Remote Control Your Emotions!
Imagine, having a remote control to all your feelings and emotions. Imagine, being in the middle of a very stressful task with an impossible deadline, and then using this remote control to suddenly feel calm and relaxed. Imagine being able to feel peaceful, calm, relaxed, motivated or enthusiastic in the click of a button. This remote control is a very powerful tool, called “Anchoring”.
Anchoring is the process of attaching an external stimulus, to a desired emotional response. Let me explain. Have you ever noticed that some scents or even songs can remind us of past events, people or places? Those are unconscious anchors – the stimuli that can trigger memories and feelings without any conscious effort from your part.
Similarly, we can custom design the stimulus and the response. This has been demonstrated in the famous experiment by Pavlov. He had a set of dogs, and he always rang a bell while feeding the dogs. After a while, just the sound of the bell was enough to make the dogs salivate, even when there was no food in sight.
This same principle can be used by us to custom design our own anchors. Let us examine how it can be done.
First of all, we need to decide on the emotional response we need to evoke, such as calmness or happiness or motivation. Let us stick with calmness for the moment. Now, we need to choose a stimulus. Now, a stimulus can be anything, really – an object, a song, a scent, a person or a body movement. It makes more sense to have a unique body movement – such as tapping your fingers – as the stimulus. That is because it eliminates the need for carrying around a perfume or a music player.
Once we have fixed these, we can start creating the anchor. First, you need to be in a very relaxed and calm environment, like a spa or a scenic landscape. Really feel the calm around you. And when that feeling peaks, apply the anchor for the first time. Keep the anchor in place until the feeling begins to fade. Remember to remove the anchor as soon the feeling begins to decline, or else you will create an anchor for reducing peace in stead of peacefulness! Repeat this anchor creation every chance you get. Now that we have created an anchor successfully, we can fire it upon demand. Whenever you need peace and quiet, apply the anchor. It is as simple as that.
The anchoring works on a rather interesting principle. Our mind is capable of connecting two unrelated events and seeing it as a single one. When we are studying something while listening to a song, our brain sees it as one event, and not two. It helps us to recall the lesson by recalling the song. It is this holistic approach by our brain that enables us to connect a random stimulus to a specific emotional response.
Now we have seen how we can use the anchoring technique to literally create remote controls for any feeling we need. We have seen how to create an anchor and fire it on demand. So the next time you find yourself happy or motivated or peaceful, create anchors! And when in need of such feelings, fire them away! Remote controlling your feelings is that easy.
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