Show notes
Why Am I Feeling Alone And Feeling........? In this powerful longer episode, I dive into the hidden causes of loneliness — why we feel alone, why it often starts as protection, and how we unintentionally reinforce it with the wrong questions. Then I'll guide you through a gentle, refined hypnosis process to help you reconnect with yourself, shift your emotions, and find comfort, peace, and connection again. Practical tools. Better questions. Deep self-work. And the reminder we all need: You are never alone. You are always with yourself. Here's The Key Takeaways Loneliness is often an unconscious protection response. You are always the centre of your own world — so get into rapport with yourself. Bad questions create bad emotional loops. Better questions create better states and better choices. Hypnosis can reconnect you to comfort, contentment, and possibility. Small steps lead you out of the familiar zone and into real change. If this helped, share it with someone who might need it today. https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/470-why-am-i-feeling-alone-and-feeling Subscribe. Follow. And wallow in pleasure at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com and paulcloughonline.com/podcast where all the free hypnosis tracks live. 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 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 So welcome to a longer podcast. Why am I feeling alone? Why am I alone and feeling... And I said dot, dot, dot, dot, dot because we feel so many different emotions when we're alone, don't we? But a long time ago, when I was... I talk about going through my dark times and things like that, but as I was coming out of it, I got more into my journaling again and in the front of a journal, I just wrote this little sentence and it just made so much more sense to me and it was, you're never alone, you're never by yourself, you're always with yourself. You see, it doesn't matter where you go, does it? You can go everywhere to try to find yourself or you can go everywhere to fucking lose yourself, can't you? Keep changing the environment, hoping something's going to happen and guess what? You're always fucking there, you're dragging yourself along. It's your shadow, you are your own shadow, remember that, but you are never alone. You're never by yourself, you are always with yourself and when we can get into a rapport with ourself, that's when I think things really start changing. Now, have you also noticed wherever you are and whoever you're with, you're the centre of your world, aren't you? It doesn't matter, everything starts and ends with you. You choose to be, act and believe, that's it, it's your choice but it's all in here, you are, whether you're in a crowd, whether you're by yourself, you're always in here, you are the centre of your world and everyone else is the centre of their world and we choose to do what we do and that's it, so we're never alone because we're the centre of our world, so we're never alone, back to the beginning, never by yourself, you're always with yourself and here's a bit of a harsh reality. Solitude, loneliness, is a choice, your choice, though when it feels it isn't, you get that feeling of maybe, I don't know, despair, sadness, you come up with a negative emotion but it doesn't feel like a choice, does it? Because why would you choose something like that? I know I've been there a couple of times, one was not good but never really, really, really bad, but I can only tell you my experience, it just didn't feel like I was choosing to be that way, why the f**k would you? Why the f**k would you? But the thing is, what I did realise and I do believe, in fact I think I know it to be right but it's a belief, it could prove anything, I think it's your unconscious mind is trying to protect us in some way, what the hell it is, I don't know, but it's trying to keep us safe from something, maybe it's from even more hurt from the outside, something on the outside has hurt us and we put the barriers up, keep inside, shut people out, but the thing is we shut everyone out, don't we? Not just the people we consider may have hurt us or the things out there that have hurt us, but we shut everyone out. So it's an unconscious decision, do this, it's a behaviour, remember behaviours can all be changed by the way, so this isn't all dark, I'm just setting the scene of how I experienced it, but it is an unconscious process to protect you, and the thing is, I said this to everyone, wouldn't it be lovely, wouldn't it be great, wouldn't it be paradise, wouldn't it be absolutely the end of the world, if you knew, you could never be hurt, or you could do things and not feel hurt inside, and that's where the conflict comes in you see, because in order to protect us from being hurt, we're actually feeling hurt through this solitude, this loneliness, you know, through the feelings of despair, sadness or whatever, you fill in the bloody blank, it just doesn't feel good, and as a protection mechanism, I think it needs to be changed, don't you? If you could change it you would, wouldn't you? So, what do we choose instead of that isolation, what do we choose? Well actually, we tend to choose until we let it go, more isolation, more pain, because in some way it's now become familiar to us, isn't it? Because I don't call it a comfort zone, I call it a familiar zone, it's not comfortable, but we are familiar with this pain now, and we're not sure what's on the outside, and that can be a little bit scary, and we think it's the unknown, but we actually know it, we've walled it away, we've put a defence, an armour up, some type of war against all of this, we can't see through this pain, this despair, this sadness, this, you fill in the blank, to what's on the other side, it's that wonderful metaphor, a little brief one which says, when you're in the jar, you can't read the label. Now, here's the thing, I'm going to put myself in your position, your voice, and say, hey Cluffy, you keep telling me it's a bloody choice, don't you? Keep telling me a choice, do you think I'd choose this? That's what you're saying, isn't it? Do you think I'd choose this way? And I said, you know, that's what we say to ourselves, and yes, I do believe that it's a choice, but going back to what I said a minute ago, it's not a conscious choice, because consciously you would change if you could, but your unconscious mind says, I know better, I'm trying to protect you even more, and some time ago in the past, you know, it bloody worked, it had to have worked, your unconscious mind wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't work. As a prime director of your unconscious mind, it has to keep you healthy, and it has to keep you safe. And that's it, full stop. Keep you healed, keep you healthy, and well, healing, and keep you safe. Well, there's loads more, little bits, but they're the two prime directors of your unconscious mind. And one of the reasons I think it's reinforced as well, and you tell me if I'm wrong, is I know your unconscious mind is doing this more and more and more, more and more intense, hence we're getting these intense feelings of loneliness, sadness, despair, and all that stuff. It needs to be guided to a better way, but until we start talking to ourselves differently, what are you talking about? What I'm saying is, it's the questions that we ask ourselves. And the questions are, well, they're questions, but you don't always realise you're questioning yourself. The things like, why the hell is this happening to me? Why won't this ever end? Why me? And your unconscious mind is a wonderful servant, you see, it will go away through all your memories, memories of the past, and find examples of why it won't end. Examples of why it's all about you, why it's always happening. You see, they won't fit the whole, but they're close enough and it jams them in. Because you've asked what I would call a fucking boggy question. Now, what are yours? I've just told you a few, they must have been mine, I reckon. But what are your questions that you continually ask yourself? They may be things like, why me? You know, you hear people say, you know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me, and it bloody does, because they're setting things up. So what are your questions? What are your questions? The answers will come to you. If they're out there, on that piece of paper, guess what? You'll start to realise this isn't the right question to ask, it's just not. And your unconscious mind is always listening to you. It's always earwigging there, what's that question? I'll go and get the answer, I'll go to find proper answers, because they're just bonky answers. But if you're going to ask a stupid question, you're going to get stupid answers. And I know you're not doing it deliberately. It's just a thing that we naturally go to through those emotions. So they're like, they're feeding themselves. So I want you to just get them on paper to notice, you know, how bonky they are, how asking that question, you don't really want to know that answer, because it doesn't really matter. Why? Yeah, why? Why does this happen to me? Who cares how we want to think of a better question? I don't want to know why. I don't want to know, you know, why it won't end. I want to know how we can get move on. So I want you to choose your questions, your thoughts in a better way. And what might better questions be? Let's have a think together. Let's have a think together. Well, maybe, I don't know, how can I learn from this? How can I learn from this? Because there's something happening in my life that I can learn from. Now, we don't know what it is. But it's a much more positive question. Because if I can learn from things, if I can maybe learn, oh, I can see what I'm doing. And now I can maybe do it in a different way. How can I, you know, how can I use this to grow? That's a radically different question. How can we use this to grow? Because if you think about it, we've generally grown out of all our negative experiences, we tend to grow so much more through them than the positive ones, because the positive ones, we just wallow in them, we love them. But it's those things that have happened in our past, that have been a little bit, you know, on the hurtful side, they've been more, I know, more significant, say, they're more a significant event in your life, you tend to learn from those. And the things when you've learned, guess what happens? The pain of that event disappears. The negative emotion of that disappears, the limiting belief that you had around yourself disappears. In mine, I got so unconfident about myself, my self-confidence had completely gone. But now that has gone, because I learned from what was happening at that time. And as things changed, I got more, I got my old confidence back and more, I grew from it. Maybe a question of how can I change now to feel? And you fill in the blank, how do you want to feel? Now, some people would go, well, I want to feel super confident, super this, super that. No, no, how about just comfortable? Let's just go to comfortable for the moment. So what do I need to do to let this go and be comfortable? How can I replicate the times in my past when I've been comfortable? Maybe I've been content. Maybe I've been connected. Yeah. Because we've always felt somewhere in your life, you felt connected. Somewhere in your life, you feel comfortable, content, you have. So you could bring them back to mind, couldn't you? And go, ah, just notice the difference between how that feels and how you felt a few minutes ago, or you've been feeling for the last God knows how long. How many ways can I reach out to others? Who could help me? What skills do I have to be able to change? What do I need to learn to be able to change? These are great questions, aren't they? Here's another one. If this was easy to change, what would that be like? And that question, once you've gone through those others, because they start, they start to come out. And I think then you finish off with this type of question. You know, this was easy to get this, this and this. What would that be like? You tend to see answers, because the answer to that question is, how would it be easy? Yes, you're going to put effort into it. But you're finding the simple way and in simplicity, there's genius. So what would that be like? So the list does go on and I want you to write those down, follow mine, write mine out, and then let your own mind come up with new positive. Are they positive about the future? Are they positive about being the way you want to be? Now you know from the previous longer podcast about being where you want to be and your goals and things like that. This is great. But this is something else. Again, they all add together. One of these will break that. I don't like to say break the camel's back, but you know, one of these will be the last straw that gets you back into the you you should be, the you you really are, the you you deserve to be. So whatever you do, if you're going to use therapy to help you get over this, because you've got to do something. Now you know you've chosen it unconsciously and your unconscious mind needs to choose a different way. You can help it, find a better way, notice how you want to feel, then ask the questions of how do you get there? What have you got to learn to be there? What have I got to change to be there? Who have I got to talk to to get there? All that stuff. But whether you choose therapy or do it yourself, this will help. So if there's no one around, by the way, no one around, or you can find a space where you're not going to be disturbed, where you do not need any, you don't need your attention to do anything like driving, in charge of machinery or people or anything, where you just sit down quietly for maybe just five minutes, come with me for five minutes and find a nice quiet spot. If it's safe to do so, only ever if it's safe to do so. If it isn't, just press pause. And when you've got five minutes, then you can press play to either do that now or just find that quiet space and close your eyes. And as you close your eyes, just breathe. Breathe normally. And as you breathe normally, well, just allow your out breath to take you deep inside. That's right. Just for a moment. And thank your unconscious mind. Your best friend. Your best friend. It is your best friend. For doing what it's been doing. Yeah, I know it's been rough. More than that, I know. But if you're trying to protect the best way, it knew how back then. And now we're going to search for a better way. Because there's so many better ways. So just breathe. And remember, you can say these words in your mind with your inner voice or just let my words go in. Just remember, I'm never alone. I'm never by myself. I'm always with myself, with you, my unconscious mind, striving to keep me safe. And just begin to imagine if the isolation, the loneliness, the despair and all those things were to disappear right now. Right now it's gone. Completely gone. And you could just feel comfortable in yourself, comfortable in the world. Maybe a little content. Maybe a little at peace. Just notice somewhere in your body now, there's a place where that feeling of comfortableness resides. But peace. Content. And allow your unconscious mind to draw you down there now, just for a moment or two. And from there, just begin to notice you can ask a question of your best friend. And we're going to ask wonderful questions. I know you're trying to protect me. Did I feel unsafe? You fill in the blank. But how can I use this now to change and be comfortable? Be content to find peace? What things can you do for me? From all the wonderful things you've done in the past, all my experiences, to have me feel connected, positive for the future? What steps do I need to make now to grow and become the person I'm destined to be? Because I can grow. That's right. You could ask your unconscious mind to go through all your wonderful experiences when you've, you have felt safe. You have felt content. And take the essence of those memories, the skills that you used unconsciously, and project that into the future. And how can I use these wonderful skills to be different? To be whole. To feel good about myself. That's right. And what would it be like to let go of all these negative emotions? And live a life of wonder. Live a life of wonder. Maybe joy. Love and bliss. And I want you to begin to just notice what bliss might feel like. Make it up. Imagine, create it. And how comfortable that would feel in the future. Imagine your future being filled with connection, learnings, enjoyment, love, joy. Fulfillment. Yeah, being fulfilled. And send that to your unconscious mind, that feeling. And ask, how can we get to these feelings instead? Because these are the feelings that make me feel really protected. And thank your unconscious mind for doing what it's done. And thank your unconscious mind for what it's going to do in the future. To apply all these wonderful things, answers to your questions. Just for a moment, take a moment just to rest in this feeling. And maybe just say thank you. And this or something better. And believe it. And from there, with a wonderful sense of gratitude, take a wonderful in-breath with me. Let it out. Open your eyes and come back into the real world. And I want you now to start to look at maybe different places you can find instruction of how to change, how you want to change. There's lots of episodes here. Lots of hypnosis tracks. But most of all, maybe just get a little book and write down the ways you want to feel. Write down some of those really good questions. Think about things that if you did them, they'd make you feel the way you want to feel. Yes, we can have big and we can have small. Start with the small, but write the big ones down too. So you get these feelings that are going to pull you. Instead of being pushed, you're going to be pulled into the future with motivation. And just keep asking wonderful questions and keep thinking of wonderful things that you could do. Maybe they are big. As I said, they may be big and you think it's a bit too big. Yeah, but what's the first step along the way? What's the first step along the way? If you listen to the last longer podcast, it gives you an idea of how to do those steps and to make it easy. They're all here. If you need some help, you know what to do. Email me feedback at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. I'm the only bugger here. So if there's some things that we can then start asking better questions, have a better little process where I can guide you to a hypnosis process or things like that, or an episode, I can do that for you. Please share this because you may not be lonely. You may, like me, have been lonely and come back. But if you see somebody, you know, we ask that question, are you okay? And they go, yeah, fine. No, but really, yeah, fine. Are you sure? Well, actually, just pass this on because you don't have to be total isolation, total despair, total down, but just a little bit. Let's nip it in the bud because this will nip it in the bud. Asking the right questions, looking in the right direction. The past doesn't exist. It's only now. So create the way you want to feel right now, because you can. Enjoy every heartbeat, share, subscribe and do all that stuff. Sorry for the swearing, but that's what we do. Have fun. I'll see you on the next one. Bye-bye. Be brave, my friend. Personal development unplugged. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited Personal development [Unplugged] [podcast][NLP][Hypnosis][self development]self improvement][awareness]