In the middle of a recent Cam Church sermon, a hater showed up in the chat. They told me the jig was up. That nobody was watching anymore. That I’d lost my chance and should throw in the towel. They didn’t even spell my name right.
If you put anything into the world, a business, art, a YouTube channel, a strong opinion, you’ll meet haters. And our brains are built to take them seriously. In a well-known 2001 review titled “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues found that negative experiences and feedback tend to hit us harder and stick longer than positive ones. One mean comment can drown out a hundred kind ones.
So here’s how I handle them. It’s simple, but it changes everything.
Step one: feel into it
When a hateful comment comes in, don’t react right away. Don’t fire back, and don’t scroll past and pretend it didn’t land. Instead, pause and feel into your feeling state.
Ask yourself: does any part of this resonate? Is there anything in me that believes this, even a little? Notice what happens in your body. A tightening in your chest, a flush of heat, a sinking stomach: those are signals. A shrug and a feeling of “huh, weird” is a signal too.
Someone in my chat summed up the whole practice in three words: acknowledgment and introspection. Acknowledge the comment. Then look inward. What you find decides what you do next.
When nothing resonates: it’s projection
When I read that comment in the chat, I felt nothing. Truly nothing. It was almost like reading someone else’s chat. I don’t hold any of those beliefs about myself, so the words had nothing to hook into.
That’s the first gift of feeling into it. When nothing resonates, there’s no work for you to do. The comment isn’t really about you. It’s a projection.
So I got curious: why would someone write that? The likeliest answer is that I’m triggering them. There’s something inside their own psyche they feel insecure about, and attacking me makes them feel a little better for a moment. (And sometimes, let’s be honest, it’s a bot or a paid op.) Either way, it’s information about them, not you.
When it stings: it’s a part asking for attention
I’m not free of insecurity. Nobody is. If that commenter had named one of my real insecurities, I would have felt it. Oof, you got me there.
And that’s okay. That sting is an opportunity. When a comment hits a nerve, it’s because there’s a part of you that already believes it, a place inside where you don’t feel safe. The hater just shone a flashlight on it.
So turn toward that part instead of toward the hater. Ask: why did that hit a nerve? What limitation or resistance am I holding here? Where did I learn to believe this about myself? Then collaborate with that part. Help it understand that you’re safe, and work out what would help it feel safe for real.
Someone in chat asked how to release your self-image from other people’s projections without detaching from people entirely. This is how. You don’t wall yourself off from feedback. You let it show you where your own healing is waiting, and once that part is integrated, the same words lose their power.
We’re all haters sometimes
Here’s the humbling part: I’ve been the hater too. A while back, the founder of Dude Wipes showed up on my TikTok, cheerfully announcing that his company was making a million dollars a day. I spiraled. Dude Wipes? Seriously? I’m over here trying to save the world, and this is what makes a million dollars a day? I left a comment admitting I was mostly just jealous. He replied that the simplest ideas are the best.
That’s where hating comes from. You see something that isn’t supposed to exist in your reality, and you can’t handle it. It threatens a story you’ve been telling yourself about how the world works, or about what you’re allowed to have.
The same thing happens with long-held resentments. There’s a famously successful creator I’ve felt triggered by for years. When I finally looked at why, I saw that I’d cast her as an enemy who had everything handed to her, which meant that if I ever became successful, I’d be the very thing I resented. My hating was keeping me small. Once I integrated it, she stopped being a villain and became a mirror.
So when you meet a hater, remember: you’ve been one. Haters are part of the process. Hating can even be a form of community building, a way of signaling who your people are. It’s human. It just isn’t the end of the story.
Send love, and keep going
So here’s the whole practice:
- Pause. Don’t react right away.
- Feel into it. Does any part of this resonate?
- If nothing resonates, it’s projection. There’s no work for you to do. Send that person love; they’re probably hurting.
- If it stings, thank the comment for the flashlight. Turn inward, find the part that believes it, and help that part feel safe.
- Remember you’ve been a hater too, and let that soften your response.
And then keep going. Keep making your art, building your business, preaching your truth. The more you integrate, the fewer comments will hook you, until one day a hater shows up and it feels like reading someone else’s chat.
That’s not detachment. That’s freedom.
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