“I hate travel by train…”
Does it mean we hate the facility of transport?
Or is it that we remember our past inabilities to deal with the errors in it?
“I hate the opposite gender…”
Does it mean that entire group is bad?
Or is it that we superimpose our past inabilities to deal with some of them on each present encounter with them?
“I hate exams…”
Does it mean exams are guaranteed to be tough?
Or is it that we superimpose our past failures on present situation and sabotage our try even before it begins?
“Moms-in-laws are always horrible…”
Have we been son-in-law / daughter-in-law with all women in world?
No; so is it that we’re trying to generalize our personal situation to entire world? Hoping to find solace in the allowance of inability, conveniently provided by the “unbeatable nature of difficulty” in it?
It’s a Game. We play it with ourselves.
The objective isn’t to win. It’s to fail. Repeatedly.
Yes, at an unconscious level, the failure appeals to us.
Question is, what’s the pay-off?
Answer is, it helps us collect stamps embossed with “I’m a poor victim”.
Answer is, it helps us fortify our “victim identity”.
Answer is, it helps us avoid working on the situation; because “victims” don’t have to, apparently.
Thing is, it’s OK that we failed sometimes. But we don’t want to see it that way. We want to have an OK feel about everything that has ever happened. And of course past doesn’t allow it. We fear what wasn’t OK. Sure, at some time we had been truly victimized; but we fear our own inability at the time, more than we fear the entity that harassed us. We hate the situation because we hate our own inabilities.
We know we need to work on it; but we either don’t know how to or we don’t want to. It maintains the fear; we try living around it. It’s possible only if we declare ourselves as “inevitable victims” for each future iteration of that event.
Let’s remember that hate is unprocessed fear.
Two things might help us here:
- Fear can be defeated by understanding what it is. We fear what’s unknown; what’s still a mystery to us. We can intellectualize the process; either by ourselves or by professional help. We can bring the causality of that past situation into conscious awareness. We can get the facts right; so that we get data of what needs work.
- As Eckhart Tolle says, “die to the past immediately”. We can stay mindful and wake up to the fact that reality is a flow. Past doesn’t show up as it is; the present is always new. But we react to that present the same way we reacted to the past; that’s how we fail. We can choose to respond to the situation by communicating to the present facts. We may want to appreciate the freshness of the present situation; rather than hearing echoes of its assumed twin in the past. Mindfulness shall help. Life is lived here-and-now. Let’s live it with a clear slate of mind.
© Apoorv Vikas
Counselor & Psychologist
Nigdi Pune India
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Counselor Apoorva 