Righting the Pyramid
Every so often a self-help tidbit shows up in an unexpected place and hits the mark. It resonates and maybe even contributes to an “aha” moment. My most recent one came in the form of an email entitled, “6 Mental Health Tips Psychologists Use.” Six psychologists from around the country shared their best practice for maintaining or improving mental health. A familiar list: meditation, exercise, time in nature, time with friends, and connecting to a purpose. All solid ideas and each would make a significant difference in our lives if we practiced them regularly. It seems, though, that the editors saved the best for last. Thomas Doherty, a psychologist in Oregon, shared his concept, “Righting the Pyramid.”
In his practice, Dr. Doherty has noticed a significant increase in people feeling overwhelmed by societal and global issues largely outside of their control, such as racial injustice, inflation, political upheavals, overseas wars, climate change, and more. In fact, it’s quite common. His patients’ anxiety and despair seems to wax and wane with the changing news cycles. While he understands and empathizes with them, he responds by asking a simple question, “Is your pyramid upside down?”
Dr. Doherty’s observation is that our pyramid of resources and concerns is too often flipped for many of us. We’re balancing our lives on the point of too few resources, such as health practices (sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc.), and the weight of the world has become the broad part of the pyramid balancing precariously over it. What if we flipped it? To right the pyramid, we need the bottom of the pyramid consisting of health practices and other self-care resources to be long and broad, and to have the remainder of the pyramid, which is made up of our life and world concerns, resting on this solid base. He further encourages his patients to keep adding bricks of self-care to this solid base. In addition to health practices common to all of us, he encourages us to wholeheartedly develop our unique interests and passions. For some of us, it will be creating art or making music; for others, it will be gardening or cooking; and the list is as long as our unique personalities. As he notes, “Life is long, there’s a lot to work on. If you take care to have a secure base over time, you’ll be able to tackle the big things at the apex of the pyramid.”
Imagine your pyramid right now and consider the bricks you might add, replace, or strengthen to make your base secure. There’s no end to the world’s problems – and there’s only one you.
6 mental health tips psychologists use (APA website, Nov 2022).
