What Is It About?

Napkin Version

Hate can be an extremely passionate emotion that thrives on judgement and placing blame on others, so if it’s left unchecked, it can fuel itself, distort our perception, and create a lot of mayhem and destruction.

However if it’s based upon an accurate assessment, and is calmly directed in a positive and constructive way that benefits everyone, it can help to bring about important change. 

When we feel hatred towards someone or something, it’s often because we think they have had, or will have, a negative impact upon ourselves or someone we care about - and usually in a way that impacts our quality of life in some way or another.

The threat can be direct e.g. when it makes our life harder, less enjoyable, or even puts us in harms way, or it can be indirect, e.g., when someone doesn’t play fair and gets away with it - indicating a failing of justice.

Hate can also arise when someone or something is blocking us from achieving a better quality of life for ourselves.

Handling Hate

In The Moment

Training our brain to use a relevant process helps us to focus more effectively and move on more easily. Using it often will also help our brain to catch Hate sooner, making it easier to manage.

Since the intensity of Hate can distort our perception, blindly acting upon it can take us down a misguided and painful path.  

So it can help to stand back, see our darker desires as an indicator for change, and allow things to calm so we are better able to assess things.

Once we can look at things more objectively, it’s important to thoroughly check our facts and assumptions, since our perspective is easily distorted by Hate. 

Then it’s usually worthwhile to check ourselves to see if we are making things harder for ourselves in some area of our life, as often we can start to hate others when we are fighting something within ourselves e.g., we may hate our boss when in fact we actually want to change our career.

It can also be helpful to take a moment to check how we have impacted the situation, and take responsibility for our part in it. 

Once we identify what needs to change (if anything), it’s important to direct the passion behind our hate towards positive and constructive change, that brings benefit to everyone, or at the very least, is not at the expense of someone else.

Self-Reflection

If the emotion feels quite troubling, it’s usually worth checking if something else is going on first.

By resolving things in ourselves and clearing any other residual emotions, we can reduce the intensity of the emotion - now and when we encounter it again in future. 

Doing so also makes us less likely to ‘attract’ other difficulties that leave us feeling the same way.

See the Processing and Clearing an Emotion page for a generic process to resolve and clear an emotion.

Working Through Hate

The actions we choose to take in response to an emotion can make a significant difference to how well we adjust and move on from it.

The more we take genuine actions that are uplifting and ‘right’ i.e., are good for ourselves and everyone else (including the environment and other living beings) - for now, and over the long-term, the better our experience of life becomes.

The following can help us to use the motivational power that Hate provides, in a positive and constructive way:

  • Appreciating our perspective may be clouded by hate, and taking a moment to step back to gain a clearer view.

  • Looking at all of the ways we are impact our situation first, and making that a priority for our focus and efforts.

  • Acknowledging we have a choice in how we respond.

  • Gaining a deeper understanding of the situation, and recognising our influence on it.

  • Respecting others, appreciating what we have in common, and accepting that we are all a work in progress, doing the best we can to make our way through life.

  • Considering how we can improve our skills and capabilities to get better outcomes, and to give ourselves a better quality of life.

  • Taking full responsibility for our decisions and actions, and the positive and negative consequences they may bring.

  • Finding constructive ways to direct the motivation hate provides, and inspiring positive change that benefits everyone.

  • Looking at what we can do with what we already have available to us and control of, to improve our situation.

  • If we can’t see a suitable way to bring about positive change, looking at what we can do to minimise the impact the situation has upon us, even if it is only shifting our focus or perspective.

The key words in this list are ‘respect’, ‘understanding’ and ‘inspiring’, to ensure our actions are well-informed and without judgement, because judgement can make others feel threatened or dis-respected, which can spark anger and create more problems.

 

IT MAY ALSO BE WORTH CONSIDERING:

  • If the impact is minor, whether it would be better to simply let it go.

  • If the situation requires standing up for ourselves, it may be better to sit down (especially in a significant relationship), and have a gentle and respectful conversation.  Confrontational approaches can cause a defensive reaction, diminish respect, and create more difficulty. 

  • If the situation involves an injustice, deciding whether it is better to simply alert those who are responsible for sorting it out, or to work with others in the community to bring about positive and constructive change, that is beneficial for everyone. 

  • If it is something we want to dedicate our precious time to, finding the best way to get involved, the right and just way to approach it, and the people with the insight and experience to help all of our efforts to have the best impact possible.

  • A key benefit of taking the positive and constructive road, is that it will be easier to enlist help, as helpful people are more likely to give their time and effort to assist a cause that benefits everyone.

Clearing Residual Hate

Emotional energy can stick with us, even after we have worked through and resolved whatever caused it.

There are a number of ways we can clear the energy, including doing something physical in nature, imagining the emotion leaving our body, or for more intense emotions, there is a variety of different therapies and alternative forms of energy healing that can also help.

This short video has been created to help the imagination process:

  • Imagine holding a ball of energy in your hands, and ‘charging’ it with the feeling of love, and anything else that would help to offset it (especially any feelings that were missing in the situation)

  • Imagine any residual Hate energy flowing out of your body, into the  ball, and being transformed into the positive equivalent.

  • Once all the residual energy has left, imagine the ball shooting far out into the atmosphere and dissolving into pure white light energy.