Keeping Our Moral Compass in Uncertain Times

Experiencing, moral injury, and the search for ethical orientation in a turbulent world.

“The body knows the situation before the mind can formulate it.” Eugene T. Gendlin

At a time when geopolitical conflict, uncertain leadership, and economic pressures are eroding trust in institutions, many people are experiencing a deeper moral disorientation. When the frameworks that once claimed to uphold law and justice appear fragile or inconsistently applied, the question arises: what remains reliable as a guide? This reflection explores how moral orientation may emerge not only from political structures, but also from our lived experiencing  the human capacity to sense dignity, fairness, and responsibility within unfolding situations.

A Growing Unease

Across many parts of the world today, people are experiencing a growing unease about the direction of our shared future. The language of international law, human rights, and a “rules-based order” continues to be spoken, yet increasingly it appears to be applied selectively or set aside when inconvenient. Military actions are justified in the name of security, alliances override legal constraints, and institutions once assumed to safeguard peace seem less able to hold the line.Recent events have reinforced this sense of uncertainty. Escalating conflicts and the selective invocation of international law have left many people questioning whether the principles meant to guide international relations are still functioning as reliable constraints on power. When actions that carry profound human consequences are justified in shifting or contradictory ways, trust in the moral frameworks guiding public life begins to erode.Alongside this geopolitical uncertainty, there is also a widening sense of political drift. Across many countries people are experiencing the economic consequences of decisions made far from their daily lives: rising living costs, strained public services, and growing insecurity about the future. Even within Western societies that once projected stability and confidence, many people increasingly feel the weight of political choices whose benefits appear unevenly distributed and whose long-term direction remains unclear.

For many people observing these developments, the result is not only political disagreement but something deeper: a sense of moral disorientation. When those entrusted with upholding ethical principles appear willing to set them aside, a quieter question begins to arise: What remains trustworthy as a guide?

Moral Injury and Moral Awakening

The unease many people experience today is not only political. For some it carries the deeper quality of what has been described as moral injury . the distress that arises when actions or decisions violate deeply held ethical expectations, particularly when those actions are carried out or justified by authorities entrusted with responsibility.When the gap between proclaimed values and lived reality becomes impossible to ignore, moral injury may give rise to what might be called moral awakening. Instead of simply accepting inherited narratives, people begin asking deeper questions: What values truly matter? What kind of world are we helping to create?

Hope Without Illusion

In an earlier reflection, Hope Without Illusion, I suggested that genuine hope cannot be built on denial or comforting and the fallibility of those who lead them. Yet even when public moral frameworks appear unstable, human beings do not entirely lose their sense of direction. Beneath ideological arguments and political loyalties there remains something more immediate: a living sensitivity to dignity, fairness, and the suffering caused when these are violated. It is this quieter sensitivity that can function as a kind of moral compass.

Three Dimensions of the Compass

Ethical orientation rarely arises from a single source. Instead, it tends to emerge through several interconnected dimensions of human life.

THE THREE COMPASSES OF MORAL ORIENTATION                   

                    COLLECTIVE COMPASS

            (laws, institutions, shared norms)

                         ▲

                        │

 RELATIONAL COMPASS ─────┼───── INNER COMPASS

 (dialogue, community)   │     (felt sense, experiencing)

                         ▼

                    LIVED EXPERIENCE

Inner CompassOur bodily felt sense of situations; the subtle signals in experiencing that indicate alignment, unease, dignity, or violation.Relational CompassOrientation refined through dialogue with others;  listening, mutual recognition, and shared reflection.Collective CompassThe structures through which societies attempt to embody ethical principles ; laws, institutions, and international agreements.

Together these three dimensions help orient human action when the wider moral landscape becomes uncertain.Ethical orientation emerges through an interplay between inner experiencing, relational dialogue, and collective structures. When these three dimensions remain connected, societies retain a sense of direction even in turbulent times.

The Compass in Lived Experiencing

When external frameworks of authority become unstable, many people begin noticing a subtle shift in their experiencing. The familiar sources of moral orientation ; political leadership, institutions, ideological narratives , no longer feel entirely reliable.In the practice of Focusing, developed by Eugene Gendlin, this guidance emerges through what he called the Felt Sense , the bodily experiencing of situations that carry meaning even before they are fully articulated. Within the phenomenological field of lived experiencing, the body often registers coherence, dissonance, fairness, or violation long before our conceptual explanations catch up.

Staying Oriented

What remains available, even in turbulent times, is our capacity to stay in relationship with our own experiencing  , to sense more carefully what fosters dignity, fairness, and life, and what undermines it.A compass does not overcome the storm. But it helps us remember the direction in which we are travelling.Perhaps the deeper task of our time is not only to repair political institutions, but also to rediscover the human capacities that make principled life possible: attention, reflection, and the willingness to remain present with what is beginning to unfold in our shared world…

References

Gendlin, E. T. (1981). Focusing. Bantam Books.

Gendlin, E. T. (1997). Experiencing and the creation of meaning. Northwestern University Press.

Lear, J. (2006). Radical hope. Harvard University Press.

Litz, B. T., et al. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair. Clinical Psychology Review.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception. Routledge.

About the Author

Patricia Foster is a Coordinator, Focusing Trainer, and Therapist with The International Focusing Institute (New York). She offers training in Focusing for groups and individuals, and provides person-centred and Focusing-oriented therapy. Her work integrates experiential philosophy with practical skills that help people listen more deeply to their own lived experiencing….