F*ck Feelings

One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems

By: Michael Bennett MD, Sarah Bennett

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Other self-help books claim to reveal the path to happiness, but F*ck Feelings warns that convincing yourself that there is such a path will actually lead you to feel like a true failure. What the Bennetts can promise you is that you can manage any situation life throws at you if you can keep your sense of humor, bend your wishes to fit reality, restrain your feelings, manage bad behavior, and do what you think is right.

Life is hard. It's not fair. Our feelings cloud our rationality, and we become tangled in our efforts to achieve the impossible or change the unchangeable. In this groundbreaking, entirely sensible, and funny book, the Bennetts open the shrinks' secret solution manual and show you how to find a new kind of freedom by working toward realistic goals and doing the best with what you can control. They address the most common problems Dr. Bennett's patients bring to his private practice and give you a script for going forward.

With no-bullshit advice from a Harvard-educated shrink freed of all jargon and patronization by his smart-ass, comedy-writer daughter, F*ck Feelings is the cut-to-the-chase therapy session you've been looking for. Contains mature themes.

©2015 F*CK Feelings LLC (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"The Bennetts administer a highly informative and entertaining smack down to get your head on straight." ( Kirkus Reviews)

Straight, helpful talk; ultimately life affirming

What’s an idea from the book that you will remember?

Most of the many insights offered here can be summarized as: Realize how little control you have over the things in life you wish were better, and hold your head high anyway.

This is a thinking person's (one might even say, an experienced person's) self-help book. It spends about half its time debunking the popular advice in the thousands of best-sellers that sell "you can have it all if you just tweak a few things." If you are a big fan of "The Secret" or even Tony Robbins, you are probably not going to like this.

The lesson throughout is there are many things, people, family issues and real suffering that you cannot do anything about, no matter what you see on Oprah or read in your favorite blogs. And because the book necessarily deals with pretty negative, even sometimes tragic, life events (unexpected break-ups, addiction, borderline personality disorder, sexual incompatibility to name only four of more than three dozen) it can seem pretty bleak to be told that most of this s*** doesn't have a solution or cure. The authors believe profanity is appropriate for emphasis, so the f-word and other cusswords pepper the prose, which some like me will find amusing and others might find offensive.

But the ultimate message is that you can live a good life, be a good person, and yes, even enjoy yourself from time to time by looking life squarely in the eye and giving a good shrug to the stuff you can't fix. You can feel good about yourself no matter what s---storm is swirling around you.

Two thousand years ago, the Stoics (esp. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca) taught a similar message. The ideas presented here, if not first to appear on Earth, are refreshingly updated for the problems we face today. If you can't figure out why your teen-ager has suddenly stopped talking to you, the hot woman you've been dating seems to want to pick out all your clothes for you, your temporary unemployment has landed you and your husband in the living room with your mother-in-law whom you can't stand, or the guy / girl you love can't keep his / her promise to stay sober even for a day, you might want to give this a listen.

Well done, Bennetts. And thanks for the great reading, Patrick.

Amazing and seriously works!!

Buy this book! If you are struggling with getting your emotions under control, then you seriously need to listen to this book as the author provides you tools to utilize for when you are experiencing those overwhelming emotions.

Not Flowery... at all

I'm one to enjoy flowers. They are pleasant. But this book honors the very unpleasant situation of being stuck in one (or several) of life's impossible situations. That is a rare and valuable quality. I do enjoy and recommend this book.

old lessons in young vernacular

great information and fun to read and/or listen to. combines advice found all about and presents it in a no nonsense fashion.

A groundbreaking work

A book which which has needed to be written! Outstanding

Please, get beyond the aversion to the language…

Humorous and Very Wise.

Great for those hurting and need a reality check. Good analysis of therapies in the end.

what a great self help book

Unlike the title suggests, it's more of a self improvement, advice and help book that helps you navigate the ocean or life's waves. If this were a physical book, I would have had flags and highlights all over. It does something other book don't, which is, provide you a script that you can customize to deal with people and issues you can encounter along the way. Would highly recommend to those who are struggling with themselves or others. The author does a great job with keeping thing fact based while applying personality to the maladies we all face.

F*ck for f*ck's sake

There is some good here and the overall premise of accepting things and dealing with them is solid. Unfortunately the f bombs swearing and attempts at humor detract more than they add. I fully expected the swearing when I bought the book and don't mind it in general, but for the most part it just doesn't work here. The author repeatedly undermines their authority on the important information by making biased or just incorrect jokes like "as unlikely as the Cubs winning the World Series" in a book published just one year before the Cubs won the World Series. I would have valued the content more without the unnecessary nonsense.

psychology that makes me smile

I know that some of this book is bs but following his stances will protect you from other hence helping to create healthy boundaries.
hands down this boom make me chuckle a hundred times and almost fall down laughing a couple, we all need more laughter.
thank you for writing and digitalizing this book it will be an asset to my future mind state

Here's what you wish for and can't have

A book that magically makes your life not suck. Here's what you can actually achieve: a profound and insightful message on how to deal with the suck of life. I especially enjoyed his sense of humor, straightforward phrases, and the voice tone and inflection of the narrator. I'll be listening again and getting the physical book now because it's basically a manuel for life.