Neuro Linguistic Programming

That’s actually something completely different, Amazonian, but I can certainly try to help you there. What you’re talking about is not outside of you, but rather inside of you. You’re trying to create a mood or feeling of interest in something that you might actually not be interested in.

This is actually something that NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) tries to tackle. I’m currently studying NLP myself, but I’ll admit straight away that I’m not a pro. Heck, I’m barely a student. Still, I might be able to give you some pointers.

First an explanation: according to NLP the mind, emotions and the body are different aspects of the same thing. They are not separate and there is no point where one begins and the other ends. They don’t just blur into each other, they are each other. I know that’s hard to accept, but in this case it’s best to suspend your disbelief and go along with it. If you influence one, you also influence the other two.

This is very important, because in NLP you often use the most accessibly (i.e. the body) to influence the less accessible areas (unless you happen to have an axe). It also means that you’re frequently unconsciously influencing your emotions and your ideas, simply by way of your body posture.

When there is a discrepancy between these three aspects, this becomes very uncomfortable for the person and they will try their best to fix the internal inconsistency. This normally means that the two areas that are inconsistent will move towards each other. If, however, you consciously force one area, (for example you continue to smile, even though you don’t want to) the other areas will be forced to adjust till everything is consistent again (in other words, you begin to feel happy).

What’s more, you can link one specific type of emotion or mental state to a physical action. This is what they call ‘Anchoring’. How do you anchor? As followed. Go back in your memory to an event where you felt the emotion or mental state that you’re trying to re-awaken. (You see, you don’t just remember the facts of an event, but also the emotions and the ideas associated with it). Next sit down and remember as much as you can about that particular instant. Start with one sense and then stack the other four on top. When you do this, you’ll find that you start feeling like you did then.

Now, just before you max out on the emotion do a physical action that you normally wouldn’t do. For example, touch the tip of your thumb to your ring finger, or pull your ear lobe. After that, clear your mind (walk around, smoke a cigarette, what ever) and repeat the process. Do this a number of times (five to ten) and you’ll find that if you repeat the action the emotion or frame of mind will come to you automatically. It is important that you anchor before you hit the max, otherwise you might start anchoring the emotion of the downward slide on the other side of the peak, which is not what you want.

So, to sum up: Make sure that your posture and your features express the feeling you’re trying to have (attentiveness) and, if that is not enough, anchor a time when you felt attentive and then use the physical anchor to recall that state when you need to. PS: it helps to anchor in the same space where you want to then later use that anchor. The space, in that case, then becomes an anchor for the feeling.

Hope that helps.