Welcome to Wayward Purpose. We’re rebuilding what burnout breaks for those who refuse to stay numb forever. Through faith, discipline, and direction, we’re turning moral injury into moral leadership.
But we can’t do it alone.
If this mission speaks to you, or to someone still finding their way, please share it forward. Every share helps reach another veteran, leader, or wayward mind searching for meaning, discipline, and direction. You’re not just sharing a Substack; you’re helping build a movement: one life, one story, one comeback at a time.
As I’ve worked through therapy and continue the work to understand my own moral injury, one thing struck me this past week in the research I wanted to highlight: we each carry our own moral compass. A deeply personal sense of what is good, what is bad, and whether we ourselves still belong in the good.
For those of us with more complex or neurodivergent minds, that compass doesn’t always stay silent. We think out loud. We write to find clarity. We process in motion.
Throughout my military career, I often heard versions of the same rebuke:
“You don’t know your place.”
“That’s not your job to worry about.”
“You don’t understand how you fit into the organization.”
“You have grandiose ideas.”
It took me years, and a lot of therapy, reflection, and spiritual direction from my priest and church community to realize that I wasn’t being insubordinate or idealistic. I was working out loud.
That’s how my brain processes moral tension: testing ideas, mapping right from wrong, trying to reconcile conscience with command.
Through this lens, the Letter of James has become a powerful teacher for me. It’s helping me understand not only what we say, but why and to whom. How words, like moral instincts, reveal our internal compass.
And that’s what led me into this week’s exploration. A continued deep dive into the academic and clinical research on moral injury, and what it truly means to rebuild moral leadership from the inside out.
This episode from us continues our experiment with Google’s NotebookLM, The Deep Dive, and confronts one of the most devastating yet misunderstood wounds of modern life — moral injury (MI) — and goes into what a disciplined path toward moral reconstruction and authentic leadership could be.
The AI generated hosts begin by distinguishing MI from PTSD.
Where PTSD is fear-based, MI is value-based, rooted in guilt, shame, and a rupture in moral identity. The central question isn’t “Am I safe?” but “Am I still good?”
They explore three major dimensions of injury:
Internal transgression: When actions (or inaction) violate one’s own moral code, producing deep guilt and self-condemnation.
External betrayal: When trusted leaders or institutions abandon moral integrity. Eroding faith in the very systems meant to uphold it.
Moral disorientation: When the world itself no longer makes moral sense, creating existential chaos and loss of meaning.
Through first-hand veteran accounts and research synthesis, the episode exposes the “Catch-22 guilt” that arises when every option is morally toxic, the devastation of institutional betrayal, and the hollow isolation of returning home to a society that can’t comprehend what’s been lost.
The second half pivots from diagnosis to ethical reconstruction. Treating moral pain not as pathology but as proof of moral sensitivity. The discussion outlines two primary healing processes:
Assimilation and accommodation (via therapies like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Adaptive Disclosure) to reintegrate moral trauma.
Spiritual repair through chaplaincy, mindfulness, and meaning-making that rebuilds faith in self and the moral order.
Ultimately, the conversation arrives at the concept of “tragic remorse,” the mature moral emotion that acknowledges tragedy without internalizing all blame. It’s the transformation point where self-discipline becomes moral leadership.
“A leader who has wrestled with and achieved tragic remorse,” the host concludes,
“is one who can operate in moral gray zones without collapsing into cynicism or despair.”
If this spoke to you, share it with someone who needs it.
Each share extends the reach of our mission: turning moral injury into moral leadership, one story at a time.
The episode closes with a challenge:
If even disciplined warriors can be undone by institutional or existential betrayal, what unexamined moral assumptions in our own lives might be vulnerable to rupture?
And what disciplined work can we do now to strengthen our moral resilience before crisis comes?
Turning moral injury into moral leadership isn’t about forgetting the pain; it’s about learning to lead from it. Healing is a life long journey.
If you have experienced moral injury, or this finally puts a name to what you have been feeling, feel free to leave a comment, or answer the challenge questions.
