Before we start: The new issue of The Stress Less Pencil Magazine is out now! You'll find more details at the end of this post, or you can just straight up download it here.
I watched Jonah Hill's documentary "Stutz” on Netflix this week. Hill interviews his therapist and friend Phil Stutz, in the hopes that we can all start benefiting from his wisdom.
It's a lovingly made film, and you can really feel the mutual love and respect the two men have for each other. Unlike pure talk therapy, Stutz’ approach includes practical tools for his patients that allow them to immediately take charge of their situation and experience the impact they themselves can create through positive action.
His approach really speaks to me, and I found a lot of overlap with what I've learned from positive psychology.
Today, we'll do a visual version of Stutz’ Life Force tool.
… to the sound of Lizzo.
The Activity: Visualise your Life Force
First of all, what the hell is Life Force?
Stutz says it’s fundamental that everyone knows what makes people feel more alive. In Stutz’s Life Force model, there are three levels to what make you, you: The bottom, most primal level is your relationship with your physical body, the second level is your relationship with other people and at the top of the pyramid is your relationship with yourself. Stutz says that if you’re lost, depressed or feeling stuck, it’s important to work on your Life Force first — take care of your body, take care of your people, take care of yourself. Once you do, figuring out how to move forward becomes much, much easier.
Your body, your relationships, yourself - if you take care of these things, it'll make taking care of everything else so much easier. It's like a Maslow-type pyramid of our basic needs for well-being.
Step 1 - The Canvas
Take a sheet of paper in portrait format and divide it into three equal parts. Body at the bottom, relationships in the middle, yourself on the top.
Step 2 - The Vision
If you've ever done a vision board before, you'll already know how to do this step. Instead of writing down specific goals, we use images to visualise how we want things to be on each level.
What does it look like to have a good relationship with your body? What are the things you'll be doing when you work on your relationship with yourself?
You can either doodle the hell out of this, cut out pictures from a magazines to make a collage, or use digital tools.
We want to create a visual reminder of how it looks like when we're wielding our Life Force lightsaber at full power.
Step 3: Hang it up
Once you finished your Life Force vision board, make sure you keep it somewhere you can see it often. On your fridge, as a background on your phone, as poster on your wall.
Try to work on one element from your board each day.
My Example
Body - For a while now I've landed on a few activities that I really enjoy, and that I can choose from depending on my mood and energy level. We've got powerlifting, swimming, yoga, walking, and paddle boarding.
Relationships - Many of my closest people live far away from me, so I want to travel and see them more often, call them, take plenty of photos. But I also want to continue cherishing and build relationships I have around me.
Myself - I try to improve the relationship I have with myself through drawing and painting (duh), meditation, journaling, reading, and being more connected to nature.
I also want to stay in touch with my playful inner child, which is why I kept the duck there which my 2 year old commanded me to add while making this collage.
I hope you enjoy strengthening your life force!
Love, Lorena
The New Issue of the Stress Less Pencil Magazine is out now!
In this issue we talk to the amazing Dariane, pottery master at dada fabrik about how she got into pottery and how her life has changed since. We also talk about the importance of art for creating community and why it's especially important in a recession. We'll revisit some great art prompts to set your boundaries, what to draw when we don't know what to draw, and much more.