Anchoring states

[j0hnny#]

What is the best way of anchoring states - in myself, and in others...... (effectively) - I've heard some audio tapes on it (essential skills group) though not entirely clear about the process and how to implement it....


Will appreciate any comments/discussion to make the process and principles clear as well as some tips on technique, etc...

Cheers:)

[solaris152000]

Anchors.

You worked hard so far to get the person into the deep state
of trance (note: some of the trance deepening techniques were
removed from this text. They are available in the eBook only).
You spent at least five minutes bringing the person into the
state you want. You have all "textbook" signs of trance (see
the book on Hypnosis) and he/she is following you without any
interference from the critical faculty. And then some idiot is
walking right into your conversation with the standard idiot
greeting number one "Hey dude (friendly punch in the person's
shoulder. THAT sure will alter person's physiology and break the
state), how are you? Good? Me too. See ya..." And the entire
work of the last five minutes is ruined! You can do it again of
course, but with the corner of your eye you see bunch of other
idiots that are waiting to approach you with idiot's standard
greeting... or so it seems. If only you could have the Save button!
You know, like in a computer game when you know that you are about
to be killed by the monster around the corner of this dark corridor,
you just save your game and reload it later so that you can continue
from where you was and have the second (twenty second?) chance.

Well, bad news for you. This button does not exist. Now good news
for you. You can CREATE this button. And as it is a real world and
not a computer game, creating buttons here is fast, easy and it is
fun. Those buttons are called ANCHORS (see any NLP book in the list
of recommended books at
http://nlp.snowseed.com/references.htm (http://65.54.184.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=64d76d491526f1ec85f25242ea4374ca&lat=1083176374&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fnlp%2esnowseed%2ecom%2fre ferences%2ehtm)).

It all began with the Pavlov and his dogs. When you feed the dog -
the dog salivates. Now, when you feed the dog AND ring the bell, the
dog thinks "what the hell was that?" and still salivates. As the
brain (including dog's brain) is the pattern detection machine, soon
enough it will figure out that ring and food are related. So when you
ring the bell the dog salivates. Now, humans are like dogs. Does it
ring a bell for you? Yes, some of them are not, some of them are like
angels. That's not what I mean. People are like dogs BECAUSE their
brain is doing the same pattern detection job. And if you ring the bell...

I remember the story from my school time. I just graduated and
came to school to attend some kind of celebration where the
principle would congratulate us and give us some further
directions. But I already was a free man, which means - no
classes. So was the rest of my classmates that was waiting in the
hall, some sitting, some standing and having the casual conversation.

And then the bell rung! Remember - we was NOT supposed to go to any
class. But... Everybody - and I mean - everybody - stood up and did
couple of steps in the random directions, or changed the person they
was talking to. And no one noticed! Except for me ;)

Now, THIS particular button was installed by over ten years of
practice. You hear the ring - you go somewhere. Can we install it
faster? To answer this question I invite you to think about phobias
as about a button, or an anchor that was installed, sometimes by
the single event in the person's happy life and then work reliably
for the rest of the person's miserable life! Unless of course this
person runs across an NLP-trained guy, in which case the phobia is
gone within five minutes but it is a different story (first reference
that I know is in works of Bandler and Grinder but I personally like
using it with the timeline as in "Time Line Therapy and the Basis of
Personality" by Tad James. Sometimes not. Sometimes it is so simple,
you just started the technique and phobia is already gone.)




You can also build new anchors, ones that would give you the
necessary resources in the necessary situations. Afraid to approach
a woman? Scared by the very thought of speaking in public? How
about creating an anchor where the trigger (bell ring) is the
situation you are uncomfortable with and the response (salivation)
is the state of mind you want - like confidence or excitement?
And now every time you approach the woman, you will be salivating...
Just kidding... Just kidding...

So how do we set an anchor? Keeping in mind, that anchor is the
condition-response and nothing more, we need to find a state that
we need and to find a trigger that we need and as the person is
in the desired state we do the trigger, or as NLP folks would say
- we fire an anchor.

Let's say we need the humorous state. We want this person to smile
every time you want and humor is good for it. Tell the joke.
Something like "One drop of nicotine kills the horse. One drop of
whisky - and horse is up and running again". Or "if it does not work
the first time, then probably sky diving is not for you". Wait for
the reaction. The moment before the peak of the reaction touch the
person's hand. That is an anchor. You can do it again if you want
to make anchor stronger.

Now, there is an important point I want to stress, it is timing. As
you observe the person building up a laughter, anchor the state right
before the maximum. If you do it after the peak of an emotion, you
are anchoring the "stop laughing" state which is not what you want.

Do it covertly. The less aware the person is about anchor - the
better it works, but there are exceptions.

Make sure the trigger is unique. The handshake is an example of
a really BAD anchor - it is fired all the time, especially with
men so the anchor will soon wear off.

In the American society, where the percentage of Auditorial people
is negligible, a voice tonality, tempo, pitch or the direction of
the voice (which way you look while talking) will almost always go
unnoticed. Say you are in the business negotiations. Then talk about
good things looking slightly left and talk about bad things while
looking slightly right. And then use this anchor - talk about your
services while looking slightly left and if the conversation touches
services of your competitors (and if not - you can always bring it
up) - talk about them while looking slightly right. This way your
opponent will get an unconscious message saying "this guy is good
and his competitors are not".

When you attend the presentation, move while you are talking. Stay
in different spots, while talking about different subjects. It is
called a spacial anchor.

Another example - calling a child by the full name is usually an
"I am in trouble" anchor for him. Is it good? What if the teacher
calls him by the full name - will the child feel helpless?

Visual anchors are very powerful, especially in the situation when
you cannot touch the person. I hope TV will never be able to broadcast
kinestetics (i.e. sense of touch). Can you imagine what they will
do in commercials? So far they can only show us pictures (and an
image can be an anchor - think of the Coca-Cola logo) and sounds.

Smell is one of the most powerful anchors. Perfumes are used for
this purpose for ages. Smell of the dentist's office will make most
people nervous. Stores use aromatic substances to create relaxed state in
the customer mind and to bring him back - if you walk into the store
and smell flowers, you will FEEL GOOD. And when you want to feel
good - where would you go? Not to the store in which you smell
burning rubber that's for sure. What about the travel agency that
is using "smell of the ocean" aroma? Sea... I want to go
there... here is my credit card...

In our brain we have neurons connected to each other. But for
the purpose of better understanding of anchors think of the
following metaphor - just remember that it might or might not
be related to the "real" brain structure. So what? When kung-fu
teacher tells you to "be a water", he does not mean that you have
to create a mess on the tatami. It is just a metaphor.

So think of the mind as of the map of the reality. The map is not
the territory, it is imprecise, incomplete and sometimes simply
wrong. A good example of the map that is guaranteed not to be the
territory, but is still useful is our "become water" example.

And we can have more than one map, loosely connected to each other
(if they are not we may have a multiple personality case, where one
"map" is not even aware of another). And each map is best accessed
from the particular state of mind, so the person's personality is
changing, sometimes changing a lot, when he is in different states
of mind. How many times you thought that the world is an evil place
and all those people want is to hurt you? And how many times have
you thought that the world is an amazing place and people are so
good? Different state of mind, different maps. One map is saying
"people are bad", another one is saying "people are good". Obviously
they don't coexist well.

Now if it was all it is, there would be nothing to worry about.
However there is another piece in this metaphor called Resources.
It says (the metaphor says) that when you are in different states
of mind, you have access to the different sets of resources. For
example, when you are relaxed you can be creative. But when you
are under a lot of stress you are not creative anymore! So what
happened to this creativity? You sure still have it somewhere
there... inside... right? It is just on the other map, that is not
accessible when you are stressed on.

The first thing that comes to mind is to use anchors to move the
person from one state to another. It works well if the state is
mild and the anchor is strong. Remember all those Hollywood movies
when the young man is afraid but then he gets a gun and now he
believes (and he is wrong, after all it IS a Hollywood movie) in
himself and he is not afraid anymore? Well, the gun is an anchor
that fires up the "I am powerful" state and it was installed -
what a surprise - mostly by other Hollywood movies.

Or remember those amulets that people suppose to touch, or strange
rituals they do, like touching the wall every time before you go play
tennis? This is an anchor and YES, IT WORKS. So do not laugh when
people do it.

There are other ways however, to make the anchors work for you. What
if the state is so profound and so unpleasant that you cannot think
of a single positive state that would overweight it? Or what if the
desired state is very far from the state you want to change? You cannot
expect that when the person is scared to death with the public speaking
he is about to perform, you just touch his hand and he magically changes
into the confident and ready to rock-and-roll state.

To deal with a situation like that we must ask ourselves a question -
how does this change happens in "real life"? Today the person is scared,
or sad, or feels powerless and tomorrow he is fine, laughing and having
great time - what happened in between that made those changes possible?

The answer is... OK, how do you eat an elephant? - One piece in a time.
How do you change strong negative state? One piece in a time. You do
not want to do a "quantum leap" change, you would rather perform
three, maybe four little steps.

Let us consider a real-life example - so called Hypnotic Persuasion
technique. Lets use a seduction example as it is probably the most
widely used "out there" (Credits to Ross Jeffries, see "links" section
on my Web site at http://nlp.snowseed.com/index.html (http://65.54.184.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=098c88aec2df55e8c758e068a5d31266&lat=1083176374&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fnlp%2esnowseed%2ecom%2fin dex%2ehtml)).
Now, you don't approach the girl and say "be attracted to me". She will
do one of two things. She will either walk away or punch you in
the nose and then walk away. Punch in the nose is an anchor, so
next time you might not want to approach girls like that. Instead
you will want to talk to her about something, or better someone
she find interesting. And anchor this state. Then you may talk - in
an innocent casual conversation - about some "friends of friends of
yours" that was just friends and then they started to build mutual
admiration. Ask her if she had such an experience. Not directly, no.
Simple "you know what I mean" might do the job. She will go inside
and find memories that will confirm that yes, she knows what you mean.
It can be real, or taken from the movie, or constructed - does not
mater. And as there is no difference between real "here and now"
experience and the constructed one - she will go to corresponding
state. And so on - you build what is called Chain of States, one
leading to another and the last one leading to you.

Think about it as about driving the car - do you start with 4th
gear right away? No. You accelerate one step in a time.

OK, now we have our anchors, for example two of them. One for
"bad" existing state and one for "good" desired state. We are done
with the seduction example by the way as it is not what I am
teaching in this book. Let's say that every time you are in
certain circumstances you feel depressed. And you want to feel
resourceful and generally good. You found the desired state and
set up an anchor. Now, fire the first anchor that is for the
original state. You can do it on yourself with the little
practice or you can do it on someone else. When doing it observe
the person's behavior and all verbal and non-verbal clues. It
is called a calibration. When you fire an anchor you should be
able to notice the person's physiology change to the physiology
of the state you anchored. At the peak or almost on the peak
of the state but NOT after the peak fire the second anchor,
the one you have for the desired state.

Let me get to my favorite "SMILE" part. What will happen if
every time you feel depressed you catch the very beginning of
it and force yourself to SMILE? Say, you are depressed every
time you think about particular event. Keep thinking, just SMILE
and sit straight. Some time later you may find that you are
smiling automatically as you think about it.

What happens is you make the first state to act as an anchor
for the second state, so whenever you go to the first state
it fires the second state! So the moment you feel depressed,
you BEGIN SMILING.

This technique is called Chaining of Anchors. One of NLP favorite
places to set anchors for this technique is on person's nockles.
There are enough of them to create long chain and it is a good
place as those anchors are rearlynot usually fired by accident. But you can
use shoulders, hands, gestures, voice tonality - anything you want.
I read a story about a salesperson, who wanted to be a "family man"
at home and an aggressive salesperson at work - I do not remember
where I read it, so unfortunately I cannot credit the source. So
entering home became an anchor for "family man" state and exiting
home was used to switch him back to "shameless salesman". For the
person who is afraid of rejections and who in the same time have
to do phone marketing the phone can be made an anchor. Picking up
the phone should fire pleasant state of anticipation, or something
like that.

Now, in terms of mind maps when we link anchors in a chain
we link mind maps, so that activating one results in activating
another. But there are situations when we need resources
of both maps IN THE SAME TIME (see any NLP book from the List).
Now, if you are martial artist and piano player, you don't need
to access karate resources while you play piano, or piano
resources when someone is trying to kick you where it counts.
But if you are martial artist AND you DON'T want to fight in
the bars, you may want to have access to your creative resources,
that can help you to talk your way out of the conflict when
you are angry AND to be ready to fight if it does not work.
Usually when the person is angry he is not that creative at
all and afterwards you can hear them saying something like
"it was not me. I don't know what happened". Well, to some
degree it was not them, it was a different mind map of their
that had limited or no access to the resources this person needed.

But we have our magical buttons now and each button grants us
access to certain state. What will happen if we press two buttons
in the same time?

Before I answer this question I have to remind you of one of
the most important rules of NLP, also called presuppositions.
It states that in any situation the person chooses the best
behavior available for him based on resources he has, of course.
Now, sometimes this best behavior looks, sounds and feels
extremely stupid but it is always the best that was available for
the person with resources of the mind map he was using at the time.

Now, as we fire two anchors in the same time or as NLP folks
would say, when you are collapsing two anchors (see "Change
Your Mind-And Keep the Change" by Connirae Andreas, Steve Andreas),
mind maps get merged. And if states are comparable (which means,
you are not trying to collapse slightly humorous state with the
severe case of phobia), the two mind maps became one. It is very
interesting to observe (calibrate) changes in person's non-verbal
cues as you do it, the final physiology will be a mix between two
initial physiologies.

After the anchors are successfully collapsed, the resources of both
maps are available in the "problem" situation, like a conflict in
the bar. But as the person chooses the best available behavior,
it usually seems that the "problem" map is gone. It is not. All
its resources are there, they are just not used anymore. Remember -
NLP does not take choice away from people, it gives extra choices.
Choice is better than no choice.

===

As you walk through your life, you are "anchoring" a lot of different
things. The more you learn NLP and Hypnosis the more clear
it becomes that you are constantly firing anchors. One after
another. At random... And if you do not do something about it
(and the State of Power techniques are able to clean this mess
real fast - see (http://nlp.snowseed.com/power.htm (http://65.54.184.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=04d156c73b8fe3c4d328d2074039b508&lat=1083176374&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fnlp%2esnowseed%2ecom%2fpo wer%2ehtm))
then YOU are manipulated by your circumstances, as each of them
is an anchor!

Let's consider a rather artifficial example. Every time you see a
tree you think of your work (a so called "habitual" anchor).
And every time you see a dog you get scared (another anchor, and
you don't have to know about it - you will just get a bit
uncomfortable within 5 minutes you saw a dog, that's all).

Now let's say you are walking down the street and you see a tree
(my work) and THEN a dog (I am afraid). And WITHOUT ANY REASON
you feel insecure about your job.

So there IS a mess to clean in any of us and you are lucky that
you at least started this jorney. Most people never will...

[j0hnny#]

Thank you my friend, a very fine and detailed reply......... :)

One question: at what point does a person reach the peak of any particular state - and how is 'just before' to be best determined? (this is a skill that can be developed I would imagine... though skill requires knowledge-that as well as know-how) What indications are conducive to 'knowing-that' it is the best time to install an anchor (whether internally or externally)?

btw MSN has manipulated your links, it would appear.....

[Merlin]

the best method is to practice anchoring.
Start with the precision kinesthetic anchors until you are good at them. Then experiment with others such as visual and auditory.

[solaris152000]

Yes I would agree, if you practice anchoring alot you will start to do it more subtle and even unconciously!

[Unregistered]

Sorry this is totally off topic but, how can I make a thread without having to register?

[j0hnny#]

I found this great little article about anchoring on Shlomo_NLP's (first class) site - thought it might be worth directing people to - remembered this thread.....

http://www.nlpweekly.com/index.php?p=152 (http://www.nlpweekly.com/index.php?p=152)

[Persuasion Skills]

Heres the Link to an article I wrote on anchoring, in a social setting

http://www.persuasion-skills.co.uk/ShowArticles.asp?ANUM=4

Regards

Marc

[j0hnny#]

Cheers Marc, that is also a nice article, and it goes some of the way to answering a question I have been thinking about i.e. I was wondering whether to anchor states in yourself you have to actually actively recreate an experience then anchor it or whether you can anchor naturally occuring states as they are happening - so I find myself in a moment of intense concentration, I can make an anchor for that - supposing I realise before the state peaks. On one side, this must be a possibility for I already have a number of anchors set which I didn't know how I got them, particularly. Also, I can set anchors for people in my company who don't realise it, but they work. So I can imagine I wouldn't necessarily have to go about recreating the experience before anchoring it. Is this correct - or, rather, the more difficult approach (I imagine it might be more difficult - I guess experimentation is the best answer I will get, but would be good to hear your views as someone more experienced). As a point of comparison between yours and Shlomo's article - Shlomo recommended setting personal anchors by repeating the peak experience followed by anchor stage about 10 times to make the neural link strong enough - I wonder if that might make it more difficult when setting anchors in another person - I mean there is a limit to the amount of times you can ask your friend what makes them relaxed, surely, without them getting suspicious or dis-freinding you for forgetting previously discussed things on several occasions. Otherwise, it may be the case that once is enough to set the anchor once you are experienced. If this is the case, what sort of methods would you recommend for practicing i.e. indications of peak (although I have a few now from Shlomo's article, breathing change, movement, eye's dilating, that kind of thing - although I guess it is to a degree relative to the state you are trying to anchor). I guess though, there are probably general things to look out for (at peak state). Constrictions, relaxations, lighting up, a red face. Do you look out for any kinds of indication in particular?

Johnny

[Persuasion Skills]

Cheers Marc, that is also a nice article, and it goes some of the way to answering a question I have been thinking about i.e. I was wondering whether to anchor states in yourself you have to actually actively recreate an experience then anchor it or whether you can anchor naturally occuring states as they are happening - so I find myself in a moment of intense concentration, I can make an anchor for that - supposing I realise before the state peaks.





Yes you can create a state and anchor it, or you can anchor a naturally occurring state, and then reinforce the anchor through creative visualization for example.







As a point of comparison between yours and Shlomo one article - Shlomo recommended setting personal anchors by repeating the peak experience followed by anchor stage about 10 times to make the neural link strong enough - wonder if that might make it more difficult when setting anchors in another person - I mean there is a limit to the amount of times you can ask your friend what makes them relaxed, surely, without them getting suspicious or dis-freinding you for forgetting previously discussed things on several occasions.





I haven't read shlomo’s article so I can't comment directly, however firstly I'd create sliding anchors to affect the response, that way you'd actually see the response. You know when someone's quite excited, and you know when someone's very very excited!



As for Re accessing the state, you could use metaphor, quotes, or the environment around you, and you could stack the anchors on top of each other, or chain them even to create new more powerful states.



However I've found that if I go into the correct state that I'm trying to elicit, then I will get the response I need without having to Re anchor 10 times!!!!!!!!!!



I'll do it in one-hit, and then use a sliding anchor to create the response potential





Otherwise, it may be the case that once is enough to set the anchor once you are experienced. If this is the case, what sort of methods would you recommend for practicing i.e. indications of peak (although I have a few now from shlomo's article, breathing change, movement, eye's dilating, that kind of thing - although I guess it is to a degree relative to the state you are trying to anchor). I guess though, there are probably general things to look out for (at peak state). Constrictions, relaxations, lighting up, a red face. That's you look out for any kinds of indication in particular?



Johnny



If you go into the correct state yourself, you'll notice how your breathing changes etc. and this will give you an idea of what to expect, however if you create a sliding anchor you'll notice the response and if you creates a strong enough state you'll definitely notice a response. And then you can fire the anchor spatially, in a slide and watch the response, whenever you fire it.

Hope that helps

Marc

www.persuasion-skills.co.uk

[j0hnny#]

Thanks for your helpful reply Marc - that is interesting. I think that technique is called (by Bandler) 'Personal Power'. Yes, I have some memory of (actually) many situations where obviously it works, then anchoring on top of that..... its all good.....

Thanks
J







However I've found that if I go into the correct state that I'm trying to elicit, then I will get the response I need without having to Re anchor 10 times!!!!!!!!!!