Last update: Augusts 04, 2016
Those who invest a large part of their time in feeding hatred towards those who do not want their good forget one very important thing: to love those who really love them.. Hate and resentment are two sinister and persistent enemies that usually take very deep roots in many minds. Because, in reality, they are traps that we ourselves end up in, caught by the negative emotions that are so self-destructive.
It is often used to say that "hate is the opposite of love" when, however, it is not entirely true. Hating is a private but cruel exercise, in which different emotions are intertwined: from anger to humiliation or aversion. We are faced with a very primitive instinct that due to its strength and its impact on our brain can cause us to stop giving priority to what is really important, such as our balance or the people who love us.
Both Aristotle and Sigmund Freud defined hatred as a state in which the feeling of violence and annihilation is present. Martin Luther King, on the other hand, spoke of this emotion as a night without stars, a dimension so dark in which the human being undoubtedly loses his reason for being, his essence.. It is clear that we are in the most dangerous extreme of being human and, for this reason, we invite you to reflect on the subject.
Hate is not blind, it always has a reason
Hate is not blind, it has a concrete goal, a victim, a collective or even values ​​that are not shared and to which one reacts. Carl Gustav Jung, for example, spoke in his theories of a concept that never ceases to be interesting: the shadow of hatred or the hidden face of hatred.
According to this perspective, many people come to despise others because they see certain virtues in them that they do not see. An example would be the man who can't stand his wife triumphing in his career or the work colleague who feeds feelings of hatred and contempt for another, when, in reality, in the depths of his being what he feels is envy.
We can clearly see that hatred is never blind, but responds to reasons that are valid for us. Another proof of this is found in an interesting study published in 2014 in the journal “Association for psychological sciencie“, entitled “Anatomy of daily hatred”. The work tried to reveal what were the most common forms of hatred in the human being and at what age one "begins to hate" for the first time.
The first relevant fact is that the most intense hatred is almost always generated towards people who are very close to us. Most of the interviewees stated that during the course of their life they had hated with intensity 4 or 5 times.
- Hatred almost always centered on family members or co-workers.
- Children start hating around the age of 12.
- Hatred was presented in the study as a very personal element. You can despise a politician, a character or a certain way of thinking, but authentic hatred, the truest, is almost always projected towards concrete persons of one's most intimate circle.
Hate is the death of thought and freedom
Buddha said, whoever makes you angry dominates you. What awakens hatred and resentment in us makes us prisoners of an emotion that, believe it or not, expands with the same intensity and negativity. Let us think of this father of a family who returns home full of resentment towards his bosses and who day and night communicates his contempt and aversion to his wife and children to his wife and children. All those words and that model of conduct indirectly pour out on the little ones.
We also know that it's not that easy to put out the fire of hatred in our brains. It seems that granting forgiveness to those who have hurt or humiliated us is like limping, but no one deserves a prisoner existence, especially if we neglect the most important aspect: allowing us to be happy. Live in freedom.
It is therefore worth reflecting on the following dimensions.
How to free ourselves from the trap of hate
Hate has a concrete brain circuit that goes into the areas responsible for judgment and responsibility, housed in the prefrontal cortex. As we indicated at the beginning, hatred is not blind, so we can rationalize and control these thoughts.
- Release the grudge with the responsible person by arguing the reason for your discomfort and your pain, in an assertive and respectful way. Express your emotions by being clear that the other party probably does not understand you or share your reality.
- After this outburst, after having clarified your position, define an end, a goodbye. Free yourself from this bond of discomfort through forgiveness, if possible, in order to better close the circle and "free yourself" of it.
- Accept the imperfection, the dissonance, the opposite thought to yours, do not allow anything to ruin your calm, your identity, even less, your self-esteem.
- Turn off the mental noise, the voice of resentment and turn on the light of the most satisfying and positive emotionality. The one that deserves to be nurtured: the love of your loved ones and the passion for what makes you happy and identifies you.
It is a simple exercise that we should practice every day: the absolute release of hatred and resentment.
