John C. Parkin - F**K It Therapy: The Profane Way to Profound Happiness

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 were out of synch with the natural world it helps us to go with the flow. THE OBSERVER

John combines Wayne Hemingways style with Eddie Izzards 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 dont feel like a martyr and I had real fun. RED MAGAZINE

A Western take on the Eastern idea of letting go Ive 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 mans 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

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: 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.

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, youre not going to give us what we came for?

So what did you come for?

Well, Im not saying I had expectations, but I wanted to experience something.

Isnt this something?

No, this is nothing.

So nothing is happening here?

Yes, something is happening, but its 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 cant 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

Weve 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 youre 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. Im referring to getting out of your metaphorical prison here, not your literal one, as the advice on actually escaping from prison isnt one of this books 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 falling. And, short of a helicopter, were told it would take the rescue services about a day to reach us. But they arent coming, because there are people in need they must get to first. So, were here for some time, we think. Were 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 Wandsworth, 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 were experiencing a simile for our chosen metaphor.

Shit, the lights went out then for five minutes, but have flickered back on luckily Id just pressed save.

So, this prison metaphor feels bang on 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 (its 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 weve 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 thats where we lived and taught for years. We knew the particular difficulties Brits were facing that made saying F**k It so effective. But whats amazed us since the publication of the book is weve found that it isnt just the Brits who are stressed-out and f**ked up but everyone, from all over the world.