The words "Mary had a little …" are probably an anchor for the word "lamb" for many of you — as well as an anchor for the melody that accompanies the lyrics.

Before proceeding further, practice the following simple anchoring exercises to help you begin to get some conscious skill in using them:

EXERCISE A — Establishing An Anchor for Yourself.

This exercise is designed to give you a personal feel for the process of anchoring and to help you distinguish between various states of consciousness in yourself. This is essentially an exercise in biofeedback — where the feedback comes from your own sensory channels.

PARTI— The "Uptime" Anchor.

Step 1. Find a place, either indoors or outdoors, where you can sit or walk around for a while and enjoy the world around you.

Step 2. As you observe your surroundings, practice focusing and tuning your awareness of your external environment to each of your representational systems:

a) seeing things — using both panoramic and detailed viewing of the various objects, colors and movements in your environment.

b) feeling the temperature of the air, the textures, shapes and hardness of the objects around you, and the feelings of your skin and muscles as you sit or move through the environment.

c) listening for the differences in the tones and location origins of the various sounds around you — and for the changes in your breathing and the pitch and tempo of any voices near you.

d) smelling the air and the objects around you — noticing which smells are sharper, which are more subtle — and, if you wish, take note of any changes in the taste in your mouth.

As you access each of these systems, you may screen out your other channels by closing your eyes and plugging your ears and nose in various combinations. Be sure to access each system as completely as possible without any internal dialogue, internal pictures or feelings.

Step 3. With your right hand grab hold of your left wrist. As you judge that you are able to access each system in succession, squeeze your wrist — only as tightly as you are able to completely access the sensory channel you are using. The more you can see, hear, feel and smell clearly the experiences around you, the tighter you squeeze your wrist.

Step 4. Begin to tune into all representational systems simultaneously so that you attention is completely focused outside of you through all of your channels. Squeeze your wrist only as tightly as you are able to do this successfully.

Step 5. Keep repeating the process until all you have to do is reach over and squeeze your wrist and your attention automatically begins to turn outside of you to your external environment, without any conscious effort.

PART II — The "Downtime" Anchor.

Step 1. Find a place where you can sit or lie down and be completely alone with yourself.

Step 2. Turn your attention inward and practice accessing each of your representational systems internally:

a) Listen to any internal voices, dialogues, tunes or sounds in your head. Practice making up tunes and conversations as well as remembering things that you've already heard.

b) Look through your mind's eye at scenes and details of objects and events that you've made up and that you've actually seen before.

c) Get in touch with internal feelings. Pay attention to the similarities and differences between emotional and visceral body sensations and memories of things that you've felt with your hands and skin. Make up things to feel in fantasy.

d) Smell and taste, in your imagination, things and places that you remember and fantasize.

Again, access each system as completely and separately as you can. You may want to try a simple task, like imagining yourself getting up from your place and opening a door, utilizing each system by itself, in succession. That is, first limit yourself to only fantasizing the action visually; then go back and just talk yourself through it, or do it by sound; then go through just the feelings of the action and so on.

Most of you will probably notice, with this exercise and with Part I, that you are able to access particular representational systems with varying degrees of ease — it may be easier for you to get in touch with feelings than to tune in to internal dialogue or to make internal pictures; or vice versa. You can feel free to use this as feedback for which systems you need to develop or enrich, or practice with.

Step 3. Fold your hands. As you judge that you are able to access each representational system as completely as you can, squeeze your hands together — only as tightly as you are able to completely access that system.

Step 4. Begin to access all systems internally at the same time (you may put all of your senses to work on a single experience, or tune each system to a different experience — seeing one thing, talking to yourself about something else, feeling something new, and smelling something that doesn't have anything to do with the others). Squeeze your hands together only as tightly as you are able to do this successfully.

Step 5. Keep repeating the process until all you have to do is sit down and clasp your hands together tightly and your focus of attention automatically turns inward without any conscious effort.

As you do this exercise, pay attention to the cues and distinctions that allow you to access and discriminate between the representational systems you are accessing and the states you are creating. These anchors will be very valuable to you as they will give you quick access to full sensory experiences externally oriented for gathering information (that is, "uptime"); and internally oriented for extended processing of information ("downtime").

You may also wish to establish anchors for yourself in this way for other states or experiences such as relaxation, creativity, motivation, etc. The pattern of this process is that embodied by all biofeedback: A certain state picked and identified. As the individual accesses that state he is given feedback for it by way of a particular stimulus — thehe tightness of the grip in this case (K^e); it is done through tones (A^e), or by intensity or color of light or the position of an arm on a dial (V^e) in other biofeedback processes. After a while the feedback stimulus and the target state become associated (the stimulus becomes an anchor for the state) so that the mere presentation of the feedback stimulus anchors and contributes to to the development of the target state.

You may wish to experiment with internal anchors as well. For instance, if you wish to be able to access a state of relaxation easily you can begin by imaging a color vividly in your mind's eye. Begin to allow your body to relax as much as possible, lowering your breathing and relaxing any tense muscles. As you reach the state you desire, watch the color change to a color that most exemplifies that state for you (from orange to blue for example). You may also wish to allow the color to change configuration (watch it drip down into your stomach as it changes color). Keep practicing until you are able to access the state of relaxation by simply imagining the color. Then, when you notice you are tense or anxious, and you wish to have a choice about the condition, all you need to do is simply close your eyes momentarily, take a deep breath and imagine the color, and it will access the desired state.

Many forms of meditation involve auditory anchors like mantras and chanting to access downtime states or relaxation. The words or sounds are repeated as the individual enters the state. Later, repeating the sounds will readily anchor up the designated state.

Incidentally, if you ever want to reprogram or "get rid of any anchors you have established, all you need to do is collapse the anchor with some other anchor or experience. For example, you could squeeze your wrist at the same time you fire off some other anchor or when you are experiencing some other state. Remember, though, that when you fire off the anchor you wish to reprogram it will influence your ongoing experience, so that when you are reprogramming yourself be sure to pick anchors, states and/or experiences that are of equal intensity and strength to the one you are changing.