A: A group of neurologists were studying the responses of single brain cells to external stimuli, using micro–electrodes and found something like I've shown here. When they presented stimulus "A" they recorded a certain firing pattern in that cell. Let's say the pattern looked like wave (1) that I've drawn on the board. Stimulus "A" could be a tone, a light flash, a touch, etc… . One way to think about it is that stimulus "A" anchored waveshape (1) … When the experimenters presented a different stimulus, "B", they got firing pattern (2) from the same cell … So this cell had different responses to different stimuli, or anchors. Then what they did was to present the two stimuli simultaneously. When they did this, they got firing pattern (3), a combination of the two previous firing patterns (1) and (2). And what is interesting is that thereafter, when they presented either stimulus "A" or "B" again by themselves they got the third pattern (3) … That's my understanding of what happens to the anchors after you've collapsed them …
This doesn't mean that Jan won't ever be frustrated again. She will always be able to access that state independently if she wants to by tuning her physical state & her accessing cues, and by anchoring it somewhere else. We could probably even anchor it in the same place again if we changed the context … Collapsing the anchors won't take away Jan's ability to be frustrated it simply gives her another choice. Frustration's an important resource. The ability to be upset and angry is just as important as the ability to be happy or confident. Each of them gives us important information about what's going on. It's what we do with that information that will ultimately make it positive or negative for us … By the way, Jan, you can go back to your place now. (S returns to her seat.) Now this is the same pattern — putting together resources with a problem state that we use, with some alterations, in helping students get through "blocks", or helping people with phobias, or helping athletes get over slumps or deal with being psyched out. We use it to help business executives solve both personal and company problems. It's a very simple but powerful pattern — adding resources to a problematic state … In some cases where a specific outcome is desired we will make the blueprint for the desired state first, and anchor it of course, so we can use it as a way of choosing the appropriate resources to access … This simple anchoring process can increase your ability to do things and help other people do things, no matter what it is that you do …
As we mentioned at the beginning of the transcript, this is an example of only one use of the process of anchoring. We will be covering a number of other uses throughout the remainder of this book — especially in the Installation Section.
Anchors and accessing cues will be your major tools in the utilization of strategies. They will provide a systematic means of being able to trigger the appropriate representations at the appropriate slot in the strategy. Before you go on to the rest of the book, we invite you to think about experiences that you have had in which you have been anchored: certain tones of voice, words, facial expressions, touches and so on, that trigger powerful or subtle experiences in you. Also consider ways in which you have, perhaps unknowingly, anchored experiences in other people: when you've said something or done something that elicited a response in another person that you didn't expect. Perhaps you've had an experience in which someone showed great warmth toward you because you looked or sounded like a close relative or friend of his, and this anchored feelings of closeness in them. Or perhaps you have developed a special saying, facial expression or gesture that you can always use to get a smile or chuckle out of someone you know.
The words "Mary had a little …" are probably an anchor for the word "lamb" for many of you — as well as an anchor for the melody that accompanies the lyrics.
Before proceeding further, practice the following simple anchoring exercises to help you begin to get some conscious skill in using them:
EXERCISE A — Establishing An Anchor for Yourself.
This exercise is designed to give you a personal feel for the process of anchoring and to help you distinguish between various states of consciousness in yourself. This is essentially an exercise in biofeedback — where the feedback comes from your own sensory channels.
PARTI— The "Uptime" Anchor.
Step 1. Find a place, either indoors or outdoors, where you can sit or walk around for a while and enjoy the world around you.
Step 2. As you observe your surroundings, practice focusing and tuning your awareness of your external environment to each of your representational systems:
a) seeing things — using both panoramic and detailed viewing of the various objects, colors and movements in your environment.
b) feeling the temperature of the air, the textures, shapes and hardness of the objects around you, and the feelings of your skin and muscles as you sit or move through the environment.
c) listening for the differences in the tones and location origins of the various sounds around you — and for the changes in your breathing and the pitch and tempo of any voices near you.
d) smelling the air and the objects around you — noticing which smells are sharper, which are more subtle — and, if you wish, take note of any changes in the taste in your mouth.
As you access each of these systems, you may screen out your other channels by closing your eyes and plugging your ears and nose in various combinations. Be sure to access each system as completely as possible without any internal dialogue, internal pictures or feelings.
Step 3. With your right hand grab hold of your left wrist. As you judge that you are able to access each system in succession, squeeze your wrist — only as tightly as you are able to completely access the sensory channel you are using. The more you can see, hear, feel and smell clearly the experiences around you, the tighter you squeeze your wrist.
Step 4. Begin to tune into all representational systems simultaneously so that you attention is completely focused outside of you through all of your channels. Squeeze your wrist only as tightly as you are able to do this successfully.
Step 5. Keep repeating the process until all you have to do is reach over and squeeze your wrist and your attention automatically begins to turn outside of you to your external environment, without any conscious effort.
PART II — The "Downtime" Anchor.
Step 1. Find a place where you can sit or lie down and be completely alone with yourself.
Step 2. Turn your attention inward and practice accessing each of your representational systems internally:
a) Listen to any internal voices, dialogues, tunes or sounds in your head. Practice making up tunes and conversations as well as remembering things that you've already heard.
b) Look through your mind's eye at scenes and details of objects and events that you've made up and that you've actually seen before.
c) Get in touch with internal feelings. Pay attention to the similarities and differences between emotional and visceral body sensations and memories of things that you've felt with your hands and skin. Make up things to feel in fantasy.
d) Smell and taste, in your imagination, things and places that you remember and fantasize.