T

The

ls

transform
your problems
into courage,
confidence,
and creativity

Phil Stutz
and
Barry Michels

Contents
P I C T U R E 1 |

P I C T U R E 2 |

P I C T U R E 3 |

P I C T U R E 4 |

P I C T U R E 5 |

P I C T U R E 6 |

P I C T U R E 7 |

P I C T U R E 8 |

P I C T U R E 8 |

ple. Every area of lifehis career, friendships, even his romantic lifewas a shrunken miniature of what it could
have been.
Heres a way to picture the Comfort Zone and the price
you pay for living in it:Picture 1

Pain

Comfort Zone

ENDLESS
POSSIBILITIES

42

THE TOOLS

Avoidance

Pain

The diagram below illustrates how this process works.

in a the figure leaves the Comfort Zone, he has
This Trapped
time, when
Small World
a completely different mind-set. Not only isnt he trying to
avoid pain, he desires it. Its this desire that puts him in motion; as Ive said, when youre moving toward it, pain
Most of us are like the stick figure, stuck inside the
shrinks and becomes less intimidating. You can now move
Comfort Zone. To take advantage of the endless possithrough it into an expanded
world 2
of endless possibility.
Picture
bilities that life provides us, we have to venture out. The
first thing we meet is pain. Without a way to get through
it, we scurry back to safety. This is depicted in the arrow
Comfort
Zone
that
goes
out, comesPain
close to pain, and turns back again.
ENDLESS
POSSIBILITIES
Eventually, we give up on ever escaping
the Comfort
DESIRE
Zone; our most treasured dreams and aspirations are lost.
Nineteenth-century physician, teacher, and author Oliver
Pain
Wendell Holmes in The Voiceless wrote: Alas for those
that never sing, / But die with all their music in them.
Pain Sets
Me Free

My father gave me my first

1 lesson in the power of moving into pain when he taught me to bodysurf. He started by
showing me 31
how to get into frigid water. You have to dive
Stut_9780679644446_2p_01_r2.e.indd
in all at once, without thinking. He and I would sprint

2/9/12 3:43 PM

ing and fall back into the Maze where youre trapped in the
past. Life will pass you by. Or you can use Active Love,
unify yourself with Outflow, and move on with your life. In
the initial shock of being mistreated, we all forget that we
have this choice. The picture below will help you remember.
Picture 3

The Choice

OU

TF

LO

FREEDOM
TO GO ON
WITH LIFE

IN N E R A U T H O R I T Y

109

become dependent on attention the way an infant is on a

pacifier.
TRAPPED
Whether youre a celebrity
or not, when you crave the
IN THE
PAST power over you. They
approval of others, you give them
become authority
figures who define your value. Like a
THE MAZE
Roman emperor, they cast their thumbs up or down in what
seems like a final judgment of your worth. No wonder you
freeze
in stick
their fipresence.
The
gure is you, the moment after youve expeThe
picture
below
shows
how
thisindicates
works. that you do
rienced an injustice.
The
lower
arrow

Picture 4

nothing; in effect, youve chosen to enter the Maze. The

upper arrow indicates that youve chosen to put yourself
through the three steps of Active Love. This decision unites
You
R
you with Outflow; youre free
T E to move into the future. Many
OU
TY
R I when injured to remind
patients visualize this picture
O
H
UT
AUDIENCE
themselves they do have Aa choice.

Hidden
Shadow
FROZEN STATE
2

The picture diagrams the state of affairs in someone

prone to freezing (which is almost everyone). The person is
ashamed of his Shadow and does everything possible to

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2/9/12 3:43 PM

pearance may change. Thats not a bad thing. Like anything else thats alive, the Shadow evolves. Whats most
important is that its presence forms an unbreakable bond
you can feel.
| T H Epicture
146 The
T O O L S below shows how Inner Authority works.

Picture 5

Close your eyes and re-create the worried

thoughts,Shadow
repeating them intensely like you do in
real life. At first, this might feel artificial, but if you
You

keep at it, the thoughts will gain momentum and

acquire a life of their own. Now, focus on the inner
state that these thoughts
have created. What does
I
it feel like?

SELFEXPRESSION

AU

NN

TH

RI

ER

TY

You just experienced a mild version of the Black Cloud.

When it occurs in your actual life, its darker and more opAUDIENCE
pressive. By blotting out everything positive, it convinces
you that only the negative is real. The following illustrationThe
depicts
the in
Black
work:
person
the Cloud
pictureathas
brought the Shadow out

Picture 6

of hiding. Its now outside the person and bonded with him.
Speaking with one voice, they evoke the Force of
Self-Expression. This higher force gives the person inner
authority, indicated by the arrow moving out toward the
audience. The figures representing the audience are small
and below the persontheyre no longer a threat.
BL AC K C L O UD

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Above the cloud is the sun, the universal symbol for the
positive. Here, it would represent all that is right in the

shining above the Cloud represented whatever was right

with the world. Now we can give the sun its proper name:
the Source, the creator of all that is, the ultimate positive
force in the universe. This picture shows how gratefulness
becomes an organ that connects us to the Source.

Picture 7

J E O PA R D Y

201

THE SOURCE
fear that were wasting our
lives. The unbelievable number
of distractions consumerism offers helps us bury that fear.
GRATEFULNESS
Using Jeopardy breaks through our denial and turns our
fear into the urgency to act. That urgency lights the spark
B L ACK
C L O UD
of willpower.
There is never a time when you dont need that spark.
Thats why Phil said we needed a permanent source of
jeopardy. The deathbed perspective provides it, regardless
of your outer situation. It allows you to create willpower at
any time.
The picture below shows the process of creating willpower.
We call the tool the
Grateful Flow.
Picture
8 Flow refers to any
process thats endlessly creative. In the tool, you create an

Urgency

N
DO

E
TH

AS
W

PR

TE

N
SE

DEATHBED
PE RSPECTIVE

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2/10/12 10:01 AM

WILLPOWER

TOOLS

PRESENT
MOMENT

The figure at the upper right represents you lying on

your deathbed. Hes much more aware than you are that
time is limited. His warning to you is symbolized by the

to wash that away. But Phil saw the arguments forming in

my mind and declared abruptly, No more debate. Study
the card and get inside the system. If you still need an explanation, well talk later.
There was no arguing with him. He was adamant. My
task was simple: participate in the system and experience
what he called higher forces. It was all spelled out in the
following diagram:

Picture 9

FORCE OF
E VO L UT IO N
HIGHER
FORCES
PROBLEM
USE OF
TOOLS

The figure on the left is faced with a life problem; it

might be an illness, a job loss, or even the inner confusion I
was going through. As the first thick arrow indicates, the
problem is sent down by the force that governs evolution

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