Meeting Hate

Of all the feelings humans experience, hate is most reviled. So much so, that we suppress, repress, forbid it’s expression. It is that powerful and that destructive.

Yet perhaps there is a message in hate. I have been reflecting on David Whyte’s perspective on anger and applied to hate. If anger is the deepest form of compassion, then what is hate ?

I met hate with great intrepidation but was emboldened by the gifts I had already received when I welcomed grief, shame, anxiety, blame, anger. So I invited hate into a space of love and kindness. I met hate with compassion and acceptance, neither acting on it nor running away from it. I held the tension and discomfort of meeting this side of my self.

I had felt hate’s hidden presence.

I had falsely identified it as sadness. Then anger. Then shame.

But it was none of those. Instead, it was simply hate. Not the hate that stems from fear that makes us separate from those who we perceive to be different from us. This hate was directed at specific people.

When I finally had the courage to sit with hate and hear her grievances, I found that it was not the people specifically but their actions that evoked hatred in me. And when I examined each of those actions – I found that those actions had caused great suffering for me. There were acts of betrayal, disrespect, unkindness, selfishness, cruelty, humiliation. None of which I deserved. I had every reason to hate those actions. In this case, hate was offering protection.

Hate was trying to keep me safe. Unfortunately, these actions were not committed by strangers, rather by those who were in some way responsible for my well-being or cared for me in some way, and this made hate even more confusing. How can you hate someone you love? Someone you respect? Someone you care for?

It is much clearer now. It is the actions that I hate and not the people. Those actions caused suffering and discomfort, so the message of hate was one of protection.

I found this quote by Ian Heath on Hate:
“Hate is a general-purpose tool for cutting positive attachments, especially in relationships, (pride in hate mode rejects any pleasant attachment to the other person). Hate produces clear thinking and strengthens a person’s willpower. It supports the desire for solitude. It cools the mind and may easily be mistaken for a mild sense of peace. It is likely to be the prevailing mood when a mediator claims they are no longer acting from a sense of ego. The skillful way of losing hate is to clear the mind of redundant attachment and desires.”

21 May 2017

Image description: A collage exploring hate and anger. Top left. Four vials containing fear, anger, jealousy, anxiety. Top right. A quote: “Act in such a way that your heart is free from hatred.” Abdu’l Baha. Middle right. A quote: “The reason we suffer from our emotion is not because of the emotion itself but because of our resistance to that emotion.” Teal Swan.  Bottom Right. A quote: “ANGER is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt. Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care,” David Whyte.  Bottom Left. Definitions. “Hate is an intense emotion often linked to a complex web of other feelings and states of mind such as fear, disgust, aversion, rejection, shame, humiliation, denial, revenge, betrayal, helplessness and anger. Hate is often a visceral and overwhelming experience both for the hater and the person who suffers the effect of hate. Even in its milder forms, hate can leave long-lasting emotional wounds and scars.” Middle Left. An image of a bottle containing the words: “Leave me alone now”, ” Go away”, “Shut up”, ” I hate you”, “Aargh”, Stop”, “No”.