Spatial Anchoring Fun

June 7, 2009 at 1:38 am · Filed under Uncategorized, anchoring, goals, life hacking, neurolinguistic programming, self development, self mastery, stress, stress reduction, the mind

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.

-Chris

Related Reading Online:
‘What They Don’t About Anchoring in the Seminars’ -Michael Breen
‘The Gold in Anchoring’ -Tom Dotz

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Own Your Ethics

June 4, 2009 at 2:50 am · Filed under Ethics, mindfulness, self development

A vital underpinning of society is a basic, agreed upon set of principles, the earliest known, of course, is Hammurabi’s code, brutal, succinct, and probably a seriously efficient tool to keep a relative degree of civil peace in ancient Babylon. We’ve all heard the age old eye trade adage. The consequences for adultery. What kept down the killing and cuckolding before that? And then from what long forgotten stone were those morals modeled? There must have been some understanding of right and wrong before any code was ever chiseled. Actions that were widely regarded as anti-social, and deeds that deserved retribution, would have been deemed amoral and unacceptable, based on their physical and emotional repercussions.

Hearing stories about our ultra-violent ancestors, the medieval massacres, the slaughter that accompanied the meetings of dissimilar cultures, the terrible things humans did to fellow humans, it’s easy to see why someone would inscribe a baseline code of conduct and consequence. Hammurabi was a king, and he may have been compelled by an inner sense of morality and ethics, or he may have simply wanted a means of regulating the murders and transgressions taking place in his kingdom that effected its political stability and their ancient economy.

“Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land.”

I assert that many of the rules we have on the books today are, in a similar way, simply there to maintain social stability, ensure the momentum of our economy etc. This can be seen by the fact that many laws are either broken, disregarded or diluted, i.e. the rules don’t accurately reflect the morality of the populace.

This may be because the majority of humans are evil by nature, unable to govern themselves from within, and lacking in any concrete ethical standpoint. People might only be able to assimilate ethics when influenced by authority.

I reject that perspective. I have known too many intrinsically moral, altruistic, and loving people to believe this to be the case. Maybe it’s the circles I run in but I see humans as always having a strong set of morals, even if I don’t share them, and being wholly able to make ethical decisions based on reason, unless they are confronted by extraordinary circumstances. Situations like hunger, fear, and jealousy are common morality sweepers, cleansing our minds of that pesky code of conduct, allowing an otherwise compassionate being to engage in irrational and callous, sometimes violent, behavior.

It can’t be simply pressure from society that produces all the compassion and empathy that exists in the world. There is something in people that has a strong aversion to injustice, and immorality, and although our reaction might be highly emotional, these feelings are rooted in reason. Only logical thought arrives at a higher moral code. Only through intellectually understanding the conscious state of others can we realize the effects of our actions and build a code of ethics within ourselves. Everyone has the capacity to do so and only through institutionalized ignorance or indoctrination can our natural good nature be stifled.

It is important to realize this when we think of our own ideas of right and wrong. There is a reason I don’t kill those who I dislike, and it’s not because I fear jail. We all have our own reasons to be just and compassionate. Mine are a little different than yours, and yours are different from your neighbors. They may mesh well, overlap mostly, but the degrees and intensities will vary. The origins will be as diverse as creations stories around the globe. The experiences that mold and anneal our internal judges can come in any form, reach different conclusions, and double back to contradict itself.

Find that epic story in yourself, chiseling and grinding, smashing away the unusable pieces, wrestling with that amorphous intellectual blob. Building it into a colossal tower of convictions.

But first we need a foundation, and it poured in rational thought. Laws and rules are made to keep the peace and stability of a governed body and should never be confused with the intangible sense of right and wrong that exist in us all. Finding out the nature of your nature can only serve to strengthen your functional convictions and eliminate the lingering effects of the passive indoctrination we are all subject to living in a society.

The social code of conduct may not be flawed or unjust in the least, it is still of the utmost importance that we do not believe for a second that it is the root of our compassionate actions or the reason we refrain from evil acts. We know, deep down, what is right or wrong and will consult that knowledge before we think about what is acceptable to society. When we own our morals we can really believe them, live them, and when necessary have that knowledge and conviction to point out injustice when we see it in the word.

-Matt

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