{"podcast":{"title":"Anxiety to Confidence - The Personal Development Unplugged Podcast","slug":"anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859","podcast_index_feed_id":1100859,"rss_url":"https://personaldevelomentunplugged.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/b/e/3/5/be356e677739bc6416c3140a3186d450/Anxiety_to_confidence_with_Paul_Clough1.png","author":"Paul Clough","episode_count":1118,"summary":"A podcast for those wanting personal development but want it made simple and easy to understand and more importantly use, take action and make a difference to your life and the world you live in. If you want to change the way you feel and the way you act and react. If you have negative emotions, behaviours, that you want to lose forever and create something special in your life then I think you will like what you hear. This genre of self-improvement, self-development and mastery of your mind has, I believe, been made over complicated and secretive and here I am de-constructing the processes into their simple forms that we can all understand and easily use. There's no interviews just little ol' me ;0) Who am I and what do I do?………Paul Clough. I now love helping making changes in people and guiding them to create the life they really want. A personal look at me: The above sentence was not always the case and being the best in the financial realms of the building industry was my aim and getting there by any means. I now know this is, and was, the worst way ~ even if I did make director of one of the largest building companies in Cambridge by the age of 30. One of the major realisatio…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T10:18:56.270797+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859"},"episode":{"title":"FMQ527 Empathy Sucks!","slug":"fmq527-empathy-sucks","published_at":"2026-03-06T00:10:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859/fmq527-empathy-sucks","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859","url":"https://personaldevelomentunplugged.libsyn.com/fmq527-empathy-sucks","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/personaldevelomentunplugged/FMQ527_Empathy_Sucks_Unless_Its_With_Yourself.mp3?dest-id=546491","summary":"Empathy Sucks (Unless It's With Yourself) I said it. Empathy sucks. Now before you unsubscribe and send me a strongly worded email… hear me out. In this episode I'm diving deep into something that most people believe is a virtue — feeling other people's pain. And yes, empathy can be beautiful. But if all you do is absorb the emotions of others, carry their struggles, and ignore your own… that's not kindness. That's self-neglect. Here's what I explore in this episode: Why absorbing other people's pain drains your emotional energy How empathy can become a way of avoiding your own feelings Why suppressed emotions don't disappear — they generalise The difference between empathy and compassion (and why it matters) How to process your own emotions so they stop running your life Simple processes to turn emotional overwhelm into emotional strength I truly believe this: If you deal with your stuff first, you help people better. When you stop hiding from your own emotions and learn from them instead, something shifts. You become grounded. Present. Powerful. And far more able to support others without drowning in their experience. This episode includes practical processes to: Work with difficult emotions Discover the positive intention behind them Stop suppressing and start learning Shift from emotional sponge to compassionate supporter Because compassion sustains. Empathy without boundaries drains. And if you're going to feel deeply… start by feeling for yourself. This Episode Is For You If: You feel emotionally drained by other people You often absorb the moods of those around you You struggle to process your own emotions You consider yourself \"an empath\" but feel overwhelmed You want stronger emotional resilience You want to help others without losing yourself A Simple Practic…","meta_description":"Empathy Sucks (Unless It's With Yourself) I said it. Empathy sucks. Now before you unsubscribe and send me a strongly worded email… hear me out. In this e…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":627,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859/episodes/fmq527-empathy-sucks/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anxiety-to-confidence-the-personal-development-unplugged-podcast-1100859/fmq527-empathy-sucks.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}