Show notes
Understanding Focus: The RAS Have you ever noticed that once you buy a new car, suddenly that model seems to be everywhere? Or you hear a new word and then it pops up all the time? That's not magic – it's your Reticular Activating System (RAS) at work. In this Five Minute Quickie, I'm breaking down the RAS in plain English. It's the part of your brain that decides what to notice – and it's powered by emotion. The good news? You can train it to look for opportunities, positivity, and success. The bad news? If you're stuck in negative emotions, it will keep showing you reasons to stay stuck. So let's flip the switch. Learn how to focus on what serves you rather than what drags you down. Because when you understand your RAS, you can use it to fuel your goals, dreams, and everyday happiness. And keep listening – in the next longer episode I'll guide you through a process (with a bit of hypnosis) to help your unconscious mind focus deeply on what you truly want. You could start by focusing on sharing. Here is a link to this episode https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/fmq-514-understanding-focus-the-ras 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 Have you ever noticed that when you buy something, say for example a car, or another way, you hear a word that you think, do you know what, that is a brilliant word. I love that word. Or there's somebody you start, you hear and you go, oh, that's a, they're really, really, a really good person. So interesting. And then suddenly the whole world is full of that, those cars that you thought was so special. That word that you thought was so interesting. That person seems to be everywhere. But where the bloody hell were they just a little while ago? You see, there's a thing called the reticulating activating system. And I want to put that into plain English because it's a natural phenomena that we use, your body uses to notice things, focus on things. And the thing is, because you're in an emotional state, when you buy that car, you feel so good. You hear that word, oh, it's so interesting. Or that person was so, so captivating. You're in an emotional state and your unconscious mind and your reticulating activating system, or some people just call it RAS, A-R-S, looks for it because you're in that emotional state, thinks it's good. But also here's the downside. Here's the downside. If you're in a negative state, you're feeling down, feeling depressed. You're feeling, I don't know, fear of missing out, FOMO. You've got that social anxiety. You know, you've got imposter syndrome, any, you feel in the bloody bank. I'll say that again. And I'll even still swear again. You feel in the bloody blank. What happens? You start to see issues, that issue, every bloody where. It's as if your whole life is full of those issues, but it isn't. It isn't. It's just this reticulating activating system, because you're emotional. It's focusing on what you're focusing on. Now we can use it though. We can use it because now you know, now you know what's happening. Now you can start to think about different things. If you start to have and think about different emotions, say positive emotions, highly charged positive emotions, we can get your mind and your brain and your focus to start focusing and looking for those type of opportunities, those events that would give you that feeling. So I want you to be able to learn how to focus your attention, have your brain, your mind focus on what works for you and not against you. And it isn't against you, by the way. It's not, you know, that's the way it was defined for me once. And it's not doing it against you. It's trying to do something positive for you, either to protect you. And generally, that's 99.9999% of what your unconscious mind is doing. It's using this to protect you. Look at this, look at this, be wary. You know, I don't feel good enough. I believe I'm not good enough. Therefore, I'm going to protect you by having this feeling so you don't put yourself out there. But the thing is, while you're thinking about it all the time in this negative state, you're seeing everything that makes you feel not good enough. Whereas if you could just put that to one side, you begin to see everything else which is there in the world. Everything which is good, which is opportunity, which makes you feel good. But at the moment, you've still got it. So this is what we're going to do. I just wanted to explain this on this five minute quickie, because on the next longer podcast, I'm doing a deeper dive from a previous FMQ where we tried to, well, we didn't try, we spiced up success. But I gave you again a musing about that. I want to dive deeper into it and create a process for you to be able to really get the feelings and the focus of what you desire. So your desires could be your goals, your dreams, or just what you want to get rid of, what you want to change in your life. So it can be goals and desires, dreams, or it could be just your issue that you want to get rid of. And we get your unconscious mind to then start focusing on what you want, and the opportunities that will give you what you want. So if you're interested in that, I bet you are, that's why you're here. Have a listen to the longer podcast, which comes out in a couple of days time or a few So you can start with a process and maybe hypnosis as well. So that would be awesome. And you never know, I might throw that one again, remix it again and throw that into the big dollop of hypnosis tracks I've already got. Okay, where do you get those? You know, pawcluffonline.com forward slash podcast, go there, get access to them all. So we're going to do that. So I just wanted to say explain something in plain bloody English, hope I have. So you can understand why sometimes you tend to see the same of everything. And sometimes if it's negatively charged, why you tend to see the world as being a negative place to be and it's not. We're just not focusing on the right things. So to focus on the good things, focus on me, focus on the Personal Development Unplugged podcast, share the bloody thing, do everything you can. Let's have the most successful life we can dream of and live it. Okay. So until the next time, my friend, we're going to do it. Remember that longer podcast with a lovely, lovely process in it. Enjoy. I'll see you real soon. So before you leave this unplugged mind of mine, this hypnotic mind, if you enjoyed this podcast or any of the other podcasts, please do subscribe. It helps this podcast grow and affect so many more people. And we love to leave everyone in a better place than we found them. And this will help, help the podcast. It will help you and it will help everyone that you know. So if you could just subscribe and share, share this podcast to everyone you know. That's the only cost, pay it forward to everyone. And when you do that, boom, we are all going to make a difference to this little old planet earth of ours and the people in it. Let's make a good world, a nice world. Okay. Okay. You can now prepare to leave this unplugged mind. Warning. You are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly. Be brave, my friend. Personal development unplugged. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]