Yes, They Hate You, They Really Hate You

I have a friend who lives on flowers and rainbows. She is so selfless, she often forgets to eat. She believes World War II could have been avoided if Adolph Hitler had been given a few more hugs when he was a boy. In one pocket she carries treats for dogs; in the other, stickers for small children. And in the past week, two different people, under two different circumstances, expressed their most utter contempt for her. One has worked with her for two years; the other had known her for only a few minutes – and they both hate her with a passion. And in both cases, the more she tried to alleviate the situation with her attempts to understand where the other person was coming from… well it just made everything even worse.

This proves one thing: no one can escape the dark spectre of deep animosity. Not my kind-hearted friend, not Mother Teresa, not the Dalai Lama, not you, and certainly not me.

For writers, who put their hearts and minds into print, or into the ether via blogs and social media, the amount of negativity we subject ourselves to can be formidable. More, perhaps, than most people would imagine. And in a cruel twist of irony, the more of your heart and soul you put into your work, the more likely you are to attract the ire of a few unwanted members of your audience.

Marshall McLuhan once said, “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.”

Today, this includes blogs and social media, obviously. None of us put our butts, our hearts and our minds out into the ether to have them handed back to us torn to pieces, but it does happen. It happens a lot. If it has happened to you, it will happen again. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, then you haven’t been writing often enough, or deeply enough.

5 Tips For Dealing With Hateful Comments

1. Be Honest with Yourself. Before completely brushing off negativity, ask yourself if there is any truth behind what they are reacting to.
2. Understand It’s not You. When people react to you, they are not really seeing you. They are looking at you through the dark glass of their own ego. Most of what they see in you is generally a reflection of themselves.
3. Understand you Cannot Understand. Human beings are complex creatures. Whatever you said that invoked the ire of someone else, is almost always just the last straw in their day. Someone yelled at them for no good reason, someone cut them off at an intersection. Your words reminded them of something they despise in themselves, or an action they once took and now regret…. there are thousands of possibilities.
4. Keep your Karma. It is usually best not to react at all to hateful comments. If you need to respond, respond the same way you would to an angry child or spouse. That is, respond with love and understanding. Often, a kind response on your part will result in an explanation and an apology from the other person.
5. Move Forward. Don’t dwell on hateful comments. Get on with your life and focus on positive feedback you’ve received. For every one person who sends you a hateful comment, there are at least ten who quietly nodded with approval at your work. (Trust me, I once did a survey afterwards.) If you’ve not received positive feedback lately, ask people through your social networks for feedback. Tell them you received a hateful comment and ask for a hug.

The world around you always responds to change. If you are making people think, making them question themselves, making them feel things in themselves they have not felt before, the laws of the universe require that you will receive some negativity in return. Remember the words of Winston Churchill:

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

I’d love to know how you respond to hateful comments. Please share!

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1. A Guide to Self-Actualized Marketing

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