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Here's the situation as I see it. No one is satisfied in our culture. The institutions, they're all cracking. The only thing is the whole culture is designed so you don't realize that.
Today I'm joined by Phil Stutz, a psychiatrist whose unorthodox approach to personal transformation and self-betterment has earned him renowned as one of the most beloved and sought after shrinks in Hollywood whose client list is a virtual who's who of celebrated creatives, CEOs, and high performers across a myriad of disciplines.
If you saw the Netflix documentary Stutz, then you already know that what makes Phil different is extreme directness, a willingness to confront conventional ideals around happiness, a focus on discipline to action to dismantle negative thought patterns and drive immediate change, in other words pragmatism, and the importance of connection with higher forces spirituality. It's all underscored by a refusal to let his personal battle with Parkinson's impede his need to help others.
This is a conversation about all of that. It's about self-love, emotional independence, balancing individualism and collective responsibility. It's also about finding higher meaning and navigating life's challenges and why spiritual growth and interconnectedness are fundamental aspects of personal development. Phil is a national treasure gifted as you will soon discover with an uncanny X-ray-like ability to see people as they truly are. And this conversation is simply one I will never forget.
I always get nervous before these things and you were sharing how you get nervous as a public speaker. And for some reason I'm like acutely more nervous than normal. I don't know what that is or why. I think it speaks to some perfectionism control issues that I have because I intentionally I didn't want to be over prepared because I wanted to just sit with you and allow it to be whatever it wants to be, which is a bit of a tight rope walk.
It's a deeper surrender and letting go. But I felt like that would make for a more organic and authentic and kind of hopefully emotionally resonant experience. Well, here's the situation as I see it. The old models of therapy and a lot of the old models about human nature are wrong. There's a particularly a particularly wrong now. And the reason is no one is satisfied in our culture, no one.
So you have a lot of people, almost everybody feeling they didn't get paid, so to speak. And the dissatisfaction is only going to grow in the reason is human beings only can feel satisfaction if they're co-creating with the higher forces. It's not like a philosophy or something I figured out is just what I've observed. That's that. And that's the secret. That's, you know, the thing is secret. This is the real secret.
You'll never be satisfied if you're doing something in a completely isolated manner. Well, I think there's a lot packed into that. I think there's a sort of twofold thing operating, one of which is the fact that we've seen the kind of denigration of faith organizations in America. And with that comes a lack of spiritual conviction and some kind of tether to something bigger than ourselves.
And then layered on top of that is this ethos of America, which is based on rugged individualism. We're all out for ourselves. What can I get? How can I, you know, gird my lines with as much material goods for the sake of power and material accumulation.
That comes at the cost of collective responsibility or, you know, fidelity to something that is larger than ourselves. So I think those two things in concert are sort of at the rot of this lack of connection that we have to something greater than ourselves.
When you look at the mental health crisis that's metastasizing right now with the epidemic of loneliness and the increased rates of self harm and depression and the like, it's no mystery when you kind of unpack what's at the foundation of our current cultural moment.
Yeah, the only thing is the whole culture is designed so you don't realize that. I'm as materialistic as the next person, but what is what happened was that when I was a kid psychiatrist that was being trained, you see the other guys and what they would do and how they handle their patients. And basically what I saw was no change, but what pissed me off of you more was people would come in and we go through the psychoanalytic thing. This was the cause, blah, blah.
And then we let them leave with nothing holding their dicks. And at that age, I was even more rebellious than I am now. And it offended me. I was doing everything else getting high, whatever, but that that that was too much for me. And that that really set me off in a path because I was very dissolution as I sense you must have been at times. Yeah, I've been in a variety of therapeutic modalities for, you know, I don't know, 30 years at this point. Where are you from?
I grew up in Washington, DC. I've lived in Los Angeles for a long time, though. And I have a story of addiction and recovery and have been a recovery for a long time was in therapy prior to recovery and have been in therapy ever since, you know, 12 step AA is like my main thing.
I also am involved in men's groups and in therapy myself, but I've had that experience of being with a therapist or a psychiatrist where the practitioner is a neutral observer. And you're just there spinning your yarn for, you know, just months on end and never seeming to get kind of any guidance or council or relief.
You realize this early and often and have a very different approach to the people that you work with. Yeah, I mean, part of the ethos of what I do is you never let the person lead without something. It could be a tool. It could be just a sense of hope. It could be relating differently to the world, but something that they can actually do.
And I'm a little shaky today. I'll say this we're going to get a drawing. Am I going to be allowed to keep the drawing? We'll see. We'll see you do. I don't think there's going to be a drawing because my fucking. That's all right. We got all the time in the world. Okay. But we got a pyramid here with two lines through the middle. Yeah. So, so this is the right pathway to look at the world as far as I'm concerned. And I have to do with faith. The bottom of this thing is like it's called faith.
Now, and people don't understand what faith is. People want to have faith because it's proven to them, which is impossible. The idea is you have to choose to have faith for no reason without proof and without anything. If you do that, then you can act, which is a second level of the thing. And then once you can act, then you become confident. See, people think that they can act until they become confidence. And it's not true at all. It's it's it's point. It's just wanting to paralyze them.
So faith at the foundation of the pyramid, yeah, action in the middle. Yeah, confidence at the top. Yeah, and your confidence isn't about any one result. That's the disaster. Look at it like that. The confidence comes because you know, you're going to repeat the pattern over and over and over again. You have to choose to have faith. And some of the tools are just to help you in that direction.
And the tools all being action oriented because action is the engine of whatever sort of emotional result you're aiming towards as opposed to upside down, which is the way that most people. Yeah, I can't believe you said that. Yeah. Yes, that's that's right. Upside down would be well would be an upside down pyramid. And technically at the bottom of it. I never thought about this before. At the bottom would be the ego. Oh, and nothing is true unless you can prove it to me.
Now, that's the opposite of faith, which is I believe something that's not a stupid faith like, you know, following a cult leader or something. But the downward thing says prove it to me. And technically, it should be I accept nothing until it's proven. And then if I succeed, I think I'm smarter than God. Yeah. So we should meet you get nothing. Right. At the end of that equation, there's still no room for faith.
There's still no room specifically. Yeah. And and and in a culture in which, you know, faith has been relegated to, you know, the purview of the, you know, sort of outliers or is not really part of how we consider our world. Because we over index and over prioritize rationality and intellectualization of everything. We see less and less people who have the openness to kind of entertain anything that is beyond our capacity to understand.
So I would imagine in your practice over many years, you've had occasion to sit with people who need help, who want help and are willing to do all the things except when it comes to the higher power part or the faith part, God part, right.
And you see this all the time in a or 12 step, like I just look, I need to get sober like the higher power thing, you can forget about that because people, a lot of people have trauma over the way they were raised and whatever experiences they had and whatever faith organization that ultimately turned them off to it, which makes that an even harder, you know, sort of thing to bridge with people. So how do you work with people who are so resistant to that idea?
Well, I would say a couple of different ways. One is just how determined I am. In a sense, they say, you know, now I'm famous, so it helps even. Big time. Thank you. But it was always the same. I would look at the guy and I would say, I wouldn't say I'm going to cure you. I wouldn't say that, but I would say I'm a stubborn fuck which I am. And I'm going to stay in this process with you as long as you're willing to stay in it.
And don't believe a word. I say, I don't care if you believe it through what I tell you and then judge it for yourself. If you're not getting a result that makes you feel like there's some progress fire me. In fact, I insist that you fire me. And it's much more persuasive. You got to mean it obviously. But I'll tell you about yourself. Can I do that? Yeah. Okay. This is what I'm here for.
It's so weird, you know, because of the electronic world. And I don't know. You probably have what a million people listen to. I don't know. It's just you and me. Right, right, right. I feel that I'm all ears, Phil. You are so articulate and so smart and so committed to whatever it is that you're where you're going. But this is this line you haven't been able to cross. I guess that's the best way to see that.
Yeah. That's very perceptive. Now you sound like my wife. This is what my wife is always telling me because I can get trapped. The ego will trap me in my skill as somebody who has some verbal acuity, but it becomes a barrier to growth and expansion. Yeah. And as much as I have evolved and embraced spirituality and mystic concepts into my life, I have not done so to the extent that I think I need or I owe to myself to continue that growth. And I would fully admit to that.
So this is an ongoing conversation. My wife is a much more deeply committed spiritually than I am. And it can be a sense of tension because she can see exactly what you just what you just pointed out. Yeah. I wonder if we shouldn't talk a little bit more about it. A lot of information. I think of it as two centers of wisdom or just of the true ones here. And that's obviously intellectual and requires proof and has logic and and ones here. Now this one right and I'm pointing right to the heart.
Yeah. This one ultimately it's very hard for us to understand it doesn't lend itself to specific conclusions in other words what you really want to do is you want to enter the unconscious on a deeper level, but you can't do that and know what the fuck is going on at the same time. It's impossible. In fact, the fact that you think you know what's going on itself becomes an obstacle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have this thing, the three unavoidables.
And it's unavoidable if you want to grow for any human being to accept reality and reality says there's going to be pain. There's going to be uncertainty and there's going to be the demand for you to work consistently for the rest of your life. I don't give a shit if you own a whole country makes no difference. And semi related to that is death. And the people that have a fear of death.
It's good to look around. I said to them look around every human being you see around you and there your brothers because we're going to die together in this sense I'm talking about. We were chatting before the podcast and you were kind of jokingly sharing how you know because of the documentary you're in the public sphere in a certain way and have a level of notoriety that is a new experience for you in the last couple of years.
And I was sharing with you how I've sort of reached a you know a level where I get recognized occasionally, but I feel better equipped to handle it than I would have a handful of years ago because of a bunch of the work that I've done because I'm not disillusioned by this snapshot idea that arriving at a certain place is going to absolve me of all of my pain.
And no matter how far you get, there's still going to be pain. There's still going to be uncertainty and there will still be the necessity for you know constant work. But despite that, you know, I still like most people and convinced that if I just get to that next level or get that thing that I'm going to be just fine and all my problems are going to go away and part of your practice and working with a lot of high profile people is disabusing them of that notion.
And those three principles are sort of the medicine and the self right like doesn't matter how rich you are, how powerful, how famous. There will still be pain, there will still be uncertainty and there will still be the necessity for constant work. That's true. Is that what you were getting at? Fuck you. Yeah, like the idea of the pyramid being upside down.
No, it's brilliant. Yes, it's exactly right. So a lot of this stuff in our culture is to people are selling stuff all the time and what they're selling you is follow me or buy this product or whatever it is. You're exonerated from the you get it popped out. Yeah, you get a pass and that's one of the worst things that's going on. I would say post world war to it's really gotten out of hand and some of that also for me has to do with the economics of it.
If I make less this year, it has no consequence. It's not, but what the people, you know, at our level, I financially don't understand what you understand obviously is that the guy who is works maybe he makes $69,000 a year he works as a person is a good person. If he works around in terror that his kid is going to get sick, fucking terror, which brings us to because I'm like half one world and half in the other world, I can see it from both points of view.
I don't know the exact numbers, but it's easily easily I would say 30, 40% of the population now and that's just an example of other things that are happening which means the institutions that we've always relied on and we felt well, the safety here. There's somebody on my team of you, they're all cracking and they're all corrupt and there are people don't trust them anymore. So the less bastion of denial to me is broken.
Right, because that's always been an illusion or a delusion. But now it's just more evident how delusionary it is that there's some kind of safety or capacity for us to exert control over things we have no control over. That's correct. And the other side of that I call it institutional corruption is not the middle level people because most of them are good people and they do that job. But I know a lot of people on the higher level and they actually think they're exempt from all of this.
And because of that, they can't penetrate deeply enough into the other person's experience. And if you can't penetrate into the other person's experience, and I mean from here that you feel it.
If you can't do that, you're out of social reality, which brings us to another point, which is the role of groups. And you're 12 steps, you understand this. Only a group, even if it's two people that you're working with can allow you to have the relationship with desire forces, they're not meant to be experiencing singularity. And you can try it and maybe it works a little bit. So that's the world as I see it. And it's funny. The pandemic was when was that 20 years ago. Yeah.
A couple of years ago. But I was retiring just about at that point. And the closer I got to that, the more obvious it was to me that a lot of the ideas, the psychological theories were actually in some sense harmful because everybody got caught up in this wave. And for a shrink, the wave will express itself through, you know, shrink, and I can make a lot of money. But what they want is recognition and to be part of a hierarchical system.
We call that universe one universe one. Everything is denominated by numbers. That's the world of numbers, that's the world of science, obviously, mathematics. And so if the metric is numbers, everything gets sense of money because money becomes the only way people can see value. All human beings want value they want meaning. But in that kind of a culture universe one, everything is materialistic and everything is comparative or competitive because we're not giving anything.
So you have to reach above that. That's very interesting with you because you're about as close to the line as possible without crossing it. Meaning what does that mean? It means you understand that a lot of the information you get that you need to change has to come from here. It's not an intellectual process. But there's something that's holding you back. You're almost supposed to get guilty about something. Are you much more successful than you expected?
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Yeah, I never thought that I would be successful. So I'm living way beyond anything I dreamed or imagined for myself. So perhaps there's a sense of guilt. I mean, my part X is, you know, looming large in the back of my mind waiting for somebody to break down the door and pulling away from the microphone.
And I have a tremendous amount of awareness and gratitude over the position that I'm in. But there's certainly an interdialogue of unworthiness. And it's that alcoholic thing where on the one hand, I think I'm really good at this.
Maybe I'm better than anyone else at this one thing that I do. And I'm an absolute piece of shit who's undeserving of anything that I've received. And, you know, it's only a matter of time before the House of cards is going to just cave in on itself. And I can entertain those two notions simultaneously. I don't know why you're in Washington by me here.
I need you. I'm looking for a spiritual breakthrough, Phil. I have a very good relationship with faith and spirituality. But I know that there's a lot more growth available to me. And, and I do feel like I dance around the periphery of that. And yet my intellect and my ego. And my reverence for rationality, I think holds me back like I'm a product of higher education. And I was indoctrinated in a certain way in which to you appearance issues.
No, but they my dad's a lawyer. I grew up in Washington DC. And education was a very fundamental priority in our household. And it was a very achievement oriented household. And I've had, you know, ups and downs and my trials and tribulations. But ultimately, it's a game that I was able to be successful at. And I think I have an ego attachment to that and some pride. But that becomes like we were talking about earlier, like a barrier to make more exponential growth.
It's not I'm not a verse to it. I'm open to it. But there's something that maybe is a little too scary. I don't care about you, great. So anything like that. Oh, big time. Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of projection and like emotional transference in that. Like, you know, my, my value. I mean, my parents just wanted good things for me. And it's not that they were wrong headed in that. It's just when that is the messaging where achievement is a proxy for love.
It's not a mistake that then you become an achievement seeking ambitious person as a result and in a healthy way. I mean, one of my tasks as far as I'm concerned is to teach people to find value in themselves without totally buying the lie. Again, the lie is you can be excited for me. I'm also a big freaking failure. Failure is a growth opportunity to learn. Yeah. Failure is the teacher success perpetuates the delusion. Yeah, that's correct.
You have this situation where no one satisfied. Everybody wants more. I was talking to somebody about this yesterday about doctors and lawyers. Like again, is something most people unless you're a doctor, you wouldn't actually think about this. But let's say a doctor kills himself. He has 12 years of training and it used to be like in New York City, you even got MD plates. Yeah, yeah. So it was a status thing. And the salaries were relatively commensurate one with the other.
And I think starting to shift. And now this is not true of every doctor. But now you have a lot of them that say, well, I make 250, 350. And my friend over here that says show business learn makes 1.7 million dollars 11 million whatever is. And there's a gap. Now that's the same problem. I'm getting screwed.
I'm this satisfied with life that the doctors would have. And it's actually affected the practice of medicine. It would be hard for layperson to understand this. But I know what's in these guys minds. Not all of them because there are a lot of great people in medicine, but I would say about half of them. They use a metric of money to drive them through their days.
And they can't ever catch up. So if you watch them in hospital, they're moving very fast. And instead of writing down. They're diagnoses. One of the have to put into a computer. Now they would say, well, it's just efficient. And it is more efficient, but it's also less human. And the whole trip is not. And it's not a nice person. Be more. That's not my thing. It's because it won't work. My thing is you got a power and a potential.
If you want to exercise it and find out what it is. And that's where you find out what it is. You have to be willing to go into the unknown. This is this becomes useless. And you have a question about if you did give yourself over to it, what would happen? And it may be more what would happen to you, your fear of what would happen to other people. I don't even know so much of the fear is what would happen to you. But if I was treating you and talking to you, I do this.
I would try to just think of the world of small things. And if you want to change somebody in this area where they have to let go, it's better for them to practice in the smallest thing. The small piece of it, right? And then hopefully you can expand it more. Close your eyes for a second. Just imagine that all the success and everything was taken away from you suddenly unexpectedly. Forget about why or how it was taken away. But now you're naked.
And tell me what you see is there's something about you that it becomes more apparent. Can you tell me? Yeah, it's a couple of things. I mean, one, it's certainly scary because I do have an attachment to what I do. And so it feels very much like a threat to take that away. Who am I, if not for the things that I do? How will I be perceived like an unhealthy relationship with like extrinsic opinion, like who am I without this thing?
A sense of uselessness or inconsequence if I don't have this, but also at the same time relief. I don't have to hold up something. Yeah. But I know what you're getting at, which is you are worthy just for who you are. And your worthiness or your deservedness to be loved or to love yourself has nothing to do with what you do. Ultimately has nothing to do with it. Yeah. Can you think of the time in your life where this dynamic was shifted a little bit?
Because there's like a master up there. I don't know what the word for. It's like a cosmic boss. And I don't sense it's just scary of them, but I sense you you're looking to serve him, but you're looking at the wrong person. Well, it's not really a person.
Well, I have an answer to that. I don't know if that answer is a story or it's truth, but you know, I've lived a couple different lives. But as a young person, I was definitely a very insecure, lonely, sensitive kid who struggled to make friends and really couldn't figure out how to plug into the world like that thing that you hear in a like everyone had a road map for life and I felt like I was lacking.
And I found sport through swimming as a young person that gave me an outlet in something that I had some facility for and I got good at that and I got self confidence from that and that spilled into the classroom because I wasn't a very good student and became a very competent young person and got into all the fancy colleges and competed in swimming at a high level.
Then alcoholism destroyed all of that and took everything away from me and took me to some pretty dark places where my only companion was like shame, guilt, embarrassment. And I got sober and rebuilt my life, but tried to plug back into the machine, but that was always a square peg trying to jam into a round hole until I had an existential crisis over what I was doing with my life that also coincided with a hell scare.
And then I basically proceeded to reinvent my life again and I found this thing that has given me meaning, but ultimately a sense of purpose and fulfillment because I get to give it back like what we do that here, we get to share, yeah, we get to share it and I've written books and
I've got to add that to that and other things, but like this thing that we're doing, it's nourishing to me, but it's also an act of service that is helpful to other people and that's given me a sense of purpose and direction that's very meaningful to me that has a spiritual component to it because on some level it's
tangible and it's also not something I planned, it was something that resulted from my own spiritual inquiry, it's an outgrowth of that, so it feels very healthy in that regard, but then as it becomes more successful, the ego can just a picture and I start thinking about, you know, what's the other podcaster doing and how come mine isn't like this and what if we do this and we can grow and be bigger so all of that, you know, we live in a capitalist society and this is a business so part of that is,
just being an entrepreneur and being, you know, smart in terms of how we're directing this business, but fundamentally at its core, this is a spiritual enterprise and I try to hold on to that and not let those other things, the trappings, the inner fear with the essence of what this is, and maybe that's honest and maybe you can point out to me where I'm missing the bigger picture or where I'm caught up in my own story.
I don't like to do that, I'll be honest, I like to see where you are now, see the gut level instinct that you have to, where you need to go and then teach you to identify where the obstacle is and then teach you what to do in the smallest terms possible because you're finding something, but before
you go into that, here's the dilemma of the human race, everybody, it's so, there's no going backwards with this, everybody wants to be an individual and they want to be recognized as an individual and they want to have some props and a lot of times it's money, but not not always. It's necessary, so that's a singular individual set of goals, they will never satisfy you unless you have the opposite awareness and the opposite goal, which is to enhance the group of the collective.
So, and see, everybody thinks it has to be one or the other, it can't be one or the other, it has to be both, and there's only one way you can take the individual and the collective and not have them clash with each other, and that way I started a little of style, do you know anything about it?
Okay, so he's the Waldorf guy. Yeah, so he said there's only one way you can make a freely-willed decision, which, and that's the individual self-free will, and at the same time fit into the group, which is the opposite of that, and he said that solution is sacrifice.
But it has to be a choice, you have to choose to sacrifice it, it's simply choosing to have faith. If you choose to have sacrifice, but you don't have to choose a budget in a freely-willed sense, you choose it, then you're both, so because you've chosen it, then that means this is an individuality to what I decided to do this, but at the same time, because you're choosing to sacrifice your automatically giving something to the group.
And this is, it's a little abstract, but it's really the whole thing that I've developed is so that you can be in the middle and straddle those two opposites.
Yeah, those opposites can live in concert with each other. Like I feel like I've found a way to do that with this thing, but I think to your point of finding meaning and finding purpose, like your whole thing is like, if someone comes to you and they're like, I got my bills paid, but like I don't feel like I have a purpose or I'm unfulfilled in my career or I don't know what I'm doing.
The answer to that question isn't a philosophical one as much as it is an action-oriented one, and the only way to figure out that for yourself is to make decisions, to take actions and to move forward, and to the extent that you can, we all have something to give and something to offer.
We all have our own unique experiences, and when you can tether what you've learned along your path, your life path, to something that is helpful to somebody else, and you characterize it as sacrifice, but it's really just service, right? Can you find a channel or a vehicle to give back in some way? That's the path to fulfillment, and that is an action-oriented path.
If you can, I have the incredible rare situation or gift where I can marry that with a business enterprise, which is like an incredible, I can't believe I get to do this thing that I love that actually has a service piece to it, but actually can support my family.
It's just a remarkable set of circumstances that I wish everybody could have, but I think in some way, everybody can find a way to tether those two things in a way that gives them a sense of meaning and that satisfaction that comes with whatever small sacrifice it is, but that's a nathema to the incentives of our culture, which is all about me, me, me, right?
It's all about me, with all these things that we're lacking and that we're seeking, are on the other end of sacrifice and service, which those are kind of edicts that are at odds with the incentivization structure of like modern culture. Yeah, and who the devil is? Who's that? The devil is the one that says, give me $22, and you won't be subject to this whole thing.
The opt out, my program, here are the 10 things you can do and you won't have to worry about all this stuff that everybody else who's in human form has to deal with. You know, I was thinking when I was driving up here, I was thinking this is going to be a thing about. I thought it was going to have a familiar of depth and what was the term and meaning, but it really was just a, what do you call it, a sheep? What was it? A wolf and sheep's calling it.
I was going to try to get you. What do you mean? Yeah, I'm going to sell you this thing and it's going to exonerate you from these unpleasant things and in the exerration of it, you'll actually think that you're creating real meaning. So the question is how is it and you're not. You're, you know, it's like eating plastic food and here's my measure for this. Human beings are at their best in a crisis and the worst of crisis is the more important that is.
I almost when I really work in my work, when I used to work, I was like, I was the opposite of all these things. I was like, what, what, what, what, I was a fuck everything except the worst crisis you ever went through in your life. And what you find yourself able to do in that crisis is a mark or a leading edge towards if you want to say human potential.
That's when you really find out what humans are capable of. But the other thing that you may find is stoatic, but I still don't think anybody can do this successfully without some higher force. Even if they don't know exactly what it is.
My wife calls that your divine moments like don't rob people of their divine moments. When I look back over my life, those deep crises that I had weather have been not just the greatest teachers, but really the launch pads for like all the growth and all the experiences that I've had as a result.
It's like I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I also wouldn't trade it for anything else. And we have this instinct as empathetic compassion at humans when we have a loved one or someone we care about is going through something difficult to rush in and help them solve the problem. Whereas the gift might be to step aside and be an observer and say, I love you and I trust you to find your way through this because that experience can be the crucible for something beautiful and magnificent.
But you have to allow that person to go through it, which can be painful when you're because no one wants to see someone they care about having a difficult time. I'm just saying my crying because one of my nurses has a grandson who's 19 black, highly talented as a painter. I think really talented and raised by his grandmother, basically, and he's starting to fall backwards. Let me put this way. This kid was 18 years old.
There were these clubs or something and guns were drawn. Everybody ran away except this kid because his friend was shot. That's the kind of person he is. But he's starting to fall apart. Now I'm going to see if I can see. Because of the experience of that trauma or other things. I think the trauma just clarified what was going on. His thing is I'm not I'm not good enough like you know we don't have that.
But he has no fucking help. It brings up a whole other thing. And you're right. The saddest thing is you know you personally can't really save the person from that. Anyway, he made an attempt to a couple of attempts. And I know the talent because people are walking into my house all the time. And it's like the talent is like a trick someone's playing on because he knows he has the talent too.
But something you know it's funny. It's on a different level. It's what you're going to. It's another version of it. The person is a talent but something stop and you're a little bit professorial and you enjoy and you're good at it. You understand what I mean by that. I think so. Keep going. I rest my case. See, your thing is not selfishness. It's the opposite of selfishness. See the good fortune where you have a job.
That also gives out to the world. Well, let me ask you something. What is your wife's biggest complaint about you? What did you say? That I over intellectualize and that I over prioritized rationality and that I'm missing the gift of deepening my relationship with the beyond. And that that becomes a barrier to deeper intimacy with her and that because she's so more invested in that or perhaps mature in that regard that it prevents me from seeing her or the desire to see her as she truly is.
So that creates a disconnect in our relationship like we could have a deeper more intimate bond. If I would like relinquish my fear or the walls that I throw up around that terrain. You just have to face the fact that your fears are going to manifest as power. I mean, people must have told you this before. You just have a natural aura of power. It got a little bit. You abandon yourself. That's the best way to say it.
Like I leveraged it to get to a point and then I abandoned it because everything sort of worked out. Yeah. Yeah. And that can be bad luck. See the whole idea of what I tried to train people is it's one of those unavoidables endless work. And you have to, um, none of you have to accept that. You have to act on it and not only just act on it. If they ask yourself, how would I act on it today because whatever it is, I'm going to have to, if that's what doesn't matter when it's success failure,
I have to stay on that level. That's called poverty. If you were not working on something in the spiritual world, um, and we worked hard, we have a good working relationship with stuff. So we were satisfied. No one went to sleep. When we woke up, we'd have nothing. That's cool. And then you got to build it up again. Yeah. That's a practice that requires diligence. I think it like in an AA context and analogous or a way to kind of understand what you're saying.
If I incorrect me if I'm wrong, is this idea that you come in in so much pain and so broken and so raw that you have no other recourse other than to surrender. Yeah. To ask for help to receive help and to develop a relationship with something bigger than yourself. You have a receptivity. You build that foundation of sobriety and you repair your life and then suddenly everything's fine. And it becomes very difficult to maintain that relationship with spirituality.
Like that, um, surrender turns into a reclaiming of yourself well. And suddenly you think you're in control. And this is like, this is like the, you know, a dilemma that I'm, you know, I would admit to being, you know, part of. Like it's not that I don't understand the importance of these things, but it becomes harder to stay emotionally connected with that level of openness that I had when I was in a state of desperation. I'll say right now the key to this whole thing is your wife.
She's a tremendous. She would agree with you. Yeah. She is. She is. She is. Yeah. We were talking about it the other day as a matter of fact. Now, that's not good enough, but it's good to know. Yeah, it doesn't mean that I've translated it into any action. So what do I do, Phil? What is the tool? What is the action step that I can take?
The question is, is this thing called a reverse indicator, which is an unpleasant feeling that says you're making progress and it's too classic reverse indicators are guilt and shame. So one of the things you're going to have to do is it's like I need to be in the reverse indicator space, which is the unpleasant space. So I was trying to close your eyes a second. Imagine that your wife is saying, you know, just what you see, you mentioned before. Talk about you.
Now let her inside, like parents read you, like it's a force, not an idea. Like writing in the solar pool, your heart. Good. That's good. What's this happened? I think there's a there's a knowingness that what she's sharing, like the mirror that she's holding up to me is correct, but it's a reflection that I'm actively trying to avoid. And yet I know that that that is the path that I need to take in order to continue to grow and expand.
But it's so easy to stay in this place because everything is working really well. And so I don't feel the incentive or the there's a lack of will to like entertain the difficulty of grappling with with that. But also the understanding that I need to do that. So there's that tension, which creates dissonance and discomfort. But what I really mourn or what I really feel is the level of intimacy that I could experience with my wife that I'm lacking right now because I'm avoidant.
Okay. In a case like this, which is not said, what's unusual about you is the intensity of your will and the intensity of your of your intellect. So you're putting it to it. I mean, maybe you don't have confidence in it, but that's pretty strong as well. It's almost like you've checked all the boxes, your wildly successful, but in this particular area, you're holding your dick. And it isn't you don't feel it. You feel embarrassed in this.
Now the way to correct that is thinking about it doesn't move the new. The way that the only way that I know that you can do it is every time you feel that you don't want to be bothered with this. You don't think you can do it anyway. Or sometimes he maybe have an issue with your wife. You want to look for those moments and every time you find one of those moments, you have to dissolve your ego, even if it's just for a second. One way I do this is help people.
It's called flying under the banner of ignorance and you know, it's like a joke because it's movies and everything. But I mean it. You know, when I say, do what I tell you, I don't care what you believe. It doesn't make any difference. We're opening up a different way of experiencing the world and of experiencing you. And the difference is, it's a, it's a power that can't be defined in words. It's a stripling. It comes back to the sampling and you just trust your instincts.
You trust them tremendously, except for this one area. And by the way, I want to make sure you get this. Your job is, you know, like those guys that the beach with those vacuum cleaners is trying to pick up quarters. That's what you're doing. That's your job now. Only not trying to pick up quarters is trying to exemplify those situations in which your intellect tries to take over. And it must happen with your wife. I was.
Yeah, she's, it certainly happens with my wife and the intellect can be a barrier and an effective tool in my avoidant strategy because my part acts. My wife is saying, come closer, right? And my part acts is telling me, if you show her who you really are, she's going to divorce you. Yeah. Like she's going to, she, because you're fundamentally unlovable. If she knew the real you, and so you can, or all erect a strategy to move close enough towards her, but just shy of any danger zone.
Yeah. And I would imagine that's a common. This is a common thing. No, you're the only person. Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. So at this point, we're officially about halfway through 2024. So I want you to take a moment and reflect back on the aspirations you set for yourself back in January. How's it going? Have you slipped? Are you still doing that thing? You've promised yourself you'd stop doing. Well, it might be worth asking yourself why you're stuck.
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We're brought to you today by BrainFF. You know that thing when you have a bunch of intense work that you just have to do, but the mind doesn't really want to do it? You're telling it, come on, focus. But it keeps getting distracted or agitated by nonsense. And you go through this painful sort of mini-war to rein it in, to settle it down and just concentrate on the thing. Wouldn't it be great if there was something that would ease or eliminate this process?
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But now it really is so much easier to get into that state of flow and stay there. So if you're ready to unlock your focus and productivity, I've got a special offer just for you. I asked them to give my listeners 30 days free and you can get it at brain.fm slash ritual. I bet you'll love it just as much as I do. Well, you've done for a lot of shit. I mean, I know. I know you don't like it with people dumb shit. This is the life you signed up for.
But let me call this again for you in order for you to actually do this. So really do exactly what fuck about anything else. We do it. It means whatever the barrier is, you break it in on the other side of that barrier, you're going to find uncertainty. You definitely find kill. You'll find some confusion. And most of all, you're going to find me. I don't know a bit of it. I call it I toast. This is like flying in the banner of ignorance.
So every time anything, first of all, anytime she says anything to you about yourself. But second of all, when it comes up inside your spontaneous, you have to, it's like you can't change your very clear. Fungals. And you can't you can't take this. And you have to. That's why the world of small things is so important. You have to look for a small event where you could try to push your leg to her. Not not abstractly. Not saying I agree. Forget about that. You have to actually do something.
Now there's two kinds of action is out of action. And there may be nothing to do. But there's also interaction, which is, which is it. So every time, and I say every time, I mean, every time this comes up and you, you have to change the dynamic with her. And most people don't think, well, it's, it's nothing to work because it's too passive. What, what a message. It's not big enough. And the trick in this kind of thing is, you know what you can even do.
When you, when you she's telling yourself about yourself, try to literally physically feel yourself shrink. In most physical way possible, because what you want to do is, you know, once all is that is active love. You know that's. So just for the audience, I love it. Means you imagine the universe is made out of love. And it's very important to think of love as a substance because if it's a thought, you can know how to do about it. But as a substance, you can't. It's, it's, it's just out there.
It's like a free way to it. It's some kind of a substance coding. Anyway, the first step is you take all this love and you bring it right in here. And if you could concentrate all love in the universe, anything who loves a substance, you bring it in here. So it's almost like the whole universe of love is a little right here for a second. That's for concentration. The next step, you take the love you've concentrated and you send it to her. And you don't hold anything back.
You give it, you give everything away. And then the most important part of the tool is it's almost, you're not just sending it to someone at a distance. You want to enter the other person and become one with them. But the point of it is you try to play a sensitive, homeless by giving love away. Even if you already agree with the person, there's nothing to do with any kind of theory. Active love is a constant giving and it can't be blocked.
It's a point that tries to block it because it's not up here. It's almost like a reflex. Right. I mean, it's a form of loving kindness. Yeah. But if you're an athlete, you know, is it like there's a difference in each one saying, it was one of the duty that a person actually do. Yeah, yeah, the action part. Yeah, it's an action universe. I said, if a guy comes up with a philosophy in the modern world, not in the ancient world, and it doesn't end in action, it's not philosophy at all.
The biggest thing that defines the intrinsic qualities of being alive is instant. I once had this vision for a second of the home, Janice was of the universe. And at the end of it, he can strip in the legs of stripping the legs of. Finally, the end of it is no physical bias. It's never really an end as well. All there is is a voice. It's not coming from anywhere. It's like the universe is born for no apparent reason. The form in which it was born was a voice. And you can, that's in the Bible.
It's like, why did God say let there be light? Why would he ever say anything? He was God, you know. The power of pure consciousness is so energy. The reductive nature of trying to explain everything in terms of dopamine and protocols for behavior, which are helpful in very action oriented, but miss the bigger picture, which is the divinity of everything. The bigger picture is you don't know shit within that. That's it. So we took a little break. You got a more comfortable chair.
We had a whole podcast in the interim about divinity and meaning and all kinds of stuff. Also, you know, a personal session for me, which I found very helpful. And I'm thinking about the reflection that you shared with me only a few minutes into this podcast where I felt like you could see me and see things about me that only somebody who knows me deeply and for a long period of time would have been able to see. Like that acuity, like that insight that you have.
Is that a gift that you've always had? Did that just develop through spending time with so many people? No, I actually had it at birth. Your whole life. Yeah, I've had it in my whole life. It's like an extra sensory capability that you have. Yeah. And there is a divinity in that because it's non-material. It's an intangible thing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's really a picture there. You want a picture? Yeah, do. I always say yes. As many pictures as you can draw.
These aren't very intelligible. Yeah, it's a paradox. I think this might help you actually because it's a pictorial representation of what has to happen in any relationship. Not just the spouse or romance. So let's say this is you and we'll put you over here. See the most important thing in the next, I don't even say 50 years, is going to be human beings understanding the effect that they have on each other. And the way I say it's like anything else in nature. It really is not a overhearing.
It's not be over there. The reality is it's somewhere in the middle. And even that middle point is moving back and forth. That's what it really means is an dynamic universe. Anyway, now I just shoot this over there. Yeah, let me see that. Let's see. Okay. So the first picture is me and Julie Stickfigures arrow pointing from me to her and arrow pointing from her to me in kind of a circular fashion.
And then you drew another couple stick figures with arrows pointing upwards out of both of our heads towards what looks like a cloud or a circle. Yeah, and that's called the higher bond. The higher bond is real. Even though you can't see it. It's not just the concept. And in a relationship what you need is not. I'm going to go for my thing and you go for your thing. It's that we each of us.
We dissolve into the bottom line reality of our identity is this higher bond up here and the higher bond is real. And this will help you with our senior job is not to agree with her disagree with her and then he given point in the discussion. Your job is this thing up here and my job is not directly related to my wife. It's related to the spawn. It's beyond any one person. So it's so funny. You know, the human romanticism of the West, especially in the United States.
That says like the whole marriage. Calls the word wherever you want to call that says it when the singular person, namely the bride is nothing. The relationship itself is this thing up here, which forms a unity. And then you can extrapolate that higher bond thing to groups. This is where something is going to happen to you. I don't know what it is yet, but I could feel you have a natural authority. And we don't want to get rid of that, but we don't want to misuse it either.
So misusing it means I have all these talents and plus a. Authoritative presentation. And it's as if that's good enough as it's not. So remember the thing where I told you about the human dilemma is to be have a singular goal. But at the same time contribute to the group and submit to the group. But that's true. In a large group is also true in a relationship. Yeah, in a relationship. Okay. So how do you actually put that into effect? You put it into effect when the flow is interrupted.
And the classic interruption is when the guy's wife says, I see you. I know who you really are. And the guy gets defensive. See, you have to see that whether you agree with this in every detail. Use the view of your wife and your presence or her presence. And the way is a structure that transcends either of you. So use the ask yourself, what would I do that would put me in the upward arrow towards the higher bottom? Not what would do over here. You stepped on my foot. That's not in contribute.
You can see in geopolitics now. But you'll have something to do. How old are you? 57. If I'm the way home, I discover what is our core. How do you do that? That's super helpful though and comforting. And also just nice that I feel like I have a tool or a direction for behavior. As opposed to just a broader understanding of the dynamic without an adequate sense of like how to shift it or what to do about it.
How much guarantee you when you understand something really well, she's getting pissed off. I mean, I know it sounds counterintuitive. But there's real beauty in that contrast. Like it is a one plus one equals far more than two, the dynamic. And I want that intimacy. I want that deeper connection. Of course, I want that. But I get in my own way as I often do with many things. If you're really serious about this though, the key is work. And some of that is actually is also writing.
So I used to think writing was bullshit because there's no action. And then as I started to get older, I saw there are different kinds of ways to look at the same event. So what you have to do now, I'll show you another trick with this. What you have to do now is simultaneously experience both ends of that spectrum at the same time. Now I'll take you through it. And you'll understand the better after we go through it. Okay, so close your eyes now.
First I want you to think of yourself as somebody who's really angry. If you can think of a time in your life when that was the case, so much the better. But the key is the feeling of it. Don't try to figure out where it is. Just focus on the feeling. So that's that's called category one. Now erase that. See just blank space. Now create the opposite, which is your very loving, giving, almost to a fault. Again, just see what that feels like in your body. Okay, keep your eyes closed.
Now go back to category one, which is the anger. Don't worry about what's causing you to make an intense good. Kill that now, go back to neutral. Now go to category two, which is the color pendant overly giving sense to the point. Okay, now I'm going to ask you to do something. And don't do anything now. But when I tell you to do what I want you to do it immediately, don't worry about it. You can keep doing your life. Forget about that. But do this immediately. Okay, you ready?
Hit them both at the same time. Don't think. Good. Okay, open your eyes. Can you tell me what that felt like? Well, there's an intensity to it. There's also something exhausting about it. Like it's a massive outpouring of energy in confusing ways. That feels very depleting and not productive. Yeah. So it's category three because usually carry, well, I just call it category one and category one. So one is negative hostile, which you, you know, we, we wouldn't touch with that body.
So I'm not, I'm not like prone to anger. That's like not really a thing. What do you think of as the opposite of anger? The opposite of anger. Gratitude, I mean, if anger is, is driven by a sense of righteousness that having been wronged in some level of victimhood that is, you know, kind of underscored with fear. Gratitude is a sense of the universe being abundant and that, you know, life is made of good things and possibility.
Okay. One way to use this because everything we're talking about when you're getting out of sync with our, forget about the content of what you're complaining about. You want to go into this mode by doing that. You're correcting your psyche. In other words, because the, you can see the human problems, especially with you, where it's pretty extreme. It's you're, you're natural authority and so strong. I don't believe you could turn it off and we don't want to turn it off.
But what we do want to do, see, point X is the avatar of impossibility and flow is when you do, when you can connect to opposites at the same time. The famous quote, I think, but you've got to show. I don't think so. He says the, the message you dealing with a really great mind is when it can hold two opposites simultaneously and it's mine. And the reason for that is it creates flow. So to try to connect everything, you could say, flow is both the, let's say reward for doing this work.
But simultaneously, it allows you to give even more to other people. But the main thing with you is, is what you do every single time. If you just said, there it is against your body or me, she's trying to force me. And you're just sending your mind. If you said something like, I'm okay with who I am, or you could say, I think you're 100% right. You used to have a consistent, endless commitment to make the state of mind that she's in that affects you to make that your goal.
And I always to let her win. Yeah, I mean, my goal is to have a deeper, more intimate relationship with her. And so when I feel those emotions, those avoidant emotions, cropping up to do the opposite, which is to like move towards her and towards it, rather than my impulse, which is to like recoil or retreat. You know, that's a very alcoholic thing. Like I want to isolate, like I don't want to confront tricky emotions. I think we all on some level, you know, have our version of that experience.
Like the things that we need to work on that are calling us that are the portals into, you know, evolution and, you know, greater awareness and self understanding are the things that we don't want to look at because they're uncomfortable because those are Achilles heels or. Yeah, but they, if you don't confront them or look at them, they only grow stronger. And at some point, you know, reveal themselves in your life in ways, you know, none of us want, right?
So the solution is always to move towards the thing that you know you're avoiding or don't really want to deal with. Yeah. That's correct. I did you know why is it like why there's so many conundrums in the human experience, you know, it's wired a certain way for a reason. And if you're lacking in faith or some kind of connection to the divine, like just look at the mechanisms of being human and the way that it's constructed and wired. It is here for your evolution and your growth.
Like I really believe that our purpose here, if you're lacking a purpose, your purpose here is to grow. Yeah, 100%. And if somebody can't grasp that, there are any of these, I have to tell them that. But it's like this whole mechanism has been constructed over millions, billions endless numbers of eons. And if you can't find and see the meaning and at least the information that they might be equipped.
And when you get a lot of people crippled at the same time because you started with the promise promises not fulfilled. You feel, um, chipped. Whatever you want to call it. If in that whole thing, you can't come out and sit and kill at least some information of this is the way it really is and it's supposed to be this way. So that I can grow as much as possible. If you can't grasp that, it's very difficult. I've been lucky, you know, and just in my practice and the people I'm working with.
I also think the ones that weren't interested in this, they didn't have some instinctual feeling. This is the way the game should be played. I don't think they come to me. But anyway, I want you to call me in a week. You know, just just tell me how this is going because the main thing about it is to remember to do it. You can change your relationship with her as you do. It will help you cross this barrier. I have no reason to say that, but I just feel it. Yeah, I'm going to take you up on that.
I think we're all on some level caught up in our own looping narratives and stories about who we are and what we're capable of, etc. And the only way to gain any kind of objectivity on that is to bring a third party in because you can't solve the problem or, you know, transcend that loop and see it clearly with the same brain that is producing it. Like you need an outside observer who can deconstruct it for you.
And it requires a certain level of like willingness and openness to engage with that. Like the people who don't come to you who aren't ready to sign up for that kind of thing. But on some level, we can't grow. It's not, it's a team, it is a team sport to your point about the collective in the same way we need to give back to the collective and transcend our selfishness.
And inclination towards individualization and all of that in order to really become more self-actualized, you have to be willing to raise your hand and open up to somebody else and be honest, which is hard. And it's just to expose their secrets into the light, but like shame can't survive the light, right? Like you have to, the path forward is always the uncomfortable, difficult path. And so I'm always trying to model the power of vulnerability because it isn't a weakness. It is a superpower.
And we're so reluctant to share on that level, but there's so much freedom on the other side of it. And as soon as you get a taste of that freedom, you want more. And there's always more growth. Like as much as I've done, there's so much more that remains always. Yeah, you're an interesting person to me because, um, let me put this way, you not only have the talent, you have the positioning, which is, I can't, there's actually added bonus.
You've just used this as, it's like taking care of a pet. You're responsible for this organism. That's what you want to think about it. The organism being what? Being the higher bond. It's real. I think the example, um, nothing is coming to mind, which makes me even more ashamed of myself, but let's go down a shame spiral together. We'll hold hands and just go down the funnel, Phil. All right. Let's try that. What's at the bottom of the funnel? Opportunity.
Okay, let me just show you this. No, do you want me to join? Yeah. Okay. This year, we'll say it's uncertainty. It's just, it's just the highest sense of life. So on one side of the line, you have uncertainty. Probably the least thing human beings fear the most. Uncertainty is the domain. It's the backdrop, which allows growth and most of all creation. And in this zone of uncertainty, these little things here represent flow. See that makes sense.
So uncertainty is this like comfort with uncertainty is the pathway to growth and to creative expression to flow. Right. Yeah. This paradox of being being certain around uncertainty is so interesting. I had, um, you know, Ellen Langer. She's a professor of psychology at Harvard. She was like the first female, the first woman to get tenure in the psychology department at Harvard. And she has a whole thing around uncertainty. Like obviously uncertainty is uncomfortable for the human being, right.
We create these illusions of certainty to keep uncertainty at bay, but all our certainty is actually just fabricated to make us feel safe in a world that is defined by uncertainty. We don't know anything, right. And so like you, her whole thing is around action and not being caught up in the paralysis of uncertainty. And her whole, and she talks about like making decisions and your work is very similar. I saw a lot of overlap here in that we have this inclination towards like analysis paralysis.
And we don't want to make decisions and we're indecisive. And then when we make a decision, we're analyzing whether it was the right one or the wrong one forever. And her whole thing is like, don't worry if you made the right decision, like make the decision right. Life is about making decisions. It's that thing. It's like take the action, make the decision, move forward. Stop ruminating in the past or projecting how it's going to impact your future and just continue to make decisions.
And to the best of your ability, make those decisions right in your attitude around them. Give me that. Which one? The same thing. Yeah. So over here you have clarity. But now the job is to move from this part of this apparent clarity to cross this line into the realm of uncertainty. People can't do it. Obviously, it's good to share this is secret to with them. I'm I always will be for each one of these use. These use are called turn around.
And all it means is I was feeling good. I had bad luck. I lost my nerve. I got sick. Whatever it is. So I gave up now. If you can work through that. So you would go up here. Things are fine down into the truck. You're fucked and recover from it. In that recovery, you've created value. And the person who creates the most value is the one who can cross that line. And that's an experience of getting fucked and then recovering from it. You call it right.
And you call it like micro heroes journeys. That's right. That's what you drew was a bunch of use each you representing some individual journey through uncertainty to the other side. Yeah. That's cool to turn around. And no matter how many of these use you traverse, there's always going to be more. Yeah, which is good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. One another thing you have to speak differently.
Tell me more. It was you can have to speak a little more from the heart. It's very compelling when you do. Otherwise you die exactly. Yeah. You know, here's one of the smartest guys I've ever been. I don't give a shit. And you should know either. I think in this context, I don't want to be defensive like I hear you like I'm going to think about that. I am trying to be present, but I'm also trying to be a proxy for the audience and make sure that the ideas are getting conveyed clearly.
And so maybe that takes me out of the moment or like the most authentic version of who I am to make sure that like this is helpful for somebody who's spending time with us. Yeah, which is understandable as fine. All these things are matter of degree. But most of this shouldn't occur while you're working with another person. It should occur just as you walk around coming shop and whatever. But the point of it is, well, you'll find out how much of this you really want to do and how much you want.
But the way you find out is by is by the how many turn around you can. And that's the that's the opportunity and bad luck. Have you want to say? Right. But unfortunately, you're going to have to hit that needier moment on each one of these, right? And that's where all of your instincts are to like run away or opt out, but you have to stay in it.
Yeah, that's an unfortunate. That's good. Right. I mean, the gift is a result of that. But it means that you have to go through all of that discomfort and challenge. I'll tell you one nice thing about you. You have the gifts of being an authority figure being probably slightly over the line in terms of knowing. But you're very, very human. I can almost feel you empathizing with these poor fuck people. So that's a great combination. It's another discussion.
Yeah. Is that the most uplifting note that we can like end this thing on fill? I'm very surprised to do you why like you very much. I'm glad you hear that. I'm relieved. Wow, that was a wild ride, man. Thank you. You got laser beams in those eyes. Yeah, I always have that. Yeah. And normal living I saw, but in that area, it's free. It's some free. It's kind of a thing.
Well, let's let's conclude it for today, man. Check out Phil's books. The newest one is Lessons for Living. You can check them out in Stuts, the documentary on Netflix. Which was a beautiful. I really was very moved by that. Yeah. Yeah, came back. Yeah, did. And that's it until next time. Right. I love you. Yeah, little session is over today. Love you too, buddy. I'm in love with you now for sure. Thank you. Peace.
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