The Life-Counselling Tripod

My sister is very wise. Sadly she’s decided not to be a counsellor so in order to benefit from her wisdom you have to know her personally. Because she’s too busy being a comedy shepherd to write a blog (she’s actually an agent for comedians but comedy shepherd is a funnier title).

I interviewed her over email on her tripod theory of life because I really think she’s on to something. The first question I ask was:

“What’s tripod theory of life you have then?”

The tripod of life is an idea I came across when I was in my first job out of university. It was a job that I loved (and a career I’ve pursued ever since). But once the excitement of the promotion from student to young professional wore off I realized having a job is hard work! I loved the line of work I was (am) in but after a couple of years I realized it was probably time for me to take the next step and move on to another company as things weren’t quite right there. I found myself feeling unusually anxious and stressed at the thought of making that leap to something new.

How could it cause me THAT much stress? I’m a smart, well educated confident person who’d had a great start to the working world, I can find another job surely, why the major panic? It wasn’t until I sat down with a friend and talked about it in relation to the rest of my life that I really understood where all this anxiety was coming from…..

We deduced that there are key element in life that stabilize us and give us security. They are Home/Family,  Relationship  and Work. These three things make up the TRIPOD OF LIFE.

The tripod stands firm with all three of its prongs grounded. This is when things are great, you have a happy relationship and lovely warm home and fulfilling work (whatever that may be, charity, being a mum or running a multi-national corporation)

Two grounded prongs is OK, we can handle this because even though one of those key elements may be up in the air we’ve got two prongs keeping us stabilized and giving us the strength and foundation to work towards securing or resolving the thing that toppled that prong.

With only one grounded prong we feel pretty wonky and with all 3 prongs kicked out from under us we can buckle completely.

You see at this time, I needed to get out of my current job, I was trying to sell my flat and find somewhere to live and a new person to live with and I was trying to come to terms with a gut wrenching end to what was already a very difficult long distance relationship. NO WONDER I was feeling so anxious!

All three prongs had pinged away from underneath me.

Once I managed to rationalize this I found it so much easier to identify and manage my anxiety. And with some serious talking to myself was able to replant my tripod. Pod by pod by pod.

When I broke it down like that. Everything seemed so much more possible. Three really is the magic number!

(This is the part where I was meant to ask another question, but basically I thought she summed up the whole thing so well, I couldn’t really think of one. See…I told you she was wise. I’m a lucky person to have her as my sister!)

I guess the only thing I might add to my sister’s super-cool tripod of life is our physical health. I love her tripod because what she’s focusing on here is our emotional health and I’m all about emotional health and well-being. But it’s also important to pay attention to our physical health – eating right, taking exercise and getting enough sleep is an integral part of emotional health too!

So thanks to my sister I hope you guys will refelct on your own “tripods” and maybe think about whether one prong is looking a little unstable.

Last year I had a really tough tripod moment when my flat got very badly flooded from above and I was forced to move out for 4 months and I found myself dating men who wanted different things me – very frustrating. My only solid prong was my wonderful counselling work. Once I worked on sorting out those two prongs, I felt much more grounded again.

Have you had any tripod moments? Post in comments!

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