Letting go of hate

[Anonymous]

Why do you see them? Stop seeing them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh! Oh! I have experience with this! The hating and the growing weary of it!

Two things helped me.

First, every time the familiar feeling of hate arose, I tried to consciously turn it into a moment of gratitude — literally turning an FU into a thank you. At first, all were veiled insults. “Thank you for showing me who I never want to be.” “Thank you for demonstrating such pathetic weakness so that I might better recognize strength.” But even this helped soften me some! And over time, my thank yous became less about them and more about me. “Thank you for illuminating my own moral fault lines in this very complicated world.” The whole thing felt sort of silly and futile at first but really helped.

The second thing that helped suffers from the world’s most grossly cheesy name: loving kindness meditation. I KNOW, I KNOW, even typing that out makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. But it is a (subversive) superpower. Basically, you repeat four simple lines, each line wishing people (yourself…then loved ones…then neutral parties…then eventually, eventually those you dislike or even hate) safety, health, happiness, and ease. WAIT, STAY WITH ME FOR A SEC, here’s the key to the whole thing: as you do this, as you say these lines again and again and again, you realize that the people you struggle with most are missing one or more of those things. They don’t feel safe, and/or they’re really not well, and/or they’re miserable, and/or they are struggling struggling struggling just to get through the days, and as soon as this truth truly sinks in, some of their power just…disappates. Poof. Gone.

Do you love or even like them? Well, maybe someone more enlightened than I does. But I never got there. But practicing this (at first by listening to Sharon on the Happier app, she’s good), I did let go of some hate and return to myself, and now I think about them a lot less, and with a lot less energy when I do.

It seems twee, I know. But I am not a kumbayah type by nature, and these two things helped me a lot.

Good luck. Sending my best.

NP. The bolded kind of reminds me of "ThanK u aIMee" by Taylor Swift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an issue I'm barely experiencing in midlife, but I finally met with a situation where I now loathe someone and wish them ill to a point it physically makes me queasy and shaken to see them and I stew in hate. I am realizing this affects me a lot more than them. There are moments of peace when I can rationally see things clearly and let go of the hate but I can't permanently shake it and I'd like to reach that state. So, if anyone has any experience beyond therapy to release this grip of hoping someone gets hit by disaster, how did you let go?

Are you referring to trump?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh! Oh! I have experience with this! The hating and the growing weary of it!

Two things helped me.

First, every time the familiar feeling of hate arose, I tried to consciously turn it into a moment of gratitude — literally turning an FU into a thank you. At first, all were veiled insults. “Thank you for showing me who I never want to be.” “Thank you for demonstrating such pathetic weakness so that I might better recognize strength.” But even this helped soften me some! And over time, my thank yous became less about them and more about me. “Thank you for illuminating my own moral fault lines in this very complicated world.” The whole thing felt sort of silly and futile at first but really helped.

The second thing that helped suffers from the world’s most grossly cheesy name: loving kindness meditation. I KNOW, I KNOW, even typing that out makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. But it is a (subversive) superpower. Basically, you repeat four simple lines, each line wishing people (yourself…then loved ones…then neutral parties…then eventually, eventually those you dislike or even hate) safety, health, happiness, and ease. WAIT, STAY WITH ME FOR A SEC, here’s the key to the whole thing: as you do this, as you say these lines again and again and again, you realize that the people you struggle with most are missing one or more of those things. They don’t feel safe, and/or they’re really not well, and/or they’re miserable, and/or they are struggling struggling struggling just to get through the days, and as soon as this truth truly sinks in, some of their power just…disappates. Poof. Gone.

Do you love or even like them? Well, maybe someone more enlightened than I does. But I never got there. But practicing this (at first by listening to Sharon on the Happier app, she’s good), I did let go of some hate and return to myself, and now I think about them a lot less, and with a lot less energy when I do.

It seems twee, I know. But I am not a kumbayah type by nature, and these two things helped me a lot.

Good luck. Sending my best.

NP. The bolded kind of reminds me of "ThanK u aIMee" by Taylor Swift.

Yes, that moment when Taylor's FU to the sky becomes a thank you, and suddenly the stars are stunning. That's great. My thing was all pre Tortured Poets, and unlike Taylor I don't have the advantage of having become the world's biggest pop star in spite of my person lol. But the Taylor lines I often thought of in relation to person I hated (do I still? Good question. All I can say is that whatever it is, is not as alive in me anymore) were from Karma -- karma as a relaxing thought, as simple pleasures like the breeze in my hair, and the value of keeping my side of the street clean. It's nice to live on a clean street, I guess. Better for sure than living on a street strewn with someone else's wreckage that I have to keep kicking around angrily.

Anyway, it took a bit of work, and I embracing some approaches that had previously made me recoil. But I gotta say, they really did help.