“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
—Kahlil Gibran
Phil Stutz is the psychotherapist who was featured in the Jonah Hill movie, Stutz. I saw this movie years ago when it came out. Stutz is insightful yet approachable and shares the key principles to his therapeutic work in this documentary. One of his key bits of wisdom was something he calls The Life Force Pyramid. This pyramid has three layers: Body, Others, Self.
To begin, Stutz believes that 85% of the early progress he sees in his patients is achieved as a result of deep focus on the first foundational layer of the pyramid: Body—sleep, movement, diet. This is the base layer that supports everything else. I couldn’t agree more: we can’t show up for any other part of our lives if our attention to the basic building blocks of our personal power—exercise, sleep and nutrition—are ignored. To me, this is the best and most useful takeaway from the Stutz Pyramid.
Where Stutz’s pyramid gets complicated is the second level, which he designates as “relationship to others.” Specifically, our connection to those around us and in our lives. Essentially, the idea is that we come to know ourselves through our relationship to others. Stutz argues that self-work can become a trap which is why he leaves “self” to the top of the pyramid as the final stage. While I understand Stutz’s reasoning, I disagree with the sequencing of Stutz’ Life Force Pyramid and here’s why.
His third level, and the top of his pyramid, is Self. Self-awareness. Conscious exploration of our own baggage; unpacking and becoming a fully integrated human. This should be level two, not three. However, my gripe with the sequencing might have more to do with the actual structure of a pyramid rather than the Stutz hierarchical layout of Body, Others and Self in that ascending order. In other words, the way we actually do inner-work is not in a vacuum. Unless we literally are devoid of relationships in our lives, both of those parts of our lives should be working together; not one before the other, but in unison, like gears.
Can you say that a car engine needs to have oil and gas more than a transmission? Not really. All of the components of an engine need to be in place in order for the engine to work efficiently. Without the oil and gas the engine won’t work, but without a functioning transmission, no amount of gas and oil will get that engine running. The same can be said for inner work and relationships to others.
So here’s how I would reframe Stutz Life Force Pyramid. I would call it the Life Force Engine.
Once I am fully grounded in the body—with the big three, sleep, food and exercise all on lock—only then am I able to fully engage in therapeutic work. Now I have an engine that can actually move me effectively. Whether we should place a premium on self-discovery or on connection with others as the second component does’t really matter. With an engine, all components have to be engaged and optimized for the engine to run efficiently.
If we adjust the Stutz’ Pyramid of Life it makes sense to begin with the body, graduate to the self (psycho-spiritual evolution) and then merge in relationship to others. Our capacity as humans to connect with each other relies entirely on the stability we create in body and mind. From my perspective, the impact of our personal relationships on our psychological development is inextricably related. Stutz asserts that we can’t truly develop as humans outside of relationship. I agree. A pyramid, as a basis for symbology, doesn’t serve the gear-like nature of self-study and relationships nearly as well as an engine. However, if we are going to look at these three aspects of Body, Others and Self through the architecture of a pyramid, I still believe that our primary responsibility is to study the self. It is through that self-awareness that we begin to find deeper connection to others.
This week’s Meditation: On a 10 count, tune in on your Pyramid of Life; is it optimized? Are there areas of your Body foundation that need to be tweaked? Are there elements of your self-inquiry that have been on cruise control? I know for myself, it has been a long time since I have done any focused therapy work. I think it would pay huge dividends to return to inner work and calibrate some of the layers that have accumulated. I don’t think that any of this is much different than chiropractic adjustments along the way if you have a stable practice. Most of the time, if you have built a strong pyramid, the on-going maintenance of the layers of that pyramid requires periodic tweaks and resets in order to continue to optimize all aspects of our lives. Tune in to your layers of your pyramid and see where any edits need to be made.
Have a great week brotha!
