Show notes
Vulnerability Starts Here – Inside Everyone's talking about vulnerability… But most of it starts in the wrong place. In this episode of Personal Development Unplugged, I slow it right down and take the pressure off. Because real vulnerability isn't about oversharing, trauma-dumping, or spilling your guts to the nearest person who'll listen. It starts inside. This episode is about learning how to be honest with yourself first — safely, simply, and in a way that actually creates change. Inside this episode, I guide you through two powerful, practical steps you can use whether you're struggling right now, carrying something from the past, or just want better emotional resilience for whatever comes next. No forcing. No reliving trauma. No pressure to "open up" before you're ready. Just awareness, understanding, and control. What you'll experience in this episode: Why vulnerability is often misunderstood (and why oversharing isn't the answer) How being honest with yourself changes everything A simple internal process to acknowledge emotions without drowning in them How to work with the part of you that's been "pushing it down" A powerful visualisation to safely explore honesty with someone you respect How to gain insight without needing anyone else present Why vulnerability doesn't have to be uncomfortable, messy, or embarrassing How small internal shifts create real-world confidence and connection This episode includes guided internal processes and creative visualisation, designed to help your unconscious mind let go of what it no longer needs — gently, respectfully, and effectively. If you've ever thought: "If only they knew how I really felt…" …this one's for you. Listen. Experience. Then pay it forward. https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/474-vulnerability-starts-here-inside Key Takeaways Vulnerability starts with honesty to yourself, not exposure to others Acknowledging emotions is different from accepting or reliving them Internal safety comes before external sharing You can gain insight and relief without involving anyone else When you feel safe inside, vulnerability becomes natural, not forced Your Call to Action If this episode resonated: Subscribe so you don't miss the deeper dives Share this episode with someone who might need it Email me at [email protected] if there's something you want help with 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 #474 Vulnerability starts here - Inside So welcome. Vulnerability starts here. If you listen to FMQ 525, you'll have got into a little bit where we said, or I said, it seems to me like everyone, everyone and his bloody dog seems to go on about being so bloody vulnerable. You know, just spill it all out there. As if it's that easy. Just spill it out. Just all out to anybody, whoever's there, whoever's close enough to listen. Now, for most of us, it's not that easy. Because it's private, isn't it? Don't like to share these things. And really, sometimes and most of the time, it's not usually appropriate because maybe the circumstance or the context is not appropriate, or the person you're sharing with. It's not an appropriate person to share it with. And most of all, you need to be, well, be vulnerable. You can't be vulnerable to every dick, Tom or Harry or Tom, Dick and Harry, as we say in the UK. And I want to take the pressure off. Because I know you're not one of these people who just, you know, spill it all out. Because that's inappropriate. You know, sometimes you had it when someone tells you too much too soon. You know, it's overwhelming. And it's embarrassing, isn't it? You hide, you want to get away. And you don't want to be that person. And you're not that person. So I want to take the pressure off. And I want to take the pressure off by sharing with you some very simple first steps. Simple first steps, we know what simplicity is. Simplicity is genius. In simplicity, there's genius. And these steps, well, I think they just work. Because they work in a very special way. They start at the core. And I believe it will allow you to be in control. Be in control and truly understand your specific vulnerability, because everyone's bloody different, isn't it? But these two steps, processes, call them what you will. They allow for that. They allow the general, but they're specific, because they allow you to add to the process, your specific needs, your specific issue. Because I've designed it so they're just for you. And I think that's something that, well, it's just going to work. Now, way back in that FMQ, I sort of hinted, or I might have been very direct. Being vulnerable, I think, is about being honest. Honest with ourselves first. Fuck the rest. It's about being honest with ourselves first. No excuses. No reasons why you can't understand, or don't want to understand, because we're going to find out. You know, we've got that confirmation bias, we're going to put that to one side. No excuses, because when you become vulnerable to yourself, I believe things just get different. They become different. They become easy to understand. And it's the understanding of our issues, from a distance, not in it. Can't read the label when you're in the jar, but we're just going to be honest. And in that way, we don't need to ask for help at this moment, because when we suffer, when we suffer issues and don't ask for help, it's like pushing it down, doesn't it? Because being vulnerable to others, and it is helpful, by the way, it is helpful when we've done these two processes, by the way, these two steps. Being vulnerable to others and being honest, it's really fucking hard. But when you get this understanding, and you find the right person, man, it'll change. And you don't always have to find the right person to be vulnerable to. Because when you go through these steps, being vulnerable can just be like being yourself. And what would that be like? Being yourself in amongst others, and with yourself. That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? I know that feeling. I've struggled with that feeling. And it's a dream. At that time, it was a dream to be so open, but in control of that openness. But what tends to happen, I think is, and if you're like me, you're going through an issue. And you're thinking, if only they knew how bad I feel, if only you over there knew how bad I feel, how isolated I feel, how alone this feeling makes me inside now, frightened, scared. Sometimes you're scared to face it. Because it's uncomfortable. But follow me, come with me, because it doesn't have to be uncomfortable. Because we don't have to know, we no longer then have to push it down. We don't. We're not going to push it down. You see, and you may be thinking, you may be thinking to yourself, well, I'm listening to this old boy, this Cloughie, and I don't seem to have those issues. I'm fine. I don't think you're being honest. Not that, not right now, maybe you're fine right now, but you've had issues in the past. Well, I bet you haven't shared it. Maybe you had that little voice, if only they knew. I'm a little bit frightened. I'm a little bit isolated. I'm a little bit alone. I feel frightened and scared. Push it down a little bit. Don't want to deal with it. You've had them in the past, maybe. If you haven't, that's awesome. You've dealt with it. But you may know somebody who's going through this. You might see the signs of them holding it down. Because we say, what we do is we just push it down. And I think I said that saying, push it down, buttercup. Let's just get on with it. But no, we're going to get on with it, but go through these steps. You see, the first thing I think we do when I say be honest, be honest with ourselves, we need to acknowledge for ourselves or to ourselves how we really feel, how we really feel, and just sit with it. That may be the one and only step you have to do. If it's small, if it's a small issue, and you don't like this, but I don't want to talk about it. Just sit with that feeling, sit in the middle of that emotion. And sometimes just sitting with it, you'll begin to understand it. You're not accepting it, by the way. I always say this, never accept it, just acknowledge it. Because it's happening, it's happening right now. So when you get that emotion, that feeling, sit in it. How do you do that? Well, find where it is in your body, just close your eyes and just notice where it is in your body. And just put your attention on it. Just sit with it. Maybe you can just understand what you can learn from it. I wonder what this feeling is doing for me. What is it trying to do for me? And sometimes we get that aha moment, or the understanding, or just sometimes, just literally becoming aware, sitting in that emotion will allow it to disappear because it's been acknowledged, because most of the time, as we say, we're pushing it down, pushing it away, doing everything we bloody can. And the more you push things away, the more you push it down, the more it will get stronger and push it back and push it up. And so just by acknowledging it, you go, okay, you're here. Think your fear. I think you're frightened, or whatever emotion it is. And just sit with it. And then just let it go. It's like stepping away from those biases, stepping away from hiding, just sitting there. And you see, as an example, in some of the therapy that I, my sons do, and a lot of people do, by the way, it's called timeline therapy. See, if we can see, well, not necessarily see, but become aware, because you don't always see these things. So don't worry if you can't, well, I can't see this feeling, I can't feel it, just notice it. It's an awareness. And if we can become aware of these emotions from different angles, we can learn. And that's the whole basis of timeline therapy, being able to let your unconscious mind learn what it needs to learn from the very root cause of this issue. When it learns what it needs to learn, the emotion, and the limiting belief attached to that emotion, that event, that very first event, the root cause of all of this. Well, it just disappears because you have what you needed to learn. And when you have those learnings, the emotion is no longer appropriate, it doesn't, it's not needed. The emotions are only there because you haven't learned from it. But that requires you going to see someone who is a practitioner of timeline therapy. And if you can find one, and there are loads and loads of them out, you will get the respite you need. You'll be free, free to go and find some more issues. So I'd suggest that. But there's a but and an and. If you go there, great, but what we're going to do, these two steps are going to help anyway. And even if you haven't got an issue, you can imagine an issue from the past and work in these two steps to understand the processes too. Maybe you'll learn a little bit more about what happened in the past. And maybe you just let those little echoes go too. So here's what I want you to do. And it's be about being honest, honest, first of all, step one, honest with ourselves. Now this is ever so easy. Because what I want you to do, it's going to mean closing your eyes, you don't have to close your eyes. But if you close your eyes, it just makes it that little bit more easier. Because there's less distractions around. And you can focus, focus on the process, because that's what I want you to do. Give yourself permission to spend a few minutes playing with this process, because we're going to have fun doing it. Serious fun. And then just let it go. So if it's okay with you, remember, I'm a therapist, but not your therapist. But we're just going to learn. Here's what I want you to do. Let's imagine in front of you there's another you. Well in fact it's you, but it's this issue, this thing that you've been pushing down, you don't want to, you know, you've been getting away from it, but now it's here. Just ask, just notice, become aware that you can have that issue in itself, be in front of you. May have a shape, may have a colour, might even look like yourself, who knows? It'll be what it'll be and it is what it is. It might be that you just have an awareness of the essence and the energy of that issue in front of you. So it's anything from awareness to being aware of something else there and just sit with that for the moment. This is like just becoming aware of your issue, acknowledging it. So you just acknowledge it. Maybe you want to thank it. You go, what? Thank it? Yeah, because it's trying to do something for you, hasn't gone away, it's been persistent, it's been consistent, because it wants to help you. Now, what we're going to do is ask this issue a question in a moment. Why do we ask it a question? Because we want to either find the answer, because when we get the learnings, things disappear. Or we're going to loosen the model of the world, loosen that issue just a little bit by giving it the acknowledgement that it needs, then it can start helping you in a different way. Especially when you ask this question or two questions. There's two questions I want you to ask of this issue. Maybe think of it as a part of you that's running this issue. That's another way to look at it or be aware of it. There's a part of you that's running this issue. Because that's how we talk sometimes, isn't it? There's this part of me that just keeps doing this. Well, have that part come out in front of you. If that's an easy way to become aware. So you say, ask that part to come out in front of you and ask, what can I learn from you? What do you want me to know? The learnings of which and the knowings of which will allow these negative emotions, maybe the limiting belief and inappropriate behaviours to just disappear because I'll have what I need to learn, what I need to know. And sit with that for a moment. Just sit with it. Notice the response you get. And it might be just like an understanding. Just an understanding. Yeah, just do that. What do you want me to learn? What do I need to know? The knowing of which, the learning of which will allow you to disappear. Because I'll have what I need to learn and know. There, that's, you know, you're asking lovely questions. Acknowledging that there is something to learn. You've thanked that part. For looking after you, for keeping you safe. But it's time to stand down. And notice what you get. Maybe you do get a voice, like a conversation. Maybe it's just an understanding, an awareness, an intuition. And if you don't get one now, I think you'll get an understanding when maybe you're just doing something completely different. Maybe just going for a walk, maybe being quiet. You'll suddenly get, oh, now I understand. And you can just thank it and let it go. Now there is another question, another question you can ask. Because sometimes, that part of you, the part of you that's running this little issue, been pushed down so long. It's been ignored, isn't it? You've been pushing it away. But sometimes if we ask this other question, simple little question, but this time it's like roles reversed. You're saying, well, what can I do for you? What would you like me to do for you? What is it you need from me that will allow you to support me in a better way? Allow me to be safe in a more, in a comfortable way? What is it you need from me? What can I do from you? And once you say that, let my words, if need be, become your voice to that part of you. What can I do for you? And just listen. Listen with all your senses. Maybe you'll see something in your mind's eye. Maybe you'll hear what it needs. Maybe you'll feel intuitively, just understand what this part needs from you. When I do this, a lot of the times I just get, please acknowledge me. Just this thank you, but just acknowledge me for being here. I've felt ignored for such a long time because this part of you could be so young. Just acknowledge me and that's it. Recognise me. And sometimes when I do this, most of the time I do this and I get that, it's as if everything just disappears. And I feel so different. I feel resourceful. I feel open. And then I can feel gratitude. Gratitude for that part of me and gratitude for the whole of me. Yeah. So that's one, one simple step. Just sit there for a moment. That's right. And you can obviously repeat this if you want to go and maybe, well, I've listened to this because I wanted to understand the process Paul, but I'm going to come back. I'll just bookmark that, that point in time of this episode and then come back to that. And here's a second step though. Now, what I've said to you right at the very beginning is being vulnerable to others, being honest with others, how you feel, how, because you'd like to share it with somebody. You'd like someone, maybe just a little bit of advice, a little bit of help. And that's, as I said to you, and I did swear, I said, it's fucking hard. You know, you might be embarrassed, you know, because people, you think people think of you in one way, you know, and you, I'm embarrassed that to admit that I'm feeling this particular way. Well, the second step is so wonderful, so easy and wonderful. Is there somebody who you would like to share this with? And the beauty of this, this wonderful genius step is it doesn't have to be somebody, you know, but well, there may be someone who you respect in your, in your company, you know, you're the people that you know, friends that you just know would help. And that's cool. We could pick one of those or pick the one, but say there's somebody who you really respect that you haven't met. You've maybe read an autobiography, read about them, maybe seen them on YouTube. Maybe you've seen them on videos or whatever. But there's somebody who you really respect. Maybe they've gone through the type of issue that you're pushing down that you haven't told anybody about. And you can pick them because this is what we're going to do. And it's a lovely process. It's called perceptual positions if you want to know what the NLP process is that I'm using. But here's what we're going to do. You see, you're looking through your own eyes and in front of you, invite that person. Oh, let's just rewind. Let's just rewind. Let's just, we're going to close our eyes again. You may want to move around a little bit on this one, or you can just do it in your mind's eye. If you're going to move around, what happens is you're going to imagine seeing that person in front of you, just over there, maybe a couple of yards away, a couple of meters away. And you're going to talk to them. And then you're going to walk into that position, turn around and look back where you were as if you're looking back at yourself. And imagine yourself being there. And imagine as you step into that, that person's position, you become them for a moment and give and talk. I'll take you through the whole process, but we're going to go backwards and forwards. So here's what we're going to do. So if you want to close your eyes, that's fine. Or just imagine that person in front of you. Maybe it's a friend, or maybe it's someone you've never met, dead or alive, they're alive in front of you. That person you respect. And you know about this issue, you know what you're frightened about, or you're scared. Or maybe you're feeling alone, and you don't know what to do. Whatever your issue is, with your internal voice, you can say out loud, but it might be a bit creepy to the people around you. But with your internal voice, just speak to that person over there, imagine them over there and speak to them, tell them what your issue is, how you feel, what you want to know, what type of help you would like. Maybe it's just talking, maybe you want some, some instruction or help. But just be honest. And this is that honest thing. No one's bloody looking, because it's in your mind, it's in your mind's eye, your imagination, your imagineering. But it just works. So be honest, and say what you'd like to say. No one's listening. Only them. And then imagine. Imagine floating out into them, looking back at you, or walk into that position that two meters away, two yards away, into that place where you saw them, imagine them, turn around and look back to where you were. Imagine seeing yourself. And intuitively, allow the words from them to come back to you. What will they say? What are they saying? What are they sharing with you? Be them and share it with yourself over there. Let the words just flow. Internally, just allow the words to flow. Because you've listened to the question from you over there. And now you're responding. And as you respond, just notice how you over there changes maybe a little bit as they listen to the answer. And then in your mind's eye or physically walk back to the position where you were. Turn to face them, imagine them still there. And again, now just allow what they said to come back again. It's like repeating it. So you get it twice. So you get the meaning, the essence, the energy of their response. And as you intuitively understand that response, what would you like to ask again? What is your response to their response? And with an internal voice, say what you want to say. Maybe you want it a little bit more explicit, maybe more specific, more help. Maybe it's giving you a little bit of, oh, that's food for thought. And say the words, internal voice, ask again, just to make sure. And then imagine floating out into that person again, or physically walk over to that spot, into that spot, look back at you and allow the responses to come back. Allow their words to come to you. And then when that response is done, imagine floating back into you again, or walking back into that position. So you're you, we're always us. Listen to that response again. Now you have something now you can work upon and you can come back here to this point in this episode to continue this dialogue. But before we do that, there's something else we're going to do. So you are back in yourself. You are seeing, you're aware of that person in front of you. And now I want you to imagine floating way up out of your body and above the two of you. Doesn't matter how high you float. You can float really high to get real distance, to really dissociate now from you and look down upon that conversation that you've just had. Maybe it'll just replay itself backwards and forwards. But from here, in this wonderful meta view, this like directorship view, where you have no emotion connected to the issue anymore, because you're dissociated. And you get another understanding of what's happening. You get another learning, something that you can give back to yourself. And imagine as you just intuitively get that, ah, from here, you can beam that answer, beam that information, beam that support that you've gleamed from up here, from down there, beam it back to you. In fact, you can beam it down to both. So they both learn. And as you do that, just notice what you're learning. And then here's a trick, float down into the other person and then back into you. So we complete the full loop. We complete everything. We are now back in ourselves. And in fact, if you want to just, with your hand, just touch your heart, just maybe give it a little rub, just your heart. So you know you're back in your body. This is me. Yeah. Now what I want you to do now is reflect, just reflect for a moment, maybe, and ideally, write down what you've learned. Because when you write it down, you get to see it, you let it, as if it were all that knowledge, channel into the pen, the pencil, onto that paper. And you've got it forever then. Never disappear then, is it? It's a lovely reminder. Maybe you put it in your journal. And just reflect on the learnings. And maybe with those learnings, you'll be able to create that first step, a small step. Doesn't have to be a big step. What is a smaller step now that you can begin to plan and schedule and do from the learnings that you've got? You know, what's the one step, the one smaller step that I could do now from these learnings? What a wonderful question. And then maybe you want to talk to people about this, because you can. You can certainly share the episode. Oh, got in there, Cloughie. Share it, pay it forward. Because this is what it's all about, isn't it? That's the only charge for these episodes, is I'd like you to pay it forward. Ideally, pay it forward to more than one person. So we affect and infect more people with giving them the tools to change, the tools to let go of issues. And the thing is, as I said before, you may not have an issue at the moment. But if anything ever does happen, because they do occasionally, things come and just rock your world a little bit. You could now remember, ah, what was that thing? Was it hashtag 474? I don't remember what the number is, it's going to be, but you know, vulnerability starts here. Oh, I remember. I'm going to do that process. You never know, I might put this on to the other website where I have 66, I think now, hypnosis and NLP processes, all for you, all complimentary. No credit cards and all that rubbish. Now you just sign in, sign up, boom, get your link, and you're away and you can download them. You can do whatever you like. I'll put the 60 or I think it's the 90 seconds of hypnosis at the end of this track, end of this episode. So you can get to this, but just think, how easy was that? Did we go into the emotions of relive everything that was going on? No, we didn't, we just acknowledged it. Yeah, sat in it, didn't do anything with it, though, just acknowledged it. And they just tend to disappear. And these will always, if you want to go into one-to-one therapy, this will help anyway, because it gives you an insight in how you can share it with your therapist. You'll have some underlying or underlying, you know, some knowledge anyway, some understanding. I hope you enjoyed that. I love, well, I hope you love the way I'm now changing the dynamics of personal development unplugged in the way that I'm trying to get more and more processes in here, not just waffle, not just talk. There's so many people talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and don't give you the real nuts and bolts, the real keys, the real processes, the real steps. And that's what I'm doing here. I want to take everything that I know and share it with as many people as I can. And if you can say, pay it forward, and maybe they would then subscribe like you've subscribed, haven't you? If you could, if you haven't subscribed, just press the subscribe button wherever you listen to this bloody thing. So you're going to get them every week. You know, you get the FM cues, which is like the seed of the next longer episode. So I'm doing it now. So we get an understanding where we're going. And then we can prepare for it in our mind just a little bit. Oh, can I learn, set your intention, then you listen to the episode, we do the processes, and boom, you're going to change. I'm going to talk about I just made a note this morning about an episode I want to do talking about, you know, why we do this change and the ripples of change, what happens to them when we change one thing in our life? What happens? I'm not gonna tell you what happens, because that's for the other episode. But I've got wonderful things I want to talk to you about in my mind's eye, and in my little notebooks and in my whatever, all my notes, we're gonna do some great stuff. So I just hope you'll come along with me. I hope you enjoyed it. If there's anything you want to want me to talk about, if there's any process that you'd like me to explain, if you know a process, but you don't understand, I'll do my best. But if there's an issue that you're having ago, I'm still need a bit of help with this fluffy. Send me an email personal. No, what is it? It's called feedback, [email protected]. Do that. And the only bugger here gets it won't go anywhere else. And you'll get a personal reply from me and probably a longer episode all to yourself that everyone else will get the benefit from. And obviously, there's no names. Everything is anonymous, apart from me, because I'm Paul, Paul Clough. So enjoy. Have more fun than you can stand. And yeah, go play and have fun. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]