by Tom Hoobyar
Mind affects body, body affects mind.
When we have an emotional feeling, our blood chemistry changes and affects our brain even further. Round and round . . . mind to body . . . to mind, all becoming part of even more memories stored for later use. All of these images and sensations are stored throughout our lives, just waiting for us to call them up to recall something we once learned, or to mix the information in new ways to make something new and wonderfully possible for us.
What do you think that says about your memories? Did you think that you remembered things just as they happened, as though you captured them with a video recorder?
Actually, you store a highly customized version of your past, what may have actually happened and WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT AT THE TIME. Every time you revisit a memory, you see what really stood out for you, what made an impression on you, and you don’t bother with the rest.
In other words, the foreground of the memory gets sharper with repeated visits. In turn, the “background” gets duller and dimmer each time you remember the important part and ignore the rest, which changes the memory even further.
This means that there are NO accurate and complete memories in a human mind. Basically, your own personal history is a moving target. It shifts each time you call up a memory.
Most people make these shifts unconsciously. They really think that their reality is the same as it is for everyone else. It’s one of the main reasons why there are so many disagreements between people about things that have happened, even if both parties were at the same event.
Memories are highly personalized; they change with each new recall.
Mental Sticky Notes: The Power of “Anchors”
There’s another way your mind works—I call it mental sticky notes, although the proper term is “Anchors.” Here’s a quick example to illustrate the profound effect of an anchor. In fact, it’s probably one of the main reasons I’m married today.
About fifteen years ago, I was on my way to my favorite bookstore. I’d just had lunch with a dear friend who’s an NLP author and trainer. During our time together, I told her I was feeling grumpy about my love life. I’d been dating a lot of women; it felt sort of frantic to me and very tiring. I wasn’t getting anywhere and I’d pretty much decided I was just going to stop. She said, “You make commitments too quickly. You don’t need to cut off relationships, you just need to go on a commitment fast for a while.”
I was musing over what she said as I went up the elevator to this bookstore, and there was a very nice lady in the elevator who smiled at me. I smiled back. It didn’t mean anything—there was no “come-on” at all. The elevator opened up, we got out, and I forgot all about her.
I went into the bookstore and was just browsing when I heard a voice behind me asking for help. The clerk said, “Oh, go down to the other end of the store and ask somebody,” and I thought, “Oh man, this is my favorite bookstore and that’s so unhelpful.” So I turned around to uphold the honor of the bookstore and found that the woman with the question was the lady who’d smiled at me in the elevator. When I asked her what she was looking for, she told me she’d just graduated from college (in her forties) and needed a specific book because she was starting grad school to become a psychotherapist. That’s when I brought up NLP and we started talking.
She completely forgot about the book she was looking for, and eventually I became embarrassed that we were standing in this aisle in the bookstore talking, so I invited her next door for a cup of coffee. I needed to get back to my office, but I thought I would take a few minutes and do a little missionary work on behalf of my beloved interest in NLP. We went next door and we were having a cup of coffee and we talked about everything: NLP . . . our kids . . . our ex-mates (she was a widow) . . . our work . . . our interests.
It was a very pleasant time and I remember this moment like it was yesterday. She was sitting on my left and as she talked, she would laugh at something she’d said and lean over and gently place her hand on my left forearm. She’d say, “And Tom, that was the funniest thing!” and I just liked her. I wasn’t romantic about it. She was too young, too cute, too blond, just not on my radar at all. But she was so natural and enjoyable to be with, I just wanted to talk to her some more. So I made an arrangement to talk to her. The rest is history.
But here’s the thing. It’s fifteen years later. We’ve been married for fourteen of those years and I swear I can still feel her hand on my left forearm where she placed it the day we met. That’s an anchor, a very powerful one.
So anchors—whether they are kinesthetic, auditory, visual, gustatory, or olfactory—that are momentary and out of our awareness can stay with us and influence us for years. We have thousands of them throughout our lives. When you start becoming aware of the phenomena of anchors, you will weave these things into your consciousness and understanding and find little ways to work with them to make your life more convenient or richer—just like you did when you created a “Circle of Excellence” earlier in this chapter.
An anchor is anything that your mind uses to remind you of something else. As an example, we’ve all probably had the experience, at some point, of smelling a perfume, a cigar, or wood smoke, and instantly being transported to a different time in our lives.
Maybe that smell reminded us of a parent or a teacher or a relative, or that wood smoke reminded us of camping or barbecue, or a disaster. Bottom line, things remind us of other things. The interesting idea here is that this phenomenon, which is called anchoring, can be used deliberately.
Here are some other examples that you might not think of when I talk about anchors. How about doorknobs? A doorknob means egress and ingress, so that’s an anchor. Remarks are anchors. People in advertising know this well.
Sometimes the anchor was simply a color. But a powerful anchor might be an image like a flag or a helmet. It might be a slogan that sounded almost like it made sense, but it didn’t make sense unless you knew what it was we were selling. All of these are anchors.
Here’s a phrase that most men react to as an anchor. A woman says, “We have to talk.” That’s an anchor. What she means is “I have something I want you to hear,” but what we say to ourselves is “Uh-oh.” Women have anchors, too. Not being female, I don’t know what they are for sure, but maybe it’s when a man says, “I’ll be a little late from work,” or “I’ll do that tomorrow,” or “I’ll get around to it sometime,” or “Don’t bug me.” These are all examples of anchors.
Discovery Activity:
Creating a Personal Anchor
When you worked with the “Circle of Excellence,” you created a powerful personal spatial anchor. Let’s experiment with another kind of anchor. You’re going to create a kinesthetic anchor, a touch anchor, that you can use on yourself, for yourself. How about an anchor that gives you a shot of confidence, enthusiasm, optimism, and self-regard whenever you need it? Would that be handy?
The nice thing about this particular anchor is you can do this anywhere, anytime you need a little lift—whether you’re alone or in the middle of a meeting. Now, here’s how to get the lift.
Use your nondominant hand for this activity. (If you’re left-handed, use your right hand, and if you’re right-handed, use your left hand.) With the tip of your thumb, find the spot that’s the second knuckle of your middle finger. Practice touching that, because this is going to be an anchor we’re going to use in just a minute.
Go back to a time when you actually had an experience when you felt optimistic and happy. It could be anything.
For a guy, it could be a time that your girl said yes to the prom. For a woman, maybe it was a time the right guy asked you out. Maybe it was a spelling bee or a swim meet you won. Maybe it was when you were out walking, where you were just overwhelmed by the good smells of nature and the wonderful feeling you had.
Okay, take a moment to go back and find a memory, a specific experience, that gives you the feeling of being optimistic and confident and happy with you
rself. It could even be something from a movie you watched or a book you read.
The next question might be “Well, what do I do with it?” or “I can’t find an experience like that.” Let’s take these one at a time. The answer to “What do I do with it?” is simply to go inside that experience. Remember how old you were at the time, and go inside that experience and relive it and enjoy it.
Take a moment. Give yourself thirty seconds to really enjoy that memory, and when you do, look around you and notice what you were seeing at the time. Notice what you were wearing. Notice how your body felt at that time.
When you’re at the peak of feeling good, touch your thumb to that inside knuckle. Just press it once. There isn’t much to it, but we’re not done yet.
Now what I’d like you to do is to go back to that memory and notice that feeling.
Now find another memory where you felt that good, or even better. Go through your life and find another memory. When you’ve found that, go inside and imagine that experience.
When you first found the memory, you may have seen yourself as if you were in a photograph or a movie. Now I’d like you to go inside your imagination and actually be yourself, and go through that experience. When you’re at the peak of good feelings, again touch your thumb to that inside second knuckle of your middle finger.
I have a question for you. What would it feel like if that positive feeling were twice as strong? Just imagine what it would feel like in your body if that good feeling were twice as strong, and again touch your thumb to your middle knuckle.
Wow! Now imagine that it doubled again, and it doubles as you touch the tip of your thumb to that knuckle. Imagine that. That feeling doubles again.
Okay, stop touching the anchor for a minute and take a step backward. If you’ve done that, you’re probably back to your normal state, whatever you were when we started this exercise.
Think of your phone number.
Backward.
Now what I’d like you to do is touch your thumb to that knuckle on your middle finger again and just notice any good feelings that come up. Fascinating, isn’t it?
For additional demonstrations and/or examples, go to http://eg.nlpco.com/1-1.
Anchors at Work: Intentional and Unintentional Anchors
As I mentioned, this is a basic kinesthetic (touch) anchor. To strengthen this anchor over the next couple of days, continue to go through your life experiences, finding the ones that gave you great joy and great optimism, and touch this certain spot again and again.
What this does is “stack” the anchors. This just tells your body and your unconscious, “Oh, this is a thing I can do to make myself feel good,” and it knows how that is because it’s felt good before. It’s felt good in the past.
The effectiveness of this technique requires that you do two things. One, it requires that you actually use your imagination to relive a specific experience. Two, it’s got to be specific. It can’t be theoretical. It can’t be general; it has to be concrete.
A recent good feeling for me was when my four-year-old granddaughter came up and said, “I love you, Poppa!” out of the clear blue sky. I melted and I just added that to the thousands of other experiences that I’ve done this with over the years. You can do it, too.
Here’s another anchor just to think about. If somebody’s near you and they’ve put their hand on your shoulder, usually that’s a warm feeling. Some of us might feel invaded by that, depending on the relationship or timing, but for most of us that’s a warm feeling. And you may notice that good salespeople will do that frequently.
For example, the Cornell School of Hotel Administration teaches hotel management skills. They did research on waitresses and found that waitresses who touched their customers’ hands or shoulders (even accidentally, but who managed to make physical contact) earned an average of 25 percent higher tips. That’s the advantage of what we call a touch anchor.
There are also other kinds of anchors. For instance, there’s a certain tone of voice our loved ones have that we all recognize. Those are anchors. There’s probably a tone of voice our parents had or our teachers. Those were anchors. These might not have been positive, but they were definitely anchors; they trigger a memory that has feelings attached to it.
When you’re facilitating a meeting or presenting to a small group, those of us who’ve had presentation training have learned that if you’re going to take questions, you move to one part of the stage and take questions from that location. When you’re giving information, you move to another part of the stage. Gradually, the audience becomes aware of when they have permission to raise their hands and interrupt you, and when it’s not okay. Those are called spatial anchors—like the “Circle of Excellence” you created.
We’ll be coming back again and again to how you see and hear things in your mind, and the subject of anchors. This book introduces certain ways the mind works, gives you plenty of personal experience about how your mind works, and then shows you ways to use this information, first with yourself and then with others.
So What? How You Can Use This Information
You might be thinking, “So what?” or wondering how you can use this information. Here are a few examples.
If you’re haunted by some dark memories, they may be affecting your behavior or limiting your choices. In this book, you will learn to change the way you hold a specific experience, if you wish. Or, suppose you have a habit you want to change. By managing the process of your thinking, you can learn how to shift old unwanted habits into new and more useful ones. There may be other behaviors you might want to adjust. Perhaps you’re shy, you put things off, or you’re hesitating to explore the life of your dreams.
In these first few Discovery Activities, we’ve begun to develop an understanding of how, by storing elements from our senses combined with some internally generated comments and imaginings, we actually re-create reality inside our minds. In the rest of this book, we’ll be looking at the many ways we can shift the pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells in our memories so that we get better results in our daily lives.
Here’s something else that always amazes me when I work with clients. You won’t remember who you were when you began reading this book—because you’ve already begun to change—but your friends and family around you will. In fact, a couple of months from now, somebody is going to comment on the changes they notice in you. They’ll see the difference between the way you are and the way you were. They’ll notice a single, specific way that you’re different—or the cumulative effect of all these things that you’re learning and applying—which is why the first chunk of this book is about applying these processes to yourself. When you have successful experiences with these different techniques and ways of thinking, they’re real to you.
As you integrate these strategies into how you think and the choices you make, they become second nature. What happens as you become more aware and more expert is that you begin to see how they are at work around you in other people, too—which is fascinating in a whole new way.
Because your NLP skills can heighten your awareness and personal effectiveness, you want to keep them handy and sharp. After all, like any tool, it only works when you use it, not when it’s stashed in a drawer. Let me tell you a story about my friend Tom Dotz. Even though he’s been immersed in the NLP field for years, running a major NLP institute in the United States, he still has moments where he forgets to use his NLP skills.
I was visiting his Colorado office one day and we were about to go out to lunch. Like most people, he felt compelled to check his email one more time before we left. When he did, he suddenly looked much less than happy. “Damn, it’s so-and-so again. I’m getting to the point where I just hate to look at my in-box.”
I couldn’t resist responding to such a limiting statement from my friend since it wasn’t a reflection of how he usually thinks and behaves. And because Tom and I have had a long and enjoyable friendship, I just laughed out loud. Then, with
a big Gotcha! smile, I said, “Well, Tom. It’s too bad you can’t do anything about that.”
My choice of words was quite intentional. You see, Tom has a leaning toward what, in NLP, we call “Counter-Exampling”—which means that if you give him an absolute statement, he feels almost obliged to point out an exception—or two, or more!
So when I jokingly said, “Too bad you can’t do anything about that,” I knew his mind would automatically start feeding him ways he could. And it did.
“You’re right, Tom. Sometimes I forget to use my own stuff on me. I’m totally congruent about changing this. One thing I can easily do is anchor a different more positive response. Or, I could . . .” and on he went to list several more ways he could change his response to his in-box to one that served him better.
The point is that knowledge is power—but only if you use it. After all, positive and negative anchors are everywhere—someone’s name in your email in-box, the tone of someone’s voice, the way they shake their head or chew their fingernails may stimulate a feeling in response. When you notice a feeling you don’t want (or do want) and trace it back to the cause, you will find a trigger—it could be an image, sound, touch, or even a taste or smell—that sets that feeling in motion. Then, you can do something to make your experience better. Once you learn NLP, you always have the power to make positive changes. You just have to remember and use the amazing selection of tools you have right at hand.
An Easy Ride: How This Book Is Structured
I’ve structured this resource in a way that guides you through your first reading and makes it easy to refer to specific things in the future. Although I’d like you to read the chapters in sequence because each chapter builds on the earlier ones, the Contents (in the front) and Index (in the back) will help you look up anything you want to revisit, and the glossary provides definitions of common NLP terms.