How To Respond To Hate

HOW TO RESPOND TO HATE

I was greeted by texts when I awoke today, from friends outside Canada, checking to see if I was ok, following the latest in my home city’s growing sick affair with gun violence.

I didn’t know WTF – and then I did. An 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl (let’s call this what it is: two kids) are dead, and 13 other people are injured after hateful gunfire last night in Toronto’s vibrant popular Greektown.

Today I biked out to the Banksy exhibit and enjoyed it with my mum. Observing Toronto around me, a somber pall has fallen over our city. And it felt like people were being a little nicer to each other here today.

But it also feels like people want to know what to do. How do we deal with these recurring acts of hate?

How do we deal with all hate?

Of course, we want to know more, every time. Who, we ask, and then, always, we beseech: WHY?

To try to label the hate displayed Sunday in Toronto, or to attempt to pinpoint origins creates confusion and delays solution. Be it LGBT hate, ISIS hate, homeschooled hate, church hate, self hate or any other hate, all hate is hate and can only be transformed with love.

Love energy vibrates at a frequency far greater than that of hate. If you magnify energy, it looks like waves, and those waves are measured in Hertz (Hz), the number of waves per second. When we love we emit high vibrations (.10 – .15 Hz); we literally add voltage and power to the world. When we hate, our vibrational offering is weak: .01 – .08 Hz.

Energy vibrates; vibrations attract. Therefore, the dominant power of love literally draws more love. So “put more love into the world” isn’t just a platitude on social media in the wake of the deeds of a man in unfathomable pain, it’s the fastest, strongest actionable response to Sunday’s tragedy – to any hate – and one we can each harness always.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed from one form to another. What happened in Toronto is an invitation to collectively transform the low-vibe hate energy displayed Sunday with our collective high-vibe love energy. Here’s how to become someone from whom high love vibrations beam:

Within Yourself: Practice loving kindness towards you. Someone who loves themselves is a million times more powerful than someone who doesn’t. The next time you look in the mirror and jump into any old habit of criticizing, stop. Find something to praise, even if at first it is only your willingness to stop criticizing you. Look yourself directly in the eye while looking into the mirror and say aloud “I love you.” This is powerful work – and harder than you expect at first – that creates a love-filled you. Begin to forgive yourself and continue to. Be an aligned person, one who does not speak or act unless they are in a place of high energy; make your alignment your top goal daily.

Within Your Immediate Orbit: Where is the bar set for forgiveness of those in your life? Where is the bar set for judgement? Where is the bar for acceptance? Adjust them so that forgiveness and acceptance have room to grow and thrive, and judgement can barely squeeze through. Listen to others to understand, not just to reply. Speak up when you hear or see hate within your public and private lives, yet stay high-minded as you do so. Tell those you love that you do. Get so good at saying “I love you” that it just rolls off the tongue. Treat each encounter with family, friends and colleagues as sacred. That means putting your smartphone down, looking them in the eye and listening and respecting that this now moment with them is the only thing that matters.

Within The World Around You: Stop casting strangers out of your heart. Those who are not like you in race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, opinion, behaviour, priorities, status or politics still do not give you one justifiable reason to do anything other than be open-hearted. Sameness is not our friend, diversity is. When it comes to others and how you presume them to be, ask yourself: Could I be mistaken? As you make your way through the world and pass people, silently bless them with your heart-based wish for a brilliant day. Commit anonymous acts of kindness. Make it your dominant intention all day every day to look for things to appreciate in everything and everyone you encounter.

It may feel like we live in a world where evil dominates, but there is more light shining throughout our planet at any given moment in time than there is darkness. Precisely as the Toronto shootings occurred, elsewhere around the globe babies were born to joyous, grateful parents, people made love, blissful miraculous happenings occurred in abundance, children screamed with laughter, countless people danced unscathed, acts of worthy good were carried out, grand news was received, and this is constant truth that never goes away, truth that is yours and mine to know whenever either of us needs it.

Don’t suppress the negative emotions you feel, whether they are about the Toronto shootings or anything else you experience that causes you pain. Instead, navigate them towards the greater good of yourself and the world by dialing up the frequency of all the love you have to give us all.

#LivingForLove