Therapy Can be Speedy & Clear. Trust Stutz.
Therapy Can be Speedy & Clear. Trust Stutz.
This article will help you in handling mental health immensely. The wisdom of a great psychiatrist Phil Stutz is here to help.
In a consistent blogging journey, publishing valuable content weekly is tricky. Tension builds slowly; concerns over value pulls you while consistency in publishing pushes you to keep driving. Moreover, a single study theme for the whole year, i.e. human nature in my case, is like driving on even a narrower road. If only publishing was a priority, lots of content is out there. Now the task is constrained; and constraints breed creativity. Not to mention that I’ve a full-time job, self-cooking on weekdays. The goal is to deeply understand the nuances of writing, and also to test my affinity to it, within these constraints.
Limiting myself to just reading books won't do. Wisdom can be inhaled through lectures and videos too, of which there is a rainstorm in our era. It’s high-octane mental gymnastics for our minds to choose from a gamut on our jailors i.e. phones- oh sorry! our smartphones- which are de-smarting us.
We all can relate to the buttery ride into the endless loops of shorts or reels, no TikTok in India sadly, only to reel from their dopamine damaging, unsatisfying and guilt-ridden afterthought having wasted minutes and hours. If succumbing to the digital life becomes inevitable, it’s wiser to succumb to valuable content. This lit wisdom made me make notes of even documentaries or TV shows I find worthwhile. Aim is to strangle excessive leisurely and aimless consumption to add life to sensible consumption.
Netflix Show: Stutz
The show is a conversation between Jonah Hill, a celebrity wrung by mental health issues, and his therapist Phil Stutz, a renowned psychiatrist. It offers handy tools to face bad times. Jonah’s candid talk with Stutz about his personal issues is memorable and adding to this are little sprinklers from Stutz’s on own life.
One aspect where this show moves you poignantly, yet empowering you, is when Stutz explains his tools with drawing, given his Parkinsons it must be his preferred method, which fills you with melancholic courage to keep skating through life while it’s breaking ice for you. Someone whose mind is pained by nature paints its nature.
A poetic irony!
Ideas for Mental Health
Stutz does not like the neutral position perspective by the shrinks (psychiatrists) because it lengthens the recovery and weakens the hope. He aims for speed in therapy. Idea is to not be a witness of your patients’ condition neutrally by giving them ample time to open up and share, but actively engage with them like a coach with a plan. People generally go to therapists to open up in private and share their primal disturbances.
Shrinks & friends are crucial to handle mental health.
Some go to friends if they are true,
others to therapists, but such are few.
shrinks offer ear with profound listening,
friends offer advice with good intention,
It’s best, though, the OTHER WAY AROUND.
The tools that Stutz offer bridge the gap between ‘issue’ and ‘cure’ by promising to give real time results and change in mental states.
Tool 1- LIFE FORCE
First step is finding your WHY to get you through any HOW.
There are 03 levels of life force- body, people, yourself- in that order. (Imagine a triangle horizontally divided into 03 parts with ‘body force’ at base with the most space and goes up.) Body force has an 85% role to help you start to feel better. This includes staying active and keeping it healthy.
People force is crucial because it’s only social connections that help you learn and be better. Sometimes you hurt people or get hurt by them. Address the underlying issues without wasting too much time in your mind because people force is a ship that sails fast. This is the harder part: opening up, forgiving someone, seeking their help etc. Our own mindset wants us to go into the opposite directions.
The last life force is yourself where you develop your passion, compassion (fo4 self) or vocation which helps you gain value and life satisfaction as finding out what to do is quite a journey and figuring it out eventually makes you stronger.
Tool 2- Part ‘X’
I like the name first of all.
Mr. ‘X’ is that villain part of you which represents the voice of impossibility and invokes primal fears. It is the judgemental and antisocial part of you which keeps you from figuring out yourself and growing better.
It’s not possible to get rid of it. You can temporarily beat it. It’s primal and is there for a reason. Without it there is nothing to go against and fight during which you learn and grow and emerge a winner.
Tool 3- Three Aspects of Reality
Pain
Uncertainty
Constant Work
Failure and vulnerability are like a connector which connects you to the world.
Vulnerability is the only move forward.
Tool 4- String of Pearls
Imagine a pearl of round beads where each bead has equal value. These beads reflect the action you take towards your goal on a daily basis. This could be in the direction of your life-force or facing three realities of life.
Tool 5- The Shadow
This is that part of yourself you want to hide from the world, the part which you wish shouldn’t have been the part in the first place.
Shadow could be your guilt, fate, condition or circumstance.
But now it’s going to be there.
Shadow only seeks your attention and does not want anything from the world. It wants to keep you from the future you who is ideal.
It wants you to accept it.
Tool 6- The Snapshot
This is also known as the realm of illusion.
This illusion is like a see-saw between your growth towards your ideal life- family, job, status- and the ignorance about the three hard realities of life which one tends to forget often.
The drive towards your ideal life controls you, which is good if balanced, but there is a hidden danger of you also forgetting that sometimes you would face pain, uncertainty, and constant work which could build burden, resentment and further pain.
The key is to be mindful about the aspect that along your journey you would have to face and beat various challenges and one has to practice a little bit of stoicism to always be aware of the sea-saw by imagining potential pitfalls ahead.
Tool 7- The Maze
This always concerns other people.
A product of Part-’X’.
Stutz says that ‘X’ keeps you from moving forward till some fairness or justice is meted out to you but this doesn’t always happen.
Nor should one actually aim to settle the equation with someone.
Many times, this comes unnecessarily.
The key is to move forward emotionally or even hurt because the next tool will take care of you.
Tool 8- Active Love
This is the solution to the Maze above.
Send visualized love, in your mind, to the person you hate/hold a grudge against.
You do this to make you feel whole and not for the other person.
Use tragedy to win over emotional block and underlying belief rather than hating specifically. (Stutz’s mother hated men, because her husband was indifferent to her presence or worth, so she led her traumatic past to never be scared of men but she stayed in the maze.)
Tool 9- Radical Acceptance
Jonah had an anxiety attack at night and he had a shot the next day. Instead of getting even more anxious about not sleeping properly, he practiced radical acceptance and used ‘lack of sleep’ time to do ideating for the shoot next day.
Tool 10- Grateful Flow
This refers to positive thought flow.
Gratefulness, when practiced, pierces through the emotional black clouds like a ray of sunlight.
It is not about repetitively saying all the grateful list things again and again but to just be creative with the act and let those tiny rays take care of the surrounding clouds.
The Part ‘X’ may come around like an obstacle which hinders your power to be grateful.
Tool 11- Loss Processing
It can also be called the “Potency of non-attachment” i.e. to pursue something without being attached to it.
The only mantra to practice this is to repeatedly say “I’m willing to lose everything” silently and wholeheartedly.
The goal is not to be confused with being completely unattached, but to know that no one thing or person takes away your whole. It’s like whenever you lose someone, a part of you is also lost with them but not your ability to love and cherish them in your memories.
Stutz show is a life changer with brilliant tools and a wonderful portrayal. This is one of those lessons which you don't need anything else to add to. The tool list is complete. Only action is required. Over the years, it doesn't matter how much self-help wisdom one acquires, it all boils down to these points. Rest of the specific knowledge one gains here and there acts more like a footnote to the above tools which touches basic aspects of being human.
I feel great about learning these and now sharing with you all. Action and theory should go hand in hand if I'm to dedicate this year in making a better us.
I hope it helps!