[Love/Hate09]

I don't want to hold onto hate, i still want have faith, i still want to believe in people and believe there are good people in my life. At some point you have to try and forgive and believe again. That's hard sometimes but you have to start somewhere and i'll start here. If i start believing that there's no good to be found anywhere, or in anyone, then i'll betray everything i've always said i believe in. If i really do believe what i'm saying then the one person i can never fool is myself. I either believe what i'm saying or it's empty words. So, i'll try to remain true to myself and start believing again. I hope one day that you can find a way to believe too, if you do then i'll always believe with you because that's what i always try and do.

[Sam2]

You are right, hate is hard to overcome, and there are no rules as to how long it takes. I think that once you are able to forgive whatever the person did to cause you to hate them, the hate will go away.

That is something that has to occur within yourself. It really doesn't matter what other people think about your feelings or what you have said in the past. The feeling of hate will persist no matter what you do to cover it up, so you are the true barometer of that feeling.

Sometimes going over what happened in your head and trying to see it from the other person's viewpoint, it can help you understand why they did what they did. Hate is a very powerful emotion, and it gets heavier the longer it lasts. For years after my divorce, I hated my ex. That made me angry at myself for not letting the whole thing go, and it became a viscious cycle. Its only in the last year or so, (the divorce was in '98), that I've been able to start to come to terms with it and the hate has disapated. Its not an easy fix.
The fact that you realize your true feeings is a start. Don't worry about what others think. Go with your heart.

Sam2

Probably the faithful know that we are commanded to forgive. That doesn't mean, however, that we subject ourselves to tyranny again of those who hate.

Forgiveness frees us from thinking of the negativity, the evil intent of pathology, and from the pain of it all. So forgiveness does much more for us than it does for others.

The heart really has reasons of its own that are blind to the hate-filled mind.

I doubt that anyone really knows the motivation of hatred, except that it is the frustration of the drive for love. I do believe, though, that in pathology, the mind just naturally sinks to the lowest level of understanding and misses truth so profoundly.

[Love/Hate09]

Originally Posted by Sam2

You are right, hate is hard to overcome, and there are no rules as to how long it takes. I think that once you are able to forgive whatever the person did to cause you to hate them, the hate will go away.

That is something that has to occur within yourself. It really doesn't matter what other people think about your feelings or what you have said in the past. The feeling of hate will persist no matter what you do to cover it up, so you are the true barometer of that feeling.

Sometimes going over what happened in your head and trying to see it from the other person's viewpoint, it can help you understand why they did what they did. Hate is a very powerful emotion, and it gets heavier the longer it lasts. For years after my divorce, I hated my ex. That made me angry at myself for not letting the whole thing go, and it became a viscious cycle. Its only in the last year or so, (the divorce was in '98), that I've been able to start to come to terms with it and the hate has disapated. Its not an easy fix.
The fact that you realize your true feeings is a start. Don't worry about what others think. Go with your heart.

Sam2

Hi Sam2, insightful words thank you. They made a lot of sense to me. To continually hold onto hate is very draining, hate is a very powerful emotion, it's also a very destructive emotion, it destroys not only the object of our hate but ourselves as well. In order to move forward and not live in the past it is necessary to let go of hate eventually otherwise we will spend our lives looking backwards instead of forwards. Nothing can be achieved by continually hating someone.

The only emotion that is stronger than true hate is love. To spend your life hating someone is tiring and very draining, to love someone is never tiring, it can be hardwork at times but it's never tiring. To hold onto an emotion that drains us and destroys us makes no sense. To move forward we we must find the path to forgiveness for our own sake and for the sake of the other person. To hate someone continually is negative and destructive, to know that you are continually hated by someone is also very negative and equally destructive. There are no winners.

As you suggest the feeling of forgiveness can only come from within us, it can't come from outside, it can't come because someone suggested it to us, we have to want to forgive. I have gone over events many times in my mind, but i had not done as you suggested and looked at events from the other person's point of view. What i did manage to do was look at many events, to look more at the entire picture rather than the isolated event that sparked that hatred. Whilst i was able to see some events with a negative connotation i was able to also see a small number of events that had a great deal of significance attached to them with hindsight. Events that could have only happened if someone genuinely cared a great deal. I am gald that i didn't listen too much to other people, much advice although well intended would have done nothing to heal me or the situation, and that afterall is why we come to sites like this, to try and heal. Forgiveness is part of the healing process, without forgiveness it would be very difficult to heal completely, at best it would just be putting things out of your mind. Blanking it out, that's not healing, it's hiding. I have spent too much of my life in hiding and it's not a healthy place to be.

I really like your sentence, "The fact that you realize your true feeings is a start. Don't worry about what others think. Go with your heart." My heart tells me to forgive. I want to start believing again, i want to believe in people and believe there is good in all the people in my life. I want to believe that it's naatural to make mistakes, i want to believe that if someone loves us they'll forgive our mistakes, i want to beleive that if someone loves us they'll love us even with all our flaws. In order to believe i need to forgive. I want to believe and i want to forgive.

Thank you for your thoughts, they helped immensely.

[Love/Hate09]

Originally Posted by genetic

Probably the faithful know that we are commanded to forgive. That doesn't mean, however, that we subject ourselves to tyranny again of those who hate.

Forgiveness frees us from thinking of the negativity, the evil intent of pathology, and from the pain of it all. So forgiveness does much more for us than it does for others.

The heart really has reasons of its own that are blind to the hate-filled mind.

I doubt that anyone really knows the motivation of hatred, except that it is the frustration of the drive for love. I do believe, though, that in pathology, the mind just naturally sinks to the lowest level of understanding and misses truth so profoundly.

Wow, this is such an amazing insightfil post. Although your post is relatively short i could sit and ponder it's implications for the rest of the day. But in short forgiveness opends the door to freedom, freedom for ourselves and also the object of our hatred. I think if we love someone or genuinely care for someone then at some point we must open our hearts to forgiveness.

[Ultra Darkness]

I'm just the opposite. I can't hold on to hate. It's weird.

[Love/Hate09]

Originally Posted by Ultra Darkness

I'm just the opposite. I can't hold on to hate. It's weird.

That was just my point UD, i can hold onto it for a while but then it becomes draining and pointless. I also i don't want to care deeply for someone and then spend the rest of my life hating them. I want to forgive, it's my nature to forgive. So no i don't want to hold onto hostile feelings for this person at all, i want to forgive, i want to accept that we all make mistakes, it's human nature to make mistakes.

Nice to hear from you UD. I'd love to read some of your poetry again when you have some finiished.