Did you feel your body tense up? Just the word itself can bring up a physical reaction within us. It’s the popular, unpopular word of our time, something to be eradicated from our society. The only thing that is acceptable to hate is hate itself. (Oh, and other haters, it seems.)
Hate is one of those big feelings that brings out the worst in us. If you were brought up in a culture similar to mine, we learned from a young age that nice people don’t hate. It’s an emotion only expressed by the mean and cruel. But what is hate? Does it actually have a purpose and is there a place for it?
Why am I even pondering this, you ask? Well, its seems, dare I say it, I’m a recovering nice girl. (Before you unfollow me, hear me out). As I am making the discovery that nice is not the same as kind and not even always honest (*a blog for another day) and that big emotions such as anger do actually serve a purpose, I have begun to look at other emotions also. I had subconsciously categorised emotions into “good” and “bad” and learned to embrace the good and reject the bad, though over time I have come to recognise that emotions in themselves are neither, they are neutral, serving as indicators, much like a fuel gauge in a car indicates when we are low and need to fill up.
So if emotions are neutral, what does hate indicate to us and what should we do about it? Similar to anger, hate usually indicates some kind of fear or pain. It shouts a loud “NO!” within us, pushing back against the concerning danger. Like standing on a nail, the intense pain drives us to take quick action to remove that nail and care for the wound, the intensity of hate should also drive us to deal with the issue quickly. Failing to do so will result in infection. The pus of such an emotion is not pleasant for anyone.
Our focus needs to be centred on the real issue. The nail itself is not the problem, the problem is that the nail is pierced through my skin and into my foot, causing me a great deal of pain and blood is gushing everywhere, so focusing my attention on punishing the nail would not help me at all.
How do we deal with the intensity of hate? Forgiveness is certainly a big part of that process, much like pulling the nail out, it is intentionally detaching other people from the resulting wound, releasing them from our judgement so that we can begin to heal. But forgiveness on its own is not always going to be enough to take the pain away. In fact, simply forgiving and moving on denies us of the depth of healing available when we actually turn and face the issue, naming the problem for what it is and working through it to find resolution.
Alternatively, stuffing hate down in denial and pretending it does not exist is disempowering and futile as a long term solution. The resulting passivity does not solve the issue and leaves us wide open to experiencing the same pain all over again. The lows of powerlessness and the highly heated resentment buried and brewing within us are a recipe for ill health or an ugly explosion.
While it’s a truly noble cause to work towards loving one another, perhaps in attempting to remove hate from the world, we are trying to solve the wrong problem? Perhaps our real problem is not actually hate but the misdirection of hate?
Misdirected hate leads to racism, divorce, rebellion and wars. But what does it look like to redirect hate and point it at the problem? Can we hate the things that rage against love and true connection… hate the behaviour that comes between us and pushes us apart? Can we hate the divorce that shatters our families and use that energy to drive us towards developing strategies that strengthen relationships? Could we say “I hate the way porn is creating unrealistic expectations and confusion in relationships”, or alternatively, “I hate how it stops you from being able to look me in the eye. How can we work through this so that we can discover what real intimacy should be like?” Or it maybe that we hate the way our indigenous people are being treated and become motivated to do something about it. Or we hate the cancer that stole a loved one from us that prompts us to become a part of the search for a cure. Using the intensity that comes from this emotion to push us forward, teamed with a motivation that in actuality is rooted in love, we are empowered to become brilliant problem solvers.
While hate towards people creates chaos and hate denied creates disempowered people, hate carefully targeted at the problem has the power to change the world.
What do you think? Should we give hate the opportunity to benefit the world, or is hate definitely to be avoided? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Sharon Tressler 