Hate in Politics – Division and Stagnation

In today’s world, there is a lot of hate in politics. It is common to see vitriol directed towards the other side of the aisle on the internet, on TV, and conversations about politics. It is common for people to shun acquaintances, friends, and even family. It is also becoming more common to have people threaten violence or be violent towards people of differing political beliefs, from the pipe bombs that were recently sent to prominent Democratic leaders to the 2017 Congressional Baseball shooting.

For what purpose?

Hate does not produce changes in the opinions of others. If someone hates you for your beliefs, the common reaction is to become defensive and double down on your beliefs. So hate isn’t about changing someone’s mind, in fact, it generally has the opposite effect of people becoming more firmly rooted in their stance.

Generally hate is due to close-mindedness, and not being willing to entertain ideas outside of your own. If someone is open to new ideas, then they’d appreciate hearing a different point of view, not turn defensive, hateful, and angry.

Violence also does not achieve a change in opinion. It may change action out of fear for one’s safety, but generally, it inspires backlash and strengthens the group of people and cause at which the violence was directed towards. Neither hate nor violence helps further productive civil discourse, instead, they amplify division and combative relations.

I propose there is a better way for us to collectively operate in politics.

Haters want to divide us. But, we have much more in common with each other than we have apart. Where we differ is how we want to solve the problems that we all face. If we work together we would solve all the problems.

The Core of Politics – Guiding our Future

Working Toward Common Goals

The core of politics is deciding how to guide the larger community, whether it is your local town, state or the country. The goals are the same: a thriving economy, the safety of the citizens, and the freedom to live your life. The political differences boil down to differing tactics for how to work towards achieving those goals. Importantly, we have forgotten what we are working towards and have gotten caught up in the differences and turned towards fighting against.

“We have forgotten what we are working towards and have gotten caught up in the differences and turned towards fighting against.”

It is like we are on a boat embarking on a journey. Half the boat is trying to raise the mast to get to where we need to go, and the other half is trying to cast out a net to catch fish to sustain us on our journey. However, both efforts will be hindered by the other half’s actions. We need to coordinate to get to where we need to go and get the fish to sustain us.

What We Resist Persists

We are one community. We most definitely should have civil discourse, discuss and debate how best to guide the country. However, it much more effective to focus on what we’re moving towards and be willing to find solutions to agree to versus focusing energy on fighting the other side and fighting against differences in opinion. This actually backfires because what we focus our attention on grows and thrives, so by fighting against an idea, you are actually fuelling it.

Let’s take for example Donald Trump and his rise to the Presidency. In the primaries there were many people who vehemently and vocally disagreed with him and what he was saying, and what that produced was a lot of publicity and attention focused on him. That resulted in magnitudes more people hearing his message and many of those people rallying to support him. What people heard, wasn’t why not to listen to his message, they heard his message, and he this gained him support and he then won the primary and then the Presidency.

The people who disagreed with Donald Trump, wanted to raise awareness about what they viewed as his shortcomings, but what other people heard were reasons to support him. What we are seeing here, is only one example of how trying to focus on fighting the other side, actually fueled it.

In metaphysics, what we say, and even think, the universe hears and sends to us. However, negations are not heard. This means if you make a decision to not eat sugar, you may find a lot more sugary treats appearing in your life, at work, at home or at social events. All the universe hears is “sugar” instead of “no sugar.” This is where the saying arises “what you resist persists.” What we focus our attention on is attracted to us and thrives. This is why it is so important to focus on what you want to create and move towards something, versus focusing on what you don’t want because that will be what is created. This means putting things in terms of positive statements like in our example, focus on eating more healthy foods versus less sugar.

Finding What to Move Towards

Politics – A Broken Relationship

In partnerships when decisions need to be made, whether it’s a romantic partnership, business partnership, etc.,  you don’t ignore differing opinions of your partner. You hear them out, listen to their point of view with them doing the same for you, and then you come to an agreement for what to do.

Why do we collectively treat politics differently? Generally not engaging with the other side of the aisle to find an agreement on what to do, and instead simply battling for power between the two sides.

Creating the Best Outcome – Needing Both Parties

Politics is a dance of creation. There is a spectrum with two sides or polarities to it. In Kabbalah, there are also two polarities and each polarity is essential for creation and provides something unique. In politics today, the Democratic Party is one polarity, representing a very giving, nurturing approach to government. The Democrats propose social programs to support the community, advocate for acceptance of others, and change. The Republican Party is the other polarity, representing a more limited and protective approach to Government. The Republicans focus on the security of the borders, reduced regulation, recognition of God and tradition.

On the Tree of Life, the Democratic party aligns with the Spherah of Chesed – the Merciful King who takes care of his people in times of peace, and the Republican party aligns with the Spherah of Geburah – the Warrior King in the chariot, off to battle to defend his people and kingdom. Both are necessary for creation, without the severity of Geburah, the Kingdom would fall, and without the mercy of Chesed, there would be no prosperous kingdom to defend. In fact, Geburah and Chesed balance each other and create in the middle pillar, in Tiphareth, the Spherah of beauty and compassion. Both polarities are necessary for creation, neither is better or worse than the other and if there is not enough of one than the other goes out of balance. In other words, if there is not enough severity, mercy turns into enabling. If there is not enough mercy, severity turns into cruelty.

If we truly understand this, we can see the proposals of the other party as differing tactics and approaches for creation, and understand that both parties bring values that are necessary for a thriving country. We must also use our discernment to understand which proposals and values are in balance and support bettering the country and which are not. Doing this, we can start to see what both parties bring to the table that is unique, that helps bring balance and helps us formulate actions or policies in the middle to work towards.

Politics in our Lives and Relationships

Politics – One Small Part of how we Influence our Reality

We create our lives. We decide which people we want in our lives, we decide what we do with our time, we decide how we act and carry ourselves, and so much more. We should engage on every level available to affect our lives, and be active in creating the life we want. This includes politics. However, for the vast majority of us, politics is one small part of our reality.

What most impacts us, our happiness, joy, and fulfillment, are the things and people that we encounter on a daily or frequent basis. If you’re doing a job you love, if you have self-love, if you have fulfilling relationships, if you have passions you follow, all these impacts you and your life much more significantly than political policies such as tax levels, tariffs, foreign policies, etc.

Voting and participating in politics gives us a chance to voice which policies we believe will create the best results. But, we can’t lose sight of the fact that this is only one way in which we shape our lives. Moreover, most of us don’t do this for a living and therefore, aren’t experts so our opinions are based on the limited time and energy we have to research and form those opinions, and we’re also limited by the information available to us.

Shifting from Judgement to Acceptance

It is common for people to judge others for belonging to a differing political party or who they’ve voted for. It is common for people to unfriend others on Facebook due to differing beliefs, to end friendships, or even shun family members. But politics encompasses so many different issues, it is extremely hard to know why they chose what they did without an in-depth conversation. Because it’s difficult to know the true reasons behind someone’s political decision, assumptions are faulty. Moreover, political views are not what the vast majority of people have a lot of resources to devote to. Are we really going to decide how we view people or even if we include them in our lives, solely on their political views, especially when political policies have a relatively small impact on our lives?

What if we shift to a state of politics when we recognize engaging in politics simply as an opportunity to voice beliefs about how to better the country and work together collectively to achieve that goal?

I propose that we’d end up with much better, stronger policy proposals. Right now, the state of politics is so divided, we have each side operating in silos and producing ideas in echo chambers of agreement. We do not give an opportunity for criticism, to allow room to look critically at proposals and to readjust and improve based off of that feedback. Echo chambers produce more extreme and flawed proposals; we need outside and differing perspectives to strengthen ideas.

We are One Community, One Country

Division Creates Lose-Lose for Everyone

We are one community, one country. By having a dynamic of “it’s us against them,” there will always be a war going on inside the country and in politics. Instead of building something better, our energies are focused on tearing each other down and “defeating” the other. However, there really is no defeating the other nor is there any winning. There is only lose-lose. For, having an antagonistic dynamic, just means that any progress or headway one political party makes when they have power in the Government, the other will undo when the tides change and they get control. We’re seeing that now with President Trump undoing many of the policies that President Obama enacted, from leaving the Paris Climate Agreement to rolling back business regulations to withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, just to name a few.

Working as a Unified Force – How We Reach Our Goals

By working together, hearing what the majority of people want, focusing on what the majority of us agrees on, we create a unified force that will work together towards making a better country. We need to find a way to come together, focusing on what unites us, seeing the benefits the other side has to offer, and creating an atmosphere of true cooperation.

There is the famous saying “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” and this is very apt. If we continue in this way, we will make very slow, if any, progress in improving this country and expend much of our energy in fights and disagreements; energy that could otherwise be used in a more productive manner to help us achieve the goals we all want.

Politics to Personal Life

Healing Yourself

There is a metaphysical saying “As within, so without. As without so within.” In other words, the inner world is mirrored in the outer world and vice versa. This means that since collectively, the realm of politics is one of hate, adversary, and division, then on the individual level, inside of each of us is hate, adversary and division. The question arises then, what parts of yourself do you dislike, shun or ignore? What parts of yourself aren’t you accepting or perhaps even acknowledging?

If we lived in a world, where everyone was living in alignment with who they really are, fully aware and accepting of themselves, then we would not have the hatred in politics we see today. Hatred and anger stem from sadness, grief, and wounding that has not healed. If you find yourself becoming angry or hateful, ask yourself where this feeling originates from, when in your past did you first feel this? But understanding where this feeling comes from, you can heal and shift. Some helpful tools like meditation, specifically the Sanctuary Meditation taught by the Modern Mystery School, really help in uncovering where anger and hate originate from and healing that trauma from your past. Doing this, helps you be more present, centered, and let go of repeating negative patterns tied to this wounding.

Compassion for Others

Importantly, recognize the wounding in others. Everyone, whatever choice they make, they generally believe that what they’re choosing is the right thing to do and have reasons for their choice. So, if someone is choosing to say or do something hateful, or believes something politically that you strongly disagree with, venture to understand why they might be making that choice, and why they might believe that is the best thing to do. It is likely that they had some sort of trauma when they were younger, and their choice now is directly due to a pattern they created as a result of that trauma. Have compassion for others. This does not mean enabling them or avoid addressing the issue, but it can mean helping them to see the pattern and then perhaps them choosing to shift. By having compassion, understanding that we all have patterns from times we were hurt as children, we can better assist each other and ourselves in letting go of these patterns and choosing wiser actions.

What you can do

If the outer world reflects the inner world, the best thing you can do is to start healing your inner world. Find ways to accept all of yourself, heal past traumas, and understand who you truly are. Doing this will also help you move towards a life filled with love, joy, and fulfillment.

Extremely effective ways to do this are found in the ancient Lineage of King Salomon, brought to the public by the Modern Mystery School. There are metaphysical modalities and teachings that assist you in this healing and empowerment. Universal Kabbalah is extremely effective at helping people to see themselves clearly, see how they are preventing themselves from creating the life they want, and understanding how to create effectively and from a place of balance.

Overall, if we are to make any progress as a society. If we are to achieve the shared goals of a thriving, prosperous community where we are free and safe to live our lives, we must shift how we approach politics. We need to find a new way of being, of cooperation and acting as a unified force. We need to work towards finding win-win solutions for everyone, and we need to recognize the value that different perspectives bring to the table. Shifting this collective pattern starts by shifting yourself; how you approach politics and healing patterns of anger and hate within yourself.

If any of this resonates with you or if you’d like to know more. Please reach out to me, I am happy to discuss this further. My contact information can be found at the bottom of this article.

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