Choose to build rather than destroy.

TL;DR: When lost in destructive thoughts, redirect them toward what you’d like to build instead.

Writing this post as a note to myself.

“Re-build”

I’ve been suffering from anxiety for as long as I can remember, and as I grew up, things got dramatically worse. My anxiety turned into a depression that right now feels like the biggest thunderstorm I’ve ever come across—albeit with the occasional blue skies. Navigating this storm to leave it behind isn’t just a challenge, it feels like a life-or-death passage. I can only hope I’m not moving with the thunderstorm, and that there is in fact a way out of it. Therapy is my navigation app, and I’m starting to think it’s lost signal.

Often, Id watch destructive thoughts take over my mind. They’re not always easy to spot—they disguise themselves as productive thoughts. They feel like real problems worth solving. And my brain loves that: obsessing over problems worth solving. But these aren’t worth obsessing over. They don’t solve anything. Their only aim is destruction.

An obsessive brain like mine is nuclear power. And even if—occasionally—destroying something might be justified, maybe even necessary, it is NEVER a good idea to destroy anything using nuclear power.

Being able to recognize when something needs to be destroyed is a strength. In fact, it’s a strength many people don’t have. They overly protect old things that aren’t doing them any good—and quite often are even doing them real harm. They don’t find the strength to pull the plug. But you are not like that. Many times in your life, you did pull the plug on things that weren’t good for you. You even did it with things that were simply not heading in a good enough direction for you. But that’s not what today is about.

You’ve made decisions others wouldn’t have. You’ve done daring things. And you’ll keep doing that.

Because—your actions—this is who you are.

Your destructive thoughts? They are not who you are.

They often appear as FOMO, Fear, Anger, Frustration, or other anxious feelings. They will try to convince you they won’t leave you alone until you’ve come up with a solution. They will threaten to keep you in pain until you’ve satisfied their destructive cravings. Their problems—the ones they submit you to—are all focused on what needs destroying, not on you. They will make it all about them.

From now on, I want you—not to dismiss them, because they came for a reason and maybe something is worth destroying—but I want you to ask them: What is it that you’d like to exist, that doesn’t exist yet?

You’ll become better at observing your thoughts as something separate from yourself. You’ll consider and accept them, without judgment. But you’ll learn how to evolve them into something productive for you.

You are–very likely–not trapped in your actions. You are only trapped in your own thoughts.

Instead of obsessing over what you could destroy, try obsessing over what you could build. What would that look like? Be as specific, as detailed as you can. Make it beautiful.

Let go of the past. The past is your personal sunk cost. Destroying something won’t give you new energy—it will cost you energy. Sure, the thing you’re considering nuking right now might be draining you, and maybe it would be recharging to get rid of it in the long term. But I’m sure you can shut it down, or put it on low power mode for a while—long enough to come up with new, desirable plans for your future.

There’s a good chance that, with time, the thing worth destroying might just dissolve or evolve by itself. Or the thoughts might tire of waiting for you to nuke it and retire elsewhere. Or maybe, the thing you really want to build instead will benefit from the status quo and come to life faster. And maybe—only as a last resort—destruction will be part of the plan to build the new thing.

Only then, once you aspire to something new, you’ll be able to carefully dispose of the old.

But please, stop nuking everything you’ve built for yourself.