Two simple tools that could change everything.

We’ve all been through tough times — sadness, anxiety, OCD, loss of confidence, grief, loneliness… and it’s all “stuff” that affects your mental wellbeing. But here’s the thing: most of that big stuff? It started small.

In this episode of the Personal Development Unplugged podcast, I (Cloughie) guide you through two powerful, yet beautifully simple mental wellbeing tools. These aren’t fluffy techniques – they’re real strategies that help you:

• Acknowledge and neutralise uncomfortable emotions (instead of pushing them down)

• Interrupt anxious thoughts and looping inner dialogue

• Get clarity, create strategies, and take back control

• Transform worry into personal power and positive action

We do the work together. Right here. Right now. These are practical NLP-based tools you can use any time life throws you a curveball – no fluff, just real results.

🎧 Listen now and learn:

• Why ignoring “little stuff” makes it big

• How to speak directly to your unconscious mind

• What to do with that “weird feeling” you just can’t shake

• How simple curiosity creates profound change

• The power of specificity and intention in self-healing

This is Part 1 – more tools and techniques are coming soon. But these first two are game-changers. Start here.

🔁 Share this episode with someone who might need a gentle shift.

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/454-mental-wellbeing-tools-and-strategies-part-1

📩 Email me your thoughts or requests at [email protected] 💬 Want tools for a specific issue? Just ask – I’ll make a future episode for it. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

“In simplicity, there is genius.” Let’s keep it simple – and effective.

And remember: Have more fun than you can stand – and wallow in joy.

Shine Brightly 🌟

Paul

Ready to subscribe? Click here to explore your options. Or, if you're on Apple Music or iTunes, you can go straight to subscribe or leave a review here.

For tools on developing Supreme Inner Confidence, finding Freedom from Anxiety, or specialized Hypnosis Tracks, visit PaulCloughOnline.com.

Want access to my FREE hypnosis tracks? Head over to paulcloughonline.com/podcast.

Follow me on Twitter: @pcloughie

Remember: I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. This podcast and any of my online resources are for educational purposes only. Never use the hypnosis tracks or exercises if you're operating machinery, driving, or if you have epilepsy or psychiatric conditions. Always consult a healthcare provider if you're unsure.

Catch the podcast on Spotify, Castbox, iHeart Radio, YouTube, or on our Libsyn page.

Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨

Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic, and others from Pixabay.

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

Hey friend, how you doing? I think, like most of us, I say most of us, pretty generality-Cloughie again, but we've all gone through some shit. We've gone through some dark times.

Well, certainly I have. And I think, because of that, it made me more interested in searching for tools, processes, protocols, whatever you want to call them, to assist in my mental well-being, but also to help other people's mental well-being. You know, even to the things of, I know you've got depression, you've got OCD, all that stuff, but you've also got not feeling bad, not feeling down, sad, alone, grief, so many different types of things that can affect your mental well-being.

Even the thing of just loss of confidence, loneliness, agoraphobia, or as they say, I think, in the US, agoraphobia. I don't know. But you fill in the blank, because anything and everything is part of, or is something that could affect your mental well-being, your mental health.

And over those years, because of that dark time, I found and developed, well, I found a lot of protocols, a lot of processes, a lot of tools, but I also used them to develop them in many different ways, to let go of, and I call it stuff. That's what I call these mental, or these issues that we have. They're just stuff.

And some of those processes, either I found or developed, or some I did develop completely by myself, some is just like an evolution that I just felt I could make it better. They'll help clients get rid of really big stuff. That's big stuff.

And you know what I'm going to say about big stuff is, if something is getting on you, is pulling you down, holding you back, making you feel really bad, and it's constantly on your mind, go and get it sorted straight away. Go and find a hypnotherapist, someone who does NLP, someone who does timeline therapy, who's a master hypnotist. Get it done really quickly, one-to-one.

You'll get it done in two or three sessions. Because if they can't do that, then they're not that good. But they should be able to do it really quickly.

But what about, here's the thing, and this is what this podcast is about, what about the everyday stuff, the little stuff? But the trouble with little stuff, you see, it starts little. Even if you've had a big problem and you've got rid of it, or you're experiencing bigger issues, they all started way back in the past, generally, and they were really small. And your unconscious mind tried to do something to help you to get over that issue, and then it started to do the same thing more often.

And then it did it in different contexts, which was similar but not the same. And after a while, you tend to find that issue is generalised into all different contexts, not just the one you started off with. So, getting hold of that little stuff is big stuff, if that makes sense.

Because it's a big deal. So, never just think. And I know we do, because we're bloody adults.

No, it's not that bad. It's not that bad at all. But it could be.

And why not just do something really quickly to get rid of it? Because then it won't generalise into bigger stuff. It won't generalise into every different area of your life. And the other thing what happens is, you deal with it, and what happens is the results you get, they generalise into every area of your life.

So, you become more confident, more likeable to yourself, all that stuff. You just feel more about you, and you take that everywhere, and it just keeps growing. But the thing is, the more I look for these things, the more I seek them out, I'm reminded of the simple stuff.

The simple stuff that I've learnt or developed. I think that's probably where I got into this thing, in simplicity there is genius. In simplicity there is genius.

In simplicity there is genius. Maybe that's why I got hooked on just that. I don't know, maybe it is.

Because I've always learnt that simple stuff really works. And I've seen it so many times. I've seen people who are superb in what they do, as in giving demonstrations of therapy.

And when things are going not quite the way they planned, they always say, do you mind if I go back to the simple stuff? And here's the thing, I'm not going to talk about any of that. What? No, I'm not going to talk about it. We're going to do them together.

And we're going to do them together now. Yeah, that's surprising, isn't it? So I want you to get ready to give yourself some time to experience, well, maybe a couple of processes. Simple processes that you can make a note of.

You can do it with me, so you know what it is. You can then come back and listen to this again. Mark the time, and then you can just do it whenever you want.

But at least you'll have the tools to deal with simple stuff really early, so it doesn't get to the big and the bad and the ugly. So what am I talking about? What type of issue are we talking about? Well, you know what I'm saying, and a lot of this is from my experience. You know when you wake up with a feeling, hmm, that's unpleasant.

It's just not, it just doesn't feel right. Or sometimes, you know, something happens. So I get this when I'm writing in my bloody journal.

I'm writing something, and all of a sudden I get like a negative emotion. I've triggered it myself. It's a feeling.

And it's not quite really sad, and it's not really down, and it's not, well, it's a sort of a worry. It is sort of anxiety-anxious, but it's, I don't know, it's one of those, oh, or it could be anxiety, or it could be worry, or it could be down, it could be sad, but it's just there. Have you had that? Because that's what I've had.

And this is the type of thing I'm thinking of, because they're starting off small. This is like how things start before they evolve into the bigger stuff. So what happens? What happens in the real world? What do we do with it? We get that funny feeling.

We don't like it. What do we do? We push the bugger away, don't we? Well, we try to. We push.

We push it down. We push it away. We try to ignore it.

That's another way of pushing it away, just ignore it. You know it's there, because it keeps coming back, doesn't it? And do you know what the answer is to that? It's a Bob Newhart thing. Stop it.

Have you ever seen, if you Google on YouTube, Bob Newhart, stop it. You'll see a great skit. But just stop it.

Stop pushing things away, because when you push them away, your unconscious mind will push it even harder, push back harder, because it's trying to do something for you. Yeah. So what do you do then, Cloughie? Come and tell us.

I'll tell you now. Here's a simple thing. Acknowledge it.

I said before, we don't accept these things, because accepting them is like I'm accepting that it's right, that it's okay. No, I'm acknowledging I don't feel good. I'm acknowledging maybe I feel a little bit of worry.

I'm acknowledging maybe I feel a little bit of anxiety, a little bit down, a little bit sad, a little bit whatever. You fill in the blank. And once we acknowledge it, acknowledge it by acknowledging that it has a reason for being here.

Okay. You know, I speak to my unconscious mind, speak out loud in my head. Okay.

I don't like this feeling, but I'm sitting with it for the moment, and I know you have a reason for being here. You're trying to do something for me. Let's do a little bit of work.

So what do we do? Well, what we do is, we take five minutes. Really, Cloughie? Yeah, five minutes. And we find somewhere where we can generally be undisturbed, because you don't want to be distracted, do you? Now, you might want to get a pen and paper to write some of this stuff down, but hey-ho, you can come back.

But I do, if you can, do it with me. So if you're going to do it with me, you know, maybe you can think of a time when you did have that funny old feeling, because it might come back. Find a little place where you'll be undisturbed, yeah? Because I want you to sit in that feeling and describe it.

Nothing else. We're not pushing it away, we're not trying to change it. We're just going to describe it in a minute.

And you're also going to say thank you for whatever you're trying to do. I don't know what it is yet, I just know you're trying to do something positive for me, so thank you. We're just not getting it right at the moment, but thank you.

And be honest with that part of you, that feeling, because it is trying to do something. If your best friend was trying to do something, but they weren't quite doing it right, you'd still say thank you, wouldn't you? And let's see if we can do it better. So, we're going to describe this feeling.

First of all, thank you. Get into it. And just sit there.

What? Yeah, just sit there, quietly. And begin to get curious. What does that mean? Well, the curiosity part goes, well, where is it exactly? And a lot of people go, oh, it's in my head.

Well, sometimes it is in your head, but sometimes it comes from somewhere else and goes to your head, where you make all those bloody pictures and movies and sounds and words. Just think, where is it in my body? You know, if it's in my head, where's it come from first? Because you tend to find, you know, worry and anxiety and sadness. It's somewhere normally in your gut.

Somewhere in your gut. That's a big generality, Cloughie, I know. But just sit there.

Where is it? Ah. And what I do, and what I do with my clients, I say, put your hand on it. Or roughly where it is, just put your hand on it.

So you're acknowledging it now, aren't you? You're going, oh, gotcha. So now you know where it is exactly in your body. Okay, that's a start.

A real acknowledgement. Does it have a size? What size is it? Oh, oh yeah. Well, it's actually this big.

And I get my clients to describe it. What size exactly? Show me with your hands. Fingers.

Show me how big it is. And now you know where it is and the size of it. Does it have a weight? Oh.

Actually, it's quite heavy. Oh, it's a bit light. Oh yeah.

Does it have a temperature, by the way? Is it hot, cold, neutral? Actually, when you think about it now, it's a bit cold. What else? What else? Does it vibrate? Does it move at all? No, it's pretty stationary at the moment. I can't really detect anything like that.

Okay, what colour is it? What? Yeah, what colour is it? You know, if it had a colour, what colour would it be then? Oh. Mm. Yeah.

It's a bit of a darky red. And now when you're really now getting access to it, because now you're really acknowledging it and you're being in that feeling. You're in there describing it.

Put your mind into it. Okay, I'm going right into this feeling, into my stomach. Into this size, this weight, temperature, this colour, this darker red maybe.

And just ask. What do you want from me? What are you trying to do? Now, sometimes an answer or an intuition will come to you. Not necessarily words, but it might be just like an idea.

Might come to you now. Or it might be a little bit later. Like being intuitive about something else.

Or you could add to this. What do I need to do or not do? What can I learn? And just get inquisitive. Curious.

Because intuition comes in so many different ways. It could come in words. It could come in a memory.

It could come in a different emotion. It could come in just a thought. And the thing is when you spend time putting your attention right into the centre of that feeling and you get curious of all these different, we call them sub-modalities, but just the different qualities of that feeling, you tend to notice it begins to fade because you've asked the right questions.

And sometimes as you're there you might say, well, I wonder what it would be. Because at the moment it's a darky red. What would happen if it was a blue? Because blue is quite calm for me.

What would happen if I changed that to blue? Just imagine then changing it to a colour. A colour of another emotion that comes to mind. Because what's the colour of understanding? What's the colour of calm? And just notice if you changed that feeling.

The colour of that feeling. Notice what happens. Now with my clients, what I do, I explain to them that every feeling has a movement.

It does move by the way. It moves in a circle. It's like it will either go clockwise, anticlockwise, flatwards, clockwise, anticlockwise, in some direction around your body.

Sometimes I say to my client, well, what would you imagine if you took, actually imagine it coming out of your body, flipping it round, spin it the other way, and come back into your body. What happens now? And I know what happens now by the way. I knew before when we did it.

They go, oh, it's gone. And if you want to know about that, go to hashtag 94. And I think there's a hypnosis track, hashtag 94.2. I don't know why it's .2. Normally .1, but hashtag 94.2. And it's spinning.

And it tells you how to change the colours and the spinning and the direction and things like that and how to get rid of things. But it's all about learning. Yeah.

There you go. And one of the big things you remember, or to remember, breathe. Take a breath before you start.

Pause. Set your intention. I'm going to get curious.

Maybe I should have said that at the beginning. Stop, pause. I'm going to get curious about this feeling because I want to find out and have it change into something more appropriate.

Because that's what it is. It's your unconscious mind using an emotion which is no longer appropriate. And we want to find a better one.

There you go. Let's do one more. Let's do one more.

Let's say we have a worry. A little anxiety over a thing. A person.

And it's starting to get out of control. It's like it's in your, I say that again, it's in your thoughts all the time. It's always there.

It's like a loop. And maybe there's a conversation you're having that's, by the way, you're not because it's in your mind. You're having a conversation with your bloody self even though you think you're having it with that other person.

Or if it's a thing and you think it's going to go wrong. It hasn't gone wrong yet, by the way, because you're just imagining it going wrong. And again, these are all, it's just your unconscious mind saying, let's prepare.

That's what anxiety is. It's just a thing to help you prepare. So what do you do? You say, okay, maybe we pause.

It's our intention. Because I want to acknowledge it again because it's all about acknowledging. Okay, you're there.

There's anxiety, there's worry. And I understand. It's only here to protect me.

Protect me in a way to get me to prepare. But the trouble is, your unconscious mind, what it does is, it gives you the worst of scenarios. And what happens? You see the worst of scenarios because it wants you to feel so bad that you really do prepare.

But then it gets overwhelming, doesn't it? And you don't prepare. That's what happens. So the intention to protect you from things going wrong is absolutely bloody wonderful.

It's just the behavior of seeing the worst scenario or going through the wrong conversations of how bad they are. So what do we do? Take another breath. And this time you need to get a pen and paper.

Pencil and paper. Because we want to get these thoughts, these worries out of our head. And if you put them on paper, you know then you can always come back to them.

So you don't need to think about it anymore. So what do you do? You go, I've got this worry, this anxiety, this thing going on in my head. What exactly is it? What is it, this anxiety? What's it about? And I peel the layers off.

Because we think, oh, it's because of that. Oh, no, it's not really that. It's just below that.

It's actually, maybe it's that. Oh, no, actually, it's about this one thing. I've made it bigger than it is.

It's not about that person everywhere. It's not about that event that's going to happen in the whole of it. It's that one little thing in that event.

It's that one little thing that I'm upset with that person about. Oh, I need that conversation. Get it on paper.

And when you get it down to specificity, which is a lovely word I love to use, bringing all the layers down to be so specific. What is this thing? Now when it's so small, you can bloody handle it now. Couldn't handle that bloody loop.

But now you go, ah, let's find a better way. So here's a way. Realistically, reasonably, what is the worst that might happen, that could happen, maybe happen? They're all very vague, aren't they? But this is realistically.

So the world's not going to end. Things aren't going to end up that way you've been thinking about. Well, maybe we just have a longer conversation.

Maybe someone might get a little upset. Maybe I've got to do a bit of extra work. Maybe someone's going to be upset.

Something like that. But that's all it's going to be. Okay, well now I know what realistically, reasonably, the worst that could happen, might happen, maybe happen.

What steps could I make to mitigate that and write them down? And there'll be at least four or five different options. Well, this is for me because I'm an options person. I can always find an option.

But you just throw those options down on that piece of paper. Well, I could do this, I could do that, I could do this, I could also do that because that would stop that and this would do that. And then you go, well, what's the best one? Or maybe what's the best two and put them together? And now in your head, you're thinking of a strategy.

And once you've got a strategy, your unconscious mind is starting to think of how it could implement that strategy. Because you've just now, what steps could I take? And your unconscious mind goes, oh, that's a bloody good question. I'm going to help you find those steps.

So it stops the worry because now it's working to a conclusion which will be a better way to protect you. And then you think, okay, I've got those few steps in mind, how to mitigate things. Let me think for a moment, take another pause, set your intention to visualise.

How would I like it to be? Yeah. How would I like this thing to pan out, to run? Yeah. So you can see it now, see it in your mind's eye, of you creating the scenario that you feel would be the best, the best thing that could happen.

And you might ask yourself as you're doing this, so what steps could I do? Might I do? What steps to take that might just ensure this happening? What are the emotions I'd like to have? What would be the best emotion that would help see this through? What would be the best belief to have? A couple of behaviours maybe. Those behaviours might be physically that you breathe differently, you stay calm, maybe you pause, listen, have patience, all those different things. Oh, they're good alternatives, Cloughie, yeah.

And the thing is when you start doing this, you know you've got it. And your unconscious mind again, while you're thinking about how I want it to be and what steps could I take and what would be the best emotion, your unconscious mind is trying on for you, finding better ways. And the thing about this is when you have your unconscious mind finding better ways, it has to use the better ways.

It can't go back to the old worry, because the old worry isn't as good as the new ways. And the thing is because you consciously and unconsciously are now aligned to this, and you're taking responsibility for it, for the action, and you're going to take action, you will feel a wonderful sense of empowerment. That's what it is, because you are now at the cause, the cause of these things that are going to happen.

And you're in charge. And yes, sometimes they may not pan out exactly, but I tell you what, they're going to pan out that much better than you ever were worrying about. And also you will act.

Is it called acting on your feet? Because you'll take intuitive action. If things aren't quite going according to plan, you'll go to one of those other mitigating actions. Different emotion, different behavior, different belief.

They'll evolve. And once you've done it once, it's a habit. Because your unconscious mind will always pick the best way.

There you go. Two lovely little tools. Two little tools to your mental well-being.

Two little strategies to your mental well-being. And this is only part one, I'm going to find more. I know I've got loads more.

But are they simple? Because guess what? In simplicity there is genius. In simplicity there is genius. I hope you enjoyed all that.

I hope I explained it so wonderfully clearly. Elegantly. Eloquently.

And all that stuff. Because I just want you to feel so empowered. Because you're in control.

And success breeds confidence. Because when you're competent, you will become more confident. And some of these might be a little stretch.

But the thing is, when you have this little bit of stretch. You're doing it for the wonderful reasons. You've got the wonderful positive intention in your conscious mind.

You're going to grow. Because you've got this. You've got this.

And I've got you. I'm supporting you. So if there's anything that you need a little bit more of.

Or if you go, Cloughie, those are great strategies. Great, because they are. Great tools, because they are.

But you say, what about, fill in the blank. What about this? Could I use it for this? Well, I might say yes. But I might say, well, actually, yes and.

What about this? And give me an idea of the tools and strategies that you want me to come back with. To deal with various issues. Do that.

Email me. Feedback at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com Do that. I'll come back to you.

I'm the only bugger here. So I'll come back to you personally. And we'll create stuff for all of us.

There you go. Please do that. Please share the hell out of this.

I know most people don't, but if you would. My sons have set up a WhatsApp group. Just the four of us at the moment.

Yeah, four of us. I've got three sons. For sharing podcasts.

For sharing bits of information that we've found out. So nice. Sometimes it doesn't apply to me.

Sometimes it doesn't apply to one of my sons. But we all get it. And then because of that, I share it with other people too.

If they share something good with me, I go, ooh, so and so would like this. So please do share this if you would. Doesn't take a minute.

Just a link. And subscribe and follow. All that stuff.

Have so much more fun than you can stand. Yeah, wallow in happiness. And be surprised.

Just be surprised. Because you might feel happy all day. Go fly.

With the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly and run. Be brave, my friend.

Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]