ADVANCED ANCHORING: STOP TOUCHING YOURSELF

A client recently asked me why I don’t use or recommend kinesthetic (touch) anchors for self- anchoring, like pressing on your knuckle, pounding your chest, or squeezing on your shoulder to fire off a specific state. It’s a fair question considering plenty of NLP trainers teach it as the go-to method. But, there’s quite a lot of reasons why I think it is less than ideal.

Imagine trying to fire off 36 emotional state anchors in less than 5 minutes (like I utilize in my personal ’state practice’ nearly every single day). Now imagine trying to remember which body part corresponds to each one, let alone reach for it at the right time. It’s unnatural. It’s clunky. And out in the real world it would is totally awkward to pound your chest or squeeze your earlobe in the middle of a meeting. That’s not ideal for social credibility, and not how most people would want to show up in the middle of a real-life intense situation.