The Documentary “Stutz” and Tools to Care for Your Mental Health

Your Mental Health is Connected to your Overall Wellness

In the Netflix documentary “Stutz, ” the film takes us through a conversation between Jonah Hill and his therapist: Phil Stutz.

In the documentary, Jonah and Phil discuss several important concepts about how you can learn to live well: from the way your body impacts how you feel to how you connect with people.

Then, there’s the relationship you have with yourself and the Grateful Flow.

Jonah Hill says he created the documentary because he wants to give the tools in therapy to as many people as possible.

Your Relationship with Your Physical Body Impacts How You Feel

“Diet, exercising, and sleeping matters. Doing just 85% of that makes you feel better. Exercise is not just for your physical health but it will impact your mental health”- Phil.

Jonah said that growing up, when he was taught about exercise, it was always about him losing weight and changing his body.

However, what he learned from therapy is that exercise is about more than losing weight but it can make you feel better. Exercise can positively affect your mental health.

One of the most significant lessons we can learn in mental health is that we can’t neglect our relationship with our bodies.

Your Relationship with People Matters

In the documentary, Phil discussed how your relationship with others matters. That when people get depressed or are in a low state, they start to pull back from their lives.

Yet our relationships are a life force that will pull us back to life.

There are moments in my life when I’ve felt sadness and fell into depression.

What helped me then was family ties. It was helpful for me to be surrounded by family to spend time with. For them to keep me encouraged and for things to be light-hearted.

Phil said that your relationship with others is significant and that it matters to take the initiative like inviting someone out to lunch because it would positively affect you.

Your Relationship with Yourself Matters

The relationship we have with ourselves is also key to positively affecting our mental health.

One of the ways we can endeavour to make our relationship with ourselves better is by increasing our life force to determine what we are passionate about.

Also, you have to understand the relationship you have with your unconscious mind.

One of the ways you can do this is by writing and journalling.

The therapist recommends that you pick up the habit of writing because it affects what is going on in your unconscious mind.

For myself, journalling continues to be therapeutic. It’s a way for me to express my thoughts and emotions about life.

Journalling is also a way for me to reflect on my life and what I am grateful for.

Part X and the Grateful Flow

In the documentary, Jonah states that his traditional experience of therapy is more one-sided.

The therapist listens and wants to know how you are feeling. The therapist usually doesn’t give you much advice. Whereas, that is what is needed most.

Jonah jokes that often, it is your unlicensed friends that give you unsolicited advice.

He stated that Phil’s approach is different. That he doesn’t want people walking out of his office with nothing.

One of the pieces of advice that Phil gives is about the concept of Part X.

This has to do with adversity. That when adversity comes, you face Part X.

Part X is the judgemental part of you. The anti-social part of you. It is an invisible force that wants to keep you from changing and growing.

Part X is also the voice of impossibility. You can defeat it temporarily but it will always come back.

Though Part X is painful, we need it in life.

“The main character needs a Part X because if the main character does not overcome Part X, there is no change, no growth, and no bravery,” — Jonah Hill

Also, Phil mentions another concept: The Grateful Flow. The Grateful Flow is choosing the positives in life. The grateful flow is the process of creating the things that matter to you.

We have to always incorporate having The Grateful Flow in life because there are three aspects of reality we can’t avoid such as pain, uncertainty, and constant work.

However, we can be happy in the process of dealing with Pain, Uncertainty, and Work.

“Happiness depends on accepting that you won’t figure it out because the secret of life is that no one knows how we would figure things out in life,” — Phil.

One of the ways we can do this is to look at all events as having value.

That we don’t get meaning through big things but we get it through small things.

Final Thoughts

We will all go through difficult times. The difficult times would look different based on who you are.

The difficult times could be in your finances.

The difficult times could be in your health.

The difficult times could be in your work.

We will all go through challenges and in those moments, we will get sad.

It will seem as though we are defeated but we cannot accept defeat.

Fight back by considering your relationship with yourself, your body, and your relationship with others.

Also, be kind to yourself. Give yourself a break to know there is hope.

Find some form of hope no matter how little and continue to keep moving forward.