#461 Keeping Negative Emotions At Bay

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#461 Keeping Negative Emotions At Bay

21h ago 20:49

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Keeping Negative Emotions At Bay

Ever lost your cool over something small — then realised it wasn’t about the “thing” at all?

In this episode of Personal Development Unplugged, I take you through a real-life moment where frustration turned into anger, then into something deeper… limiting beliefs like “I’m stupid” or “I’m not good enough.”

Here’s the truth: those surface emotions are rarely the whole story. By peeling back the layers, you’ll discover what’s really driving them — and more importantly, how to release them.

You’ll learn:

How to spot the real emotion underneath anger or frustration
A simple process to break free from limiting beliefs before they grow
Why small learnings create massive change over time

This isn’t about pretending negativity doesn’t exist. It’s about learning from it, dissolving it, and building stronger foundations for success — every single day.

Takeaway: When you uncover the lesson behind an emotion, the emotion itself loses its grip. That’s freedom.

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/461-keeping-negative-emotions-at-bay

and don’t forget to check out the free hypnosis tracks waiting for you at paulcloughonline.com/podcast

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Paul

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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

#461 Keeping Negative Emotions At Bay

Hey, imagine this. Just imagine this for a moment.

Imagine if you're me, coming to my my body, my feet, my footsteps, my shoes, as we call it, into this lovely little recording place. And imagine this. You set out to record a podcast episode.

And you do it. And do you know what? You're bloody pleased about it. It just seemed to all just flow.

All just flow. You are in the zone. Whatever the zone is for that.

You're just letting things just happen. The words just came so sweetly. You're there.

You feel great. Feel good about yourself. You've even put a video out.

You're recording the video. Everything is going just sweet. And then you finish.

Now, what could be better? Something happened just in that moment. You were in the present. How good does that feel? How good does that feel? And then you go, well, I'm just going to take that audio section out and put it over there.

And as you take it out, you put it onto this other program. What happens? There's a flat line all the way through. You know what a flat line means? It means this.

Not a bloody sound. Oh, that must be a mistake. Must be a mistake.

So click on the video. And what happens? I'm just mouthing words. Nothing's coming out.

And there's a flat line. No audio. And I look down and there's my little microphone box thingy, which I don't know what it is, but I've got one of those over there.

And it should be lit up. And it isn't. It means the microphone wasn't switched on.

Oh my. Well, what happened? What happened? I went absolutely ballistic. First of all, I started shouting at myself.

Why are you stupid? Go like that. Out loud, by the way, because there's no one can hear me in this place. So I can let it rip.

And that didn't satisfy me. So what else did I do? Well, this bloody microphone got it. I swore at the microphone.

I gave it. Why the hell weren't you switched on? You're so stupid. I don't know why I've got you.

It was this person in front of me, this little microphone, my friend for all these years. And I was given it some. And then I thought to myself, how did I feel? How do I feel about this? And the thing is, I just felt angry.

Really, really angry. And I thought, well, that's fine, if you're going to do something about this, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do? Because if you think about it, I'm angry. I'm angry at the bloody microphone, the box over there, the zero sound.

Was it the mic's fault? Was it balls? Was it? Was it the little box's fault? Was it? No. But I had to think, I had to think, okay, so what's below the anger? What is below my anger? And of course, you know, there's that, it was frustration, angry about wasted time and, you know, having something what I thought was pretty good and buggered it up. But that's still anger, isn't it? And that frustration, it's just gone simmering now, that anger's simmering into frustration.

I thought, no, come on, Cloughie, this, you know, you're better than this. What is below that frustration? And I thought to myself, well, do you know what? I'm so bloody stupid. You know, I'm stupid.

Maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe I don't deserve it. And I thought to myself, okay, come on, come on, keep going, Cloughie, keep going.

You know, you said I'm stupid, a limiting belief, isn't it? I don't deserve this, another limiting belief. And what's the emotion around those two? And I thought, I feel a little bit guilty, which is quite weird, but guilty of failure. I'm a failure.

I failed. I'm no bloody good. Not good enough.

Oh, bugger. Now we're into something a little bit deep, because we've like peeled away the onion layers, haven't we? We've gone between that first initial surface emotion and just gone below the surface. But we didn't stop there.

We went, or I didn't, we went a little bit weak. You came with me. We went a little bit deeper.

And then what happened? We found that limiting belief. And you see, all the anger was outward, but the limiting beliefs were at an identity level, weren't they? I'm stupid. I don't deserve this.

I'm a failure. I'm not good enough. Or talking about me as a person.

This is me, my identity. Shit. Now, the thing is, and this is what happens to us, I think.

If I hadn't done any of this, I'd have stopped at that surface level, even though below the surface, all that stuff is still there. What happens is the next time something similar happens, it's reinforced, isn't it? Below the surface, it's reinforced to say, yeah, you are bloody stupid, Cloughie. Yeah, I don't deserve this.

You know, I'm just reinforcing your bloody failure. I really am a failure. It's happened again.

And then you start thinking, well, how many more times will it keep happening? You know, you're setting it out in the future and it's going to start growing. Because that's what happens. And your unconscious mind wants to try to protect you from this feeling.

So, it makes you even more angry sometimes to either cover it up or just to do something to take away that feeling of failure. And it grows and generalises into different areas, not just little things like this, but other areas. So then I really start to believe I'm a failure.

I really start to believe I'm not good enough. And it all started back then from that little thing. So, and this happens all the time, doesn't it? So what are you going to do about it? Well, this is what I did.

And this is part of the process, lovely little process that I learnt. You ask yourself, okay, what can I learn from this? Because it's the learnings, you see, if you learn from a negative event, a highly emotional event, and you take the learnings and you understand them and you take them inside so you can use them in the future, guess what? That negative emotion just disappears. It doesn't need to be here anymore because you've got the learnings.

It doesn't need to try to protect you anymore from that. It doesn't have to get all through those old horrible behaviours. Now I could say, what do I need to learn? Okay, well, turn on the mic before you do it.

That's a sort of learning, but that's not just looking outward in, isn't it? I want to go deeper, just like I peeled away the layers. What's below that? Well, I thought, well, you talk a lot about pausing, Cloughie, setting your intention. And if you thought about it before you recorded, you'd have stopped, made sure that you've got all the bits and pieces you want.

The lights are working. The cameras are working. Oh, the mic is working.

And it's at the right level and all that stuff. Okay. So I've learned a little bit, it's all about pausing.

And I thought, well, is there a deeper lesson to this? And it came to me, just sitting there thinking about this. And by now, because I've gone below the layers, I was talking to myself like this. I was interested.

I was curious. And the anger and frustration had gone completely, even though I still hadn't got the recording. I thought, well, it's all about the basics, isn't it? Because when we're into things and we think we understand things, we forget the basics.

And the basics are a foundation to build off. And the more we come back to creating the most strongest foundation, everything above it will be supported so well. And they're like the foundations of success.

Now, this podcast might not be a success, but if I'd have done the right things, I'd have felt a success. And that's all it's about, really. I know it's for you, but it's also about me and the way I feel.

If I did this and didn't feel good about it, you know what, I'd stop straight away. But if I feel good about it and no one listens or watches, it's cool because I've done something that makes me feel good. And when I feel good, things are happening inside and I'm learning.

And I'll take that good feeling into other areas of my life. And then I just thought, well, just before we move on from there, think about it now, just visualise, Cloughie, just for a moment, 60 seconds, just visualise coming into this room, this lovely little room, getting ready, switching all the things on, go back to your basics, take a breath. Got a little sign that says smile.

Yeah, just to remind myself, let's just lighten up, get into those foundations and see yourself doing that great job. So I saw myself doing a great job. So I did it again and I did a great job.

I think I did a great job. I did a great, the great job that I felt was good enough, good enough for me. It made me feel good.

Now, did you get the process? Did you get the process? Well, I'll go through it with you because I think it's great too. Repetition is the mother of skill. So let's have a little think.

And if you've got a notebook, you do little bullet points or a little mind map. So what happens? Here's the thing. Something happened, didn't it? Something happened in my life and it can be good or bad because I want to learn, this is not just for negative emotions, although when you have a negative event with negative emotions, you want to clear that.

So you don't bring them in the forward or bring them into the future when the same becomes the now. But if it's a good event, I want to learn from good events so I can repeat them. Yeah.

So one allows you not to repeat and use better emotions. Or the other one says, now let's grow from this. And they're going to grow from this, from both anyways.

So good or bad, we react. And we always remember the negatives, by the way, because they're there to protect you. We have this negative bias, don't we? So let's use it.

Let's use the bloody thing. It's there hardwired in our neurology. So let's use the bloody thing for good.

If it's going to protect us, let's use it for real protection and a real wonderful future. So something happens. Something happens in our life.

It's called like a change. Sometimes something happens to change us and that changes is emotional. So what we do once we notice it.

Now, ideally, if you do it on the time, well, I did mine directly afterwards. But if you can really quickly, really quickly, just after that event has happened, if not in the evening, just quietly when you're sitting there, let's have a little think. Oh, that thing happened.

How did I feel? How did I react emotionally? How did I react behaviourally? Because you might have, you know, my behaviour was absolutely atrocious. Because not only did I swear, I don't mind swearing. Swearing can be good when it's done in a lovely way.

But not when it was like that, because it wasn't nice. And I behaved in a fractious, angry manner. And my body took on anger, you know, the blood was pumping.

Thoughts, because even behaviours can be your thoughts and your words and your internal voice and all that stuff. So just make a note, how did I react? What was my behaviour? And then go, well, okay, what was that surface emotion? What's below that? And now you start to get curious. And you're also the teacher of yourself.

Because you're now dissociated from it. And you're looking down upon that event or looking down into your emotions and go, okay, what's below that basic emotion? Ah, okay. And just notice what comes up because it will just come up and go with it.

Go with what comes up because you're asking your unconscious mind, what's below that? Just what's below that surface? And then what's below that? What does that mean? What is it just below that? Just keep going, maybe one or two levels. And when you get to a level where you think, yeah, I think I've got that negative belief that's now with it. We're talking about a negative emotion or a negative event.

So we're looking to see, well, what does that mean? What belief do I have about myself when I'm at that level, three levels, two levels down? What is that identity? I, I can, I can't, I'm not. Not normally I can unless I can be a right dick, that type of thing. But that's what I say to myself.

Oh dear. But you find, okay, now we've got this negative emotion. We've also got these negative behaviours we've realised and we've also got the limiting belief that's attached to it.

Now, what can I learn from that? And just notice what is the learnings that if you learn them now from that event, you can use them in the future to have and create a better life for yourself. And that's it. Now, how many times do you have those type of events? Well, for me, pretty damn often.

So I've got my little book and I'm starting to fill up, but it's filling up with learnings. And then I get curious about other things what's happening. I find that the triggers aren't quite so excessive now.

So there you go. The process, let's just go back, bullet points. Something happens, boom.

Make a note of it. What was the emotion present? What was the original behaviours present? Then just go below the surface. What emotion is below that surface? What's driving that surface emotion? And what's just below that? And what, when I think that below the surface emotion, get it right Cloughie, what is that limiting belief that I think about myself? And then when I learn from it, what can I learn from it? Then you find when you've learned from it, how do I think now of the future? When I look to the future and I'm going to do that same type of thing again, just before it happens, what happens? And for me, I come and say hello to my mic.

I tell I'm sorry. It's my friend. It's my friend.

And so there's a little box in the corner and everything is good. And start with a smile, which is what I did. Now, did I make myself perfectly clear? I hope so.

Did I communicate in a way that's going to allow you to learn from all these? Because they're just little events. They don't have to be massive, just little events, which will allow you to grow. Small steps allow you to really get good feelings when you think about changing in the future.

Because that's what personal development is. It's a lot of little steps. But when you go through each one, they don't seem that much.

But the cumulative effect, if that's the way to say it, is massive. And it's only when you look back and you go, do you know what? I've changed. Things have happened.

This is good. I'm beginning to feel I'm making notes about feeling good about different things, more things, more times in my life, I'm feeling good about stuff. And that's what we want for each other.

So I hope I've communicated that in a way that is clear. And hopefully I've enthused you a little bit to start looking at those little things in life to make them better and learn. If you just make those three notes and do it and then share it to other people, you will get it better in your head as well.

Because when you share the things you've learned verbally, you get to realise how much you know or can't quite explain it. Maybe I've got to go back and find out exactly what it was. So you hone in.

And that repetition, again, gets your memory to store these learnings deeper and better and more accessible. You repeat them all the time. Yeah.

So if you could share that, please share this, share the podcast. If you would, I need a boost. I do.

You know, we just plod along and stumble along in this little world of personal development. I'm happy here. But I love more people to get the benefit of some of the things I'm sharing with you and get the benefit of you sharing them with other people, because that allows you to grow too.

You know, selfless service, that's a thing. And when you share these type of things with people, you will grow. And the multiverse and the universe and the law of attraction and all that stuff will dump dollops of good stuff on you.

All from no want of return. But it just does that. And we all have a wonderful life.

So please do that. Press that subscribe and follow button. All that lovely stuff.

And have a listen to a few hypnosis tracks of mine. Okay. So I'll see you next time.

Have more fun than you can stand. And guess what? What would happen talking to your unconscious mind if you were happy for no reason? Oh, time to fly. Warning, you are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough.

It's time to fly. Be brave, my friend. Personal Development Unplugged

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