A friend of mine said the following statement to me, “I hate hate” and it is so true for me. Our country is so divided with such hate these days that it wears heavy on my heart each day. And now, I’m tired of hearing it from both sides. The more hate we spew out into the world, the more it fuels the other side.
And hate is such a strong word. I sure have found myself using that word a lot lately. I remember using it as a kid, saying “I hate peas”, or “I hate my teacher”. My mom would say that hate was such a strong word, maybe tone it down with “don’t like” or “not good”. But now, hate seems to be the word of the day.
And the other problem is that it is everywhere. We can’t get away from it unless we go to Walden Pond and live in the woods for a year without a phone, TV, people or a car. That sounds kind of inviting really.
So what do we do?
Here are some ideas:
~ Reframe it. When we are feeling that hate inside, reframe it into something more positive. Such as, maybe we are saying, “I hate how the country is right now”, which is true for me. I really hate where we are right now with all the hate (there I go saying “hate” again). So how can I reframe this, so I don’t go into such fear about where our country is going. I could say to myself “There is a lot of good in our country.” Phew, now that feels a lot better.
~ Check the facts. So much of social media is not true. When you read a post that is about hate, fact check it. See if what they are saying is or is not true and maybe there is an explanation to what they are saying. In other words, don’t fall into the trap that all the hate spewed is true anyway.
~ Don’t use the word hate. Maybe I will listen to my mom’s words and not say the word “hate” and change it into something that is not so dramatic. Here are other words to use instead of hate: dislike greatly, feel aversion towards, find intolerable, shudder at, recoil from. These don’t hold as much of a punch to it and maybe it will ease up the tension in the air a bit.
~ Go positive. If something is said that is a rant on hate, look at the bright side of the rant. Look at the good that can come out of it or see another side that could be positive. Positivity is a great thing to spew out in the world.
So maybe next time you are confronted with hate, either inside yourself or from others, just ask yourself, how can you change it around so we can squash this hate that is ravaging our country? Any thoughts?