Coming Alive

“The tools Barry and Phil teach in Coming Alive gave me the courage and clarity to align myself with the truth--no matter how hard or painful it seemed at the time.”--Gwyneth Paltrow Tap into the Life Force with this critical and contemporary guide to unlocking our most powerful selves--from the bestselling authors of The Tools (and Goop’s resident shrinks). In The Tools , Michels and Stutz revolutionized the world of personal growth. Now, in Coming Alive , they guide readers toward a wellspring of positive energy: the source of creativity, renewal, and engagement. The first step in gaining mastery over one’s life--in deepening both emotional and spiritual experiences--is identifying the enemy within, which Michels and Stutz have named Part X. This formidable adversary is a shape-shifter: it may be the voice in your head that is a torrent of negativity; it may take the form of outside forces that conspire against you. In whatever guise it appears, Part X aims to derail your progress, keep you small and stuck, and defeat hope. The four vital tools in Coming Alive help you connect to the Life Force--a wellspring of positive energy that is the source of creativity, renewal, confidence, and engagement--and harness the energy and will to combat Part X. Drawing insights from their decades of psychotherapeutic practice, their lived experience, and their moving and generous understanding of our interconnectedness, Michels and Stutz have created a paradigm-shifting guide to achieving optimal mental health and spiritual well-being. Praise for Coming Alive “What a gift! A riveting exploration of four (bone-chillingly relatable) modern ailments and their thrillingly practical solutions . . . Singular in its approach and deeply spiritual in its concerns, Coming Alive is a book I’ll be pressing on friends and foes alike.” --Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette ...

“There is something indescribably beautiful about living life in integrity. The tools Barry and Phil teach in Coming Alive gave me the courage and clarity to align myself with the truth—no matter how hard or painful it seemed at the time. It’s an incredibly fulfilling and meaningful way to live.”—Gwyneth Paltrow

“What a gift! A riveting exploration of four (bone-chillingly relatable) modern ailments and their thrillingly practical solutions . . . Barry and Phil have written a manual for moving beyond impulsivity, exhaustion, demoralization, and victimhood, toward a life of self-control, vitality, optimism, and resilience. Singular in its approach and deeply spiritual in its concerns, Coming Alive is a book I’ll be pressing on friends and foes alike.”—Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Today Will Be Different

“‘Practical’ and ‘effective’ are words psychology has always been afraid to embrace. But after working with Barry and Phil for years, I can tell you that they deliver spiritual and psychological transformation. The results, at least for me, have been life changing.”—Adam McKay, Academy Award–winning writer, director, and producer

“When I was going through the most difficult years of my life, I was able to use this method to find my strength. We all have the ability to save ourselves, yet we need guidance when we are lost. In Coming Alive you can find the road map to enlightenment.”—Drew Barrymore 
 
“Part X is another way of describing the addict mind, the obsessive mind, the Jungian shadow, or any fear- or anger-based thought or action. It’s been Phil and Barry’s collective life work to deconstruct Part X and explain it to the rest of us mortals so that we can work with it and not be a slave to it.”—Hank Azaria

Auteur
Barry Michels and Phil Stutz are the New York Times bestselling authors of The Tools and the resident therapists on Goop. They have appeared on Nightline, Charlie Rose, and The Dr. Oz Show *and have been featured in such print and online publications as *The New Yorker, Time, Psychology Today, and Vanity Fair. Michels, a psychotherapist, has a BA from Harvard, a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MSW from the University of Southern California. Stutz, a psychiatrist, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from City College in New York and received his MD from New York University.

Résumé
“The tools Barry and Phil teach in Coming Alive gave me the courage and clarity to align myself with the truth—no matter how hard or painful it seemed at the time.”—Gwyneth Paltrow

Tap into the Life Force with this critical and contemporary guide to unlocking our most powerful selves—from the bestselling authors of The Tools (and goop’s resident shrinks).

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels’s tools are featured in Stutz, a Netflix original documentary directed by Jonah Hill and co-produced by Joaquin Phoenix
 
In The Tools, Michels and Stutz revolutionized the world of personal growth. Now, in Coming Alive, they guide readers toward a wellspring of positive energy: the source of creativity, renewal, and engagement. The first step in gaining mastery over one’s life—in deepening both emotional and spiritual experiences—is identifying the enemy within, which Michels and Stutz have named Part X. This formidable adversary is a shape-shifter: it may be the voice in your head that is a torrent of negativity; it may take the form of outside forces that conspire against you. In whatever guise it appears, Part X aims to derail your progress, keep you small and stuck, and defeat hope.
 
The four vital tools in Coming Alive help you connect to the Life Force—a wellspring of positive energy that is the source of creativity, renewal, confidence, and engagement—and harness the energy and will to combat Part X. Drawing insights from their decades of psychotherapeutic practice, their lived experience, and their moving and generous understanding of our interconnectedness, Michels and Stutz have created a paradigm-shifting guide to achieving optimal mental health and spiritual well-being. 

Praise for Coming Alive

“What a gift! A riveting exploration of four (bone-chillingly relatable) modern ailments and their thrillingly practical solutions . . . Singular in its approach and deeply spiritual in its concerns, Coming Alive is a book I’ll be pressing on friends and foes alike.”—Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One

Reclaiming Your Life

Phil exposes the inner enemy that traps you in a limited existence, and guides you through the first steps toward activating your full potential.

How I Came Alive

I became aware of the power of the life force as a college student—­but it wasn’t part of my course work. At seventeen, I was already in my sophomore year. Physically and emotionally immature, I belonged back in high school. During my freshman year I had indulged my greatest love—­basketball. When I was sixteen years old, I played on the best freshman team the school had had in years.

Now I wanted to move up to the varsity. I wasn’t ready. I needed to wait a year and get bigger and stronger. But I was a gym-­rat whose pulse would quicken at the sound of the bouncing ball. I made the team—­barely—­and then I got what I deserved. I spent the next two years “riding the pine.” (The pine was the wooden bench the scrubs sat on during games.)

Worse than not playing was the dismissive way the coach treated the scrubs. By the …