What the heck is emotional justice? Coined by Esther Armah, it is a roadmap for emotional healing with regard to racism.
Say what!? Why and how does that apply to resiliency and divorce?
Emotional Justice In Divorce
Many fields have adopted “emotional justice” to describe inequities and healing in their respective arenas. Take divorce – many people, especially in a high-conflict divorce with lots of betrail – long for a reckoning. They want other people to understand and FEEL their hurt and abandonment and really suffer a bit from it. PLUS, they want to be relieved of the burden of fault. Essentially, people think that emotional justice in divorce will somehow heal them. Yet…there is no emotional justice in divorce or in many other circumstances requiring resilience.
AND…most people think that emotional justice occurs in a courtroom. Yet, let me tell you, there is NO emotional justice in court.
The Courts Role
So what does the court system do if it doesn’t dole out justice? Well, it follows the law. Justice has many definitions, but in the U.S. courts, justice means that the law is followed. In divorce, that might look like one client getting a 50-50 split of assets but no financial recognition or acknowledgment that they were betrayed. OR, in the case of a lawsuit with a perceived injustice (like a tree landing on one’s head while driving down the road), a lawsuit might “feel” like you can get some sort of payment for your life changes, but if that tree is within city limits, the caps are small, and the lawyers get the money. In other words, emotional justice does not exist outside ourselves.
Getting Emotional Justice
So how do you get emotional justice? Most would agree that the betrayed spouse or the sick child, or the injured citizen should have some recompense, but emotional justice comes from inside yourself. Emotional justice has some external factors – no one can deny the very brief pleasure of “karma.” For example, if you are a jilted lover, you may take pleasure in watching the demise of your past lover’s marriage. Or, if you have been passed over at work many times for promotion and a new boss comes in, re-organizes, and you get your supervisor’s job while they are asked to seek work elsewhere, that feels like “karma.” But that feeling is fleeting and does not provide healing and wholeness in the long run. That sort of emotional justice and healing comes from you.
We will be delving more into this in the future, but in the meantime, use all the tools in your toolbox to avoid court. I promise it will leave you feeling dissatisfied and delay a resilient return to a hopefully and joyous future.
