Anchoring in Neuro Linguistic Programming

How do we feel the things we want to feel, when we want to feel them?

Feel confidence when you want to feel confident, feel calm when you want to feel calm, feel energized at will.

Sounds good? NLP is all about feeling the way we want, when we want to feel that way.

Sometimes we can feel out of control: we feel nervous just before we are due to make a speech, we feel tired just when we need our energy, we feel unmotivated just when we are about to start our tax return!

How can we control our inner states? Aren't these things a result of neuro transmitters, and other chemical reactions in our brain and body, chemical reactions that are outside our conscious control? The answer is yes and no.

Our emotional state at any time is a part of our overall being at that time, the things around us, the things we are seeing, hearing and feeling, our beliefs, values and experiences, and our thoughts. The sum of these things represent a "gestalt" or complete experience. Not only that, but when we are presented with just one aspect of this expereince, our mind searches for the other portions.

Let's take a few examples of this and how it relates to anchors:

• One day we are walking past a bread shop, and smell freshly baked bread. Suddenly we are transported back to our grandma's house when we were a child, smelling that same smell. We feel like a child again, and have a clear memory of our grandma on that day.
• We are watching the Olympic Games. The race starts and we are delighted to see an athlete from our country win! As we watch our nation's flag being raised in the medal ceremony, we we choked up by national pride, a feeling we associate with the flag and national anthem.

Using Anchors in Neurolinguistic Programming

By understanding that our emotional states are intimately linked to an entire experience, we can use this principle to access fantastic emotional states at will. So how is this done?

By generating a strong positive emotional state, and then as the state peaks and we feel fantastic, we "fire an anchor". The anchor might be squeezing our thumb and forefinger together for example.

Our body then associates the touch of thumb and forefinger with the emotional state that we have. When we squeeze our thumb and forefinger together again our body searches for the rest of the experience, including the great emotional state. By searching, our body finds the state and retriggers it. We feel great again!

Using Anchoring in Practice

Suppose you are due to give a speech tomorrow and feel nervous about it. Follow this simple pattern to have all the confidence you want available:

• Select a simple physical "anchor" such as squeezing thumb and finger tip together.
• Remember a time when you felt really confident.
• Step back into that experience. Really see what you saw at that time. Hear what you heard. Feel what you felt.
• And as you begin to feel that confidence again now, take this feeling and double it, now triple it. Feel it in every cell of your body!
• As the feeling of confidence peaks, fire the anchor you selected before.
• Now, what did you have for breakfast?
• Now squeeze your anchor again and notice your experience. Notice how confident you feel now.
• If necessary, repeat the exercise, making your memory of the past experience of confidence bigger and brighter and even more powerful.