NLP Anchors: What They Are and How to Use Them

Hello everyone, this is Stalilingus! Today, I want to share some valuable material about anchors in NLP. Previously, you could read about them here. Take note of what you read below—this is truly powerful stuff.

Anchors in NLP

Sound, image, touch

Each of you has a song or melody that, when you hear it, brings back memories of your past and makes you feel like you’re back in that time. Each of you has an image, like a laughing child, that triggers certain feelings. Each of you has a spot on your body where a touch brings pleasant sensations, maybe reminding you of your mother or someone else. We all have anchors, and there are many of them. Anchors can be in any modality—visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.

An anchor is something from the outside world (a sound, image, or touch). When the anchor is triggered, you start to experience specific feelings, and these feelings are the same every time.

Most of the anchors you have now were set by you or others unconsciously, so their effects are unpredictable. You might not know how your mind will react to a certain touch or why a particular melody makes you feel sad or evokes another emotion.

Now, knowing this technique, you have the opportunity to do this consciously. You can use an anchor to trigger any feeling over and over again. You can set an anchor that will make another person feel a certain way, even when you’re not around. You can use anchors to access any resource you need.

What Is a Resource?

A resource is any internal experience a person has. Everyone possesses every resource that has a name, but not everyone has free access to their resources. To access a resource, you need to know what feeling you want. Maybe this is the magic of words—if you understand what I mean.

Examples of resources:

• Calmness
• Balance
• Reasonableness
• Entrepreneurial ability
• Persuasiveness
• Public speaking skills
• Confidence behind the wheel
• Irresistibility as a lover

It’s impossible to list even a hundredth of all resources. Again, a resource is any experience, feeling, or ability. If someone has a resource—even if you don’t know them personally—know that you have it too. If a resource has a name in language, it really exists.

How to Set an Anchor for Another Person

For example, you want to make someone feel trust (or fear, or love, or attention, or any other feeling) and anchor it, so you can later access that resource directly.

The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. First, ask a question that makes the other person remember a time when they truly experienced the feeling you want to anchor.
   Example: “When was the last time you felt genuine trust and weren’t disappointed?”
2. If the person has never experienced the resource you want (which is unlikely), ask a different question:
   Example: “What would you feel if you realized you could trust someone?”

The point of these questions is to make the person experience the feeling right now. You need to catch the moment of peak emotion and set the anchor at the height of that feeling. The anchor can be any touch, sound, or movement that the other person can perceive. Note that a kinesthetic anchor (touch) is the most powerful and hardest to resist, so use kinesthetic anchors when possible by touching the other person.

Now you can check the result. When you reproduce the anchor as precisely as possible, the other person will feel the emotion you anchored. For example, if the anchor is a phone ring, every time the phone rings, the person will feel that emotion. This technique is very similar to Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned reflexes.

• The phone ring triggers trust
• Stimulus – response
• The stimulus is the anchor, and the resource is the response
• The anchor triggers the resource

Sometimes you can set an anchor without asking questions, for example, if the person starts talking about a time when they could trust someone. At that moment, they’re immersed in the memory, and you just need to carefully join in and set the anchor.

Some Notes and Rules for Using Anchors

• Set the anchor at the peak of the experience, when the person is fully immersed in the feeling.
• Reproduce the anchor as precisely as possible.
• If it’s a kinesthetic anchor, the touch should be in the same place, with the same pressure and intensity as when you set it.
• If it’s your voice, use the same tone, volume, etc.
• If it’s a movement, repeat it exactly as before.

How to Use Anchoring Techniques on Yourself

1. First, choose the resource you need but don’t have direct access to.
2. Second, recall if there was a time in your life when you had that resource, even briefly or not very strongly.
3. If you have such memories, recall them vividly. Imagine you’re back in that moment, experiencing those feelings again. At the peak of the memory, set an anchor—preferably a kinesthetic one, like touching your knee or chin. The specific spot doesn’t matter; what matters is that from now on, that spot will be the anchor for the resource you need, and you’ll have free access to it whenever you want.
4. If you know you’ll need the resource in a specific situation (for example, when meeting your boss), you can make their face or office trigger the resource. To do this, imagine their face or office, and when the image is vivid, touch your anchor. Repeat this exercise five times: imagine the image, touch the anchor, then distract yourself. From then on, that image will automatically trigger the resource you need at the right time.

Note: If you have no personal memories of having this resource, but you’re sure it’s possible (even if only a literary character has it), imagine how you would feel if you had the resource, and anchor that feeling—if you’re satisfied with it.

Stalilingus