I’ve always been a little bit sceptical about the effectiveness of the anchoring that is used by a lot of NLP practitioners. You know, that thing where you ‘recapture’ a state and then press a finger or make some other gesture to ‘anchor’ those feelings? The idea is that you can then recapture those positive emotions by repeating that gesture or touch.
So, it was something of a surprise when I realised how strongly anchors feature in my own life. And how effectively I use them, albeit usually without much conscious thought or planning. The thing is, we all have anchors – things that trigger a specific emotional response. And they’re not actually a new concept, unique to NLP. As a friend pointed out, it’s just that in other fields they are referred to as ‘triggers’.
When referring to anchors, NLP usually refers to a touch, sound, sight or gesture – but I’d also add smell to this list. For example, the smell of fresh raspberries always evokes a powerful memory of my Gran, wobbling down the garden path (she was a robust woman), plucking fruit from her vast array of fruit bushes. And of course, there are powerful emotions attached to these memories. Gran’s garden always seemed like an Aladdin’s cave; a place of adventure and mystery. (She had a pet parrot in the house and tortoises living in her enormous fruit cage). At the same time it was a place of safety and security.
Smells though are difficult anchors to consciously ‘use’. It would be slightly inconvenient to always carry a punnet of raspberries, just in case I want to recapture that emotional state. But there are other anchors that we can use. The anchor that I’ve used most deliberately and effectively in my life, often without realising it, is music.
This was brought home to me last week when I ‘rediscovered’ a tune that I had listened to repeatedly the first time I flew – to New York in 1996. Now, avid readers of my blog, if there are any, will have noticed that last time I talked about my fear of flying but also about how much I’d enjoyed this very first experience of flying. The song in question (which I’m not going to identify because it’s just too embarrassing) is a ridiculously up-tempo, disco, hi-energy tune. Having rediscovered it, I listened to it repeatedly on my day out last week. And then, quite suddenly, I was struck by my state of mind. Now, don’t get me wrong, Lyme Regis is a lovely place (really, lovely) but I’m not entirely sure a trip to Lyme Regis would normally evoke the sort of near euphoria and excitement that I experienced last week – particularly as the journey was, basically, one long traffic jam. Thinking about this, I remembered that, in my ‘clubbing’ days I had one or two tunes that I’d put on to get me in the mood for the night out. No matter how tired, or jaded, I was after a day in the office, listening to those tunes would always be enough to make me want to party the night away.
The trouble is, anchors aren’t always positive. Some are downright negative. Sounds, smells, gestures, touches – they can all evoke powerful negative emotions as well as positive. Don’t believe me? Here’s an experiment that I strongly recommend you DON’T try at home (but which you might have): There’s probably one contact in your phone list whose calls you dread. Perhaps this person is always negative? Perhaps they just drone on and on for hours? Try allocating them their own personal ringtone. (No, really, DON’T.) After a few weeks, notice how that ringtone delivers an emotional response.
So, anchors are powerful and can be used to effectively recall a particular emotion. So, why my scepticism? The problem is that anchors only work to ‘anchor’ the emotion we are experiencing at the time we anchor it.
A friend of mine has recently been experiencing some emotional problems. These are serious enough that he, bravely, decided to seek counselling. It turned out that the counsellor he saw was an NLP practitioner, heavily reliant on anchoring. After his first session, I asked my friend how it had gone. “Oh”, he said, “it was just a bit ‘hippyish’ for me, I don’t see how it can help me.” He went on to explain, in very negative terms, how he’d been told to repeat positive statements and at the same time touch a finger or make another gesture. Except, he hadn’t captured a positive state of mind when he was making these gestures. So what he was actually anchoring was his cynicism, self-doubt and negativity. Not exactly the result that either he or his counsellor were hoping for.
Anchoring is a powerful force that occurs naturally throughout our lives. It can be a powerful tool. But, if we are going to ‘use’ it, we need to be extremely careful about how we use it and be clear about what we are anchoring.
p.s., Oh, ok, if you must know, my musical anchor was
this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! It’s not high culture!