Hate Outlets: “Defenders” of Ellen DeGeneres and Paul McCartney

Hate Outlets: “Defenders” of Ellen DeGeneres and Paul McCartney There’s something striking that two 2007 star-centered public gossip spectacles had in common: an outpouring of hate. When Ellen deGeneres spoke of the dog Izzy being removed from the home in which she placed him, the women who gave Izzy to Ellen, and who had written into the contract that she was to return him to them if she didn’t want to keep him, received an astonishing and sickening deluge of hate-filled accusations and threats when they insisted on removing Izzy from the new home. Similarly, in the process of Paul McCartney’s messy divorce from wife Heather, Heather also received a flood of hate-filled “communication.” What’s going on here? To me, people clearly are not dealing with their own feelings of hate close to home and, instead, are displacing it onto distant targets. Now, don’t get me wrong: hating is normal. And displacing it onto “safer” targets than yourself, your mate, your mother, father or sibling is necessary. But how does one displace it? That’s the key question. First, when you hate anyone or anything, even if just for a moment, you are dangerous. If you suppress the hate, it leaks toxicity inside you. If you throw it at someone else, you spread the toxicity. So, first, recognize your “dangerousness”. Then, act dangerous in some safe, even silly, way. Let it out. When you find yourself thinking attacking and hating thoughts, attack items that are fair game for recycling—junk mail, old magazines, weeds in the garden, useless junk in storage…instead of attacking others in either thought or deed. Or write out your hateful thoughts, rip up the paper, and then write again about what similar things, closer to home, you also hate. And add the why. In addition, whenever you “vent” hatefully about anything, no matter how trivial, question yourself as to what pain and rational hate lies underneath your passion. Whenever you hate at anyone or anything, something truly is wrong in your life. That’s what the transforming emotion of hate is trying to tell you. What’s wrong can be anything that is causing you pain or any situation in which you feel helpless to make a healthy change. Discovery is the payoff. Hating on something far from your issues is good if you don’t do harm in the process. It can help you go searching for what’s really the matter, closer to home. DR SHARON SAYS: When you hate, don’t devastate. First regulate. Then excavate. Then articulate. Finally, activate. Intend to form a good plan to improve your life in win-win ways for you and those who are wronging you.

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