Anchoring positive feelings

‘Anchoring’ is a very powerful technique used by hypnotherapists to great effect.  Anchoring is a technique you can to learn too and is something you can use to trigger positive feelings. Such triggers happen naturally in our everyday lives.  Sometimes an unwanted feeling such as a fear or a phobia is anchored as the result of a particular experience and will be triggered when you see or even think about the object of your fear/phobia.  Music which has been anchored in the past can be a very powerful trigger; we have all experienced being transported back to a past situation simply by listening to a snippet of a particular song.

Here’s how you can use the anchoring technique to create positive feelings for yourself:

Firstly, choose an ‘anchor point’ on your body. The idea is that you will be pressing on this part to release good feelings so you might want to choose a point you can press without other people noticing. Pressing your ear lobe or or your thumb and forefinger together are good ones.

Next, decide what feeling or state you want to trigger, for example,  calmness, motivation, enthusiasm, confidence, etc.

Now, close your eyes and think back to a time/situation when you remember feeling your chosen state very strongly.  Allow yourself to experience and feel exactly what you felt like then. Go through the experience in your mind and bring back the sights,  sounds and feelings. Make it bright and loud and fully imagine it as though it’s happening right now. Once the memory and the experience gets stronger and more powerful, press firmly on your chosen anchor point. As you do this,  capture the feeling on that point as you link it to that positive experience. You can also choose to repeat a phrase to yourself as you do this. Your phrase might be something like, “I’m calm/strong/confident, or whatever you choose it to be.

Now, open your eyes and release the pressure before the positive feelings fade. Repeating the process three or four times will strengthen the response and should install your anchor firmly. You can test it at this point, going through the process again if you need to. Once you have it working and are able to trigger those positive feelings, practise using your anchor in situations where the desired state is required.

The good thing too is, the more often you use your anchor, the stronger it will become.



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