Month: July 2023

I recently listened to an episode of the “Divorce Devil” podcast in which the host noted that while you might want to get past the emotion of hate after divorce as quickly as you can, a little bit of self-hate for a little while (I’m paraphrasing here.) was acceptable.

I disagree as I’ll discuss below.

I also recently watched the news in which the latest shooting was labelled a “hate” crime.

There is, indeed, too much hate in America today.

So, let’s look at the emotion of hate.

The Emotions as Tools Model notes that each emotion informs you about how you perceive your surroundings.  This is the message of the emotion.  I have discussed the Emotions as Tools Model in numerous past posts and in my book Emotions as Tools: Control Your Life not Your Feelings.

The message of hate is that you perceive a situation or person as extremely negative or even demonic.  Your perception of another person or situation doesn’t get much worse than that which elicits hate.

So, your emotion motivates you to eliminate the object of your hate.

Hate is a very strong emotion that is usually reserved for people whose actions you view as unacceptable, evil, despicable or reprehensible.  Presumably, you would want nothing to do with this person because he, she, or it is extremely toxic, negative or hurtful.

Logically, you’d think that your emotional reaction to hate would be to cut ties with or avoid the person you view with such animosity and disdain.

This is not, however, what frequently happens.

Let me digress here for just a moment.

In this post, I am addressing the emotion of hate.  This is so strong an emotion that its presence and the actions it elicits are cletarly recognizable, if not always correctly labelled.

So, I am not talking about how the word “hate” is often used in every day conversation.

Indeed, when we say “I hate Brussels Sprouts.” the word hate is the same word as that used for the  emotion and “hate” crimes.

The meaning and intent, however, of the word in the latter instances are very different.

To be accurate, while you may say that you “hate” Brussels Sprouts, in reality you just dislike them. Indeed, you may even dislike them a whole lot. (By the way, I did not like Brussels Sprouts as a kid because of the way my mom cooked them. Now, when they are served in butter with bacon, I have to make sure I leave some for every body else.) So, while you may dislike Brussels Sprouts, I really doubt that you are emotionally attached to them.

With the emotion of hate, however, your actions are the exact opposite of what you’d expect.  Instead of being repelled from the object of your hate, you bind yourself to the  person or situation just as powerfully as if you were in love with them.

Let me give you an illustration of what I mean.

Let’s look at love.

Imagine that you are facing a person and you are firmly holding both of their hands in yours. Everywhere they go, you go.  And, vice versa.

Think of this as love.

You are emotionally connected to the the person you love and they are with you all the time.

Now, let’s look at hate.

Imagine that you are now standing back to back with this person with both of their hands firmly in yours. As you can see, you are now opposite to them.

This is the basis for people believing that love is the opposite of hate.

But, let’s take a deeper look.

Indeed, with hate, you are just as securely attached emotionally to the object of your hate.  Wherever you go, they go with you.  And, they are with you all the time.

If you truly hate someone, you need to understand that you can be consumed by your hate. Just as you can be consumed by your love.

This may or may not be okay with love.  It definitely isn’t okay with hate.

Anger and Hate

To the extent that you are dealing with a person or group through the emotion of hate and you see this person as evil and a threat, you also are most likely experiencing anger.

The message of anger is that you perceive a threat to your values or sense of right and wrong and you believe you can eliminate the threat by throwing enough force at it.  Anger prepares y0u for war.

To mix anger and hate together can be very dangerous.  The hate tells you that this person is evil and reprehensible and it emotionally binds you to that person. Your anger motivates y0u to take destructive anger to eliminate this perceived reprehensible threat. Under these circumstances, logic and thinking about consequences often are overwhelmed or eliminated.

Think about hate groups, hate crimes, extreme discrimination and prejudices etc.

Avoiding Hate (Not easy, but doable)

This is why you might want to avoid hating another person.

“Huh”, you say, “What do you mean?”

Well, as I said above, hate is a very strong emotion which when you are under its influence can hijack your critical thinking and result in your not taking the important step in mastering your emotions as tools of assessing your situation and the validity of the message your emotion is communicating to you.

Thus, with hate (and anger), you should assess both whether the object of your hate is, indeed, demonic AND whether the actions you are about to engage in (such as shooting someone) will improve the situation in which you find yourself.

So, what are your options?

First of all, when you experience the emotion of hate, force yourself to step back from the situation and take a very deep breath.

This is part of the Emotions as Tools Model.

Once you have calmed down, remind yourself that hate is not an emotion you want to stay engaged with because it can be consuming and elicit actions you may later regret.

With some distance between you, your hate, and the “hated” object, assess the degree to which this object is, indeed, terrible, reprehensible or demonic.  If they are also dangerous, use the energy of your anger to take evasive action.

If you are not in danger, then choose to see them as disgusting and disdainful.

The message of disgust is that you should act to avoid to dispel the disgusting object from your life. Think of Brussels Sprouts as disgusting.

The message of disdain is that someone or something is unworthyof one’s consideration or respect; contempt.

The point here is that, as you are not emotionally intertwined with the previously hated object, you are now in a position to choose how you want to interact with that object.

Getting back to the divorce podcast….

From the above perspective, would you, as a  counselor, really want to green-light self-hate (or other-hate) after divorce in your client?

My answer is “No”.

While the individual who has just gone through a divorce might engage in self-blame (They do need to assess their role in the divorce.) seeing themselves  as demonic or reprehensible, probably won’t help them to get past the divorce.

Hence, no self-hate.

Hating the spouse (tho they might be reprehensible) is not healthy as they need to become emotionally independent of, not emotionally bound to, the now legally separated spouse.

Hence, other-hate is not appropriate either.

Note:

We live in a world today when words such as criticism, understanding, accommodation, and compromise are “dirty” words.

Because we are so siloed in our own belief systems, the world becomes very binary.  I am right and you are wrong. Criticism is seen as an attack.

While I can’t address all of the above issues, I will attempt to shed some light on the topic of criticism. 

When you think about the idea of criticism, you probably think of a situation in which..

• you were told you had messed up
• you were presented with negative issues about yourself
• you were demeaned or marginalized or felt attacked
• the person delivering the critical comments to you wasn’t very nice

All of the above examples imply an undesirable situation in which you are the target of hurtful comments directed at you by someone who may, or may not, have your best interests in mind.

This is the typical way we tend to view criticism and it is the reason that criticism has gotten a bad rap and is viewed as something we want to avoid.

In this post, I will suggest that you change your approach to criticism, utilize the concepts from the Emotions as Tools Model and strategically deploy criticism by view it as a potential source of useful information and not getting emotionally trapped by the way in which the criticism was delivered.

I am assuming that there is a relationship between you and the other person and that you are not being irrationally (or unsafely) attacked.

Let me give you an example.

I am a college professor. My students tell me that I am good at what I do and I enjoy the teaching experience.

But, it didn’t start out this way.  In fact, I started teaching because I was very anxious about speaking in public.

When I first started teaching, I was terrible.  I read my notes, probably bored my students half to death and avoided any feedback (or criticism) because I was not confident enough to receive it.

At one point, however, I made a crucial decision.

I decided to seek out comments from my students and viewed it as a source of information that might make me a better teacher.

From the comments of my students (favorable and unfavorable), I was able to grow as a professor.

Now, I need to say that it didn’t matter whether the student liked me or not.  The reason for this is that even if a student was just being critical out of a desire to be hurtful, there might be something of value in what he, or she, said.

Put another way, wrong motivation… right information.

I also had to learn to master my own emotional response to the criticism.

Anxiety to anticipation

I received.  I had to change my approach to the information I received from viewing it as a possible threat (anxiety) to viewing it as a possible source of useful information (anticipation).

Anger to acceptance

I had to change my view of the information and the source of that inforrmation not as an attack (anger) but as an opinion to be considered on its face value (acceptance).

These are some of the emotions you might need to master as you lead to deal with criticism…

Anger so that you do not get offended and Attack

Anxiety so that you do not get nervous and Avoid

Guilt so that you do not go into self-blame

Anticipation so that you remain open and receptive

Resentment is that someone has wronged or hurt you by taking advantage of you.  They have an asset (power, gender, position) that you do not and they have exploited that asset to gain an advantage over you.

The Emotions as Tools Model

The Emotions as Tools Model notes that all emotions are just tools that we need to learn to master.

Each emotion conveys a message about how we perceive our surroundings. Emotional mastery happens when we accept our perception, assess the validity of the message for us in that situation, and choose an adaptive response

This approach to emotions is adaptive whether we are seeking to master our own emotions or the emotions directed at us by another person.

The Emotions as Tools Model applied to Criticism

Criticism is just a tool which conveys a message about how the individual delivering the criticism perceives the situation.

Our job in mastering criticism  is two-fold.

1. We need to master our own emotional response so that we avoid unnecessarily escalating the interaction and cut off communication
2. We need to master our own emotional response so that we remain open to the possible message of the criticism.

The Basic Relationship Rule (BRR) and Criticism

The BRR states that “Everyone in every situation does the best they can (not the best possible) given their Model of the World (the information they have about the situaiton) and their Skill Sets (the tools they have to engage in the situation they are facing).

Remembering the BRR will help you remain open to the message by attempting, when needed, to understand and avoid judging the individual delivering the criticism (the message).

Understanding the Process of Criticism

There are two aspects of criticism:

How the criticism is delivered (Giving) and how it is received (Taking)

In our discussion so far, I have only addressed the taking aspect of criticism and I would like to explore the important characteristics involved in taking (or receiving criticism).

Regardless of how criticism is delivered (We’ll get to this below.), you always have a choice regarding what you do with the information directed at you.

In the above example of my teaching, I started out with a maladaptive approach to criticism. I avoided it.

Other maladaptive approaches to taking criticism include:

• demeaning the message and defending oneself before assessing the message for any useful content,
• demeaning or attacking the messenger,
• stonewalling,
• superficial acceptance (yes-but)

Approaching criticism from an Emotions as Tools perspective represents as adaptive receiving of criticism and involves:

• maintaining a neutral or inquisitive emotional attitude toward the message
• accepting the message as representative of the perspective of the giver and involves both his Model (how he sees you and the actions you have taken) and his skill sets (the communication tools he can use to get his message across).  This is the BRR.
• assessing the message (regardless of how it is communicated) for any useful content which might help you grow
• choosing how you want to respond to the criticism including taking the person for sharing their thoughts or implementing their suggestions.

Note: You can always come back later, if necessary, and revisit the way the criticism was delivered to you, the impact of the delivery on your relationship with the person criticizing you and other interpersonal issues.

In doing the above, you have mastered the criticism and strategically deployed it as a tool to help you grow.

In case you are interested, there are adaptive and malaptive ways of giving criticism as well.

Adaptive giving of criticism involves:

• being clear that your criticism will be helpful
• using a non-judgmental communication style to deliver the criticism
• avoid blaming or assuming you know their reasons for their actions
• remaining sensitive to both their emotions and your own as you deliver your message
• clearly stating the behavior you are criticizing and what new behavior you wish to see and that they are capable of doing what you are suggesting
• making sure that your message is understood
• successfully “closing” the interaction

Maladaptive giving is

• judgmental,
• accusatory,
• often  non-specific and
• insensitive.

So, the next time someone criticizes you…

• Take a deep breath (or two)
• Take a physical step back from the situation.
• Assess what is going on.

As a long-time reader of this blog, this should sound very familiar to you.