Bigotry is about as far away from self-awareness as you can get. It means living a closed, scared, reactive life that doesn’t do anybody any good, including the person being a bigot. I thought I’d write on this difficult subject because I really care about people being able to love themselves and others. There is a lot of hurt in our world and there are countless valuable individuals who are literally living in fear, pain, and rage instead of enjoying their time on this earth. I hope this article will help someone out there feel better about himself or herself and decide to live a life of joy. To start off, here are fifteen ways to tell you’re a bigot:
- You can’t stand when someone disagrees with your beliefs or views.
- You get angry or violent toward people who aren’t like you.
- You live constantly angry at other people.
- You have difficulty being vulnerable around other people and are trying to keep them from seeing the real you and hurting you.
- You hate people who are different from you.
- You prejudge people before you get to know them.
- You hate people because of any number of things including how they look, talk, dress, worship (or not), or any other number of reasons.
- Only your opinions matter.
- You have difficulty accepting everyone.
- You feel powerless inside and act super tough to cover for it, or try to take away other people’s power.
- You feel threatened by others.
- You have seen people give you a scared look when you tell them about your views.
- You believe in striking first before they strike at you.
- Conflict seems to find you.
- You don’t ever really feel happy inside, even if you say you are.
The reason this subject means so much to me is that I’ve personally seen so many wonderful people give their lives away to hate and toxicity. They go from being human beings full of potential to angry creatures who hurt others. The good news about bigotry is that it’s not a lifelong commitment, you can choose to move in a more positive direction at any time by doing things like:
- Building self-awareness by understanding where your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors come.
- Healing the hurts from your childhood.
- Living a life of love and compassion.
- Getting to know as many different kinds of people as possible and enjoying everything they have to offer.
- Realizing how great life is when you’re free of fear or hate.
- Understanding how much you matter and how important it is for you to find what makes you happy deep inside instead of living a life where you’re constantly getting angry at outside things.
- Having the courage to go see a therapist to help you along the way.
- Surrounding yourself with people who are soft, kind, compassionate, caring, accepting, and who will value the new you.
- Taking action to do nice things for others every day.
- Resolving to help build a better world for everyone.
- Doing the things you really love in life.
- Discovering the real you and celebrating yourself.
Look at both these lists and honestly ask yourself which one might feel better. In my experience, its the path of love and kindness that always leads to better results. It will take a lot of work to shift your old emotions, thoughts, and behaviors but the reward is that you’ll get to live a life of self-awareness, peace, and happiness. I wish you all the best on your journey, I know you can do it.
What will you do to develop self-awareness and move past bigotry?
Cheers,
Guy