Anchoring is the process of associating certain thoughts, emotions or experiences with a specific memory of some kind, be it real or imagined.
Just about every experience we have is anchored in some form, and can be retrieved by a similar, related experience later in our lives. Anchors can be positive, neutral or negative. Some anchors we may actively seek whilst others we may try to avoid.
An anchor may be something as simple as associating the smell of a roast dinner with that of a pleasant childhood experience. If a person grew up having a family roast every Sunday night during their childhood, and remembered this Sunday night as a happy time when the entire family would gather around the dinner table and talk and laugh, then the person would associate the smell of a roast dinner with not only a delicious meal, but also of a happy time. Their mood would become elated at the smell of a roast meal.
Similarly, a negative anchor may be created in the form of a phobia. If a person in their childhood was bitten by a dog, then they may come to dislike dogs and never feel comfortable petting them. If a child was eating their cereal and at the end of it came across a gigantic spider that lay dead at the bottom of the bowl, then the child could grow a phobia towards spiders.
We are always associating both negative, neutral and positive experiences with things we encounter in our lives. If we know of a homeless person that sleeps on a specific park bench, then we associate that bench with the homeless person.
In NLP, the desire is to amend negative anchors and turn them into neutral or positive ones. This is done by identifying a negative anchor, realising the bad experience it relates to, and then associating it with a more positive experience.
For example, if a person had a vehement fear of the dark, the aim would be to first identity what would be causing that fear of the dark. Is it from watching too many horror films, believing in supernatural pseudosciences, or perhaps as a child being told scary stories of the dark? Once the anchor has been identified, it must be replaced with a more positive experience in the dark. Perhaps the person went to an enjoyable party at night once, or went to a theme park, a movie, or simply was just walking around in the city at night enjoying themselves in the company of a friend.
The goal is to anchor the dark with that more positive experience, whatever it may be. The subconscious will then come to associate the dark as being an enjoyable time, and not a time to be afraid of.
By creating new anchors, we are able to subconsciously alter the way we emotionally think or behave in certain situations.
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