Using Anchors To Recreate A Positive Resource State

What if I knew a way you could do something really incredible, just by performing a very simple action?  Put down those nasty chocolates and those sissy “comfort foods” that are only comfort in that they give you a big pillow around your waist, and listen up.  How would you like to feel genuinely good, and lift your spirits up to a point where you feel like you’re worth a lot, no matter how depressed you may get, just by squeezing your thumb against your forefinger?  It’s not that hard, and you don’t have to be Harry Potter to do it.  Matter of fact, there’s no magic involved whatsoever.

All you have to do is think of a situation in which you had a really great, enjoyable experience.  Get really vivid with it, imagine every detail, and really revive the whole situation – see what you saw, feel what you felt, and hear what you heard.  If you can recall and bring back smelling what you did in that moment, and even the taste you had, that’s even better – when it comes to vivid sensory experiences, the more the merrier.  As you feel those sensations rising through you, gently squeeze your thumb and your forefinger together on your left hand for a few moments, then release them.

What you’ve done is entered a ‘state.’  Now, ‘break your state’ by remembering what you ate for breakfast yesterday.  Squeeze your thumb and forefinger together again, and gently pulse them, to bring back your ‘state’ of joy.

This process is known as ‘anchoring with NLP.’  When you engage in an experience and make it wonderfully vivid in your mind (using ALL five of your senses), you can recall an experience with every fiber of your being, and then anchor it to a physical action you can do right now.  When you activate your NLP anchor the first few times, make the effort to recall that situation, as a method of reinforcing this programming.

The use of thumb and forefinger is called a tactile anchor, meaning that using some kind of touch lets you gain access to the states and/or resources you want whenever you want them.