Shame, Regret, and Hate

Edited on 11/6/23.

On this journey I have learned just how important it is to work through and honor your emotions. I learned that there is never an emotion that shouldn’t be observed and respected by the person that is holding it. Although I hold this strong belief, I will not let myself hold onto shame, regret, or hate. I believe these are very real emotions that need to be acknowledged, felt and worked through. They are very real indicators of where not to go back to in life, who to not trust with your heart, what parts of yourself needs most attention from you. But most important of all, I believe they need to be released once you work through these things. I feel like they can become trapped in the body and spirit and affect the path you are paving for yourself. I had the prior misconception that I couldn’t let myself feel these emotions at all. That is why I love the premise of this blog, because I actively come back to my posts and change them after taking in more information over time.

I do still believe these emotions will consume you. Consume your years, your existence, your joy, consume your whole being.

After working through regret, transmuting it into learning and remembering. Taking that event and making it a mile marker of where to never go again. Never forgetting, but not dwelling either. Not letting it consume your being.

After working through shame, transmuting it into accountability and graciousness. Reminding yourself that we are imperfect, having grace on yourself, keeping your head held high while not tolerating those things from yourself any longer.

After working through hate, transmuting it into acceptance and letting go. This one seems to be harder to do at times. I was always taught that forgiveness is more so for you, than it is for the other person. I find this to be true because more times than not, people aren’t aware of how they hurt you, or they just simply don’t care. They are unaffected by how they treated you. Let’s say they are affected; truthfully it isn’t by your hate that you hold for them. It is usually by the dissatisfaction that they hold for themselves. The release of hatred doesn’t release them from what they have done. It releases the weight that YOU carry, from what they have done. I mean we’ve all been there, the position where someone has done something, continues to do something, has made a choice you don’t agree with, or acts in some type of way that makes you writhe in disapproval. It makes our blood rise to the top of our skin, our stomach drops to the bottom of our torso, and we can feel the heaviness of hatred set into our eyes. It is hard to break a human emotion that raw.

The goal is not to allow any external entity to have that much control over you and your happiness. When it gets to that point, you’ve gifted them too much control. This isn’t to say you cannot be angry with them or their choices, that is healthy. But holding onto that anger and letting it fester into hate forever tends to do more harm than good to the self. The honest matter of the fact is that we kind of hope that it will damage them, but it never does. It only damages us.

The price of holding onto hatred is your happiness, and honestly anything that costs you that is just too damn expensive. Getting to a place where you are so unshakable and unbreakable to anything outside of yourself is a place of eternal strength and peace.

This also doesn’t mean you have to tolerate people’s bad behaviors and actions. It doesn’t mean you have to be happy with what they do, and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to keep space for them in your life. In fact, it doesn’t mean any of those things. You can simultaneously forgive someone, and still not hold space for them in your life. Forgiveness only lifts the weight off your shoulders, it releases the hold they have on you.

All of it is easier said than done, of course. Life breaks us so much at times, to the point where we think that is its sole purpose at times. Reality, circumstance, and people… break us. It takes rewiring the brain, it takes constant work through those breaking points, it takes time. But working through and letting go of these three emotions and replacing them with more constructive ones – can lead down a much more beneficial path.

I hope to get better at this myself, and if anyone is reading out there would like to bounce ideas off eachother on how - please don't hesitate to reach out.

All of my love,

Nicole