Rita Nakashima Brock, SVP for Moral Injury Recovery Programs of Volunteers of America

This episode of CEOs You Should Know features Rita Nakashima Brock, SVP for Moral Injury Recovery Programs of Volunteers of America.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I don't have a from. Thatis an odd question for military brats.
I grew up for five years ina Japanese Buddhist family, and then my
stepfather exported me with my mother andbaby sister to Fort Riley, Kansas.
And after that I was on militarybasis and attended military schools in Kansas and

(00:21):
in Germany and in Barsol, California. Now I'm also Okanawa a kindergarten So
you really did that. You dida tour, dude. Now, I'm
not a military person, but mydad was in a world wide construction company,
so when projects were done, wemoved. So I was kind of
like a military brat where I movedeverywhere. So I can kind of relate
to moving around a lot as ayoung person. Yes, yeah, So

(00:43):
when people ask me where I'm from, I usually say, well, do
you mean where was I born?Or where I live now? Because those
are the only two froms I have, Right, I don't have a place
I call from that I'm from.Sure, I understand that completely. So
I think the one thing about theyou and I can grea when you move
a lot, especially as a youngperson, it makes you very very worldly
and you adapt to change a lotbetter. Yes, you do, and

(01:03):
in fact, I think I've changedcareers six times. So well, I
want to talk about that, andso can you talk me a little bit
about your education? And I wantto talk about what you did coming out
of school, and then, ofcourse we're going to get to a lot
of things that are VOA, butI want to talk about your journey about
school, and then what you wantto do is you got out of it.
Sure. I started college as apremia major and I wanted to be

(01:25):
a neurosurgeon. And the Civil rightsmovement hit campus my freshman year, and
the science classes got kind of boringcompared to changing the world, and so
and all of that led me intostudying religion because a lot of the civil
rights people were involved with religion.And so I wound up thinking I would

(01:47):
be a professor because I found mycollege experience so transformative by the professors I
had that I loved very much,So I thought I would like to have
that experience and provide that for people. So I actually went on and straight
and I took a hiatus for acouple of years because the person I was
with at the time got a postdocin Switzerland. But otherwise I tracked through

(02:13):
to a PhD in religion and woundup working in higher ed for thirty three
years. But I also was workingas a chaplain in a couple of different
capacities while I was in grad school. So my first real professional work was
as a chaplain, and that's sortof what I've come back to now at
the end of my career. Right. And you know, as I take
a look at your illustrious career,it seems like the care for people,

(02:38):
there's a theme going on about youwanting to be in their lives and making
a better life for everybody, whetheranybody's going through a tough time or things
are good. But taking care ofpeople seems to be a theme that I
kind of got from, would Ibe correct. Yeah, I've thought about
that for a while recently. Ithink I actually got that sensibility from my

(02:59):
Buddhist grandfather that it's the work ofalleviating human suffering, and that is a
kind of Buddhist mission. It's alsoa Christian and it's a religious mission I
think generally is to help people copewith sorrow and pain and suffering. It
makes for a better world when peoplearen't buried in that kind of trauma.

(03:21):
Right. Well, let's do thisbecause I always love to talk about the
journey when that when you come tobe joining something in your current role with
the Moral Injury Program in VOA forthe Volunteers of America. I obviously know
what they were interested in you,but what interested you in joining their organization?

(03:43):
After thirty three years of educating people, I actually had some ideas about
what you could do for people whoactually had moral injury. And so I
decided that VOA, because it hadso many veterans that served in the research
on moral injury was mostly around veteransseven years ago, that they could they

(04:03):
gave me an opportunity to actually createa program and apply it with actual veterans,
and so that was to me moreinteresting than continuing to offer courses at
a seminary on moral injury over andover. Let's do this before we talk
about mission statement, and before wetalk about what exactly the organization and you

(04:25):
do. I think it's really importantto make sure that we tell the listening
audience who might be new to VOAand all, that it is about what
moral injury is, at least fromyour standpoint, so they that'd be a
good starting point. I think moralinjury is your conscious response to extreme harm,

(04:47):
because harm has a moral content,a bad moral content. We don't
want harm, and we don't wantto harm others, and we don't want
to be harmed. And the worstharm, of course, is the kind
of torture and murder kind of harm. But there are other forms of harm.
I know people who have killed peoplein a car accident who had moral

(05:08):
injury because they felt terrible and theyreally felt like, despite their not intending
to do harm, that somehow ithad changed them forever and impacted their lives
very negatively. So moral injury isthat kind of a response to harm,
and it can lead to people evenchoosing to take their own lives because they

(05:29):
can't live with the shame or guiltor outrage. Even sometimes you've been harmed
and you have this sort of toxicanger about it eating you up inside.
So it has really negative consequences,both to individuals and to people who love
them, because if you have aserious case of moral injury, you're in
an identity crisis. You may nottrust your faith, or meat or your

(05:53):
values anymore. Well that's well said, and I appreciate the definition from your
viewpoint. And I think it's alsovery fortuitous to talk to you because we
are in Mental Health Awareness Month aswe do this interview. And I know
that's just a tip of the icebergfor a lot of things that we're going
to talk about today, but let'sdo this if we could, for everybody.
As far as the moral injury recoveryprograms at the Volunteers of America,

(06:15):
what is your mission statement? Ourmission statement is to create and teach and
implement recovery strategies for people experiencing moralinjury. Okay, now, a lot
of the listeners are going to beintroduced to this organization. By the way,
it's very cool. I've been onthe website done my research, and
I'm so impressed because it's a reallyFirst of all, it's an interesting topic

(06:40):
because it's really starting to be hiton lately a lot about what you do.
But I still see a lot ofuniqueness from it, and we can
get into that in just a fewminutes, Rita. But I did want
to talk to just about from athirty thousand foot view for all our listeners
that don't know exactly what is moralinjury recovery programs at Volunteers of America.
What would you say that you actuallydo what we actually Let me back up

(07:03):
first, because what we do withinMoral and Volunteers of America with moral injury
is just a tiny piece of whatVolunteers of America as an organization does and
has been doing for one hundred almostone hundred and thirty years. So it's
a social service organization that works toimplement programs and offer services that create thriving

(07:26):
and healthy communities for everyone. Sowe have senior care, we have low
income housing, we have transitional housing, we have I think we're the third
or fourth largest builder of affordable housingin the United States. So and we
have thirty offices across the forty fiveworking at forty five states and Puerto Rico.

(07:46):
So we're huge. And what ourCEO saw seven years ago when I
was invited to come to Volunteers ofAmerica to help set up moral injury programs
is that this is a this isa kind of human suffering that's really been
there for one hundred and thirty yearsthat just wasn't a word for it.
And so having a term for itand focusing on it and training We also

(08:11):
have an Office of Ministry, andwe actually have chaplains and ministers in the
organization. They're now all required tounderstand moral injury and processing strategies for moral
injury. So we work a lotwith our ministry office making sure ministers are
competent to understand moral injury and helppeople and counsel them. But we also
work with the wider public and weoffer online things that are just like an

(08:37):
hour to process moral distress or moralinjury for anyone, and they're free and
open to the public, because webelieve that this is an ancient form of
suffering. It's not anything new,but it's been mixed up with other things
and treated as a disorder rather thanan affliction of conscience. It's not a

(08:58):
dis order if your conscience is workingand something bad happened. If you imagine
something bad happened and you beat yourselfup, that might be a disorder because
you're not oriented in reality. Butif you feel terrible because you killed someone,
or you harm somebody, you gavethem the wrong medicine, they died,
those kinds of things happen. Ifyou don't feel bad about it,

(09:22):
I would wonder about you. Butthat horrible feeling can impact everybody around you
and also impact your future, andprocessing it with other people who understand and
care about you is the best wayto sort of recover from it. I
think, so our programs are alldone by ordinary people. We don't have

(09:46):
therapists. If you're a professional mentalhealth person, when you're in our group,
that's not your role. You're therejust as appear to everybody else in
the room. And so we havethat's our sort of way we do it.
And we have online programs, wehave in person programs. During COVID
it was almost all online, ofcourse, but but we're beginning to re

(10:07):
implement in person programs, especially forour affiliates. You know, Rita,
our listening audience knows that I havea twenty two year old daughter who's about
to graduate from college. And GenerationZ has really shown us that it's okay
to talk about mental health, moralinjury and all those things. Yeah.
But the one thing I didn't wantto talk to about that once again,
I think is fortuitous for what youand your team do, is that this

(10:30):
generation, the celebrities, the athletes, and my daughter's peer group have made
it okay to talk about this becausethey're experiencing something that my generation didn't talk
about, didn't know about. Weweren't educated, but it was there.
But you know, our parents wasa you know, put some dirt on
it and you know, suck itup, buttercup. That was just what
I grew up with as a seventieskid. But as a parent now this

(10:50):
generation, my eyes have been wideopen to the real stuff that is with
moral injury and mental health and everythingand allowed it not to be a stigma.
And I imagine that it makes yourjob a little bit easier that people
that are famous are talking about it, which kind of normalizes it. And
that's my point that you know,we've got to sold many things in our
lifetime that's been a stigma that youhaven't been able to talk about or you

(11:11):
can't do this, or you can'tdo that, And now the normalization of
it, I imagine that it justmakes your job a little bit easier.
That people can come to you andthat you work with in your team,
that we're all on the same page. It's not a stigma. We can't
talk about this, can you?Can you elaborate on that? Yeah?
I do think that the world haschanged in a negative way for the younger

(11:35):
generations, because when I was growingup, and I think for older generations,
we had a lot more relationship systemsthat supported us, that were in
person and regular contact, and nowso much is on phones and online,
and so the isolation and loneliness isI think also part of the lack of
emotional resilience that leads to disorders.And so, you know, my family

(11:58):
sat down an dinner every night together, We went to church. You know,
I sang in the choir at churchand at school, so I was
around the support systems. And alsoit turns out, of course singing an
art and making art is good foryour soul and your psyche, and schools

(12:18):
started cutting arts programs as money todecline. Families turned into two income families
to try to keep things going,so no parent was there to cook dinner.
People are adamized into soccer practice andafter school activities, and so I
think the kind of social fabrics thatheld people and supported them are less today

(12:41):
and instead the social media and otherthings that come in as support, and
now there are the research is indicatingthat is not enough. And so I
think that the fact that gen Zis talking about how they're suffering. Is
important because I think we're beginning torealize that's the way we set society up
is all about the individual, andpersonal success isn't enough for people. Really,

(13:07):
we want our lives to matter toother people. We want lives that
are dedicated to meaning and purpose andmission that go beyond just ourselves. And
I actually think that's what happened.One of the things that happens with military
veterans is when they leave the military, where they did have a mission and
purpose and they had people that werewilling to die for them, and they
were willing to die for each other. Those kind of intense relationships are rare

(13:31):
in civilian society, so they're justkind of dumped on the street and told,
Okay, now go make yourself successfulall by yourself. And I think
that that is actually cruel. Thatis not a good way for human beings
to flourish. And so I thinkthe solution isn't just more mental health therapists,

(13:56):
because there never will be enough ofthem, and a lot of them
are their jobs because they're overextended andit's brutal work sometimes, but that is
just you know, fixing a psychologicalproblem. Isn't enough, and the moral
injury isn't really fixed by therapy.It's really fixed by love, yeah yeah,

(14:16):
and real relationships and people you canlaugh with, and people who will
hear some of the awful things thatare happening to you and not dismiss you
or go positive and ignore you.That will really attend compassionately and empathetically to
something you may be struggling with.And so we try to build these groups
that create that atmosphere of care andsupport and empathy. Well that's a lot

(14:43):
to do, yes, you,And it's well said, and you know,
the one takeaway I have from allthat that I experience in the daily
basis that I talk with my familyabout. They're just aren't a lot of
acts of kindness anymore that you puton top of everything that you talked about.
And that's the kind of world is. So it's tough out there for
everybody, but our young generation hasit pretty hard. In the social media
I can speak from personal experience,has been probably one of the roughest things

(15:05):
that pours in that mental health issuethat all young people are going through today
because they are on your phones.As you say, Rita, well,
let's do this I want to talkabout in just a moment, about maybe
a good story over the last sevenyears that you've experienced. So let's put
a pin in that just for asecond. But I always like to talk
to our leaders too that I knowthat it's not always unicorns and rainbows all
the time. And you have avery difficult job and it is a big

(15:28):
place with a big team. Whatkind of challenges are you experiencing right now?
We're experiencing funding challenges for one thing, because people to people projects and
paying people to do that kind ofhands on work is expensive work. You
don't want people to on your ownteam to be using your poverty services,

(15:50):
right You want to pay people aliving wage to do the kind of work
that is emotionally really hard. Alsovery rewarding too, but it's hard work.
So we're facing that. We havea really great fifty hour program for

(16:10):
veterans that is evidence based. Wepilot tested it for two years with a
grant and then COVID it we hadto suspend it. We'd like to restart
it, but it's not a cheapprogram to restart. But the other one
we face that is a challenge isthat for a lot of veterans, healthcare
workers, people in high stakes worklike first responders, having a mental health

(16:34):
diagnosis is stigmatizing, and so theall this promotion about please seek mental health
support please, doesn't remove that stigmabecause you can lose your license or your
insurance if you're a doctor if youget a mental health diagnosis. In a
lot of states, if you're aveteran, you can a military person,
you could lose your security complearance.So it's still there as a risk.

(16:57):
And so the challenge we face isthat people want to put moral injury into
that mental health box. But itis not a mental health disorder. It
is not PTSD, it's not eventrauma exactly. It is your uncien set
work. It's a moral problem thatyou're having. That's a real thing.

(17:18):
And so our programs are about supportingpeople, not to give them therapy,
not to fix them, because youcannot fix a disaster. It is a
disaster no matter what. So youhave to figure out how people can learn
to think about it differently, toevaluate their relationship to it in ways that
restore their sense of being a goodperson. And that doesn't mean that they

(17:42):
don't need mental If they have PTSD, they need a mental health therapist,
but the mental health therapist may notbe able to address the moral injury because
it's not exactly a disorder. Andin fact, I worked with a chaplain
at a psychiatric hospital who noticed thatwhen people were getting ready to be discharged,
they started to get moral injury.They were well from their illness,

(18:07):
but they started to feel terrible aboutwhat they put their families through. And
so she designed a program for peoplebeing discharged to help them understand that they
might have these feelings in that they'renormal and they're okay, and help them
process them before they leave, becauseshe didn't want to leaving with a case
of moral injury that might lead toa death by suicide, because moral injury

(18:27):
can lead you to take yourself outright right, I'm so glad you know.
I know you get the definition earlyin our conversation, but I think
it's really important to distinguish the differencesbetween what you're talking about with moral injury
and mental health. I can seehow people could easily put it in that
bucket and it really MUCKs things up. So thank you for really really dontal

(18:48):
of course, no, that's notthe message. I'm taken away. There
are enough therapists, you know,they're waiting list to just even see somebody
can be quite long. I knowat the VA sometimes it's very long list
wait time. So our programs areonline, they're free. There are suggessions
all the time, you know,all week long. We have three or
four going all week and so peoplecan at least use those to alleviate some

(19:15):
of the distress therein until they cansee a mental health therapist. But also
also that it can really really helpwith that sense that you're a bad person.
Right, talk to other people whodon't see you as a bad person,
but also understand why you might feelthat way. Right. We'll give
the website at the end of ourconversation, but I should mention right now
on their beautiful website in the topranding corner, there's a big, giant,

(19:38):
fat give green button that you needto hit when it comes to donations,
So please do not forget about thatwhen we give the website. I
know a lot of our listeners haveprobably already googled the website, but we'll
give that at the end to makesure everybody has that. I didn't want
to talk about some great stories andI want to talk about criteria because I
think that's important to talk about too. Well, no names, no do

(19:59):
you don't have to anything specific.But I imagine the seven years you've seen
handful of really special, miraculous things. Whether it's a singular person or a
family or a couple, doesn't matterwho they are, that something special happened
every day, he said, youknow what happened today? This is why
we get up every day. Canyou share a story with us? Yeah,
I'm going to give you two becausereally different. Sure. One is

(20:21):
a veteran that came to our program, this fifty hour thing at a retreat
center in New York, and hedidn't want to be there. He was
tiny. He was a white manin his sixties who was wearing a filthy
park and hat and had a longbeard in hair that he hadn't washed in
a while. And it turned outhe'd been homeless in the woods for thirteen
years and he was living in transitionalhousing that VOA had in New York.

(20:45):
And he had made one friend inthat transitional housing program who was half his
age, and the one friend cameto our program. And so this other
veteran, and i'll call him Jason. I have permission to tell his story,
but I don't want to give thisreal name. So Jason followed his
friend to this event, to thisthing, but he was shaking and shut
down and he was scared and inthe group when they started, he said,

(21:07):
I don't want to be here.I'm scared. But his friend would
leave, so he couldn't leave.And I saw him out smoking at a
break and I went up to himand I said, how are you doing.
He said, I can't do this. I'm scared and I said,
oh yeah. He said it's toohard. I can't do it. And
I looked at him right in theeyes and I said, yes, it's
really hard, and it's going tobe hard for a little while, but

(21:27):
I promise, if you stay,you'll get to the good part. So
of course he stayed because he ishis friend wouldn't leave. Next morning,
he shows up at breakfast, heshowered, his dirty clothes are gone,
He's laughing and talking to people,and all week he kept getting better and
better. It turned out he'd beenan engineer, so when they had a

(21:47):
building art project, he knew howto put it together so it wouldn't fall
down. And then at the certificateceremony fifty hours later, he said,
I don't know what you did inthe five days that this happened, but
I've been under psychiatric care for twentyseven years. And he spent thirty twenty
three years in prison before he washomeless for thirteen years. Man, And

(22:11):
he said, I don't know whatyou did, but I feel like myself
again. And he went back tothe housing with his friend and he hooked
up with a nephew he hadn't seenin decades and started playing his guitar because
he used to be in a rockband. So, you know, just
he just turned into a happy humanbeing. I guess that the world a
story. That's one story, right, Yeah, he's our biggest miracles,

(22:33):
always like an overnight mirror. Yeahright. But we also had somebody in
a group in one of our groupswho kept getting sick, like she would
be in a trauma processing sharing sessionand she would be physically unwell. And
so our clinician, who's always asthere as backup to our peer facility.
These are all peer facilitated groups.I don't know what happens. I just

(22:55):
see the result. So she theclinician, she'd say she would sick,
and the clinician said, well,if you need to go home, you
can do that, but if youwant to lie down in your room and
you feel better, you can goback to the group. So all week
she kept doing that, she keptnot feeling well, and then she would
go back, and then she wouldgo back to the group. So she
made it through, and at theend they wanted to have a fire there

(23:18):
last night to burn all the thingsthey now could let go of, and
she read a list of things thatshe was ready to let go of,
and she started by saying, I'mburning my pain. All my life,
I've had so much trauma. Iwas sexually assaulted by multiple members of my
family. My mother didn't love me. I got into the military to have

(23:41):
a decent life. I got rapedin the military, got addicted to drugs
and to prison for thirteen years,and lost custody of my six year old
son, she said, And soI've had so much pain in my life
that I didn't feel like myself it'sunless I was in pain. And she
said, in this week, Ilearned I don't have to be in so
I'm burning my pain. So thatwas already pretty shocking, but then two

(24:06):
years later, at a reunion event, she shows up with a twenty two
year old son that she had lostCutsey, that was living with her again,
plus another son that she was takingcare of when she was in our
program. Wow. And the twentytwo year old pulled me aside during a
break and he said, I knowthis program is for veterans, but you
need to understand it's also for thefamilies, because my mom was so different

(24:30):
when she came home from your program. She wasn't mean to us, and
she was really kind and she listenedto us. And I think it saved
our family. Wow. Truly amazing. Those are two. Those are two
reasons I keep doing it and whyI'm hoping I never have to retire.
It is such rewarding work. Andthose are just a more dramatic but everyday

(24:52):
stories of people coming up to youand saying this helped me so much.
We had a seventy something year oldveteran who had been on he house for
a while, who was still ingrief about his losing his beloved wife to
cancer years before, but he washe had a sort of girlfriend on the
street where he'd been. He cameto a reunion that with her name tattooed
his arm because they were gonna getmarried. Theties. I just thought it

(25:18):
was wonderful. Well, that's fantastic, thanks, thanks for sharing all that.
Well I mentioned criteria. I thinka lot of our listeners are saying,
geez, this all sounds fantastic,but criteria, you know, what
is that for? Some of thatneeds some help, and how do they
contact you? They they really needsomebody to believe them, to validate the
truth they're living in that's hurting themso much, and not trying to interrogate

(25:45):
or asking a lot of question.Just listen, Just listen deeply empathetically to
what they're carrying, and be atrustable listener. That means not expressing disgust
or anger or just just being compassionate. That's the first because until they can
express the pain they're in, theycan't unload it, and they can't process
it unless they can express it.It's just it just is haunting them and

(26:10):
it's buried the good part of themselvesthat wants out. And so that's the
first step. And then they canwrite about it, they can make art
things about it, they can gotalk to they can go online. In
one of our groups and listen tolisten to other people, And that kind
of perspective from other empathetic people islike miraculous. People feel better, but

(26:33):
they didn't have to do it themselves. It's not like therapy where you have
to fix your l Yeah, no, of course, right. Yeah.
So so the relationships of loving careare really really important. And it's not
helpful to say to somebody what's wrongwith you, because that's already a judgment

(26:57):
there's something wrong with them. Butyou can say, hey, what's going
on with you? It seem alittle quiet today, or it looks like
you're carrying something just or how isit with you? Those sorts of neutral
questions to check in on people willsometimes open up a door. I don't
know how many times in airports I'vebeen sitting next to somebody and we strike

(27:19):
up a conversation what do you do? What do you I work on moral
injury? What is that? AndI'll give a line and they'll go,
oh, I think I might havethat, yeah, yeah, and then
that's a conversation. Yeah right,just yeah. I had a reporter interviewing
me that did that to me rightat the door. He said, can
a journalists have moral entry. Isaid, why do you ask and he

(27:41):
said, because I think I mighthave it, And so then he had
to tell me a story. Wow, I said, yeah, I hope
you find a way to talk tosomebody or just keep processing it because it's
important. All right, Well,we're going to do this in just a
minute. We're going to give thewebsite and it's gorgeous and there's lots of
things to learn on there and alsoeducate your and lots of different things to
check out. But before we dothat, this is one of my favorite

(28:03):
parts read of our interviews. Wekind of close up shop about all the
things we talked about, kind ofa recap and maybe a couple of takeaways
that you would like our listener tohave when it comes to VOA and all
the things that you do. Andthe floor is yours. Okay, Well,
the first takeaway is you can bepart of us. Go online and
register for a program called Resilience,Strength, Time, rest Our EEST for

(28:29):
short, because that one's open tothe public and if you have a great
experience, we actually recruit all ourfacilitators for people who've gone through the program,
so there's a way to get involved. It's also a way to learn
how to work in your own community, doing this kind of facilitation to become
a lot of our facilitators use itin the work they've been doing. They've
learned that skill set. So that'sa way to get involved. Of course,

(28:52):
we will take donations anytime, butwe also have programs that we put
on the road, as it were. We can take a team to train
a company or an organization to havetheir own moral injury processing programs. We
push people through it and then trainthem to facilitate and so you could have
your own in house program. Allright, So we do all kinds of

(29:15):
things like that. I love that, and we do that for our affiliates.
That's part of the work we dowith our affiliates is we give them
their own moral injury programs. Well, let's do this. We've teased it
a couple of times. Let's makesure we give the website so everybody can
check out more. What is that? It's the as in victor not b
VOA dot org backslash Moral Injury.You'll find everything there. Well read.

(29:38):
I can't tell you how much Iappreciate your time. Thirty minutes doesn't do
justice about what you and your teamdo there. But it's a remarkable thing.
I'm glad it's being talked about.I'm glad people are getting help,
and it's especially during Mental Health AwarenessMonth. Even though it's a little bit
of a different bucket as what's explainingour conversation, folks, it's still pertinent
to talk about the stuff because asmoral injuries and mental health and all the

(30:00):
things that go with it as aveteran or somebody that's experiencing some tough times
is very important. And you justheard a couple of the great stories that
Rita had are truly let me atone point is that it is actually there's
some research that's been done that ifyou have a mental health issue, if

(30:21):
you don't address moral injury, ifa person might have it, it actually
negatively impacts therapy. Wow. It'snot the same thing as therapy, but
it can undermine a good therapist's workif moral injury isn't also addressed. Wow.
That's fascinating. Thanks another great takeaway, Rita. Thank you so much

(30:41):
for this and we really appreciate it. Continue to access to you and your
team. I can't tell you howmuch I appreciate your valuable time and Thank
you so much for joining us onCEOs. You should know my pleasure. Thank you