
Hatred is one of those deceptive emotions that ends up hurting you far more than it hurts anyone else. It may feel good and natural to hate someone that has harmed you or your loved ones. But regardless of what someone else has done, you will never be able to hate someone enough to get it out of your system. Holding on to hate destroys your health and ultimately steals your joy. Once it’s a part of you, your motivations and actions will be colored with it, and you’ll unwittingly project your anger onto innocent people, which will ruin your relationships. Hate will literally eat you alive.
I’ve not yet seen where hating punishes another, as much as it punishes the one who’s hating.
The root of hatred lies in our fear and our sense of loss of control over our lives. We all experience feelings of hate sometimes. The goal is to learn how to move through it. It’s not an emotional investment that you want to maintain. When you realize that you have developed a habit of feeling hatred, if you’re wise, you’ll want to treat it as though you’ve found a cancer in your body – and be willing to do everything necessary to get rid of it.
You can’t resolve hatred by accepting someone else’s intolerable behavior as permissible. That will never work.
But you can begin to move through it, by first, having the solid intent to move through it.
Second, accept the other person or offender for who they are. You may not like who they are or who they’ve become, but people are who they are. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll start making better investments.
Third, you want to develop an understanding for the reasons for the other person’s behavior. This understanding is crucial as it leads you to the fourth step, which is compassion for the other person’s suffering.
Now you should know that understanding and compassion is not the same as acceptance or tolerance.
I have deep understanding for the reasons of others’ choices and I have great compassion for their suffering. But I would not hire or rehire these people if they have betrayed me or if they have an uncontrolled tendency toward destructive behavior. That would just be a bad choice.
The fifth step is forgiveness. And forgiveness, like understanding and compassion, is not about tolerating harmful behavior. Just because you forgive someone for hurting you, doesn’t mean you would then start tolerating bad behavior from others.
Forgiveness is not the relaxing of a boundary, if anything, it builds and strengthens healthy boundaries. Rather, forgiveness is letting go. Which is something you need to do for yourself.
When you fully forgive, you are, in a moment, embracing steps 1-5. You’re ready to let go and move on.
Sometimes I’ve forgiven people so completely that I can’t entirely remember what it was they did to me in the first place. But my understanding of who they are protects me from investing in them again.
I often pray for those who have hurt or harmed me in some way. I pray for their goodwill and prosperity, and that they will find true happiness. I do this partly because if they can become authentically happy people, they won’t harm another person again, and they won’t continue to create negative circumstances for themselves. And partly as a litmus test for myself. If I can’t truly pray for blessings for these people, then I know I have more work to do on myself.
Buddha was right when he said that hating doesn’t stop hating. True intent, compassion and forgiveness does. Forgiveness is about freedom for you. Until you forgive and forgive completely, you can’t move on with your life.




