February 3, 2024 • 23 mins
OUTWEIGH: In the final episode of "Unfiltered Confidence: Navigating Self-Discovery Within Recovery," Leanne interviews Suzanne, a living testament to the transformative journey of overcoming disordered eating and toxic shame.
In "From Vision To Reality Through Grateful Anticipation." Suzanne shares her incredible experiences and the power of gratitude and (her own version of) manifestation by simply being "grateful in advance."
Through Leanne and Suzanne's candid conversation, it's an invitation to gain insight into the art of manifesting profound changes by using your brain. Suzanne shares how this included for her attracting a life partner after a prolonged period of not dating, and how she first started by creating radical self-acceptance and self-love within herself as prerequisites to receiving love from others.
They also explore the necessity of using specificity in setting intentions, highlighting the importance of writing down your aspirations as a tangible step towards turning visions into reality.
HOST: @leanneellington
To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning love who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Aga, I stan, I feel free. I know every part
of me.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But she'll some love to the vio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Why get there sage day Ana? Did you and die
out way? Happy Saturday? Outweigh. This is Leanne and I'm
back with the amazing Suzanne. Hello, Hi, it's great to
be here. Yes, if you missed the past few weeks,
we have had some powerhouse conversations. First and foremost, this
(00:49):
series is called Unfiltered Confidence Navigating self discovery within Recovery,
and if you've listened to the past few weeks, you'll
know exactly why we called it that, because there are
so many beautiful discoveries that can take place within the
context of your recovery journey that have nothing to do
with food and your body, but then also everything to
do with food in your body, even if it seemingly
(01:12):
doesn't right. So our first episode we talked about navigating
life beyond the checklist. Then we got into owning your
worth in the face of haters and when there's other
people that don't know your worth. And then we talked
about last week a powerful conversation of self compassion beyond
the reflection, having nothing to do with what you look like,
(01:32):
and really learning self compassion almost like it's a new
language or a new skill. And then a couple weeks ago,
Suzanne mentioned a journaling exercise that I taught her, and
we're actually going to talk about that in specificity on
today's episode. Today are episodes called from Vision to Reality
through Grateful Anticipation. And I love this topic. And to
some people it might seem a little bit woo woo,
(01:54):
but to me, it really just aligns with how our
brains create neuro associations. We are all always either positively
anticipating or negatively anticipating our future, and so negative anticipation
is the one that typically takes over most of our brains.
Where it's worry, it's fear, it's projecting the worst or
maybe just not projecting the best, and it's anxiety, and
(02:18):
it's all the things that we if we don't get
ownership of it or take a hold of it, we
are going to create it. We're going to create more
of it we create what we think about and what
we focus on versus positive anticipation. And I'll even say
grateful anticipation, which I'll talk about in a second, but
positively anticipating in the future. And it's not like the
roses and butterflies positive anticipation of like, oh, I'm so
(02:41):
glad I'm going to win the lottery, and I'm so
glad that I'm gonna, you know, all of a sudden,
my favorite movie star is going to show up my door.
I'm not talking about that kind of roses and butterflies.
I'm talking about seating the reality that you're already trying
to create, right, being grateful in advance for things that
you want to show up in your life or that
you're committed to showing up in your life. And I
know that word manifestation is thrown around a lot, but
(03:03):
really what I believe in is the power of conscious creation.
Like you can create your life. And again, there's things
that are totally out of your control, but there's things
that you can absolutely influence. So, for example, one of
the main conversations I invite my clients into when they
first come to work with me is stepping into this
conversation of feeling freedom around food and freedom within their
(03:25):
body and that self acceptance self image conversation. And to
them when they first meet me, it's like, LeAnn, that
sounds foreign to me. I don't even know what that
looks like. The concept of not dieting or not like
restricting or controlling or micromanaging what I eat sounds super
foreign and really scary. So they negatively anticipate it, right,
They negatively think like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen.
(03:45):
So we have to give them a new vision, a
positive anticipation, to replace the old.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And so, for example, when I talk about being grateful
in advance, so grateful in advance for what you're already
committed to. So if you are already committed to your freedom,
if you're already committed to stepping into a conversation of
self acceptance, an example simply just becomes I'm grateful in
advance for my food freedom becoming more and more a
part of my brain every single day. I'm grateful in
(04:10):
advance for becoming the version of myself who practices less
self rejection and more self acceptance. So I'm meeting myself
in my doubt, but also bringing myself to belief and
seeding the reality. I'm creating it in advance by being
grateful in advance. Okay, so that's ways of being. But
also I know, for me, back before I met my husband,
(04:32):
when I was in the midst of my food and
body struggles, I was grateful for things that had nothing
to do with food in my body as well. So
like I remember, I was grateful in advance for my
husband because he was doing the work on himself while
I was doing the work on myself too. And what
do you know, that's exactly what happened. My husband was
doing the work on himself, right. I remember being grateful
in advance for the women that needed me finding me,
(04:54):
and I swear the women that I work with, like
every single woman I work with, I'm like God put
them in my life, in their life for a reason.
It felt like this ordained thing. So it's not this
again magic wand magic, you know eight ball kind of
thing where you create everything and it magically happens and
the timing is not in your control. Sometimes you can
influence it more than others, but again it's about either
(05:17):
way you are positively anticipating your future or negatively anticipating
your future. It's happening either way. Most women are negatively
anticipating it. So that's why I just I and by
all my clients take radical ownership of that whatever you
have as a vision, bring it to reality, but by
seeding it in your nervous system, creating the neuro associations,
so that when you do have it, it's actually a
(05:39):
part of your self image as well. Versus again, some
people create things and then they don't feel worthy of
having it and they end up unconsciously sabotaging it. So
this idea of being grateful in advance and creating your
life through grateful anticipation and bringing those visions to reality.
So that being said, Suzanne started to mention it a
couple weeks ago when we were talking about owning your
(05:59):
work in the face of haters, and I just explained
the process, like it really is as simple as that,
like journaling I'm grateful in advance for I'm grateful in
advance that and also repetition, repetition, repetition, like I was
grateful in advance for my husband for years before I
met him. Right, But that being said, I want to
turn the microphone over to you, Suzanne, and can you
(06:20):
share a little bit about your experiences being grateful in advance,
how you created that grateful anticipation and brought some visions
in your life to reality. Let's just start the conversation there,
because there's so much we can unpack. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I absolutely love this concept of being grateful in advance.
And you know, part of the journaling is looking back,
what are you grateful in your past and what are
you being grateful right now? And being grateful in advance
was a really new concept for me. And it's easy
to get stuck in fear and to go in that direction.
(06:56):
So this really helped me to start thinking in a
completely different way. I typically tend to be an optimistic person,
so being grateful in advance kind of matched up with
my internal wiring in a way that I didn't anticipate,
and it helped me to say, like, exactly what you said.
This is not like I'm going to win the lottery today,
(07:19):
but it helped me to say, like, what are the
things that I really really want to make true in
my life? And some of them were things like I
want to feel less tension in my body and I'm
going to be grateful in advance, that I find the
ways to allow myself to unwind or I want to
(07:39):
feel stronger. That helped me to identify, if I want
to feel I'm feeling grateful in advance for feeling stronger,
what does that look like for me? Is that physical strength?
Is it mental strength? Is it emotional strength? Like? What
does being stronger really look like? And it helped me
to find that so that I could find ways my
(08:00):
life to exercise being stronger. And you know, one of
the things that was recurring in our conversations was about
allowing myself to love myself more and to offer love
and accept love. And that was a recurring theme in
(08:22):
my being grateful in advance. How I was going to
offer myself forgiveness, How I was offering myself compassion, How
I was celebrating the things that are unique to me,
all of my unique talents and gifts. How could I
be grateful in advance that I was letting my light
(08:42):
shine in a way that I hadn't permitted myself always
to do. And in doing that, I also started to
identify I hadn't dated in a while when we first
started working together, and identifying like who do I want
to be a relationship And could I be grateful in
advance for the learning and the growing that I was
(09:06):
doing to prepare myself differently, to be ready to open
my heart and give love and accept love differently than
what I had been doing. And then I started identifying
what were qualities or characteristics that I would really want
in a romantic partnership. And truly, you know, part of
(09:26):
that was like, I'm looking for a partnership, and I'm
looking for somebody who is a great conversationalist and is
funny and kind and thoughtful and loving and consider it
and you know, and I was clearly articulating what I
was going to be grateful in advance for finding in
a partner and what did what did that look like?
(09:47):
What would feel really good for me? And it was
wonderful to think about finding those qualities, and that grateful
in advance helped me also to think through what would
I really want to have happen and make happen in
my life and make myself open and vulnerable to happening
in my life. It unfolded those pages for me in
(10:12):
a way that I hadn't allowed myself to think about
and It really did bring joy in anticipating all of
these great things in life are still out there to
be had and to experience and to create for myself,
and writing it down gave me you talk about breadcrumbs,
(10:35):
gave me the pieces to be able to go back
to at times when I needed a little boost in
self and put myself redirected on this path of learning
and growing and ended up really being this documentation for
myself of my own growth. And it came the documentation
(10:58):
of what it was that I said I wanted in
my life. So when it showed up, I recognized it
and was able to go back and say, oh, my goodness,
Like I was grateful in advance for all of these things,
and look how beautifully they showed up in my life.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Oh my gosh. You said so many important things, but
a couple things I just wanted to touch on. You know,
we talk about the specificity of what you're being grateful
in advanced for, and yes, you can be grateful for
your past, you can be grateful for your presence. Specifically,
we're talking about how to see this in your nervous
(11:34):
system so that you can you said it best, like
almost recognize it when it does appear because a lot
of times we have a bit of an identity crisis
if we don't like our self image hasn't played catch up. Right.
It's one of the reasons that I lost so much
weight and then I still my self image still perceived
me as air quotes fat because that's the word I
was using, that's the word I had been practicing, and
that's the identity I created because I didn't teach my
(11:56):
brain how to receive feeling comfortable in my body and
calm in my body and comfortable in my own skin.
And I didn't teach my nervousness and the concept of
having a beautiful relationship with food and a beautiful relationship
with my body independent of appearance. So there's all of
those things that you can see in advance when you
are healing your relationship with food and your body. But
(12:16):
then there's also all this crossover, like it's not just
one dimensional, it's three dimensional. So first and foremost there's
the specificity factor. You really want to become grateful in
advance for specific So it's not like I'm grateful in
advance that I'm happy, right, I'm grateful in advance that
I'm peaceful and calm when I get out of bed
in the morning, or I know how to get myself
there right, and like, you're getting really nitty gritty specific.
(12:39):
So first and foremost, just to clarify, when Susanne and
I first met, what was it like? Had it been
like a decade? I think since you dated.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It had been quite a while. Yeah. I had had
some female health issues that had made me really feel
closed off and not want to spend my time and
resources searching for a romantic part or that was part
of what I didn't want to spend my time in.
And I was feeling really great about myself. So in
(13:08):
order to have the type of relationship that I wanted,
that I needed to grow and learn my own self
forgiveness and self compassion and self endorsement and self love
so that I could offer to somebody else the kind
of love that I wanted to be able to track
back for myself.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Absolutely. Yeah, that was one of the first things that
we talked about. Not one of the first things, but
on our first call, I remember you said, like, Yeah,
one of the things I want most in this world
is to find love and companionship and have it be
in an amazing relationship, but you were very aware that
you needed to learn how to love and create that
for yourself first. And I was when you said that,
I was like, yes and amen, because so many people
(13:47):
think that the relationship is going to air quotes fix them,
or that's going to make them feel that way. So
that was one of the first things I remember you
reverse engineered, was like feeling worthiness of being love, like
feeling worthy of receiving that love from others. Right, yes, way,
I'll link in the show notes Suzanne's testimony and story.
Did an interview a couple of years back where we
share a little bit more of that. There's actually a
(14:07):
part one and a part two, but it's so interesting
because I share a lot of what I've been through myself,
and like I said, this was my biggest kryptonite too,
was like not feeling worthy of love and receiving that.
And I did my own reverse engineering. And by the way, repetition, repetition, repetition.
I said it before, but like sometimes we need to
keep seeding something into our reality. And I remember, and
this is where that crossover conversation comes, Like, yes, I
(14:30):
made a grateful and advanced kind of declaration to myself
about attracting my husband into my life after I had obviously,
like just like Suzanne, first and foremost, I went through
the process of feeling worthy of receiving that, and then
I declared, Okay, what do I want to create to
receive it from others?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Just like Suzanne had shared, it needed to be both.
But it's interesting because my crossover or my list so
to speak, included things about my body, like somebody that
understood that I had a complicated relationship with my body
and that loved and appreciated my body as much as
I did. Like things like that that I would have
never known to even put in my relationship conversation because
(15:08):
I still was kind of in the dark when it
came to my own body stuff. And fun little fact
my husband and I we did. He's a very private person.
I can be very private personally. Obviously professionally I'm pretty
out out there. But we didn't want to do our
vowels in front of everyone at our wedding, so we
did something called vow Night where we exchanged vowels a
(15:29):
couple of nights before our wedding, and interestingly enough, my
list or my grateful in advance almost became part of
my vowels to him, because again, like Susanna was saying,
it's almost like written declaration of who I became and
who I was becoming, and a lot of it wasn't
there in the present. I was creating it and stepping
(15:49):
into it little by a little, piece by piece. It
was its gradual thing. But then it literally stood as
again like a written document and documentation of what I
had declared and what I was now also in inviting
him into and us into in our marriage. And so
I know, something kind of similar happened with you where
you look back at your list and you're like, oh
my gosh. So spoiler alert, Suzanne put herself out there.
(16:11):
She really feeled her relationship with herself, with her body,
and it's a dot dot dot continuing journey, just like
it is for all of us. But she did eventually
attract love and an amazing partner in her life. So
can you share a little bit about how like specificity
and writing it down in the documentation really did transfer
over to real life for you too.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it was so amazing. It was within the first
year of having worked with you that I was doing
a lot of growth and learning and self acceptance and
really being specific about what did I want my life
to look like and what did I want in this
great partnership and how I could invite love into my life.
(16:56):
And you know, was very grateful that I met somebody,
and you know, we were dating for a couple of
weeks when I decided to go back through my journal
and circle the qualities that I had said that I
was looking for in a partner. And first of all,
I loved that I had this written account of what
(17:18):
I had declared that I wanted in my life and
that I was being grateful in advance for having it.
And it was so wonderful to circle every single thing
that I had said about a future partner and see
that all of those qualities had shown up in this
person that I met. It really, you know, reinforced me.
Like when you're specific in that way, it does help
(17:41):
you to recognize when it is there, because we can
go through life and just not be paying attention and
being able to reflect back and then see it actually
showing up was truly so remarkable. And that has happened
in addition to romantic love. It's happened in and the
ways that I love myself too. Before I was as
(18:04):
accepting of who I am and appreciating who I am,
I was being grateful in advance for the day when
I felt that way, when I felt more comfortable in
my own body, and it had nothing to do with
shape or size, but everything to do with just acceptance.
And that is one of the things that I'm most
(18:25):
grateful for learning for myself has been acceptance and self
love so that it's opened my heart to be able
to give love differently and receive love in a much
more profound and special way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh so good, so good, And yeah, it is like
a skill set once you learn the skill set of creation.
Because again I'm here to remind you and there's no
shame either way, whichever camp you're in, but you're creating it.
Either way. You're either positively anticipating or negatively anticipating your
future and creating more of it least like blocking the
good from coming in or creating that resistance in your
(19:04):
nervous system. Right, it's literally a neurological state. And speaking
of that, you know a lot of people are like, well,
leanne can I just think it?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Can?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I just like think about it when I'm in the shower.
Can I just think about it when I'm on the
drive to work, And the answer is yes, you absolutely can.
But there's an extra level of neuro associative properties that
takes place. It's almost like more potent when you're writing
it down because you're also thinking it. But then there
is that there's like a tactile representation. It also like
kind of slows you down you're writing it. There's just
(19:31):
a different sensory experience, A multiplication factor kind of takes
place when you're writing it down. But then also it's
the gift that keeps on giving. Just like Suzanne said,
she now has something she can look back on and
you can update it, you can continue integrating it. But
then also it's literally like a mirror of what you declared,
and it's a gift. So I definitely it's not that
(19:51):
you can't think about it. It will have power, for sure,
but it's going to be that much more powerful if
you also write it down.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, it was fun when you showed up and I
was able to go back and say, oh my gosh,
he showed up exactly the way that I identified that
I wanted somebody to show up.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yes, absolutely, and first and foremost, I just want to
emphasize this. You were grateful in anticipation, right, for loving
yourself and that radical self acceptance before you could receive
it from others, specifically him, right, And then you took
that and you put the power of specificity and writing
it down into practice, right, And then he showed up.
(20:31):
But so not only were you ready and your your mind,
your head, your heart, your nervous system was ready, willing
and able to receive it, but then also recognize it like, no,
this is exactly what I want and what I created.
There was no confusion and really be able to bask
in it. And this is it. It's transferable into every
area of life, guys, for real.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I have seen it come to life in other relationships
and in other areas of my life. And to be
able to look back just say, oh, I asked for
abundance in this area and it has shown up. Has
been so wonderful, And I think part of what I
enjoy about this practice. There's so many things I enjoy
(21:10):
about this practice. But somebody had taught me a long
time ago that an experience without reflection is only half
of the experience. So I love being able to go
back through this journal as part of my reflective experience
to remind myself of what this process has looked like
for me and where I see the times that I
(21:32):
was struggling and the times that I was really growing.
That has just been satisfying to be able to look
back and see my own personal account of what this
growth and learning process has been for me.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Well, thank you for letting us see a sneak peek
inside of it. It's so beautiful to just hear from
somebody who's been through the journey. Thank you for your
vulnerability and just transparency and sharing all of this because
we're all on this crazy ride.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It has been a joy to be here and to
share with you, and I am so appreciative. I'm grateful
for you and grateful in advance for all the learning
that comes from this.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh, absolutely grateful to you too, appreciate it. Well, that
is it for our Unfiltered Confidence series where we are
navigating self discovery with in recovery. All four parts are
live right now. Thank you Susie and so much for
being here. And if you want to learn more about
how to rewire your brain and heal from the all
or nothing diet mentality, but also taking this entire self
(22:33):
image and self worth approach to your healing journey. Head
on over to stresslesseding dot com. You can check out
my free masterclass where I lay it all out for
you the nitty gritty steps, and you can follow me
over at Leanne Ellington on Instagram. That's it for this
series and I'll see you next time. Bye,
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning love who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Aga, I stan, I feel free. I know every part
of me.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But she'll some love to the vio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Why get there sage day Ana? Did you and die
out way? Happy Saturday? Outweigh. This is Leanne and I'm
back with the amazing Suzanne. Hello, Hi, it's great to
be here. Yes, if you missed the past few weeks,
we have had some powerhouse conversations. First and foremost, this
(00:49):
series is called Unfiltered Confidence Navigating self discovery within Recovery,
and if you've listened to the past few weeks, you'll
know exactly why we called it that, because there are
so many beautiful discoveries that can take place within the
context of your recovery journey that have nothing to do
with food and your body, but then also everything to
do with food in your body, even if it seemingly
(01:12):
doesn't right. So our first episode we talked about navigating
life beyond the checklist. Then we got into owning your
worth in the face of haters and when there's other
people that don't know your worth. And then we talked
about last week a powerful conversation of self compassion beyond
the reflection, having nothing to do with what you look like,
(01:32):
and really learning self compassion almost like it's a new
language or a new skill. And then a couple weeks ago,
Suzanne mentioned a journaling exercise that I taught her, and
we're actually going to talk about that in specificity on
today's episode. Today are episodes called from Vision to Reality
through Grateful Anticipation. And I love this topic. And to
some people it might seem a little bit woo woo,
(01:54):
but to me, it really just aligns with how our
brains create neuro associations. We are all always either positively
anticipating or negatively anticipating our future, and so negative anticipation
is the one that typically takes over most of our brains.
Where it's worry, it's fear, it's projecting the worst or
maybe just not projecting the best, and it's anxiety, and
(02:18):
it's all the things that we if we don't get
ownership of it or take a hold of it, we
are going to create it. We're going to create more
of it we create what we think about and what
we focus on versus positive anticipation. And I'll even say
grateful anticipation, which I'll talk about in a second, but
positively anticipating in the future. And it's not like the
roses and butterflies positive anticipation of like, oh, I'm so
(02:41):
glad I'm going to win the lottery, and I'm so
glad that I'm gonna, you know, all of a sudden,
my favorite movie star is going to show up my door.
I'm not talking about that kind of roses and butterflies.
I'm talking about seating the reality that you're already trying
to create, right, being grateful in advance for things that
you want to show up in your life or that
you're committed to showing up in your life. And I
know that word manifestation is thrown around a lot, but
(03:03):
really what I believe in is the power of conscious creation.
Like you can create your life. And again, there's things
that are totally out of your control, but there's things
that you can absolutely influence. So, for example, one of
the main conversations I invite my clients into when they
first come to work with me is stepping into this
conversation of feeling freedom around food and freedom within their
(03:25):
body and that self acceptance self image conversation. And to
them when they first meet me, it's like, LeAnn, that
sounds foreign to me. I don't even know what that
looks like. The concept of not dieting or not like
restricting or controlling or micromanaging what I eat sounds super
foreign and really scary. So they negatively anticipate it, right,
They negatively think like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen.
(03:45):
So we have to give them a new vision, a
positive anticipation, to replace the old.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And so, for example, when I talk about being grateful
in advance, so grateful in advance for what you're already
committed to. So if you are already committed to your freedom,
if you're already committed to stepping into a conversation of
self acceptance, an example simply just becomes I'm grateful in
advance for my food freedom becoming more and more a
part of my brain every single day. I'm grateful in
(04:10):
advance for becoming the version of myself who practices less
self rejection and more self acceptance. So I'm meeting myself
in my doubt, but also bringing myself to belief and
seeding the reality. I'm creating it in advance by being
grateful in advance. Okay, so that's ways of being. But
also I know, for me, back before I met my husband,
(04:32):
when I was in the midst of my food and
body struggles, I was grateful for things that had nothing
to do with food in my body as well. So
like I remember, I was grateful in advance for my
husband because he was doing the work on himself while
I was doing the work on myself too. And what
do you know, that's exactly what happened. My husband was
doing the work on himself, right. I remember being grateful
in advance for the women that needed me finding me,
(04:54):
and I swear the women that I work with, like
every single woman I work with, I'm like God put
them in my life, in their life for a reason.
It felt like this ordained thing. So it's not this
again magic wand magic, you know eight ball kind of
thing where you create everything and it magically happens and
the timing is not in your control. Sometimes you can
influence it more than others, but again it's about either
(05:17):
way you are positively anticipating your future or negatively anticipating
your future. It's happening either way. Most women are negatively
anticipating it. So that's why I just I and by
all my clients take radical ownership of that whatever you
have as a vision, bring it to reality, but by
seeding it in your nervous system, creating the neuro associations,
so that when you do have it, it's actually a
(05:39):
part of your self image as well. Versus again, some
people create things and then they don't feel worthy of
having it and they end up unconsciously sabotaging it. So
this idea of being grateful in advance and creating your
life through grateful anticipation and bringing those visions to reality.
So that being said, Suzanne started to mention it a
couple weeks ago when we were talking about owning your
(05:59):
work in the face of haters, and I just explained
the process, like it really is as simple as that,
like journaling I'm grateful in advance for I'm grateful in
advance that and also repetition, repetition, repetition, like I was
grateful in advance for my husband for years before I
met him. Right, But that being said, I want to
turn the microphone over to you, Suzanne, and can you
(06:20):
share a little bit about your experiences being grateful in advance,
how you created that grateful anticipation and brought some visions
in your life to reality. Let's just start the conversation there,
because there's so much we can unpack. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I absolutely love this concept of being grateful in advance.
And you know, part of the journaling is looking back,
what are you grateful in your past and what are
you being grateful right now? And being grateful in advance
was a really new concept for me. And it's easy
to get stuck in fear and to go in that direction.
(06:56):
So this really helped me to start thinking in a
completely different way. I typically tend to be an optimistic person,
so being grateful in advance kind of matched up with
my internal wiring in a way that I didn't anticipate,
and it helped me to say, like, exactly what you said.
This is not like I'm going to win the lottery today,
(07:19):
but it helped me to say, like, what are the
things that I really really want to make true in
my life? And some of them were things like I
want to feel less tension in my body and I'm
going to be grateful in advance, that I find the
ways to allow myself to unwind or I want to
(07:39):
feel stronger. That helped me to identify, if I want
to feel I'm feeling grateful in advance for feeling stronger,
what does that look like for me? Is that physical strength?
Is it mental strength? Is it emotional strength? Like? What
does being stronger really look like? And it helped me
to find that so that I could find ways my
(08:00):
life to exercise being stronger. And you know, one of
the things that was recurring in our conversations was about
allowing myself to love myself more and to offer love
and accept love. And that was a recurring theme in
(08:22):
my being grateful in advance. How I was going to
offer myself forgiveness, How I was offering myself compassion, How
I was celebrating the things that are unique to me,
all of my unique talents and gifts. How could I
be grateful in advance that I was letting my light
(08:42):
shine in a way that I hadn't permitted myself always
to do. And in doing that, I also started to
identify I hadn't dated in a while when we first
started working together, and identifying like who do I want
to be a relationship And could I be grateful in
advance for the learning and the growing that I was
(09:06):
doing to prepare myself differently, to be ready to open
my heart and give love and accept love differently than
what I had been doing. And then I started identifying
what were qualities or characteristics that I would really want
in a romantic partnership. And truly, you know, part of
(09:26):
that was like, I'm looking for a partnership, and I'm
looking for somebody who is a great conversationalist and is
funny and kind and thoughtful and loving and consider it
and you know, and I was clearly articulating what I
was going to be grateful in advance for finding in
a partner and what did what did that look like?
(09:47):
What would feel really good for me? And it was
wonderful to think about finding those qualities, and that grateful
in advance helped me also to think through what would
I really want to have happen and make happen in
my life and make myself open and vulnerable to happening
in my life. It unfolded those pages for me in
(10:12):
a way that I hadn't allowed myself to think about
and It really did bring joy in anticipating all of
these great things in life are still out there to
be had and to experience and to create for myself,
and writing it down gave me you talk about breadcrumbs,
(10:35):
gave me the pieces to be able to go back
to at times when I needed a little boost in
self and put myself redirected on this path of learning
and growing and ended up really being this documentation for
myself of my own growth. And it came the documentation
(10:58):
of what it was that I said I wanted in
my life. So when it showed up, I recognized it
and was able to go back and say, oh, my goodness,
Like I was grateful in advance for all of these things,
and look how beautifully they showed up in my life.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Oh my gosh. You said so many important things, but
a couple things I just wanted to touch on. You know,
we talk about the specificity of what you're being grateful
in advanced for, and yes, you can be grateful for
your past, you can be grateful for your presence. Specifically,
we're talking about how to see this in your nervous
(11:34):
system so that you can you said it best, like
almost recognize it when it does appear because a lot
of times we have a bit of an identity crisis
if we don't like our self image hasn't played catch up. Right.
It's one of the reasons that I lost so much
weight and then I still my self image still perceived
me as air quotes fat because that's the word I
was using, that's the word I had been practicing, and
that's the identity I created because I didn't teach my
(11:56):
brain how to receive feeling comfortable in my body and
calm in my body and comfortable in my own skin.
And I didn't teach my nervousness and the concept of
having a beautiful relationship with food and a beautiful relationship
with my body independent of appearance. So there's all of
those things that you can see in advance when you
are healing your relationship with food and your body. But
(12:16):
then there's also all this crossover, like it's not just
one dimensional, it's three dimensional. So first and foremost there's
the specificity factor. You really want to become grateful in
advance for specific So it's not like I'm grateful in
advance that I'm happy, right, I'm grateful in advance that
I'm peaceful and calm when I get out of bed
in the morning, or I know how to get myself
there right, and like, you're getting really nitty gritty specific.
(12:39):
So first and foremost, just to clarify, when Susanne and
I first met, what was it like? Had it been
like a decade? I think since you dated.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It had been quite a while. Yeah. I had had
some female health issues that had made me really feel
closed off and not want to spend my time and
resources searching for a romantic part or that was part
of what I didn't want to spend my time in.
And I was feeling really great about myself. So in
(13:08):
order to have the type of relationship that I wanted,
that I needed to grow and learn my own self
forgiveness and self compassion and self endorsement and self love
so that I could offer to somebody else the kind
of love that I wanted to be able to track
back for myself.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Absolutely. Yeah, that was one of the first things that
we talked about. Not one of the first things, but
on our first call, I remember you said, like, Yeah,
one of the things I want most in this world
is to find love and companionship and have it be
in an amazing relationship, but you were very aware that
you needed to learn how to love and create that
for yourself first. And I was when you said that,
I was like, yes and amen, because so many people
(13:47):
think that the relationship is going to air quotes fix them,
or that's going to make them feel that way. So
that was one of the first things I remember you
reverse engineered, was like feeling worthiness of being love, like
feeling worthy of receiving that love from others. Right, yes, way,
I'll link in the show notes Suzanne's testimony and story.
Did an interview a couple of years back where we
share a little bit more of that. There's actually a
(14:07):
part one and a part two, but it's so interesting
because I share a lot of what I've been through myself,
and like I said, this was my biggest kryptonite too,
was like not feeling worthy of love and receiving that.
And I did my own reverse engineering. And by the way, repetition, repetition, repetition.
I said it before, but like sometimes we need to
keep seeding something into our reality. And I remember, and
this is where that crossover conversation comes, Like, yes, I
(14:30):
made a grateful and advanced kind of declaration to myself
about attracting my husband into my life after I had obviously,
like just like Suzanne, first and foremost, I went through
the process of feeling worthy of receiving that, and then
I declared, Okay, what do I want to create to
receive it from others?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Just like Suzanne had shared, it needed to be both.
But it's interesting because my crossover or my list so
to speak, included things about my body, like somebody that
understood that I had a complicated relationship with my body
and that loved and appreciated my body as much as
I did. Like things like that that I would have
never known to even put in my relationship conversation because
(15:08):
I still was kind of in the dark when it
came to my own body stuff. And fun little fact
my husband and I we did. He's a very private person.
I can be very private personally. Obviously professionally I'm pretty
out out there. But we didn't want to do our
vowels in front of everyone at our wedding, so we
did something called vow Night where we exchanged vowels a
(15:29):
couple of nights before our wedding, and interestingly enough, my
list or my grateful in advance almost became part of
my vowels to him, because again, like Susanna was saying,
it's almost like written declaration of who I became and
who I was becoming, and a lot of it wasn't
there in the present. I was creating it and stepping
(15:49):
into it little by a little, piece by piece. It
was its gradual thing. But then it literally stood as
again like a written document and documentation of what I
had declared and what I was now also in inviting
him into and us into in our marriage. And so
I know, something kind of similar happened with you where
you look back at your list and you're like, oh
my gosh. So spoiler alert, Suzanne put herself out there.
(16:11):
She really feeled her relationship with herself, with her body,
and it's a dot dot dot continuing journey, just like
it is for all of us. But she did eventually
attract love and an amazing partner in her life. So
can you share a little bit about how like specificity
and writing it down in the documentation really did transfer
over to real life for you too.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it was so amazing. It was within the first
year of having worked with you that I was doing
a lot of growth and learning and self acceptance and
really being specific about what did I want my life
to look like and what did I want in this
great partnership and how I could invite love into my life.
(16:56):
And you know, was very grateful that I met somebody,
and you know, we were dating for a couple of
weeks when I decided to go back through my journal
and circle the qualities that I had said that I
was looking for in a partner. And first of all,
I loved that I had this written account of what
(17:18):
I had declared that I wanted in my life and
that I was being grateful in advance for having it.
And it was so wonderful to circle every single thing
that I had said about a future partner and see
that all of those qualities had shown up in this
person that I met. It really, you know, reinforced me.
Like when you're specific in that way, it does help
(17:41):
you to recognize when it is there, because we can
go through life and just not be paying attention and
being able to reflect back and then see it actually
showing up was truly so remarkable. And that has happened
in addition to romantic love. It's happened in and the
ways that I love myself too. Before I was as
(18:04):
accepting of who I am and appreciating who I am,
I was being grateful in advance for the day when
I felt that way, when I felt more comfortable in
my own body, and it had nothing to do with
shape or size, but everything to do with just acceptance.
And that is one of the things that I'm most
(18:25):
grateful for learning for myself has been acceptance and self
love so that it's opened my heart to be able
to give love differently and receive love in a much
more profound and special way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh so good, so good, And yeah, it is like
a skill set once you learn the skill set of creation.
Because again I'm here to remind you and there's no
shame either way, whichever camp you're in, but you're creating it.
Either way. You're either positively anticipating or negatively anticipating your
future and creating more of it least like blocking the
good from coming in or creating that resistance in your
(19:04):
nervous system. Right, it's literally a neurological state. And speaking
of that, you know a lot of people are like, well,
leanne can I just think it?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Can?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I just like think about it when I'm in the shower.
Can I just think about it when I'm on the
drive to work, And the answer is yes, you absolutely can.
But there's an extra level of neuro associative properties that
takes place. It's almost like more potent when you're writing
it down because you're also thinking it. But then there
is that there's like a tactile representation. It also like
kind of slows you down you're writing it. There's just
(19:31):
a different sensory experience, A multiplication factor kind of takes
place when you're writing it down. But then also it's
the gift that keeps on giving. Just like Suzanne said,
she now has something she can look back on and
you can update it, you can continue integrating it. But
then also it's literally like a mirror of what you declared,
and it's a gift. So I definitely it's not that
(19:51):
you can't think about it. It will have power, for sure,
but it's going to be that much more powerful if
you also write it down.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, it was fun when you showed up and I
was able to go back and say, oh my gosh,
he showed up exactly the way that I identified that
I wanted somebody to show up.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yes, absolutely, and first and foremost, I just want to
emphasize this. You were grateful in anticipation, right, for loving
yourself and that radical self acceptance before you could receive
it from others, specifically him, right, And then you took
that and you put the power of specificity and writing
it down into practice, right, And then he showed up.
(20:31):
But so not only were you ready and your your mind,
your head, your heart, your nervous system was ready, willing
and able to receive it, but then also recognize it like, no,
this is exactly what I want and what I created.
There was no confusion and really be able to bask
in it. And this is it. It's transferable into every
area of life, guys, for real.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I have seen it come to life in other relationships
and in other areas of my life. And to be
able to look back just say, oh, I asked for
abundance in this area and it has shown up. Has
been so wonderful, And I think part of what I
enjoy about this practice. There's so many things I enjoy
(21:10):
about this practice. But somebody had taught me a long
time ago that an experience without reflection is only half
of the experience. So I love being able to go
back through this journal as part of my reflective experience
to remind myself of what this process has looked like
for me and where I see the times that I
(21:32):
was struggling and the times that I was really growing.
That has just been satisfying to be able to look
back and see my own personal account of what this
growth and learning process has been for me.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Well, thank you for letting us see a sneak peek
inside of it. It's so beautiful to just hear from
somebody who's been through the journey. Thank you for your
vulnerability and just transparency and sharing all of this because
we're all on this crazy ride.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It has been a joy to be here and to
share with you, and I am so appreciative. I'm grateful
for you and grateful in advance for all the learning
that comes from this.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Oh, absolutely grateful to you too, appreciate it. Well, that
is it for our Unfiltered Confidence series where we are
navigating self discovery with in recovery. All four parts are
live right now. Thank you Susie and so much for
being here. And if you want to learn more about
how to rewire your brain and heal from the all
or nothing diet mentality, but also taking this entire self
(22:33):
image and self worth approach to your healing journey. Head
on over to stresslesseding dot com. You can check out
my free masterclass where I lay it all out for
you the nitty gritty steps, and you can follow me
over at Leanne Ellington on Instagram. That's it for this
series and I'll see you next time. Bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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