Journey Coaching

The hardest part of healing is recognizing that love and hate go hand in hand.

We have this notion that when we hate someone, we suddenly no longer love them.
That could not be more wrong.

Love, authentic love, does not simply disappear when we are wronged. It doesn’t vanish the moment betrayal enters the room. 

Instead, love settles deep inside us, dormant but alive. It lingers in the quiet spaces, building up walls, weaving protective layers like cobwebs over once-open wounds. True love -the kind that has weathered storms, that has bent but not broken- never truly dies. It just becomes……silent.

Hate, on the other hand, doesn’t go quiet.
Hate screams. It burns and claws and demands attention. It thrashes in our chest like a storm trapped inside a glass bottle. It is loud because it wants to be heard. It wants the world to know that love was damaged. That something sacred…… was violated. That a heart which once gave freely, was ultimately betrayed.

Where there is hate, there is pain.
And where there is pain, there was once love.

We like to pretend love is indestructible, that it’s made of light and poetry and permanence. But it’s not.
Love is resilient, yes. It is patient. It is soft in its persistence.
But love is not unbreakable.

It’s like a diamond-brilliant, stunning, and strong-but under enough pressure, even a diamond can crack.
And when love cracks, it doesn’t just fade away. It shatters into something else. Something sharp. Something that can wound. And that’s when hate steps in-not always as the villain, but sometimes as the bodyguard of our broken love.

The first true step in healing is this:
Recognizing that love is what you gave. Freely. Vulnerably. Boldly.
And the hate you feel is often in response to how carelessly they held what you gave.

Healing requires a brutal kind of honesty-the kind where you sit with your grief and still try to see the person clearly. Not the idealized version. Not the one you created in your head. But the real them. Flawed. Capable. And ultimately, responsible for how they mishandled your love.

And here’s the hardest truth:
You can’t be vicious in your separation.
You can’t weaponize your pain just because they did.
You cannot heal your damaged love with bitterness. That bitterness, that hate-it will only feed itself. It will root deeper. And it will change you.

Unaddressed hate doesn’t just sit still. It grows teeth.
It starts to shape the way you see everything.
You become suspicious of good intentions. Untrusting of kindness. You begin to brace yourself for betrayal even when there’s no threat. You assume the worst, not because people deserve it, but because you’re still bleeding from the last person who made you believe in their best-only to turn around and use your vulnerability as a weapon.

A young friend asked me recently:
“Can I ask you a question? Would you ever forgive him for what he did to you? What would he need to do for you to give him another chance? I’m trying to put myself in the other side’s shoes.”

It was an honest question. Raw. Earnest. From someone who’s healing from his first real heartbreak. (If you’ve read my book, you know how much I believe that first love reshapes us forever.)

And this young friend, he’s someone I care for-someone with the kind of heart the world tries to beat out of men early on. He’s been expected to perform, to achieve, to meet unreachable standards-and then punished for falling short. So yes, I chose my words with intention when I answered.

I said:

“I forgive with change.
When I see someone doing the work-real work-rooted in reflection, self-awareness, and accountability, I lean in. I hold space. I believe in transformation.

But with him-I’m afraid he’s incapable of change.

Not because he’s unworthy of redemption.
But because he’s built his life on doing to others what he did to me.

He took my past-my trauma, my vulnerable truth-and weaponized it for his benefit.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t seek context. He didn’t extend curiosity or compassion.
He rewrote my story to protect his image.

In his profession, this is normalized.
It’s more than just a pattern-it’s a system he’s rewarded for upholding.
It’s not a one-time mistake.
It’s who he’s become.

And that? That is a giant I no longer have the strength or desire to battle.

I spent years trying to show him that people can be different. That not every past is a threat. That not every scar means danger.
What did it get me?
A heartbreak so deep I almost didn’t survive it.

So-would I give him another chance?

If I believed, truly, that he wanted one? That he saw the damage? That he felt the weight of it? Maybe.
But he didn’t blink when he hurt me.
He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t stay.
He walked away from a friendship he once claimed to cherish, without looking back.

I cannot fix what he refuses to discuss.
I cannot reason with what he won’t acknowledge.
And I will not keep showing up to a space where I’ve been made invisible.”

That, finally, is where hate lets go.
Not because the damage didn’t happen-but because I no longer carry the illusion that I can make him understand his role in the hate that screams in my ear.

That, well that maybe was not the answer my young friend hoped for.
But it was honest. It was raw. It was real. And sometimes, the truth doesn’t comfort-it clarifies.

Because healing isn’t about making things pretty.
It’s about making things clear.
It’s about knowing when to open the door again, and when to recognize that someone has already burned the foundation it once stood on.

And this is the truth I now stand in:

Here is where the real healing begins:

Love is the result of what we give someone.
Hate is the result of how they treated us-whether it was intentional or a byproduct of their own pain.

Healing is separating the two.
Naming what’s theirs to own.
Owning what’s ours to release.

It is not easy.
But it is necessary.
Because hate is too heavy a burden to carry through a life that still holds so much beauty.

Let it go-not for them.
But for you.

So you can live.
So you can love again.
Freely.
And without fear.

With all of my love!

xoxoxo J