How To Stop Hating Someone

Hate is a strong word, but I am guessing that is why you used it. We have probably all hated someone at some point, I know I certainly have, but if you are wondering how to stop hating someone, you have landed on the right post!

Hate is powerful, but not necessarily in a good way; it has the power to affect us and our life in a negative way.  For example, the hate we harbour towards someone may cause us to self-sabotage; it may also impact our relationships with our nearest and dearest and our emotional well-being and mental health.

Psychologist Joanna Kleovoulou explains how hatred builds up in the mind, body, and soul, thus affecting the organs and natural processes. It also changes the chemistry in the brain, which can cause us to act aggressively. It goes on to say that hatred triggers us to be restless, paranoid, and have obsessive thoughts.

There are endless reasons why you could hate someone. Perhaps they hurt you, betrayed you, lied to you or cheated you. Let’s face it, we usually don’t hate anyone for any reason. There are many reasons why we can hate someone, such as:

Jealousy and envy:

Jealousy is the emotion that we are likely to be the most ashamed of. Many of us can readily admit when we are happy, sad, and angry, but when it comes to jealousy and envy, we aren’t so quick to acknowledge it, because it is taboo.

We are told that jealousy is a bad emotion and therefore feeling jealous means, we are bad people. However, jealousy is a normal emotion, and Psychology Today explains how jealousy should not be suppressed but acknowledged as a wake-up call.

When we are jealous and envious of others, it can cause an intense disliking of them, thus causing us to hate them. Perhaps they have something we want, or we feel they don’t deserve, but we do.

Prejudice:

Unfortunately, people can hate people because of prejudice. Predujism is having an unfair opinion or judgements on someone, groups, race, class or characteristics. For example, someone may have strong negative opinions of wealthy people and believe that all wealthy people are greedy and ill-treat the poor. Another example would be believing that a particular race of people are bad.

Learned Behaviour:

Hate can be learned, especially when we are kids during childhood, whereby we can biases learn from those around us, such as parents or siblings. This can shape our views about how we see the world or specific groups of people.

We had a bad experience with them:

The most common reason for hating someone is that we have had a bad experience with them. Perhaps they hurt us, betrayed us, lied to us, or even ruined our lives. When we feel this way towards individuals, it is extremely difficult to see past what they may have done to us.

Whilst we all have reasons for hating someone, is it worth going through life having ill feelings towards others? Wouldn’t you rather let go of the emotional baggage you are harbouring toward someone and move forward with your life?

Wouldn’t you rather take back control and stop letting someone or someone’s actions get under your skin?

1. Accept whatever may have happened:

We have to start with acceptance, because without acceptance, how can we move on and move and move forward?

According to mymind acceptance is crucial because it enables us to make peace with things that have happened, particularly what is really painful.

2. Practise forgiveness

If you want to stop hating someone then you should begin to practice forgiveness. In Buddhist teachings, practising forgiveness will end suffering and bring you peace and harmony.

This is because holding on to hate, anger, and other ill feelings towards someone will likely cause YOU harm and distress. For example, it’s like picking up a hot coal to throw at the person you hate; you will get burnt!

Research has shown that forgiveness can improve cholesterol levels, pain, and blood pressure and lower the risk of a heart attack. 

Forgiveness does not mean that you agree with what the person did, and neither does it mean that you should forget it. In fact, it has nothing to do with the other person; it allows you to make piece and move on.

Forgive… not because others deserve forgiveness but because you deserve peace

– Buddah

3. Heal

I you want to stop hating someone, then it would be wise to heal. Just like we heal from our physical injuries, we need to heal from our emotional ones too! This is because healing reduces our emotional distress.

Healing will naturally cause you to begin to stop hating someone because you are allowing yourself to regulate your emotional reactions, manage negative feelings, and we are also less likely to participate in self-sabotaging behaviours.

If the person you hate has hurt you or traumatised you, then healing those wounds will help you move on and move past this.

4. Let go

Letting go could cure your hatred for someone, especially if you hate someone because they did something to hurt you.

When we have a bad experience with someone or they hurt us, we tend to hold on to the ill feelings that we think about them, which only amplifies how we feel about the person, which only harms us further.

Tiny Buddha states that to let go of an emotion, we must first feel it fully.

A good way of letting go of something is to write the person you hate, but don’t worry, you won’t need to send it; this is simply a way of expressing your feelings and releasing the hate you feel.

It may be a good idea to burn the letter after you have written and read it. According to Unplugged this is an ancient practice that that people all over the world for centuries. By burning the letter we remove the emotions from our bodies and minds.

5. Having empathy

Having empathy for someone can help you stop hating them, especially in circumstances where you hate them because of something they did to you. 

This is because when we have empathy and compassion, we begin to understand why the individual may have done what they had done. For example, if your best friend stole from you, you may begin to think about what drove them to do that. For example, were they desperate or felt like they had no other choice?

When we practice empathy, we look at more than one different perspective and therefore, this allows us to see things differently.   

With that being said, empathising with someone whom you hate, will not be easy and will come with its challenges, but you can practice your empathic skills over time.

6. Reflect

Reflection allows you to take time out and think things through. The Open University would describe reflection as ‘thinking about something’.  

Reflection is a vital part of growing and learning as it allows us to examine our strengths and weaknesses, look at areas of our life that we feel we could improve or change, and examine how we can do things better.

 It would be a good idea to sit and think about why you hate this person. You may want to ask the following:

• What is it about them that you hate?
• How does this person make you feel?
• What could you do to make yourself feel better?

7. Seek professional support

Professional support such as a therapist can you help you to manage ill feelings you have towards someone without judgement. It will help you find answers to your own questions, help you to resolve conflict and develop coping strategies.

8. Resolve your conflict

Okay, so resolving your issues with someone is a fab way to stop hating someone. This will also allow you the space to bring up your feelings, and even gain closure on a situation that may have caused you hurt and pain.

It also provides you with an opportunity to find solutions or come to a common ground with the person you hate.

9. Limit contact with them

It might be wise to spend less time with the person you hate, or if this is unavoidable, then limit communication with them to only when necessary. For example, it may be a colleague you hate, so try to keep boundaries in place by only communicating about work and spending time way from them during lunch breaks ect.

The less time you spend with them or communicating with them means that it won’t drive your hate toward them further.

Whilst we all have reasons for hating someone, is it worth going through life having ill feelings towards others? Hating someone can be exhausting, wouldn’t you rather let go of the emotional baggage you harbour toward someone and move on with your life? In my opinion, it just isn’t worth the energy!