F**k It Therapy Read online

  ‘Everyone can relate to F**k It.’ – THE TIMES, SATURDAY REVIEW

  ‘“F**k It.” I was practicing the words. They rolled around my head. We need to say “F**k It” when we’re out of synch with the natural world – it helps us to go with the flow.’ – THE OBSERVER

  ‘John combines Wayne Hemingway’s style with Eddie Izzard’s flights of surrealism.’ – THE GUARDIAN

  ‘This year, dare to say F**k It… I did. I relaxed, let go, told the truth, did what made me happy, and accepted everyone… I don’t feel like a martyr and I had real fun.’ – RED MAGAZINE

  ‘A Western take on the Eastern idea of letting go… I’ve felt stress kicking in, and thought F**k It! There is real freedom in that.’ – THE LONDON PAPER

  ‘The perfect book to help.’ – NOW MAGAZINE

  ‘Something making you unhappy? One man’s F**k It therapy teaches us to let go.’ – METRO

  ‘Refreshing, funny, and inspirational: say “F**k It” and buy this book.’ – SCARLET MAGAZINE

  First published and distributed in the United Kingdom by:

  Hay House UK Ltd, 292B Kensal Rd, London W10 5BE. Tel.: (44) 20 8962 1230;

  Fax: (44) 20 8962 1239. www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Published and distributed in the United States of America by:

  Hay House, Inc., PO Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100. Tel.: (1) 760 431 7695 or

  (800) 654 5126; Fax: (1) 760 431 6948 or (800) 650 5115.

  www.hayhouse.com

  Published and distributed in Australia by:

  Hay House Australia Ltd, 18/36 Ralph St, Alexandria NSW 2015.

  Tel.: (61) 2 9669 4299; Fax: (61) 2 9669 4144. www.hayhouse.com.au

  Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by:

  Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd, PO Box 990, Witkoppen 2068. Tel./Fax: (27) 11 467 8904.

  www.hayhouse.co.za

  Published and distributed in India by:

  Hay House Publishers India, Muskaan Complex, Plot No.3, B-2, Vasant Kunj,

  New Delhi – 110 070. Tel.: (91) 11 4176 1620; Fax: (91) 11 4176 1630.

  www.hayhouse.co.in

  Distributed in Canada by:

  Raincoast, 9050 Shaughnessy St, Vancouver, BC V6P 6E5.

  Tel.: (1) 604 323 7100; Fax: (1) 604 323 2600

  Text © John C. Parkin and Gaia Pollini, 2012

  Quiz © John C. Parkin and Mark Seabright, 2012

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for ‘fair use’ as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78180-001-0 in print

  ISBN 978-1-78180-011-9 in ePub format

  ISBN 978-1-78180-010-2 in Mobipocket format

  Internal illustrations: 307, 320 © Shutterstock; 318 Michelangelo Gratton/Getty Images; all other images © Gaia Pollini, with additional material by Arco and Leone Parkin (aged ten), 2012

  Dedicated to Mary Wright,

  my beloved grandmother,

  and last gran standing,

  who died during the writing of this book.

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Gaia

  We Wrote This from Prison

  PART I

  SEEING THE PRISON (UNDERSTANDING WHY WE NEED TO SAY F**K IT)

  What Is a Prison?

  Why Do Prisons Exist?

  When Are We in Prison?

  Why Would We Want to Get Out of Prison?

  PART II

  IMAGINING WHAT’S OUTSIDE THE PRISON (IMAGINING A F**K IT LIFE)

  A Glimpse of the Future

  PART III

  MAPPING THE WALLS (MAPPING YOUR ‘ITS’)

  A Block: The Story

  B Block: Fear

  C Block: Seriousness

  D Block: Self-Doubt

  E Block: Lack of Consciousness

  F Block: Perfectionism

  G Block: Lack of Imagination

  H Block: Believing It’s Real

  PART IV

  BREAKING THROUGH THE WALLS (F**KING THE ‘ITS’)

  Breaking Through the Wall of the Story

  Breaking Through the Wall of Fear

  Breaking Through the Wall of Seriousness

  Breaking Through the Wall of Self-Doubt

  Breaking Through the Wall of Lack of Consciousness

  Breaking Through the Wall of Perfectionism

  Breaking Through the Wall of Lack of Imagination

  Breaking Through the Wall of Believing It’s Real

  PART V

  A GUIDE TO THE BREAKOUT TOOLS (HOW F**K IT WORKS)

  F**k It. Let It Go

  F**k It. Go for It

  F**k It. The Two-in-One Handy Life Tool

  PART VI

  WALKING THROUGH WALLS (REACHING THE F**K IT STATE)

  Using Magic to Walk Through Walls

  Open to It

  Relax It

  Energize It

  Neutralize It

  Unthink It

  Thank It

  Mind It

  Love It

  Breathe It

  Feel It

  Express It

  Trust It

  Attract It

  = The F**k It State

  PART VII

  GETTING SHOT AT AND SURVIVING IT (SAYING F**K IT TO WHAT OTHERS THINK)

  Who Will Be Shooting at You?

  How to Avoid Getting Hit

  When You Get Hit

  PART VIII

  LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE – BEING FREE (LIVING THE F**K IT LIFE)

  Being Free and Arriving in a Town Where You Forget What You Came For

  Being Free in Work Town

  Being Free in Money Town

  Being Free in Relationships Town

  Being Free in Wellbeing Town

  Being Free in the Town Where Nothing Works

  Being Free in a Town Where Shit Happens

  Being Free and Living the Beta Life

  Being Free and Upgrading Your Life

  Being Free and Just Turning Up In a Town

  BREAKING FREE, BEING FREE, STAYING FREE, UNDERSTANDING ‘FREE’

  The Real Nature of F**k It Therapy

  Afterword by Gaia

  Acknowledgments

  APPENDICES

  I. What It Is and Why You Need It

  II. Our Top Five Stuff

  III. The F**k It State Quiz Scoring System

  IV. The Ending of The Shawshank Redemption

  About the Author

  Join the Hay House Family

  F**k It (fuk-eet): to let go by realizing that causes of worry, distress, and pain don’t matter so much in the grand scheme of things.

  therapy (pfe-rippi): a process that creates healing in an individual, whether at a mind, body, or soul level; literally ‘to make whole again.’

  unimaginative (un-imaj-in-atif): lacking imagination, creativity.

  writers (ry-tus): artists who express themselves through the creation of blocks of text or books: and who often start their books with quotes from dictionaries (see ‘unimaginative’).

  desist (dee-zist): if you’re a budding writer, don’t ever do this. I have because a) I teach F**k It and rules are made to be broken; and b) I’ve subverted this boring convention and thus made it (marginally) more interesting.

  enjoy (en-djoi): now sit back and enjoy a book that will entertain as it heals as it changes as it inspires. No writing for you to do now. No work. Just
sitting back and letting the words and therapy do their magic.

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  FOREWORD

  F**k ‘IT.’

  At one of my recent workshops, I opened the first day by saying that I was not going to give the participants anything…

  And left it, like that.

  And that led to this conversation, which started:

  ‘What, you’re not going to give us what we came for?’

  ‘So what did you come for?’

  ‘Well, I’m not saying I had expectations, but I wanted to experience something.’

  ‘Isn’t this something?’

  ‘No, this is nothing.’

  ‘So nothing is happening here?’

  ‘Yes, something is happening, but it’s not IT!’

  And so, we began to discuss what ‘IT’ is.

  How much time do we spend looking for IT, and generally thinking that ‘this’ is not IT?

  How much pain does that give us?

  And what is IT anyway?

  Who knows, because we never get to IT.

  IT is always somewhere else; IT is always something else…

  Perhaps, someone else has got IT, but not us.

  IT is something that we might just get to, if we try just a bit harder, if we become better, if we understand more or learn something else or, in the ultimate result of our searching, we get enlightened. Fancy that. Enlightenment (apparently) happens to a bunch of people in the whole world, and thousands of people think that they need it to be okay…

  I mean, tell me, have any of you got IT?

  When, after lunch we got back together as a group, I asked everyone:

  ‘So, if IT is nowhere else, and is nothing else, and is no one else, what is this?’ while pointing at us and the room.

  And half the group shouted out, laughing: ‘IT!’

  Simple. This is IT. Me writing this. You reading this. Is IT. You getting up and pouring a glass of water is IT. Getting up in the morning is IT, going to the bathroom is IT, having breakfast (‘Why have we run out of bread again?’) is IT.

  IT is so simple that we can’t see it.

  No need to look elsewhere, you are sitting on IT (particularly when you go to the bathroom), you lucky being.

  This book explores how we can F**k certain ‘Its’ in order to uncover the great IT of happiness. But the true secret of F**k It Therapy is to see that IT is already here, and IT never even went away in the first place.

  Gaia

  WE WROTE THIS FROM PRISON

  We’ve been planning this book for a long time. But it was only a couple of weeks ago that a metaphor emerged that suddenly allowed everything to fall into place, and work. The metaphor was of a ‘prison’: that most of us are, in one way or another, in a kind of prison (and clearly some of us are literally in prison. If you’re reading this in prison, ‘Hi, I hope you enjoy the read, that it passes the time in a moderately entertaining manner, and that it even helps’).

  Yes, most of us are in a kind of prison, and F**k It can help us get out of that prison. (Sorry, a message to you again, in your real prison. I’m referring to getting out of your ‘metaphorical prison’ here, not your literal one, as the advice on actually escaping from prison isn’t one of this book’s strongest points. Though, we do talk about tunneling out with a plastic fork at one point. So keep your eye out for plastic forks.)

  Yes, the metaphor of a prison came to us a couple of weeks ago.

  And, now, here we are, writing this from prison. You see, it started snowing a few days ago. And it was very pretty. And we were very happy. And on the second day of snow, the school closed, so our boys stayed at home and were very happy, too. But it continued to snow, even after it had snowed a lot. Then, after it had snowed even more, it snowed some more. Until it got to the point, when we knew we were snowed-in. And not in an ‘ooh, how nice, we’re snowed-in’ kind of way, but in a ‘help, our Jeep, even with chains on, can’t get up the track!’ sort of way. (We live on an isolated hill near Urbino in Italy, half a mile from the nearest road.) But you know if you put on some big boots and snow gear then you can walk out. No sir. This is big, deep snow. Snow that comes halfway up our front door, so actually getting out of the house is difficult. Snow that has drifted in the wind and is lying halfway up the house. Snow that’s still bloody1 falling. And, short of a helicopter, we’re told it would take the rescue services about a day to reach us. But they aren’t coming, because there are people in need they must get to first. So, we’re here for some time, we think. We’re stuck.

  Most of us are in a kind of prison, and F**k It can help us get out of that prison. We are in a prison – not a prison of walls topped with barbed wire and the occasional watchtower with searchlights and men with machine guns, but in a prison of a sea of white crystals, lapping against our doors and windows. This is more Alcatraz than Wandsworth2, the deep still snow replacing the swirling choppy waters of the Bay of San Francisco.

  We are, for the first time since we came here seven years ago, literally trapped. Not literally in prison, clearly, but ‘like’ being in prison. It means we’re experiencing a ‘simile’ for our chosen ‘metaphor.’

  Shit, the lights went out then for five minutes, but have flickered back on… luckily I’d just pressed ‘save.’

  So, this prison metaphor feels bang on3 for us (and this has been confirmed by our current experience of being imprisoned) to describe what F**k It Therapy can do.

  Since we wrote the original F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way seven years ago, a lot has happened. The book has done well (it’s available now in 22 languages and has sold more than 250,000 copies), and – because of the awesome work of our publisher, Hay House – is growing and selling at an accelerating rate, and we’ve been able to teach this philosophy personally to thousands of people from all over the world. Seven years ago we knew very well that the F**k It philosophy was working for Brits, because that’s where we lived and taught for years. We knew the particular difficulties Brits were facing that made saying ‘F**k It’ so effective. But what’s amazed us since the publication of the book is we’ve found that it isn’t just the Brits who are stressed-out and f**ked up… but everyone, from all over the world.

  It isn’t just Brits who have so much trouble letting go, it’s other Europeans including the Italians (much to our surprise). It’s not just the Brits who have trouble saying what they really mean; it’s Americans, too (again, to our surprise). It’s not just the Brits who are suppressed and uptight, but people from pleasant, civilized countries, like the Netherlands and Denmark. There are, believe it or not, Irish who have lost the ability to have fun, French who have lost their joie de vivre, Italians who can’t express their emotions, stressed-out Australians (strewth!), self-doubting Californians, burned-out Russians… and the list goes on. We’ve learned that – yes, of course, we all have our differences, and we always enjoy seeing those differences and playing with them – but what joins us is greater than what separates us. We’ve laughed more with Germans than any other nationality. We’ve cried more with Australians. We’ve opened up more with Russians.

  The F**k It Therapy process we’ve developed in our week-long retreats works for everyone. And we’ve seen that all of us, all over the world, can, relatively simply, access amazing resources within ourselves, heal deep hurts, come out of our shells and shine again, feel life coursing through us once more and, with the help of F**k It, find freedom in our lives wherever we are and whatever we’re doing. It’s about seeing that we can be free. And it starts by seeing that, in certain ways, we have come to a point where we’re either not free or don’t feel free.

  Sometimes we find ourselves in prisons that are obvious, painful, and oppressive: as if we’ve been loc
ked in solitary confinement in a pitch black, damp, stinking pit. The prison has become almost unbearable. For others, the prison is less obvious, life seems okay, but there’s just something that’s not quite right, and usually requires starting to see where the prison walls are and breaking through them gently. For others, they think they’re okay; everything is hunky-dory until a tiny little thing sets off something within them and they quickly fall apart. They’ve been in prison, but haven’t wanted to see it, because the seeing of it would have been too painful. While others still believe they’re fine; everything is wonderful, they’re happy to be alive, and things couldn’t be better. And, sometimes, they’re right. If you’re in that group, you’ll find many things in this book to explain what you already feel and some ideas to keep you where you are. Think of it like an insurance policy, if you will.

  But most of us are, in one way or another, in a prison of sorts. And that’s normal. That’s life… and it’s sometimes death. But it’s generally life. Finding freedom (and the consequent spreading of freedom) is all just another wonderful part of the game. And this particular way of finding freedom is called F**k It Therapy.

  Until now, F**k It Therapy was only available from us, John and Gaia, in person at our F**k It Retreats. But now we’ve written it all down, so you can experience it wherever you are in the world, whatever you’re going through. And that makes us right chuffed4, we can tell you.

  We’ve worked with people in all these prison states, from all over the world. And we’ve learned that the F**k It ideas we use work for everyone. We’ve seen amazing, inspiring, breathtaking transformations – we’ve had e-mails from countless people whose lives have changed after experiencing the F**k It Therapy we teach.

  Right, we need to go and get some more wood, because if that electricity goes out tonight we’ll have to come down here and sleep next to the fire. Brrrrr.

  1 An informal expression of shock (or emphasis) in the UK. According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), ‘bloody’ is not blasphemous, as many people believe, but originated in the 17th century to describe ‘young bloods,’ otherwise known as those young sons of the English aristocracy, who had a penchant for getting drunk and being rowdy. And, actually, while we’re here, just so you know, this book is written by me (British) for both my British compatriots and my American cousins (and, yes, I do have American cousins)… so we’ve helped our cousins along by adding such endnotes occasionally, and altering certain spellings, and apologies to my compatriots for those certain spellings (it wasn’t just that I was writing late at nite).