiving the Betrayal of Self: Healing Moral Injury So We Can Rebuild Our Lives on an Unshakeable Foundation

In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, or when acting on an addiction or reacting to someone else’s addiction, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict their deeply held moral beliefs and expectations of themselves and their relationship. When we've been involved in or exposed to events that violate our deeply held moral beliefs and expectations of ourselves, moral injury, which is a distressing psychological, behavioral, social, and sometimes spiritual sense of betrayal of self often occurs. 

This moral injury needs to be healed in order to restore trust in our own ability to navigate life well. Moral injury shows up when someone violates the sexual agreements of their relationship. In addition to betraying their partner, those who break sexual agreements also betray themselves because they have done things that contradict their own moral values. The partner in this situation may also experience moral injury due to his or her struggles as he or she reacts to their spouse’s betrayal and behaves in ways that are different than how they see themselves. 

In this talk, we will explore the similarities and differences between betrayal trauma and moral injury. We’ll look at how moral injuries occur and the double bind both the partner and the person who broke trust find themselves in when they experienced, perpetrated, failed to prevent, or witnessed events that violated their moral beliefs. We’ll cover the resulting loss of our sense of self.

Finally, we’ll explore steps to healing moral injury so we can rebuild our lives on an unshakeable foundation that aligns fully with our deepest values and beliefs.