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