Have you ever had a bad experience with somebody and after that your opinion of them just changed?

Well youʼve experienced anchoring then: the negative emotion became permanently attached to your picture of the person, changing your relationship to them, sometimes forever.

A key tool in NLP, anchoring enables you to make a permanent connection between two things: experiences, emotions, sensations, sounds, environments - you name it.

So, for example, you could anchor positive feel good emotions, whenever they happen, to a physical movement like wrapping your right hand around your left wrist so that the thumb and middle finger meet.

Then, when you need an injection of positivity or a boost, you simply repeat the movement and it triggers those feelings in your system, helping you to feel better immediately.

In this example, weʼre going to be anchoring feelings in your body to you touching the tip of your nose with your right index finger.

Thereʼs no special reason for it to be the right index finger, or the tip of your nose, except that it will allow you to just follow the instructions without having to stop and remember which finger you used. You can use any movement, finger or body part you feel comfortable with.

Anchors donʼt last forever, they run out like batteries. So, itʼs important to remember to recharge frequently triggered anchors.

How to Anchor

Whenever you feel or experience any emotion, there is about a three second peak when that emotion is at its height and feels the strongest.

When you anchor, you simply make the physical movement you want to make during that three second peak.

Every time you anchor another feeling to that anchor it will grow stronger, and every time you use it it will discharge.