What I Do With Hatred Now

Hint: it’s not swallowing me whole anymore.

Dearest Reader,

Today I’m going to talk about hatred. The real kind. The kind that consumed me, made me unrecognizable to myself, made me believe I was nothing but fire and venom.

You’ve read about my shadows before, so this won’t shock you. But it feels important to say it plainly: hatred lived inside me, and for a long time, it dictated everything.

This is the part of life that taught me lessons no light ever could.

And yet, it’s also the part that showed me how to let go.

I have hated very few people in my life.

But the ones I did?

That hate consumed me. It hijacked my breath, dictated my every move. And it confused the hell out of me…

Why?

Because I love everyone. I always have. I was born with a deep knowing that we are all one, and I was very aware of it at a very young age.

I have a deep understanding that everyone… yes, even the cruelest, most heinous humans — has a purpose to bring us closer to love.

I know some of you want to argue with me on that. Don’t. This is my knowing. Yours may be different.

Where it gets messy is being a little girl who grows up with that kind of knowing without tools and without protection. I'm not talking about sex. Ok. I'm not just talking about sex.

This little girl lets too many people in with zero boundaries. Assuming they love like her because to her… there is no other way of living.

I didn’t know how to say, “This doesn’t feel right” because… what the hell did right feel like?

I didn’t know how to say no without losing love attention.

I didn’t have direction.

So I said yes… over and over. Friendships. Business partners. Relationships.

And because I couldn’t say no, life said no for me.

Shituations (yes, I call them that) kept happening around me that destroyed any chance of me finding peace.

Which led to them all blowing up and causing more damage than if I had just said…

"Hey, I’m going to trust my gut here and walk away."

It's always been a 4-alarm fire where merely surviving was a miracle.

Every. Single. One.

And hate eventually took root. Not just toward them and their reactions to life, but toward myself… for ignoring the voice inside me, for resenting my own softness, for staying tethered to people who couldn’t offer me a scrap of kindness when that’s all I wanted to give.

I was tortured.

How could they not see how hurtful they were? How could I keep letting them hurt me?

My tools back then were limited.

1. Alcohol.

2. The attention of men.

That’s what fit into the cracks of my survival while raising kids alone - one by 20, three by 30. Survival didn’t leave time for anything else.

Until quarantine hit. I’d just moved states again, trying to outrun the hate in my hometown.

But it followed me, of course. You can’t outrun what’s in your chest. So I decided… finally… to face it.

To face me.

Because I was done being a chameleon. Done shape-shifting into what everyone else needed. That human suit didn’t fit anymore. It was strangling me.

During the time we were all told to stay inside (not that I did anything I was told to do), I was blessed with the time to sit on my computer and be directed to powerful healers.

I became a sponge. I learned every tool that resonated with me. I connected with spiritual guides (I call them my earth angels) who understood hate and pain and rage, and the practices to transmute it all.

I learned how to let go of it. All of it. Not by bypassing it. Not by pretending it wasn’t there. By facing it head-on, holding it in my hands, and choosing to transmute it.

(Please remember that this took me years of practice. I am not an overnight success.)

Here’s the practice that saved me:

Every time hatred flares… toward a person, a memory, even myself, I pause. I acknowledge it. And then I throw it to the heavens. Literally. Sometimes with my hands. Sometimes just in my head. But always with the same intention: Take this. Transform it. Rain it back down as blessings, in whatever way the Universe decides.

I can just picture myself in my candy-apple red rain boots, shovel in hand, hurling memory after memory into the sky. Offering all of it up. The Universe catching each steaming pile, composting it, transforming it, raining it back down as blessings.

Every time I do this, I am shoveling those boulders off my path. Clearing the way. Refusing to let the weight of hate stop me from becoming my best self any longer.

The craziest part of all of this is that it works. I used to be a pretty big cynic of all of this, but I am a testament that this little mental tool works. That they all work, really, if you put them into practice at the right time with the right intentions.

I am proof that your nervous system can find a steady rhythm.

That your body can learn to exhale.

That your space can be cleared of all of the boulders.

Fast-forward to today: I’m writing from a chair that feels like destiny. Surrounded by people who adore the hell out of me.

This is why it all happened. This is why I had to walk through every fire.

Because I had to learn the tools to protect, to shield, and to love once again.

More proof it’s working…

I went back home last weekend.

Home. Ha. A county that I called home for over 30 years.

A home that used to be my hell.

And this time, instead of begging the angels not to run into anyone I knew in a previous life, I made a point to say, “I am ready if it is necessary for my growth.” [insert bug-eyed emoji here] And then I let it go.

I didn’t scan the rooms. I didn’t scan the roadways for familiar cars. I didn’t brace myself for ghosts.

I just… lived.

I understand now why I had to leave.

I understand why it all hurt so much.

I understand it all.

ANd now, I am enamored with all of my pain, all of my memories.

Because I keep alchemizing them back to love.

Back to my original knowing.

To get to this phase of realization is…

Game-changing.

— AudraHealing out loud, so you don't have to heal in silence.