Show notes
Taming the Mind: Tools to Stop Worrying Hey there, friend! Do you ever feel like your mind is constantly racing with worries you can't quiet? Well, in this episode of the Personal Development Unplugged Podcast, we're going to take on that noisy "monkey mind" and discover how to transform those endless worries into clarity and peace. I'm going to walk you through what's really going on when that chatter takes over. We'll dig into why worry shows up in the first place and how you can acknowledge it without letting it control you. By the end of this episode, you'll have some super practical tools to break free from overthinking and start creating a mindset that's both calmer and more confident. Picture this: waking up tomorrow with a peaceful mind, ready to take on the day with ease. Sound good? Together, we'll explore how to make that a reality. I'll share simple but powerful techniques like practising gratitude and writing down your worries to help you regain control and move past the cycle of anxious thinking. Anxiety doesn't have to run the show. It's time to shift your perspective, break old patterns, and start finding healthier ways to navigate those swirling thoughts. This episode is packed with helpful insights and exercises to help you reconnect with your best self and truly enjoy the journey ahead. Ready to tame your mind? Let's dive in! I'd love to hear your thoughts—share what you learn and this episode with others https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/431-taming-the-mind-from-anxiety-and-worry 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]. Subscribe to the Podcast 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. Special Programs for You For tools on developing Supreme Inner Confidence, finding Freedom from Anxiety, or specialized Hypnosis Tracks, visit PaulCloughOnline.com. 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. Find Us on Other Platforms Catch the podcast on Spotify, Castbox, iHeart Radio, YouTube, or on our Libsyn page. Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨ Music Credits Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic, and others from Pixabay. 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]. Subscribe to the Podcast 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. Special Programs for You For tools on developing Supreme Inner Confidence, finding Freedom from Anxiety, or specialized Hypnosis Tracks, visit PaulCloughOnline.com. 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. Find Us on Other Platforms Catch the podcast on Spotify, Castbox, iHeart Radio, YouTube, or on our Libsyn page. Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨ Music Credits 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, my friend, how you doing? How you doing? Hopefully you're really, really well. Really well. It's pull from, as you know, it's the personal development unplugged. Trying to break down some complicated stuff, making it into simple changes, simple steps, things that we can achieve without overwhelm. Because so many people make this genre so difficult or they don't tell you the how. They tell you the what and, not the how. And here I'm going to tell you the how, the what and everything in between. And hopefully make it so simple. Because Paul here, Cloughie. I can't do complicated. Complicated just does my brain in. In simplicity there is genius. In simplicity there is genius. Taming the Mind is an easy way to stop worrying Anyway, what we're going to talk about today. What are we talking about today? Taming the Mind. tools to stop worrying. Big title, Taming the Mind. You know, think about it now. Have you ever experienced, I think, what people call the monkey mind chattering away? It's there all the time. If you're worrying about something, you're either talking to yourself and you don't realize you're talking to yourself about how bad things could be, what's gonna happen, and imagining the worst, or you're just imagining the worst, and seeing it. And it's like a loop, isn't it? It's just a loop that keeps going round, round, round and around and round. And it doesn't get smaller, it gets bigger. It starts to affect everything else because instead of this one little issue that you had, it's now spiraled out of control. That's when it gets really big. And obviously, if things are getting that big, really, really, really, really big, I do suggest go and get one to one therapy. Suggest it every time. And I think, you know, get a really great hypnotist, an NLP practitioner, somebody does timeline therapy, they'll smash it for you that quickly. But we're talking about just getting that, that monkey mind, that chattering mind, that continual thing of what we always. But we all seem together. It's a big generalization, Cloughie. But that's what we get, you know, when worry becomes. Or seems to be endless, doesn't it, sometimes? And it's so hard. I know I'm gonna tell you this and you're gonna think, yeah, of course it is cluy. But it is trying to do you some bloody good. Worry has a positive intention. But when you can't seem to think straight and you can't think of anything else and you get that bloody overwhelm. And it can lead to little panic attacks, can't it? It does lead to a loss of performance in other areas of our life. It does affect our, communication with people, our connection with people, our relationships. You know, we get short with people, we get angry sometimes we just flip and we know it's wrong, you know it's not the right thing to do. But somehow it just triggers that all for this wonderful positive intention. I'm trying to keep you safe, which is really weird. and we'll go through that weirdness of that. So that's where we're going. We're going to dive deeply in a nice easy way to how to stop this overthinking. And m. We're not gonna do any usual way. I m want to say the usual way. We're going toa do it in my way. Bits of, maybe not quite hypnosis, but sort of a little bit of visualization, a little bit of deeper thinking. And may we're just seeing things from a different perspective because when you look at things differently, the things you look at become different. And that's what this is all about. And also understanding this positive intention. Because when you get that, and when you get the positive intention and you also get your unconscious mind to understand, there's a conflict for what it's trying to do for you and what it's actually producing. That's when the big changes work, the big changes come into it and we can access those changes. So that's where we're going. Imagine waking up tomorrow with a clear mind and feeling confident and competent So first, first imagine. Imagine this. This is a real great thing to do. Imagine this if you were, to wake up one morning, maybe tomorrow morning. Maybe tomorrow morning. If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and you open your eyes and it didn't matter what the weather was doing. It could be pissing down, it could be sunshine, it could be anything. But you wake up and you've got a lovely clear mind and you just feel comfortable. You feel like you can do what you need to do. You feel. Call it in control. You've got a lovely clear mind. And you just know the day is going toa be okay. And things will happen, but you'll deal with them. I mean, how would that be? How would that be? Imagine it now, waking up with that clear mind. What would you see? What would you see as you opened your eyes? How would you see the world? Would it be a little bit Brighter? Would it be as it is now, the real world? What would your internal pictures in your mind look like for the day ahead? What would you hear? Maybe you'd start to hear the real world outside or the real world inside. Wherever you're waking up just there, the noise, the noise of being alive. And when you're seeing the day and the days ahead, they're going to be okay, and you're hearing the noise in a nice way, how would that make you feel? Not only, I guess, not only comfortable, but it probably be a little bit more confident, competent, maybe you're a little bit curious, maybe a little bit more grateful. I don't know, what would you be doing? What would you start doing? And I think for me, when I think about this, because I do think about this a lot, I'd be connecting more. I'd connect, be connecting more with others in a nicer way, a kinder way. And I do write about that in my journal of how can I be kinder, thoughtful. Because I could focus on other people and that connection, listening and being interested. But also I'd be connecting with myself more because I'd be in tune with myself. I'd be, you know, we call it being a lion, being congruent. It'd just be so different, wouldn't it? Imagine that. Now imagine that. Wouldn't that be great? And the thing is, here's one of the kickers. If you can imagine it, it's possible. And now some people say, oh, is this the law of attraction cluy that we. No, it's nothing to do with the law of attraction. If you believe in the law attraction, by the way, it's everything to do with the law attraction. There's a reticulating, activating system that's hard wired in your neurology as well. It means you tend to see the things you focus on more. As I say, when you look at things differently, the things you look at appear differently, but you will see the world differently. It'd be awesome, wouldn't it? And now what I was saying about the imagination is the reason I believe that if you can imagine it is possible, it's because something inside you has allowed you to imagine it. It gives you that little bit of hope and hope gives that belief that it is possible. Now I like to imagine things 200% more than they could be because I know if I do that I might just get even more than I, I believe. Maybe there's a little bit of doubt sometimes creeps in, but because I can Imagine it. And it gives me that wonderful feeling of the things I'll see and hear and be doing. It makes me motivated. It becomes a. Why, as it were? It's the value, the importance of it. That, is a lovely thing to do, wasn't it? And you can do it anyt time, by the way. That's one thing you could do whenever you. Whenever you choose. And you got that little bit of monkey mind. Oh, hang on a m minute. What would it be like if I woke up tomorrow morning and it was gone? What would it be like? Or you could say, what would happen if I had a cup of coffee and it went just like that? How I spend the rest of the day? You can just play with it in your mind no one can control your imagination other than you. And it's all about showing your unconscious mind. All the things we're doing today is showing your unconscious mind. There's a better way. And I believe that your unconscious mind, because it's here to protect you in the best way it can when it finds a better way, is shown a better way, it has to move towards that better way. It has to take it on. There are many ways to use mindfulness, not just one way So anyway, we've got that part, but how do we really get into this? We're doing the how bit now. Yeah, the how. Well, first for me, I know it doesn't seem good because this chattering monkey mind, this mind that's sort of untamed because we're taming the monkey mind, taming the worry, the anxiety, first of all, we know it has a positive intention. So acknowledge the intention. You know, if your best friend's trying to help you, but maybe not doing it in quite the right way, but their intention is good. Say thank you. Thanks for trying your bloody best. I, know you're trying, but I think we need to acknowledge together that it's not really working. How do we know it's not working? Because it doesn't feel good. You know, if you're trying to protect me from something, it isn't working because I don't feel protected. And if I don't feel protected for whatever reason, it's not working. And, that direct conflict is you're allowing me to feel anxious, maybe scared, maybe fear, maybe there's panic you feel in the blank. And if your unconscious mind is trying to protect you from something which would then stop you being anxious, scared, fearful, panicky. You fill in the blank, then that's a direct conflict. What it's doing is directly opposite to what its intention is. And once we acknowledge it, acknowledge that you want to keep the intention, just say to yourself, you know, I appreciate what you're doing for me, it's not working. But I really want you to keep trying to keep me safe, keep me comfortable, keep me successful, keep me enjoying life. Becauseluy says, and now I believe there's better ways. And I said ways, plural, because there are so many better ways to be in the world, not just one way. Because that's what your unconscious mind has been doing. It's been doing the one thing over and over again from the very start. The cause of this worry and we'renna show. Show your unconscious mind, your best friend. There are so many better ways. So many better ways. So that's the how. But is it Cloughie? No, it isn't the how. That's the start of the how. Then we go to, well, what are the steps I could do? What things can I do? I've got this panicking situation, I've got some anxiety, you know, I'm feeling unconfident now. Some people would go, let's get mindful. Going to the moment, going to the present. That's bloody hard. That really is quite hard to go from one to the other. Said, you know, it's that metaphor I keep telling over and over again. When you want to jump the stream and it's too wide and you're just going toa fall in and get absolutely wet, and you're then worse than before, it's too big a jump. There is a great way to use mindfulness, and we're going to use it shortly in a small step. But I think what we can do instead of mindful, we can just be grateful. How can I be grateful about myself? Well, you can be grateful for anything How can I be grateful? Well, you can be grateful for anything. I know the act of gratitude and everyone goes, oh, my family this and that. That, yeah, that's a little bit by rote. But I want you to be grateful about your family, your friends, the things that you, you're grateful for, you know, to be alive to where you live or what, your job or just wandering around, that you're here in this lovely planet Earth, little old planet, Earth. You're part of it. But there are other things you could be grateful for. And it's about yourself. Now you can say, well, what is that about? How can I be grateful about myself? Well, a long time ago I created, and I think I did create this. I don't claim creation of a lot of things, but one of the things, because I was having a really black Time and I needed to get out of the real black worry and anxiety I was having. Then I had to find some qualities of myself. I had to be grateful myself. And it was so difficult. And I made this mind map of my qualities. And in fact we've taken that into trainings. All sorts of things about being what you, what are your qualities about you? What can you do? One of them is I was so bad I couldn't think of anything other than, well, I'm alive and I'm breathing. That's a sort of quality because I'm here. Well, if you go to hash 78. So it's a longer podcast. 78 it was all about my qualities. And then I did a hypnosis track 78.1. And if you're on things like cast box and things like that, which sometimes have a, search button, you just put my qualities or qualities on, the personal development app or podcasts and you'll find it. That's a great thing to listen to because you can find things about yourself and it's not ego, it's just things that you could be grateful and thankful about about you. And I think you can take this even further you can think about it. And as you think of one, you think of another because it's after a while it starts to get a little easier and they start to flow through your mind. But the trouble is once you get to about four, you've forgotten the first three and you get to five and you forget the first four and it just, you know what I'm going to say. Write the buggers down. I love to journal on them. And m, you know, if you've got this worry going on, what would happen if you sat down just for 10 minutes and wrote down my qualities? Do it as a mind map, listen to the hypnosis track or just write those things down. Set time aside. Now if you wanted to, here's another thing you could do. So you're doing my qualities, but I want to get this stuff out of my head because it's looping in my head. I'm going to set down 15 minutes to worry. That seems weird. Well, If I allow 15 minutes to worry, the rest of the day is my own. But how'you worry? Well, I'm going to worry by getting those worries out on paper. Because if it's gonn bugger my brain up with all the looping and the worrying and stopping me doing this and creating negative emotions in me and limiting beliefs, I want to get them out on paper. What am I actually worrying about? And you put it on paper. I have a thing called a puzzle book. And it's just a book with plain pages in it. Could be you can have graph paper in it, you can have line paper. I like playing. Cause I like this throwing things around and just throw those worries out. What am I really worried about today? What is, you know what worry is that is causing me to have this monkey brain. The thoughts and the pictures in my mind and write them down. So I'm worried about meeting this person, or I'm worried about this meeting, or I'm worried about, you know, something's wrong in my career. I'm worried about, this argument I had with my partner. Get it on paper. What exactly is it? Not the bullshit you got in your mind that spiraled out of control. What exactly? Specifically specific. I can't say that word. I want it. It's on the tip of my tongue. Specificity. That's the word. Get into specificity. Write the bugger down and set this time. 15 minutes or whatever you want. I'm going to spend this time. Nothing is go. Goingna get in my way. I'm going to dump this down. Because when you do that, what can you do next? Well, you can start to look for better ways. Now, before we jump into those better ways, there's a couple of things you could do to break the pattern as well. Because you start, you've loaded it all out on a piece of paper. And sometimes you want to need a breath so you can actually stop, you can pause and breathe and then take action. Stop or pause, stop, breathe and then take a action. Now if you wanted to, you could do things like there's all sorts of breathing patterns. You can find them forever. But a lovely thing is box breathing. I say that again. Box breathing, which is breathe in for 4 or 5, hold for 4 or 5, breathe out for 4 or 5, hold for four or five. And imagine a square. I sometimes look at a window and I just go round the sides and the tops and the bottoms of that window. Breathing. And it just brings everything down because you can't think of anything else. If you're really counting to five and your eyes are going across an imaginary box, it will bring things down and it will break that pattern. And then if you want to, you can start to look at, better ways. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Or you could. And I think this is the brilliant thing to do. And this is that bit where I started saying well, mindfulness is too big a jump or go for a walk. But go for a walk with intention. Caus it could be like exercise. So you're gonna put a little bit of effort into it because once you start moving your muscles, things change. How would you rather be instead of worrying about preparing for a meeting And then you decide to look for the beauty in the world for the moment. Pay attention. Pay attention to the colors around you. Pay attention to the sounds. Pay attention to what you see, what you hear, the different things maybe pay attention to the people around. Look at their faces, look at the way they're dressed. Look at the, what impressions you get from them. Let your imagination run on that. I wonder where they're going. I wonder what they're thinking about. They look happy. O they look a little, a little bit down. I wonder if I could, what could help that. Pay attention and just go for that 10 minute walk. Maybe everything is 10 minutes. You can do longer, but 10 minutes is easy. And then you're, are you actually being mindful? And it's a lovely pattern. Interrupt and then you come back, you set aside another five or 10 minutes and go, do you know what? I've written down all this. I've really broken down what I'm worried about now. And it's not as big as it was because it was generalizing everywhere. I've got the specificity of it now. What's the better way? How would I like to be and visualize it and then visualize another way and then another way. Because there's more than one way. Some may give you a 10 out of 10, some may only give you a 5 out of 10 in better. But if you notice they're all better because what you're doing is looking for better ways. You'looking for anyway, you're looking for better ways. And as you do it and you think that's a better way, you visualize yourself doing it. You might want to see yourself doing it and then jump into your body and then come back out of your body and feel it. So what we're saying is how would you rather be? That's a way of visualizing a better way. How would I rather be? As opposed to trying to think of a solution, you think to yourself, how would I rather be? And you see, sometimes you have to think, go back to that worry page again. what is that worrying trying to do for me? We're going to do it a different way. Look for that intention. Well, maybe it's trying, you know, trying to get me to prepare for something, but it's making me worry about all that preparation that I'm getting overwhelmed so I'm not doing it. But the positive intention is to get me to prepare so I'm going to be okay. Maybe it's preparing to just get ready, or maybe it's getting me to get everything together so I don't make a fool of myself or I don't get embarrassed. You see, when you know what the intention is, you can now go, well, I know it's not working, so how would I like to be instead? Because that's the solution. You're not looking for a solution. You just say, how would I like to be instead? Because what I'd like to be, if I'm preparing, I'd like to be able to pray things in a gentle way and then be able to remember it. If I'm getting ready, I'd like to just have some time and just do it. be focused. If I don't want to make a fool of myself, well, I want to be able to act my normal way, be able to connect with all the thoughts I have and be able to just give them in a lovely conversational way. I do that to myself when I'give Q&As online. I just ask myself what would be like to just connect with as much charisma as I've got. I don't know. I haven't got a lot, but as much charisma I've got. But do, it in a lovely conversational way where I can share what I know and be able to access what I know to be able to share it. And that's it. You decide how you'd like to be in that context now. And they're your ways, no other buggers way. So don't take advice from people. You can go and ask advice if you need some help, but at the end of day it's your way. And then just imagine it, you see? But when you imagine it, you imagine it as if you couldn't fail. If I couldn't fail, how would I be? And make sure it's bloody enjoyable because you want to enjoy the experience. What's the point of doing anything, even if it's a little bit frightening that you're not going to enjoy and learn from it. So make it enjoyable and a learning experience, a positive learning experience. You can even do my magical question. I think you can find that online and it goes, what would it be like to go through whatever? And you fill in the blank. Go through that meeting, go through that talk with my partner, go through that thing or go and meet people or whatever it was and describe the desired feelings you want, the behavurs you want. What would you do to enjoy the process and just ask that question what would be like? What do we like to do? This wonderful podcast about taming the mind and being able to share my thoughts in such a wonderful way that it will inspire others to find their best ways and for me to enjoy the process and learn from it. There you go. That's all you do. You can write it down if you like because it works. Then you can go and do that imagineering again can and imagine the way you want it to be. If you couldn't fail it would be like this. And then you act as if we've got all these things on either hypnosis. In poolclugonline.com podcast you'll find hypnosis tracks on things like actors. If my qualities, they're all there, just go get it. Say again porclugonline.com podcast and you get access a personal link to all those nearly 70 hypnosis tracks now and rinse and repeat. Keep doing it whenever you get a minute. I'm just going to imagine doing things the way I want it to be. How enjoyable could I make it? What a wonderful question. How exciting. Can I make it? How? Whatever, whatever. You fill in the blank. Could you make it? And that's an open ended question for your best friend, your unconscious mind to go oh bloody show you. And you show it in your imagination and then you ask for this or something better. There you go. Break pattern by getting things out on paper, maybe going for a walk So what have we done? Well, we've acknowledged that it's not working. We haven't berated ourselves, we haven't shouted at ourselves and we've done enough of that. But we've just acknowledged to our unconscious mind our best friend that we've got a lovely positive attention. But it's not bloody working. And we need to break that pattern. Break the pattern by getting things out on paper, maybe going for that walk. So you go for a walk, you breathe, you box breathe and you get the worries is out on paper and you get into specificity to find out exactly what it is, not everything else. Then what do you do? You understand the intention, what it's trying to do for you and then you imagine the way you want it to be. This or something better. Cause you got to remember in the past you used to try to push this away and when you push it away it just comes back bloody harder and stronger until we do things like this. So you want to work with your best friend, not against you. Your best friend, because it's you at the end of the day, it's you. So get together, enjoy each other's company. Spend a little time in that gratitude. Forgot about that in what we've done. We got into gratitude and our, qualities. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that. Please share this to anyone that you feel might have a bit of worry Please share this to anyone that you feel might have a bit of worry. And guess what? That's every bugger, isn't it? We've all got a bit of worry because these, this, all the things I've told you, these wonderful easy steps and they take effort. They may be easy, may be simple in simplicity, there is genius but they just work. And everybody, everybody we know everybody has some worry of some kind. And it doesn't have to be a 10 out of 10 worry. Let's nip it in the bud. Because once you get this as a process in your mind, you'll start to do it naturally anyway. So please do share this with anybody you think would want or has a bit of worry. We know that's everybody. If you could do that, it's brilliant. If you have something, you go, well, actually Cloughie, this is great steps, but you talked about one to one and I can't really go there yet because maybe I can't afford it. Can you give me some something else, another process. Can you do something for me? Email me feedback, personal pe. I say this again s so important feedback@personalde,developmentunplugged.com tell me your issue, just in brief terms. What's happening? Was it stopping you doing and how would you like to be. And I'll come up with something. I'll guide you to a resource, but I'll also do another episode just for you, which will be for everybody. And then very lastly, very lastly. No, no. Two last things. Two lastly. So the penultimate last thing is if you could just follow if you've enjoyed this episode or previous episodes, if you just follow me on the app that you're listening to or subscribe, it makes such a huge difference to getting, this podcast and my thoughts and my things that I've learned and I want to share to more people. It just does. And lastly, have more fun than you can stand. Okay? Go fly, my friend. 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. Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]