Tearing down or building up?

I've already mentioned that we are doing work on our house right now. We've put the basement on hold for a bit while the weather is nice enough to work outside (AKA, before it gets so blasted hot outside). This weekend we decided to get ambitious and put a fence in the side of our yard. Well, there has been a row of bushes that slowly pushed the previous fence over. So, we pulled out all of the bushes one a time with a chain and Grant's truck. I got to drive. It was definitely the fun part.

We cut down a tree!

It was actually pretty easy to do all of the tearing down. We spent several hours working on it, but it was clear that we had accomplished much at the end of the day! Just like starting the basement, beginning the outdoor projects was fairly quick and without much trouble. I'm sure it will be much more difficult to actually build our yard back up to what we want it to be.

Fast forward to this week. I was praying about how to encourage someone in my life. I often find myself at a loss for how to encourage others when they have little confidence in themselves (whether it be in general or a particular area of their life). Yes, I know I'm a therapist. Trust me, it does not make me a mind reader. In fact, becoming a therapist has opened my eyes to how little I actually know about other people and how much I merely think I know.

As I was quietly pondering and listening for answers, I got an image of the work we've been doing on the house. Tearing down is easy. It's quick and usually doesn't involve a large amount of frustration. It's satisfying to get trees or bushes or walls out of the way. On the other hand, building back up takes a lot of work. It's not very easy. You usually run into many bumps in the road that cause you to backtrack. It takes time...a lot of time. Much more than tearing down takes.

Just like building homes or beautiful landscaping, people are much easier to tear down than to build up. Tearing down takes only a few seconds and can cause days, months, years of setback. Building up is a slow process that includes bumps in the road, time, patience, and love. What if I focused more on not tearing others down? It would prevent unnecessary setbacks. It would encourage others to continue building up and growing.

I've learned that people can only be built up as much as they have confidence in themselves. Words and even actions of others seem to deflect off of us when we don't believe in ourselves. I can't control that for other people, and it can be quite frustrating. But I can prevent myself from tearing them down. I can work to resolve my frustration, anxiety, worry, irritation, anger, lack of patience and all of my other emotions by processing them myself. For me, that can mean journaling, praying, running, or talking with a neutral third party (better to not use names if it's a person you're upset with).

I'm not saying that it's fruitless to build others up. I do that in therapy.

I am saying that it's important to note the vastly destructive nature of tearing others down. We are most vulnerable when we experience heightened emotions. And I need to be attentive to those moments. The moments that a "bit tongue" can mean the difference between tearing someone down, ruining months of progress, or stifling my fleshly feelings to prevent that destruction.