Once Hate Is Gone

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with the pain.

- James Baldwin

One of the benefits of anger is that like hate, it tends to be active. When it is full-blown it can disguise shame, fear, and hurt. And it tells you ‘something’ happened and you’re doing something about it.

However anger that is not released becomes explosive, toxic, and corrosive. We pay a high price for it with our health when we don’t recognize and embrace the feelings it may hide. Suppressing anger isn’t the answer either because that leads us to disconnect from our feelings. That also leaves the door open for all kinds physical and/or emotional suffering. So we have to work at releasing it.

Creating a space for the pain to come forward so we can feel it and accept it allows us to then release it. If we can’t do so on our own there are many books, workshops, therapists, and spiritual practices like yoga, meditation – to name a few &ndash that can help. We need not hang on to anger – our hates – out of fear that we’ll be destroyed by the emotions we’ve suppressed.

Author and therapist John Amodeo states that while he has worked with many people who have remained chronically angry, arrogant, bitter or depressed as a result of disassociating from their hurt, he has never met anyone who has gone crazy as a result of embracing their hurt.

It takes commitment to act on our awareness. This isn’t easy. Since nature abhors a vacuum, an essential part of our work involves replacing our hurts and fears with love. Accessing, accepting, and releasing our hurts so that we can create a space for love in our lives, is ongoing work. We are worth it.

Dawn Brown is a psychotherapist, international speaker, and author (That Perception Thing! and Expert Women Who Speak...Speak Out!). Her new book: Been There, Done That… Now What? is available in bookstores and at www.perceptionshift.com.