Working with Anchors

Our memories are stored as assocuations with our senses.  Smells, sites and sounds are great anchors to to times and events.  For example, you smell a particular perfume and you instantly remind you of your first date; you see a photograph in a frame of you and a friend on holiday and you are instantly reminded of how happy you felt at the time.  Or if you've ever over-indulged on a particular drink or food in the past, now just the site of it can be enough to make you feel instantly neauseous. 

In this month practice group we shall be experimenting with anchors.  We shall be creating resourceful anchors and collapsing unhelpful anchors.



Resourceful Anchors

1. Think of a situation when you would like to feel more resourceful

2. Choose a resource (state) that you would like to have

3. Recall a time that you had the resource; relive this experience, step into the body of the you then, see things from your eyes, what can you see? What can you hear? How do you feel?

4. Break state

5. Pick three anchors (kinaesthetic, auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory)

6. Again re-call the past event when you had the resource, when you feel you are in the highest posible state add in the three anchors ( as an example, as the state comes to the peak ask the client to say “confident” for a confident state - auditory, to clench their hand for a kineasthetic anchor, etc. )

7. Break state

8. Repeat step 6 for all anchors until they are fully embedded

9. Test the anchor by firing the state using one of the anchors;
Imagine a time in the future when you will need the resourceful state, imagine firing the anchor

Use sliding scales to monitor the power of the anchored state change.



Stacking Anchors

1. Pick several positive states; confidence, excitement, loving, joyous, powerful, etc.

2. Pick a body kinaesthetic anchor such as squeezing your finger and thumb together or clapping your hands or in the style of Anthony Robbins, making a fist.

3. Relive a past experience for each one of the positive states. When at the highest point add that feeling to your body anchor.

4. Complete step three for each individial state stacking up the feeling associated with the same anchor.

Chaining Anchors
Useful for when someone feels like it is a big step from one emotion to another, when they need the anchor breaking up into smaller steps for example 'fear to confidence', might be 'fear, concern, anticipation, prepared, confidence'

1. Find out the current state and the future state desired

2. Work out what the in-between states might be

3. Anchor each state on different parts of the clients body (Fear – finger, concern –wrist, prapared – elbow, etc

4. Create and test each anchor in turn

5. Use the first anchor to trigger the second anchor and so on creating a chain reaction to the positive state

6. Repeat several times until the anchor is automatic



Collapsing anchors

If two states are anchored and fired simultaneously, creating confusion and thus a new state is created. The negative state will collapse making way for a positive state.

1. Identify the negative state to be collapsed. Try and choose a specific memory which causes you to respond negatively.

2. Next, choose the positive state you would like to install instead. Again, choose a specific time you have been in this state, or for best results, choose a few examples of a time you have been in this state, and anchor them all together

Your positive state must be stronger than the negative state – otherwise this technique won’t work

3. First, anchor the negative state, by rubbing the thumb and finger of your left hand together whilst you relive the memory. Make sure that you are fully associated when you do this – which means seeing the memory through your own eyes, feeling what you felt, and hearing what you heard. Anchor this memory as it is. Don’t make the feelings any more or less intense. Do this just once. Release the anchor at the peak of the emotion.



4. Break state by doing something else for 30 seconds.



5. Test your anchor by rubbing your thumb and finger together. If the anchor has worked, you’ll feel the negative state come back.



6. Break state again



7. Anchor the positive state. Start to relive the positive memory by associating into it, and seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, and feeling what you felt. Make the picture bigger, brighter, more colourful and more vivid. Pull it closer towards you and overcome yourself with all these positive emotions.



8. Anchor the positive state by rubbing the thumb and finger of your right hand together whilst you’re feeling all the positive emotions (using different hands uses the different hemispheres of the brain, making it easier to integrate your states). Release the anchor when the emotion is at its peak.



9. Break state for 30 seconds, and then repeat the previous steps by anchoring a different memory of the same positive emotion or the same memory again. Use the same thumb / finger combo to anchor. Do this 2-3 more times.



10. Break state again, and then test your positive anchor.



11. To collapse your anchor, fire off the positive and negative anchors at the same time, by rubbing the thumbs and fingers of both hands together.



12. As you keep holding the anchors, however, you’ll soon break clear of all negative feelings, and start to feel the full power of the positive emotions. When you feel that the anchors have collapsed – i.e. you feel awesome – let go of the negative anchor, whilst keeping hold of the positive anchor for another 5-10 seconds.



13. Test and “future pace” the effectiveness of the collapsing anchors technique by imagining a time in the future when you’ll have to encounter the thing that made you feel negative before. If this has worked, you will feel more positive