The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Improve Your Mental Health by Following the Principles from the Documentary "Stutz" | KEV Talks #11

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

This episode is part film review of Stutz and a sharing of tools and techniques Jonah Hill and Phil Stutz provide the viewer in the documentary film of the same name.Watch the movie at https://www.netflix.com/title/81387962Take a deep dive from the film makers at https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/stutz-the-toolsHave a plan | Stay informed | Get involved | https://kevtalkspod.com

Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming to the KevTalks podcast. On this episode, I'm going to provide kind of a review, but mostly the tips and tricks that I got and really life helping tools from watching the Netflix documentary Stutz, S-T-U-T-Z. It was directed by Jonah Hill, who also stars in it. He has his psychiatrist, Phil Stutz. So I hope you enjoy this one. It's really good. It's on Netflix. Go check it out. More to come in this episode. But first, let's do a little bit of housecleaning. Thanks, everybody, for coming to listen to the KevTalks podcast. I'm Kevin Pinnell. I'm your host. I'm a senior project manager in the healthcare IT space. And on this show, I share the stories of intriguing people through great discussions or give my two cents based on my

experience, share industry best practice processes on healthcare technology, public safety, wellness, in hopes to make you, the listener, and me make progress. So thanks so much for being here. If you want to learn more or sign up, get updates when episodes are released, go to kevtalkspod.com. I also, as part of KPNL Productions, have the Jiu Jitsu, Y-U-J-I-T-S-U podcast, where I share tips and tricks for aspiring or brand new Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, and Penelope Fitness Club channel on YouTube. So check those out. Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's fly right into it. In candid conversations with actor Jonah Hill, leading psychiatrist Phil Stutz explores his early life experiences and unique visual model of therapy. So that is the kind of detailed or really summary, I guess, from Stutz on the Netflix website. Again, it's really good.

It just came out. So go check that out. So what I'm going to start sharing now are some of the notes that he took. I have a notebook, a podcast notebook that I use, journal, if you will. And so when I started watching this, I immediately was like, man, this is great stuff. So I started capturing as much as I could. So let's jump into it. These are some of the tools that Philstutz use. The first is index cards for patients. Let's them kind of draw what they're thinking, either in pictures or write things. And drawing is very therapeutic. I remember when I was younger, I used to draw all the time, mostly comic book things. But if you think about it,

or when I've been stressed out or anxious or something, there's those coloring books, right, where you color these patterns, and it really takes your mind off maybe the stress or the anxiety or whatever you've got. Well, in these index cards for patients, you can kind of draw what you're thinking, what you're feeling. And it seemed to be a therapeutic thing. And again, during this, Jonah Hill is really interviewing Phil Stutz, who's his psychiatrist. And he's talking about what he's used, which is kind of a cool perspective when you're watching this. The other great perspective that Phil Stutz dives into, and we've all heard this, right, is what's the difference between, as Phil Stutz says, so if you're a psychiatrist out there, not my word, but he calls himself a shrink, right,

which we've probably heard that word before, and the difference between what a shrink does and what friends do. And so if you're having problems next time you're talking to your friends, think about how quickly they give you advice, right, how quickly they may or may not say, oh, well, you should do this, or don't worry about that or something. And not that they're bad friends, but what's the difference? So the difference being, as they talk about in here is a shrink will listen, right? A shrink is paid to listen to you and let you talk and let you figure some things out. And your friends give you advice, right? And so sometimes you don't need the advice or want it, or want the

unsolicited advice. But that's also kind of a thing that Phil Stutz talks about, which is in the mental health or psychiatry business is for years, psychiatrists say, oh, you just need to sit there and listen and just let the patient work it out on their own and then kind of give him some tips here and there. And he said, that's bullshit, right? That's, that's his words. He's like, you're here. And so the example he gave is some guy that says, you know, in all these other areas, I'm successful, but this other one, I'm lazy. I don't do this. Whether it was exercise or work, I don't recall, but he says, okay, stop talking. Here's what you need to do. And he gives them advice, right? You're not, you're not there just to have a quiet room. And while that's a modality of therapy, I guess, and can work for some folks, Phil Stutz's thought is you're here for a reason

and it's for me to help you. So again, I thought that was pretty neat and noted just the difference, right? Trinks listen, friends give advice. The other thing he's talking about is your life force and the components that make it up. And that's the body, people, and the self. And so we'll start from the bottom. So picture a triangle, and at the bottom of that is your body, right? Your physical body. So imagine you're anxious, depressed, you're just stressed out, or you're great, right? Whatever, is that your body needs things, right? And this isn't, we're not doing Maslow's hierarchy, but what he talks about is the

body from your life force, right? Your physical body, you need exercise, you need a a good diet you need to get sleep right and sleep being 85 percent of your health uh roughly which is what they talk about but it's critically important and i talked about that on a previous episode particularly cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia so if you're having trouble sleeping go check that out um extremely helpful to get a handle on your sleep it changes every aspect of your life. The next up in the triangle, the middle is people. What are our relationships with people? And this, you know, can represent the human race as they talk about, but also, you know,

handholds and connecting with other humans or figuratively, are you holding your hands or needing your hands held a lot? Or are you taking initiative? And so, or the other people taking initiative. So it's that whole interaction, right? And if you've been in a conversation with anyone, you know, sometimes they lead the conversation. Sometimes you do at work, who, you know, takes the initiative to get stuff done, who needs their hand held.

And so that whole kind of human interaction dynamic, they talk through a little bit. And then understanding the self, right, especially with, you know, your unconscious or your consciousness and, and writing and looking in the mirror, and they talk about and I'll talk about some of the tools they talk to address that. But, you know, the body being the base, right, and that's, I think that's a thing that maybe a lot of folks don't consider is that your physical health. Right. Exercising, eating better, sleeping has such a tremendous impact, positive or negative, on how you interact with other people or don't, which it can affect your anxiety or just your mood, your happiness, your anger, whatever. And then ultimately at the top of the pyramid yourself, right? So how you identify with yourself and in your mind is so directly connected with your physical wellbeing. And

because if you don't feel good, if you're generally unhealthy, then there's probably a good chance that your, your attitude's not great. And overall your mental health isn't super. So that was a neat kind of triangle or a pyramid triangle triangle um where they talked about the body people and self from the bottom up then they talk about and this is pretty well in order i'm going in the order of my notes here um part x right and this is where adversity comes in and it's the judgment part of you that wants to block your success right and this may not be a conscious thing but it's there and you know so is there another level you could take your work? Is there another level, for example, let's say, is there another level I could take for this podcast?

Could I get a professional intro? Yes. Could I hire someone to edit this? Probably. But is my part X blocking me from that? Because maybe it's not comfortable because I have a day job. Like there's all these different factors. And so that part X you've got to look at, but what's the evolution of that? And as they say, I guess

I'll mark this episode explicit, but as they say in the thing, it will fuck up your shit, right? So if you let that part X take over and keep blocking you, it'll stop you from taking care of those three things in the triangle we talked about. It'll stop you from taking care of your body because you're like, oh, I'm not in shape. I can't go to the gym or I'm not in shape enough to start this sport. And then I can't talk to people because I'm too nervous or people don't like me. And then with yourself, you'll just keep down talking yourself. Kind of like I talked about that book on Fuck Yourself, right? Where it talks about I will or I will not statements and how you talk to yourself matters so you got to really look at your part x and address it and evolve it but it's always going to be there it's never going to go away and and kind of related to that they talk

about three aspects of reality pain uncertainty and constant work so this wasn't in studs but it was a great quote that i just found and it it's from Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers. There is no normal life that is free of pain. It is the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth. Again, not in Stutz, but I thought that was awesome. And it's relevant, right? Because just reality is there's pain. There's physical pain.

There's mental pain. There's emotional pain. It's just going to happen. And part of what they talk about is learning to accept that. But again, learning tools to deal with it that are related to those things we talked about, your physical health, mental and personal relationships. Uncertainty. This is something I've certainly, I'm a planner, I'm a doer. I like to solve problems and uncertainty. If you've seen Zero Dark Thirty, the intelligence analyst that's been tracking Bin Laden for so long is wanting them to do the raid on the compound. And she's like, I know uncertainty freaks you guys

out, but it's 100%. Right. So uncertainty is a way of life. And it's just something we can't get past. And that that hit me hard, because the uncertainty I have about either my health, which is pretty good. It's just, you know, a life thing. And I'm 48. Or with family members health with what's going to happen tomorrow, with job environments changing and just all this uncertainty is just a way of life. So getting to a point where you can start to say, yeah, this is, that's going to happen. And gosh, what hit me in the face. And, and again, I would encourage you all to listen to the, the unfuck yourself book or audio or read the book is the last part of that book, the last chapter that I listened to

the other day has to do with you're going to die. There's no getting around it. At some point, it's going to happen. And the uncertainty of death looms over everyone. It's one of the top fears for all humans, right? But the way that he explained it was so certain, right? and looking back to say, okay, with uncertainty, are you going to regret that you went on those trips? Are you going to regret that you got in better shape? No, you're going to regret that you didn't go anywhere and you're going to regret that you were out of shape and you were in pain forever, right? And so, anyway, kind of stuck on uncertainty, but that's the one I think that hits a lot of people. And then constant work, right? There's no free rides. Sometimes it looks like it on Instagram or Facebook or wherever all

the pretty people and all the rich folks pose. But work has to happen to really get success. And you got to learn about what success is. And it could be constant work just to get water, depending on where you're on the world, let alone success and money and housing and all that kind of stuff. But so three aspects of reality that they talk about pain, uncertainty and constant work. I'll try and keep summarizing these as I go so you can get the bullets. And really what's related to that is someone trying to establish greatness. And at this point of the movie, they're about through talking about you know jonah hill and his challenges and he's had weight and health challenges that he's addressed uh his whole life and but also talking about trying to be a successful actor right and that saying well

i'm i'm nervous to do this or i'm not going to try that because i won't be successful i won't get this part or something and And great, great line, great. It's not really a line, but it's just true and kind of related to Bernie Brown's vulnerability kind of angle. But Phil Stutz says you can't move forward without being vulnerable. And so there's no need to set up greatness, he says, too, because you can't hide behind perfection, right? And in the program and project management world and incident management responding, we've used or I've used the quote in the term, you know, perfect is the enemy of good. And that applies here too.

Don't hold what you're trying to achieve in whatever field it's in, or whether it's fitness or work or something else up on such a high pedestal that you never step towards it, that you're hiding behind perfection because of maybe what you see online or who you talk to. There is no perfect. Just take a little step and try and get better. And that can be a challenge, but I think we can all do it. And to that point, they then talk about, and really, again, that had to do as well,

during the documentary, there's kind of a twist and I don't really want to give it away, but let's just say it changes the nature of the movie and the aspect that we see Jonah Hill in. So I won't spoiler alert the whole thing, but at that point where they talk about where you have to be vulnerable to move forward, what they're talking about is Jonah Hill in this movie. And so kind of be aware of that.

Just watch it and enjoy it. But it's, it's a pretty cool turn and they do a great job and how they kind of switch things up. So how do we take that next step? What do we do? According to Stutz and, and Jonah Hill,

there's a string of pearls concept. And that is to just put the next pearl on the string. Each pearl is an action, right? The string is life. The string is going on. Each pearl is an action that we must take and all actions count, they say, right? Small actions, big actions. And this is advice. I'm pretty active on Reddit and whether it's in project management subreddit there or anxiety, mental health, program manager, whatever. I follow a whole bunch of them and try and get my two cents and then take information for myself as well and share that with you all here. But a lot of folks think they can take no action because they're so

depressed or anxious or they're new to the position or they're transitioning to a new position or they don't like their position. But we can all take actions, right? We can take little ones. We can take that first step to get outside. We can take the action to ask for help or go get help. A funny aspect of the string of pearls concept is that within each pearl, there's a dark circle and this is shown, it's illustrated in the movie and the dark circles are turd, they say. Well, that's just because nothing's perfect, but that's fine because life isn't perfect, right? And so it doesn't need to be. And in this imperfection, the next concept they talk about is the shadow, right? And this is the part of us that we're ashamed of, right? That we try to hide, that we're rejected, maybe something happened to us. And the exercise they do in here is to say,

to talk to your shadow, right? Your shadow still needs attention from you. And so it's a way to look inward and say, you know, I, let's say, for example, I'll use myself as an example. When I was in the Navy, I went to dive school for the dive medical technician program. So I qualified for it. I was in pretty good shape. I did decent on the tests, but I failed out because of an open water swim, a base swim where you swim on your back, you can't use your arms. And it's like a thousand yards or meters. I forget which it was pretty cold, but, but I hadn't prepared for it. And I don't think that was it. I think it was that I really didn't want that. I wanted something else, but I went, which sounds odd to go to one of the kind of elite schools in the Navy.

But my shadow from that is that I didn't say I quit. I missed my time. But somewhere along the line, could I have really pushed myself if I really wanted to be there and made it? I'll never know. But that shadow part of me is from a failure. And that could come from a bunch of different things, from being bullied, from being heavyset and then being treated poorly or having low self-esteem or whatever. But that shadow stays with you. And what they talk about is don't neglect it, right?

It needs attention. It's kind of a kind of fester right if you let it go and it can kind of overtake and upset some of the stuff we talked about before especially that self that top of the pyramid above body people in body and so your shadow is going to be there and you have to you have to address it and you have to take care of it and give it care just like you do your normal self the rest of yourself next as the movie goes on we we learn about the maze and this comes from part X, that part that wants you to fail and hold you up. And what this has to do, if you can imagine a line, right? Like a line graph and life is a flat line going to the right, you know, toward your age. And if you veer off an arrow, boom, it's going upwards. That's forward motion in life.

That's making progress in your health, in your family life, in your well-being, in your job and whatever. And then boom, going down at the same rate or what could happen is the maze where you get lost in that where part X is trying to fight you. And so being conscious of when is part X, that part that's trying to mess your stuff up saying, I don't know, you don't need to do that or it's not perfect. So don't try that verse. I'm taking little steps. I'm getting up. I'm controlling my sleep better. I'm eating a little better today. I'm going to study a little harder for that meeting tomorrow for my exam or whatever

you're doing. So being really conscious of which way you're going, are you going forward motion above the regular lifeline or are you getting caught in the maze that can wind down below your lifeline and drag you down mentally and physically. And then you can practice active love, they say. And this is a tough one. So think about someone that you, well, that you don't like or someone that's mistreated you, someone that you feel you don't want to or maybe can't forgive. And then think about and picture, as they talked about in the movie, the warm place, this great comfortable place of warmth, maybe snuggling under blankets in a cabin in the mountains where it's snowing with a fire crackling and you're just so warm and comfortable. And now think about that person that you hold a grudge against that did you wrong that for

whatever reason you just don't like them. Now put them in that warm place that's your heart. And this is hard to do, right? This is a really hard to do thing. I think it is for me. I don't know a lot of folks that I just truly dislike, but it's an interesting exercise, I think, and to picture, right? So if you picture that super comfy, warm, whatever beverage you have with a fire on the couch and a cabin in the snow, and it's so warm and comfortable, and you're like, man, this is great. And now think about applying that to somebody that you don't like so much.

That's active love. That's saying, I'm going to project this warmth and this caring onto you. And they talk about that as a great therapeutic and helpful thing. Then they talk about making jokes where, and you may have done this. I know I've done this. You make jokes to repress emotion. I have this one starred because when I was a corpsman working in the intensive care unit at Bethesda Naval Hospital, we had the sickest patients right in the military,

some of them. And I saw a lot of people die, old, young, anywhere in between from trauma, from diseases, whatever. So you have that dark humor, they call it. But it really is to repress the emotion and the horribleness that comes with doing that work, right? It's great work at times when you have someone that walks in after being in the hospital for four months, then a year later, they walk in and they're doing great, but it's horrible when you lose somebody, especially when you work so hard. Part of what can deal with that, and which I didn't really use as much at the time that I've learned a little over the years and then was reminded with this documentary is radical acceptance, right? So squeeze the juice out of any bad situation. Say it's a lemon, right? When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,

that whole thing. So squeeze all the juice out and think about what is meaningful in this horrible thing. And that's, again, super hard to do. You watch the news and there's tragedies everywhere, but what came out of it? I just did an episode and a post about an agreement now that folks in the city of Houston have, the public safety folks, that now we're going to promise to work together, which, well, the only reason that happened is because there was a horrible tragedy. Tragedy is a festival. Would it have happened for real? If that didn't happen, I don't know. Sometimes it takes that to happen. And so if it's a small thing, you know, you dropped a glass, okay, what good can happen? It's hard to do in the time you're emotional or whatever. But you know, thinking about big picture things,

find something meaningful in something that's not going well. And I had an issue with my sleep for a little bit. And so what happens to me and many others is you get stuck in the cycle where all you can think about is how you can't sleep and I'm not sleeping good. And you're so upset about that. And so what you have to do is change your mindset. And I talked about this on the can't sleep episode as well, which you can find on capitolxpod.com, is to stop freaking out over not sleeping, but also to be much more active in, I'm going to control how I wind down in the evenings. I'm going to cut down on screen time, all that kind of stuff.

And then squeeze the juice out of it of saying, I got five and a half hours uninterrupted. That's awesome. Okay, I got six. Okay, I got seven. Okay, I got whatever else. And you get the point, right? You just, you got to look at it a little more positive or you just keep dragging yourself down. And one of the other kind of visual perspectives, right? That's a big focus of this movie they talk about is the grateful flow and how the sun is always up there. So today where I am, it was miserable, it was cold,

it was gray, it was rainy. But through those clouds on the other side of that rain, I know the sun's up there, but sometimes it's hard to see that, right? It's hard to see it emotionally. It's hard to really physically see it literally as they say, but it's there. And so if we can try and understand that behind that black cloud or on the other side of this black cloud, this bad thing that's happening right now to me or the thought process I have, there is sunshine. And so this reminds me again of Viktor Frankl who quoted Nietzsche about if you have your why, you can put up with or determine almost any how. So if you have your why, which is the sun somewhere through the cloud, then you can

figure out how to make an ascent through that cloud and get to the sunshine. Phil Stutz then talks about how we all worry about loss and grief. And that's so true. And how we worry about it before it happens, right? So if we know someone is sick, if we are working on a patient and it doesn't look good or whatever it could be, that we need to practice or what's helpful to practice is unattachment actually or non-attachment, which is super hard, right? If it's a family member or a friend. But the visualization that he provides us is imagine you're holding on to a tree branch and then you let go and then you fall under the surface of the sun and then your physical body's gone but you're kind of everywhere and that visualization you know is meant to help with the attachment of or to the other person right and it i think this kind of has to help with the attachment of or to the other person, right?

And I think this kind of has to do with faith, like I talked about, right, in another episode of what do you believe, right? What do you believe will happen? Do you believe something will happen, that you'll see that person again, that they'll be around you spiritually, that you'll see them in heaven or whatever afterlife you believe in or as part of nature or something like that. But I think with this also is that it matters on celebrating the good parts of the good times that you have and having those times with folks as often as you can right while they're here. And that's super hard to do when you're worried about what could happen

or maybe know what could happen. But the non-attachment was an interesting article or rather tool to me as well to think about how to help let it go through a visual exercise. One of the last notes I have on this episode is that your heroes have struggles too, right? And not everybody that you think has it figured out has it figured out.

And that's so true in this day of, like I mentioned earlier, social media looks perfect and it's great. And what you do and what you don't see. And honestly, that's why I've shared in the at Penelope five fit on YouTube, uh, my failures. When I miss repetitions, when I miss the ball and trying to toss to myself as part of a balance exercise or whatever, people need to know it's okay to fail, right? But I think what we also have to collectively know is that we got to keep trying and not give up when we fail and keep pushing and understand that, you know, you may put people and admire them and they're up on a pedestal, but they're not perfect, right? They have struggles. You don't know just because someone's rich. And Eric Thomas talked

about this on Order of Man that I listened to. Just because someone's rich doesn't mean their family's super, right? Just because someone's poor doesn't mean their family's bad. And so that judgment that what you see online or on the news or from afar when you're in person, you don't really know. We don't really know. So I really found this, and I actually just, actually while recording this, found that there's a deep dive on netflix.com that I'll link to that goes through these tools, that goes through the processes that are in Stuts, and I hope my kind of primer was helpful.

Do read this article. Watch the movie. It's really good. It's really helpful whether you know you need help or you don't or you just want to watch something entertaining and a good conversation. So hats off to Jonah Hill for being super vulnerable. Also, he does jujitsu, so that's pretty awesome. And to Phil Stutz, who goes through some pretty painful stuff in his past, but he shares it with us, the viewers. And I'm glad I got to share my two cents and review and hope this helped you all, the listener. And I'm going to have some great interviews coming up with folks where we'll talk

about needs of public safety, some leadership lessons, some technology, a little bit of all that right in the areas that I've worked in. And again, to help interesting stories from people get out there to share those leading best practice processes and help us all make progress. So thanks so much. Please go visit the KevTalksPod.com website. You can connect with all the KPanel Productions items like the KevTalksPod at Panel5Fit on YouTube and the Jiu-Jitsu podcast for the folks that are interested or just starting Jiu Jitsu. Remember, have a plan so you and your team can work together and know what to do. Stay informed with facts, not just fear, and get involved so you can help make a difference. Godspeed, everybody.