The Power of AND: Transforming Negativity Into Gratitude Through Radical Acceptance

Our brains are wired with a negativity bias, constantly scanning for threats and challenges to keep us safe. While this survival mechanism has its benefits, in modern life, it can trap us in a cycle of focusing on what feels hard or overwhelming.

So how can we break free from this loop and cultivate gratitude? The key lies in radically accepting the WHOLE truth of our experience.

In this episode, we’ll explore how to acknowledge life’s difficulties while intentionally looking for what else might be true. By practicing “AND” statements, you can honor your struggles and make space for gratitude, hope, and possibility.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why our brains are naturally inclined to focus on the negative.
• How gratitude differs from toxic positivity.
• The power of radical acceptance and self-compassion.
• 20 practical “AND” statements to help you reframe your perspective.
• How to balance life’s challenges with gratitude for a more wholehearted experience.

Challenge for the Week:
The next time you find yourself stuck in negativity, pause and ask yourself, What else is true? Write down an “AND” statement to expand your perspective.

Work With Me:
If you’re ready to deepen this work, I’d love to support you one-on-one! My schedule is filling up quickly for the holidays, so if you’re thinking about starting before the New Year, now’s the time. Head to my website to apply!

✅✅ Apply to work with me: ⤵️⤵️⤵️⤵️

🚻🚻 https://maryannwalker.life/contact-me


🙏🙏 Please subscribe and enable all push notifications to get more updates​ 🔔
✅✅ https://www.youtube.com/@maryannwalkerlife  
 
🙏🙏 Please like, comment on, and share videos too! 
 
✅✅ Please watch these videos also if you are interested 🙏🙏🙏

💞▶️Score Keeping & People Pleasing: How Score Keeping Could Both Help and Hurt a Relationship 
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/3xch-nEWR4U

💞▶️ When Someone Makes You Upset: Taking Control of Your Emotions
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/zEa7v_E70O8

💞▶️ Less is More: Simplifying Communication for Better Understanding
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/gqWTKdJXG3o

💞▶️ Over and Under Reacting: Why Your Reactions Might Be Off 
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/mYSNbIv7_N8

💞▶️ "Manage Your Reactions, But do not Suppress Your Emotions." 
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/yImIGBGc8s8

💞▶️ The True Cost of Tolerating Mistreatment 
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/KT3BKB_oZsA

💞▶️ Urgency vs an Actual Emergency 
🌐❤️ https://youtu.be/KuOJkVixRMI


✅✅Connect on Social Media ⤵️⤵️⤵️


👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryannwalker.life

💠💠 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryannwalker.life/

👱🏻‍♀️👱🏻‍♀️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maryannwalker.life

📚📚 Get your FREE Boundary Guidebook: https://maryannwalker-life.ck.page/2124419f37


Related Keywords: Gratitude and radical acceptance, Overcoming negativity bias, How to practice gratitude daily, Gratitude without toxic positivity, Balancing gratitude when struggling, Self-compassion through gratitude, Using "AND" statements for emotional growth, Cultivating gratitude through accurate thinking, Acknowledging pain while practicing gratitude, Rewiring your brain for gratitude, Gratitude tips for highly sensitive people, Positive thinking without ignoring struggles, How to find hope in hard times, Emotional resilience with gratitude, Transforming negativity into gratitude, Building self-compassion and gratitude, Gratitude practice for self-growth, Embracing duality: Pain and gratitude, Mindfulness and gratitude for well-being, Gratitude tools for empaths and HSPs

Transcript

0:17

Well, hello, and welcome back. My name is Marianne Walker, and I'm the life coach for empaths and highly sensitive people. And if you were listening in the US today, I want to personally wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. The date that this episode is dropping is going to be on Thanksgiving Day. And that's a day where we really focus on the things that we're thankful and grateful for. And I am thankful and grateful for you, my listeners. Thank you so much for being here. Now, because this episode is dropping on Thanksgiving Day, I thought it would be kind of fun to play around with the idea of gratitude. And how can we increase our own personal levels of gratitude? We know through science that people that are grateful, they're happier, they're healthier. And so how can we naturally increase It's our own personal levels of gratitude to increase our abundance and to increase our own personal health and wellness. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I know some of you are probably thinking, yeah, yeah, I've heard this before. Focus on the positive. But we're going to be approaching it today through a slightly different lens. We're going to be approaching gratitude through the lens of radical acceptance as you know, the brain has a negativity bias. It is hardwired to focus on threats, to focus on challenges and focus on the things that are going wrong. And this is not a flaw. This is not a defect in our brain. This is how our brains were designed. This goes back years and years to caveman days where we had to assess personal safety. We had to look for all those threats so that we could keep ourselves safe. It was a survival mechanism. And so often it keeps us safe by looking for all of those potential threats. But in today's world, where survival isn't always an immediate concern, this negativity bias can actually keep us trapped in a loop, focusing only on the things that feel hard. and overwhelming It just keeps us stuck. Also if you really think about it, only focusing on the negative, that isn't actually the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We like to tell ourselves and possibly other people that I'm not being negative, I'm just being honest, I'm just speaking my truth. But if you're only speaking to the negative, you are not actually speaking the truth. The whole truth. And that's how we're going to be approaching it today is really talking about the power of the word and. Acknowledging what is hard and acknowledging what else might be true. So to kind of illustrate this point a little bit, first, let's talk briefly about what gratitude Gratitude. isn't. Gratitude isn't toxic positivity. We have a couple of episodes on here where we're talking about toxic positivity and what that looks like when we're talking about the power positive thinking. Gratitude is not toxic positivity. It is not slapping a smile on your face and absolutely ignoring your struggles and pretending like they're not there. That's not what we're talking about here. But instead, it means honoring the full picture. It's acknowledging that you are in pain. And it's making room to notice what else might be true. It's about bringing in that self compassion and giving ourselves space to actually see and honor the whole story. It's asking yourself what else might be true and then choosing intentionally what it is that you want to focus on. Because our brain has this negativity bias, our brain is going to take the path of least resistance. It's going to take that downhill slope. slope to focus on the negative. It does take a little bit more energy to create the momentum, to change those neural pathways and to kind of reset the brain a bit, to focus on what else might be true. And when we're able to see that, okay, this is true and this is true, we can be more intentional about where it is that we want to invest our time and our energy. Again, it's not ignoring the negative. It's saying, these things are both true. And this is where I'm choosing to invest my energy. So yeah, it can take a little bit of extra time and energy to rewire the brain in that way, but the effort is 100 percent worth it. So yes, acknowledge what is hard for you in the moment. And add in an and statement to discover what else might be true. And you might even want to make a little game out of it and just see what other truths you can uncover. So for example, if you're feeling lonely this holiday season, you can acknowledge that loneliness. It's real. It's valid. Ignoring it is kind of like holding that beach ball under the water that we've talked about here multiple times before, where if you're just saying, no, don't feel lonely, don't feel lonely, I shouldn't be feeling lonely on the holiday. Eventually, that emotion needs to come out, and it's going to smack you in the face, or it's going to smack somebody else in the face when you're lashing out. So take the time to really look at and honor and acknowledge the negative emotion. That, yeah, I'm feeling kind of lonely. I was hoping that I'd be with family this year and I'm not. I experienced this quite a bit when I lived states away from family and we weren't always able to travel. Of course there's always mega snow storms this time of year. There's one year where we went to visit family in St. George and we chose to drive because at the time it sounded like a good idea. And so we went to St. George, down in southern Utah for Thanksgiving as we're driving back to Kansas through Colorado. We got stuck in a horrible blizzard and we thought, you know what, it's just not worth it. Even though we had chosen and made a conscious decision that we didn't want to travel over the holidays because we didn't want to get stuck again. I still experienced that loneliness. So really sit with it, honor, acknowledge it that, yeah, I wish that I was with other people that I know and love this holiday. I'm feeling kind of lonely and it doesn't feel very good. Get curious about how that feels for you in your body. For me, when I'm experiencing loneliness, my body feels kind of hollow. It feels kind of hollow in my chest. Sometimes it even feels like I'm wearing a cloak of invisibility because let's be honest, sometimes you're feeling lonely because of decisions that you made, like my choosing to not travel for the holidays. That was a choice that I made, and I can still experience loneliness because of it. And sometimes loneliness comes because of other people's decisions. So, sit with that. See how that feels in your body, honor and acknowledge it. And then after you process that loneliness for a little bit, ask yourself, okay, I'm feeling lonely. And what else might be true? So maybe you're feeling lonely. And you're safe in your home and not stuck in a storm. Maybe you're feeling lonely. And you also have the freedom to do what it is that you want to do free of anyone else's expectations. And you know what? Both of those things can be experienced and exist at the same time. time. When you start incorporating and statements, it's amazing how much more it validates yourself, and it really can expand and help you to develop your emotional maturity. Because emotional immaturity says you can only experience one emotion at a time. Emotional maturity says, Nope, I can actually experience a wide range of emotions, and that actually increases my depth of feeling and connectedness with myself and with others as well. I worked with one person who made two separate statements at two separate times in two separate conversations, and it can always be really interesting to see where people are at and what it is that they're choosing to focus on. So this woman, then she made a comment in one conversation saying, My life is just so much harder because I'm divorced and I have to do things by myself. Because I don't have a partner to help with meals or to help with kids or to help with lawn care, my life is just harder. And in a separate conversation, she made a comment about, you know what, I just really enjoy being single. I get to go and do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it, and I'm really enjoying this phase of my life. And guess what? Both of those things can be true at the same time, and they are true at the same time. But what changes is what we're choosing to focus on. And of course when we're feeling sick or tired or just having a hard time, it can be a little bit more of a challenge to create these"and" statements and to see what else might be true and so that we can intentionally choose what it is we want to focus on. But guess what? Being sick and tired is something else that also needs to be processed. So feel and process that. And when you are in a space where you can create some"and" statements and see what else can be true, be intentional about redirecting the brain and rewiring the brain when you're feeling good. And that will make it a lot easier for your brain to access those neural pathways when you're not feeling good. So this and approach can be a really powerful tool and it's a way of expanding your perspective and balancing out that negativity bias. See what I did there? So I'm going to share with you 20 examples of"and" statements to kind of help to illustrate this mindset. See if any of these are applicable for you. Maybe it's going to jog something in your memory, but if you're struggling with something, in fact, take a moment right now, pause if you need to, but think about something you might currently be struggling with. And see if listening to these and statements helps you to see what else might be true and just notice how that might shift your own personal energy in your own body. All right. So here's some and statements to kind of think over and mull over as you're working to come up with your own. I feel lonely this holiday season and I have the freedom to do and eat whatever I want to today. I'm overwhelmed at work and I'm grateful to have a job that challenges me and I'm grateful to have a paycheck to pay for my bills. I made a mistake in my relationship, and I'm learning to communicate better.\ I'm struggling financially, and I'm resourceful in finding ways to manage this. I'm missing somebody that I love dearly who passed away, and I'm thankful for the memories and the love that we shared. I'm disappointed in myself for procrastinating, and I still have time to make progress. I feel stuck in my current situation, and I'm actively working towards change. My body doesn't currently look the way that I want it to, and I am so grateful for all the things that my body can do. I'm scared of failing, and I'm proud of myself for trying. I'm worried about the future, and I'm really grateful for what I have right now. I'm grieving a loss. And I'm open to finding joy again. I feel disconnected from my friends, and I can take steps to reconnect. I'm angry about being misunderstood, and I'm learning to express myself clearly. I'm upset that my plans fell through, and I now have unexpected free time. I feel like I'm not good enough, and I can see and celebrate how far I've come. I'm frustrated by my lack of progress. And I am learning patience. I am afraid of change, and I know it's bringing me closer to what I want. I feel burned out, and I'm starting to prioritize rest. I'm unsure of my path, and I trust myself to figure it out. I'm navigating tough emotions, and I know that these tough emotions won't last forever. Now thinking on these statements that I just shared, I want you to notice that none of these statements dismiss the negative emotion. In fact, all of these statements reinforce that that negative emotion is there. It's acknowledging the hard. It's acknowledging the tough. That part is still there. Life is 50 50 after all. And what's interesting is we can actually increase our overall well being when we allow space for the negative and for the positive. So process all of your emotions with compassion and curiosity. By adding and, we can invite in balance and wholehearted living. These and statements, they remind us that even in difficulty, there's usually something to hold on to a spark of hope, a moment of gratitude, a sign of progress. So here is your challenge is the next time your mind starts to spiral into negativity, just pause for a minute, take a little minute to breathe and to feel and process and acknowledge that hard stuff, and then ask yourself, okay. And what else might be true? You can even write it down if that helps, but practice reminding yourself that you're capable of holding both pain and possibility at the same time. That is emotional maturity is having the capacity to feel more than one emotion at the same time. Now, this episode is just kind of short and sweet. Want to keep it brief for the holidays, something quick you can listen to while you're prepping for the turkey. But if you found today's episode helpful, make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. Some of the platforms have changed their algorithms. So while you might have been subscribed in the past, might not be subscribed at the moment. So go ahead and make sure that you're subscribed. And also if this episode made you think of somebody, feel free to share it with a friend and start a dialogue with them. There is huge benefit that comes from just exploring these ideas with other people. So whether that's coming to work with me as a coach or talking about them with a friend, I encourage you to just share and start having dialogues about it. Talk with your family about it. See what's coming up. Make it a game to see who can come up with the most, ideas over there about what else might be true. And if you are ready to dive deeper into this kind of work, come and work with me. I would love to work with you one on one. I'm currently offering six week packages. I have increased my availability for the holidays due to demand. And so I do have some openings right now, but they are filling up quickly. So if you would like to start working with me and get on my list before the new year, Message me. Come to my website, MarianneWalker. life and apply to work with me now because I would love to work with you and support you through the holidays. Thank you so much for being here. I am truly grateful for you and I will see you next week. All right. Have a great one. Bye now.