If you are here because you think you might hate someone you once loved,
Congratulations.
This means that you are capable of deep love,
Which is a wonderful thing to be able to do.
As you may already know,
The opposite of love is not hate.
In fact,
They are the same.
The opposite of love and hate is indifference.
For some of you,
This will ring true immediately.
But for many of us,
Hate is such a foreign,
Unfamiliar,
Harsh concept.
For those of us who love deeply,
We can be surprised by our ability to hate.
We don't think of ourselves as capable even of hate.
And when we find ourselves hating someone,
And hating someone we once loved no less,
It is so surprising and scary when we may not want to acknowledge the depth of our hate.
Instead,
We focus on the anger,
The indignation,
And sometimes we victimize ourselves even of getting obsessed over how we were wronged.
When you turn away from your hate and your ability to hate,
You turn away from yourself.
And that is a completely normal reaction because we've all seen what devastating things hate can do.
But that is not going to happen.
If you let yourself experience your emotions fully,
You will not be controlled by them.
You will not be destroyed by your hatred.
Trust in your ability to hold all things,
For your hatred is not here to destroy you.
The way hate is treated in Western culture is like it's a poison.
And if we let ourselves hate,
Then we too might be poisoned.
This is not true.
It's our denial of this feeling which poisons us.
The more we struggle against it,
The more it creeps around us.
So many of us,
In an effort to break free from hate's clutches,
We reject the object of that hate.
We break up with our partners in a fit of rage,
Or maybe we simply fantasize about bad things happening to them.
Or even worse,
Subtle disdain and resentment spills out in our every word as we mentally sneer at the person we once loved.
I have done all of these things.
It's okay.
It's okay.
But it doesn't have to be like this.
See,
Hate is actually a beautiful emotion,
When you can experience it in its purest form.
The pure emotion itself,
The physical sensations,
The vibrations,
Is beautiful and divine.
It's just everything else.
All the stories we tell ourselves around that hate,
Over and over again in our minds,
See,
Those are extra.
When we can fully hold our hate and not turn away from it,
Not turn away from our own ability to hate,
Not turn away from ourselves,
Only then will the secrets hiding within hate reveal themselves.
I want you to close your eyes and conjure your hatred.
You may be tempted to turn away,
To slip into you replaying a scene in your mind.
When this happens,
Simply tug yourself back to the physical sensation.
Be gentle with yourself and just breathe.
That's it.
That's all you have to do.
If you stay with your hatred and welcome it,
Cup it in your palms.
It will blossom when it's ready.
But until then,
Just let it be.
That is enough.
