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Don't let the 'tale' wag the dog
 
"The past still lives in us …[it] has made us what we are and is remaking us every moment! … An hour is not merely an hour! … It is a vase filled with perfumes, sounds, places and climates! So we hold within us a treasure of impressions, clustered in small knots, each with a flavour of its own, formed from our own experiences, that become certain moments of our past."
 
--Marcel Proust "À la récherche du temps perdu" ("In Search of Lost Time") arcel Proust wished to explore his lost childhood and in so doing wrote his multivolume work entitled "In Search of Lost Time". Here he is taken upon a journey from the petit madeleine cake dipped in lemon-blossom tea, the taste and more importantly the aroma of which takes him back on a detailed and emotionally charged trip to his childhood memories.
 
This external source (the aroma) acts as the stimulation of an emotional state or memory and in NLP is called an anchor. In this article we take a look at the use of anchoring, the criteria for setting anchors as well as a few examples of how and where to use them.
 
Specific aromas that upon the slightest whiff engulf us in a flood of memories in the same way that Proust did in his writings are an amazing example of the way in which our senses re-immerse us into our memories and previous experiences without any conscious intervention or thought. So much so, that many people report that when taking their children to school and entering the school hall, the smell of the polish takes them back to their own school days, some 20, 40 or 60 years prior, with the memory as fresh as if it had been the day before.
 
One of the main reasons that the sense of smell has such an impact upon the reliving of memories is that the aroma signals, upon entering our nasal passages, go directly to the hippocampus, hypothalamus, olfactory cortex and amygdale. These brain systems are directly involved in emotional behaviour and memory. Aromas however are not the only sense signals to evoke memories. Sounds, visual and touch sensations also stimulate our emotions and memories.
 
Do you have a favourite song that when you hear it transports you fully back to that memory? Partners usually have a song that they call 'our song' and when heard it will take them back to that special moment for them. This moment invokes the same sensations, sounds and images of that moment when they first heard the song together, as does being touched in a particular way. These are called natural anchors.
 
Natural anchors are sights, sounds, smells tastes and touches that happen to us day in, day out; such as the sight of loved ones, traffic lights, or entering our parents house (which is an example of spontaneous age regression), the sound of a favourite tune or the aromas of particular foods. The more unique the stimulus, the more the association we will have with a particular memory.
 
Phobias are the response of very strong anchors to stimuli that people have. An example of this is someone who has a phobia of spiders or dogs. Just the mere sight of them sets up an instant response of acute fear. Responses to anchors can be trained or re-trained for specific purposes.
 
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
In 1905 Ivan Pavlov established from experimentation that dogs could be conditioned to salivate by the stimulation from the sound of a whistle (anchor) instead of the smell of food. This became known as The Conditioned Reflex.
 
Though aware of the Pavolian experimentation, John Grinder and Richard Bandler (the co-creators of NLP) first noticed that Virginia Satir (family therapist) and Milton Erickson (father of modern day medical hypnosis) changed their tonality of voice or applied a specific touch that would associate a particular state in their clients to that tonality or touch. When they changed their voice back to the tonality that associated the client to the state, the clients would re-access that same state again.
 
John and Richard used anchoring in the work with their clients to help them access and re-access different states when required during their therapeutic sessions. The anchors act as a way to stabilise states, such that if you wish a client to re-access an identified resource state by firing the anchor (change of tonality, touch or unique gesture), you now have access to the use of these states for helping to build and construct your client's desired outcome.
 
You may notice with certain people that a particular tonality of voice evokes a specific response in you, such as frustration, calmness, irritability, happiness or confidence etc. Using anchors we can we can create a new stimulus to act as a way to stabilise these states such that we can have access to them at other times by re-firing the new stimulus to evoke the response we want.
 
During a client interaction one of the purposes of using anchoring is to stabilise a clean state. This allows us to re-access the same state again during the change process. In part to a) bring forth a positive experience into the change process and to b) notice whether the old state has changed by trying to re-access it via the anchor that has been set to that old state. If the old state has changed then the original stimulus / anchor should not work and the client will only access the new state that she desires.
 
There are four conditions that need to be in place for an anchor to successfully work.
Purity The purity of the response is in relation to the particular state that you wish to anchor. So if you wish to set an anchor / association to when they are happy or confident, then they need to be in that state and not a mixture of other states. Some people will access a memory of some confident situation they are in, but also have mixed feelings about how confident they are. This would then be described as a mixed state.
Uniqueness This is to do with the individuality of the anchor / association. If the anchor, i.e. aroma, touch, tone or visual stimulus is not unique enough then the anchor will not work unless it is consistently applied to the same state over a period of time.
Intensity

That is, how well the client has accessed the state. They are fully associated into the particular experience / memory.
For instance if you were talk 'about' a memory instead of talk from the memory as if you were actually there now, then the anchor to be set would be with the state that is about the experience. And as such would not have the same emotional intensity as if you were actually there.

Timing Timing is all important, for if your client accesses the desired state and you go to apply the anchor / stimulus as the state begins to decline or before they are fully associated into the memory / experience, then you will neutralise the anchor. Ideally you wish to set the anchor while the state is rising and just before it peaks; this sets up a response potential in the person so that the state is always rising when the anchor is applied.
 
The use of anchors is pervasive in our daily lives and serves as a reminder of the way in which we habitually associate positive and negative experiences to things, people and events. Having the skill to re-anchor and create new positive experiences to old associations or enhance existing states and craft even more compelling and exquisite resources for ourselves and others is the technology of change that we have available to us today through NLP.
 
Some people find presentations, interviews or singing to other people to be limiting and negative experiences and try to avoid them at all costs. Anchoring provides a way to have access to different states such as confidence, calmness or assurance through the stimulation of the same anchor (sight, sound or touch) but to the new and different states.
 
If you have a client that shows nervousness or anxiety upon arrival, during your interaction you can help them to access very resourceful states and then set an anchor such as a particular tonality of voice, gesture or facial expression. If you then see them experiencing any negative states again you can fire the anchor and bring them into more resourceful states for change.
 
Anchoring is an important tool in helping to establish appropriate resources and states in contexts where we desire choices of behaviour. This allows the individual to be at the centre of change and therefore exercise choice in response to the anchor. Just as Proust enjoyed his relived childhood through the aroma of the lemon-blossom tea, we can now choose which memories to associate with our own lemon-blossom tea.
 
Robert Ballentine is a successful NLP Trainer and Consultant delivering NLP Practitioner and related courses to the public and business and also provides life-coaching.
He can be contacted on 01252 861351 or email: nlp@maheono.com
Visit the website at www.nlp.maheono.com
 
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