So after my last post which was decidedly a little anti-tech, I’ve decided to switch it up and offer a couple useful pieces of NLP knowledge that I use to keep my state positive and happy. I shouldn’t have to remind everyone though that over dependence on this kind of thing is not healthy at all. This sort of technique is powerful and does produce immediate changes, but changing your state is only part of the process. The real insight comes when you start to realize that any changes you make could have been made anyway with no technique at all, the technique gives you something to use and believe in until the desired state is only a thought a way.
For example, I once read a story by a guy who was notoriously good at meeting women. He said that in high school he had been terrible and lacked any inkling of social intelligence. Needless to say, his love-life was non existent. When he started to learn a few interesting lines or some good jokes to open up conversations at bars, he thought it was kind of tacky to have a canned introduction, but they gave him something to say so he wouldn’t end up standing there shuffling his toes looking bored. He eventually found himself doing better and better, able to relax and open up, be confident and meet the kind of people he was interested in. He started to realize that the openers and routines that he used to use weren’t necessary and he could just walk up to a girl and confidently say ‘hello’. The openers weren’t that impressive in and of themselves, it was the confidence they gave him which was making others interested in meeting him.
Using these kinds of NLP techniques is the same way. The change you’re trying to make is really only a thought away, just like the process you go through when you remember something. You don’t need to rub your elbow or say some magic phrase to remember something, just the simple desire to do so and it happens. The process of self change can be just like that when you build up enough reference experiences to realize that change doesn’t have to be hard.
In the meantime getting to the point where you have those reference experiences can be difficult. That’s where these kinds of tools come in. Use them to get where your going then leave them behind once you get there.
That’s where the idea of spatial anchoring is going to really help you. We’ve talked about the notion of anchoring before but in this post I want to focus on anchoring’s relationship to the environment around you. I.E. Spatial Anchoring. Here’s an example:
The Visualization Walk
Find a place where you’ll have five or six feet of floor in front of you and behind you. Standing where you are, close your eyes and imagine a quality of yours just as it is. For instance if your trying to build more confidence, start by imagining a situation where you exhibit the level of confidence you have right now… however much or little that is. Make an effort to see yourself first from the third person, as you imagine you appear to others, then imagine seeing the same situation through your own eyes, in the first person.
Remember to make the picture bright and clear.
Really spend a minute or two feeling this state out. Its not just about seeing the image, its also about getting into the sensations in the body, the sounds, everything. Do whatever it takes to bring this image alive to you.
Now were going to take a step backwards. When you step backwards imagine your confidence decreasing. Think of a particularly un-confident scene from your life. If you have never felt less confident than you do now, make up a scenario that to you would seem a notch down from the situation we imagined at first. Feeling yourself getting less confident as you take a step backwards and notice how easy it is to move into a worse state than the current one. You simply subtract a certain amount of confident qualities from the last step. Adding qualities should be just that easy.
Now take one more step backwards and really get into the worst possible version of the state you’re working on. Imagine yourself at your least confident, least secure, least whatever and really get to know that nasty state. Remind yourself as you imagine it first in third person, then in first, that moving down in state is simple, just as simple as moving up.
Now step forward. Spend a second or two back at this point before taking another step forward and into the base level state we started from. Now I’m sure you can guess what to do next. Take a step forward and into a more confident you, a calmer, healthier, happier you. This is where you have to actually use that third person view to really see what kind of qualities you need to amp up to achieve the state you’re pushing for. Remember how easy it was to turn down certain qualities and imagine yourself worse off, now we’re doing the opposite and spotting those qualities in yourself that your higher You would possess. Maybe she stands a little taller, has better posture, maybe she carries herself with a different calmness and more grace. Maybe he’s reading more and going to bed early, maybe hes out socializing at night and going to bed later, its really up to you but remember to make the picture big and colorful. Make it as real as your mind’s eye can make it.
Once you’ve spent enough time in that higher state, open your eyes and march confidently back into the world. Know that at any time you can turn the space around you into a sliding dimmer switch of resourceful abilities. You can turn the volume up on the qualities that you already possess and become the kind of person you’ve only been dreaming of becoming.
That’s just one possible way to do it. You get the basic idea though. When you use spatial anchoring your teaching your nervous system to associate certain parts of the environment with certain types of states. By stepping backwards first into a lesser or more negative image you’re brain is getting the idea that each state is really just a combination of certain emotions and images in your mind. By changing our relationship to them and exploring how easy it is to make them worse, we also notice how flexible a state is and how easy it can be to imagine ourselves better.
Now go out and do something useful with that resourceful state, don’t just sit there feeling good, go make the world a better place.
This post is going to diverge from the normal mindfulness-based topics I’ve been writing about lately so I can share a short, sweet, and simple technique straight out of the old NLP handbook.
Its called the ‘Circle of Excellence’
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I don’t subscribe to the idea that anchoring takes place instantly or on the first firing of the anchor. While this is no doubt the case for some people, others have much deeper negative emotions anchored to certain stimuli that a little click of the fingers or a rub of the elbow won’t cure.
Over time though I do believe that repeating any anchor will eventually condition a certain state to respond no matter how anchored the negative state already is. Thats the idea behind the circle of excellence.
Creating Your Circle
Find an appropriate place on the floor somewhere and make a circle there. You could do this with tape, string, anything that will form an enclosed spot on the ground. A lot of the NLP literature encourages people to visualize the circle. While this might be effective for those times when you will want to use the technique but aren’t in your office etc, I’ve found from my own experience that having a physical circle of some kind works better.
Now whenever you just happen to find yourself in a positive, resourceful, energetic or focused state, take a moment or two to go and stand in your circle of excellence. Take this time to really feel the positive sensations in your body. What does this positive, enthusiastic, creative state actually feel like? where do you feel it in the body? The goal here is to become deeply aquainted with the physiological state of success, really feel your own power and don’t step out of the circle until you think you’ve really experienced that state fully.
Repeat this process at least four or five times. Some people will feel effects right away, others will take time but the rules of conditioning work either fast or slow for EVERYONE. So don’t be afraid to input five or six good positive experiences before you begin to use your circle to elicit positive states.
Now the final step of course is actually using the circle. You shouldn’t need much help here. If you’ve really given your mind the chance to associate those positive feelings with that circle, at this point just stepping into it should drop you straight into that positive state. Combine your circle time with some positive self talk and affirmations and you’ve got one of the elements of a champion lifestyle.
Try and treat your circle like a bank account, the more money you put in, the more interest your going to accrue. If you really put the work into depositing a minute or two of those peak experiences, you’ll find yourself able to make a withdraw at those crucial moments when you really need it.
As an admitted self help junkie through the years I’ve been fascinated by the notion of
Anchoring. The idea that states are associated with physiology, and the environment, to such a degree that just being in the right room, or making a certain face will drops you right into that state. The info that comes up on Google when I do a search for anchoring demonstrates that the NLP community still has a very limited view of this broad and expansive subject.
The idea that anchoring can be reduced to the simple technique usually marketed in an nlp seminar is foolish and frequently packaged in an unrealistic and pseudo-scientific way to justify the $1500 price tag on your average seminar. The idea that associations elicit states is so universal that to reduce it to the practice of scratching your nose or touching someones shoulder every time they are in a positive state is simply too shallow so serve as an effective description of this concept.
So does this mean that all you have to do to quit smoking is create an anchor for yourself, fire it once, and be finished forever?
NO. The stronger the association the harder it is to stop. Creating an anchor to a resourceful mindful state will certainly help, but you will need to use it over and over and not expect some magical technique to undue the addiction in your body and mind instantly. Unfortunately, for the lazy, you will still need to exercise self-discipline and control.
Not that the conventional technique doesn’t work… far from it… it works too well. However I’d be a liar if I told you it worked in the first two minutes you meet someone every time, unless the person you are trying this move on is particularly susceptible to this kind of thing… and I assure you everyone is not. This is doubly true for doing anchoring work on yourself. Some will get incredible results immediately other will have to build up the strength of their anchors over time. This technique is such a basic part of human nature though that given the right amount of effort and time anyone can build for themselves a highly effective anchor. There is actually no significance between the notion of Anchoring and the more generally accepted idea in psychology called Classical Conditioning discovered by a rather famous Russian scientist with a fabulous beard named Ivan Pavlov .
Anchoring or conditioning is happening every moment of every day… any physical space/enviroment, body posture, facial expression etc is going to bond with the strongest emotional state often associated with it. For every place in your life, every face you make, every move you make is for better or worse directly entangled with the state your most often in when you enter that room, make that face etc.
Take notice to the way your daily habits and physical actions correspond to your inner states … you may find that a nagging negative emotion you’ve been trying to overcome is really just an anchor that you fire the same time, same place every day. As long as the state you want to elicit has weaker associations than the feelings you have already anchored to a particular place… you won’t be able to escape those feelings without avoiding firing that anchor.
The key to understanding learning, behavior, and influencing your own emotional state lays in understanding the connections between the physical component of your being… and the emotional. In the next few posts about anchoring I’m going to be going over some of my own uses of anchoring in slightly more novel/useful ways than I usually see online and in seminar… hopefully the you’ll find a use for this broader more expansive understanding of anchoring your daily life.
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