I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
In the past, I used a lot of my energy and time on negative emotions. I would say I hated things and I hated people’s actions. However, as I got older I realized the uselessness of this emotion. I also saw how it negatively affected my life.
The world serves as our mirror. What we are we see around us. And the energy we put out, maybe most often in the form of emotion, is reflected back to us in situations and relationships.
So, if we hate, we see hate everywhere. And we get hate back.
If we love, we see love everywhere. And we get love back.
Emotional Energy
Emotions have energy. That explains why when you feel a positive emotion, like love, you tend to feel light. You might want to skip or dance. When you feel negative emotions, like sadness, you feel heavy. You want to lie down or drag your feet as you walk.
Hate, like sadness, is heavy. It weighs us down. It makes it hard for us to feel as if we can pick ourselves up—or anyone or anything else.
Sometimes it ignites us to action. This usually happens when it is accompanied by anger, another negative emotion.
Emotional Baggage
Along with the energy hate comes the weight of those toward whom we direct that emotions. We carry those people, as well as those situations, though life with us. I imagine this like walking through life with all those situations and things I hate in a backpack—a very heavy one. On top of the backpack and hanging on to it, are the people toward whom I feel hatred. They drag me down, making it difficult for me to move forward.
Old feelings of hate also make it difficult for us to change our thoughts, beliefs and consciousness. As long as we hang onto these emotions, we hang onto the thoughts and beliefs that someone has wronged us or that someone is somehow wrong or bad. That keeps us stuck in a lower level of consciousness.
To raise ourselves up energetically and consciously, we need to drop all this emotional baggage. We need to drop hatred. Then we can move forward feeling lighter and putting out a lighter, higher energy. And we will get more of that back.
Finding Acceptance
True acceptance allows you to stop hating things and people. But acceptance…true acceptance…can be difficult to achieve. It’s possibly when you replace feelings of hatred with love. When you love, you accept.
People can behave in a crazy ways. We don’t understand why they do what they do. But we can remember that we are each a little crazy sometimes–none of us are always perfect, and sometimes we do hateful things, thoughtless things, hurtful things. We can force ourselves to see the part of that is perfect—the part created in the image of God—and love that part in each person we encounter.
We can also see the perfection in ever situation. Somewhere…it is there. And we can love that little bit of perfection.
Love will get you farther faster than hate ever will.
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, consider where in your heart you still harbor hate. How can you turn it into love?
