Your Healing Role After a Divisive Election Season

I am not writing to you as a Republican or a Democrat, a Christian or a non-Christian, nor as a Clinton or Trump supporter. I write to you as an American, a woman, a wife, a daughter, a lover of mankind. I am writing to you because I believe in the power of love and life, and the ability to overcome and grow in all situations.

This year we have experienced more racism from all races, more shootings from all sides of the country, and more disgraceful behavior from both political parties than we have seen in a very long time. These things didn’t happen because somebody was racist or somebody was a liar, or whatever label you want to put on these people. It was because we, as a nation, created this.

We created this unsafe, un-accepting, judgmental year.

We brought on the evil and the hatred by feeding into constant negativity. We’ve done this by filling our screens, social media and memes with taunting, mocking and disgust toward our politicians, our cops, blacks, whites, Hispanics, Christians, Muslims, Syrians, gays, transgenders, Republicans, Democrats, pumpkin spice latte drinkers, cat lovers, zoo owners, parents who hover over their children, parents who don’t watch their children close enough, people who are ugly, people who are pretty, those who speak out, those who sit on the sidelines, Kimye fans, Kimye haters, people who hunt for sport, people who are vegan or vegetarian, meat lovers and Pokemon catchers.

We have chosen hate. Every chance that we have been given. With every trend, every story—good or bad—we choose over and over again to tear each other down and build a bigger divide. This election, these candidates, this president, they are just the icing on the cake.

I am ashamed of who we have become, and how we are teaching others to view us.

The world is watching us, as we tear each other apart, divide our country into two and drill our new leader into the ground. They are watching as we speak hatred among ourselves and reject the very system we have worked so hard to build. And they are learning that we aren’t loyal or kind and continuously choose fighting over peace.

The media is watching us as we choose negative stories over positive ones. They see us latching onto the reality TV shows, false ideals and horrible stories. They are learning that if they feed us negativity or celebrities (or even better—negative celebrities) we will eat it up, promote it and put power behind it. They are watching as we choose to emphasize the worst of things over the positive joyful news that exists around us.

Your children are watching you. They watch as hate seeps out of your pores and into your phone calls, and onto your Facebook page. They watch you spew the name of disgust and judgment upon other human beings. They watch as you stand a hypocrite to the belief system you have tried to teach them for so many years. These kids are watching you. And the exact thing that you disagree with is the exact thing you are teaching them to become. They are learning that if someone disagrees with them then it is OK to call them horrible names, tear them down and reject them.

The nations are watching, the media is watching, our kids are watching, and they are all giving us the exact life we are telling them that we want.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: “Darkness can’t drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate can’t drive out hate; only love can do that.”

You cannot fight hate with hate, as it only breeds more hate. You are the hate. You are cultivating the hate, encouraging and bringing more abundance to it. We must fight hate with love. It is the only solution. Love harder, and stop letting hate win.