F*ck Feelings Read Free

“party-sized” bag of pretzel M&M’s/any and all booze/your phone after all that eating and/or drinking when your deadbeat ex is still a text away
    Among the wishes people express are:
    â€¢Â To regain control they thought they once had
    â€¢Â To figure out how to get close family members to control themselves
    â€¢Â To stop feeling helpless all the time
    Here are three examples:
    I’ve always been hardworking and good at doing sales, and I married someone whose love I thought I could count on, so I really don’t understand why my life seems to be coming apart. After getting laid off from my old job when the company was sold, I had to take a lower-paying job with a new boss who hates me. Meanwhile, my wife decided her feelings for me were gone and that she couldn’t stay married to someone she doesn’t love, even though I thought we had built a really nice life together. Now every day feels like a death march and I can’t stop crying. I’m the biggest loser I know, and the pain won’t go away. My goal is to regain control of my life.
    My son has always been a nice kid, but he’s always been too good at finding trouble, and even now that he’s twenty-five, he just can’t seem to get his life together. We tried hard to get him extra help when he was in school, but he never did homework and quit college after a year. We think he drinks too much, but he won’t admit it, and the girl he hangs out with has no job, too many rings in her face, and an ex-boyfriend in jail. My husband and I dread the day when she announces she’s pregnant with our grandchild. My goal is to finally find out what’s the matter with our son so we can empower him to get control of his life.
    I’m the world’s biggest phony. People at work think I’ve got it together but they don’t know that I’m a nervous wreck who has trouble holding down lunch, can’t sleep for three days before every presentation, and is always obsessing about the stupid things I just said and wish I could take back. I’m a mental case who just pretends to have it together, which makes me feel even more out of control. My goal is to have a life that doesn’t feel like a train wreck.
    It’s hard to believe there are ways to classify chaos, but when it comes to losing control of your life, there are different kinds of feeling fucked. Some people get sucked into a bad-luck, no-fault meltdown that, if taken personally, can destroy a good person’s belief in his values and motivation. Other people become helpless by proxy, usually by watching a loved one who’s unable to get themselves straight, while others feel like they’re living on the verge of a meltdown without realizing just how effective they are at staying away from the edge.
    In any case, just because you feel out of control doesn’t mean you should have been able to prevent it. Instead of searching for mistakes or weaknesses, judge yourself realistically, in terms of what a good person can actually do in a bad situation. Even if your situation is due to a foolish mistake, learn from it and stop blaming yourself for bad results you don’t control, whether they involve your job, kids, or mental condition.
    If you do blame yourself for the mess you’re in, simply because it happened on your watch, you’ll weaken and distract yourself at a time you need to be stronger. If you dwell on second-guessing yourself and believing you deserve punishment, you’ll have more trouble figuring out the smart thing to do, giving strength to others, and tolerating painful feelings without panicking.
    Once you’ve separated your overwhelmed feelings from a realistic assessment of your own performance, however, you can build self-respect and get to work on managing life. You’ll have more strength for rebuilding your work and relationships, setting limits on out-of-control kids, and tolerating anxious