EFR 680: Why You Should Give a F*ck and the 5 Steps of Radical Emotional Acceptance with Dr. Alex Wills

Tired of battling your emotions? Learn to ride the waves! Dr. Alex Wills is here to shed light on the concept of radical emotional acceptance and why it’s actually important to give a f*ck. He offers expert insights on how to overcome the fear of confronting your emotions, feel grateful for life’s most painful challenges, and start building unbreakable emotional wellness. 

According to Alex, f*ck refers to emotions, usually the painful, unpleasant, scary emotions we tend to suppress or resist. Not allowing these emotions to exist in times of fear, pain, and grief can impact your health and wellness in ways you’d never expect. 

So, choose to be healthy, strong, and well this year. Learn to surf the waves of your emotions!

Dr. Alex Wills is a board-certified psychiatrist and the author of “Give a F*ck, Actually: Reclaim Yourself with the 5 Steps of Radical Emotional Acceptance”. Alex’s clinical days are spent using the Radical Emotional Acceptance method to help patients heal from issues ranging from past traumas to interpersonal struggles in their marriages. “Give a F*ck, Actually” is based on that experience.

Visit Dr. Alex Wills’ website

Follow Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning

Follow him on Twitter @chasechewning

Key Highlights

• Chase and Alex share their candid thoughts on The Five Acceptances he details in his book, particularly “putting down the f*ck shield” and “listening to the f*ck”. 

• Alex’s approach to emotional wellness and wisdom is celebrating the painful emotions and understanding, how are these emotions trying to help me? That’s the golden question when exploring and accepting your emotions. 

• Chase cracks open the emotions of losing his father, highlighting the power of emotional awareness and learning how to surf the waves of your emotions.

• What are the signs of emotional dysregulation? When is it time to get help processing my emotions? Tune in to hear Alex’s answers!

• Alex explains the vital role of self-accountability in practicing radical emotional acceptance. 

• Alex shares about his personal challenge with mindfulness and the “invisible tattoo” he gives to every one of his patients to remind them to acknowledge the perfection of the present moment.

• “One of the key things about therapy is it’s not really as much about what you’re thinking,” Alex says, “but it’s about your experience, it’s about your behavior, giving yourself, habitually, the experience of a different reality until you kind of rewire the way your brain works until it becomes automatic.” 

• Is there value in finding gratitude for your trauma and life challenges? Absolutely, but why? And how do we truly accept and feel grateful for the pain we experience? Listen in to hear Alex’s thoughts on this concept.

• It’s okay to feel like shit and to feel like you’re drowning. The bright side is we get to give reason to it.

Powerful Quotes by Dr. Alex Wills

It doesn’t have to take hours or weeks. In a matter of seconds, we can possibly experience our emotions, reset, and then make the best decision and move forward.

In the example of sadness; someone’s trying to avoid sadness from something really sad that happened and what are they doing? They’re making themselves stuck in sadness because the more they try to keep that wave down, the more it tries to come back up and it could go on for the rest of their lives.

The flipside of every painful emotion is a desire. What desires do you have? What emotional needs do you have that are not being met? That’s how we start to tune into what I call the emotional compass.

Recommended Resources

• Give a F*ck, Actually by Alex Wills M.D.

• Get the audio book for free with your 30-day trial of Audible

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

• Subscribe to the Give a F*ck Actually Podcast

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