Anchoring a calm association

A physical trigger you set up before you need it — a discreet pinch of your own hand — that puts you back into a calm, positive state. He offers it for the situations where you cannot stop what you are doing to come back to your breathing, such as a meeting where the fur is flying.

How it goes

1. Set the anchor before you need it. He says anchoring yourself to a calming association can be accomplished very quickly, certainly within the time it takes to read his post — so do not wait for the difficult meeting.
2. Put yourself into a positive emotional state. He does this by thinking of a specific pleasant event he enjoyed with his children.
3. Emotionalize that state. It does not have to be overwhelmingly intense, but it must be something more than a pleasant thought, or the anchoring will not take.
4. Once you are in the positively emotionalized state, pinch — not hard — the muscle of your hand between your thumb and forefinger.
5. Repeat the exercise until pinching that muscle under just about any circumstance puts you into your chosen pleasant state.
6. After that, when someone is treating you in a not-so-mindfully-conscious way, use the pinch as an unobtrusive anchor to diffuse your own emotional reaction.

A caution

He offers anchoring as the second of two approaches in the same post, and the reason for the second one is practical: not every situation will allow you to stop what you are doing to calm your breathing, and in the meetings where the fur is flying, coming back to the breath is typically the last thing on his mind. He presents anchoring flatly as a proven Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) technique that has been used quite effectively for many years. The fence he puts on the companion breathing practice in the same post — “This is not a mystical or religious practice” — he does not repeat here. He gives no number of repetitions, only repeat until it works, and the effect he claims is narrow and specific: you will not be reactive, your voice will be low and calm, and you may even smile if appropriate. He tells you to set the anchor immediately rather than later — “why wait?”

Once you're in a positively emotionalized state, pinch (not hard) the muscle of your hand between your thumb and forefinger. Repeat this exercise until pinching the muscle under just about any circumstance puts you into your chosen pleasant state. Congratulations, you're anchored.

— Walking the Middle Way Management Talk