Fear, Hatred, Acceptance, and Forgiveness
Fear is a mind-killer, a seed that once planted blinds us to understanding, kindness, empathy, and merciful judgment. Fear causes us to react without cognizant thought. When we are the ‘victim’ of someone’s actions – either through direct deeds, inaction, or utter ill-mannered indifference and these actions cause us anxiety and distress, it is easy to become overwhelmed and filled with negative thoughts and emotions toward that person [or group of people]. We allow those actions to gain power over us and our lives and may even become fearful of what might happen in our own lives because of those actions. The end result is that we allow our thoughts and actions to be wholly controlled by these outside influences – and may even – in our earnest desire to do the right thing - allow these fears to guide us down the wrong path(s).
When we invest our own power of thought and consciousness into these negative emotions we endow others with an unseen power over us. It becomes a tornado constructed from negativity; feeding on fear, anger, hatred – and self-induced blindness and this fear allows for another destructive entity to flourish: Hatred!
Many say the solution is forgiveness and acceptance – but how, beyond just the words – can we truly forgive these trespasses? And how, as mere humans – as flawed as we are - can we simply be accepting? There is no easy solution and no easy answers.
The first step is in fact acceptance. Not that we are sanctioning these actions – but instead, we are accepting that these actions have happened. We must also honestly look within ourselves to see if any action we have done whether intentionally or accidentally, has been the grounds for retribution. True acceptance can be difficult to do, as we never want to accept that others can be vengeful, critical, and destructive, nor do we want to admit that we can be the cause of such destructive emotions. Remember as humans, we are a reactive species and tend to hear more clearly, emotional words and comments – comments our brains can register as attacks when in reality had we only listened more closely, we may have found no attack was really there. As rational humans we are in actuality, irrational; and those emotions can easily direct how we comprehend any given situation.
Now comes the difficult part, forgiveness. The world is filled with events that can range from murder, rape, and abuse – to – death of a loved one and even every-day drama and pettiness. How do you forgive these actions? Some will tell you to release it and give it to God [or the Universe] to deal with. But that tends to still leave “you” with feelings of anger and hatred. So how do you move on from these negative emotions once you’ve accepted the situation? Time! Allow yourself to truly feel the emotions for a while – long enough that you can see them surrounding you, see how they are affecting your life and come to a conscious awareness of how destructive they are not only to you, but everyone around you. Once you have reached that echelon of awareness – visualize those emotions as a creature that has haunted you and fervently tell it that it’s not welcome in your life. As humans even though we may have a strong belief and faith in spirituality and godly intervention – we tend to harbor emotions that can be unhealthy. By creating our own means of visualizing these emotions, not only are we better equipped to deal with them, we can consciously expel them from our lives.
Brightest Blessings,
Rev. Lynda Morris
