How to Handle Hate with Care

Can we recognize the desperate cry for human connection, belonging, and self-love beneath the masks of vitriol and deceit?

Photo by Valentin Angel Fernandez

The closer we get to the 2024 election, the louder the voices and the bolder the words and behaviors of low-conscious leaders. Deceit has become so much a part of our culture in America that it's difficult to decipher what's real anymore. When trust is eroded, we are near a necessary reckoning, and it's how behemoth systems begin to fall or shift.

From AI deep fakes to fake news, anti-DEI rhetoric to the gender binary script, many followers have been led to disconnect from themselves and each other. This disconnection often manifests as vitriol, but understanding the roots of hate can help us make space for the response that feels right for us.

God is Not a Careless Mechanic

What I know is that the projection of unhealed pain comes from traumatic experiences, whether those occurred in childhood, as a result of long-term religious indoctrination, and/or life events in adulthood that exceeded the nervous system's ability to cope. When these are experienced in combination, the impact can be complex.

In the case of religious fundamentalism, for example, those who hate others do so because they've been convinced that they came into this world broken and need to be saved by an entity outside of themselves. There are rules and mandates to follow, and specific teachings that are “opposed by evil forces that must be fought against.” While fundamentalists genuinely believe they are doing good work in the world, this ideology creates the conditions for division instead of unity. It maintains separation by design.