"Unlike love, compassion, kindness, and self-acceptance, hate is seductive. Fueled by adrenaline, it has an amphetamine effect - a temporary feeling of confidence, energy, and self-righteousness. Accompanying hate are periods of depression, anxiety, and lethargy, which stimulate more hate to militate out of those terrible moods."
"The precursor to cruelty and destructiveness, hate is slow suicide, with an increasing risk of violence. Socially, it's an emotional virus that spreads virulently, eventually killing its hosts. Once we're seduced, hate becomes a disease of the soul that must be exorcised."
"You almost certainly felt more interest and enjoyment. Positive emotional states probably didn't last long; serotonin and endorphins are not as transformative as adrenaline. But the positive effects on self-value - how much you like yourself and how well you treat yourself - last longer than adrenaline arousal and accumulate over time."
Humans possess dual capacities for both destructiveness and compassion, though choosing compassion over hate is difficult. Hate operates as a seductive emotional state fueled by adrenaline, creating temporary feelings of confidence and self-righteousness, followed by cycles of depression and anxiety that perpetuate more hatred. Unlike positive emotional states from compassion and kindness, which build lasting self-value, hate functions as a disease that damages health, relationships, and spreads socially like a virus. Developing motivation to overcome hate requires remembering periods of compassion and recognizing hate's cumulative damage to well-being and loved ones. Positive emotional states may not provide the intense stimulation of adrenaline, but their effects accumulate over time, strengthening self-regard and interpersonal connections.
#hate-and-emotional-health #compassion-and-self-acceptance #psychological-cycles #personal-transformation
Read at Psychology Today
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