I have come to understand I have hated myself for almost forty years.\u00a0 I have been exploring anger, guilt, shame, and hope, but the more I tried to know what they are and what to do with them, I felt I was missing something important.\u00a0 Hope is the mechanism for meaning, but more than that hope is the ability to trust the process for positive change.\u00a0 Hope is different than faith because faith is the belief in a specific outcome, a conclusion, but not the process to get there.\u00a0 If we hold hate in our hearts, we will never be able to hope with consistency.\u00a0 While hope gives us a conduit for positive change, hatred is the inverse.\u00a0 Hatred is the understanding that something is wrong and we cannot fix it.<\/p>\n
From where does hatred come?\u00a0 Commonly, we see hatred as deep-seated anger.\u00a0 Anger is the emotion providing us energy to protect something important.\u00a0 What happens when anger has no resolution?\u00a0 What happens when the important cannot be adequately protected?\u00a0 The anger, having no avenue for release, corrodes us down into a state of hatred.\u00a0 We lose hope and become reactive beings with no belief in a positive outcome.\u00a0 Our hatred, if continuously fed, wears us down until we have little energy left to spend.\u00a0 We become depressed, apathetic, and dismissive.<\/p>\n
Why did I hate myself?\u00a0 I was unable to impact what I viewed as necessary.\u00a0 Whether we are talking about family dynamics, structural injustices like racism, sexism, xenophobia, wealth inequality, the rise of authoritarianism, or my efforts to keep people alive in a combat zone, I saw failure after failure.\u00a0 I gave up on life after returning to the USA and threw away the bulk of my assets, as I knew I would die soon.\u00a0 When I survived, I hated myself even more for failing to end it all.\u00a0 For years, I simmered in my anger as I was powerless to change the reality I understood.\u00a0 I refused to accept my limitations and focused on all the wrongs of the world around me.\u00a0 I simultaneously wanted to be a part of the solution but believed such was impossible. It is only recently that I realized so much of what I wanted to change was never in my control to start.\u00a0 For example, I can remain intolerant of racism, but I cannot single-handedly resolve the crisis of white supremacy.\u00a0 Attachment is the root of suffering, and hatred refuses to let us detach.<\/p>\n
Hatred forces us to live for yesterday, not today or tomorrow.\u00a0 Hatred causes us to become stuck at a point in time increasingly separated from the present as each moment passes.\u00a0 We may want to return to that moment in order to change it.\u00a0 We could be actively trying to find atonement for that moment in the present, but I think many of us understand such is impossible.\u00a0 The dead can’t be brought back; the words can’t be un-said; \u00a0the past cannot be changed.\u00a0 Atonement is the wrong focus because it continues the cycle of attachment and suffering.\u00a0 We have to live for those still alive, those still fighting to make today better than yesterday.\u00a0 It is imperative we remember the past to make the positive changes we yearn for so intensely.<\/p>\n
Hatred is a judgment and removes our ability to be present in the moment.\u00a0 We judge ourselves unworthy, unable, to improve and become trapped in our thoughts.\u00a0 Being stuck in our minds means we aren’t here and now.\u00a0 Not being present means we continuously re-live the past, re-traumatizing ourselves and stirring more anger.\u00a0 The anger we feel will have no resolution because we cannot change the past.\u00a0 The anger becomes more fuel for hatred but lacks a target we can impact.\u00a0 We can break this cycle by being non-judgmental.<\/p>\n
The past happened.\u00a0 We don’t have to forget it happened, nor do we need to be happy about the dark times.\u00a0 However, we don’t have to keep re-litigating the past hoping for a different outcome.\u00a0 The cessation of self-judgment is ok.\u00a0 We aren’t bad or wrong in the present due to an event that is done and finished.\u00a0 We can stop hating ourselves for things beyond our control.\u00a0 It is ok to learn from the past and let it go.\u00a0 We can become hopeful once more, armed with understanding what we’ve learned.\u00a0 Hope doesn’t give us the positive outcome itself, but it enables the journey to get there.\u00a0 Hatred robs us of the ability to move forward.\u00a0 Let go of the hate; you are worthy.<\/p>\n
Be present, not perfect.\u00a0 Hatred is insidious because it doesn’t require the explosive rage we see in movies or people having terrible days. Hate can be developed by people feeding you a false narrative and convincing you that you are powerless to change it.\u00a0 Hate removes our ability to trust ourselves because we fall into a sunk cost fallacy trap.\u00a0 Nothing has changed; therefore, nothing will change, and we shouldn’t bother trying. \u00a0This is, of course, incorrect.\u00a0 As long as we are alive, we are capable of changing.\u00a0 We don’t need to see the finish line to start the path to get there.\u00a0 All we need is a little hope to take meaningful steps in the right direction.\u00a0 Hatred was not developed overnight, and it will not vanish by one positive instance.\u00a0\u00a0 We can practice being non-judgmental and make efforts to demonstrate change.\u00a0 We can then use those results as fuel for hope over hatred and develop a positive feedback loop rather than focusing on the past.\u00a0\u00a0 We can convert hatred to hope little by little with each step down our journey.\u00a0 Time is limited; get busy.<\/p>\n
~Monk Anchorwind | 19 December 2021.<\/p>\n
Author’s Note : Hatred manifests itself uniquely in all of us.\u00a0 We could eat poorly and fail to take care of ourselves due to our ability to fix the past.\u00a0 We could practice continuous escapism through work or some other activity that keeps us from being present in the moment.\u00a0\u00a0 Anything where we judge ourselves incapable of a better tomorrow could be a result of the hatred we’ve held on to for so long.\u00a0 Simply accepting positive change is possible is already a huge step forward.\u00a0 That acceptance is hope in action, and opens up a door for us to travel through.\u00a0 How we walk the path beyond the door is up to us, but what is important is the journey itself.\u00a0 We can do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have come to understand I have hated myself for almost forty years.\u00a0 I have been exploring anger, guilt, shame, and hope, but the more I tried to know what they are and what to do with them, I felt I was missing something important.\u00a0 Hope is the mechanism for meaning, but more than that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[307],"class_list":["post-28134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-considered-thoughts","tag-307"],"yoast_head":"\n