Building your life like a string of pearls
On Stutz, learning to love the process and how to change your life
By now, you may have heard about Stutz, actor Jonah Hill’s heart-led documentary on his unconventional therapist, Phil Stutz, currently screening on Netflix. Hill made the news during Sundance earlier this year when he said he would not be doing any press for the film to protect his peace. I’m intentionally phrasing it that way because “mental health” has become such a murky word string and some folks still have resistance to it.
The media goes wild every time a celebrity chooses boundaries to protect their peace over participating in the circus. U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and tennis phenom Naomi Osaka both were highly criticized for walking away during peak competitions. Yet, it’s the media that brutally dissects these performers’ every move. Every success and failure is scrutinized. And many of us feed into this nasty cycle with our water cooler/dinner table conversations, feeling entitled to opinions about people we feel are superhuman, as if your cousin Hovsep’s thoughts on why Roger Federer retired from tennis are critical to the survival of humans.
By measuring these seemingly exceptional human beings on this scale, we actually dehumanize them. We act like everyone having a say is the price of admission to fame and wealth. Then we’re disappointed (and sometimes deeply entertained) when these famous humans spontaneously combust. But at the end of the day, they are simply humans who, through a mix of natural talent, determination, luck, preparation, and opportunity, have found their way into our consciousness. They have families, feelings, and traumas like the rest of us, and I am so proud of everyone who has found the strength to say, “Enough. The excellence I’ve been pursuing has come at a cost, and I’m ready to sit down now and just BE. I don’t need your attention and validation to be worthy of love or life.”
Why are you rambling about Stutz, Nadine?
First off, if you did not love Jonah Hill from his hilarious performances, you will find it hard NOT to love him in this documentary. Through the process of making the film, Hill reveals so much of his inner world and his big heart, and we are all richer for it. Hill’s hypothesis — that Stutz is a unique human with beautiful ideas worth sharing because they may help others — is validated once Hill decides to go “all in” and accepts the by-product of not trying to control the outcome: uncertainty.
I’ve watched the film a few times now. Once in its entirety and a few times in spurts broken up between naps (it’s soothing to my ASMR-loving brain). I get something new from it on each viewing. I am utterly in love with this film and its subjects. Stutz’s ideas overlap with so much research and learning/unlearning I’ve done in coaching, neuroscience, and spiritual paths like Buddhism and Islam. But what I love most is that while truths of human experience are universal, we all learn differently. Stutz uses illustrations, personal storytelling, and new nomenclature for ideas that are ubiquitous through many of the subjects I mentioned above to offer a path to self-acceptance, happiness, and cultivating peace from within.
I won’t spoil the movie (that I’ve now hyped up a lot. Sorry, not sorry. Hype girls gotta hype), but I would like to share with you one simple concept (or the Tools as they are called in the film) that was truly a gift to me: String of Pearls. (You read about all the Tools here.)
The concept of String of Pearls is rooted in action, the ones we resist, the ones we judge, the ones we sabotage, and the ones we are thrilled with. As a spiritual seeker for whom Zen or “engaged” Buddhism as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh and other leaders at Plum Village is most resonant, I believe that our actions are the only thing within our control as humans. My interest was piqued.
In Stutz’s illustration, each circle or “pearl” is an action — and, since each pearl is a similar size, you can think of each action having the same value, no matter what it is. This means that every large or small action in your life (brushing your teeth, deciding to end a relationship) is just that: a thing to do. You are the only person who can put the next pearl on the string. But, within each pearl is a dark spot (Stutz calls it a “turd”), which is a reminder that no effort you make will be perfect. The key is to acknowledge that and keep adding to the string anyway.
BOOM! As I continue on my path to help abolish the “good/bad” and “right/wrong” binaries, this smacked me right in the heart (in a good way). Imagine that? Every decision you’ve made until now got you to here. Your life is built by adding pearls to your string. Every pearl is a path forward, a step toward bringing us closer to our true selves (in which there is no self but the one interconnected root system with many forms. I’ll save non-duality for another time. I’m still working on understanding and integrating that concept fully.)
This validates my belief that to live a fulfilling life that causes little harm and helps to grow both you and your community and to embrace the benevolent, peaceful, loving life force in each of us and all around us, we must each take 100% responsibility for our lives (beyond initial childhood). For me, this is where true health and well-being reside: In our ability to take accountability and responsibility for what we do and say, despite circumstances outside our control. And it kinda takes everyone doing constant work here to help heal the world as we’ve created it until now.
What I love about our coaching program (permit me a moment to hype the work I’ve helped create) is that it provides a framework from which participants learn to collect data rather than judgments. Through constant observation and analysis, we help women learn how to choose the thoughts and actions that will net better results over time.
Imagine not judging something you’ve done but rather observing the results the action creates. Did it make you feel good? Did it get you closer to what you want your life or the world to be? Did it hurt anyone? Did it help? As opposed to “That sucked. I suck. This is garbage. I am garbage. Why would anyone care?” Sucking, making garbage, and no one caring — all par for the course, says Stutz. Happiness comes from learning to accept the turd in every pearl, according to Stutz and in finding the pearl around every turd, according to Hill. The sucky parts matter as much as the so-called successes. And guess what? It’s a practice. Stop trying to be perfect at it, Nadine!
As a writer, I found so much relief in this. I’ve been resisting writing my book by worrying about the reader’s reaction or worse, “What if no one reads it?” I divulged to my pal Sadiya recently that I was worried about how mad some Turks might get at what I want to share about being of Western-Armenian ancestry and my family’s genocide story. Sadiya’s writing her Pakistani grandmother’s story right now; for us diaspora folk, the personal is always political. “People will be mad no matter what,” she wisely advised me. “You just gotta write the truth.”
So here I am, beginning to love the process. It’s never linear, and it’s never done alone (despite the writing part of writing being a somewhat lonely, solitary process at times). Grateful as always to share words and ideas with y’all and learning to put less energy into what anyone thinks about how I’m choosing to express and share my life and what I learn while learning to be fully alive. Go watch Stutz, and let me know what you think! What does it unlock for you?
(And Jonah Hill, if this makes its way to your eyeballs, I am manifesting a too-tight, too-long hug in our future.)
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I loved everything about the intention of this film and gives me hope about a shift in collective consciousness, expressed through art. The visuals of the tools excited me most and the practicality of it all, I often think life change is super complicated, but it’s really about accepting what is and taking the needed action. I also appreciate the simplicity of explaining the concept of “You” and still having a soulful feel, but not new-agey.