How amazing would it be if you could press a button when you were in a bad mood and switch it for a good one?
Where would you go?
What would it look like there?
How would it feel?
Where in your body would you feel it?
So if you could find that place, that gave you whatever positive feeling that you would most like to push the button and get, how would you do it?
You might be surprised to find that the place has shapes and colours in it that are quite abstract. But they still make you feel good. And really, that is all that matters.
Why don’t you try it now.
Close your eyes and think of that place.
Play with the images.
See what you can do to make them stronger and more intense.
Enjoy it
It’s great isn’t it? It’s amazing to hang out there and enjoy that space.
One of the techniques that Trevor taught us on the course is called anchoring. It allows us to attach that amazing feeling to a trigger. A button.
When you press this button it brings the feelings and images of that place back to your mind, washing away the negative ones at the same time. The button can be a point on your body, or a smell or even a sound like a song (Check out @Mammywoo’s Music as Therapy for how that works)
Anchors are very powerful and very useful. I have been practicing lots since my course. It does require that I am physically with the person I am building an anchor for. Certainly the physical or smell anchor require me to be there. It’s also a really good job that Trevor has helped me because until recently, the requirement to physically create the anchor would have been a bit of a challenge for me!
But I love the fact that I can give someone the ability to take themselves to that wonderful place.
Even better, once that anchor has been set up, you have control over it yourself and you can make it work better and better each time you have that wonderful feeling by doing something called “stacking”.
Let me give you an example.
Let’s imagine that I want to have a feeling of happiness. I take myself back to a time when I was happy. For me, it might even be when I was on the first weekend of my Cognitive Hypnotherapy course, where I was learning loads of cool stuff to help other people. I love learning. It makes me happy. I might imagine it as being in a library full of books with them flying everywhere, and with flapping of the pages and the smell of the paper. I might feel a bubbling of excitement across my chest that turns into a load of little blue fluffy miniature ball-type characters with googly eyes that are bouncing up and down and giggling. The more excited I get, the more they bounce and giggle and I get the feeling to be stronger by making them bounce more.
At that point we set up the anchor so that I can recall that feeling any time I need it.
Then, one day I am heading into town with the little one in the car. She is singing Twinkle Twinkle little cloud (her own version of the song). I modify the line “Like a diamond in the sky” to “like a fluffy in the sky” and she claps and says “Well done mummy, you’re very clever”. I smile and feel good. I then press my anchor and stack that happy feeling on top of the other.
Next time I need to call on that feeling, it will be even stronger than before.
The next day I have a call with my boss. A man who makes me feel useless every time I speak to him. I’m not good with feeling useless so I start sinking into a very low mood. Then I activate my anchor. Immediately I get the image of the little blue characters followed by that happy feeling and I find I can now carry on talking to my boss without sinking into that dark hole.
It’s clever stuff and in many ways very simple.
It’s clear that the more we cling onto the good feelings, the more of them we will have. Anchors just give us an easy way to recall those good feelings rapidly.
