conclusion jumping

I struggled intensely with depression for a few years; I went through the motions of diagnosis, medication, and therapy and what I learned was profound.  Having been introduced to Cognitive Behavior Therapy during this season, I was instructed on the illogic of conclusion jumping. CBT taught me when emotionally and intellectually in a depressed state of mind, I was led to making a lot of assumptions and jumping to a lot of conclusions.  And these results led to chaos, pain, rejection, and sickness.  Mental sickness.  Emotional sickness.  Spiritual sickness. Physical sickness.

My mind would cycle in a process of assumption, conclusion, and depression.  Again and again, I'd whip around this torrent of emotion.  I was a mess.  Often the experience would go something like this. I feel bad.  Someone looks at me.  I think they hate me.  I feel worse.

This would happen again and again.  I'd assess a situation.  I'd wrongly conclude based on limited data.  I would be even worse off than before.

I see this kind of thinking rampant all around us.  We, sinners by nature, take a few pieces of information and conclusion jump. TV Shows are famous for this, it's funny!  Movies and books are written, telling stories of two characters perceiving and concluding and the results are disastrous. Romeo thought Juliet was died.  So he died.  She awoke.  Tragedy!

The less we conclude, the more we ask questions, the less we judge, the more we love...ultimately, that's what God has called us to do.