Do you hate?

Yesterday I said to a friend: “I hate you that you live in sunny LA and I am stuck here in Wisconsin in deep snow and 21 degree freezing weather.”

!!

I hate you??? Where did that come from? I have not used or felt the word hate in over 10 years. Probably more like 20 years. Probably more like never. My sisters and I were taught not to say the word “hate” so it’s not in my vocabulary.

But there it was yesterday. It came out of my mouth unexpectedly. It shocked me to my core, and it felt terrible.

I was trying to be playful, but I ended up feeling horrible.

I am trying to imagine that people live with hate every single day. How can you stand it? It’s the worst possible feeling I’ve experienced in years. No wonder people get sick. It’s poison in your system.

All day long I felt like: “Something’s gone wrong. I’ve done something terrible”

Then I tried to justify it by saying to myself: oh no one reacted. It’s not a big deal.

Everyone who heard it (I was on the internet teaching A Course in Miracles) jumped in playfully with the temperatures of the locations they were in, in Florida and California.

So I could have easily said: it’s not a big deal. It’s over. No one got hurt.

But here’s the thing: I GOT HURT. I literally had poison in my system.

I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling. I could feel the darkness inside of me. How in the world do people carry hate around??? That’s the big question of the day. How can you stand it?

I knew I had to fix the situation, and not wait another day. I was no way going to bed with poison in my system. There was only one thing to do: forgive.

I e-mailed my friend with my deepest apologies, asking for forgiveness.

He wrote me back that he didn’t even hear me say it.

But that absolutely does not matter, because I felt the effects of it.

If you hate someone, it doesn’t matter if they know about it or not: YOU ARE AFFECTED.

INFECTED is a better word. When you hate someone, you are infected.

You’re not hurting them. You’re hurting yourself. Forgiveness is the only remedy to dispel the blackness.

There is no other way.

If you hate, there is poison in your system and that’s why you feel bad.

Again, that’s why you feel bad.

The good news is that the LIGHT OF FORGIVENESS washes hate away. It guts all the crap out of your system. You don’t need a doctor or a pill. You need to practice forgiveness. The light cleans your system and it might feel uncomfortable to say “I’m sorry. Forgive me” but you’ll feel a lot better.

Try it. You’ll be amazed.