I Feel Sh*t So Let's Change This Episode in a Nutshell

In this deeper dive of Personal Development Unplugged, we get real about feeling stuck, low, anxious or just "not ourselves" — and what to actually do about it. No more endless talking, analysing or looping the same bloody thoughts. This is about changing how you feel at the unconscious level, where these issues were created… and where they can be changed.

If you've ever struggled to remember what "good" even feels like, or wondered why you can't just think your way out of the cycle, this episode gives you a gentle, powerful way to move forward — using your imagination, memory, and your very real inner resources.

What You'll Learn • Why "talking about your issue" rarely creates real change

Talking keeps you in your conscious mind — the part that didn't create the problem. So it can't resolve it.

• Why your unconscious mind is the key

Your unconscious created these feelings to protect you. It just chose a bad strategy. So we go back to that level to educate it and update it.

• How to discover how you actually want to feel

(Not as easy as people pretend. But we make it easy.)

• How to use memories to unlock feelings you thought you'd lost

If you can imagine the feeling, you have felt it before — we just need to uncover the counter-examples.

• A step-by-step method to go from "how I feel now" → "how I want to feel"

Including the powerful "middle feeling" bridge that stops your brain panicking and makes real change doable.

• How to create experiences in your future that your unconscious mind believes are real

And therefore starts acting on them now.

Why This Matters

Because you deserve better than living with old, outdated emotional programmes.

Because you are more than the issue you're experiencing.

Because feeling good, calm, confident or safe isn't a fantasy — it's a memory inside you waiting to be brought forward.

And because change doesn't require force, pressure or reliving the past. It requires permission, imagination and simple steps.

Your Simple Action Steps

1. Write down how you feel now. Be honest. No judgement.

2. Write down how you want to feel. This is the feeling you'd choose if everything was just right.

3. Find the halfway feeling. The emotional stepping stone.

4. Use your imagination: Visualise yourself feeling the way you want to feel, in the exact context where you currently struggle.

5. Drop into a memory: Let your unconscious find a time you actually felt this way before.

6. Blend them. Bring that old feeling into the imagined future — your brain doesn't know the difference.

7. Repeat with curiosity. It's simple. It's gentle. And it works.

Cloughie's Notes (The Heart-to-Heart Bit)

You are not broken. You don't need fixing. You simply learned a way of coping that doesn't serve you anymore.

And just as you learned it, you can unlearn it. And relearn something far better.

This episode is my way of guiding you to the place where you can make that change — easily, naturally, gently. Because you matter. And because I know what it's like to feel lost. And I know what it's like to find the way back.

Useful Links

• Free Hypnosis Library: paulcloughonline.com/podcast • Episode Mentioned: #78.1 – "My Qualities" • Instagram & Email: If something comes up, message me. We'll explore it in future episodes.

Call to Action

If this episode touched you, helped you, or even nudged you a little — please share it with someone who might need it. And subscribe, because the next episodes are going even deeper with real processes that create real change.

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/468-i-feel-sht-so-lets-change/ ‎

Have more fun than you can stand. And remember: Change isn't magic… but it is magical.

Shine Brightly 🌟

Paul

Hey there! I'd love to hear from you—questions, feedback, requests—all welcome. Drop me a line or leave a comment. If you've enjoyed this episode or any other, please share and subscribe! You can reach me at [email protected].

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Special Programs for You

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Free Hypnosis Tracks

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

Connect with Me

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.

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Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨

Music Credits

Music by Wataboi from Pixabay, Music by DreamHeaven from Pixabay, Music by ccjmusic from Pixabay, Music by freegroove from Pixabay, Music by prazkhanal 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

#468 I Feel Sh*t So Let's Change

Hey my friend, back for a longer episode of the Personal Development Unplugged podcast. So meet your friend Paul.

And on the last FMQ, which is supposed to be a five minute quickie, but now they're slightly longer because they're seeded as in sowing the seed for the longer podcast. And it was the last one was time to stop talking. Time to change.

And one of the things I asked you to do if you did listen to that was to decide, think how you want to feel. Now, if you did listen to that and you did write them down, that'd be brilliant. If you didn't, it'd be good to go back.

But if not, just carry on listening because you see, for some people, how you want to feel to think and be asked how you want to feel. It's bloody difficult. You've lived with this for so long.

I'll go into that in a minute. But for some of you, you haven't really got an issue issue. And you're thinking, why am I going to listen to this? Because everyone has a little issue.

Even if you don't have a big issue, you have times where you're going to do something in the day. And we can decide how we want to change, how we want to be, how we want to feel, how we want to act and the beliefs we have with that. So this is going to help too.

And if you've got an issue, and it's a big issue, you know what I always say, please go and see a therapist one to one, get in their face as it were, get them to guide you to make that change quickly. See a wonderful hypnotherapist who does timeline therapy and NLP and you will get get your result really quickly. And if you do decide to do that, what we're going to do today will still help.

In fact, it will probably speed up the process anyway. But we've always, we've all got something I guess we're slightly anxious about, nervous, fearful, maybe it's a little bit of, I don't belong here. You know, I feel an imposter.

All that stuff is there. But you see, when you're in it, in the issue, and it is an issue, and you've had it for a long time, it's really difficult to know how to feel, or how you want to feel. I've worked with a lady a long time ago, 15 years clinically depressed, that's what she was diagnosed at, told by doctors at the hospital, went as far as the hospital, no more drugs, we've got no more drugs that can help you.

So it's this awe, and I had to ask, but what's the awe? And she said, well, I don't know, you know, I'm just on these drugs, Paul, I just need to change. And I said, I want you to think of the last time you were happy. Not wackedly happy, but just mildly happy.

And she said, I don't think I've ever been happy. And now I knew that was a lie. But in those 15 years, like the walls of that depression had been her only experience, and it knocked out all the others.

So sometimes it's very difficult to remember. Remember times when, how you want to feel, or just to remember times when you felt good. Now then, I can remember a time, and I can remember it quite clearly now, but without the emotion.

It was a time back in my past when it didn't feel bad. I felt absolutely devastated. I was so bad, so bad that I would just fall down on the floor, not dramatically.

I just crumple up on the floor and start crying. And I knew something had triggered it off. I knew I was in a shit place.

I just couldn't stop. And then I'd carry on. And it was so weird.

So weird. I had to carry out a job on the outside, and be the Cloughie that everyone thought I was. But inside, I wasn't that at all.

It was terrible. So what I have to say, that is the worst time of my life. I actually wrote a book about it called, it doesn't have to be this way.

You can't find it because I didn't publish it. I did it online and things like that. But now I've left that alone.

But it was me talking about how I became my own therapist. And the very first thing I did when I was my own therapist, was to try to feel alive again. Because I didn't feel I had anything at all.

Now I know, or I'm hoping, you don't feel that way. Not as bad as that. And you can maybe think of times in the past when you felt the way you wanted to feel.

If you remember, I've asked you to make that list. How would you like to feel instead? But if it's difficult, this is what I want you to do first. And this is what I did.

And when I did it, it made a difference to me. And I'll explain it in a minute. And also, this process I developed for myself.

We begin, or my son and I began to use it in our trainings to help people. And it just seems, or we use it now all the time. And I've called it my qualities.

And basically, it's a mind map. And in the middle of my piece of paper, I do a circle and it's just my qualities. And I wanted somehow inside me, my uncle's mindset, start writing this.

Let's find out a little bit to remember about you, Cloughie. And the thing is, I sat there with that piece of paper in my special little quiet place outside in the garden. It was just me, the birds, lovely sunshine, feeling shit, feeling down, really down.

A black hole really. And could I find a bloody quality? Not one, not one. And I thought, well, I've got to write something down.

So what did I write? I said, well, you're breathing. That is a quality of life, isn't it? It is a quality. Because if you haven't got that quality, you ain't here.

So I wrote, well, one of my qualities, at least I can breathe. And then I thought, well, if I can breathe, what else can I do? Well, there's all the things I can do. I can walk, I can talk, I can write.

I've learned lots of things. So if I've learned lots of things, I have the ability to learn. That's a quality to be able to learn.

And then I thought of something like, well, if I've learned and stuff I've been doing is I've been sharing my learnings. So in some way, I'm a little bit of a teacher. And then you go, well, actually, I'm a pretty good hypnotist.

So there's a quality, isn't it? And no hypnosis, I've learned hypnosis, I can learn, I can share, and I can use hypnosis to help others. So here's a quality, I help others. And then it was like the floodgates didn't open like, but they opened a bit.

And more qualities came to my mind. And I wrote them down, each one, a line away from that middle circle of my qualities. And over a period, I guess it was about an hour, I filled up the whole bloody page.

And that day, the floodgates opened more and more and more. So my mind was able to really find all the qualities that I had. And I know when I look at it now, I've got so many more.

But just sitting in my quiet place, just looking at my qualities, it gave me a feeling of hope, a little bit of confidence in myself, but to feel that I'm someone who is worth looking after. Now, if you feel like that, not as down as that, if you're down as that, you know, I was my own therapist, but go and see a therapist. But when you're, just do this exercise for me anyway.

Because wherever you are in your life, knowing your qualities, because we forget the bloody things we don't think we've taken for granted. And I'll tell you what you have more qualities than you can think of right now. And when you understand your qualities, you go, you know what your self esteem starts to get up there because you think, yeah, I'm a bloody good person.

I've got all this stuff. And what else? And what else? And how can I add to this? Now find yourself a quiet place, piece of paper and a pen, pencil in the middle, draw a circle, write my qualities and then draw lines away. And at the end of every line or on a line, write down one of your qualities and just sit with it.

Keep sitting with it and it'll come out. Now, if you want some hypnosis to help you with this, I did one a long, long time ago. And it's hashtag 78.1. So that was a longer podcast, hashtag 78.

You can have a listen to that if you wanted to. There'll be more on this. Or go to my hypnosis site, paulcloughonline.com forward slash podcast and get access to 60 odd hypnosis tracks.

One of them, 78.1, go down there and have a listen to that too. And that would like put it all together. And as you're there, just flick through, flick through all the rest because there'll be one or two that jump out at you and they're going to go add this to what we're going to do.

Because this will help you find the ways you want to feel. But the thing is, even now with all my qualities, I've got my qualities now. You've done it quietly, you sat down, you read them and go, yeah, that's me.

There's more to come, I know, because you will be empowered. You're going to get some real inner confidence in yourself, self-esteem. And you know, you're worth a lot more than you thought.

But what does this mean? What is it? What? How is this going to help you find out how you want to feel? I'll tell you, because it's brought your self-esteem up a little bit. But now we're going to get back into really how you want to feel. And it's in small steps.

But first of all, write down how you want to feel. Now, you may have done it easily and effortlessly, from the last five minute quickie. If you did, maybe just look at them again and maybe add one or two.

But what I want to do now is, and by the way, if you haven't done it, start to think of how you want to feel. You see, but what I want you to do, because you know how you feel now. And maybe just, if you've got, again, a piece of paper, you've literally got three columns.

On the left hand column, it's how do I feel now? And on the far right hand column, how do I want to feel? And I know, as I said before, they're not opposite. They're not just, I'm unconfident, I want to feel confident. No, it may be, I just want to feel calm, collected.

I want to feel comfortable. I want to feel competent. I want to feel, there's so many different, but you put down how you feel now and then, oops, and how you want to feel at the end.

If you could have that feeling, what would it be? Now, the thing is, you've got a list now, probably. We're going to do one at a time. But the thing is, it's a hell of a jump to go from how you feel now to how you want to feel.

And I understand that. So look at your qualities. Just forget that self-esteem.

And then look at the first one. This is how I feel right now. This is how I want to feel.

Now, in between that, there's a middle feeling, a middle feeling that's like a step towards how you want to feel. And I just want you to go through and think, well, what is the midway point of feelings, that emotion? What would it be? So maybe it's to get to confidence. I just want to feel competent.

I just want to feel in myself, secure in my, maybe secure in myself, something like that. And you find these midway points, midway emotions, midway feelings. They're like the stepping stone from one to the other, how you feel now to how you want to feel.

Here's a stepping stone in between. Now then, here's a little bit, you know, just to try to think of that, how I want to feel. Try to think of the opposite to me.

And the thing is, make it up. Because sometimes it's so difficult, you know, because we get conscious in it. But using your imagination.

You see, if you think about it, well, because it's in my imagination, it doesn't have to be true. Because I'm just dreaming it. So think of that context of when I feel, when I'm in this context, this is how I feel.

This is this type of event. This is how I feel. And I don't like it.

But in the same context, if it was just the way I want it, let's just imagine how I want to be, see it in your mind. See yourself, just play with it. See yourself being exactly the way you want to be.

And that's all it is. It's just your imagination. So you can be exactly how you want to be.

And as you do that, you'll be able to get a feeling. And that's the feeling you want. Now what's that middle step? So you've got a feeling now you really have got the feeling of how you want to be.

And that middle step, the in-between emotion. And sometimes you might just feel it, you might not be able to put a label to it, just feel it. Maybe you just feel it, or you've got a label to it.

I want you to close your eyes. Just for a moment. Make sure there's nothing that you need, or needs your attention, you're not driving or doing anything like that.

You can do eyes open. It's just sometimes it blocks away the distractions. And I want to think of a time as you go into that middle feeling, think of a time when you had that feeling.

Just think about it. There's a memory somewhere that you had that feeling. And write it out.

Just a couple of lines. I remember. This is what happened.

This is the way I felt. Now it could well be that the how you feel and how you want to feel is not that far too far apart. You know, say this isn't the biggest issue.

It's just I get anxious when I do this. How do I want to feel? Well, I know and it's not that big a jump. When you write down instead of having the middle, the intermediate step, as it were, you've just got the start, how you feel now and how you want to feel.

Go again into your memory, go, I want to imagine myself being that way, the way I really want to be. And as I imagine myself, I've got that feeling. When did I feel that feeling before? Because I know you have.

And the reason I know you have is because you wouldn't be able to feel the bloody thing if you didn't or hadn't felt it before, because it would be so totally alien to you. So go into that feeling, go into that and then just guide yourself back into a memory when you felt it before. And as you go back into that memory, just notice how comfortable you feel, because sometimes we never know when we're safe and being protected because we're just in the moment.

We're feeling comfortable. We're just doing what we're doing and we're enjoying it. We only feel unsafe, fearful, anxious.

But in that feeling of how you want to be, there is no anxiety. There is no fear. It's just you being the way you want to be.

And because of that, you are totally safe because you're seeing yourself being totally safe. Now, what we're doing here, we are creating counter examples. So when you go back into your memories, you go, there was a time when I was, it doesn't matter how old you were, there was a time when I felt that way.

It's a counter example to your unconscious mind saying, look, you're creating this anxiety for me, you're creating this negative feeling, this fear, whatever it is, I shouldn't be here, the imposter, whatever all that stuff is, that one, you're creating that I know to protect me, to keep me safe, but it doesn't feel good, therefore I'm not protected. But if I felt that way, just like I did in the past, wouldn't that be a better way? And guess what, Mr. Mrs. Unconscious Mind, you were with me, you were helped choosing that way of being. So you've done it before.

And now, when you get that feeling from the past, a real memory now, not a made up, not a made up imagination, bit of engineering, as it were, of a feeling, you're now going back into your own past, your own experience, that says, yes, I've done this, and this is why I felt, and then you can take that feeling and just imagine doing it. Imagine going through what you're planning to do with this feeling again. And as you do that, just keep saying this or something better and feel how good it feels.

And the more you do this, the more your unconscious mind is going to start going, yeah, we're going to do this. In fact, it will start to believe you've already done it. And therefore, there is no fear, there is no anxiety, because you've done it successfully, you've done it feeling comfortably, and your unconscious mind knows how to keep you safe and protected.

Does that make sense? It makes sense to me, because I know it works. But I hope I've communicated in a way that is clear. It's not difficult.

It is simple. And some people go, oh, Paul, is it really going to work? Because it's that simple. Just imagine how you want to feel, then go to a memory, then you felt it and then put it out there.

You know, imagine it happening with that feeling. Yes, it is. It's that simple.

It takes effort, though. So don't just think, oh, I know all of this, because if you know all of this, and you still got these negative feelings, you're not doing it, are you? Knowing is not the same as doing. Mastery is doing what you know, and knowing what you do.

And then learning from that and moving on. So this is simple. It is easy.

But it takes effort. How much? Not that much. And if you really want to be and experience life the way you want it, this is just a few minutes work.

Please go do it. And when you do it, and you experience the wonderful feelings and the success and going through those events just the way you wanted it, then you can start to imagine doing even more. Even asking your question, now I can do this.

With this confidence in my competence, what I've learned, what else can I do? What can I do this even more? How can I enjoy life, creating this adventure of life for myself? Now, sometimes when we get to that point, something comes along, go, whoa, that's the time to let me know. I'd like an email, one on your successes, so we can all celebrate them together. The second one is if there's anything that comes up, go, oh, actually, a limiting belief has just come up.

Or this, I'm thinking about it, but I'm getting resistance somewhere. It's, I know it's good for me, but I just can't move past this. Let me know by an email.

And we'll do another longer podcast to really hone down or hone down. Which one is it? Hone or hone? But we'll hone something out, a process that will allow you to then let that go and move even more. That's what we're here for.

And this is what I want these longer podcasts to be. I want them to be in-depth. This is quite, I would say, not of a serious level.

It's serious to us, of course, but it's not like manic depression and things like that. But we are going to go into more serious subjects as well. Because even if you haven't got those serious issues, you might know of somebody who has, but also you can go, well, I can still use the processes on lighter things just because they're used for heavy things.

Same processes for use for lighter issues. I mean, this thing that we've done will create change for any issue. It may not break it completely, but it will certainly loosen that grip that it has over you.

And it will start to make steps towards the way you want to go. I know it will. That's what happens.

So with that, please go do it. Give me the feedback, feedback, a personal development, unplug those emails and make sure you subscribe. I love you to share these things, but it's a subscription.

It's better if you can share it to a person, to a friend, and they subscribe too, because it means more people get to these processes that are going to make a change for them. And we never know when we're going to need them. So keep listening, keep subscribing, and I'll keep doing the same for you.

So please enjoy and do it with curiosity and fun. Because that's the way we make changes really quickly. Because we can.

The change is not magic, but it's magical. So you go enjoy every heartbeat. Until the next time, my friend, I'll be with you.

It's Paul. Bye-bye now. Personal development unplugged.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited

Personal development [Unplugged] [podcast][NLP][Hypnosis][self development]self improvement][awareness]