The podcast episode narration,

Please be gentle as this is straight from the audio of episode #242 Post LockDown Anxiety and if bad grammar is something that gets you going well, this will get you going (maybe see a therapist about that?)

Hey, welcome. Well, welcome back, or welcome to the PDU as a poet, poetry, personal development unplugged, the podcast that tries to make things as simple as possible to get the most return on your investment, or break down that complicated stuff. And I wanted to have a little talk about post lockdown anxiety because I’m seeing a lot of it now through the therapy side of my, my little other life, my alter life. And I wanted to just have a chat.

So this might be a five-minute quickie, I think so a little bit longer. But it’s not going to be the longest of long podcasts. But I think it’s something that you might just want to consider, see if any of this resonates with you. And if it does, then there’ll be some solutions within this podcast. So post lockdown anxiety, now not talking about the things that run through your mind, all those things, because you know what they are. But the whole problem is you think you do, you know you think you know what the voices the thoughts are, say voices, you might get voices, the voice, your voice, maybe the questioning, the things that you make up in your mind, or, in some ways been created by this locked down COVID 19 lockdown, or working from home, which is the same thing to me.

But we’re coming out of it. And it’s causing, or what I can see is causing a lot of anxiety in different ways. So whilst I say you already know about it, but I think you know what, what the elements are, sometimes we need to understand what is happening because they’re happening for a reason. You see, when you can understand, I believe that’s when you can use processes and methods to help. Because if you just fight against things, you push against things, your unconscious mind can push back a lot harder, you know, consciously. You don’t wake up in the morning and have these, this anxiety, the various things that go with a fear of missing out, imposter syndrome, all that stuff, you don’t consciously think, do you know what today I think I’m gonna feel like a real imposter. You don’t do it do you? but it happens all the same.

You might even wake up in the morning and go, you know what this, this day, today is going to be completely different. I am going to nail it. And then something happens and boom. Good old best friend of yours says I’ll find a way to protect you. So I’ll give you a few worries. But those worries are, as I just said, there to protect you. Which seems really, really quite weird because well, that’s where the conflict comes from. Because if your best friend inside is trying to protect you and keep you safe, yet, the one thing you don’t feel is safe, you feel frightened or anxious, then we know there’s a conflict. But we do want to feel safe, we do want to feel protected. Consciously, if you knew you could do anything and always be safe protected, you would have well, any unconfidence you had would disappear, wouldn’t it. You would be confident in your competence, you’d be looking forward to things, the pictures you make in your mind would be all positive of seeing wonderful results. Now, understanding what it is or the conflict is easier said than done. But  I will go through that with you.

But the thing is, I’m not gonna give you any mind hacks, because you know what I think about hacks, you know, hacking away, and we hate that. But when you start thinking, I mean, here’s a typical mind hack. I’m really nervous. I keep going through how bad it’s going to be, and how bad it’ll end up. And it’s going to be so bad. And so the mind hack is “right stop!” And we do a lot of stopping and pausing here. But stop, take four deep breaths. In fact, if you want to do some square breathing for in for four, hold for four then out, and hold for four, It’ll bring your heart rate down. And it might allow you to think a little clearer for a little while because it’s a pattern interrupt. That’s all it is. Unless you deal with that conflict.

Generally, I can only say generally, sometimes that pattern interrupt will give you sufficient time to think of an answer or do something differently. But generally, we go back to the same thing because that’s what human beings do, don’t we? We think we’re going to get a different result. Because when we go back to do the same things, but pretty soon, generally it comes back. So what are you going to do? Well, I think we need to just understand that this is our protection measure, but it’s going a little bit haywire. your unconscious mind is now seeing Danger, it’s seeing it everywhere. And it’s taking it well out of proportion into overwhelm. And this is all it is, we’re getting overwhelmed. When we get overwhelmed, we get anxious, we get fearful, that’s when we get that fear of missing out FOMO, that’s when we get imposter syndrome. That’s when we get anxiety from, as well, we don’t want to go out, we don’t do anything, we get unconfident, you name it, they’re all there. But protection is good. The thing is, overwhelm with all those other effects of overwhelm, are not good. So all we just need to do is understand, first of all, hey, this is just a behavior, or behavior that my unconscious mind has chosen, you chose it, chosen to help. And the thing is, all we need to do now is change the behavior. Simple, one of the simple things I love to do is to ask some questions, but I’ll do that in a minute. But if there’s overwhelm, is creating, well, creating such anxiety that you’re unable to perform properly, or it’s giving you, you know, too much, and you’re thinking about taking pills and things like that. I’m not a doctor. I’m a therapist, but not your therapist.

But here’s what I would suggest. The best way, if the overwhelm is too much, maybe you’ve turned to a little bit more alcohol because I’m seeing that a lot. People are changing to turning to alcohol, maybe they’re turning to a bit more smoking, and a bit more food, all these things that give instant gratification as it were, but do not resolve the problem. Because haven’t gone to the cause.

And to do that, I always say one to one was one to a one to one help see a therapist. One thing about that is, it’s quick.

It’s so quick, when you get to be with a good therapist, I always promote someone who does something like what I do NLP hypnosis, and timeline therapy, and a few more twists on those. But those are the core. Because I know people who, when we have those types of skills, we just seem to get the results a lot quicker, a lot easier. And they’re a lot gentler. It’s a comfortable way to work with somebody not, we don’t do things to you, we work with you to find out what’s happening, what’s causing it, and how you want to be and get that change. Because when you think about how you want to be. And if you could imagine it, it would, I’m going to guess feel pretty comfortable, pretty good, pretty safe. And that’s what we need to show the unconscious mind to say there’s a better way. Because your unconscious mind has chosen a better way. But at this moment in time, it doesn’t know a better way. So we just did a little bit of education. Get it to learn from what it’s trying to do. Learn that it’s in conflict with itself, it’s not getting the result at once, and then get it to access those resources that you want, what you want, not what other people.

So that’s what I would do, work with therapists like myself, that does hypnosis, respect, good hypnotist, a good NLP practitioner, and a good time no therapy practitioner and other stuff. But that’s only me because that’s what I was trained as, or trained in. But put that aside.

So if it’s overwhelming, and you want it to do quick, and you get other people to help you with it, to do it with you, you don’t have to do it yourself. Therefore, it’s not I don’t call it lazy, but it’s just, it takes less effort. Return on Investment, easy solution.

The next one, and you can do this, while you’re seeking that one-to-one help is to we all say stop and pause, not take those four breaths, but it does help. Not gonna poopoo that one because that was like a mind hack. But it is stopping and breathing, square breathing will bring your heart rate down will bring you into a more comfortable state. But when you just stop and pause and go into that feeling and just acknowledge it or not accept it, we don’t accept these types of things. Because we don’t, we know there’s a better way. So we acknowledge that it’s the unconscious mind your best friend trying to protect you.

But we do also know and your unconscious mind will be listening to you and listen to this, that the conflict is, is here because he’s not working. He’s trying to protect you and you don’t feel protected. It’s not working. So simply as you stop and pause and you go inside you breathe properly. You just become comfortable. Becoming aware of where that feeling is in your body and just say either out loud or just with your inner voice. How can you protect me in a better way?

Now, you might like to give an example because you know how you want to feel so As you say that, and I thank you, my best friend, I know you’re trying to protect me. But you have to understand there’s a conflict going on Cloughie said there’s a conflict. And I agree with him because it’s not working. So you can play this over and over again. But just talk to your best friend and just say, this is how I’d like it to be. Maybe you could remember times in the past where you’ve dealt with these types of things before in a good way. And notice, when you remember it, you can go back to that time, see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel those feelings. And say, to your unconscious mind, this is about another way, this is one better way, if I had this, it would be so much better. But this is only one way of a myriad of wonderful, rich ways.

Here’s another way, and you could go back to a different memory, keep them specific memories. We don’t generalize, we want specific memories when you felt good, where you dealt with issues, maybe you could deal with one this way?

This is the way I’d like to feel. Remember a time when you are comfortable, where you were curious away, you are confident, not overcome. I say that, again, not overconfident, that’s dangerous, but a time when you were confident and you got a good result. So you start to just remember these different things, always go back to those times because they’re good times. So it’s nice and safe to do. So go back to those good times. Go back into your body, see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel that feeling. Just keep on doing it.

Now what you can do is also think well, how would I like to feel how to really like to feel, because things change, I can have a little bit of everything. So if I’m thinking of this specific thing maybe is a fear of missing out or maybe it’s an imposter syndrome, maybe it’s I’ve got to start talking to people, how to like to act and react and be and imagine yourself and we’ve got other episodes of how to do this.

But just very quickly, just close your eyes. Imagine another you out there doing it on a screen, maybe a movie screen, or just see another you out there, meeting those people doing that stuff that you want to be able to do. And when they’re doing when that you out there is doing exactly what you want to do. Doing it, just the way you want to do it. And it looks so good. That it even gives you a good feeling now, then imagine going into them, see what they’re seeing through their eyes, hear what they’re hearing and feel that feeling and say to your unconscious mind. Look, this is another way. And I know you my unconscious mind can find even better ways, saying those wonderful words, I love to say ‘this or something better’. And just keep doing a takes a few moments each time.

So don’t overkill it as because we’re then we’re, we’re pushing too hard. But just every few minutes, you can think of another time and another time.

And just ask your unconscious mind. This or something better How can you keep the intention for protection, keep me safe, and find one of these better ways or create better ways for me.

Then if you wanted to, you could either flick through some past episodes to see if there are some things you’d like. And there are some great ones. But what you can do is go to the hypnosis tracks and I have you know where they are. They’re on paulcloughonline.com/podcast sign-up. They’re all there. There are over 50 I was looking at it the other day, and I’m going to do a podcast to let you know all the ones there. But as you flick down, you’re going to say, Ah, that’s what I need. That would help me imagine what I want. That would be another one to imagine how I want to feel to talk to my unconscious mind to feel comfortable.

Because going back to my very first podcast, and it’s the most popular. It’s actually the second podcast episode because the first one was just an introduction, but #2 tells you all about being comfortable. And now I’m going to do it again. Because I just want to do that because I keep reminding people I like to like to do it again. But also, there’s hypnosis track users scroll all the way down to the bottom of all those tracks, hashtag 2.1 feeling comfortable. Little things like that, because it’ll give your unconscious mind a way to look to feel differently and keep you protected and getting you to feel good. And when it does that, guess what happens just like when you’re working with a one-to-one therapist, whatever the changes you make generalize into different areas of your life. So yes, I was a little bit nervous or had anxiety about this part of my, my career or my work or what I’m doing. But all of a sudden that’s changed. But also my relationships have changed. The way I feel about myself has changed when I do my socializing that’s changed my friends notice a difference because I’m more confident with them too.

So one change over here makes changes over there, there, and then there because that’s what happens with this stuff. So in some ways, if you get a little bit of lockdown or post lockdown anxiety It’s a good thing because it’s now a chance to do a bit of spring cleaning, to get rid of the overwhelm, and actually start to think of how you want to feel not why you want to do.

These are not goals. Not goal setting this is how do you want to feel. Because when you feel and the way you want to feel, it’s not just as confident.  Because confidence is made up of a lot of different things for depending on the context, could have curiosity, could have excitement, could have calmness, it could have an awareness, and you put them all together like a menu, Yeah, menu, and you pick the ones to make a recipe and then you bake it inside yourself and go, boom, this is how it is, there’s a good chance to spring plain.

And it’s a good time to say to your unconscious mind. Thanks so much for doing your best. But here’s a better way. And now you can make it even better a better way because I know you’re better at it than me. I hope in that. In the short, it is a short, longer podcast, I’ll give you some ideas, some ideas to deal with post lockdown, COVID, anxiety, the working from home thinking about coming to work, maybe not going to work all those things. What are you going to do? Now, as we finish here? What I want to say is, and I always say it, but I really mean it. If you have any thoughts about this? Or if there are some areas that I don’t think you could cope with yourself and you need a little bit of guidance. Email me feedback at personal development, unplugged calm. And I’ll do a separate podcast for you, just on that specific one.

Because if you need it, I guarantee you so many others will want it too. It just needs you to take the courage to send me an email. And that’s really scary, daunting, isn’t it? No, because I’ll just send an email back to you too. We’re gonna have a conversation, and we’ll get things going. Okay, so that’s what it’s all about. Please share this, please share this episode because it’s so important, I think. Because we had anxiety going in where the anxiety while we’re in lockdown, you know, those probably MadWorld episodes I did.

But now this is the time where we want to get better than we were when we went in. Let’s really crack it. So we really enjoy life again, more than we could ever imagine. Okay, so please do email me. repeat it again, personal development not it’s feedback at personal development, unplugged calm. Hypnosis tracks are at paulcloughonline.com/podcast. If you want to know about the confidence program, just go to paulcloughonline.com, the front page, there it is. And you get a massive discount. PDU40 gives you 40%. If you sign up for the hypnosis tracks, you get more. That’s up to you. And come and join us. Come and join us and join me in changing the world and changing yourself Be the change you want to see in others. Great meme. Anyway, to all of that, share everything. And I’ll see you again. I’ll speak to you again. We’ll have a muse and a conversation again, real soon. Bye Bye now.