The calm anchor

Before you do this technique for yourself, read through each step so that you know exactly what to do.

1.      Remember a time when you felt really, really calm – at peace and in control. Fully return to it now, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling how good you felt. (If you can’t remember a time, imagine how wonderful it would feel to be totally at peace – if you had all the ease, comfort and self-comfort and self control you could ever need!).

2.      As you keep running through this experience in your mind, make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds crisper, and the feelings stronger. When you are feelings, squeeze the thumb and middle finger of your right hand together. You are associating this particular pressure in this memory several times until you feel a lovely sense of inner peace and calm.

3.      Now go through this relaxing memory at least five more times while continuing to squeeze your thumb and middle finger together to really lock in these good feelings. You will know you have done it enough when all you need to do is squeeze your fingers together and you can easily remember the feelings of calm and relaxation spreading through your body.

4.      Next, think about a situation that in the past you would have found mildly stressful. (We will deal with any ‘high stress’ situations in the next exercise.) Once again, squeeze your thumb and middle finger together. Feel that calm feeling spreading through your body and imagine taking it with you into that stressful situation. Imagine everything going perfectly, exactly the way that you want. See what you’ll see, hear what you hear and feel how good it feels to be so much calmer and in control in this situation.

5.      Now, still squeezing your thumb and finger together, remember that calm feeling of being in control and once again imagine being in that situation that used to seem stressful. This time, imagine a few challenges occurring and notice yourself handling all the challenges perfectly. See what you’ll see, hear what you hear and feel how good it feels to be so much calmer and in control in this situation.

6.      Stop and think about that situation now. Notice the difference from only a few minutes ago. Do you feel less stressed and more in control? If not, just repeat the exercise until you do!

Each time you do this exercise, it will become easier and easier to experience feelings of relaxation and calm ‘at your fingertips’…

When you feel comfortable with this exercise, you are ready to reprogram yourself to be generally more relaxed – to trigger your natural relaxation response at will and experience a greater sense of ease and wellbeing in any area of your life.

Remember, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real and vividly imagined experience, so each time in the past that you imagined a stressful situation, you experienced that stress almost as much as if it were really happening now.

By imagining those same situations but this time responding with inner calm instead of stress, you are reprogramming yourself to feel calmer and more in control in every area of your life. As you begin to feel better and better, you will be able to handle all those situations more effectively in the future.