The Tools

Psychotherapist Barry Michels and psychiatrist Phil Stutz present five practical techniques they call "tools," each designed to connect the user to what they term "higher forces": invisible energies that can solve problems traditional therapy and mere attitude adjustments cannot address.

Michels recounts his early frustration as a new therapist. When a patient named Roberta asked how to stop obsessing over her boyfriend's fidelity, his training offered only directives to explore childhood causes. A friend introduced him to Stutz, a psychiatrist who focuses on solutions rather than the origins of problems. Michels used one of Stutz's tools with Roberta and found it immediately effective. Stutz traces his own break from traditional therapy to a failure with Tony, a surgical resident whose test anxiety led him to fail his board exam despite months of interpretive treatment. Tony told Stutz he had been given no real way to conquer fear. Driven by this rebuke and by his early experience as his grieving father's emotional caretaker after a brother's death, Stutz developed a set of tools connecting users to what he calls a "higher world" of limitless forces.

The first tool, the Reversal of Desire, addresses the tendency to avoid pain. The authors illustrate it through Vinny, a talented stand-up comic who had spent a decade in small clubs because he avoided situations that made him feel vulnerable, a pattern rooted in childhood beatings by his father. They define the "Comfort Zone" as an invisible barrier of avoidance. The corresponding higher force is the Force of Forward Motion, a life energy visible in a child's drive to learn to walk despite falls; in adults it operates only when consciously chosen. The tool trains the user to desire pain rather than flee it: One visualizes pain as a cloud, moves toward it while silently screaming "Bring it on!", merges with it while declaring "I love pain!", and feels it expel one into a realm of light with the affirmation "Pain sets me free!" Vinny tested the tool by calling a club owner he had blown off, endured a dressing-down, and earned a performance slot where he excelled.

The second tool, Active Love, addresses what the authors call "the Maze," a state in which obsessive thoughts about a perceived wrong trap a person in the past. Amanda, an ambitious fashion entrepreneur, entered the Maze after her boyfriend Blake flirted with another woman at a party. She withdrew into unforgiving rage and could not recover feelings of love, a pattern that had ended every prior relationship. The Maze stems from a childish expectation of fairness that keeps people immobilized when the world proves unjust. To escape, the authors introduce Outflow, a higher force of unconditional giving likened to sunlight shining equally on everything. In three steps, the user concentrates surrounding love into the chest, sends it to the offending person, and feels oneness as love returns. The authors stress that Active Love changes the user's inner state without requiring passivity in outer behavior.

The third tool, Inner Authority, addresses the insecurity that causes people to freeze when expressing themselves. Jennifer, a former model from a small rural town, felt perpetually inferior to affluent parents on her son's elite soccer team and froze at a parents' meeting. The authors trace this pattern to the "Shadow," a concept from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: a second self representing everything one fears one is, inherent to being human and impossible to eliminate. Because the Shadow triggers shame, people seek worth from external sources, granting audiences the power of judges. Hidden beneath the Shadow lies the Force of Self-Expression, which drives truthful self-revelation without concern for others' reactions. The tool requires the user to visualize the Shadow, feel an unbreakable bond with it, and turn together toward the audience, silently commanding them to "Listen!" After months of practice, Jennifer used Inner Authority at an acting audition and a fund-raising meeting on the same day, experiencing unprecedented flow. The authors argue that accepting the Shadow creates empathy and community, while hiding it produces alienation.

The fourth tool, the Grateful Flow, addresses chronic negative thinking. Elizabeth, a guidance counselor with a stable life and devoted husband, lived under what the authors call the "Black Cloud," a shroud of oppressive negativity. This oppressive energy is created by incessant worry whose power comes not from the truth of its predictions but from sheer repetition. The turning point came when her daughter accused Elizabeth of using worry to manage her own anxiety rather than to help anyone. The authors explain that worry functions as a superstition, giving the illusion of control over an unpredictable universe. They introduce the Source, an all-giving power that sustains everything, and define gratefulness not as a mere emotion but as a higher organ of perception through which the spiritual world is experienced. The tool instructs the user to name specific things they are grateful for, slowly enough to feel each one's value, then let the heart generate wordless gratefulness until the user approaches the Source. Elizabeth practiced the tool and achieved lasting peace of mind for the first time.

The fifth tool, Jeopardy, addresses the universal tendency to stop using tools that work. The authors return to Vinny, who, after landing a TV sitcom role, stopped using the Reversal of Desire, believing fame had excused him from further effort. He reverted to old habits and was fired. The authors name this fantasy "exoneration" and identify consumerism as the cultural force reinforcing it. The penalty is always demoralization. The missing ingredient is willpower, the one higher force that must be generated by the individual rather than received as a gift. The tool instructs the user to imagine their own deathbed: The dying self screams at the present self not to waste the moment, creating urgent pressure to act. Vinny eventually returned to performing at a tiny club and discovered he no longer cared about fame but wanted to improve his work for its own sake. The authors identify this shift as the transition from "consumer" to "creator," someone who creates rather than passively acquires.

Chapter 7 documents Michels's journey from atheistic skepticism to faith. After months of practicing Active Love without feeling higher forces, he had a transformative dream on January 17, 1993: An earthquake destroyed his office, and he used Active Love one last time, experiencing a flood of love greater than any he had known. Exactly one year later, a real earthquake destroyed the building housing his office, shattering his rationalism. Stutz instructed him to stop debating and simply use the tools. Michels tested this by using Active Love during a dreaded lunch with his best friend Steve, a theoretical physicist, and spoke with unprecedented passion. He defines the faith he achieved as "the confidence that higher forces are always there to help when you need them." Stutz shares a parallel path: An unexplained exhaustion early in his career drove him into an inner life where the tools emerged as if from another force.

The final chapter synthesizes three pillars of what the authors call a new spirituality: Higher forces must be experienced directly rather than proven logically; each individual must be his or her own spiritual authority; and personal problems drive spiritual evolution by pushing people to discover hidden capacities. The authors argue that society's spirit is sick and that higher forces must enter the world through empowered individuals rather than failing institutions. They close by framing the reader's choice as the divide between consumer and creator: A consumer will forget what was read, while a creator will use the tools without end, contributing to a spirituality that depends on individual participation to survive.