Small F**ks, Big F**ks, All F**ks

“We can’t control our emotions,” I told the bleary-eyed young man [Daniel]. “Observing our f**ks and getting curious about how they make us feel is the path to sanity. There is no way around that. But it’s possible to experience the f**ks flowing through you in real time.”

We already do give a f**k before we have any choice in the matter. F**ks happen—no matter what, no matter how often we tell ourselves otherwise.

It was only our third session. I’d paid lip service to my f**k procedural before, introducing him to the First Acceptance, Put Down Your F**k Shield. This is how I described it: Feel into your body to identify your shield emotions, like frustration, annoyance, or self-righteousness. Go deeper and ask yourself, what more vulnerable emotions are you hiding from?

But now, unbeknownst to the man whose hand was inching back toward the phone he’d slid under his messenger bag, he would learn the Second Acceptance: Name the f**k. We can’t process our f**ks without first admitting we have them. What are you feeling, actually? Stay with this f**k-feeling in order to accept your emotional reality.

Sounds straightforward, right? And yet most of us do the opposite. When we experience an emotion we consider negative, we tend to want to press fast forward. We often pull out our favorite f**k-denying mechanism.

I think I could guess how Daniel preferred to escape his f**ks. It was early summer amid the coronavirus pandemic. In our last meeting, he suggested COVID-19 had ripped a hole in the fabric of his existence. No, he had said sheepishly, he didn’t lose his job. He wasn’t queuing at the food bank for a gallon of skim, or laying on a cot in a field hospital. Movie theaters were still closed.

“The last movie I saw on the big screen was Parasite,” he’d said. “If someone told me that would be the last time I’d eat movie theater popcorn”—he stopped to shake his head—“I know I sound stupid. So many people have it worse.”

In my practice, I do not discriminate against f**ks, or compare one f**k to another. “Smalls f**ks” and “big f**ks” all deserve validation. Seemingly inconsequential upset, when examined without judgment, can reveal important emotional data. But more often than not, my patients come to me with what they deem small f**ks, and then feel guilty for even feeling their feelings. What right do they have to complain, with a roof over their head and food on the table?

Even if you are the Queen of England, you are allowed to feel anger because your cat scratched a precious heirloom from King Henry VIII stored above your queenly bed. Minimizing your f**k, and shaming yourself for having a f**k in the first place, doesn’t help anyone. In fact, it makes the f**ks grow. It’s f**k fertilizer. And we miss the important opportunity to understand what is beneath the f**ks.

I noticed it was far easier for Daniel to complain about not going to the movie theater, than talk about his pain surrounding Sarah’s departure. I suspected the two f**ks were related. The more his relationship broke down, the more he needed an escape, and longed for his favorite f**k-denying mechanism.

I decided to use Daniel’s f**k-denying mechanism, the movies, to guide him through the Second Acceptance, Name the F**k. If I played my cards right, he’d be able to use this visualization exercise to go deeper into a painful experience, affirm his emotional reality, and leave his resistance behind. He could process his emotions, digest them, and move on. Like Metamucil for a constipated mind.

Accept the Reality of What You Are Feeling

When we’re in the thick of an emotional struggle, it can be easier to accept our emotions if we imagine ourselves as a character. This does not mean replaying painful events over and over in your head, thinking of all the ways you could have acted differently. I also do not recommend this exercise for highly traumatic events. This can potentially be re-traumatizing, so please don’t emotionally freeball unless you’re supported by a trusted mental health professional. Observing your emotional reality through a visualization exercise is a deliberate, contained process to cut through your defenses and validate your root emotions.

“I want you to imagine the last twenty-four hours of your life as a movie,” I proposed. “What kind of movie?” Daniel sounded skeptical.

“One of the best movies you’ve ever seen. It probably has some happy parts, some sad parts, some adventurous parts, scary parts, and the movie itself is great in its entirety. The main character—that’s you—will go through an epic struggle. We don’t just love movies with happy endings where everything is wonderful and the good guy gets exactly what he wants in the end, right?”

Daniel nodded.

“What makes a great movie great,” I continued, “is we get to experience a character process deep emotions. Because of difficult situations. Because of meaningful struggles. Would you even want to sit through a movie where the hero gives zero f**ks? Now, I want you to revisit the moment you knew something was up. Not from your perspective, but from the audience’s perspective. Remember, there are millions of people watching you.”

“Like in The Truman Show?”

“Yes!” I said. “All I’m doing here is encouraging you to live your reality from a new perspective. “So, Sarah left you last night. It must have felt brutal.”

“It was f**ked up,” Daniel took a shuddering breath and sank his head into his hands. “I mean, we had a fight the night before, but what couple doesn’t fight when they’ve both been working from home in the same tiny apartment in the middle of a pandemic?”

“There you go,” I said. “Your character already has a struggle nested within a struggle. He’s living Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, and to top it off he and his fiancée are stuck in some bloodless version of Panic Room. It’s impossible not to give a f**k for very long—at least through any healthy means. So, you walk through your front door. What details does the camera pick up?”

“Something was off. But it was subtle at first. I look around my living room and the first thing I notice is a poster missing from the wall.” I could tell he was getting into it as he’d slipped into the present tense.

“Anything else?”

“Everything looks minimalist, and we’re not minimalist.” He let out a pained laugh. “I’m scared. My first thought is we’ve been robbed. I’m about to call out to Sarah, but then I notice all my music amps and pedalboards are still in the corner of the living room. That shit is cash money. What kind of thief leaves the amps and steals a Pulp Fiction poster instead?

“What did you do next?”

“I call out to her. No response. That’s when I go to the hallway and see the door to her home office is wide open. And there’s nothing in there but power strips and dust bunnies. I mean, we’re talking a room that was fully furnished and packed with her work equipment when I’d left the house three hours ago. She’d even been sitting at her desk, working! Now there’s no chair, no computer, no f**king desk! She’d cleared the entire room. We’re engaged. Who the f**k reacts that way to one fight?”

I had a hunch it wasn’t just one fight. Although I don’t know Sarah, I suspected she’d reacted from a place of past trauma. Too many f**ks given and pushed aside before they can be fully processed is the typical source of knee-jerk emotional reactions.

“I can only imagine the gut punch of what you came home to last night. But the cameras are still rolling. Millions of people are feeling what you’re feeling, and wondering what you’re going to do next.”

“I’m texting her, calling her, nothing. She won’t pick up her phone. I’m sitting on our sofa under the blank wall where Uma Thurman used to be.” He finally yanked a tissue out of the box next to him. “I’m so devastated but I also hate her for leaving no note or explanation.”

“If that’s the way she wants it,” Daniel cried, “maybe I should have let her drive off. Would I even be feeling like total shit today if I had the strength to not give a f**k?” He shook his head. “You know what? I just don’t. I don’t even care.” Daniel’s chin began to quake.

Being at war with reality is really hard. Depleting. Exhausting. Futile. The good news? I could tell we were on the precipice of opening up those F**k Gates.

True Love is Unconditioned

“Here’s what I know,” I said. “Emotional suppression allows codependent narcissistic relationships to grow. It’s fuel for a terrible flame. You can’t have the toxic relationship without the emotional suppression. No one would be able to stay with a narcissist for more than a month without starting to deny their emotions—not only the emotions we label as negative, but also our positive emotions—our joys, our desires, our preferences, and our tiramisu.”

“I think of REA as a vaccine,” I continued. “It protects us from getting swept up in toxic relationships, because it keeps us honest. Honest with ourselves. Many people have to reach a breaking point in their lives in order to make necessary change. With Radical Emotional Acceptance, you see you always have a choice.”

Excerpted with permission from Give a F*ck, Actually: Reclaim Yourself with the 5 Steps of Radical Emotional Acceptance by Alex Wills, MD.

Give a F*ck, Actually is available from Amazon and Bookshop.