What If I Hate People?
I want to say that I’ve been here, and it’s not a fun place to be.
When you think about it…did you always hate people? Were you born hating people? Babies don’t hate, so it just leads me to believe there was something that made you hate people – possibly someone violating your trust / abuse / trauma / unfair treatment etc.
I’m not a therapist or any type of doctor, so I can only share my experience of how I genuinely went from hating people to …creating a course on loving them and bringing them in.
The “I hate people” phase really amped up for me in high school and briefly in college. I never said it out loud either…who can you tell this to? especially without them taking it personally, but it was an attitude I carried around. Honestly, at the time I don’t think I wanted it to change either…it was like a me-against-the-world kinda thing and something about me liked that.
The Secret
In college I actually went to a counselor for depression. For quite a while it was pretty much just vent sessions for me. It was right here where I found the DVD The Secret. The actual DVD didn’t do much for me until I listened to the DVD commentary with Paul Harrington and Rhonda Byrne. Then it was like whooooosh! new life from that point. I bought a copy for the counselor and never went back.
That was really the start of conscious self care. I remember a recommendation in that DVD to do whatever you must do to feel good, so that day I really took inventory of what was making me feel good and what did not make me feel good or was neutral. Endless video games weren’t making me feel good, but music did make me feel good. So I listened to music as much as I could that day – upbeat and positive because I noticed that depressing or angry music made me feel depressed and angry along with the music. I noticed I got so much done that day and felt better about it.
That DVD also recommended meditation and that helped with all this too! I’m very thankful that from there I stumbled on some Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. It woke me up to all these dark, negative thoughts I was having about myself and others so often everyday…basically beating me down. After a while of doing this I said to myself “dang…I’m using a lot of energy feeling hate / resentment / anger / frustration and it’s only hurting me!”
So…just carving out some time everyday to turn my mind off (meditation!) gave me a LOT of relief and eventually got me to neutral or 0. The visualization / audio books / positive people and self care pushed it to positive.
Since meditation and positive music and visualization (also recommended in the DVD) had really changed things in a big way, it led me to really dig deep into self care. The things listed below were just more aspects of self care that were extremely impactful for me later:
- Recovering from an addiction to sugar and flour and cleaning up my diet (biggest impact)
- Healing wounds that were caused by others violating boundaries and trust
- Letting my guard down with safe people who could be trusted and sharing more of the real me with them
- Realizing that all people / reality weren’t like those who violated boundaries and trust
- Learning from people who had gone from hate to love, and seeing how they overcame it
- Feeling and believing that I didn’t have to let the past define the present
- Hanging around people who have the complete opposite outlook than I did socially, people who love other people and want them around
- Seeking professional help if needed IS a part of self care! It was a part of my own self care.
If you hate people, implementing social skills will be that much harder. This is one of the main reasons I put self care before social skills. I know that consistently hating people (or other consistent negative emotions) will show up in your social interactions if not addressed.
Take inventory of your feelings throughout a typical day. What are you feeling throughout most of the day? What could actions could you take to feel good each day? What are you doing now that doesn’t make you feel good? Do more of what makes you feel good and do less of what doesn’t. Prioritize your own fun!
You come first! Take care of yourself.