The Freedom in Giving All the Fucks

Managing Your Sensitivity in a Zero Fucks Given World

Big news! This week, I listened to a podcast! No, I know that’s nothing new for a middle-aged, middle-class lady. This post isn't really about that specific podcast, although I highly recommend giving it a listen if you or someone you love is going through breast cancer treatment. What I want to share about it is that at the end, Sam Baker asks her guest a routine wrap up question: "how many fucks do you give?"

Head of a Young Boy. Jean-Baptiste Greuze. French. 1763

I heard this at the end of an early spring walk through my neighborhood. Now, I am especially vulnerable these days. I'm sore and tender in places I haven't felt before—and yes, I mean that physically and spiritually. This means that I sometimes walk while crying or laughing at bright yellow daffodils that sprouted overnight, or seeing a kid on the playground I walked by preferring the company of a tree to the groups playing basketball or soccer or gossiping.

At some point during the walk, I stopped to type this into my notes app:

May all that it takes to break me open next time be daffodils, the eclipse of a red full moon, the budding and twisting cherry blossom branch, the cluster of purple heather. May we all only need beauty to break us open, next time.

So, my walks these days are kind of a whole, possibly embarrassing, spiritually moving experience. When I got to the end of this walk and heard Sam ask that question, my own answer was so obvious. All of them. I currently give all the fucks.

Her guest, who I really loved, said what I know to be the much cooler answer to that question: None. That’s typically the answer we, who want to be out there living our best empowered, and free lives, want to hear.

So, why am I like this?!? I mean it would be pretty great to go for a walk and not have to stop and write weird, poetry-esque, sad little lines in my phone app and have my eyes fill up with tears at the glory of moss. It’s like a magical woodland fairy garden, though! Or if I am going to walk that way, not feel self-conscious about being a grown woman being so moved by everything in the world.

Finding Freedom in the Fucks We Give

However, if there is one fuck I now do not have to give these days, it's the one about trying to be something that does not ring true to my nature or spirit. And that seems like freedom too, doesn’t it?

Could there be freedom as well in giving all the fucks? There's no way around it. I have this soft open heart that refuses to close, even to the things that disturb and upset me. I let them in too. I maybe don't let them stay, but I do have a tendency to pick up strays. (And here, I shall enter this stray who did get to stick around as exhibit A for the defense in this fucks-giving case):

The Strength in Sensitivity

It reminds me of something I read in Dr. Elaine Aron’s book about highly sensitive people. We may respond to false alarms because our radars are so sensitive, but so do firemen, who are beloved to us because they know that responding to false alarms comes with the territory of being there just in time when it's real.

If I look at this tendency of mine to give all the fucks with a big helping of self-love—something I am trying to remember to practice because I have a lot of room to grow in this department—maybe this also means that I can see my all my caring as a renewable resource. I can afford to be generous with my care because caring might just be one of my most abundant strengths.

Giving all the fucks means that maybe on some level I am pretty good at something that I see in very short supply in a culture that gaslights us into thinking that total and complete happiness, apart from sadness and discomfort, is achievable—and that falling apart, feeling lost, having sorrow accompany you while you walk through life is an indicator that you've stumbled off track.

Peace Over Happiness

I don't think that's how it works. And as my pastor pointed out on Sunday, neither did Jesus, who never promised happiness and the absence of suffering or pain. But, he did offer peace and usually did so by drawing especially close to people who were suffering and asking them to share that with him.

I’ve grown to love that Jesus doesn’t offer a quick fix or assurance of happiness on earth. I think deep down something doesn't ring true about those messages, even though I admit I have definitely been hooked more than once by self-help books and programs that promise "my best life" that will free me from my blocks—blocks that always seem so mysteriously and elusively rooted that if the initial steps don't work, there's always a next level program for $399 that will really help me lock in happiness and success for good this time.

"Tell Me Everything"

So, for free, let me offer you something I learned from Martha Beck, also for free, that has given me some relief these days. Not happiness, but some peace. She encapsulates it in three simple words: "Tell me everything."

Here's how it works. She suggests doing it with a journal, but I do it just in my head while walking and even once out loud while sitting in traffic on the way home from a doctor's appointment which left me feeling angry and overwhelmed.

When you feel something disturbing. Something you're tempted to ignore, avoid, or numb. Something that's very inconvenient for "getting things done" or throws a wrench into your plans of being the type of person who has their shit together. Locate that feeling in your body and imagine being some wise and loving elder who says, like they have all the time and patience in the world: tell me everything.

And then, let it out. How you feel. What happened that made you feel that way. All that feels unfair and worrying and infuriating about it. Get as petty and fragile and self-pitying as you were probably told at some point is annoying and wrong to share. When you think you're done, ask again: And what else?

Keep going and if you're anything like me, you will hit a point (and usually in an astonishingly short amount of time) where you take a breath that feels different from the way you were breathing before. Both lighter and deeper. Kind of like that shuddering breath a toddler takes at the end of a tantrum and they blink away the fury that just a moment ago made them into a complete hell-creature from the bowels of darkness to toddle off to delightfully occupy themselves in some sweet endeavor of their imagination.

And that's how you know you're done.

That’s really been working for me this week, and I thought it was worth a share here on the subject of being the type of person who gives all the fucks. I think the best way to get really good at feeling joy is to also get really good at feeling suffering, and that little trick is really doing its job in helping me practice the latter.

Maybe our fucks aren't meant to be withheld after all but given freely, abundantly, with the trust that we'll never run out.

With love,

Tricia

P.S. I’d like to add that I love the British expression “can’t be arsed” when you can’t be bothered doing something you don’t want to do that isn’t necessary. So, while I seem to have lots of fucks to give, I am a huge advocate for selective arse-ing.