“This process happens as a result of the synaptic and electric interference patterns created during neural processing.” (p. 25)
Anchors fill our lives. Now, while behavioral psychologists tend to think that all our behavior results from conditioned responses, in NLP we view life as a combination of conditioned reflexes and consciously chosen anchors.
We can see anchors all around us. We have already mentioned some. Yet anchors include every rep system. Auditory anchors include: “Winston taste good like a ___________.” Though that commercial played twenty years ago, people over thirty probably hear the rest of the sentence (“…cigarette should.”) in their heads.
We have a great many auditory anchors within church buildings and services: the joy of hearing a church bell, the smell of a sanctuary, the pastor intoning, “Let us pray,” a tune of a favorite hymn. Radio and television producers know the power of such anchors. So they fill up hours of listening pleasure with “Golden Oldies.” Advertisers also make good use of auditory anchors.
Recently while out driving with my wife (BB), we had driven a short distance when she noted that she had forgotten to fasten her seat belt. “Do you ever forget to fasten the belt when you drive?” I asked. “No, I only forget when I sit on the passenger’s side.” Suddenly she became aware that her body had kinesthetic and visual anchors to the driver’s seat. How? The pressure of the seat when she sat in the driver’s seat, the sight of things from that position, etc. She didn’t have the same kinesthetics or visuals on the passenger’s side. Whenever she sat in the driver’s seat, the visual and kinesthetic anchors fired (triggered) and her arm automatically reached for the seat belt. However, when she sat in the passenger’s side, she often forgot to fasten the seat belt. The passenger seat did not provide her with anchors for fastening the seat belt. This indicates the specificity of many anchors—and their unconscious nature.
14.4 Warning: “Negative Anchors Present”
Do negative anchors get established in our lives as well? Yes. Consider a family receiving friends at the funeral home. If the wife’s mother died and many friends come to pay their respects, while the wife grieves, person after person comes by and hugs her. Unconsciously the touch of a hug can get linked to the feeling of grief.
Bandler and Grinder (1979) said that approximately 90% of what we do in therapy involves changing the “kinesthetic responses that people have to auditory and visual stimuli.”
So, days or months later when her husband suddenly hugs her, inexplicably she suddenly feels like crying! Grief floods over her. She had accessed a state—at unawares—and so her conscious mind might spend some time trying to figure out the content of her negative feelings about her husband! As such, she develops a negative conditioning to his touch. Now the older psychologies would have us go back looking for traumas, stuck places in the developmental process, and Greek mythologies that explain unconscious processes. Actually we just have a case of an accidental anchor. So cleaning up negative anchors and teaching couples how to set positive anchors becomes an essential facet of good relating. Anchoring as conditioning presents the therapist with a practical tool for change. Bandler and Grinder (1979) said that approximately 90% of what we do in therapy involves changing the “kinesthetic responsesthat people have to auditory and visual stimuli.” (p. 85)
14.5 Anchoring Forgiveness
A former church member called me (BB) about one of his co-workers (Jim) who had emotionally suffered a great blow of having his wife of fourteen years leave him. In two weeks of her leaving, Jim lost seventeen pounds. Emotional pain afflicted him intensely. I had him think about “time” (using some Time-Line processes) along with some anchoring to get him out of the emotional distress so that he could cope with his reality better. Like all of us, Jim had made some mistakes in his past—mistakes that he used to feel guilty about. As a Christian, Jim believed that Jesus had forgiven him, yet Jim had not forgiven himself.
When I questioned Jim concerning the forgiveness of Christ, I anchored the state of forgiveness by touching him on his knee. I then asked Jim to “go back in his life” on his Time-Line to a time before he made those mistakes. As he did, I fired the anchor so that he could experience that sense of forgiveness with regard to those specific events. Then, while holding the anchor on his knee, I asked him to come forward through time bringing that sense of forgiveness with him… As a result, this anchoring of this spiritual resource (forgiveness) provided Jim the means of experiencing the forgiveness of Christ with regard to those mistakes.
14.6 Consciously Anchoring In Therapy
First anchors last because they set the frame.
At first I (BB) used anchoring sparingly in therapy. However, with time and practice I now use anchoring regularly (primarily verbal and tonal anchors). I didn’t realize its power at first because of its simplicity. Actually, we inevitably set and fire off anchors all the time. One cannot live without doing so. NLP simply makes us aware of the process. Knowing the neuro-linguistic process of anchoring explains how “first impressions form lasting impressions.” First anchors last because they set the frame. Awareness of setting anchors in others and ourselves gives us the ability to control the process. We can then set anchors that serve ourselves and others well, bring out our best, and create a context for openness and learning.
A properly set anchor will get an immediate response and demonstrate the NLP presupposition of one-trial learning.
Although anchoring originated wit Pavlov’s theory of stimulus-response, the two conceptual processes do differ at points. Stimulus-response generally requires additional reinforcement. With anchoring, we can usually create a linkage on the first attempt. In the stimulus-response model we reinforce the desired behavior through positive conditioning over time. This may take the form of praise, a smile, a pat on the back or any stimulus that encourages a behavior. The reinforcement will continue until the person makes the desired behavior a habitual part of their lives. This process takes time. Generally an external behavior program internalizes into an internal state through repeating it for twenty or thirty days. Then the behavior operates automatically and unconsciously. On the other hand, a properly set anchor will get an immediate response and demonstrate the NLP presupposition of one-trial learning.
Every time we communicate or send messages, we anchor representations. We use words (sound and/or visual symbols—signals) to represent something else and to evoke thoughts, representations, ideas, memories, values, etc. Sensory-based words quickly elicit their referents. “The thirty pound dog with a brown coat stood eighteen inches off the ground, sopping wet from the rain and smelling like it had slept the night in a garbage pit, and there it stood shaking itself in my living room!”
We call that verbal anchoring. Here we use words to induce or evoke in another person various images, sounds, sensations, smells, and feelings. All effective communicators use anchoring, although they usually do so without knowing precisely how the process works. Good storytellers more consciously pair certain messages or experiences with certain tones of voices. They anchor states, experiences and representations.
14.7 Developing The Art Of Anchoring Effectively
When we systematically and precisely anchor, we can elicit desired behavior and states immediately in response to the new stimulus. Use the following procedures to establish anchors quickly and proficiently.
As an overview of the anchoring process: first determine and identify the current state, calibrate to the qualities, signals, and indicators of the state. Then attach some VAKO stimulus to the state. After setting the anchor, break state and then test to see if the stimulus can re-elicit that state (see below). Next, elicit some desired state, get a good full sensory description of it. Attach a new stimulus. Break state and test.
We stack anchors by anchoring several similar states on the same place.
States and/or experiences that needreinforcement probably involve a Meta-state rather than just a primary state. Such states involve a l
ayering of logical levels so that you essentially build not only a program of thoughts-and-emotions about something, but thoughts-and-emotions about those thoughts-and-emotions. In this case, you can reinforce an anchor through stacking anchors. We stack anchors by anchoring several similar states on the same place.
You may choose to change an anchor or erase one. A stronger kinesthetic anchor can “erase” a weaker one. The wife who became negatively anchored at the funeral home may erase that anchor by a more powerful positive anchor so that it “collapses” and cannot function as it did.
14.8 Four Keys To Anchoring
Four Keys to Anchoring
Use a unique place to anchor
Set the anchor at the moment of the state’s highest intensity
Make the anchor as discrete and pure as possible.
Precisely time the anchor.
Unlike stimulus-response, anchoring can occur as a one-time learning experience. Anchoring can sometimes last years or even a lifetime. When certain conditions occur at the time of anchoring (a very intense state, a very unique stimulus, a most effective linking), then the process needs to occur only once to become permanent. Earlier we mentioned the jingle— ”Winston tastes good like a…”? Did that stimulus anchor you to go “cigarette should?” How long has that anchor lasted? The four keys of effective anchoring include:
14.8.0.74 1. Uniqueness: Use A Unique Place To Anchor
In setting an anchor, select a unique stimulus for the anchor. This explains why just shaking someone’s hand doesn’t usually work for anchoring, as it is a generalized behavior. People shake hands frequently, with many different people, and in different ways. Otherwise whoever established the first anchor would have forever set the “meaning/significance” of a handshake every time thereafter! The handshake would forever trigger the person to go into that state! Actually, a handshake lacks enough uniqueness to even set an anchor. Conversely, the more unique the location, the better. This gives an anchor more of a chance to get set and to last.
The more unique the stimulus, the better the anchor. When anchoring kinesthetically, pay attention to where, the size of that place, amount of pressure applied, length of time you touch, etc. Choose a location you can easily return to with precision. Avoid anchoring with reference to a person’s clothing—clothing moves, gets changed frequently, and thus will change its position with respect to the body.
When self-anchoring, choose a stimulus that you can do comfortably. Select a unique anchor, something that you do not commonly do. For instance, squeezing your earlobe or placing your thumb and little finger together. For kinesthetic anchors, select rarely touched places on your body. I (BB) created a relaxation anchor by squeezing my thumb together with my little finger. Creating an anchor in a unique place enables it to endure much longer.
Concerning reinforcing anchors, Dilts (1983) noted that reinforcement of an anchor tends to increase its effectiveness. However, the effectiveness of an anchor comes from the initial quality of the experience.
“Stacking” anchors refers to putting additional resourceful states on top of an anchored resourceful state.
“Stacking” anchors refers to putting additional resourceful states on top of an anchored resourceful state. This makes the anchor more powerful in eliciting a strong positive state. One can also refresh anchors. Periodically, I refresh my relaxation anchor. While deeply relaxed, I press my left thumb on my left little finger to reinforce my relaxation anchor.
14.8.0.75 2. Intensity: Set The Anchor At The Moment Of The State’s Highest Intensity
We create an anchor by applying a stimulus at the time one experiences an intense state. This ties the anchor to the state. Anchors operate state-dependently. This means their operation and functioning depends upon their state of mind-and-body that a person experiences when setting the anchor and re-firing it later.
The “intensity” of a state refers to how strong, emotional, vivid, big, etc., that state feels on the inside. Suppose you want to anchor a resource state in a client. You ask them to remember a time when they felt resourceful. “Think about a time when you felt like you could conquer the world!” As they access the state, it becomes intense if they fully associate into it so they experience it as if there again—seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard, and feeling what they felt—fully.
People vary in the amount of time it takes to change internal states, as well as how intensely they experience their states. Some change states quickly and instantly! Tracking them necessitates a lot of calibration and sensory awareness.
When anchoring a state, we will get a more powerful effect with an associated state than with a dissociated state.
Recall an experience that occurred six months to a year ago. Allow yourself to begin to see yourself in the experience and notice, that as you see yourself (your younger you of that time) in the memory, you now have a dissociated memory of it. Now step into that movie and experience it fully from the inside. With this you experience it as if in the experience. Dissociation removes most of the emotion of an experience. Many NLP techniques use the mental-emotional ability of associating and dissociating. Although dissociation offers powerful effects, when we seek to anchor a state, we want an associated state.
Once a person associates into a resourceful state, use your sensory acuity to calibrate to them as they go into a different state. Notice the changes in face color, skin and muscle tone, and breathing. Then apply the anchor at the time when they most intensely experience the state. Doing so neurologically links the state and the anchor. Mind-body inevitably work together. Anchoring works because when we fire the anchor, we access the anchored state. The nerves associated with the anchor connect neurologically to those neurons that contain the remembered state.
14.8.0.76 3. Purity: Make The Anchor As Discrete As Possible.
“Purity” for an anchor means that it has no competing experiences. When accessing the desired state, elicit the resource experience in such a way as to not elicit contaminating, competing thoughts-and-emotions. Avoid inquiring about two different experiences. “Purity” refers to the distinctness of a state.
Allow no contradictory or contrary internal dialogues to go on while recalling the state. It will distract you in an unuseful direction. Use your internal languaging to amplify the desired state you seek. An intense remembered state will have no competing experiences to weaken the state’s intensity. If you elicit a reference experience in its simplest, purest form—this insures against not contaminating the desired state.
When anchoring, use your sensory acuity skills to notice when the person associates fully into the intense state. Invite the person to remember the state several times––this will help them to focus. When you see them reach a peak in their experience, set your anchor.
14.8.0.77 4. Precision: Precisely Time The Anchor
For precision in anchoring, aim to identify and utilize the proper timing, namely, when you see the state reaching its maximum intensity of neurological response—apply the anchor. After the state seems to peak, and to decline in intensity, release the anchor. Let go of the anchor as the state releases so as to not anchor a “reducing response”(!) or a shift to another state. Holding the anchor too long may contaminate the anchor if the person accesses another state. When I observe the intensity level increasing in someone, I lightly apply the anchor. As the state intensifies, I increase the pressure on my anchor. When the state begins to weaken, I immediately let go of the anchor. How long do you hold the anchor? The time will vary from between five to twenty-five seconds (Figure 13:1). Your sensory acuity skills will inform you as to how long you apply the anchor.
Figure 13:1 Precision Anchoring
To set auditory anchors use particular words or sounds. We often use the word “relax” to anchor in a state of relaxation and speak that word with a relaxing tone of voice. We say “relax” with a low and soft voice. In this way both the word and tone establish an auditory anchor for relaxation.
Other sounds can anchor a state: a cough, the snap of the fingers, or the click of a pen—any auditory stimuli. This works well with groups. And usually you not only have a sound but a particular “face,” expression, posture, etc., that adds a visual anchor. When a person or group experiences the desired state, raise your hand and cough. Whenever you desire the same state in the person or group, repeat the same procedure. Part of the secret will lie in replicating the procedure precisely. This will fire the anchor to recall the same state.
14.9 Five Steps To Anchoring
Five Steps to Anchoring
Establish rapport.
Explain the process (Set the frame).
Elicit and anchor the desired state.
Interrupt the state (Break state).
Test the anchor by firing it.
Anchoring involves performing a series of steps. Follow these steps and develop the ability of anchoring as an effective tool for improving life and accessing resources. We can use anchoring to interrupt people in negative states to bring them out. Negative states predominate whenever we experience lots of pain. To heal that situation, we can address the negative emotional states using anchoring.
The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I Page 31