Conclusions and Consequences

 

Conclusions and consequences

When I taught ESL I had a lesson about the conjunctions “so” and “because”, using arrows to show the direction of the causalities and when the various verb tenses work. For example “I have a stomach ache<---because I ate too much.”  Or: “I ate too much,--->so I have a stomach-ache.”

In one of my early morning “I-got-up-to-let the-cat-out-and-now-I can’t-get-back-to-sleep-so-let’s-see-what-I-can-worry-about-now” sessions, this struck me as a way of sorting out some of the cognitive distortions that sometimes plague me and certain people of my acquaintance.

To get back to the stomach ache, if you take the because side back a few notches – I have a stomach ache because I ate too much. I ate too much because I don’t pay attention to my body signals. I don’t pay attention to my body signals because I hate my body. I hate my body because it’s fat. It’s fat because I eat too much – a total vicious cycle! The only fact in all of this is the stomach ache. The rest are all conclusions requiring various degrees of leaps.

If, on the other hand, you take the so or consequential side and follow it up, you move toward the future and are able to make better choices down the road –I ate too much so I have a stomach ache, so I’ll take some antacid and next time I’ll watch what I eat so I can stop just before I feel full or I’ll limit what’s on my plate and not have seconds, etc., etc.

Let’s try it with the old “Nobody came to my birthday party” scenario:

Conclusions: Nobody came to my birthday party because nobody loves me, because I am unlovable, because I’m a terrible person, because my parents screwed me up, because God hates me…if you tack a so on the end of this string of leapt-to conclusions, you get a consequence not based on fact: so I might as well go out in the garden and eat worms, or so I guess I’ll leap off the nearest tall building.

 Consequences: Nobody came to my birthday party, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to celebrate; maybe I need to find some new friends, or figure out a better way of issuing invitations next time…It’s all geared at acceptance of the actual fact (nobody did come), and moving on.

At this point, my “Because/So” self-therapy is just an easy-to-remember way of working through a bad bit by becoming aware of the “because-because-because” self-defeating chain and the “so-so-so” focus on possibilities.

Because it works; so go and try it!