Just an Illusion?

Insights from the Brilliant Phil Stutz into the nature of Life.

I try hard to be honest. Especially when it comes to the work I do. I always intend to portray healing as a process that never ends. I see becoming whole as asymptotic, a confusing mathematical word that means we can get closer and closer for infinity without ever actually touching the thing we’re reaching for.

People have told me this is a marketing mistake. That I should be showing and convincing people that I have the solution to their problem. I believe I can immensely improve people’s lives, but their biggest problem lies in an illusion that Phil Stutz explains and describes so very well.

Phil Stutz explains:

“Our culture denies the nature of reality. It holds out a promise that you can live in an ideal world where things come easily, a world in which unpleasant experiences can be avoided, where there is never a lack of immediate gratification. Worse, it suggests that if you do not live in this world, something is wrong with you. This ideal world is a realm of illusion. No matter how promising this world seems, it does not exist.”

This is the myth of “happily ever after”. As young children, we watch movies and hear stories that tell us and show us that “they lived happily ever after.” So we assume we will reach that place.

I distinctly remember a moment in high school, working at Coldstone Creamery, watching my two bosses, brothers in their fourties, completely stressed out and total messes, which swept me into reality. Up until that moment I believed that you get to some point, probably in your early 30’s where you’ve got everything figured out and then you coast through life enjoying it. In that ice cream filled shop, swirling in the fragrance of waffle cones, listening to the clattering of metal spatulas on frozen granite, it dawned on me - “as you get older, you have to face more complex and difficult challenges. Life never gets easier.”

I ate a lot of ice cream that night.

But, and this is a big but that I like, I cannot lie, there’s a magic available to all of us.

"The key depends on a simple truth that we resist: life is made up of events. The only real way to accept life is to accept the events that comprise it. And the flow of events never stops. The driving force of the universe reveals itself via the events of our lives."

Stutz says that we expect life to reach this static state of equanimity at some point, and we're essentially told by our culture that if we don't reach that state there's something wrong with us (so pile on some shame to the troubles we're dealing with, oh, and keep your troubles a secret so no one else knows you haven't reached the magic state. Now you feel alone on top of the troubles and shame).

If we can release that expectation, and embrace the reality that life is a series of events, many of which are unpleasant and painful, then we've taken the first step towards living life more effectively.

Or as he says,

Preparing yourself with a philosophy enables you to change the meaning of a negative event. With a specific philosophy, you can aggressively change your perception of events. The philosophy of events is as follows.

Adverse events are supposed to happen.

Their existence doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.

There is always an opportunity in a negative event.

An opportunity for learning, for growth, for strengthening ourselves, for becoming more whole, for healing.

The way I see it, my role is to help people turn negative events into opportunities. This is amazing and beautiful, and sometimes even fun. But, it doesn't stop new negative events from happening and it never will. So, I don't claim it will. I will claim that people will become more skilled at facing adverse events, because it's true. But however much more skilled we become, we end up facing newer and bigger challenges that ask us to develop more skill and capacity...ain't that magical?

I think many of us are looking for the magic switch that will turn off the flow of negative events (I certainly find myself looking for it sometimes). It's a trap called "the curative fantasy." The fantasy that, if I just buy this house, or find the right school for my children, or take this workshop, or see this shamanic healer, or do this psychedelic journey, or marry the right person, or take this supplement, or read this book, or start a journaling practice, or exercise more, or meditate every day, or... then everything will be fixed.

But according to Stutz:

The nature of reality is this:

Life includes pain and adversity.

The future is uncertain.

Accomplishment of any kind requires discipline.

You are not special.

No matter what you do, you cannot avoid these aspects of life. This will never change. There is love, joy, surprise, transcendence, and creativity as well, but these never occur separately from the above five points.

There is nothing wrong with this. This is how it feels to be alive.

But if the "happily ever after myth" teaches us that adverse events are not supposed to happen, then our experience of living can lead us to feel like failures.

Stutz reminds us that we need a "philosophy of events" to face the challenges that arise in a way that allows to learn and grow, and to not despair or feel like it's not fair or not supposed to happen.

This is why we need each other and this is why we need healers, psychotherapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, coaches, shamans, friends, a good loaf of bread, a perfect cup of coffee. Not because they make our problems and challenges go away, but because they help us face them and work through them.

If we can collectively rewrite the story of The Illusion that there's a way to avoid or transcend adverse events, we can live in a Story of Events together. A Story of Unfolding where we all hit walls, and deal with broken dishwashers and leaks and injuries. Together things are better. And living in reality is definitely better than trying to live in a delusion.

And if you're aching for support in changing your story or working through your adversity, I'm only an email or text message away.

And here’s a song to uplift:

With Courageous Love,

Noah

P.S. all quotes are exerpts from here:https://a.co/hbRETtf