Years ago, a leader I worked with told me I had a unique gift: I could walk into any situation and immediately see the gaps—policies, processes, and assumptions that were causing friction or harm. But where some saw disruption, she saw vision. “You see the gaps,” she said, “but you also see the possibilities and solutions for something better.”

Her reflection landed in a way that surprised me. What many previous supervisors had dismissed as criticism or labeled “too idealistic,” she saw as a strength.

Despite this reframe, it took me a long time to see myself, not as someone who didn't understand the system, but as someone who had the capacity to envision a new system. I was struggling to reconcile how organizations tasked with protecting human dignity could be so indifferent to the pain and suffering of their own people. So over time, I allowed my vision to guide me as I gave voice to the hard questions—not just about performance metrics or program delivery, but about the consequences of leadership actions—or in some cases inaction—on staff well-being.

I started naming the issues. Calling out the impact.

Long before workforce well-being became a strategic priority in trauma-exposed sectors, I advocated for a holistic, human-centered duty of care and talked about vicarious trauma, moral injury, and institutional betrayal—consequences of our trauma-exposed work few were willing to acknowledge, but language that somehow legitimized the reality so many of us were experiencing. I built programs rooted in connection, grounded in story, and guided by the belief that our systems could be different and still be effective, if we were willing to remember that the people on the front lines doing the work were, first and foremost, human.

I was developing what I’d come to call sacred resistance as a way of staying connected to moral courage in systems that often demand compliance over integrity.

At the time, I believed I was simply doing the work of advocacy—pushing for policies and practices that honored both the mission and the people carrying it. And that was true. But it was also incomplete. Advocacy challenges what’s wrong and demands better. But I wasn’t just identifying harm—I was questioning the very systems that created the conditions for harm to persist and grow, while also envisioning ways forward that wouldn’t replicate old patterns.

I didn’t know it then, but there was a name for what I was practicing.

Moral imagination.

Moral imagination is the capacity to envision alternative ways of being, relating, and organizing our world beyond what currently exists. It bridges the gap between what is and what could be. It allows us to hold both the weight of suffering and the possibility of something more life-giving—not through denial or toxic positivity, but through the deeper truth that sustainable service is possible when systems are rooted in reciprocity, care, and collective flourishing.

That damage doesn’t have to be our destiny.

Interestingly, I didn’t learn about moral imagination in a leadership book or workshop. I heard it on a call about the wisdom of trees.

The facilitator spoke about how moral imagination allows us to explore new ways of being, where resistance becomes reclamation, and where ethics and moral philosophy are woven into policy beyond politics. In nature, forest ecosystems are models of moral imagination, communicating through root and mycelial networks, warning one another of danger, sharing nutrients, tending to the sick and dying. When there’s a rupture or change in the environment, the ecosystem finds pathways to survival and flourishing. Trees also teach us about responsibility to those who come after us. Cemetery trees, he said, are nourished by those buried beneath them—holding memory, offering shade, rooted in all that came before, and bequeathing it forward to what comes next.

Imagine what might be possible if we could envision our systems above ground to function that way too: with reciprocity, with care, with the understanding that survival is relational and sustainability is a responsibility that extends beyond our lifetime.

His words helped me realize that the work I’ve been doing—what so many of us have been doing—is so much more than advocacy.

It’s the root of possibility. Moral imagination in practice.

And we need it now more than ever.

Because empathy, while essential, on its own isn’t enough.

Empathy allows us to stay connected to our humanity in systems that often demand compartmentalization. It softens our responses. But empathy without moral imagination leaves us holding space for suffering without any vision for addressing root issues or dismantling the structures causing harm. We become witnesses without pathways to repair, offering performative stopgaps instead of lasting change.

As bleak as things feel today, as a global community we're standing at a crossroads where we need moral imagination to help us re-envision what leadership, governance, and care can look like in an era of polycrisis. We also need moral courage to act in ways that allow us to stay in integrity—even, or maybe especially, when the outcomes are uncertain and the stakes are high.

Viewed this way, moral imagination isn’t a theory.

It’s a posture.

One that doesn’t come from strategy decks or performance goals, but from listening—deeply—and staying open to what’s possible, even in the face of challenges many leaders have never before encountered. A posture born out of the courage to say, even if this is how things have always been, it doesn't have to be the way things are moving forward. A posture inspired by story. By ritual. By our connection to land and each other. A posture sustained by the understanding that care isn’t a resource to be rationed, but a shared responsibility to be embodied and practiced.

This capacity to stay with the pain and grief while also reaching for the possible is the core of sacred resistance. The knowing that leadership isn’t about absorbing pain silently, but holding it honestly while still imagining a way through. Not just the refusal to numb, but the commitment to remain human in the face of inhumanity and continue to imagine what has yet to be built.

It’s tough to be in the world right now.
But moral imagination offers us a vision beyond collapse—
and a reminder that we aren’t the first to imagine something better.
And we won’t be the last.

If moral imagination begins with refusing to accept that the way things are is inevitable, what stories about our capacity to envision alternatives are keeping us tethered to systems that cause harm—and what possibilities are within our reach to start imagining differently together?

tell me my story is now available as an audiobook!

I’m honored to share that the audiobook version of Tell Me My Story: Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self is now available. If you or someone you love has struggled with what it means to serve without sacrificing your well-being, this book is for you. Part memoir, part manifesto, and 100% my heart. If you listen and find something that resonates, please drop me a line, or better yet, please consider leaving a review. Every review helps indie authors like me reach more people. You can read more about my experience with recording the book here and find links to get the audiobook below.