Ruminations and Rationalizations

In this series, our Resident Sage responds to challenges readers are grappling with in their lives. All stories are anonymized for privacy.

This summer has been full of unexpected things happening to me and me trying to make sense of them:

First, I was let go from a job that I was thinking of leaving. I ultimately ended up going to grad school, but I hated that the decision to stop working was made for me versus me deciding to go back to school because it’s what I wanted to do.

Second, my daughter was being scouted by a top, emerging soccer team. Because of a prior commitment that she wanted to keep, we knew she would miss the second week of tryouts. I didn’t tell the coach explicitly that we wanted to accept a spot on the team when he offered it to her after the first week. As a result, she did not get on the team.

While I believe that “things happen for a reason,” I hate it when things “happen to you.” As a result I’m doing some combination of ruminating and rationalizing.

My graduate studies are in psychology, so I tried to apply the ABC Model from Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. This is a tool used to identify irrational thoughts and irrational beliefs to arrive at alternative or balanced thinking that is often more positive than the initial automatic thought. ABCDE can be used as an acronym to frame a situation:

Here is how I’ve framed my situation:

A → Activating event: My daughter did not secure a spot on the premier soccer team.

B→ Beliefs: By not committing her to the team immediately, I ruined this opportunity for her.

C → Consequences: By not making decisions, decisions are being made for me. This leads to all sorts of rationalizations about why this is for the best (“We are on a better team for our lifestyle,”) but still circling and thinking too much about this.

D → Disputation of beliefs: My daughter is still on a great team and this is not the end of the word.

E → Effective new beliefs: Let my daughter take ownership of her goals while giving her context around the decisions she needs to make. For myself, I should be clearer about my goals, learn from my mistakes, and don’t dwell.

So the question came to my mind: what is the healthy balance between rumination and rationalization? Because at some point too much rationalization becomes rumination which makes you unhappy. How do you draw that line?

Choosing between rumination and rationalization is like choosing whether it’s better to be in the frying pan or the fire. I know this isn’t the answer you were expecting, so let me explain:

Rumination is a type of Worry, which is the Alarm Emotion for the Earth element. When we ruminate, our worry is like a broken record: we spin in circles, stuck on the same thought without making any forward progress because we haven’t realized that we need to turn off that Worry alarm. Rumination leaves you in a constant state of asking, “What if…?” because what is is not something you chose deliberately.

In your case, I looked from A to E for your worry, and it wasn’t clearly spelled out. Based on your stated “Effective new beliefs,” there seem to be two possibilities: first, you could be worried that your daughter will not be happy with the soccer team she ends up on; second, it sounds like you feel that you ended up in a situation without actively defining the outcome you were aiming for.

The theme that underlies your new beliefs is a focus on goal-setting and active decision-making, which will certainly help you to prevent future worrying. Rumination and rationalization are both related to feelings of helplessness; rumination occurs when you second-guess your actions (or inactions) as you anticipate an outcome that hasn’t happened yet, while rationalization happens after the outcome has been determined, and you try to make sense of it. When you set your sights on a clear goal and work towards it with intention, you will relieve yourself of both rumination and rationalization.

While rationalization doesn’t have the negative connotation that rumination has, I want to caution against relying on it to alleviate your worry. When you tell yourself, “Things happen for a reason, even if I don’t know the reason,” you are relinquishing your power by resigning yourself to the idea that outcomes are out of your control. This is not true; how you act does affect the outcome of events. If you rely on rationalization, you may not be motivated to act in a thoughtful and deliberate way in the future.

You arrived at a reasonable conclusion based on a map provided by Western Psychology. Here is how the globe of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) gets you to your destination:

As I mentioned earlier, Worry is an Alarm Emotion that indicates an imbalance in your Earth element, which is the element of care. I suspect that as her mother, you want to care for your daughter so that she is happy and balanced. Let’s examine the four criteria of a successful Care Cycle between you and your daughter.

First, did you provide the right type of care? I would say yes, you facilitated her attending tryouts for the elite soccer team she wanted to join.

Second, did you provide the right amount? Again I would say yes, since although she only went to one week of tryouts rather than two, she was the one who decided to skip the second week.

Third, did you provide the care at the right time, when she needed it? Yes, you supported her to try out when the coach decided to form this team.

Fourth, did you apply any force on your daughter? No, you didn’t coerce her into trying out for a team that she was not interested in.

So where did your rumination come from? Probably from not closing the Care Cycle with your daughter, which involves receiving her gratitude. She may have thanked you, but did you accept her thanks for the care you gave her, or was it dismissed? For whatever reason, if you didn’t register her gratitude, then you will be stuck worrying that you did not do the right thing to provide your daughter with care. Once you hear your daughter say, “Thank you,” (which I’m sure she did) and internalize her gratitude, then you can turn off your worry because you will know you’ve met her needs.

If you don’t recognize Worry as an alarm that should prompt you to examine your Care Cycles, then you don’t have the power to change anything because you don’t have awareness of what you might need to change. This is when you get bogged down with rumination (in TCM, your Earth is boggy). The solution to solving a boggy Earth is to introduce Wood, the element of power. Therefore, to prevent rumination, you must exercise your power (i.e., set goals and pursue them with intention). I hope this helps you steer clear of ruminations and rationalizations in the future.

-E