Defeating Hate

Hate is a very powerful emotion. It can take root deep down in your heart and the more you embrace it, the stronger it gets. I know this sounds a little over dramatic, but it is true. The use of this word is often thrown around a lot and really muddies it’s significance. People will often say they hate certain items, like mushrooms or pineapple on pizza. Do they really hate those? No, but they most likely strongly dislike those things. This is not the hate I am talking about here. The hate I’m referring to is the hate other people have for each other. I could spend a lot of time talking about the current political landscape and the hate being spewed there, but I’m not really wanting to focus on that either. Instead, I want to talk about the hate people hold for another person who has harmed them or someone they love either physically or mentally. Sometimes the person we hate can even be ourselves, and I’m here to share with you why I believe you shouldn’t.

First off, it isn’t healthy. It’s not good for your mental health to be harboring all of that negativity inside your head and/or your heart. That hate is like a tiny seed planted inside you, and the more negativity you feed it, the bigger it grows until you start wishing ill things on the person you are mad at, and I don’t know about you all, but I firmly believe karma comes for all of us.

Secondly, you may not realize it, but you are actually still giving a part of yourself to this person who you want nothing more than to be rid of. Every second that you think about how much you hate this person is another second that you are giving up to them. Also, if you are allowing yourself to do this, chances are it is also affecting your mood. So in a sense, you are allowing that person to get inside your head and control your emotions without them even realizing it or doing it themselves. Not sure where I heard that one from but I can’t take credit for it and it really changed my outlook on how much I was letting other people control what I did.

Now, I know what you're going to say, ‘So what am I supposed to do? Just forget what they did?’, and my answer to that is no. I really dislike the saying forgive and forget (see what I did there). I truly believe that you should never forget the way someone treated you or what they did to you because chances are they will probably do it again if you let them. On the contrary, I strongly agree with the first part of that saying in that we should forgive them. Now I’m not saying that you actually have to track them down and forgive them in person, and I’m not saying you are going to be able to do it right away either. It will all depend on how long you let that seed of hate grow inside you to know how long it will take to forgive someone. I struggled several years back with this and it took me a while to finally forgive this person for what they had done to me. Heck, I’m going through some stuff right now that challenges me almost daily to remember this. Once you finally get to the point where you can easily say to yourself that you have forgiven that person, you will be so much happier. It’s hard work, and it’s not fun, but it is worth it in the end. Plus, if your end goal is to remove that person from your life for good, this will make it possible. I’m not telling you to cut out everyone who you’ve harbored hate for, so far I have yet to have to do that, but sometimes we do need to permanently distance ourselves from toxic people.

I would also implore the people reading this to stop throwing the word hate around so easily because it really does water down it’s true meaning. I should be the last person to preach this as it is easier said than done, but every little bit helps.

The first step you need to take to remove hate from your life is just like every other issue we find that is controlling our lives, and that is admitting that you are letting hate control your life. After that it is just baby steps to continually remind yourself to ignore the hate when it rears it ugly head. It’s going to take time, and the stronger the emotion, the more time it’s going to take to defeat it. The less negativity you have inside of you also leaves room for more positivity, and we all know the world could use a little more positivity in it right now.

If you would like to expand on anything I have covered here or just want to share your thoughts, please leave a comment below, I would love to hear what you think.