Life Unfolding Beautifully

Sometimes you know where you want to go, but don’t know HOW to get there.

We all know that metaphysically speaking, not knowing HOW is a good thing. That leaves plenty of room and space for the universe to respond to your call. However, sometimes your mind may get in the way and want to start playing around with the HOW by imagining scenarios and paths to your goal.

For some time, I’ve been playing around with various ways to deal with this. And, I’d like to share one really fun and powerful process that is working very well.

Anchoring is a term that can have a lot of different meanings. In this context, I’m referring to anchoring as a method for planting a vision in the future and allowing it to pull you through to the goal. It’s sort of like using a winch.

In speaking of goals, I’m referring to a very specific outcome of an event, desire, encounter, experience, etc. Once you’ve read through the steps below, you’ll see an example of anchoring in action.

Anchoring

1. Define your goal.
2. Define the moment just past the point where you goal has been achieved.
3. Find a clear picture, image, sound, smell, or other sensory indicator of what you will experience once your goal has been achieved. Let’s call this the “thought.”
4. Define how you will feel once your goal has been achieved. If you have trouble coming up with a specific feeling, try relief (you’re relieved because your goal has been achieved) or excitement (you’re excited because your goal has been achieved). Let’s call this the “feeling.”
5. Locate this feeling in your body. Ask yourself what part of your body detects and senses this feeling.
6. Now combine the thought and the feeling for as long as you can. Let’s call this the “anchor.”
7. Only engage the anchor as long as you have clarity with the thought and the feeling. Once either of them is fuzzy, stop.

You can repeat this as many times as you want. But once is enough.

You will probably notice there’s nothing new in this. But I’ve found that this precise combination of steps is very powerful and produces excellent results (always better than what I imagined, too).

Let’s apply this to something pretty straightforward: The Meeting.

Here’s the scenario:

You have a meeting with you co-workers and your boss about the status of what you are all working on. You dread the meeting because it’s been your experience that it will simply drag on and nothing really productive will get done. The room is hot and stuffy and you’ll have to remember to bring coffee or something to keep you awake.

Here’s what you want to happen instead:

In the meeting, you want to at least feel like the team is getting somewhere. You don’t want to have to listen to your boss go through his same old spiel about the importance of this very trivial project, blah, blah, blah. And, you’d really like to at least feel physically comfortable when you are in the conference room.

Since you don’t really have control over any of these factors, you have no idea HOW this will all come to pass. There are several possible things you could do (tell your boss to shut up when he starts his spiel, pour cold water over your head to cool off) that would not exactly have the long-term results you’re looking for.

But you do know how you want to feel when you leave the room…. That’s the moment right after your goal has manifested. And that’s where we begin.

Anchoring The Meeting:

1. Define your goal.
   • You want to stay awake.
   • You want to be happy with your work.
   • You want to feel empowered as a member of the team.
   • You want to know that your work on this project means something.

2. Define the moment just past the point where you goal has been achieved.

   This is the moment when you all walk out of the conference room at the end of the meeting.

3. Find a clear picture, image, sound, smell, or other sensory indicator of what you will experience once your goal has been achieved. Let’s call this the “thought.”

   Examples:

   • You can see everyone who was in the meeting smiling and energized.
   • You hear the voices of your co-workers as they are congratulating each other on having a great meeting.
   • You notice that you are not sweating as you leave the room.

4. Define how you will feel once your goal has been achieved. If you have trouble coming up with a specific feeling, try relief (you’re relieved because your goal has been achieved) or excitement (you’re excited because your goal has been achieved). Let’s call this the “feeling.”

   Examples:

   • You feel relief.
   • You feel calm.

5. Locate this feeling in your body. Ask yourself what part of your body detects and senses this feeling.

   Examples:

   • With relief, your shoulders and jaw relax.
   • With calm, your solar plexus loosens up and no longer feels tight.

6. Now combine the thought and the feeling for as long as you can. Let’s call this the “anchor.”
   • You sit quietly and take a deep breath.
   • As you do so, you bring to mind the image of seeing your co-workers smiling and energized.
   • You quickly bring in the feeling of relief.
   • As you play the image of your co-workers smiling, laughing, and moving back to their workspaces you feel the relief flooding you and your shoulders and jaw relax.
   • You continue to play this image over and over while feeling relief and the deepening relaxation of your muscles.

7. Only engage the anchor as long as you have clarity with the thought and the feeling. Once either of them is fuzzy, stop.
   • Your mind wanders as you think about your co-workers and how they are smiling and happy.
   • You begin to wonder what they will have heard in the meeting to make them so happy.
   • This is the place to stop.

I have found that doing this just before the event works very powerfully. I can do it any time before, but just before seems to be better since I don’t have a lot of time to worry about it.

Also, I have on occasion forgotten to do any anchoring before meeting with a client. Sometimes I can do it quickly while also listening to the client. But I have also excused myself for a moment to go do the anchoring quickly. This has included hasty trips to the bathroom or quick breaks to run outside to retrieve something I “forgot.” (which is true since I was going to retrieve my goal for our meeting).

In writing about this, I’ve specifically been mentioning meetings and interactions with other people. But anchoring can be used for any experience you want to have.

For instance, this morning, I was working with anchoring with my friend Dennis. He helped me anchor greater financial freedom. I walked through my typical day and found images where greater financial freedom would be present:

• Checking my email (finding more email receipts from PayPal)
• Making a bank transfer
• Taking a shower with sunlight coming through the window in my new house
• Walking by a picture window with a wonderful view
• Getting into my car that is parked in the garage (this included the smells of the garage: oil, grass clippings, chlorine (for the pool); as well as the tactile sensation of the coolness of the car parked in a dark garage)

As I went through each of these images, I felt an increasing sense of contentment, joy, satisfaction, and anticipation. My body was very relaxed. And when I thought of the shower, I could feel that very unique and lovely sensation of taking a warm shower with sunlight sparkling in the water drops while a cool breeze blows in through the open window.

These are the very real and very tactile motor, imaging, and feeling experiences I have with increased financial freedom. And, even as I write about them, they are very real and very obviously manifesting.

Whether this is something new to you or a different view of an established practice, try it out and see what happens.

Also be sure to come back here and report on your experience!