Anchoring

Anchoring is a very interesting subject within NLP field. The idea is to link certain feelings to certain gestures or objects. We do it all the time unconsciously. Lots of people start thinking of a certain thing when they hear a particular song. A fragrance can trigger some event. Even a taste (remember Ratatouille?) Some people throw the old letters which remind them of the relationships they would rather forget about.

Anchoring is used in a dog training. There is a Columbo movie where a murder is committed on phone by persuading a victim to pronounce a certain phrase in a loud voice. The victim did not know that the dogs who were in the house were trained to kill when they heard that phrase. Lieutenant Columbo of course figured that out and had the dogs retrain so they would “kiss” instead of kill when they heard that phrase again. In the end the murderer is found out and he pronounces the phrase with the intention of killing Columbo. But of course to his great surprise the dogs kiss him instead. Great movie, one of my favourites in Columbo series.

Come to think of it we are not much better than dogs. Certain objects, fragrances, sounds and touches—sensations are linked to feelings. Unfortunately, just like with Columbo dogs it is impossible to get rid of the associations completely but we can link it to other feeling in order to weaken or neutralize the feeling we don’t want to experience anymore. We can use the swish pattern for this (imagine the action associated with the feeling that you want and swish the old one that you want to get rid of).

Anchoring can be very sneaky. I recommend that you use it only for good purposes and in order to help yourself. Here is the quick technique of anchoring:

Whenever you feel really good, make a certain gesture like put your thumb and middle finger together. After a while just performing this gesture will make you feel good.