From Vision To Reality Through Grateful Anticipation (Outweigh)

we have had some powerhouse conversations. First and foremost, this 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

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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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. So we have to give them a new vision, a positive anticipation, to replace the old.

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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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?

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 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, 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 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.

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 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 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. 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.

And I was feeling really great about myself. So in 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.

for yourself first. And I was when you said that, I was like, yes and amen, because so many people 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 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 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?

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 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

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.

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.

was looking for in a partner. And first of all, I loved that I had this written account of what 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 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 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 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.

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?

kind of slows you down you're writing it. There's just 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

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.

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.

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 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.

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,