Phil Stutz Podcast === Fritzi: Hi, my name is Fritzi Horstman and welcome to Compassion in Action. My guest today is Phil Stutz. He is the author of The Tools, of Coming Alive, and of his latest book, Lessons for Living. This is a really special interview for me because after reading Lessons for Living, my entire life changed. All of the principles in his book got me going so that now I am playing piano, now I'm writing a book, now I am lifting weights. These are things I've been wanting to do for years and reading this book just woke me up. And what Phil says, it's the little things that we do every day. And I would say, the little things we do that don't betray ourselves, the little things we do that move us forward, that helps us connect with the higher forces. And so, you should have seen me before this interview. I was so nervous and I was like a little girl meeting Santa Claus or something. It was so exciting and so daunting for me. He understands what our world needs to do to transform ourselves and to transform society. This is wisdom in 40 minutes. I'm going to read his bio right now. Phil Stutz is the creator of The Tools. With his co author, Barry Michaels, he wrote the New York Times bestseller, The Tools, and its sequel, Coming Alive. And he also wrote Lessons for Living. Phil graduated from City College in New York, received his MD from New York University, and did his psychiatric training at Metropolitan Hospital. He then worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island before going into private practice in New York City. He moved to Los Angeles in 1982, where he has been practicing ever since. Phil Stutz, welcome to Compassion in Action. Phil Stutz: Thank you. Fritzi: Okay, this interview is like a dream come true. I've This book is the best thing you've ever done, I have to tell you. Phil Stutz: Thank you. Fritzi: It's better than Stutz, it's better than Coming Alive, and it's better than The Tools, because it tells you everything you need to know. Phil Stutz: Yeah, good, thank you. Fritzi: And Stutz, The Tools and Coming Alive are amazing, Phil Stutz: good, I think I'm gonna stay in this field then. I was gonna quit. Fritzi: Would it be strange to say that you are a shaman? Would that be a strange thing to say? Phil Stutz: People say it sometimes. I try to stay away from that because really, I try to draw an outline of habits, attitudes, risks, and other stuff like that. And I don't want to, I don't want to invade to the I don't know if you call them patients anymore, whatever you call them. I don't want the magic invade to them and those terms. I'll tell you that this just stop me if this is going too far off the track, but there are two kinds of magic. There's fake magic and there's real magic. Real magic must be developed and expressed as a collective. No singular person can do any magic at all, all they can do is bullshit themselves. And that's the fake magic. And the fake magic says I'm special because I have these abilities. And all you are is a hustler. We can go back to that if you want to. There's so much, anyway, go ahead, tell me. Ask me the next. Fritzi: So, I'm gonna start with a quote because I think this is it. And I work with the men and women in prison? Phil Stutz: Yes. Fritzi: So Phil Stutz: Where is the prison? Fritzi: I work with prisons all over the United States, but right now I'm working with about 12 to 14 of them in California. Phil Stutz: You live in California? Fritzi: I live in California, but I grew up on the Upper West Side, 72nd Riverside Phil Stutz: You are shitting me. Fritzi: No. Phil Stutz: I grew up in 37 Riverside Drive. Did you know that? Fritzi: No. Phil Stutz: Yeah. Fritzi: So we were probably at Zabar's at the same time, or Fairway, or the Ortiz Funeral Home. Phil Stutz: Yeah, it is. How do you like that? Fritzi: Or Grey's Papaya. Phil Stutz: Oh, the Papaya on 72nd Street? Fritzi: Yeah. Phil Stutz: Wow, I hope this doesn't distract me too much. Go ahead. Fritzi: Okay. One of your, I have about 3, 000 quotes that I've pulled out, but you say, "The highest human expression is to create something new in the face of adversity. The greater the adversity, the greater the opportunity." Phil Stutz: You want me to explain that? Fritzi: Yes, please. Phil Stutz: Okay. Nothing a human being accomplishes is accomplished alone. I already mentioned that. The idea that you can find your way back into this collective force, if you will, after you've lost faith in it, after you've lost faith in it, that's like a rebirth. And what it does is it starts to change your gut feeling, your view of the universe, really. So you get much more out of a failure, a loss, that you correct, because in order to do that, you have to connect to the forces of rebirth, and those forces don't exist without a prior failure. So, if you think about it like this, there's success, the way we think of it in the Western world, which is just more money, more power, more prestige, whatever. And then there's real success. Success is, if you think of success as a force, as a you need to think of success as like a physicalized thing. It's like a, some kind of a force running through the universe. Success is, all success is being able to stay connected to that force. And you cannot do that unless you're simultaneously in outflow towards other people. Fritzi: When you're, when we're in outflow, is that the act of creating? Is that what you're saying? Or connecting? Phil Stutz: No, I'm saying that's the precondition. Which means you're plugged into higher forces. And from there, then you might have the freedom or the privilege of actually creating something. You'll create nothing if you think you're doing it without the help of without the help of some kind of higher force. The next book I'm going to write is about that. It's called Embodiment. And it's a very interesting thing because embodiment says you cannot create anything of real value, of lasting value, without the help of higher forces. You just can't do it. It's not a philosophical thing. It's impossible. So embodiment, people think embodiment means getting some kind of shaming or some kind of magical figure inside them. It's, that's not right. Embodiment means the both of you, but the higher force and you, the human being, have to be on the same team in sync with each other. And that's what you have to embody. And then the tools, and how do you do that? But then to go back to the beginning. Your first question, only that allows real creativity and the reason the world is falling apart is because people don't understand this and because they don't understand it, they just go in for they go for the fake. Fritzi: It's the bad habits, right? So I think it's the bad habits and it's. It's going to the lower channel because Part X puts us in an altered state. Phil Stutz: Yes, correct. Fritzi: So it's Part X. Can you give us a little information about what Part X is? Because I think everyone in prison has been hypnotized by Part X. Phil Stutz: Yeah. I would see people, my patients, trying, certain ones of them, maybe 85 percent of them were blocked. They tried to do this, they couldn't do it. Even the inability to control your impulses is a form of being blocked. I was noticing it, I didn't know what was going on, but I started to get the feeling, Hey, there's somebody on the other team working against us. And proactively working against us. See, it drove me crazy, emotions crazy, because we tried to explain it, the blocking force in terms of our past history, in terms of our addictions, and those things are really important, but they are secondary. And the first thing somebody told me, give it a name, and it was very helpful. Actually, it was my partner, Barry's mother, if I remember correctly, who said call it Part X. So, I started out just by labeling it, identifyingit, and then I would say to the patient, just humor me, act as if this thing, this enemy is real. At first most of them didn't think it was real, they thought it was just another psychological trick. But with the simple act of naming, identification, and then giving them something, it didn't even matter what it was, giving them something that they could use so they went home and they had some hope. Nobody will stay in real therapy without hope. They just won't do it. Fritzi: Part X puts us in an altered state. Phil Stutz: Yes. Okay, so here's what the altered state is. There are many ways to describe this. But I think probably the best way is to say, it's an altered state in which things that don't exist or don't deliver what they're saying make you think that's reality. Part X gives you a problem you don't need to, you don't need to have, and then it gives you a solution that makes the problem worse. The classic example of that is, somebody is going to smoke a joint or whatever, and they're going to have a real feeling, it feels pleasurable, whatever. However, that is not, that's not a real feeling. All that is the force of addiction. It's like the lower world is like trying to pull you down and then when it pulls you down it tells you this is reality. So that, so the idea that it creates a problem you don't need to have and then a solution that makes the problem worse. That most people can understand because they know at certain points they're doing things and they have no idea why they're doing them. You see it pretty clearly in addictions where somebody, here's an example maybe it'll help, it'll apply to the current population we're talking about. If you take a junkie and then he's about to shoot up, he's not thinking about anything else and he's certainly not thinking about the future consequences of what he's doing. It's I know the needle's in my arm and I know in 30 seconds, maybe it's a bad load, maybe a minute, whatever it is, Boom, I'm going to feel great. However, the greatness that you feel isn't real and it's not going to last. Not only isn't it going to last, it's going to make everything worse. And that's obvious, right? Legal problems, health problems, which is the worst thing, inability to control impulses etc. These are products of Part X. But this soul tea was the greatest thing in the world. Now the junk, he's not thinking. What's the truth? Okay, he feels great. Let's say, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, let's say it's for 45 minutes. After that, the next thing he's going to feel is beginning to get sick or whatever words you want to use. He's starting to feel, I need more. And beyond that, then he's, he, if he's honest with himself, if it's like seeing the future, I'm addicted to this. I can't let go of it and I'm getting sick, then what? I got to go out and mug somebody, do something, so I can pay for this junk. And at the time when they're getting high, they don't admit that to themselves. All they know about is the next 30 seconds or the next minute. Fritzi: It just, it destroys lives. My father was an alcoholic. And my, they smoked and they destroyed their lives all for the this instant gratification, and what you say is that we lose our sense of the future. We've, the consequences, these consequences are detrimental because we have no connection to our true self. And we're on a lower channel. Phil Stutz: Now, you want to know the the thing about faith? Are you interested in that? Okay. Fritzi: Yes, absolutely. Phil Stutz: People don't understand what faith is. And you need faith to fight Part X. If you're in the program, we have no faith, you're not going to work the program, boom, it's not going to help. That thing, faith, the secret of it is, you have faith in the future, in God, in yourself, whatever, not because it's proven, not because it's logical, you have that kind of faith because you've chosen to have it for no reason. That's the secret of it. You've chosen to have it for no reason, but you still have it. Now if you have that kind of faith, which is un unshakable, it's unbreakable because it doesn't require anything from the outside world. It's kinda maybe I'm crazy for doing this, but at least I know that I have faith. That's, once I've done that, then I must act. But because I have faith, for no other reason, not because I think that I'm gonna succeed. Once I have faith I can start to act. Once I do this and I make it a lifestyle over and over again, then you become confident. So, confidence is the result of acting with faith in situations that don't give you any proof of it at all, but it'll affect your ability. It'll increase your ability to take action. See, most people have it upside down and backwards. What they say is, I don't believe anything until it's proven. Now that's good if you're a scientist or, a biochemist or something, you're studying astronomy. But the idea that my belief requires proof, in any arena that has to do with human beings, is a disaster. Because proof is not as clear cut as you might think. And if the universe doesn't act to support your model, which is I believe nothing, then every time there's no proof, you get thrown back into the doubt. Upshot of that, till things are proven, is if you're lucky, you'll get the feeling of I'm smarter than everybody else. I'm the, I'm, it makes me special. If you're not lucky, then you have nothing, because the universe has failed to prove it, and you're online, and it's looking for some experience that is greater than faith. And that's where science came into it. But there isn't any. Fritzi: Faith is the key to taking action, because once you take action, from what I can tell, you're starting to activate or connect to the higher forces. Phil Stutz: Very good. Fritzi: But if you're in doubt, if you're in doubt, you don't even take that act. You don't even experiment. And the thing here is, from what I can tell, and this is what you did for me. I read your book. You got me to act on, on so many levels. I started playing piano. I started writing a book. I started lifting weights. I've been wanting to do this for maybe 10 years. And I read your book in November and I'm still doing the weights. I'm still writing the book. And I'm still playing piano. My, it's all happening and it's like I'm connecting more and more to this kind of energy, this force that I didn't have before. And I mean I do be, I do because I do take action a lot. I do going to work in prisons. I took action. I did it and it has propelled me, but there's always this part of me that wants to just go play video games. It just wants to stop and go play video games and I'll just do that instead. And now I'm playing, now I'm playing the piano instead. But it was your words to telling us, to showing me what I was doing to myself, of being in this lower, these lower channels, which you can feel it. You feel gunky, you feel like crap. Phil Stutz: Yes, and there's no way out of that because you're waiting for the universe to corroborate your view, to corroborate what you think you need to become confident. And that's a long wait for that to happen. The worst thing that can happen is if you get lucky and a couple of good things happen to you, they always run out. Cause I see the most famous people in the world, so I know. But you're waiting. See, waiting is the worst of human qualities. Fritzi: And it's like the maze, right? Waiting is like the maze. Phil Stutz: See, the maze is more the attack by Part X in the maze is more it's stronger. Think of the maze as something you go in and you can't get out of it. And the reason you can't get out of it is because you need something from the other person to free you. Now, nothing could be weaker or more stupid than that. What we try to do is, counteract the maze or get you outta the maze by, by fully accepting the fact that the only person who's gonna save you is yourself. And the only way you can save yourself is by the tools. That's what, that's the beauty of the tools. They allow you to make changes that nothing else could allow you to make. And the reason that our society is addicted and really out of touch with reality and out of control is because they're waiting for somebody else to get them out of the maze and it never happened in human history. Fritzi: So society is in a maze too, right? So we're, Phil Stutz: Yes. Fritzi: And one of the things you say about the maze, you say your quest for fairness puts your life on hold. Phil Stutz: Yeah. That's Fritzi: And yeah. Go ahead. Phil Stutz: It's the waiting. It says somebody did something to me. They injured me. It's not fair. They always say. And I'm not doing anything, I'm not changing anything, I'm not taking any risk until they pay me. And usually the payment is a an apology or something. But the whole thing is bullshit and it doesn't even matter who injures you. Your sense of being trapped will extend. to the whole. It's every human being, really. Fritzi: Yeah, and you also say, "Do you want to be right or do you want to create something?" Phil Stutz: Yeah, that's a good way to say it. Because being right, even if you are right, there's no openness to it, there's no surprise to it, there's nothing new. So even if this worked, which believe me it doesn't it still doesn't, it doesn't help you. Fritzi: It doesn't move you along and it, you know it. There's a thing about the maze, it's like the victim, there's a victim in the maze. Phil Stutz: Yes. Fritzi: Look what the world has done to me and therefore I need to get, like you said, I need to get paid. But victims don't move forward, don't move the world forward. Phil Stutz: Correct. Fritzi: And I, yeah, and I think every time I feel like some, someone owes me I just keep thinking about that they owe me. I don't, I'm not out writing, I'm not out playing the piano, I'm just thinking about what they've done to me. Phil Stutz: Yeah, and they don't care. Fritzi: They don't care, but that's what that's what's happening in Gaza, right? Phil Stutz: Yep. Fritzi: They're just thinking about what, look what they did to me, and and so they're just destroying, they're continuing to destroy instead of create here. Phil Stutz: That's right. The antidote to evil is creativity. Fritzi: Ezra, from a Maximum Security Prison, he wrote a question and it's about evil. And he says Phil Stutz: Who is this? Fritzi: He's a man in prison that read your book that I sent the book to you and he's written some questions and he's an artist, he plays guitar, and he's a leader within the prisons. And he says, "You talk of Part X and essentially it is the force that wants to keep you inert, stuck, preferably moving backwards. Is this Part X, when out of control, could be considered where evil is birthed from? Since essentially it is what tries to keep mankind from ascension, is it the sinner aspect of the human condition as opposed to the saint aspect inherent in each of us?" Phil Stutz: Tell Ezra I said I love him. Ha, ask the question again. Fritzi: Basically, is he saying Part X? Does he, does, is Part X the evil part of us? Is that what creates evil? Phil Stutz: Here's the way I look at it. These things are very deep and they're very complex. First of all, there's a Part X on a junior level, like on a personal level. You smoke too much, or I scream too much, whatever my habits have been. So that's Part X with a small x. And that's the result of all this stuff we've talked about. There's a higher level of evil, if you will, that's not personal. It's a force whose nature is more like any other physical force. Because of that, it has a life of its own and there's not much you can do about it. You might kid yourself if someone apologizes to me, but it won't work. The only way to make this work is the whole system. How you experience other people. What you expect from them. How you react when you don't get what you expected. How you deal with somebody else who's a victim. All these things. These are micro things. And that's the level in which the battle is fought. There's a battle between good and evil and we have no chance of winning the battle unless we accept what's really going on. And again, what's not going on, what doesn't work, is any kind of proof that you're right and useful. So that's the booby prize of all booby prizes. Fritzi: I think we're all hypnotized and by not living up to our potential, we're falling into the cracks of evil. Phil Stutz: Yeah. Fritzi: Is that it? Phil Stutz: That's it. That's exactly it. Evil doesn't, see, evil doesn't want to kill you, it doesn't want to eliminate you. That would be for rookies. What evil wants to do is let you live completely stripped of all your potential, stripped of any sense of what do you call it, possibility. Then it has you, they say in the old days they, it's captured your soul. And the soul is like the human organism without the forces of courage, vision, honesty, love for other people. If you take all those things away, it's like stealing the person slowly, then they'll do whatever you want and you just look at their world and you see it. And by the way, the only cure for that is to develop like a cadre of people who are working on themselves to refute the lies that Part X is giving them. And that takes a lot of people and a lot of work and most of the work is done, I call it the world of small things. It's work that has to be done over and over, a trillion times. And most of them are very tiny. A lot of times it's, am I going to give in to this impulse or not? I want to give in to it because I want to get whatever I want to get. I want to get high. I want to steal a thing. I want to, beat my wife or whatever. And Part X, if you can't control that force, then it's taken away your soul, and by doing that, you become like a vegetable, you become a spiritual vegetable. It's not obvious to you, all you feel is the craving, but that's what's actually happened. So, that's the macro war. And the next book is going to be about that. Go ahead. Fritzi: But it's the, so you're saying it's the little things and they add up. So every little choice is important. So, every time I don't eat that piece of cake, every time I don't play that video game, I'm putting myself into the higher forces, but I'm also beating Part X and I'm getting my soul back. Phil Stutz: That's it. Fritzi: So, I'm getting my soul back and that's what's in prison right now or is Part X. We have betrayed ourselves so much. So that's what it is, it's betrayal. These little decisions towards the evil are betrayal and these little decisions towards good and love and towards our own development is self worth and puts us in the higher realm. Is that right? And the higher forces. Phil Stutz: Exactly right. Fritzi: Defeating Part X. The part that got us into prison, the part, and the prison is all, it could be physical prison. We're all in a mental prison. I'm sitting playing video games all day long instead of remembering who I am. Phil Stutz: Listen carefully. You have to, because you're already enlightened to this. I don't know how you did it, but maybe it's natural. You have to now say, after this interview from now on, not only am I going to do what I've been doing, I'm going to step it up. But not step it up 92%, I'm going to step it up 2%. So if I if I have 6 drinks a day, let me see if I can go down to 5 drinks a day. Now, in and of itself, it doesn't help. But over long periods of time where you're willing to face every choice, it puts you right in the present. Which is where the fight is. It's another way to look at it. See, the reason psychotherapy is a fucking joke, it's getting better now, by the way, it is, still no good, but it's getting, they would tell you do you understand, your bad habits are because your mother didn't like you, or whatever it is, that you grew up poor or you didn't go to Harvard. It doesn't matter. Yeah, see? There are two marks of character. One of them is the humans are capable, not of changing everything in one fell swoop, they're not capable of that, but they are capable of making a single choice today, right now. They don't know that they are, but they are. And as I said at the beginning, the idea of labeling it, knowing some of its qualities, seeing that it repeats itself, is very helpful, not because it makes the problem go away. Anybody that tells you anything about magic, this is going to make you feel better, is just full of shit. And I see a lot in my field, not just shrinks, but the, the what do they call that? Fritzi: The coaches? Phil Stutz: Yeah, the coaches. That's it. That's knowledge one about human beings is, they are capable of changing tiny things. The second gift that we're all given is the ability to recover. So that means you go into the darkness and think you're dead, you have no future, whatever. And we, and what I tell people is that's okay and that's real, but you also have the ability to overcome it. Fritzi: It's just the people in prison, if they're gonna be hearing this and they're gonna be, they're going to hear. this amazing man saying you can recover from this. You can recover from your betrayal and your dark side. Phil Stutz: Yes. What group are we talking about? Fritzi: We're talking about everybody. I'm working with everybody in prison, all women, all men, all ages. And. Phil Stutz: That's your full time job? Fritzi: It's, yeah, I created an institution called an organization called the Compassion Prison Project. So it's to bring compassion, but also awareness about the, what violence does to us. And transforming violence. We're transforming violence. That's what we're doing. Phil Stutz: Great. It's impressive. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is, You have this. And I don't just say that to anybody. Some people don't have shit They can learn it but they don't. You have it. And anytime you get an impulse, or you get a instinct to do something, do it immediately. Then it's called speed. Once you know you have to do something, the more time that you allow to elapse without doing it, the weaker you become. So speed is like a precedential it almost has to be part of the culture of of people who are really trying to change. Fritzi: Thank you. I like, I'm going to say that when people say, what, you just, this is another thing you're starting. Stop it. We're overwhelmed. It's I don't care. Let's keep going. We got to go. Phil Stutz: That's it. That's it. That's it, that's exactly right. And you can say that with all due respect, I, maybe I can see this from a different perspective than you do, but at least try it. And if it doesn't work, I say, give it another two weeks or a month. And then it's done. If what I'm telling you doesn't work, you should fire me. Fritzi: Yes, but I'm the leader of the group. The organization, they can't fire me. Phil Stutz: And is this optional for the inmates? How does that work? Fritzi: This is going on the tablets. They have tablets now. And we're going to bring them as much help as we can. Phil Stutz: Oh, you want this to spread out to the whole country? Fritzi: Yes. All prisons. Everyone who's incarcerated. Because they have families. This ripples out to their communities. We help them, they help them. Phil Stutz: Okay. You should call me in a year, or maybe nine months. I don't want to hear about anything except initiatives you've taken. I don't care if every single guy in says you're an idiot. I don't care. It's good to have a relatively long time period, totally focused on action, no excuses. And if only if one person is left after that three months. That's great. Fritzi: One person's left in my organization, or? Phil Stutz: Yes. Yes, that's right. Fritzi: Yeah you'll see. It's action all the time. You're right, it is. That's what I'm doing. I'm not stopping. I'm not stopping until we shift this whole prison system. Phil Stutz: Yeah. And if anybody tells you it's impossible, or whatever, you very politely tell them to go fuck yourself because it's a war, and that's the end of it. Fritzi: It's urgent. We can't wait any longer. Phil Stutz: Yeah, that's where speed comes in. Yeah. Fritzi: That's right. And, Phil Stutz: And listen, anytime you get a chance to speak in front of non incarcerated people, you have to do it. Fritzi: Okay. Phil Stutz: You are doing it on all levels. Fritzi: I, that's why this is a podcast for the people in prison and the people that are in society that are in prison. Phil Stutz: Yeah. Fritzi: So I've summarized your work in this one sentence and I, what I get is, it is a mandate that we stop seeking instant gratification so we can realize who we are, get in touch with higher forces and our own spirituality so we can tap into our potential and in doing so help society tap into its own potential. Phil Stutz: Yeah, that's the, partially that's going to be the next book that I'm writing. Partially, but the point of it is, everything we do, if you want it to be real, if you want it to have a real impact, nothing else matters except impact. If somebody reads my books and I say they have an intellectual relationship with them, I say, I try to say it politely, and I'm getting tired of being so polite, but I'll say, are you out of your fucking mind? You have a goldmine here, you're not even putting a big toe in it. And I don't care how smart you are. That's really the psychiatric world, which is still like a joke, but much better than it was. Fritzi: Just that, what you're saying, you were saying about your, how your book is about society tapping to its own potential when we tap into our own. Phil Stutz: Everything that's real, every period of growth, every accomplishment, every family that works, all represent refutation of the idea that we are completely blocked and limited. So Part X over here says, Don't bother. You can't overcome this. And then it's gonna give you some explanations of why you can't overcome it. But basically Part X is the avatar of the impossibility and creativity is the opposite. It says something more is possible here. So it's that which we thought was impossible. We were wrong. It's actually possible. But not because I told you or anybody, it's because you've experienced it. And you can't experience it, obviously, without action. So that's a way of looking at this to say, God gave us certain potential. He didn't give us a whole package. He gave us certain potentials. And we can only reach that potential when we are connected, horizontally, which means with other people and whatever your group that you identify with. And vertically, which is with God. You can't do nothing without that. So forget about it. And I have, as a shrink, I'm retired now, but guys would come in and they were like 52 years old and multi rich and famous. They knew nothing. nothing. And every one of them went through hell. The ones that stayed with it, many of them chose to have faith in it, did really well. It's not like their life was easy, but they realized they slowly could escape from Part X, even for one day. So creativity, you could define it as the ability to find a force that the world is telling you it doesn't exist. That's a good way to say it. And, you recognize it when you look at things and all of a sudden you're looking at something in a completely different manner than you were before. You don't really know why and you shouldn't know why. It's none of your business. I had another revelation. It's probably worth I was talking about. Yeah, I don't want to get into politics, but when you see the politicians on television, they're making outrageous claims, and they're just lying, and they're following, they have this they're very certain, they're very sure of what they're saying, even though most of what they're saying is ridiculous. Well, why is that? And if you see when someone will interview one of these people, it's both on the left and the right, and I think it's more on the right, but it's on both sides. And you're watching it and you're saying, how could this person believe what he's saying? It's impossible. And the answer is, he doesn't believe what he's saying. He doesn't care. He's not, he's not into it to find out what's going on or to help people. It's like somebody going to the movies. He just wants to go to the movies and see the same fucking movie every day for the rest of his life. And that means no change. And then these people sound like such idiots, because they're. On their own terms, they're doing the right thing, which is corroborating the fact that nothing can change. So they want to come to a, let's say political rally to hear the same thing over and over and over. And the only way you can beat that is to make people more interested in reality and less interested in going to the movies. And that's a very hard thing for people to accept. Fritzi: Change is petrifying, right? Phil Stutz: Yes. Fritzi: Change means that it's not going to be like it is. Even though what isn't so great. At least we know what is. And for me what transformation, the possibility of transformation is we can create a world that actually honors the integrity and the spirit of who we truly are. Phil Stutz: Yeah, or we're going to be eliminated. Fritzi: Exactly, or we're going to destroy ourselves. Another quote by you, "The secret of the higher system is to make every day you live, every action you take personally meaningful. It is this sense of meaning that becomes your energy source." Phil Stutz: That's why we talked about this world of small things. See on the level of forces of let's just say that in the world of higher forces, there's no difference between the smallest action you take and the biggest action. From that point, think of it, here's let's say a, some kind of a being up there that's watching us, let's say 35 billion years or 500 billion years. It doesn't give a shit what happens tomorrow, that's not. God has only one interest, and that's human beings. And human beings are like his hobby, so to speak. Anything he does that advances the soul of the human being makes him happy. Anything that doesn't, makes him very unhappy, which is fine. But it's hard for human beings to believe that their garden has made them into his project. It's almost impossible to believe it. But if you look carefully, it starts to make more and more sense. That's why those two pyramids, if you use the pyramid that demands proof, that has no faith, God will say, look, I'm going to have to order a ham sandwich, with this. Come back in 10,000 years. Fritzi: Yes, yes, have faith and act. That's really the world. Act to discover who you are, right? So it is in the action and in the connection that we're making with each other in our actions that help us learn who we are. Phil Stutz: That's right. Fritzi: Isn't that, that why we're here? Phil Stutz: No, we're here to experience what we suspect, but can't be proven, that we have certain abilities, and God, it's his greatest pleasure to bring out those abilities. See? Not so you can understand them, only that you can feel them. All right, I've had enough. Fritzi: I'm with you. Phil Stutz: This was great. Fritzi: Thank you so much. Phil Stutz: Pay no attention to anybody. Trust your own instincts. Act quickly. And just think, it's not like there's six million people that can talk to what you talk to, there aren't.. I finally realized that about myself. I was waiting for somebody else to come along on that. Fritzi: Yeah, you're the only one who can say it. Phil Stutz: Yeah, I realized that I was, in this war, I was a principal, and it has shocked me, know, but I mean, it's true. Fritzi: I'm one of your soldiers now. Phil Stutz: Good. All right, that's Fritzi: All right, sir, thank you so much. I hope to, I hope, what? Phil Stutz: Do your homework now. Fritzi: I will. Phil Stutz: Okay. Fritzi: Act, and don't wait. Phil Stutz: That's right. And assume your instincts have an in an intelligence to them as well. Fritzi: I will. Thank you. Phil Stutz: Did you go to public school? Fritzi: I went to PS 1 99 and then I, my mother got me out because she didn't like all the fights that were going. Phil Stutz: Oh Fritzi: Yeah. And then I wanted to be in a gang. I wanted to Phil Stutz: Oh yeah? Fritzi: Yeah. Just be a bad kid. Yeah. I was full of it. The the Irish gangs and the Italian gangs. Phil Stutz: Where was, did you hang around those kids? Fritzi: That was in the village where I went to high school, so that's where the gangs were, so. Phil Stutz: What high school did you go to? Fritzi: Elizabeth Irwin, was this little. Phil Stutz: How would that exist? Was that like an art school or something? Fritzi: Yeah. It was, Phil Stutz: there used to be this school downtown. What was the name? These girls were like 14 years old and they had the short skirts and they were dressed all in black and they were smoking joints. I was scared to walk down that block, actually. That was Mabel Dean Bacon. Do you remember that one? Fritzi: Which one? Phil Stutz: Mabel Dean Bacon. Fritzi: No. No. Phil Stutz: That was serious. Okay. Fritzi: Growing up in New york was serious. Phil Stutz: Okay, this was just fun. Thank you. Fritzi: Thank you, Phil. Thank you Phil Stutz for such an incredible interview. One of the things that you talk about in Lessons for Living is that time is sacred, and that we have forgotten that time is sacred. And speaking with you is a reminder that of how important it is to get going on our projects, take risks, get out there, take action, and to remember that time is sacred. It's such an honor to have spoken with you. I've admired your work for the past year now, and to have your wisdom and your insights and your encouragement was such a gift to me. I am looking forward to your next book. If you've enjoyed this podcast and want to support our work, please visit our website at compassionprisonproject. org,and please share and subscribe to this podcast. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.