If You Thought This Was Bad
Including deep hypnosis
If you thought this was bad… it isn’t. And that’s actually good news.
In this deeper dive, I’m talking honestly about what happens when life feels overwhelming, when things get pushed down instead of talked through, and why “suck it up, buttercup” is one of the biggest myths we’ve ever been sold in personal development.
This episode is about not being broken, even when you feel like you are.
It’s about understanding that feeling low, anxious, lost, or like a failure is not the end — it’s a starting point. A platform to move from, not a prison to live in.
Inside this episode, we explore:
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Why suppressing emotions only makes things worse
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How feeling “not good enough” can actually be the best place to begin change
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The difference between pity and genuine support
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Why imagination is one of your most powerful tools for transformation
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How to reconnect with the best version of you — even if you can’t see it yet
And embedded within this episode is a deep guided hypnosis / guided imagery process designed to help you:
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Let go of limiting beliefs and emotional weight
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Reconnect with your inner strengths and qualities
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Experience what it feels like to be your best self
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Begin acting as if change is already underway
You don’t need to be “fixed”.
You don’t need to be perfect.
You just need the right tools — and a bit of encouragement.
And I’ve got your back.
What You’ll Experience
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A safe, grounded hypnosis process (eyes closed, no distractions)
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Powerful imagery to reconnect you with confidence, ease, and self-belief
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A reminder that growth doesn’t have to be hard — it can be fun
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Practical encouragement to start using the tools you already have
Call to Action
If this episode resonated:
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Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
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Share this podcast with someone who might need it
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Pay it forward — growth shared is growth multiplied
https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/472-if-you-thought-this-was-bad/
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 feedback@personaldevelopmentunplugged.com.
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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.
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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
transcript copy #473 If You Thought This Was Bad
So the deeper dive today. Welcome. The deeper dive.
If you thought this was bad, you’re wrong. If you thought you have to suck it up, buttercup, keep it to yourself. Remember we talked about that on the previous FMQ.
You see, it’s a new year, isn’t it? It’s a new year. And some, some people are following or failing in their new year’s resolutions. And you know, I hate new year’s resolutions with a vengeance.
For some, life’s shit. It is at the moment. It’s too hard.
Maybe we’ve got this belief that I’ll never succeed anyway. I shouldn’t be here and all that rubbish, all limiting beliefs, one of a positive intention, but they’re limiting. And I can remember, I can remember this a long time ago, saying to myself, why the fuck bother, Clive? It’s not worth it.
Too far down. Can’t do it. But when I said that to myself, what I didn’t do, I didn’t suck it up.
I didn’t suck it up, buttercup. I wasn’t a buttercup and I didn’t suck it up, but I did keep it to myself. I did man up by pushing it down.
Cause that’s what men and women do. We man up, women up and we push things down. We suppress them.
Don’t tell people about them, do we? We don’t say, I need help. Can you help me? Suck it up, push it down. What a load of old bollocks.
It’s a waste of time. Such a waste of time. Cause it just causes more problems, doesn’t it? More problems.
You need help. Ask for help. And that’s where we’re going.
Cause if you thought this was bad, it’s not. You see, this might be you now, the way I was, and I really just didn’t think I was going to make it. And if it isn’t you now, cause I didn’t think back then that would have been me.
I thought I had a pretty good life and then boom, something happened and I got, well, the results were plain to see then. Sucking it up, pushing it down. And even though I thought I was doing it well, people knew.
Some people helped. Some people are brilliant helpers. Others, maybe not.
Because I wouldn’t let them in. I wouldn’t let them in. And the thing is, because I didn’t feel that way, you might think, well, that’ll never happen to me.
But just in case, not to put it into your future, but just in case it ever did, here you will have the tools. The tools to make sure that you can deal with it. So remember, suck it up, buttercup.
Push it down. Keep it to yourself. It’s such a load of bollocks, in the personal development world that is.
Unless you’re looking for pity. We said this before, if you’re looking for pity, this isn’t the place. Go to a pity party.
But if you, in that pity, think, well, I need a little bit of help. You can stay. You can stay.
Because we’re here to help everybody. I’m here to help everybody. I’m helping you.
I’m helping me. Helping everybody. So, but if you are still here, I want to have a look at those feelings.
When I say those feelings, they’re like the negative emotions that we experience. Not necessarily all the time. Sometimes we do with anxiety.
Sometimes anxiety can be pretty all the time. These negative emotions are never all the time, but they can feel so. Because when we’re in that bloody jam jar, can’t read the label, we think this is our world.
This is our, call it familiar zone. But there’s also the thoughts that we have with those negative, attached to those negative emotions, the thoughts, the pictures we make in our mind. That bloody self-talk.
We need to look at it differently, don’t we? If you’ve ever seen it, and I haven’t seen it lately, there’s a lovely t-shirt around and it says, I’m broken. But it also shows a smiley face with a bit of plaster, maybe a couple of stitches and a black eye, but there’s still a smile on it. It’s still a smiley place.
So if you feel broken, a bit like me, if you feel broken, or just a little bit broken, or maybe worried about being broken, or anything to do with broken, basically. If you feel like a failure, maybe feeling that you can’t go on, maybe feel that you shouldn’t be here. Maybe you think to yourself, why me? Why is it always happening to me? I’ll never get out of this.
You know what? That’s fucking great. And you’re going to say to me, Paul, what’s great about this? Tell you what’s great. We’ve got a platform.
We’ve got a place to start from. We’ve got a place to push from. To move away from, towards something brilliant.
To create a life where we can access, experience all the wonderful dreams, desires, goals, that at this moment in time, you may not even dare dream them, but you will. You’ll be able to imagine them. We’re going to go through that in the next episodes as they come along.
But even if you don’t feel broken, you know, maybe you’re just a little bit of a failure. Not that you are, but you might think it. Maybe you get a little bit anxious now and again.
Maybe you get that little bit of, don’t think I should be here. Who am I? Who am I to even do this? Think about it. Dream about it.
Who am I? But that’s still a wonderful platform. I’m not good enough. It’s a wonderful platform to move away from because we can.
And we can go towards, and in my notes, I went dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, because we’re going towards whatever you choose. That’s the thing. Whatever you choose, where you want to go, what you want to experience, what you want to share, what you want to bring to the world.
Yeah, that would be awesome, wouldn’t it? So let’s think. Let’s just acknowledge something. A little swear word coming up.
But it’s, fuck it, I’m here. I am here. I’m breathing.
I’m in this world. I’m above ground. Might have those funny old feelings, funny old beliefs, thoughts.
But I am here. Touch yourself, hit you, smack yourself on the heart, head, heart, whatever. You can feel it.
Feel your body. You’re here. Breathe.
We are here in this world. Now, a long time ago, way, way, way back to hashtag 78, it was called opening up, letting you in. And it was my sharing of personal challenges.
But in that, I talked about my qualities. It was a process that came to me. I don’t think anybody ever else has done it, but maybe they have.
Maybe that’s where I got it from subconsciously, unconsciously, and I just brought it out for myself when I needed it. But I don’t think so. But anyway, it was all about the qualities that I had, and I didn’t think I had many.
But I think with this platform, let’s go back to the qualities that you’ve learnt. You’ve learnt via experience. You’ve learnt by people telling you, reading stuff, looking at stuff, just being in life.
So if you want to have a listen to that, I might even do another rendition of it as well, another episode to bring it to life again. But there’s also a hypnosis track. Hashtag 78.1, funny enough, called My Qualities.
Where do you get that from? Well, it’s paulcloughonline.com forward slash podcast. I might even at the end of this, throw in the 90 seconds of hypnosis so you get it all. So don’t worry about that, taking a note now, we’ll put it at the end of this podcast.
But you see, I want you to imagine, because imagination cannot be overrun. It’s your imagination. It’s only you who controls your imagination.
No one else. And you can imagine what you choose, because you don’t even have to think it’s viable. You don’t have to think that it’s possible, because it’s just bloody imagination.
It’s like, I wish. Now, if it could be like that, that would be great. I can imagine what it could be like.
So I want, maybe, imagine the feeling that you would experience when you’re succeeding. When all of this shit in your life has gone. You know, actually being the real you, not the old you, because the old you was part of that stuff that created all those negative feelings, emotions, beliefs, behaviours and all that stuff.
Like a desire, like a dreams. But if you were succeeding, if that was all disappear right now, and you could have life the way you wanted it, feel the way you want, be the way you want, behave the way you want, and attract everything that you want. I wonder what that would feel like.
Yeah. I mean, we can do this now and we will. But I’d love you to do my qualities, just to get a feeling of how good you bloody are.
Because you forget about it, you forget of all the things that you can do, have done. But just think now. Now, I’m going to do it in sort of hypnosis fashion.
Because I really, you could call it just guided imagery, if you don’t like hypnosis, because that’s the same thing. We’re just going to do guided imagery. But I want you to relax.
I want you to relax and take a breath. But before we do that, remember, I’m a therapist, not your therapist, but this is only guided imagery, because I just want you to experience what it would feel like, what you can create in your mind, of how you want it to feel like when you’re succeeding, being the best self. And if you could, I want you to close your eyes in a minute.
But if you’re going to close your eyes, you’re going to listen to this and go into your mind, well, you need to make sure that you’re going to be undisturbed. You’re not gonna be driving. You know, that would be stupid, wouldn’t it? You’re not going to be, I don’t know what they call it, operating machinery.
Don’t do that. You want to find, just make sure you’re going to be undisturbed. You’re going to close your eyes, it won’t be too long, maybe 10 or so minutes.
But just make sure that you’ll be undisturbed. So if that’s okay with you, this is what we’re going to do. And please remember, I am a therapist, but I’m not your therapist.
Okay? Just before you close your eyes, I want you to take a gentle in-breath for the count of four. Now. One, two, three, four.
Now hold it for the count of four. Two, three, four. And now let it out to a slow count of eight and allow your eyes to close through all the way to eight.
So when you’re there, your eyes are closed. And I just want you to breathe gently. Just breathe.
In fact, I have a wonderful way of breathing in this state. And it’s all about making every in-breath more gentle than the one before. It’s so simple.
Simple as that. And as you breathe that way, allow your in-breath to take you into a lovely place of comfort. And then as you breathe out, just imagine you’re being drawn in to a place of comfort, even more so.
So in-breath, you feel good and relaxed. And out-breath, you’re just drawn into a wonderful place of comfort. It’s your place of comfort.
And just imagine going deeper and deeper into that place. And as you do that, just imagine, maybe ask the question, what would it be like to feel twice as comfortable as I do now? What would it be like now? Feel it. And then ask yourself, in this imagination, imaginary, what would it be like to begin to imagine how I want to be? If I could see a me over there, just over there, that’s it, being the way I dream of, or could dream of.
How do you want to be? Being the best version of myself. And be it over there. What would that look like? What would you see? And access all the powers of your imagination now.
See that you over there. See it so clearly. Having let go of all that stuff.
Or just become aware of it. Did the work. And now is living the best life.
They are experiencing wonderful life. Wonderful things happening. Their best self.
Wonderful emotions. Your best self. Not just happiness, but maybe joy.
Maybe even bliss. Excitement. Connection.
And even dreaming more dreams. Because you can. To create a reality.
So every day is a new day for creating even better change. To striving to be an even better you. New opportunities.
What does that look like over there? So many new opportunities. Do they have a smile on their face? Do they have a twinkle in their eye? Or even their eyes? How do they breathe? Do they move with an ease and a comfort and a confidence? Just sense it now of who they are. That’s right.
Just watch them for the moment. Maybe you could imagine even more right now. What else? Even more.
As you do that, imagine they begin to walk towards you. And you somehow go towards them. Coming together.
And maybe in this wonderful imagineering of yours as one, you can imagine now. You’re them. This is me.
You’re you. This is you. Experiencing life.
Just the way you could ever, ever want to be. Feel the physical feelings of being in this body. Walking.
The ease of movement. Feel the smile on the inside and the outside. Because you can.
Feel the lightness of movement. Maybe feel the excitement. Maybe the joy.
The emotions. They’re your feelings. You feel them now.
Whatever you would feel right now, you’re feeling them right now. Of living your best life. Make them even more.
And moving towards an even better one. Feel those emotions. See what you’d see in the world.
And hear what you’d say to yourself. The encouragement you would give to yourself. Talk about the new dreams that you have.
The new opportunities you’re going to take. The life that you’re going to create for yourself. Because you can.
You can. I wonder, if you could access the most powerful positive sets of belief, or beliefs, how would they sound in your head? Hear them now. What would you say to yourself? How would you believe in yourself so positively? And maybe, you could imagine sharing this with other people too.
So they too can come on your adventure. Because that’s what it is. It’s an adventure.
We’re not quite sure what’s going to happen, but we know it’s going to be better. Every day. Every breath.
A new breath. A new day. To create new things.
And feel what that would feel like. To experience the confidence in your competence. Feeling so confident.
So good. Imagine that feeling going all the way around your body. Feeling now.
From the tips of your toes, to your unconscious nose. Exactly how to trigger this. To create it.
That’s right. And then, maybe just keeping this feeling. Because you could imagine, maybe now, as when you come back to the now, you could have this feeling and begin to act as if you have it already.
So when you go through the processes, choosing the thoughts, the dreams, to act as the of creating this now. You could act as if you have it already. What would that be like? And maybe just say to yourself the immortal words.
I call them immortal words. I think they come from Shakti Gawain. This or something better.
This or something better. This or something better. And with a wonderful sense of gratitude, you can take a wonderful in-breath.
Open your eyes. And go, yeah, I got this. Yeah.
So come back into the world. Look around. Feel that lightness.
Feel the brightness. And then just think to yourself. So what’s the difference between then, that you in the future, but you can act as if now, and now? Well, here’s what I thought when I did this.
Well, now I’m clueless and I’m toolless. There in the future, I was clued in. I was tooled up.
I love that. Tooled up. But right now, you see, you’re just not using the tools.
You might not have the tools. And that’s where the next episodes, my dreams for this podcast is to be able to supply you with the tools, the processes to make change easily or easy and effortlessly. Keep them simple because in simplicity, there’s what? Genius.
Now you may say to yourself, I have the tools. Well, maybe you have got the tools. But if you’re like me, I have to question myself.
I’ve got a lot of tools, but do I use them? Am I being a master of what I know and doing, knowing what I know? Say that again. Knowing what to do and doing what I know. Yeah.
Have a think about that. So how do we, and I say we, because it’s you and I, make those changes. Now, you see, I think this is just a work in progress.
That’s me. I’m just a work in progress. I get stuff that comes and still knocks me to the side.
I find a tool and I do something about it because I want my life to be better. And I want to be living my life, enjoying my life. If I can find some bliss and joy and share it, brilliant.
That’s what I want. And that’s what I want for you. So we want to learn the tools of change and use the tools to change now.
I want you to master them, know what you’re doing and doing what you know, to let go of those limiting beliefs and find wonderful, supporting, positive beliefs. We can learn from past experiences. And when we learn from past experiences, with the processes we’re going to use, negative emotions just have to disappear because then you’ll have what you need or you needed back then that you didn’t have, but you have now.
And also there’s that one, it’s like that pay it forward bit I keep talking about, is sharing your experiences. And you can share them in many ways, share your learnings in many ways. You can tell people, when I say tell people, you know, we can share what we’ve learned just by communicating, communicating what you’ve learned.
You can do it by experience, show people just by being you. So they can see what’s possible. Obviously, I’d love you to share I’d love you to share this podcast with everybody, so more people can get the tools, the change.
That’s what, that’s my dream for this. And I know it’s only a small podcast, but I want to make it bigger and bigger to show and get more people to make a difference in this world. So, that’s where we’re going.
And if you’re serious about changing, but serious about having fun changing, because don’t make it boring. We don’t want to make it boring, we want to make it fun. Because when we have a sense of humour, we have a little bit of fun in our heart.
Change becomes even easier, because we’re in the right state to begin to change. So, let’s have some fun while finding the tools and the things that we need. And as I said in the previous five-minute quickie, if there is a direction now, now you know what it would feel like.
Now you can dream the dreams that will give you those feelings. Maybe you realise there’s things that are holding you back, or things that you need to let go of. Negative beliefs, emotions, just send me that email.
Feedback at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. Send it to me, we can then move in those directions, give you the help that you need. That’s what I’m here for. Because me helping you helps me by the way.
If not, I just do it by my bloody self. And you’ll just have to grin and bear what I’m going to share with you. Hey, it’s going to be fun though.
More fun than you can stand hopefully. But certainly I want those dreams then to become bigger and brighter. And then those dreams to become your reality.
That’s my dream for you, same dream for me. So if you’re happy to come along on this little adventure, the personal development unplugged type, you know, the unplugged mind. Yeah, let’s unplug everything.
Let’s go in the direction that we want and experience the joy and love that you know we’re here for. There you go. I’ll see you next time.
Remember to subscribe, press that subscribe button so you get all these episodes one after the other whenever you need them. They’ll be there on that little platform of yours and you’ll never miss out on one. They might not all hit the mark, but every episode will have a golden nugget for you, I’m sure.
And then maybe there’ll be that one that really does hit the mark. You don’t want to miss out on that, do you? Let me know. Give me some feedback.
I’ve got your back. Okay, bodak up. Let’s move on.
I do love it. Cloughie signing out. Bye-bye.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited