Revolutionary Therapist and Netflix Documentary Star Phil Stutz Shares 7 Lessons for Facing Hardship

Anyone who immerses themselves in the work of Phil Stutz comes away with an empowered sense of their capabilities. This isn’t just because Stutz has offered countless people concrete tools for facing adversity in his therapy practice and books. (His 2012 bestseller The Tools, which he co-authored with Barry Michels, continues to be a global hit, as does its sequel, Coming Alive.) It’s also because the therapist, who stars in the Jonah Hill-directed Netflix doc Stutz, has created what he describes to The Sunday Paper as “a change in psychotherapy" that focuses on action. He says pain and hardship are guaranteed in life, but it’s the steps we take to move through it that count.

With his new book, Lessons for Living: What Only Adversity Can Teach You, the world is getting an extended edification from Stutz. In the approachable book, Stutz includes impactful short essays, some of which he wrote first drafts in the 1990s (updated to complement the times) that provide stories of the challenges we face as humans and the tools that can help us evolve. Stutz sugarcoats nothing while offering tangible insights with a you-got-this essence. We need actionable counsel to help us thrive today, he believes, as “people have lost faith in the normal things that give them a sense of certainty and security.”

So Stutz offers the internal “things” to embolden us. As the following lessons he offers The Sunday Paper reveal, he wants us all to lean in to our capabilities in the face of anything that comes our way.

7 Life Lessons on Facing Adversity from Phil Stutz

#1: Taking Action Is What Matters

You don't have to solve every problem in your life, believes Stutz. To think you can is a fallacy. But what is critical for growth is to take action and to see movement in your life. "This book represents examples of going through the process of having a problem, being able to label it, and then seeing that you don't have to solve the problem; you just have to move the dial," he tells us. "Every philosophy, every theory, everything has to end in action."

#2: Working on Yourself Is Divine

Stutz says that humans have lost faith in the systems we've always depended on, from our political leaders to our school systems to our doctors. This grave fact calls for each of us to encourage and work on ourselves so we can move through these challenging times. "Every time a human being works on their own failings and their own weaknesses, what they're really doing is creating something higher that they have access to," says Stutz. "I call it a 'higher force' to make it non denominational. Everyone has access to this."

#3: Dissatisfaction Is the Root of All Ills

No matter the context or the perceived issue, we live in a chronically dissatisfied world, says Stutz. "We look around at our neighbors and spouses and start to think, Wait a minute, I'm so dissatisfied; they must have taken what was mine. I didn't get my share. That sort of thinking breeds hostility," he adds. From the highest geopolitical disagreement to the most minor arguments, dissatisfaction is the root of our ills. The only way to feel true deep-in-our-bones satisfaction is to have a connection to a higher force, believes Stutz. As he underscores, "Nothing will satiate somebody without some cooperation with a higher force."

#4: Gratefulness Quiets the Inner Critic

"Gratefulness is an acknowledgment of the immediate experience of reality," says Stutz. It creates a sensation that we are all part of a spiritual, positive, greater force. When we lean into gratefulness, we overpower what Stutz calls 'Part X': our negative thinking and inner adversary.

Stutz suggests this tool to encourage more gratefulness: For 30 seconds, think only of things you are grateful for right now. These things can be simple, such as I am grateful for running water or I am grateful my car started. This teaches our minds to think differently, says Stutz, and defend ourselves against negative thoughts.

#5: There Is a Greater Force that Gives

Beyond ourselves is something bigger and more profound, believes Stutz. It is a force that keeps giving to us. He offers this example: "Let's say you're a great surfer, and you're in the lineup waiting for the next wave. You don't know when the next wave is going to come. You can't know its size, strength, speed, or where it will close out. But once that wave reaches you, react to it as if you've been waiting for it all your life and that it is perfect. Now, you may ask, 'Does that mean every wave is perfect?' Yes, that means every wave is perfect because every wave is created by the force in the universe that keeps giving."

Stutz says the lesson here is to see and accept what is greater than us and to "find whatever it is that we're given and grant it the highest value." Doing so is "such a powerful tool."

#6: You Can Change the Meaning of Pain

"The highest degree of humanness and the highest spiritual-slash-psychological accomplishment is to have something bad happen to you—a defeat, a loss, whatever may be—and to keep on going anyway," says Stutz. "When you go through difficulties, even shattering difficulties, that is a huge opportunity."

#7: Freedom Is Taking Responsibility for How You Feel 

"It really is," says Stutz. "This has to do with acceptance" and taking control of your reactions to the world. "It is your responsibility to do that. It is all of our responsibility. What happens too often is that people don't live up to their responsibilities." But once we take ownership of all that's real and use our tools to face adversity, we are free.

Phil Stutz is the creator of The Tools® and the co-author of The Tools and Coming Alive. He received his MD from NYU, and did his psychiatric training at Metropolitan Hospital. He worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island before going into private practice. He lives and practices in Los Angeles.