← The Rich Roll Podcast
The Rich Roll Podcast
Phil Stutz & Elise Loehnen Share Tools For Inner Well-being, How To Embrace Pain, Uncertainty & Constant Work As Divine Invitations, & Why Everything You’re Avoiding Will Transform Your Life
01:33:29
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- [00:01]
Rich Roll
This past year, I unlocked a major life dream which was to build my own home gym. I gotta tell you, it's the greatest thing ever. Just this gift that keeps giving. To be able to wake up before the sun, walk just a few feet and have my own space to get right into my morning fitness routine. When it came to selecting the equipment for my gym, which is this customized 40 foot shipping container, I looked at a lot of stuff. And home fitness, it's come a long way and I really wanted to outfit my limited space with the smartest, most immersive gear that actually enhances the way that I could train. And what came out on top was NordicTrack. Not only because they've led the at home fitness space for like 50 years at this point, but because what they're doing right now is truly next level, exemplified by my favorite piece of kit, their commercial X32i treadmill, which simulates real world terrain with an incredible 40% incline and 6% decline. The S27i Studio Bike mimics road conditions with a 20% incline and a minus 10% decline. And the RW900 rower, it's smooth, it's fluid, and built to keep momentum effortless. But what really sets us apart is iFit Pro. Their new AI coach builds personal plans, schedules workouts and keeps you accountable all through simple text exchanges. I'm even training with my buddies, friends of the pod people like Tommy Ribs, Knox Robinson and Dan Churchill with the machines that automatically adjust to match their workouts in real time. So stop stalling your progress because you don't know what to do next. With NordicTrack and iFit, all you have to do is press start and the trainers and tech take care of the rest. Get 10% off with any purchase of $999 plus with the code Rich roll. Hey everybody over here. I need your full attention because today's episode is brought to you by on Now Listen conf discussion here. I'm somebody who has spent many decades obsessed with hard metrics, actually measuring the value of my life against the number of seconds I could shave off my splits or the distances I could run and even the number of people my words and my voice could reach. But age and wisdom, hard earned, have actually taught me a lesson. And that lesson is that the hardness required to do hard things is only going to get you so far. The best of what movement and even life has on offer is so much more about soft winds. Because the victories that stick with you, I can tell you never have anything to do with a stopwatch so what is this idea of soft winds? Well, it might be that perfect trail moment where maybe you're moving slow but you're in the zone where time dissolves and you're purely present and so connected with nature that you're overwhelmed with gratitude. Or it could be that soul filling feeling that you get when you share a deep conversation with a running buddy. Or perhaps it's just the way you feel restored after that group jog following a stressful day at work. This softwinds is what ON is all about and why partnering with them feels like partnering with myself. Because not only is on Best in Class when it comes to premium sportswear with gear that's battle tested by world class athletes, they're also innovating what it means to be active and more importantly, why we move in the first place. Which is what I care about and talk about all the time here on the podcast. Find out what all the fuss is about by maybe starting with their new Cloudsurfer 2, which is this beautiful, effortless shoe that embodies the soft winds philosophy by reconnecting you with this very why. So whether you're finding joy in your pace or rediscovering your love for running, if it fills your cup, that is a soft win. Worth celebrating. To explore your own soft wins and check out the new Cloudsurfer 2 head to on.com richroll.
- [04:18]
Phil Stutz
Every human being has an enemy inside themselves. Everyone, everybody has some set of assumptions about the character and the shape of the universe. What's out there is chaos, as far as we think, because we don't know what it is. If you want to have faith, you just have to take it.
- [04:40]
Rich Roll
For whatever bizarre evolutionary reason, the human animal just doesn't seem to be a huge fan of uncertainty. So much of our thinking is all oriented around denying it, to perpetuate this illusion of security. But uncertainty is reality, or, as psychiatrist Phil Stutts puts it, one of the three unavoidable truths of life. You might remember Phil from the fantastic Netflix documentary Stutz, or from his appearance on this very show about a year ago. Well, today Phil returns, this time accompanied by Elise Lohnan, his co author in the new book True and False Magic, a podcast host and celebrated writer in her own right, whose insights have helped countless people navigate life's challenging terrain.
- [05:30]
Elise Lohnan
We're all stuck in our own dioramas in the Natural History Museum, and the things that don't fit into our worldview are out of sight, but they're still present.
- [05:39]
Phil Stutz
Whatever projection, whatever image you have is wrong. In a sense, it doesn't even exist. It's a representative of nothing.
- [05:49]
Rich Roll
Together, they make the case for why uncertainty is not our enemy. Because the very confrontations we find ourselves running away from actually are doorways to everything meaningful in life. Quick note. Before we get into it, Phil suffers from Parkinson's disease. But what suffers no impairment is his wisdom.
- [06:08]
Phil Stutz
People think that they need the sun, the moon, and the stars to be lined up properly, and then maybe they'll be strong enough. No.
- [06:22]
Rich Roll
Well, Phil, Elise, delighted to have you guys here today.
- [06:26]
Phil Stutz
Thank you.
- [06:27]
Rich Roll
So excited to talk about the new book. And I just want to say up top, up front, you know, Phil, our first conversation together was really impactful for me and very meaningful. And subsequent to that, my wife and I had a session with you, and it was a real wake up call for me. You really identified something in me with your X ray vision. That was very astute. And so I just want to thank you for that.
- [06:56]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, I think the main part of my job that's accessible is just to see. Do they know what part X is? Have we discussed.
- [07:06]
Rich Roll
Yeah, we talked a little bit about it, but, you know, it's been a minute. I don't want to presume that anybody who's watching or listening to this can remember what we talked about or even in that episode.
- [07:16]
Phil Stutz
Okay. So every human being has a enemy inside themselves. Everyone. And I don't agree with the kind of the new age assumption that it's the people who've been traumatized the most or who've had the worst experience possible. I mean, those people count. And obviously the part X what we're talking about, destructive part is going nuts in them. But what's happened is really interesting, is that inner enemy is now spreading. So you can see something which on a individual basis is easier to see. But I can't say how many people have come up to me in the last. I would say three weeks and say, what the fuck is going on? I have no idea what to do, what I'm supposed to do.
- [08:14]
Rich Roll
Yeah, I mean, I think basically what you're getting at is like, what is the diagnosis for America right now? It's fucking crazy out there, and all the rules are just sort of out the window, and it feels like chaos. And it's forcing us to confront our own relationship with uncertainty and the anxiety that that's producing because we're seeing things kind of unfold rapidly, especially in Los Angeles with the fires and all this sort of thing, like, what is happening. Right. And so there's the individual diagnosis and how the part X and the tools and things that you talk about in this book are applicable. But like wr large, like, how did we get here and what is happening? Like, how do you answer that question?
- [08:58]
Phil Stutz
It's a great question. It's a $64,000 question. The best way to say it is that irrational part of each of us that will end up causing us to function irrationally and to our own detriment, is growing like Topsy. And we cannot stop that unless every single human being, and that could take a thousand years, unless every single human being feels that somehow they're responsible for the whole. Which means in the terms we're talking about now, it means they're responsible for. I forget how the Bible says, but they're responsible for your brothers and sisters. So that's fairly obvious. The question is, how are you going to get there? And that brings up faith. So faith is. Faith is something that cannot be proven impossible. If you want to have faith, you just have to take it for no reason, completely irrationally. And one or two of you is talking about the intuitive experience of connecting to something that you need but you really don't know anything about. So faith means I don't know shit about this. And I have to go forward with the faith that somewhere in the future something's going to come into my life that will be at least one step towards. I like to say it's one step towards freedom. And freedom to me means not. You can go to whatever hotel you want to go to or anything like that. It means freedom from part X. So this is still. The question is, how can everybody have this? And the reason is the world now is falling apart. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. There'll be a lot of people that are going to be terribly hurt by it. But the only thing that can effectively deal with this situation is the willingness to move forward into complete surrender. That even though it's surrender, you're not finished with it until you can take action. So it's the ability to take action in the face of complete uncertainty. And the faith has to become a choice that you have to make for no reason. Now, the way our culture is set up is the opposite of that, in other words. And the bottom line instead of faith for most of us is doubt. And doubt means I doubt everything and everyone, and I demand proof. And if I don't get the proof, I'm going to remain in doubt. The problem with that is if you remain in doubt, eventually you get paralyzed because you can't get enough proof to allow the rational part of the mind to move forward.
- [12:22]
Rich Roll
Yeah. And that's the frame. Right. So if your frame is you need proof in order to act, that will short circuit your ability to have any faith whatsoever. And if you don't have any faith whatsoever, you are basically stuck in this Part X paradigm. Or you have universe one and universe two. And when we look at whether it's America or modernity at large and try to canvas or make sense of what's happening right now, it's sort of like Part X kind of like writ across the world by a collective that's lost their connection with the importance of tending to the collective. Like, I know, like so much of your work roots back to Rudolph Steiner and he talks about the beehive and like, you know, we're so obsessed with our individual liberties and we're caught in this universe one paradigm where it's about, you know, money and power and success and status that it blinds us. And please correct me if I'm getting this wrong. It's like blinding us to reality. Like it is a. It's an illusion in which we're living out our lives that is preventing us from not just, you know, maintaining a cohesive society, but from accessing our true potential, which is to kind of co create with higher forces and be fully expressed.
- [14:02]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Now here's the trick of that. For something to be real, if you want to create and you want to create something that's worthwhile, you can't do it by yourself. You need a partner. And the nature of the human psyche and human identity is you can't do anything yourself at all. So everything you're going to do has to include a partner. Now, the ultimate partner is God, obviously. And people get really upset when I talk about God.
- [14:38]
Elise Lohnan
I love it when you talk about God.
- [14:40]
Phil Stutz
Oh, so maybe we can skip this part of our program.
- [14:43]
Rich Roll
I mean, this new book is all about God. Like, you're just in the deep end. This is profoundly spiritual work. Like, it takes these ideas from the tools and you're just extending them and really, you know, kind of embracing this ineffable spirituality that's required in order to kind of like overcome like our own shortcomings and disabuse us of this waking dream that we live our lives in.
- [15:08]
Phil Stutz
Correct?
- [15:09]
Rich Roll
Yeah, but I'm all up in my head still.
- [15:13]
Elise Lohnan
It's interesting. As we were going through this book, there were more. We took out some of the references to sort of, in part because we didn't want to talk about it in the context or the metaphor of war, but how the need to. Your earlier point about what's happening in the collective for people to find their own faith, both singularly and collectively. And we took some of it out because it felt, ironically, quite dramatic. And then now I wish we'd left more of it in because it feels like that's the moment that we're at. And you talk about it as sort of this non duality of working on yourself, which in of itself is in service to the collective, and that both things need to happen simultaneously, alone and together.
- [15:57]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, here's the thing. It's very hard for people to accept, which is we were designed to do the impossible, which is to be in two places at the same time. So it's actually more possible than you might think think to do that. It's the significance of this. It's indispensable that you have even an intimation that you can feel the state that you're meant to be in. But the human race is meant to be in forever. Okay. There are three. We call them domains. And every person has to face God. God can only speak to you. And if you don't like the word God, it doesn't matter. But it's a force that's so much bigger than you, so much wiser than you, that the only way it can reach you. At first, it feels like you just got punched in the face by somebody who has a fist that's six blocks long. And I call that death. You have to be killed. To go back to the frame because it's very important. The frame is the set of assumptions that someone has. And everybody has some set of assumptions about the character and the shape of the universe. Now, that sounds to most people, hey, man, paying you a fortune. Give me a shit. But it's actually true. The space that you inhabit, the boundaries of your world limit you. Even the idea we're in Calabasas or wherever we are, or in California, anything like this. We think we're building some kind of spiritual structure. It doesn't matter what we feel we have to do. Part X will tell us you can't do it. Human beings are probably, you could say they're born with limitations. It's like somebody being afraid of something that doesn't even exist is probably the best way to say it. Now, here's the trick of it. So you have. So that I think is understandable. It's this little square that used to live inside a. It's how I Feel a lot of times when I'm working, I'm stuck and I have to see three more patients at that point. That's my little box. You can only change that or escape from that limitation by changing the frame. But the only way to do that is death. And I mean death in the broader ego.
- [18:50]
Rich Roll
Death.
- [18:51]
Phil Stutz
Basically, yeah. Yes.
- [18:54]
Rich Roll
So my sense of what you just said, if I can try to share it back to you, is that our brains are wired in such a way in order to survive as these pattern making machines to make sense of all this stimuli coming into us to create a map of the world. And with that we create a frame. This is the way it is. This is the way it isn't. This is who I am. Here's what I do when I do this, this happens, et cetera. And as much as that is beneficial in order to like, you know, get up in the morning every day and like, you know, not crash our cars or whatever, it's inherently incredibly limiting because prevents us from experiencing reality as it actually is. And it prevents us from tapping into these unseen forces that defy our brain's desire to prove with evidence. And as a result, we live our lives like reduced from what we could be. And the only way to shake us out of this illusion is some intervening event. A comet hits our life and explodes everything that forces us to question the very nature of these rules that we've established for ourselves. So whether it's a bottom with addiction or a divorce or some kind of crisis to shake us up and create the willingness to, you know, kind of look at things a little bit differently.
- [20:27]
Elise Lohnan
Is that a plot you could have written this book?
- [20:30]
Rich Roll
No, I don't think. Definitely not. This book is beautifully written and I'm curious also, Elise, about how you came into it.
- [20:36]
Elise Lohnan
But like, anyway, no, that's, I think, accurate. You in the book, we write about it as we're all stuck in our own dioramas in the Natural History Museum. And the things that don't fit into our world view or out of sight, but they're still present until life comes collapsing in on you. Right.
- [20:55]
Rich Roll
Death explodes and so pain is necessity, like some kind of crisis. Is it possible to shift this frame and open yourself up to these ideas short of experiencing a crisis that, you know, allows you to expand your perspective?
- [21:11]
Phil Stutz
No, I would say it's possible to prepare yourself to something even though you don't know what it is or when it's going. But you can orient yourself as opposed to, you can say to God, I don't purport to have any knowledge of what's going to happen. But if there's anything you can do to help me, please help me.
- [21:33]
Elise Lohnan
I mean, you talk a lot about this book as a training process or a protocol that regardless of what might be present, is getting you oriented and organized to understand that there's no exoneration from pain. The need for constant work and confronting. Yeah. Dealing with uncertainty in an ongoing, regular way.
- [21:56]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Now if you come across any of those three and most people confront with all three of them, that's the presence of God. In other words, it's like getting punched by four or five people. No, no, by three people. God announces his presence with the number. And it's been a sacred number for thousands of years. But in this case, you actually need the confrontation with each of these domains. And the hardest one for people to tolerate is the uncertainty. Because our whole society is premised and the idea that there's some built in protective mechanism that will help you to deal with uncertainty, that will make you.
- [22:53]
Rich Roll
Feel secure, that will make you feel safe. Yeah, we're so deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, but uncertainty is reality and we believe that we can do certain things and avoid that uncertainty. And when these three unavoidable truths come knocking, pain, uncertainty and the need for constant work, what you're saying basically is this is God knocking, saying, I'm giving you an opportunity to confront yourself, to grow, to evolve, and I'm beckoning you to collaborate with me and this is my way of making myself known to you.
- [23:32]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, that's well said. There's another side to this which is if you're prepared to accept these three domains, you don't have to evoke them, you don't have to do that. But when they come, and they come very fast, usually you have to accept them. If you can do that, or you make it, you condition yourself so at least it's part of your life. At that point, the frame is weakened. At that point you become more sensitive through a different organ. In other words, this organ here for you for the rest of your life is not going to help you, particularly because you're so facile in all these talents. But if you are committed to breaking the frame, what actually happens is because the frame holds things out, because it's a small little world it wants to keep you in. But once you can see that, then something else happens, which is the entire universe floods you if you're not prepared for it. That's why there's so many suicides, there's so many People with sing, shrinks, et cetera, because they're inundated with the Force. Not only don't they understand it, they don't even know that it's there. And what society does is it offers you this fake solution. You can't have it in one incarnation, but what you want to have is you have to allow in the whole universe.
- [25:15]
Rich Roll
Mm, you have to allow in the whole universe. Like that's a, that's a. That's a mouthful. Like how does one do that?
- [25:23]
Phil Stutz
Because what's out there is chaos, as far as we think, because we don't know what it is. And all the societal defenses against chaos tend to break up. Look, it's breaking up right now. How do you know when the universe, that's the real universe, you can say what gives the stamp of approval of reality? And the answer is, I don't know.
- [25:54]
Elise Lohnan
One thing that on the frame that I think is important, that I didn't understand at first too, is that I assumed when the frame explodes and you've had some exploding frames in your life, that you enter a larger frame. But that's not right. Right. It just. It's essentially what's driving you is this non linear growth where you're moving forward and you're still in a frame that continues to explode, but it's not like you ever get out of the frame.
- [26:20]
Phil Stutz
That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. But there are frames that are almost inborn and people are somewhat aware of them. And by the way, they're aware of them based on what they see as possible. Part X tells you you have a problem that you don't really have, but you believe him. And then after he's given you this specious problem, he gives you a solution to it that makes the problem worse. That's how Pardax functions. And all of this stuff centers around uncertainty and the other aspect of paradox, which is false magic. And false magic means it's like the devil coming up and saying to you, hey, just do what I tell you. Which means believe in these constricted sense of what's possible. And you won't have to meet the three domains. You don't have to do that. All you gotta do is follow me. Now that doesn't work too well, obviously, and it's a death because he's promising you something that actually is impossible. So you're going to fail at it. However, being the devil, it's okay with him because he's just going to hit you again with it and again and again and Again, and that is a war. We're on a war footing. You can't deal with that by yourself. It's impossible. Which brings in a whole other dimension to this, which is, what role does other human beings play in this? Because you can't attack this just by yourself. Individually, it's impossible.
- [28:18]
Elise Lohnan
But don't you think it's also part X that would say, oh, you just need to, you know, you need to blow up your life once Rich, and then you're done. You're exonerated. That's it. But in reality, you're going to get punched in the face. There's no avoidance.
- [28:32]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Even if I'm an addict and I build a program, I still don't have the absolute certainty that I want. I never have it.
- [28:43]
Elise Lohnan
It's tough medicine.
- [28:46]
Rich Roll
So on the subject of threes, there is part X, which is basically like your shadow self. Maybe you have a different kind of ripple on that. And then we have life force, and then we have higher forces. There's this triangle.
- [29:04]
Phil Stutz
I love you so much.
- [29:05]
Rich Roll
So I'm trying to make sense of, like, go ahead. Life force, higher forces, and Pardax.
- [29:17]
Phil Stutz
I don't love you anymore. Why can. Okay. The higher forces are the most accessible and understandable because they're very behaviorally oriented. Anybody can tell themselves or can make themselves believe that they're going in a way that ultimately it's going to give them a respite from the uncertainty. Okay. The next deepest thing is invisible explosion. And I never presented this anyway before, so do your best. Brutal, Steiner says. And death. You don't go anywhere. You're still right here. Probably. You turned inside out. Take your shirt off and turned inside out. Now, once you've turned yourself inside out, then what you think is coming from the outside is coming from the inside. So it's almost like you've reached the point where you're in the. The whole universe is inside you is probably the best way to see. And that's not the solution, but that's the mindset that you have to get. And there are other religions, obviously they've talked about, but this is deeper than karma. It's the ability to create something out of nothing, which is really. I'll probably spend the rest of my trying to figure it out. But think about it. If you go backwards and you say, how is the universe created? Right. Whatever it is, it's a big question mark because you're creating something out of nothing. Now, the idea of creating something out of nothing is a complete violation of our frame Complete. And the way you sell that to somebody is you tell them, or you tell them. This force that created the universe is a total mystery. And we have no idea really how the fuck did it do that. We suggest, at least to the patient, however you want to call it, that that force, that mystery, cosmic mystery that created something out of nothing, is the force human beings need to really feel themselves. So think of it as like. Did you ever get those small candy bars? Yeah, like those 2 cent ones. So you're giving each human being, if they want to take it, and if they want to do the work for it, you're giving each of them a little piece of that force that created something out of nothing. Even though you don't know what the force is, they don't know what the force is. And you can't know what the force is because it imputes to something was there before the universe.
- [32:21]
Rich Roll
So fundamental to reality is the idea that you can create something out of nothing because otherwise the universe wouldn't exist. And what plays out in that, in the most macro sense, is available to us in our individual lives on a micro level. Right? Like just accepting that that's real. Like you can create something out of nothing if you can cultivate your life force and like dance with the higher forces. Did I get that idea right? How do you think about this, Elise?
- [32:55]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of the whole nut of this, of every bit of your work, right? Is how do you create a really potent. How do you turn yourself into a potent creator in your own life?
- [33:09]
Phil Stutz
I change it slightly, I would say. How do you elicit the ability? Because you can think of it as a very specific skill. People don't like it because part and parcel with developing that skill is the idea that you've given up any kind of certainty about anything. Now, look, I'm making it over simplistic. Everything's always a little bit of this and a little bit of that, of course, but that force. Have we talked before about a human being having two different poles? Do you remember that?
- [33:55]
Elise Lohnan
You might have touched on it briefly, but not today.
- [33:58]
Phil Stutz
Human beings are dual beings. They have to have two poles. I said at the beginning, people think that they need the sun, the moon and the stars to be lined up properly and then maybe they'll be strong enough. No, it's like anything that has to do with that cannot help you because it's only something that came from beyond that announces itself with no explanation. Foreign.
- [34:32]
Rich Roll
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- [38:49]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Yes. It's almost the definition of it.
- [38:53]
Elise Lohnan
Well, and you have a line where essentially you're like, God doesn't care what you create. It has. It is. Ultimately, God's not interested in whether or not you write a bestseller. God is interested in you engaging in life every minute. Yeah. Tell them the biphasic fantasy, Phil.
- [39:12]
Rich Roll
Oh, yeah. People love terms like that, too.
- [39:17]
Elise Lohnan
I love it.
- [39:20]
Rich Roll
This doesn't sound like a term you would do.
- [39:22]
Elise Lohnan
Is that your ideal biphasic fantasy?
- [39:26]
Phil Stutz
All right, since you're breaking my balls, I will tell you what that means. The ego wants to become God, right? Control everything. But the only way he can do that is by lining up the bad guys on the other side of the field and defeat them. But if there's no bad guys, there's nobody for your defeat. And you start to get the sinking feeling, oh, I didn't do it myself. I did it with help. And I'm starting to sink back into that cosmic like glue or something. But it's a fraud. So the reason it's a biphasic fantasy is you can see it in people who seem to have the need to get thrust down into almost death. And some people, it is death. And the only way to get out of it is to go back to the first state. But if you do that, you may feel better, but simultaneously, you need an adversary to prove that you are God. And unfortunately for you, that never lasts. It can't last.
- [40:45]
Elise Lohnan
And within the biphasic fantasy there's a need, right, to keep that fantasy going, to continue to create adversaries that you are going to vanquish and beat because you need them.
- [40:56]
Rich Roll
If you slay them all, then your whole frame is like, you know, thrown out the window. Right. That would create its own existential crisis. Like you can no longer be the victim, you need those adversaries. So once you've slain them all, then you have to create new ones for yourself in this quest to become God.
- [41:13]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. And that's where you see public self destructive, unexplainable activities of whatever hypothesis you can see the most clearly. So that's called the biphasic fantasy. And it's the secret of the ebbs and flows of up and down of human events.
- [41:41]
Elise Lohnan
Would you say too that in the corporate world or in a relationship, it's that need to self sabotage, Blow things up, create chaos so that you can then solve the problem?
- [41:51]
Phil Stutz
Yes.
- [41:52]
Rich Roll
Oh, that's interesting.
- [41:53]
Elise Lohnan
That keeps you in.
- [41:54]
Rich Roll
Utilize one successful person, implode their life.
- [41:58]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah, I bet you don't see any people like that, Phil, here in Hollywood.
- [42:04]
Rich Roll
Well, I think you say like all these successful people, there's like a 50, 50% chance, you know, 50, 50 chance that they're gonna, you know, kind of sabotage their life, blow up their whole skin kind. But okay, yeah, so you, what is it, 70? Like in most cases, like they're, they're sort of purposely stepping on landmines even when you know life looks good.
- [42:26]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, but they wouldn't, they don't think of it as life looks good. They think of it as I want more, more, more, and I want to go to the next battle, right. Fight the next army. And then supposedly I can get more of this stuff. Which will start to erode the moment the last cycle is finished.
- [42:46]
Rich Roll
Sure, but where does the self sabotage part come in to that?
- [42:51]
Phil Stutz
Oh, there's two phases. One is the alienation phase, which, that's where you need something fucked up always the to be affecting you. And then there's the conquest phase, which is you can't have a conquest phase unless you have alienation phase first. And why does that even matter? The reason it matters is it all goes back to human beings functioning as a group. And that would include functioning as a group in a marriage, like in a small friend or somebody totally unqualified becomes the president of some country. I just picked that out, thin air, see, and shrinks don't understand this. There's always two things going on at once. One level of this is called contextual level. It means, like, if I have somebody in a marriage and the guy, they're so angry at each other that they're not even talking to each other very much. Let's say you're the patient. I say your job is to create a context. Even if you don't believe what you're saying, even that doesn't matter. And the conquest is I'm always aware of the other person and I'm always trying to support their view of the world, even though in a specific sense you may want to smack them in the head and it's unbearable. So you have to do both. You have to say, hey, you're not available to me, you're not present to me, you're not helping me. You can say this of your partner, but at the same time, at the same time, you have to take action steps to give the person what they want. People don't believe they can do things at once, and they can, but Pardex doesn't want them to know that.
- [44:52]
Rich Roll
So there's alienation and conquest. You need both of these things in like a marriage dynamic. But I'm imagining, you know, the powerful, successful person is the alienation piece, like the motivation of feeling like you're not part of or you're like, you know, I'm not being accepted by this group. I feel alienated. And so I'm motivated to like, for conquest so that I can be part of the in group. And then when you succeed, you then have to still feel like you're alienated from, I guess, the next level of that. Right. And it creates this cycle. So those two things have to go together.
- [45:35]
Phil Stutz
Yes, that's correct. And it might sound extreme, but that's behind most of human psychology. Is that because people need the context. I mean, the way you explained, doesn't matter whether it's the chicken or the egg, neither person will allow the thing.
- [45:59]
Rich Roll
Oh, I was hoping you were gonna do that. He's gonna draw.
- [46:04]
Phil Stutz
Oh, sorry.
- [46:05]
Rich Roll
Well, maybe while he's drawing, you can share, Elise, how you got involved with this project and like, what you're history and relationship is with Phil.
- [46:15]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah. So Phil won't remember this, but I Met Phil probably 10 years ago. Maybe it was even longer. He did an on stage session at an Ingoup Health. I think it was the very first in Goop health that we ever did. And it was stunning, I have to say. And I knew of the tools I knew of the work. You worked with someone live, and I don't even remember the specifics, but I'll never forget watching. I mean, there's something so compelling about watching live therapy when it's done masterfully. And then I interviewed Phil for similar to you lessons for Living. And he was drawing tools for me and sharing concepts that I had never heard of that weren't in the tools. I mean, more practically, we share an agent, but I was like, I'd love to work with Phil on something. And we were hired to write a workbook.
- [47:08]
Rich Roll
But it's very of a piece with your other writing sense that what Phil is presenting is a feminine frame on, like, how to think about, like, emotions and what's important and meaningful.
- [47:23]
Elise Lohnan
Well, now you cut right to it. I think. What's so compelling, to me personally, I love a framework. I want to understand how all of these things fit, how you create a wide enough context to understand human behavior and culture and sociology. And Phil does that, I think, in a very masculine way and in a way that appeals to men. That is somewhat of a counter to the way that I see the world, which is more feminine and more intuitive. And so working with him, I don't know, it felt. Well, you would say you can't create anything alone. And you don't really. As much as everything comes out of your mind, you collaborate on everything. You're forced to collaborate on everything. And so, I don't know, it felt like an interesting pairing. And I love Carl Jung, and he says, Carl Jung is too Teutonic. And he doesn't like.
- [48:17]
Phil Stutz
No, I don't say Teutonic. I say he's lazy.
- [48:21]
Elise Lohnan
Oh, he's lazy. Sorry, apologies. You heard it here, one of the most prolific. But he's a lazy sack of shit, guys. But you love, obviously, Rudolf Steiner, as you mentioned, but for me, it's just added. I feel like I'm good at the subtleties and the shadow. And you are so clear, actually, in the way that you perceive the world that it's like catnip to me personally.
- [48:48]
Rich Roll
Well, I think where Phil really excels is taking all these very ephemeral concepts and drilling them down, you know, into not just practical tools, but, like, languaging that allows you to kind of, like, in our limited minds, you know, kind of conceptualize what is fundamentally, you know, so difficult to understand. And I think maybe that's the masculine piece, because on the surface, it's like, okay, you know, men are in their heads and women are in their hearts. And, like, we've all heard that a million times before, Right. I think there's a frustration with therapy. Like, Jonah says it beautifully in the documentary. He's like, look, you pay this therapist to give you advice, and all they do is listen. And then you go to your idiot friends and want them to listen, and they give you unsolicited advice. Like, the whole fucking thing is upside down. Right. And you've created a situation in which you are providing actionable takeaways, which I think appeals to the masculine kind of sensibility of like, just tell me what to do. Like, I want to fix this. I don't want to spend 10 years talking about my bullshit be in the same place. And how do you do that while also embracing that this requires kind of like a feminine heart opening approach that the masculine resists.
- [50:06]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah, no, and it's true. That's so incredibly well put. And it's so compelling to me how I understand it. But, for example, my husband loves Phil, and I can't get my husband to go to therapy, period. But he, for whatever reason, you are a bridge for a lot of people into a world that's more familiar to me and probably more familiar to Julie.
- [50:32]
Rich Roll
Yeah. What's interesting about Julie is that she's pretty therapy resistant. She's this, you know, she's very devoted to her spiritual practices, but kind of resistant to traditional modalities of therapy. And, like, Phil is like the only guy she likes. Like, loves Phil. And she has a masculine kind of edge to her as well. But, you know, she couldn't, you know, she. She couldn't have been more enthusiastic to go see Phil. So Phil's playing both sides of the coin.
- [51:02]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah. Look at you.
- [51:03]
Phil Stutz
I think that's a tremendous compliment.
- [51:06]
Rich Roll
Yeah, you should.
- [51:07]
Elise Lohnan
You should. Well, I think the people who. And there are many who love you are often quite admirable people, too.
- [51:14]
Phil Stutz
Not all of them.
- [51:15]
Elise Lohnan
Not all.
- [51:16]
Phil Stutz
I'm sorry, Name names.
- [51:18]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah, I was just about to say that.
- [51:19]
Rich Roll
What did you draw? What did you draw there?
- [51:21]
Elise Lohnan
I don't know what this is.
- [51:22]
Phil Stutz
What do you got? This is a dissection of the life force. Oops. I'll just put lf because I'm getting lazy.
- [51:30]
Elise Lohnan
So lazy. Phil.
- [51:32]
Phil Stutz
So this is what it looks like. Those curly Q things?
- [51:38]
Rich Roll
No, what do you got here? You got a little curlicue line on the far right. It says, lf.
- [51:46]
Phil Stutz
This reminds you it's the life force. The life force presents itself to you as if it just died. Now, you might say, well, what are you, crazy? But no, because you Just died. But would it be the down part of the circle?
- [52:06]
Rich Roll
If I got this right, Basically something happens in your life that shakes you up and you feel like you're dying and you think that's your life force that's dying. But actually this is the moment where your life force might be awakened.
- [52:18]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, that's correct. And the life force has two phases to it. So the first phase is death or some kind of addiction failure or whatever. So that's when the curve goes down and then it goes back up again. And that's the rebirth. So you have death and rebirth, but you don't have death without rebirth. Not because you have such a strong will. You're so committed to therapy. The reason you can't have one without the other is because the cycling part, the death and rebirth, is built into the system. And that's where faith comes in. Let me give me this thing.
- [53:10]
Rich Roll
It's also, I mean, it keeps. It continues to swirl. Right. So you can't have rebirth without death. You can't have death without rebirth. But it's not a one time affair.
- [53:22]
Phil Stutz
No, not only isn't it a one time affair, it doesn't even exist without the. Okay, so this. So on this one, the first thing I'm enjoy is the downward part of the cycle. So that's over here. And that's going to start to come up again, which is the rebirth. So I'll put rebirth. And I don't want to give any. If this didn't come out so good.
- [53:53]
Rich Roll
I'm not going to give you any. I'm going to give you sign these things.
- [53:56]
Phil Stutz
A lot of like, she's giving me the chocolate.
- [54:03]
Rich Roll
Okay, so you have rebirth on these little curved parts of.
- [54:07]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, the downward part is Seth.
- [54:10]
Rich Roll
The downward parts of death. And then it comes around for the rebirth. Yeah, right.
- [54:15]
Phil Stutz
And that's built in.
- [54:17]
Rich Roll
It never stops the need for constant work. Right. Like the idea like, oh, I had my death, I've been reborn. That's in the past. And now happily ever after. Right. That's sort of the more kind of like traditional narrative.
- [54:31]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, that's what the devil is telling you. Stick with me and I'll teach you a way to avoid this altogether.
- [54:40]
Rich Roll
And the resistance that like this is just an ongoing process that's constantly looping is the source of our suffering.
- [54:48]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah. Well, we live in a culture that wants to insist that growth is upwards and to the right. And essentially your model of the life force and long linear growth is that you are going to get cold. We write about it as sort of plant trauma. The plant persists and keeps growing, but it gets. It's going to suffer these curlicues as its potential is revealed. The death and rebirth is part of the healthy. It's not even part of a healthy cycle. It is built into the. It is a cycle.
- [55:20]
Rich Roll
But we also misdefine growth. Like we think growth means, you know, the accumulation of material possessions and success and power and money and prestige and all of that. Right. Like, we're caught on that hedonic treadmill and, you know, then become disappointed when we feel our lives lack meaning. And then we end up in Phil's office.
- [55:43]
Elise Lohnan
Right. In the realm of illusion, which I think is one of the most compelling concepts, which is this idea that you accrue enough power and money and you're immune from life. Right. That.
- [55:53]
Phil Stutz
Yes, that.
- [55:54]
Elise Lohnan
You're good.
- [55:55]
Phil Stutz
Here's the nature of the realm of illusion. I mean, we can be sitting here talking, and we could be either in the realm of illusion or not. That's our choice. Okay. It's a lucky day.
- [56:07]
Rich Roll
All right. There you go. More drawings.
- [56:11]
Elise Lohnan
Needs to be a triptech.
- [56:12]
Phil Stutz
Let's not go crazy. Perfect life. And this is what I would say.
- [56:18]
Rich Roll
So it's a sort of a line that denotes the ground, a little stick figure and a dotted line to a square that represents the perfect life.
- [56:27]
Phil Stutz
Yes.
- [56:28]
Rich Roll
Like a thought bubble.
- [56:31]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Yeah. That's probably pretty good, actually. So that's. We don't want that, for obvious reasons.
- [56:40]
Rich Roll
We don't want what?
- [56:42]
Phil Stutz
We don't want to believe in Santa Claus. We don't want to believe that that's even possible.
- [56:50]
Rich Roll
A perfect life.
- [56:51]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, perfect life. Usually it's like a perfect spouse or something. But it doesn't matter what the detail is. It only matters that whatever projection, whatever image you have is wrong in a sense. It doesn't even exist. It's a representative of nothing.
- [57:10]
Rich Roll
But you would say it doesn't even matter. All that matters is that you're cultivating your life force and, you know, in this process of, like, constant creation.
- [57:20]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Now look at the two together and tell me, how would they fit?
- [57:26]
Rich Roll
They don't really fit at all. Like, the curlicue lines of, like, rebirth and death. This is like saying, you know, it's about the journey, not the destination. It's just. It's a process. Right. Whereas this perfect life is about going somewhere with a destination.
- [57:48]
Phil Stutz
Yeah.
- [57:48]
Elise Lohnan
Static or snapshot?
- [57:51]
Phil Stutz
Okay, give me that thing back there.
- [57:54]
Rich Roll
Which one?
- [57:55]
Phil Stutz
Stop fucking laughing.
- [57:57]
Rich Roll
All right.
- [57:58]
Phil Stutz
See, one says you can attain a state of perfection which you can't. But the other one says, yes, you can't actually reach this later perfection, but in a longitudinal way you can, the way Rudolph Saunders says it is. The world is perfect because it's imperfect. So each one of those turds is a effort that's imperfect. As long as you can stay in that line knowing you're just piling up turrets, you're safe. And what you're safe from is from the devil or from part X. So it's paramount, pardon the expression, to see the events in your life regardless of what the norm is. All of them are failures, all of.
- [58:54]
Rich Roll
Them are failures or they have a turn. Is that a way of saying basically life unfolds exactly how it's meant to and everything that you experience is here for your growth and evolution. And it's a perspective frame as much as anything else. The imperfections are its perfection, right?
- [59:22]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Yes, 100%. That's why Rudolph Sang says the world is perfect, because it's imperfect. There's more to this, but the point of the whole book, which no offense to you, but Random House had a little trouble grasping this, the whole point of this is to give human beings the power to create something out of the nothing. And a million different ways that part X will try to convince you that that's impossible. And the ego says, don't worry about it because I got a better solution. You don't really have to ride these cycles and accept the inevitable failure or at least imperfection of deep medicine. You don't have have to do that, but you got to pay. And in the old days you just said the devil has your soul, but now it's actually worth how so? Because some super rich billionaire and or.
- [60:33]
Rich Roll
The industrial fill in the blank complex, the industrial defense complex, the industrial pharmaceutical complex, the industrial political complex, banking. Right. All of it's giant institutions.
- [60:46]
Phil Stutz
That's right. So institutional certainty maybe for a while, let's say from 1920 to maybe 10 years ago, but now all the institutions have broken down. So even the specious fake certainty that you can get from it because the corruption is now out in the air.
- [61:09]
Rich Roll
Right. This is our great opportunity because we're being confronted with uncertainty on a level, level that is sort of unprecedented in our lives. And what are we going to do with that? Are we going to wring our hands and be upset? And there's lots of things that we can do, but can we look at it as an opportunity for our own personal growth and evolution?
- [61:33]
Phil Stutz
Excellent.
- [61:33]
Rich Roll
Yeah, I like how you did that. Do that again. I feel very validated. Hey, everybody, pay attention, because this episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Now, I'm somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about the transformative power of storytelling, how sharing our authentic journey can inspire others. But it's one thing to construct a story, it's another thing to tell it, and another thing altogether to actually turn that into a digital reality that allows you to share your vision broadly and importantly, to create impact. And to do that, you need a great platform. And to do that, you need Squarespace. Because it's so much more than a website builder. With Squarespace's new blueprint AI, it's actually like having a design partner who reads your mind. And, you know, look, I know there's a lot of hype out there, there, a lot of slinging when it comes to emerging AI tools, but Blueprint really delivers. For example, you can share a few goals, and then it just automatically generates all this personalized content that actually feels authentically you. And for tech challenge creators like myself, they've got this drag and drop editing feature that makes the whole process surprisingly intuitive. I also appreciate how Squarespace has continued to evolve to support creatives in new and bespoke ways. For example, they've got this sell content feature. So, for example, if you're creating online courses or exclusive videos or maybe membership content, Squarespace makes it super easy to set up a professional paywall and generate a sustainable revenue stream for your passion. So check it out. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you're a listener or a viewer of this show, it's pretty obvious that I have this fascination with how elite performers operate. And one thing that I've consistently observed over many years is that the strongest people aren't those who just power through everything alone. The most resilient individuals I know, by contrast, the ones that sustain excellence over the long haul, from Olympians to business innovators to artists in every medium, all have one thing in common. They've built a support system around themselves. And in my experience, and that of countless extraordinary guests that I've hosted on the show, therapy is one such non negotiable and transformative form of support. Not only just as an essential tool to navigate crises, but also as a performance enhancer to meet life with more clarity, more purpose, and arming people with skills to show up better in work. And relationships, athletics, and of course, life overall. And what makes BetterHelp work so well is its accessibility. Their online platform connects you with licensed therapists specializing in whatever you're facing. With over 30,000 professionals, you can easily switch until you find the right fit without any additional cost. More than 5 million people worldwide have already discovered how therapy can fit seamlessly into their lives. So build your own support system. Visit betterhelp.com richroll today to get 10% off your first. That's betterhelp.com richroll here's the thing, Phil. This is like a deeply spiritual sort of Tao Te Ching manual for life that's sort of costumed or kind of presented in this package of psychological tools for better living like it's a Trojan horse on some level. And so I want to know, like, last time you were here, I was like, how do you have this X ray vision? Is this a gift? You've always had your ability to see right through people and get right to the heart of the matter. You have this uncanny preternatural ability to do that. But on some level, there is a enlightened perspective on the human condition. And I want to know if you had a spiritual epiphany or some kind of occurrence. Did you come out of the womb to just wired with that level of sensitivity? How did you develop this expansive view?
- [66:10]
Phil Stutz
I developed, and probably not for the best reasons. I was always afraid of not having enough money. So therefore I would both work really hard on each patient to help them because then they keep coming back. And also I knew that I could feel myself developing these skills for better work. So. And because I needed the money, I kept working harder and harder. Finally, I reached the point where I think I was seeing like 70 people a week now. Now I wouldn't even try to seven a week, but I needed it. I thought I'd die. That's. That's the real answer.
- [66:55]
Rich Roll
And so that was a death moment for you?
- [66:58]
Phil Stutz
Yes.
- [66:58]
Rich Roll
So what was the epiphany that grew out of that, like the rebirthing process from that?
- [67:05]
Phil Stutz
Well, when my brother died, the family fell apart. And this was not stated, but the responsibility for holding the things together was me. And my father wanted me to go to medical school. Listen to what this folk said. I loved him. He's a nice guy. But he says, my friend fell down in an elevator shaft, the Metropolitan Hospital, and he lived. So we go there. The next night, he's in the ICU and whatever, he was conscious. So they were walking out of this hospital and we're about 50ft past the door of the hospital. And he says, he turns me around, he says, look in the. And what you see is the whole. It's a Sydney hospital. And he says to me, that's the only profession. And it was the most fucked up thing anyone. Because he said, it doesn't really matter what else you do in life. I'm telling you, that's the only profession which you could just add as an addendum. So don't even consider taking one of these inferior professions. So that held me back. But it wasn't. Again, all these things are two headed monsters. So it got me into this. So it wasn't that bad. And then the same thing happened with medical school. You know, at that time, like 1971, psychiatry was considered losers. It was like a bucket of shit for losers. There was no.
- [68:52]
Rich Roll
Yeah.
- [68:54]
Phil Stutz
So I said, I don't want to do. I was very good with my hands because I have small hands. I was very dexterous. And for a minute I thought, okay, maybe I should do this. My father will be through. Plus he had a. He had just had a child die. And my father and mother were without any kind of spiritual feeling period. So for a minute I said, maybe I should do this. I know he would love surgery.
- [69:23]
Rich Roll
Surgery? Yeah, because of your fingers. And. Yeah, I got it.
- [69:27]
Phil Stutz
But luckily this voice sat on my shoulder and said, you'll have to do what you enjoy. And I remember the exact moment I had this. So I guess I have my. And I did it, even though I was afraid of what everybody would think. The fucking dean of medicine there. He couldn't believe that I wasn't going to become, you know, some kind of big shot in the hierarchy. It's interesting. You don't have that at all, really.
- [69:56]
Rich Roll
What do you mean?
- [69:57]
Phil Stutz
You're very competitive, but you don't. You're not that identified with it.
- [70:06]
Rich Roll
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that's true.
- [70:09]
Elise Lohnan
Did you have. You had a spiritual awakening?
- [70:12]
Rich Roll
I've had a couple, yeah, sure. You know, I've had, I've had. I've had to have my life shaken up a few times, you know, for sure. And I guess I find myself wanting to like lay on top of, you know, the life of Phil Stutz. Like this sort of Joseph Campbell hero's journey. Like here's where he had his awakening and here's what happened as a result of it. Here's how, you know what I mean? I want a very clean kind of narrative to the whole thing. And you Keep coming back at me with this hot mess, and it's like, oh, but that's actually the profound answer, because that's what life is, our brains. My brain wants to be reductive and point to one thing as being the reason.
- [71:02]
Phil Stutz
And you're right in the razor's edge, by the way. You could fall off on either side.
- [71:08]
Rich Roll
Yeah, I do that every day. It depends on how well I slept.
- [71:15]
Elise Lohnan
And by that you mean of falling into the sort of reductive rational, like.
- [71:21]
Rich Roll
The Universe one versus Universe two. Yeah. Like I asked you earlier, but maybe, like, define that difference because we didn't actually get an answer.
- [71:29]
Phil Stutz
Define one and two.
- [71:30]
Rich Roll
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [71:32]
Phil Stutz
Universe one defines value mathematically. Nothing. And that's its frame. Nothing that you can't understand mathematically really is irrelevant, so. Or if you want to say more simply, universe one can only speak through mathematics. When you think about it, it's like.
- [71:59]
Rich Roll
Dried up the material world and the rules that we've created about how it works.
- [72:05]
Elise Lohnan
Money. Yeah, Success.
- [72:08]
Phil Stutz
So that's universe One. And what it creates is not even purposefully. It creates a tremendous amount of conflict because once you can measure something and define it clearly as far as who's the winner or whatever, once you have that, you have a war. Universe 2 is different. Universe 2 does not value anything with numbers. Numbers mean nothing, which means what's in your bank account means nothing. It's like it's a belief system that doesn't include anything. See, we all want to think about that as if we could only solve these equations or algorithms. What the fuck? If we could only do that, we'd feel secure.
- [73:00]
Rich Roll
Yeah, that's the antidote for our deep seated discomfort with uncertainty.
- [73:05]
Phil Stutz
Correct.
- [73:06]
Rich Roll
But you have this great line in the book about Universe 2 that I think kind of distills it down into what you're trying to say, which is, if you want to know who you really are, ask yourself what you would spend your time on even if you knew it would never make you money.
- [73:22]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, that's so cool.
- [73:24]
Rich Roll
And then subsequent to that, God only cares that you don't quit.
- [73:29]
Phil Stutz
Yeah.
- [73:30]
Rich Roll
So maybe elaborate on that. Or maybe Elise can share her perspective on that.
- [73:37]
Elise Lohnan
Well, and I'm sure you can relate to this, Rich. I mean, I feel this way about so much of my work where, well, it's a balance. Right. Like, I want to believe that everything I do, I do for free. And this is probably true of every creative that you treat right. And there's a monetary value to the work that we do as well. And it's hard to not. I call it my more masculine mind. And I find myself getting sort of sucked into the vortex of numbers and rankings and financial stability. But universe two, when I'm most alive, is when I'm co creating or creating on my own. And yes, I would do it all day. I mean, it's flow in some ways.
- [74:19]
Phil Stutz
Right now, there's one state or one emotion that will protect you from getting drawn back into the mathematical world. Do you know what that is?
- [74:30]
Elise Lohnan
No.
- [74:31]
Phil Stutz
It's rage, hatred.
- [74:34]
Elise Lohnan
Say more.
- [74:35]
Phil Stutz
Because all these battles are fought right here. This is where I find my capacity to sense reality is here. Which means most of it isn't in words. There's no answer to your question. But what you can, as you develop this, you become more sensitive and you trust your instincts more. Nothing's close to 100%. If you think you need 100%, then you're just wasting time. And the funny thing is, I mean, you probably study this. If you study theoretical physics and subatomic physics and all that shit. Think about it. It's pure movement. Even if I said I know what that whatever these particles are, even if I know what it is and I can identify it, it's going to move.
- [75:27]
Rich Roll
Yeah. When you drill down to the very essence of it at the subatomic level, like, you know, you can't really definitively like say what's like matter or energy or the position of a subatomic particle is dependent upon the observer or not like all these sort of weird like quantum physics things that come into play that are kind of offensive to our desire for certainty that math is supposed to give us.
- [75:57]
Phil Stutz
So. And the problem. Problem with that is you can't possibly feel God with that set of variables.
- [76:03]
Rich Roll
Sure. But isn't that. That's where God dwells?
- [76:06]
Phil Stutz
Yes, exactly right.
- [76:08]
Elise Lohnan
You said to stay in universe two, I need rage and hatred.
- [76:13]
Phil Stutz
Yeah.
- [76:14]
Elise Lohnan
But wait, can you.
- [76:15]
Rich Roll
Yeah. I don't know. I didn't expect you to say that. Oh, yeah. We got two. Two fists on the table.
- [76:23]
Elise Lohnan
Is this when you tell me I need to be more of a. An.
- [76:25]
Phil Stutz
Well, you couldn't be more than that. But yeah. No, seriously. Yeah. Because what you want to do is you want to overcome this, which thinks it knows what it's receiving. Because. And you want to use this. And this is the instinct system, so to speak.
- [76:48]
Elise Lohnan
And it's the way to get your instinct system online to tap into sort of like a. Holy fire. Anger.
- [76:56]
Phil Stutz
All right.
- [76:57]
Rich Roll
Yes. All right. Another drawing. Yeah. This is sort of contradicting Everything I thought you would say. Because I thought you would say, to stay in universe two, you have to be creating from a place of, like, joy and abundance and love. And love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anger and rage.
- [77:13]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. I'll show you what this is called. Cosmic rage. I don't know if you. Now, there's certain kind of ranges that aren't good. They're not good. They don't do anything for you. But this one does a lot for you. And the reason is this is called the I am space. Yes. It's not nice screaming out, and a lot of times it won't work. But it's the life force commanding its own existence. See, out here, is this like you're.
- [77:49]
Elise Lohnan
Screaming at part X?
- [77:51]
Phil Stutz
Yes. So you're creating space for yourself, and part X is going to fight you on this to the death. However, now that you know that if it drives you to the death, all that's going to do is reactivate the rebirth. So it actually can't win.
- [78:11]
Rich Roll
So we have a circle here in the middle, and inside of it, you have written the I am space. Is that correct? And then you have arrows pointing out of it. And then outside of it, this is the cosmic rage. The cosmic rage. And then surrounding that, I guess these are, like, incursion forces that are trying to, like, come into you. And so while they're trying to attack you, you need to resist and push back against it.
- [78:40]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, you can't do that.
- [78:41]
Rich Roll
And that's the cosmic rage that you're talking about. So I interpret this as, like, just to create an example from my own life. Like, for example, this podcast, like, this is something that I would do for free and did do for free for a long time out of, like, joy and creativity and. And just like, the incredible experience of getting to meet people like yourself. Like, it's just like, the coolest thing. Right? And then at some point, it grows into commercial enterprise, and that's wonderful. And I get to not only support my family, but provide livelihoods for other people. But that comes with these pressures. And then when it becomes this material thing, then you're just. It immediately goes from universe two back to universe one. So the cosmic rage is to push against that and protect that spirit that birthed it in the first place. Because I'm sure with all these amazing kind of patients that you've had over the years in Hollywood, you have these amazingly creative people who just from a place of childlike wonder, just imagine fantastic things, and suddenly a waterfall of cash falls on top of them. And with that the blossoming of the ego and suddenly they're a big deal in Hollywood. And then what was beautiful about that gets eroded and supplanted by this material pursuit for like, how do I stay at the top? How come that guy is getting the next studio gig when I should get it? This is what you're talking about, right?
- [80:17]
Phil Stutz
That's what I'm talking about. And it's not limited to show business. It's now occurring worldwide.
- [80:23]
Rich Roll
So the best of what makes us human is gets co opted and then kind of like corrupted.
- [80:30]
Phil Stutz
Correct.
- [80:32]
Elise Lohnan
One of the most, I think, powerful ways that you describe part X too is that part X doesn't want to kill you. Part X wants to conscript you, enslave you.
- [80:42]
Rich Roll
Tell me more about that.
- [80:43]
Elise Lohnan
Just this idea that I think we perceive it as outside of us and we perceive it as something to be vanquished or it wants to vanquish us. And your point is, is no. Pardax ultimately wants to sort of dull you and conscript you into servicing its agenda in the world.
- [81:02]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. You can think of it like it's okay with Pardax to give you all these bribes and suggestions as long as you know that ultimately you get enough and the nothing goes back to the creation of the universe.
- [81:25]
Rich Roll
It seems to me that the part X, this darker side of ourselves is one in which we either deny or pretend doesn't exist or compartmentalize. To Elise's point. Right. We shove it aside because we don't really want to face the fact that we have dark thoughts and we're are not good people and all that kind of stuff. Right. Or we so self identify with it that we can't tell the difference between like our life force or our higher self and that part X and they become like the same thing and override our operating system and like drive all, all of our decisions.
- [82:05]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. Now, there's something about the life force that I forgot to tell you. Do you want to hear it? Am I?
- [82:10]
Rich Roll
Of course. That's why you're here, buddy.
- [82:12]
Phil Stutz
Okay. I accept that responsibility.
- [82:16]
Rich Roll
I was trying to get another fist on the table with that, but I didn't succeed. Go ahead. There you go. I feel better.
- [82:28]
Phil Stutz
Okay. The key of the life force is relationships, relating, connection, whatever you want.
- [82:35]
Rich Roll
That's very offensive to the self made man idea upon which America was founded.
- [82:42]
Phil Stutz
You. Okay, you can you label it? But these are. This is the model for remaining connected. It doesn't depend on how well your life is doing. You know, the classic thing is a guy comes into My office. And he'll say, I don't know why I keep getting fired from these jobs. My friend makes much more money than I. Whatever the universe wants stuff is now. And he says, if I only knew where I belonged in the universe. If I knew that, I could act on it. And if I could act on it, I wouldn't conduct my life like a piece of shit. But I'm not going to just arbitrarily do that. I have to be sure I'm doing the right thing. Only then will I become disciplined. And what I always tell these guys, and a lot of them, first thing I say is you, you're ungrateful. That's number one. Number two, we're talking about something that has general meaning independent of anything except the fact that you're human. And there's three levels of assuring your humanity.
- [84:06]
Elise Lohnan
You were telling the story about a typical patient who comes in and essentially wants you to tell them what their purpose in life is so that they can become more disciplined.
- [84:13]
Phil Stutz
Correct.
- [84:14]
Rich Roll
So that they can get the stuff they want that other people are getting. That's making them so mad. Yeah.
- [84:19]
Phil Stutz
Yeah. And I think you have to pick the right job, high school, or where it is. If they get it right, then all of this will flow to them. If they don't get it right, they get nothing. That's complete bullshit.
- [84:33]
Rich Roll
Right. It's transactional. Like, yeah, I got you, Phil. I'll do all this shit as long as I get all these things that I. That I want, that I'm still convinced are the things that are gonna. That my life is missing and will make me happy.
- [84:44]
Phil Stutz
Correct.
- [84:45]
Rich Roll
So you've got this triangle here, this. This pyramid. And it's divided into three layers, sort of like a Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It. At the bottom, it's relationship to the body. The middle is relationship to others. And then the top is relationship to self.
- [85:02]
Phil Stutz
Right. And it's more complicated than you think, but the point of it is not reaching it. But even the act of trying to form a relationship with yourself on each one of these layers starts. This is the blueprint for the universal connection. Because this whole thing is about connection. In order to take advantage of the situation, so to speak, you have to reduce everything down to the lowest possible level, which is. Is broken up by the three things. And then every time you're not sure what to do, you feel lost. You're unable to gain the confidence that you go in the right direction. Don't do that. Stop. Just to work on this much smaller but much more accurate, I would say. But the point is, this is universal. That's the key thing. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are, what you do. It's not a guessing game. We used to say this or that or this. I mean, you could try it and once in a zillion years it works. But this is a pure study you're making, especially the top one, your relationship to yourself. Now, would anybody like to hazard an idea about how do you.
- [86:38]
Elise Lohnan
What would that entail, the relationship to yourself?
- [86:42]
Phil Stutz
Yeah.
- [86:42]
Elise Lohnan
Well, this triangle, right. Is this is your way of activating your life force?
- [86:47]
Phil Stutz
Yes.
- [86:47]
Elise Lohnan
And when people come in to you sometimes, titans of industry, and everything has collapsed around them, they want to sort of start even above the triangle.
- [86:56]
Phil Stutz
Right.
- [86:57]
Elise Lohnan
And understanding like what's my God given purpose. And I don't want to deal with any of this other pedantic.
- [87:04]
Phil Stutz
That's excellent.
- [87:05]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah, because I said bullshit. And so your instruction to all of us regardless, is you have to reactivate your life force by invoking your relationship with your body, which is your world. Right. Like get up and walk around the block.
- [87:20]
Rich Roll
Yeah. I mean, isn't that the initial source of activation? You know, and I think, I think people are fundamentally disconnected from themselves in so many ways. But it begins with like, well, what are you putting in it? You know, and if you're just eating garbage and not sleeping and overstimulated, then how are you going to actually feel yourself? How are you going to connect with that life force? Because there's so much interference going on. And so you got to do that before any of these other things can take place, Right?
- [87:49]
Phil Stutz
Correct. And you have to keep doing it some months or weeks, it's going to help you, others it won't. But the whole point is you solidify that relationship through the constancy of your efforts.
- [88:05]
Elise Lohnan
One of my favorite concepts in the book actually is the plane of will, which is this idea that's similar to relationship with your body or this whole life force, which is that you make a commitment to yourself and you show up and you practice the piano at 10am every day. And that there's like a precognitive momentum that you're generating where you're strengthening that relationship, sometimes to your body, sometimes with other people, and sometimes to yourself. And that that action alone is primary momentum in your life and that you don't. Again, there's no exoneration from pain and the need for constant work and uncertainty. You don't get to the point where you get to abandon your Body.
- [88:52]
Phil Stutz
Correct. So once you start this, you have to keep it going for the rest of your life.
- [88:57]
Rich Roll
Yeah. That's the good news and the bad news. Right. You know, before we complete this, like, I'm curious, Elise, like, what was your experience working with Phil and you know, are you, like, different on the other side of collaborating on this book? Like, what did you take away that has been helpful in your own life?
- [89:18]
Elise Lohnan
It's been a total honor and thank you. Quite hilarious at times, as you can imagine, and very non linear in a way that actually is, I think, quite magic considering the title of the book. And we just talked like this probably 30 times, 40 times, and I just ask questions again and again. And similar, I think, to probably your experience with Phil or your experience with the content. It wasn't always what I thought it would be. And so that, to me was also really moving in a way to be surprised that, like, the answer is cosmic rage and not love, for example. But at the end of it, what emerged wasn't we didn't sit down and write this book from beginning to end at all, but we just sort of built it in layers over time. And I've never had that experience actually of creating something in that way. Usually it's very tactical, chapter by chapter, story by story. And instead it felt like it emerged out of. We created something out of nothing.
- [90:26]
Rich Roll
Well, it had to. Yeah. Otherwise it wouldn't be, you know, an organically, you know, Phil Stutz production. Right.
- [90:32]
Phil Stutz
It would not be.
- [90:33]
Rich Roll
Yeah. If you had conjured it in the. In the frame of your brain, like, it would have fallen short. Short. Right. So that's like its own, like, like sort of meta story within the book.
- [90:42]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah.
- [90:43]
Rich Roll
Which is really cool.
- [90:43]
Elise Lohnan
It was so. And honestly, the assignment was to create a workbook for the original tools. And this is nothing. Nothing like that.
- [90:51]
Rich Roll
It's not a departure from the tools, but it's sort of an extrapolation.
- [90:54]
Elise Lohnan
Yeah.
- [90:55]
Rich Roll
And I think, you know, while this conversation may have come across as, like, difficult to, you know, get your arms around or. Or a little bit too ephemeral, I promise you that it's filled with actionable, practical things that you can do, because that's really what you're all about, Phil. You're drilling it down into, here's some things you can do that will actually immediately change your life, and that's part of why you're so revered. But I think fundamentally, to kind of end this, it's a very beautiful and expansive book that is really about our relationship with Faith and the extent to which we, as a collective, have kind of divorced ourselves from ancient practices that came naturally to us. And so it's sort of a call to action, to reclaim this part of what it is to be human. And there's a quote in the book that I want to read that I think really kind of encapsulates the whole thesis of what you're trying to get to, which is the most important tool for contending with life is freely chosen faith. This faith is chosen for no other reason than your desire to have faith to deal with reality. You must accept the fact that reality is unpredictable and that you must act anyway, using only the faith that you've chosen to have.
- [92:20]
Phil Stutz
Who wrote that?
- [92:22]
Rich Roll
I don't know. Maybe Elise wrote it.
- [92:25]
Phil Stutz
I remember.
- [92:27]
Rich Roll
That's it, right?
- [92:29]
Phil Stutz
That's it.
- [92:29]
Rich Roll
That kind of says it, doesn't it? I think that's kind of a nice landing place for this. Is there anything final you want to say before we.
- [92:36]
Phil Stutz
Yeah, I want to thank everybody, including the crew. It's like a privilege to do it with people who have goodwill. That's the best I could say. And there's not that many of them.
- [92:49]
Rich Roll
Thank you. I mean, it's a real gift, honestly, to be with you, and I feel honored to have. Have been able to spend some time with you. And I think you're a magical creature, and what you offer everybody is meaningful and real, and I just want you to feel acknowledged for that and at least for you to collaborate with him and bring the best out of him and bring your sensibility and what you have to offer into this book. I think it's really. It is a gift for everybody.
- [93:19]
Elise Lohnan
Thank you, Rich.
- [93:20]
Rich Roll
So, thanks, buddy. Come back, be my co host. You want to come in every week.
- [93:27]
Phil Stutz
I was helping you.
- [93:28]
Rich Roll
Yeah. All right.
- [93:29]
Elise Lohnan
He needs his own show.
- [93:31]
Rich Roll
Great. Thanks, you guys. Best of luck with the book. You can find the book everywhere. Elise, where do you want to direct people? For people who are curious.
- [93:39]
Elise Lohnan
About my world.
- [93:40]
Rich Roll
Yeah, about your world and your books and your podcast.
- [93:43]
Elise Lohnan
I have a podcast called Pulling the Thread, and it's similar. We cover some similar ground, although you've been at it for so much longer. You're a titan. And my book is called On Our Best Behavior. The Price Women Pay to Be Good. If you like Stutt's World, there's probably something in that for you.
- [94:04]
Rich Roll
Amazing. Thank you. All right, you guys, I love you.
- [94:09]
Elise Lohnan
Thank you.
- [94:10]
Rich Roll
Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today. Visit the episode page@richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra Voicing, Change and the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal planner@meals richroll.com if you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors, sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com sponsors and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the Meal Planner and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any any page@richroll.com Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Cameolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our Creative Director, Dan Drake, portraits by Davey Greenberg, graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis and thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt and Harry B. Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace Plants Namaste.