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🎧 Episode #68 Being Hateful is Incompatible with Being Whole — Lessons My Mama Taught Me (Part 5)
Today, I’m reflecting on the 5th lesson my mother taught me: being hateful is incompatible with being whole. The episode begins with a spoken-word piece about the distances we travel to understand that what separates us on the surface often dissolves when we look more closely.
In this deeply personal episode, I share the story of my mother—a white woman raised in a small, religious town—who chose love over prejudice when she married a Black man in the late 1950s and refused to hide her family to satisfy the expectations of others.
Her decision reshaped not only her life, but mine as well. At this time in our history, marked by hate and division, looking back can stir a host of emotions. I go all the way back to 1845 to the words of Frederick Douglass to draw parallels about the long history of professing hateful values under a veil of “Christianity.”
But at its core, this episode asks a simple but challenging question: What kind of life can we build if we refuse to let hate take root in our hearts?
Check out episode #68 and explore my mom's 5th lesson – that being hateful is incompatible with being whole.
💭Key Takeaways from this Episode:
- Hate and wholeness cannot live in the same heart. When we allow resentment, prejudice, or anger to take root, we limit our ability to grow, connect, and live fully. Wholeness requires acceptance, compassion, and a willingness to see beyond our differences.
- True values are revealed through action. Claiming values like kindness, faith, or morality costs us something – it’s harder to do when it pushes up against convention and popular opinion. But living by conviction rather than social expectation has its own rewards. Ones that extend past your own life and into the lives of others.
- Courage can require us to stand alone. We may feel isolated or afraid, but building our life on integrity rather than conformity will reward us tenfold.
- Acceptance is a creative, expansive way to live. When we let go of the need to judge or categorize others, we open space for curiosity, creativity, and connection. Acceptance expands our ability to learn, grow, and build meaningful, rich relationships.
Vellumed Eyes
By Jill Hodge
There can be mountains of distance in the details
Each peak tells a story
You want to love me as I am, to bridge the gap between us
How I wear my clothes
the way I speak
The shade that I reside in
But you can’t latch on because you were bred to
See the difference, to name it, study its edges
And make decisions about visible signs
While turning a blind eye as the outer shell falls away
But what lies beneath the differences turns out to be
The way we tell a story
The flavor of ice cream we prefer
The humming sound we make when angry
The glow of our eyes when joyful
All of it so random, so unseeable with vellumed eyes
There can be oceans of solace between us
If only we see with just eyes, eyes that are just
Justice isn’t a thing we can hold
Like a heart, it beats and pulses to nourish the rest
But it’s fragile, and so it lives protected by the chest
And it knows what it knows not by seeing
But by sifting and cycling through feelings
By loving and pushing across the coordinates of east and west
To find a match
And when it does, we never ask the heart how it knows
We only know which way the love comes and which one it chose
Journal Prompts to Explore How Acceptance Keeps You Whole
Here are some journal prompts to help let go of hateful or hurtful thoughts. Write or reflect on these prompts, and explore how your acceptance keeps you whole.
Show me a hateful person, and I will show you a person who is not living up to their potential, who is not working toward being whole. They have gaps, ethical and moral ones, that hold them back as much as their hate holds someone else back. For in the end, it is not about whether you have as much as your neighbor, it is about whether your actions and beliefs align with how much love you can hold in your heart for those neighbors. Being hateful is incompatible with being whole. That is the 5th lesson my mom taught me.🌞
Podcast Music: My thanks to all the musicians who make incredible music and have the courage to put it out into the world. All music and sound effects for my podcast are sourced and licensed for use via Soundstripe.
Songs in this podcast episode: The Games We Play by Nu Alkemi$t; Some Kind of Wonderful by Nu Alkemi$t; Con Sazón by In This World
Related Episodes:
Giving Without Expectation – Lessons My Mama Taught Me (Part 4) - Episode 67
Take Notice of Little, Beautiful Things — Lessons My Mama Taught Me (Part 3) - Episode #66
Recognize the Good in Others — Lessons My Mama Taught Me (Part 2) – Episode #65
Let People Know You Love Them — Lessons My Mama Taught Me (Part 1) – Episode #64
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Journaling Resources
Jill Hodge
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Jill Hodge
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