#441 Making Anxiety Your Friend

Anxiety to Confidence - The Personal Development Unplugged Podcast

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Making Anxiety Your Friend Transforming Anxiety into Your Best Friend

Hey beautiful souls! Paul here, and I'm SO excited to share this week's episode with you!

Ever thought about what anxiety is REALLY trying to tell you? What if I told you that those anxious feelings aren't your enemy but actually your protector in disguise?

In this episode, I'm taking you on a journey to completely flip how you view anxiety. This isn't just theory - we're diving into practical techniques I've used with hundreds of clients that ACTUALLY WORK.

What You'll Discover:

The surprising truth about anxiety's protective nature (this changed everything for me!)
My step-by-step process for having a conversation WITH your anxiety
How to transform this relationship from battle to partnership
Real, actionable steps to move toward your dreams while feeling genuinely safe

This isn't about pushing anxiety away or "managing" it - it's about bringing it closer and understanding what it's been trying to tell you all along! The transformation I've seen in clients who apply these principles is nothing short of amazing.

If you're tired of fighting your feelings and ready for a completely different approach, this episode could be the game-changer you've been searching for.

Share this with someone who might be struggling - sometimes the right message at the right time can change everything:

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/441-making-anxiety-your-friend/ ‎

Give it a listen, and PLEASE let me know how these techniques work for you! I read and respond to every message at [email protected].

Remember to shine your beautiful light today! ✨

Paul x

Connect With Me:

Got thoughts? Questions? Breakthroughs? Email me! [email protected]
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
Deeper work: Visit PaulCloughOnline.com
FREE GIFT: Download my hypnosis tracks at paulcloughonline.com/podcast
Twitter: @pcloughie

While I'm a qualified therapist, this podcast offers educational guidance, not personalized therapeutic advice. For individual concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic (via Pixabay)

Remember: Your anxiety has been trying to protect you all along - isn't it time you listened?

And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism

Paul Clough talks about letting go of anxiety to live the life you want

Hey, isn't it nice, just nice having friends? We all want friends, don't we? It's nice to have good friends, isn't it? So, maybe just distant friends, but it's just nice to have maybe someone closer that you can share with, share your thoughts and sometimes maybe just help support. It's nice helping people, isn't it? Helping friends succeed. Here's the thing. What's this podcast all about? Well, personal development, unplugged, we also call it from anxiety to confidence. Letting go of anxiety. Finding ways, ways and processes to allow you to be free of worries, fears, all other issues. and live the life you want. Imagine living the life you dream for yourself and it becomes your reality. Wouldn't that be nice? And then to be able to share it with people. Here's the thing, though. Here's what I want you to imagine. I want you to imagine your anxiety. Because we all have anxiety, whether it's big, small or whatever, but we all have anxiety of some kind. For some of us, it's just a little bit. Some of us it's panic. Some of it leads to overwhelm, impostor syndrome, all that stuff. It's all sort of an anxiety, a fear of something, isn't it? We all have it. Social anxiety, you know, ocd, it all has its core, I guess, with fear, anxiety. But here's the thing. I want you in a moment if it's okay. He. This is the thing to imagine. Anxiety is being a friend, a friend that's always with you. Well, it is, isn't it? You know, that fear, that anxiety, that panic or whatever it is for you, that imposter syndrome, things like that, that I shouldn't be here and I'm not good enough. It's all based around anxiety. Remember, that is one of your best friends is your best friend. It's hard, isn't it? It's hard. Hard as something like that. Something that scares a living bjeebas out of you. How can that be your friend? You know. It doesn't feel good, doesn't it? It doesn't feel good at all. When you re feeling anxious and those pictures in your mind, the voice is in your head. Because we all have voices, by the way. Everyone has a voice. Some of us have more. But how can that be your friend? Well, here's the thing, if you ever thought about it this way, the Thing that you're frightened about, it's never really happened, is it? I mean some people, are, are frightened of heights for an example. Never fallen off a curb. They haven't fallen off anything because their fear has protected them in some ways. It stopped them going near the edges of anything, anything that could harm, if you think of, if you have a fear of presenting things so many bad things would happen to you if you were to speak in public. Well, that fear has protected you because you've never had to speak in public at all. Because you just don't do it. You hide. But it feels horrible, doesn't it. But your best friend has kept you alive from public speaking or whatever your fear is, even if you don't know what it is exactly. Your best friend has been there 247 every day, every day, doing its best for you, trying to protect you in some way or other. And it's normally the other way, the fearful way. Using your imagination in reverse, as it were. Because we've got such a wonderful power of imagination where we could, if we wished, imagine, all wonderful things, the wonderful things that could happen and then we could learn from that. But because it's so powerful, your unconscious mind uses it as a powerful good, as it were, to make you think of all the things that could go wrong. So you don't do that thing and you don't do that thing and therefore it doesn't go wrong. It's protected you again. But it feels horrible, doesn't it? Not doing the thing that you really want to do. And what do we normally do? We don't listen to that little voice saying it's okay. But also we try to push away the voice that's telling you don't do that, don't do that, you're not good enough. We try to push it away, don't we? Because we don't like it. We don't like the feeling that goes with it. We don't like the emotion. And we really try to push hard. Those pictures in our mind that spin round the movies that keep going on in loops and loops. We try to turn them off, don't we? We push them away. Know if you're anything like me, I'll swear at myself. I'll give myself a right good telling. Enough. I don't want to be like this. God, this is no good. What are you trying to do to me? Blah bah, blahah. And I go on and on. And if that's your best friend, that's a tough gig to have, isn't it? You imagine trying to help somebody. Imagine this if you were, a best friend of somebody and you really wanted to help them and you started to help me and they just pushed you away. They kept telling you, oh, go away, stop it, I don't want this.

Your best friend gives you a little bit of fear to stop you doing things

Well, after a while you'd give up, wouldn't you? You'd give up on your best friend and that you said, well, it's up to you. But your best friend, anxiety, fear doesn't stop. It says, no, I am going to stay here 247 protecting you the only way I know how. Because in the past it worked when you were little and this thing came along and I give you a little bit of fear. Not a lot, just enough to stop you, it works. So I just keep doing it even more. See, if you go back years and years and years, you'd probably might be able to remember a time when it wasn't like as intense. It wasn't as intense as it is now. It's like a snowball coming downhill. It's got bigger and ah, more intense because that's what we do. We're going to keep doing this stuff. So your best friend doesn't really know at the moment what it could do differently. So it just does more of the same, but more intense. And when you think, think about the stuff that you really want to do, the stuff that you're frightened of doing, maybe frighten of meeting people, frightened of speaking up, maybe going for that career change, maybe doing something that’s to going to make you better, maybe gives you better experiences. You really want that stuff, don't you? You really want. And you would give your eye teeth, if you teeth have eyes, to do that and be safe at the same time. If you Knew without doubt 100% that you could do whatever you wanted to do and be safe, you do it, wouldn't you? You would if you knew you could go and speak to people and you knew that you wouldn't be embarrassed, you wouldn't feel guilty, you wouldn't feel anything other than the good feelings that come with that and learn from it. You'd think, damn, this is good, that's what I want. And the thing is, this is where the conflict is. You've got your unconscious mind trying to keep you safe from the things that you're frightened of by making you frightened. And that's a direct conflict. You see, you're actually feeling the feelings that you don't want to feel in order to protect yourself. It's a direct conflict. But what, what about this? Have a. Just put everything to one side for the moment and think this. Maybe if you understood what that part of you, that part of you that's running, this anxiety, this fear, this I'm not good enough, or whatever, you fill in the blank. If you understood what it was trying to do, you'd probably be able to, maybe you have a little conversation. Couldn't you say, well, because if your best friend is doing something, well, actually I really appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's not quite working. If you did it this way, but you got a chance to understand why they were doing it, what they were trying to do for you. And in the same way as I said, if you were to have this chat with your best friend, this part of you, so they could understand what you think, what you want, how you want to be, wouldn't that be a way forward? Because that's the thing about negotiations, isn't it? You find out what you both parties really want. What is their highest intention? Well, and in this particular thing is you want to do stuff and be safe. And your unconscious mind wants to keep you safe. So the highest intention is to be safe. Well, if we start from that and work backwards, we could find ways to allow you to do stuff, couldn't we? And be safe. And your, unconscious mind, you're. That part of you that's running this little, this gig could actually use different things, couldn't it? But how is this part of you going to know? And that's where we come in here. So if you would like to do it now, I'm, not going toa explain what's going toa happen. This're going toa come with me. But all you need is a few things. The will to do wherever it takes. We've talked about that before. Just go with what we're doing can only make things better. And remember, I'm a therapist, but not your therapist. But this is just a lovely little process of understanding what's happening and make sure that it's going to be eyes closed. Probably you can do it with eyes open and move around in different, different, places in a room. But maybe you're going to do it in your head. But if you've got, you know, there's no one around, hey, let's use different spaces. But again, I'm being a bit mischievous because I'm not telling you what's going to happen. But here's what I want you to do, make sure that you're going to be undisturbed so you're not having to pay attention to anything. Nothing at all needs your attention. No person, no thing, no nothing. So, you know, certainly not driving, any acts of machinery, whatever type of machinery that could be. You know, if you listen to this, this is something that you could do on your own and in your own mind. So we don't want to be disturbed because it's fun to go inside.

Use hypnosis to ask your unconscious mind questions about safety

So here we go. If it's okay anyway. If it's okay, just ask in your. Ask inside with your internal voice. You can ask outside if you want. But this internal voice, give yourself permission to learn, to learn from this part of you. Notice you could ask, is it, okay with you, my unconscious mind? Just to see if we can find a better way to be safe. And as it's a prime directive of your unconscious mind to keep you safe in some ways, it has to listen, doesn't it? Has to listen to exploring ways to keep you safer, than it's doing at the moment. And then when you're ready, close your eyes and, breathe normally. Just breathe. It's not hypnosis, but it's a process of internal thoughts and dialogue. And I want you to imagine with your eyes closed, standing in front of you, maybe sitting, I don't know. But in front of you, just over there is this part of you that's running this. This process of anxiety, fear, I'm not good enough, all those things. And it's here to listen to you. So ask this part of you a question. And it could be as simple as, what are you trying to do for me? M Simple as that. And just ask that question, what are you trying to do for me? And listen with all your senses. Just listen to this part of you in front of you. And you can actually look at that part of it and notice the qualities of that part. Is it like a person? Is it just a shape? Is it just a color? Just notice not doing anything with it. Just want you to get a better feel, as it were, of this part of you. And just explain how it's making you feel. Because I'm sure it just wants to make you safe. But just explain how this attempt to make you safe is actually making you feel unsafe. And as you do that in your own internal voice, notice that part of you in front of you listens intently, takes it all in. And when you've finished that little statement, I want you to imagine now floating out of your Body out in front of you and into that part of you, that part of you that's running this fear, this anxiety. And you're looking back at you now, you can see yourself in front of you. And you hear those words again, how you, how it's making you feel. And from here, this part of you just notice the words this part of you wants to say to you over there of what it's trying to do for you, how much it's trying, to keep you safe. And then listen, because you might just find out right now what it's trying to do for you. And notice, if it fully understands your thoughts, your words. Because I'm sure if this part now knew exactly the way you felt, how much you want to feel safe, but not in this way because it doesn't feel safe. Maybe you could ask from here, suggesting better ways. Maybe this part of you could, begin to access all your skills, all the things in the past where you have done things and been safe, and begin to notice if it use those instead. But as it's doing that, I want you to float back into your own body again. Just float out and into your own body, looking back at that part of you that's running this anxiety and explain to it your dreams and how you want to be, how you want to be in the world, the things that you'd like to do and like to do them with that wonderful belief that you'll always be safe. Maybe m it is that career change. Maybe it is speaking to people. Maybe is finding and approaching somebody, whatever it is for you, just explain to that part of your exactly what you want. And then just notice as you say that, just float out of yourself and back into that, that part of you in front. And notice looking back at you now, does this part really understand what you want, how you want it? Because you'll want the same things. This part of you wants safety for you. And maybe up until now I didn't realize that there are so many better ways to be and didn't realise exactly what you wanted and how you wanted to be and what you wanted to achieve. And just notice from here how you can get a sense of understanding and then come back from that partner into you again. And listen, invite that part of you to explain or suggest new ways how the two of you could work together now to achieve the things that you want to be in harmony. Just notice that it fully understands how you want to be. And if it doesn't, just share it back. So you have this dialogue now. So this part of you knows exactly how you want to be and understands that it can now access all your skills. Maybe you need to learn a little bit more and it can find that for you. Maybe there's things you need to prepare for and it can help you with that, to do it in a way that is easy and effortless, comfortable. So you can be competent in your confidence and just notice has the two of you become one in your approach now, your direction, your aim? Notice how this part of you just notice if it changes at all in its appearance, maybe does it feel more comfortable with itself and you now being your best friend, but now helping you in ways that make you feel comfortable. And maybe you could just float out of your body again, but float higher and higher so you as if you were looking down on the two of you that you down there and that best friend, that part of you that used to run that old anxiety. And from here, way up here, this meta view, this dissociated view, you can access the learnings that you could bring back to those two down there. Because from here you can give advice. You can share what they've missed. Maybe it's intuitive, maybe it's in aha moment. But share with them now with your in internal voice. Just share to the two of them this information you're gleaming now, this feeling, this sense how they can work together to achieve what you want to achieve in the world. And for this part of you to be able to help you achieve it and be safe and comfortable to enjoy the process. And as you do that, just float back down, just for the moment, float into that part of you, pick it up and bring it back into you so you'll know now back into yourself or by your wonderful self, together now as one. And just for a moment, just for a moment. Begin to dream. Dream of how you want to be. Do the things you've always wanted to do and notice you could do them. And you're doing them in your mind now, imagineering how it could be to have fun, to enjoy, to learn, and to be so comfortable in this. Yes, you may stretch yourself a little bit, but each little stretch just expands your sense of competence and confidence to do other things in different areas of your life. Because this is just you doing the things that you want to do. So use this moment or two just to really imagine that you over there now doing the things you always wanted to do it to. Doing them easily, with ease, with comfort, comfortably, competently and confidently, and achieving the goals that you imagined you were going to do what you set out, what you intended to do, and, notice how the two of you feel so good together and then bring that. You. That confident, Confident you. That feels at ease and comfortable back into you. That's right. And m. When you're ready, you can open your eyes. Open your eyes, look at the world and notice. I don't know if you notice. When we do this type of work, you open your eyes and everything seems so clear, so vivid. Maybe things just appear a little lighter. Lighter in every sense of the word. Yeah. And, now all you have to do is to begin to plan those dreams, requesting, as it were, from your best friend the help that it's now here for you. And then as we do here, there's, so many resources here to help you set your goals, your aims in mind to do the things you want to do.

Allow your dreams to come into your imagination and then imagine how you'll achieve them

So go and just make. Allow your dreams to first of all come into your imagination and then imagine how you're going to take that first small step in achieving it and then the next small step and the next small step. Because that's how dreams and goals are made. Little steps that just get bigger and quicker and so wonderful to allow you to feel good, to do the stuff you want to do. And that's what it's like in personal development, unplugged. To do the things you want to do in such a wonderful way. And this process is such a simple process. But now you and your best friend, the whole of you, because that part of you is now integrated with all the rest of you. And now you can work towards living the life you want to live, experiencing all the experiences you want to experience and have fun. wallow in a wonderful life, the feelings of a wonderful life. Because look for feelings. If you can look for feelings, that's where. Because that's what goals are really for, aren't they? It's the feelings that they ultimately give you along the way, along the adventure, and at the end, so you can then create more goals, more dreams, and hopefully share those skills that you learn with the people around you. Be the change you want to see in others, and be the change you want to see in yourself. And they can't help but, get it. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that. There's another little process of making anxiety. Your friend. Hope you enjoyed it. Please do share it with people, because it is a good, lovely little Share this podcast, if you would. I know it takes a little bit of time just to press that share button, but if you were just share it to a few people, maybe all of everyone, so they too can get the benefit of being congruent in their life, being aligned with their goals and those goals and dreams becoming in their reality. Because wouldn't that be make it? Wouldn't that be make it? Wouldn't that be make it a wonderful world? It would. And you affect the people close to you. And you'd never know how far the ripples have changed go, because they just go so far and wide. And that's an awesome thing to know, knowing that you don't know how far the changes will go, but you know they will. Yeah. And if you haven't pressed, subscribe or follow, please do. Because that's what I want you to do. Because it'd be good to get these podcast episodes in your little, little podcast box. Whatever. You get a bid every week. And if there is anything you'd like to know from me, a process, how to deal with a particular issue, you know what to do. Email me [email protected] do. And there's so many other resources here. You know, you've got, I don't know, 65 plus or whatever it is, free with my compliments. Hypnosis tracks. No credit cards, no nothing like that. You just send me an email. Well, you don't send me an email. You just go to poolclfonline.com podcast, fill in the little bit and you get access, you get a link, your personal link to all those hypnosis tracks. If you want to know about that, I'll stick it in just at the end before we fly. So I'll probably say in a moment we're going to fly, but don't fly. Have 90 seconds of hypnosis information, okay. And then join me in my mind. Your mind Making changes, wonderful changes. There you go. It's time to go, my friend. It's time to fly. But remember, 90 seconds of hypnosis coming right now.

So the 90 seconds of hypnosis tracks. Why have I put hypnosis tracks on a separate website?

Well, it's so simple really.

I wanted you to have them all in one place so you can look through them all. You can find the particular one you want. I've even made them downloadable so you can put them on any of your playing devices that you prefer. You don't need wi fi, you don't need the itunes or whatever. You can put them anywhere you like.

You can even burn them onto diss if you want.

Where do you get them?

Well, There you go.

I told you. It's porclufonline.com podcast. If you're worried about your email address, please don't be, because they stay totally safe with me. I only use them to send you out that email and give you access. Simple as that. I send you a link, special link, so you and only you can access those hypnosis tracks. Because I want them just for you. And the other thing about this is you've taken responsibility. I don't want to make these open to everyone, just random. You have taken responsibility to listen and be part of this community of personal development.

And I want to help you.

I want to help you personally to get your dreams, your goals. And therefore, I'm giving you these tools, these protocols, these paradigms, whatever you want to call them, but in deep hypnosis. So just enjoy. Have more fun than you can stand with hypnosis.

Warning, you are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly on your own. Be brave, my friend.

Personal development unplugged.

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