My Mom told me again and again when I was a little kid that I should never use the word hate. She said always said that hate is such a hateful word. And while my mother might have had her shortcomings that stemmed mostly from her alcoholism, I can honestly say I don’t remember her ever muttering the word even once. Unfortunately the same wasn’t true of me and it took me a long time to figure out how unhealthy it was not only myself, but also the rest of the world, each time I said it.
Merriam-Webster defines the word “hate” as an intense hostility and aversion towards something, usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. It also defines it as an extreme dislike, detest, or antipathy of something.
All of the words in these definitions are very ugly sounding to me today, but there was a time when I actually liked the toxic weight of them. There was a period when I really enjoyed projecting the ugliness of them onto others that I held some type of resentments towards. “ I HATE YOU!” was something I probably said far more than I wish to recollect these days and it was always towards people or things I felt hurt by in some way. During each the years I got drunk and high, I used the word hate even greater and that would continue far beyond the days after I became clean and sober as well. Why that was is quite simple. I hated myself and who I had become, but it was far easier to hate everyone else instead.
It took a lot of work for me to actually stop hating myself and to get there took forgiving everyone and everything I ever held any serious dislike towards, including me. But once I did for the majority of whom I had harbored that negativity towards for so long, I no longer had an attraction to using the word hate in any of my sentences. In fact, anytime I did after that point felt grossly wrong within me, as if I was stabbing my own heart and soul. I had a good reminder of this the other day when I had a weak moment with a pesky squirrel that’s been digging up my yard quite a bit lately. After discovering another patch of grass dug up, I yelled, “I hate you squirrel” and immediately felt pretty awful afterwards.
I believe I felt that way after shouting at this squirrel is solely because using the word hate towards anything only sends a wave of toxic energy into the world and back into myself. If you don’t believe me, try screaming “I HATE YOU!” as loud as you can the next time you are in a good space, but alone where no one else will be affected except yourself. See how you feel afterward in saying those words. I can emphatically say I always feel worse afterwards when I say them, and it’s my hope you might feel this way as well if you should ever speak them.
I truly feel that using the word hate in any language is not healthy for any of us in this world. It’s my belief that it only fills the planet and each of us up with a lot more darkness. To prevent this from happening and to reverse the trend altogether is going take all of us becoming free of every resentment we have towards anyone or anything, including ourselves. Once we do, I honestly believe that none of us will want to use the word hate in any of our day-to-day vocabulary.
So while my mother may have had her downfalls in life, I definitely think she was on to something when she said that hate is such a hateful word. Thank God I totally see that now and hopefully you do as well…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
Words have amazing power to heal and to harm. Choose them wisely. Thanks for the reminder Andrew.
We have become so conditioned in society to pick and choose words without realizing their true meaning or intensity. Sadly, we have most likely inserted our foot into our mouth at some point and then regret it later. Thanks for reminding me to think clearly before I speak. It is easy to say it’s a shortcoming, but in reality its just a matter of being selfish and lazy.