‘I don’t want to’
A key part of F**k It Therapy is learning to care less what others think.
Whenever we do our F**k It Retreats, one of the most significant things holding people back from doing what they want, being who they want to be, is fear of what others will think and say.
It’s a key part of the F**k It Therapy process because the steps you’re taking to become free involve learning to listen more carefully to what you want, deep down inside. Much of the process revolves around this: opening, relaxing, tuning in, being more conscious of how you feel, really listening to the messages you receive, trusting those messages, and eventually following (your heart). It’s all about another perspective shift: from orienting your life around what’s expected of you by family, friends, school, work, society and doing what you believe you should and ought to do… to going inside yourself and listening to what you’d like to do and who you’d like to be.
Given that you’ve listened to what others think for so long, it’s clearly going to be hard when you come to some conclusions about what you want that are different from the things that others would want for you. It’s going to be hard. But there is most likely going to be that dissonance (otherwise how did you end up in the prison that you were in, anyway?). What you’re doing in the F**k It Therapy process is reducing the value you place on the messages you get from outside yourself (parents, friends, teachers, leaders, politicians, celebrities, etc.), and placing more value on the messages you get from inside yourself.
Picture this. You’re in a crowded room of adults – a cocktail party, maybe. It’s very noisy. Everyone, it seems, is talking. Everyone has their opinion, and they love giving it. Everyone has a story to tell, and they love telling it. Unnoticed by everyone except you, a young girl, maybe five years old, has entered the room. She’s so small that no one sees her, except you. She’s so quiet that, when she speaks, no one hears her, not even you. It really is so noisy in there. You try to get closer to her. And she continues to speak. She clearly has something to say. Soon, you’re right next to her. And you lean down to hear her. You hear a few words – ‘I just wanted to say that…’ But the noise in the room is just too much to catch any more. You ask her to wait a second. You stand up to your full height and say to the adults in this crowded room, at the top of your normal voice, but without shouting:
‘Excuse me, excuse me… Sorry… quiet please for a moment. Please be quiet, just for a moment.’ It does quiet down after a while. ‘Sorry, but there’s a little girl here, and she has something to say to us all… please go ahead.’
And the girl speaks. And what she says is for you. Or you think it’s for you. And it touches you deeply. And it makes you realize that you’ve got it all wrong. That even being in this crowded room is all wrong. And you feel sad and happy at the same time. And you thank the girl from your heart. And you say that, whenever she wants to speak, you’ll not only listen, but you’ll quiet everyone else down so you can hear exactly what she’s saying. But you leave the room anyway, because it’s just too noisy and you don’t know why you were there in the first place: all those self-important, opinionated people.
That’s F**k It Therapy. You have to quiet down the noise in order to hear what’s being said by the little voice inside you. You have to listen carefully to that voice and give it value. You then have to act on that voice, and that usually means either keeping the other noisy adult voices in the room quiet or getting out of there.
You have to, in other words, say a big F**k It to what others think of you, and say, about you.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you’ll ignore everything anyone says to you, like a rebellious teenager who says ‘bollocks’ every time someone speaks. We’re talking about re-balancing here. Once you’re more attuned to what’s going on inside you and what you really want in life, then you can hear what’s being said out there from a different place. In fact, there are infinite wonderful things being said out there that can help you to continue to be free. And, when they align with what you want, those external voices can assist you along the whole way. We’re talking about a shift of emphasis or perspective, and a dramatic one, from placing most worth on messages that come to you from the outside to messages that you get from the inside (when you listen hard enough). This, if you want, is the ‘inner journey’ that spiritual people talk about. This, if you prefer, is listening to your inner voice or your higher self. It’s your instinct. Or it’s God. Or it’s the intelligent field of energy that pervades everything. Whatever it is, you have to care less about what’s going on ‘out there’ in order to tune in and give value to what’s being said ‘in here.’
And the simple words F**k It become like a magic shield in this respect. Whenever you hear the messages that try to put you back in your box, back in your prison – the fear-mongering, risk-avoiding, follow-the-crowd voices – and it doesn’t feel right for you, then just say F**k It and keep listening and trusting and following your own way. You can imagine, if you want, a F**k It magic shield surrounding you, deflecting all the arrows of fear that are shot toward you when you make your break for freedom.
How does it feel to read that line?
‘I don’t want to.’
When did you last dare to say that?
A lovely woman in one of my groups found herself saying it in the middle of a session. And it sounded like a little girl’s forgotten voice.
How many things there are that we don’t want to do or be!
As children, we said it. We made ourselves heard as much as we could. Whenever things didn’t fit with our rhythm and our world… ‘I don’t want to.’
You see, that magical child has got their own rhythm, their own amazing wisdom, their knowing that isn’t based on knowledge, and doesn’t need much prodding, just love and security. Instead the adults think that their role is to teach the child and dictate how to be. So eventually the magical child shuts up, and we end up with a thousand ‘I don’t want to’s’ that remain unsaid.
And yet if you talk to anyone, there are so many things they don’t want, but don’t dare to talk about, or even to feel.
This is because of our culture of ‘grin and bear it.’ People say ‘we need to be adults; enough of the child,’ so we need to grow up; we need to face the world, our responsibilities; we need to make this adult thing work. We can’t be children; we can’t say ‘I don’t want to.’
But we have forgotten that the child is an integral part of us. Growing up doesn’t mean discarding the child. It can mean having it all: the magical child AND the able adult.
But the magical child comes also with their dose of pain and needs, so we give up the magic in the hope of giving up the pain and needs. It doesn’t really work like that. We end up feeling rather cut off.
It is time we let ourselves say ‘I don’t want to’ and make some space for that Magical Child. Their pain is only there because people haven’t listened to them. So, are you going to do the same? Not listen? They are you. And when you stop ignoring them, you realize that there’s a whole world of self-love, self-respect, wonder and magic, intuition and introspection, which you’d forgotten because you believed you couldn’t say ‘I don’t want to.’