Stutz, my new teacher

I’ve always read and listened to a shit ton of books. But I can’t say that I’ve gotten a whole lot from it over the years besides some cool ideas and a few overflowing bookshelves that make moving an absolute nightmare.

There are a lot of things I feel somewhat addicted to—food, spending, social media, television, certain relationships, etc. But I think one of my deeper compulsions is the constant pursuit of novelty. I buy so many books because I’m chasing the high of encountering something new, along with the intoxicating feeling that this new thing will finally be The Thing that solves all of my problems. Novelty and magical thinking are bedfellows it seems. And for me, when the excitement and novelty wear off, as they inevitably do, I drop the old and go back on the hunt for the new. So it goes, around and around, until I’ve stuffed my head a mile wide and an inch deep, with no real transformation in sight.

I’ve encountered many potential teachers through the years—people whose work deeply resonated with me, where I knew I could improve my health, business, or entire life if I engaged with said work and made an earnest effort to apply it. But again, collecting information and chasing novelty is seductive (it’s also easy to convince myself that it’s productive), while genuine transformation is fucking hard and messy and frustratingly non-linear. Avoiding pain and chasing pleasure. Some real human shit right there.

I first encountered Phil Stutz‘s work in 2018. I listened to the audiobook version of The Tools while I was out on my morning walks and I remember feeling inspired and encouraged by it. There was something truly different from the normal self-help slop I’d consumed. It not only felt novel, but it felt perfectly tailored to me and the ways I was self-sabotaging. I remember the morning I finished the book and the sense of conviction I had that I’d found The Thing that was going to fix me. This is the book that I would finally put in the effort to apply.

Narrator: He did not, in fact, apply it, let alone use any of the tools one single time.

The paperback of The Tools sat on my shelf for years, always vaguely calling to me, and I revisited the audiobook a few times in seasons of confusion and despair. It always had the same effect of “Oh my God this will help me so much,” followed by me not actually using the tools. It happened again earlier this year when I listened to the sequel, Coming Alive, and had even more of a “holy shit this is so fucking perfect for me” experience. I got a bit closer to using the tools that time around, but still no dice.

This morning I cracked open True and False Magic, the full workbook and curriculum for using the tools, and I had a moment where I realized that Phil Stutz is my teacher now. Full stop. I’ve started practicing with the tools in recent weeks, and it’s been challenging and messy and imperfect but rewarding. It’s clear to me there’s something real here, something that’s been calling out for deep relationship with me for years, and which I’m finally ready to accept and its patient invitation.

To be real with you, and with myself, it kinda scares me to declare that someone is my teacher now. It means I’ve signaled that I’m serious this time and that I’m earnestly and humbly engaging with the process of learning instead of merely consuming. And real learning is uncomfortable as fuck for me, because it involves making mistakes and feeling dumb, two things which I’ve spent a lifetime trying to avoid with all my might. But it’s been clear for awhile now that running from feelings of failure and stupidity is causing a great deal of harm in my life, keeping me confined in a tiny prison of my own making, which I’m simultaneously desperate to escape and scared of what lays beyond the walls.

But alas, I have a teacher now. One who’s been helping overthinkers like me escape from the comfort zone for many decades now. One whose ideas have been doggedly pursuing me since I first encountered them in 2018. Eight years. It took eight years for me to accept the invitation, but yes, indeed, I have a teacher now.