Conversation With Danielle Benzon Stop Giving Your Power Away: Forgiveness, Boundaries & Letting Go

You are listening to The Awakening Woman On

The Rise.

If you are a woman who is seeking

to live a more authentic life, but are

feeling not enough to step out fully just

yet, you are in the right place.

If you are a woman who is looking

to live your personal truth and make the

impact you truly desire, you are in the

right place.

I'm your host, Wendy Yacboski.

Let's step out in this together.

Welcome to season two.

And I have a very special surprise for

you.

A friend and colleague, Danielle Benzon and I,

before I started this podcast, had some meetings

together where we were discussing our lives.

We were looking at them with curiosity, what's

working, what's not working, what are we curious

about, what maybe we're concerned about, and maybe

it's not really helping us to get where

we want to go, which another word for

is awakening.

So, I'm excited to share with you this

series that we are choosing to do for

you, because it totally blends in with The

Awakening Woman On The Rise, because we're talking

about what helps us awaken, what doesn't help

us awaken.

And what I love about what happens with

Danielle and I together is that we're very

open with each other.

We don't always agree, but yet we come

to an agreement that different ways of looking

at things, different ways of approaching things in

life is absolutely perfect for each of us.

And so, I know that you will find

yourself in these podcast episodes, and hopefully you

will feel supported, as I've talked to you

previously in the past, that you're not alone

in awakening.

We are all going through this together.

And so, enjoy Danielle and I.

You'll be happy you did.

Oh my God, Danielle, I'm so happy to

be here.

We have the best conversations, and I'm glad

that we're going to be sharing with others

who might be able to appreciate them too.

We do.

And this is our gift to the world.

We have decided that we're going to share

our wonderful conversations, because they are.

We go really deep.

Wendy is an ordained minister.

Is that what you are?

And she has been working with people for

a long time, and she has so many

insights.

And every time I talk to her, I

grow a little bit more.

So, hopefully, talking to us both, you will

also get some growth out of this.

I think that's kind of our plan, is

to just discuss the human condition and our

vulnerabilities and weaknesses, because we are just humans

too, and just our insights.

It's going to be great.

I'm excited.

Yeah, me too.

Sorry?

We're starting with such a light topic as

well.

There's no easing you in here.

We're just going to throw you in.

It's kind of light.

Wendy mentioned before we started that she wanted

to talk, or at least begin.

We don't know where this conversation is going,

because it's live.

But we're going to start on the theme

of forgiveness, because something kind of sparked you

this morning.

Do you want to start us off?

Mm-hmm.

So, part of my spiritual development over the

years is now including A Course in Miracles.

And this morning, I was on a three

-hour workshop for forgiveness, where we are asked

about 14 questions that we answer, like, what

do we feel sad about?

What do we feel angry about?

All manner of what do we feel guilty

about, ashamed about, but ending with, what is

it I can do now?

It really takes acknowledging the pain that we

experience, the unforgiveness, and looking to see how

we can forgive and actually free ourselves.

This is the thing that really speaks to

me about forgiveness, because I never believed that

unforgiveness never ended.

Let me correct myself.

What?

Unforgiveness.

I know, never ended.

Because I'm thinking, how can you undo something

that's done?

With A Course in Miracles, I am learning.

This is so powerful, and it almost brings

tears to my eyes, but I won't do

that first session.

But it brings tears to my eyes that

one of the lessons in A Course in

Miracles is that I give everything it has.

I give everything, the meaning it has, everything

that happens in my life, and that's a

huge chunk of, what was that?

Yeah.

Because again, I just really believe that life,

what goes on in life, is terminal.

I never thought that it was about what

I made it mean.

And so this is not, when we talk

about forgiveness, this is not about saying, this

didn't happen, or this didn't hurt.

But what am I making it mean about

me?

If somebody hurt me somehow, it's not maybe

just what they said, or the words that

they used.

It's kind of like, this means I'm not

okay.

This means I'm not loved.

This means I don't ever want to risk

again.

This means whatever meaning I give it.

And it just seems, Danielle, that these days,

there is so much challenge in forgiving because

some of the things that happen, not only

personally, but globally, feel unforgiving.

And I can totally understand with various things

that have happened over generations appear unforgivable.

But forgiveness frees us.

It doesn't absolve.

It frees us to move on.

It's not absolution.

And that's, yeah, that's what I wanted to,

I have something to say about absolution in

a second.

But also, I have to say this because

I'm a Shakespeare geek.

You were talking about, you give everything its

meaning.

And in Hamlet, he says, nothing is good

or bad, but thinking makes it so.

And that it's just such a like, yeah,

we imbue everything with meaning.

Humans are meaning-making machines.

It's what we do.

And I think that word forgiveness can be

very triggering for some people.

And I think for me as well, because

there are certain things that I think, like,

this is not okay.

And I don't want to say it's okay,

because it's not okay.

And I want to stand for what's right.

And I want to, you know, I want

to fight for freedom and integrity and all

that stuff.

But at the same time, if I'm holding

on to something, that's bad for me.

So for me, when you talk about forgiveness,

I do a little translation in my brain.

And I go, it's not about telling them

it's okay.

Because sometimes I think a lot of people

think forgiveness is about telling them it's okay.

Like, no, this is about me, like you

said, moving on, freeing myself from that past

situation.

For me, it's almost more like radical acceptance.

Like, I'm not going to dwell on it.

I'm not going to think about it anymore.

It's not going to own me.

I'm not going to wish them ill, because

that's not letting go.

That's the fruit of the poisonous tree or

whatever that poem is.

I'm not going to waste my time on

that anymore.

I'm just going to completely let it go.

And for me, that's kind of, and let

it go with love, but not by not

saying it's okay.

And if it, you know, if it happened

again, or if someone brought it up or

something, I would need to create boundaries and

stand against that.

But for me, it's more about this radical

acceptance of I can't change the past.

What has happened has happened.

And if I dwell on it, then I'm

dragging that into my present and my future.

And I don't want to do that.

Does that does that jive with your version

with your definition?

Unknown Speaker Absolutely, it does.

And I'm thinking too, it's, it's, it's always

easy for me to, to think about, you

know, in past years, when, when I believe

that somebody did something to me, but let's

broaden the spectrum here.

We can be in a car accident, or,

or, or COVID, or whatever it is something

that, that impacts our life in such a

way as it's not like it was before.

And, and sometimes, something else I've learned is

that when I blame someone or something, I

am, in fact, giving it my power, because

I'm saying that because of you, I'm done,

like, you know, this 100% you're giving

that, as soon as you blame someone, you're

taking your autonomy away, you're taking your, your,

your, your efficacy away.

And it's like, well, it's because of you.

So like, you know, I'm an inanimate object

now.

And yeah, totally.

And that's not, that's not a good way

to live.

Unknown Speaker Yeah, you know what word just

popped into my mind?

Daniela's agency.

Yes, that's the word I was looking for.

Thank you.

Unknown Speaker The only reason that I bring

it up, because it popped up, bring it

up is because I think so many people

and I know it's not only men, but

a lot of women I know, or hear

speak, you know, they've built their agency, and

they built their agency by taking responsibility for

themselves.

It doesn't mean not accepting what's happened.

But it's okay.

That happened.

And I choose now to Unknown Speaker Yes.

Yes, that happened.

And my therapist is always making sure that

she's on me about using and language instead

of but language, because you got to you

got to use she calls it gray thinking

as instead of instead of like black and

gray thinking.

Because things can exist.

You could James is always telling me you

could be two things.

But it's true.

And and life is complex and nuanced.

Yeah, I can be in pain.

And I can choose to act.

I can be completely devastated by something.

And I can choose not to let that

ruin my the rest of my life.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's not that I don't believe.

I don't believe that people deserve what happens

to them.

I don't believe that I don't think I

don't think we live in this universe where

we're like, Oh, you must have done something

to deserve that horrible thing that happened.

I absolutely don't believe that I think the

universe is chaotic, and not cruel, just random,

random and chaotic and horrible things happen all

the time.

And we we don't we don't have complete

control.

We don't have any control over our environment.

The only thing that we have control of

is, you know, ourselves and that even, you

know, only to a degree, but to the

degree that we have, I think we should

take it.

You know, it's not always enough.

But it's all we've got.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I think, building on what you're saying,

Danielle, I've heard in my mind, I'm remembering

hearing someone say, I am not going to

cry, they're not going to get the benefit

of my tears.

And, and, and I want to say that

feeling our emotions, ideally privately, or with somebody

we really, really, really trust.

Or somewhere safe, absolutely.

But But the important thing about allowing ourselves

to feel our emotions, whether it's actually weeping,

and or journaling and or screaming into a

pillow and or hitting something inanimate.

What it does is it helps release from

the body.

If we're not releasing, it stays there and

it becomes a block.

Yes.

Yes.

Emotions are there.

There are guides like this is our body

talking to us.

Your emotions are your body saying, hey, something's

wrong.

We need to take action.

We need to let this go.

We need to do whatever.

And suppressing or ignoring that information.

It's toxic.

It's so bad for you.

And I personally, I mean, I know that,

you know, not everyone feels comfortable being emotional

in public.

But when I, when I am sad, I

kind of have this little defiant streak in

me.

Because I think that emotions are healthy.

And I think feeling your emotions is healthy.

Taking your emotions out on somebody is not

okay.

Again, that's a that's a personal responsibility thing,

but feeling them.

Everyone should be entitled to feel how they

feel at any time, whether they're in public

or not.

And if I am on the bus, and

I am sad, I will cry.

Or if I am out in a coffee

shop, and I am sad, I will cry.

And I have I have gotten pushed back

from this.

I don't like, you know, I don't lie

on the floor and scream.

I just you know, if the tears want

to come, I let them come.

I don't push it down.

Because I think that it's, it's healthy.

And it's healthy to feel.

And I think if we don't model, and

we being like, people who feel safe and

strong enough, because you know, not everyone has

the spoons.

And not everyone is in an emotional place

where they can be vulnerable.

Those of us who can be vulnerable, who

do feel safe, I feel like the more

we can model emotionality, just as part of

our everyday life, the more normal it will

become.

This is kind of like, you know, talking

about mental health, or, you know, we have

to normalize it.

If we don't normalize being emotional, and I'm

not saying, taking your emotions out on someone

sitting at a coffee shop and having a

coffee by myself with tears going down my

face is very different from screaming at someone

or, you know, like that, those are not

the same thing.

But allowing yourself to feel your emotions fully,

and let them move through you.

Teach them, teach you what they have to

teach you.

Because they're telling you something important.

Yeah, honoring yourself in that way that I

think that's a that's a type of self

love.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Danielle.

I'm just thinking about the various times.

I'm just trying to think whether I have

not not been guilty about this.

Let me just guilty loaded word.

Let's not use that one.

Yes.

For the next.

No, they're not talking about guilt.

And I'm just saying that not everyone is

aware that when they repress their emotions, emotion

is is like emotion, energy in motion.

And when when it's repressed, it's it actually

needs to come out.

Yes, the body can hold it.

And there's a point where it needs to

come out.

And yeah, and when it does, sometimes it's

slashing out at someone saying something like, I

can't believe that came out of my mouth.

Like, you know, so I love what you're

saying about self love, Danielle, because and it's

not only self love, it's actually loving the

world in a way not to give it

like such a big global thing.

But But when we can love ourselves, we

can love others more, which doesn't mean forgiving,

I mean, is saying that the that that

what was wrong was right.

It's not that, but it's about can we

love ourselves enough to go?

You know what, there's a reason I don't

understand that that person did that.

And what do I choose?

Yeah, and just not let it or just,

you know, just let it go.

You know, I feel like we don't always

have to we don't always have to make

nice with the people who've heard us.

I don't think that's necessary.

I don't think it's healthy.

Actually, there's a lot of situations where it's

not a good idea.

But you don't need to waste your time.

There's a difference between like actively pushing them

away.

And just letting it go.

You know, letting it go means there isn't

anything left.

And what you said about that, you know,

the body can hold it, the body can

hold emotions, but it creates sickness, and it

creates chronic tension.

And it, you know, I, I'm in, I'm

in my, my early 40s.

And I am not a healthy person.

But I am weirdly healthy for for the

lifestyle that I have.

And I honestly think it's because I'm, I'm

so emotional.

And I'm so open about my emotions.

I mean, I may not always practice the

best.

I'm working on it.

I may not always look after my body

as well as I can.

But that is one thing I do do

for my body is I let it feel

and I you know, I don't have a

lot of a lot of that that tension

that that people have that those blocks, and

that illness created by emotion, at least that's

one area where I am.

Because it does it can it and it

when it when little bits just come out,

like when you snap at someone or something,

that's not the whole that's just the little,

you know, with a little bit of steam

coming out the top, that's not that's not

taking the lid off.

That's not letting the whole thing kind of

air out.

That's just a tiny little bit that just

escaped.

And there's more.

And so even if you do, if you

do feel that it's, it's not enough to

go, Oh, well, I snapped at someone the

other day.

So now I'm totally Yeah, I think, I

think there's Yeah, there's something to be said

about, you know, and wanting to walk through

the world with love, which means that I'm

not holding, I've let that person go, and

I don't need to make nice with them.

But I'm walking through the world with love.

That's my choice.

That's my act of rebellion.

Yeah.

And, and if they come at me again,

I will have to, you know, defend myself

in some way.

But I'm not going to sit around thinking

about how I'm going to defend myself, you

know, because that's a waste of my energy.

Does that mean you're right?

Absolutely makes sense.

I and I don't think I realized until

not that long ago, how much energy self

protection requires.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

You know, and there's probably more to talk

about that.

But I just I really want to bring

up something that I think is so important.

And that's self forgiveness.

Sometimes, even when someone else has done something

to us, let's say.

Sometimes we hold guilt for that, too, I

must have deserved it, or, or why didn't

I say something?

Oh, my God, I'm a carpet, like, you

know, they're just what, you know, so I

think another, you know, self forgiveness, I, it

took me a few years to realize that

I actually maybe blamed myself for something.

Not that I made it happen.

But, but, but that I judged myself harshly.

Yeah, thinking that maybe it's what I deserved,

who I was.

And that's not the truth.

You know, like, like, like, no human deserves

the amount of most most humans go through,

you know, like, I think I think all

of us have been through more pain than

we deserve.

Yeah.

But I think I think let's talk about

self talk.

Okay, because that's a whole kettle of fish

can of worms.

I'm not sure I was gonna say kettle

of worms like that's not right.

That's a whole other thing, which I think

there's a lot in there we can dig

deep into.

But I love what you said about sometimes

we take on something and blame ourselves for

something that isn't our fault.

And sometimes we just do stupid stuff, bad

stuff.

I mean, it happens.

I think of some of the things that

I did more than a decade ago that

I am ashamed of, you know, and forgiving

myself for those things.

It's harder because I can kind of look

back and go, at the time, I felt

completely justified.

And now looking back, I cringe, I'm like,

Oh, my goodness, how could you be so,

so selfish, so uncaring, so cruel spirited.

And I think, but I also think and

I can't remember who said this, but a

lot of people say this, you know, if

you don't cringe at your past self, then

you haven't grown.

And so that is that is the thing

that I tell myself over and over again,

to just get over, you know, it's okay,

it's okay that I did bad things.

And I mean, that sort of forgiveness, I

can't go back and fix it.

I mean, as much as I can, I

do, you know, if there's someone that you

can make amends to, or, you know, often

it was just a, you know, offhanded remark

to someone you're never going to see again,

there's nothing I can do about that.

But, you know, if the person is still

in your life, you can make amends.

Or you can, you know, if you can

find them or whatever, but even then just,

you know, just living by going, Okay, I

can't fix what I did.

But I can live in the moment, and

I can pay it forward.

And I can, you know, I can do

my best to heal.

It may not be that person that I'm

helping now, but I'm helping other people.

And, you know, live in that way, not,

not as a kind of penance, but just

as a, as an intention of putting my

best out into the world.

And I think that's how I'm, I haven't

quite forgiven myself for some of the things

that I've done, but I'm working on it.

And that's, that's, do you have any other

advice?

Unknown Speaker Well, first of all, not advice,

but admiration.

I admire you for being as transparent and

honest as you are.

Because I, I know for myself, that there

was a time I felt so much intellectual

humiliation at, at acknowledging my, my faults, or

my, my weaknesses, or my whatever, like there

was some kind of shame about learning, you

know, we're all learning in life, right?

We're here, here to learn, many of us

believe, and shame ourselves for being here to,

to learn.

Hopefully learning, we tend to hopefully not repeat

too many times.

But I really do appreciate Danielle, that you

were willing to share that.

Because I think that, and when I teach

for Canadian Mental Health Association in their Living

Life to the Full program, it's one thing

I say often, I said, this is about

information about ourselves, it's about self awareness, it's

not about self judgment, it's not about anything

like that.

Because until we know where we are, we

can't really get where we want to be.

Unknown Speaker Yes, radical self acceptance.

Yeah, yeah, because we're not and we're not

who we want to be.

We're not.

Yeah.

Not now.

I mean, maybe that's what we're working towards.

But we're all human.

And we all have bad days.

And we all do things we're ashamed of.

And I think, I like what you said

about learning, you know, if I if I

thought of myself, that kind of self parenting

thing, you know, if I if I thought

of myself as a six year old, who

did the thing that I did, would I

I wouldn't treat them the way I treat

myself now, I would, I would explain, you

know, this is why this is why this

isn't okay.

This is the consequence of what just happened.

This is how we can learn from it.

But I would be very gentle and compassionate,

because I feel like at some point, we

feel like, well, because we're growing up, we

should know better.

And we should.

But also, we're constantly having new experiences.

And you can't, you know, you can't accommodate

for everything.

And, you know, there's trauma, and there's all

sorts of other reasons why we act the

way we do.

So I love that that brings a lot

of compassion into it.

Just treat yourself like you're learning.

I love that.

That's great advice.

So you did have some advice for me

after all.

Thank you, Wendy.

For you, Danielle, free.

Oh, excellent.

I love it.

I'll, I'll send a check in the mail.

And Danielle, seriously, can you imagine that, that

the more we can practice realizing that we're

learning with a sense of compassion for ourselves

and for others, how much different the world

would be?

Not, not everyone knows compassion.

And it's apparent that, that some others don't

know compassion, but who knows what age they're

acting from?

You know, yeah.

And this is the problem with being taught

to suppress your emotions, and being taught, being

taught that it's possible to be a purely

logical being because it's not, you're not, I'm

sorry, you're not a computer.

And as much as people would say, Oh,

I'm completely logical.

Some people more than others.

Sure.

But not 100%.

We're human beings.

We aren't, we, the physical system is part

of how we interpret the world.

And the physical system is not necessarily logical.

And it is reactive in a different way.

It has its own logic, I suppose.

But the point is, is that we, we

are often educated out of learning and growing.

And we're kind of educated into this controlled,

repressed, static state, where we can't grow, because

we haven't given ourselves permission.

Or, you know, we haven't given ourselves the

space to grow.

And so we're stuck.

And then we have all these adults who

are stuck.

And yeah, exactly.

We don't know what age they're speaking from.

And we wonder why there's so much miscommunication

and hatred and bigotry in the world.

And the more compassionate we can be, but

compassionate without ever being, and there's a big

difference between compassion and letting things slide.

You know, never excusing.

Compassionate, but cause and effect still exist.

You know, and we don't, you know, and

like a six-year-old who maybe punched

their friend in the face, we're not going

to say it's okay.

We're going to say, you hurt that person.

They are in pain now.

And maybe there's something you can do to

rectify that pain.

But the consequence might be that you may

not have that friend anymore.

And that sucks.

That's reality.

And we're going to compassionately learn through it.

But we're not going to say that it's

okay.

And we're not going to force them to

be friends with you, because they may not

feel safe.

And so accepting the consequences of our actions,

accepting the consequences of violence and, you know,

like knee-jerk reactions, you know, without thinking,

accepting the consequences of that, reactiveness, that's what

I wanted to say, without judging or shaming

or, you know, this long, drawn-out blame

stuff, just kind of compassionately going, well, we

live in reality.

This is what's going to happen.

How can we learn from it?

How can we make it better?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just thinking, you know,

if I was to say something, as a

reminder to, you know, to everyone here is

to just really remember that forgiveness is not

about condoning, but it is about freeing ourselves,

whether or not somebody enacted on us, or

whether we enacted on ourselves.

That forgiveness is about freedom, not bondage.

And I remember reading, I'm not sure if

it was in my ministerial learning or whichever,

but that which we resist, or pretends not

true, or rationalizes or whatever, we're actually anchoring

ourselves to that very, that very thing, that

very energy or vibration.

We think we're not, but in fact, we

are.

So it's not until we free ourselves, that

we can actually let go of that thing.

Even if you feel like you're defining yourself

as the opposite of something, you're requiring that

to exist, and you're anchoring yourself to that.

What if you just cut the ties and

floated free?

How about that?

So yeah, I love what you just said.

And I think it's a perfect place to

end this, and to ask our listeners today,

and please, you know, comment if you have,

if you have something you're brave enough to

share.

But if you're not, don't worry about it.

Just ask yourself, what is it that you

are holding on to, that you could benefit

from letting go?

Is there something that you're holding on to,

that you're ashamed about, that you've participated in?

Or is there something that you're holding on

to, that someone has hurt you, and you

feel wounded, and you want recompense for?

And not saying that you don't deserve care

and, you know, healing, but is there something

that you can let go of, that the

act of letting go would make you healthier,

and happier, and stronger?

Because you only have so much energy.

Let's spend it on creating the life that

you want, not avoiding the life that you

don't want.

So Wendy, I just want to say, this

was amazing.

This was only the first episode of Wisdom

Wednesdays, and it was so fun already.

I think next week, we'll talk about self

-talk, because there's a lot there.

We're going deep, but we're going with compassion,

and joy, and fun.

You know, it's okay to talk about dark

stuff.

So Wendy, any final thoughts you'd like to

say before we wrap up?

Oh, gosh, what would I like to say?

Yeah, what I would really like to say,

honest to God, is that the more agency

we can build within ourselves, the less beholden

we will be to the greater whole, you

know, to out there, right?

Whether it's government, whether it's organizations, whether it's

whatever it is that feels like it has

us by the short ones.

The more agency, the more freedom, the more

agency we build in ourselves, there's just so

much more that's possible through us, because I

believe we came here on purpose.

We have something to give, yeah.

Yes, so let's go out there and make

ourselves more powerful.

Let's be powerful.

Let's be a power in the world.

Thank you so much, Wendy, for this wonderful

conversation.

I look forward to the next one.

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll

see you next Wednesday.

Okay, bye.

Yay!