8 Things I Learned from Phil Stutz, Jonah Hill’s Therapist on How to Deal With Our Minds

It was just another Friday afternoon, and I was going through my email inbox to check if any important emails needed my attention. Suddenly, I noticed an email from Tim Ferriss, someone I admire, in my inbox. He is known for sending out his famous “5 Bullet Friday” newsletter every week.

While reading an email, Tim mentioned that his friend recommended him to watch a show called Stutz on Netflix. Initially, Tim seemed hesitant to try it. Still, he ended his email with a strong recommendation for everyone to give it a shot. Intrigued, I decided to watch it myself.

I recall seeing Stutz briefly on my Netflix new releases, but I was ignorant and skeptical. I didn’t watch it because the trailer was not descriptive.

Stutz is Jonah Hill’s Netflix documentary, which tells insightful stories into the mind of his therapist, renowned psychiatrist Phil Stutz. Today, Stutz, 75, is still working on his very successful psychiatric career and continuing his work as an author and public speaker.

Stutz founded a concept called The Tool, which can be used to deal with any life circumstances. As his client, the tool greatly impacted Hill’s personal growth; hence, the documentary was purposefully created to spread the idea about the tool and how it can help anyone improve their lives.

The tool can change your state of mind immediately to give you rays of hope as it wipes out any sadness or depression you are feeling now. In his career, many of his clients found themselves complaining in his office by saying that they had no life mission, they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, they had no direction, and they were lazy. This is where depression knocked on the door and haunted their lives.

As I’ve watched the documentary, let’s dive into the mind of Phil Stutz.

Here are 8 things I’ve learned from Phil Stutz, Jonah Hill’s therapist, about how to deal with our minds.

Life Force

According to Stutz, if you are currently dealing with sadness, depression, and losing the sense of life direction, he is convinced that you can always do one thing to work against the problem: activating your life force. Life Force is the only way to understand who you are and find out what you should do when you are lost.

Imagine life force as a pyramid. There are three levels of life force:

1. Relationship between you and your physical body. There are three ways to activate it: to make sure you get your body moving by frequently exercising, get a good diet by being conscious of what you eat, and get enough sleep.
2. Relationship between you and other people. When you are depressed, it can seem like your life is drifting away from you, just like a ship disappearing from the horizon and being pulled away from everything you hold dear. To maintain healthy relationships with others, you need to take the initiative and reach out to your friends and family. Waiting for them to contact you can be counterproductive, so start by inviting someone to lunch to build a connection with them. This small step can have a positive impact on your mental health.
3. Relationship between you and yourself. It would be best if you dive into your unconscious. One way to do it is by writing. It’s magical to do with writing because you can enhance your relationship with yourself. But what should I write? It doesn’t matter. Write anything. Stare a blank paper or document, let things come in, and it will come out eventually.

Part X

Part X is a judgemental part of you, the antisocial one. It’s your shadow, an invincible force that wants to keep you from changing or growing. Its job is to block your evolution and potential. It is the voice of impossibility. It’s the villain in yourself. This voice in your head wants you to lose, making you scared of doing what you are supposed to be doing.

There are three aspects of reality in dealing with Part X: pain, uncertainty, and constant work. You can’t remove Part X from your life as it remains there for the rest of your life and the aspects of reality. But you can tone them down.

Part X is The Joker to Batman. It is Thanos to Avengers. It is Magneto to Professor X. It is Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker. It is Voldemort to Harry Potter.

Imagine there’s no villain in the world. The superhero will be out of the job. The same is true for your life. If there’s no Part X, then none of you will have growth anymore. There will be no progress. Treat Part X as the dark side part of you. The never-ending battle inside all of us. We need the negativity to grow. It can break or bring the best out of yourself by returning stronger every time it hits you in the face!

Strings of Pearls

Strings of pearls represent a series of your life actions that show you are in control of your life. Every action has an equal value despite each outcome, both good and bad. Today’s action might be a disaster, while tomorrow would be a miracle. The string symbolizes your perseverance and determination to keep moving forward, regardless of what life throws. Your string of pearls serves as proof of your character, regardless of how you describe yourself. For instance, if you choose to get out of bed despite facing a life-sized problem, it shows that you are consistent and do not shy away from challenges.

The winner does not always make the best decision or look the best. The winner is the one who works on the cycle of life, both good and bad. They are the ones who are willing to take the risks and eat the consequences.

The Shadow

Everyone has a shadow. It is the part of you that you are ashamed of. To know the shadow, you need to be able to find it, to see through it, and to focus on it.

Here’s one way to find out:

Visualize a time in your life when you felt inferior, embarrassed, rejected, and sad that you’re ashamed of it. It’s the part of you that you wish you were not, but you are, and not only that, you can’t get rid of it.

The next question is, what are you doing with your shadow in your present?

The shadow needs attention but doesn’t need attention from the world. It needs attention merely from you. You need to be able to make peace with your shadow because you’ve ignored them for so long. The best approach is to embrace your shadow by acknowledging that it is integral to who you are.

The Maze

The maze is the analogy for being stuck in the past. Some people couldn’t move past it. It’s like living in an isolated and cloudy maze garden where you can’t see beyond it as if the sun doesn’t shine its light.

You’d know some people saying, “I’ll move on past this if they make up their mistakes.” You don’t realize that your quest for fairness put your life on hold. Your time is fleeting. You shouldn’t have time for this shit.

The expectation to get paid back makes your life miserable. You shouldn’t expect someone else to pay you back. You should be getting it from yourself by exercising active love.

The act of active love is like giving love to the people who hurt you by forgiving them. You hold nothing back. You give everything to them. You also need to realize that you do this for your own peace, not for them, so you can leave your prison to move on with your life.

Radical Acceptance

Radical Acceptance is about getting back up after life hits you in the face. It’s about finding meaning in any events in your life by squeezing the juice out by saying something like, “Okay, now what am i going to do about it?” to get away from a lot of negativity by fighting its way back to the surface.

Grateful Flow

When you feel unhappy, it can be likened to a black cloud blocking the sun’s warmth. How can you remove that cloud and allow positivity to enter your life? According to Stutz, gratitude is the key that unlocks the path to happiness. Gratitude helps you to overcome any negative thoughts that may be clouding your mind, and the Grateful Flow involves cultivating a sense of focused appreciation within yourself.

Loss Processing

Dealing with loss and grief can be challenging for most people, even before the loss occurs. According to Stutz, embracing non-attachment can be powerful. In other words, you should fearlessly pursue the things you want and teach yourself to be unafraid of letting them go.

As Buddha said:

Attachment is the root cause of suffering.

It’s best not to become attached to anything because, eventually, it will have control over you. It will dictate how you live, impacting your happiness and sadness and potentially making your life miserable. If you become attached to something and it disappears, it can cause your whole life to fall apart because you’ve given it the power to own your well-being. No one, and nothing, should have such power over you; you should be in charge of your own life.

P.S. This post was originally published on Fitgeist.