Taming My Inner Hyde: How to Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

My husband and I enjoy watching the show Wednesday.  It’s the scariest show I can watch without having nightmares.  I can relate to Enid, I find Wednesday’s character amusing, and the story is objectively quite interesting.  As an added bonus, for my husband and I the show is a nice change from our lighter choices of Nobody Wants This and Big Bang Theory.

In Wednesday, one of the villianish characters is a Hyde, an “outcast”.  Though not inherently a villain in their human form, Hydes are born with an anomaly that causes them to turn into a revolting monster. In their monster form, they cause quite a bit of death and destruction.  A fan Wiki describes them as:

Chaotic and unpredictable, Hydes are highly aggressive monsters that make no distinctions between normies, other outcasts, or even animals and will blindly attack and kill them all the same.

My Inner Hyde

At the gym today, I realized I have an inner Hyde.  

I was attending a yoga class.  A friend whom I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade walked in.  We connected almost 15 years ago through our then babies, who became fast friends.  We were quite close for a few years, then drifted apart when our children started kindergarten and made friendships through their schools.  

The moment I laid my eyes on her, my Hyde came out.  This beautiful person whom I was very close to for years I suddenly wanted to tear to pieces.  

Chaotic and unpredictable, highly aggressive monster.

Yup, that’s me.

Not the First Time…

My Hyde has come out to attack various people over my lifetime.  These attacks seem to correlate to my focus area of growth at that given phase of my life.  Whatever I am pushing away/judging in myself, I notice in others and I attempt to dispatch it promptly (in them).  

Right now, I’m healing that part of me that I refer to as my “Fierce Momma” side.  A side that was perfectly and beautifully captured by exhibit A: Yoga friend.

And thus, out came the Hyde.

Taming the Hyde

Within a day, my Hyde had receded. I had turned inward and healed my own inner darkness.  I had accepted my anger at myself, recognizing my own shadow.  

We all have these shadows, these pieces of ourselves that we have still to reconcile with.  And yet, until we do that inner work, we attempt to excavate those bits from others instead.

Taking the Log Out of Your Own Eye

It’s almost like Jesus was onto something when he suggested, in Matthew 7:3-5, to take the log out of your own eye before trying to take the spec out of your neighbor’s.

Instead of trying to take the spec out of my neighbor’s eye, my Hyde would like to take out my neighbor completely instead. Jesus’ direction to do the inner work is crucial to saving our neighbors from our Hydes.

The Golden Rule

Jesus’ second piece of advice to rooting out the Hyde is the golden rule, echoed in the Lord’s Prayer.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.  

The wisdom is here as that we cannot forgive others for what we have not forgiven in ourselves. We can only extend love out to others to the extent that we can extend it within to ourselves, that is, the extent that we can accept God’s unconditional love for us.

My children display this so clearly. When they are frustrated with themselves, they tend to lash out at me, my husband, and each other. When they are feeling on top of the world, they are the kindest humans on the planet. We MUST see ourselves as whole and loved to extend this to others.

Self-Sabotage

The alternative to genuine self-love, the acceptance of God’s love for self, is projection of judgment. This projection of judgment onto others is not only others destructive but also self-destructive.

The interesting thing about Hydes is that with every transformation into the monster, it weakens the human, usually leading to a premature death.  You see, while we are so busy shredding others, we are dying inside.

The next time your inner hyde makes an appearance, pause.

What is it that you are trying to tear out?  

Is there any chance, even if it’s only a fraction in size of what you see in the “victim of the day”, that this quality or behavior is within you as well?

The Alternative: Love

Allow Jesus to hold you and love you in your mess.  See the innocent, scared child within you.   Listen as the Holy Spirit shows you how He sees you. Perfectly created, an innocent child learning the ways of love. Just as a toddler’s wobbling first steps and tumbles are treasured by their parents, your missteps and imperfections are held in love by your creator.

Even the harder pieces to love are used for good by God.

Perhaps God will use your weakness as a means of transforming someone else.  Some of my worst traits have spurred others on to be “not like me”.  I’ll eat that piece of humble pie and love that trait in me for the light it brought to those souls.  

And the other terrible bits of us…well, maybe they aren’t so terrible after all.  Look at who Jesus surrounded himself with and whom he trusted to begin his church.  God uses us sometimes because of our rough edges, not in spite of them.  

The only quality that He really needs in you is your willingness to learn from Him.

Let that inner Hyde be a sign that you need time at the feet of first the Healer, then the Teacher.  

Perhaps, just as it happened with me, when you love your shadow and let God transform it, you will love that in others as well.