#425 Anxiety - Friend Or Foe

Anxiety - Friend Or Foe

Turning Anxiety Into Your Superpower  :O)

Hello, my friend! Welcome back to the Personal Development Unplugged Podcast, where we strip away the fluff and get real about the things that matter most. Today, we’re tackling something we’ve all felt—anxiety. But here’s the twist: we’re not here to fight it. We’re here to flip it.

Now, you might think of anxiety as this annoying, persistent foe, always getting in the way of your calm. But what if we’ve been looking at it all wrong? What if anxiety could actually be an ally—a messenger, even a bit of a guide? Stick with me, and I’ll show you how to stop running from anxiety and start working with it.

Here’s the thing: anxiety’s been part of the human experience for thousands of years. Back in caveman times, it helped us stay alive. Today? It’s still trying to protect us, even if it sometimes comes off like an overzealous bodyguard who jumps at shadows. But what if you could take that energy and use it to fuel something amazing?

We’ll talk about how to spot when anxiety’s being helpful versus when it’s just getting in your way. And I’ll share practical tools—simple techniques—to calm that overbearing voice and turn its energy into curiosity, focus, or even excitement.

Whether it’s work stress, social nerves, or just that daily hum of unease, I’m going to help you see anxiety for what it really is: a signal. A signal from your unconscious mind that something needs attention. Once we know that, we can redirect it—turn it into a stepping stone for growth, confidence, and momentum.

So let’s unplug from the chaos, tune into your true potential, and work together to transform anxiety into a superpower that helps you create the life you want.

Let’s get started. Subscribe - Press play - and share

https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/425-anxiety-friend-or-foe/

Shine Brightly 🌟

Paul

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Music Credits

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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

Hey, welcome to the Personal Development Unplug podcast. It's maybe a shortcut to making change, breaking through and living the fullest life you've ever got and ever one. I'm Paul Paul Clough and today we're diving, we, you and I, into a topic that touches us all. Yeah, I think it touches us all at some point in our life and that's anxiety. And the question is, is it a friend or is it a foe? So who knows? Well, I do, because what I want to explore is, well, what anxiety really is and why bloody exists in our life. I want to determine, see if anxiety is actually helping you. Is it helping you or is it bloody just hindering you? Or can we use it? Oh, that's a different one. And over a course of time, a little bit in this podcast episode and over many others, I'm going toa give you all the tools you need to look at anxiety and change it from a foe to a friend and manage it, deal with it and just make our life, that much difference.

 

 

Is anxiety hurting us or helping us? Let's think about it

 

So what is bloody anxiety? What is it and why does it exist? Now, you may have heard this before, but a long, long time ago, generations of generations of generations ago we were cavemen. And if you heard a rustling in a bush, you'd get anxious, you'd be aware, fight, flight or freeze. And you see that little bit of anxiety to turn on fight, flight and freeze protected you or it protected your ancestors back then. And if they didn't have it, you wouldn't be bloody listening to me now, would you? So it's there, or it was there is there to protect us against potential threats. But let's come into today, are you go going toa jump at rustling a leaf? Well, maybe late at night you would, you'd still have that suddenly, oh, what's that protect you? But generally anxiety is turned on by other things, isn't it? They're more psychological. There we could term my guess as a threat, couldn't we? You know, there's a deadline. We have to get something done by a deadline. There's social pressures, peer pressures. Life just keeps bloody buzzing all around us. The noise is intense and if we listen to a lot of that noise, it can trigger off that anxiety. And the thing is now when it happens like that, you might even think, well, that anxiety is being a bit of a bully because it's pushing and fighting us and things like that. But the thing is, I want to explain to you that it's not a body, sometimes it's being inappropriate, but it's really trying to protect you. It is not hurting you. It cannot, hurt you. It's how we choose to take that anxiety on. And once we understand this, we can change our approach. Now I know some people will be affected by anxiety, more extreme than others. And I've got ways for that too. But let's just have a little think, let's just have a little thing you, know we've got. Is anxiety hurting us or helping us? You see, it could be helpful. If you've got, say, a presentation to do and you get a little bit of anxiety. well, I've got to practice, I've got to be prepared. It's waking you up because some people procrastinate, some people just let it go. Some people just, oh, I'll leave it, I'll leave it, I've got plenty of time. And then boom, it's too late. And your unconscious mind says, I don't want to do that. I want you to succeed. I want you to be prepared. But then it might go the other way around. It might start giving you those thoughts in your mind that maybe everyone is going to look at me and they're going to be saying I shouldn't be here. That all impostor syndrome. Or maybe they're going, you know, I'm  going to a really mess up and give me pictures. My unconscious mind gives me pictures of all the millions of ways that I wouldn't mess up. But if I did, I could and I would, it would be this bad. So sometimes it gets overwhelming, doesn't it? And that's where I say it's like inappropriate. That little wake up call to make sure that you've got all your ducks in a row, your dobino has already stood up ready to just tip the first one and have success come out the other end. Or where you get overwhelmed and you just can't do anything. So we have to think sometimes. Is this anxiety I m feeling helpful or is it now inappropriate? Let's get that, in mind. You know, is it pushing me forward in a nice way or is it, I don't know, holding me back? Maybe, maybe it's holding me back. And that's why we're here at Personal Development Unplugged, because I want you to be able to work with your unconscious mind. I Want you to educate your unconscious mind because if it's not working, it's just not bloody working. It worked a long time ago. Maybe when you were small it really worked, a little bit of anxiety. But you got bigger, you got bigger things to do, more intense things to do. And your unconscious mind worries for you, wants to make sure that you succeed. But unfortunately that's where the conflict comes in because too much fight, flight and freeze. All the emotions going on, all those wonderful bloody pictures you make in your mind of things how, how the worst it could ever be. Well, it s just not working anymore, is it? So what you can do is a little thing you could do because I want you to start to compartmentalize this anxiety. We're going to go into loads and loads of different ways and different or different ways that your anxiety can affect you and how we can deal with it. But just for one, name it. I love the term name it and tame it. Because if you just recognize, acknowledge what you're anxious about, it can give you a better picture. So. And you know what I'm going to say? Yeah, you could do it in your mind. You could say this in your mind I'm feeling anxious because. And then fill in the blank you could do. And as you start thinking, you might forget about the first bit or the, if you come up with one answer or one bit of intuition, it just disappears, doesn't it? All the rest disappears. Write the sucker down. write it down and say, this is what I'm anxious about today. So it could be, for example, I'm anxious about this meeting because I want to make a good impression. Now we've got the positive side of it. What is your intention, not your intention for worrying, but what's your intention for the thing that you want to do that your unconscious mind is giving you that anxiety so you could if you wanted to.

 

 

How do you want your body to act when you give a presentation

 

Well, you have already. Haven't you thought about the worst case examples that might happen? Or flip it, flip the thing, Think of the outcome that you want. How do you want it to be? How do you want to perform? What type of information do you want to share? If it's this presentation, how do you want your body to act? What is your physiology you want? How do you stand? Now I'm going to mention things like act as if. Because if you know how you want to be, what would happen if you acted that way? Well, if you acted that way, you'd actually be that way. Because it is by the way you acting as you, the way you want to be. And if you saw it in your mind's eye of yourself acting that way and then you just joined yourself, as it were. And we've talked about this in the past about getting rid of anxiety from the friend of mine who told me, just step into that picture, you see as yourself. Just step into that picture. You're seeing yourself being the way you wa. Want to be and just join it. and act as if. Because you've got the skills. I mean, if you haven't got the skills, you need to be worried, learn the bloody skills. But people wouldn't ask you to present or things like that if they didn't want you to. People would't one to meet you if they didn't want to meet you, to join with you, to connect. You have everything you need and more. You just don't know it yet until you do it.

 

 

From anxiety to confidence, each podcast will focus on confidence or anxiety

 

So what's the best case scenario? how you want it to be, how you want to feel, how you want to feel before, how you want to feel during, and how you want to feel after. Now you know that, you do know that that's what you're worrying about. You're worrying about that you won't feel that way. So, as I say, just flip the script. How do you wanna be? What do you wanna do? Focus on that feeling. See yourself having a successful completion of the thing that you're worried about. Because you'll find it'll be the thing that you were worried about. And your unconscious mind is listening to you now and it will be evaluating. Is this a safer place and a safer way to be than the old worst case scenario and scaring the shit out you. Now, for me and you and your conscious mind, it's a no brainer, isn't it? That's the one to choose, the one where I'm feeling good, I'm feeling comfortable, I'm feeling safe. And that's the prime directive of the unconscious mind, to keep your bloody safe and healthy. Anxiety is not healthy. You know, if left untapped, untapped, uncorrected, uneducated, not changed, it can just spiral out of control and we don't want that and there's no need for it. And by the way, if it has spirall out of control, get you one to one help, go deal with it now. But I'll talk to you in so many different ways, over the next weeks and months, because that's what this is all about in this podcast. From anxiety to confidence. So each episode Will either be on confidence or anxiety. But they come together, don't they? Hand in hand. So if you think about it now, I mean, even just for a moment, I know we've talked about this, or I've talked about it for so much. Just before you get this anxiety, you get these pictures in your mind. You know, your heart starts going, you know you're breathing. And the pictures in your mind just. Well, they're just not the good ones, are they? Just stop for a moment. Stop, pause, push those pitchures out of the way, move them to the side, make them smaller, further away, just for a moment. And breathe. Ah. just breathe just for a moment. And then decide. We've talked about deciding pain or pleasure. Decide on the pleasure. Decide how you want to be, understand what you're being anxious about, and then decide how you would best be in place of that. That. That, anxiety couldn't exist if you felt this way. It's a wonderful thing if it can't exist by feeling this way. This is the way to feel. See it in your mind's eye right about it. Just feel it. And, it's that feeling that really connects with your unconscious mind. And, it's that breathing allows you to just be grounded maybe. I mean, there's lovely breathing techniques if you really want a breathing technique. There's lovely square, I think, box breathing and things like that. Breathing for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Just do that for a few times. Maybe you make that exhalation a, little bit longer, just a couple of counts longer. And, do that for two, three, four rounds. I'll just set you on your way. It is not the solution, but it's enough to break the pattern, interrupt the pattern of that anxiety. And once you interrupt that pattern and you start to look at the ways you want to be, think about the ways you want to be, see the ways you want to be and feel it. You're going to be that one step nearer, you see, Then you'll realize anxiety is simply purely a signal. And it's not the sentence that you thought it was. It's just a signal. And you see if. And, it doesn't matter how loud that signal is, how intense that signal is. Just doing what I've said, we'll break that pat. So listen to it, because it has. If you think about all that energy, all the energy that you use in worrying, being anxious, if you could harness that and change it to excitement. Because I'TELL you one thing, if you think of A time when you. Well, think of the time when you were anxious. Where's that feeling? It's generally in your stomach, isn't it? Generally in your stomach, somewhere in your gut. And then think of a time when you were really excited, you enjoying yourself and really excited about something. Do you know what that notice where that feeling is? It's not that different, is it? Not that too different a place. So what would happen if you flip it? Just move that feeling as you breathe into that place of excitement and curiosity and then you get. Be excited about thinking of how you want to be, get curious of how you could be the way you want to be. What would it feel like? What would you see? What would you say? How would you breathe? What would your physiology be like? And I'm repeating myself, but repetition is a mother of skill. And the thing is, sometimes the first bit didn't go in, the second bit didn't go in and all of a sudden, oh, I get it now. So that's what I'm doing. I'm just repeating myself just to make sure that I understand what I'm talking about or anything.

 

 

Please do share this episode. It makes more people aware of this podcast

 

So there you go, anxiety. It could be your friend. Well, it is your friend in a way that it's communication from your best friend, your unconscious mind. So just be aware, have some understanding, have some acknowledgement of your best friend trying to do things and then you can take the appropriate action to redirect your best friend into how you want to be works. It really does work. And you know that if you need some help, there's loads of hypnosis tracks I've got here for you. They're completely complimentary, they're downloadable. If you go to poolclfonline.com podcast you can get them there. 60, 65, nearly 70. And they're all downloadable. So you can find the one that really just maybe helps. This is s a great one. I have to say this now there's a great one. I'm going to rere record it, I know I am. And it's the second episode and it's just called being comfortable, but it just takes away panic and it educates your unconscious mind how you can be different. And if you want, just as another thing you could just briefly do is just sometimes think of different times in your life where you've dealt with similar things easily and effortlessly. Get your countere examples because your unconscious mind was with you then because you see, I say that again. I lifted. I used to have a lisp when I was younger, by the way. We'll get this out. Notice that your anxiety is a friend. It's being created by your best friend. And once you're aware of it, you can do whatever you want because you can. You've got that signal and you can use the power to respond differently. I really hope you like this episode and I would if you have and you know of anybody else who would like to share this experience of knowing that anxiety is not a prison sentence, it's not a foe, it's something that we just need to adapt into a better way. Please do share this episode. If you would. Please share to as many people as you can. Because you know what? Secretly behind the surface, anxiety touches us all, doesnn't it? So if you would do that and then just click on that subscribe, I'll say that one clearly. Click on that subscribe button if you would, because that makes so much difference. You won't believe how much difference it makes. You subscribe. It just gets. It makes more people aware of this podcast. So there you go. Give me feedback. I'd love your feedback because although I'm going to gou, I'm going to do a load more episodes, on anxiety and confidence. If there's areas of anxiety or areas of unconfidence that you'd like me to dive into to, you can direct me, guide me to the things that would help you. Just email me [email protected]. do that. I'll respond. It's totally anonymous. I'm the only bugger here anyway. But you know, if we can guide, if you can guide me to the processes that you want or if there's any feedback you can give me, I would love it.

 

 

Let's unplug from the noise and plug into your potential

 

So until next time, my friend, let's unplug from the noise and plug into your potential. Did you like that? Hey, it's time to fly. Warning. You are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly on your own. Be brave, my friend.

 

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