The Power of Surrender: How to Let Go and Move Forward featuring Danielle Benzon

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.

So welcome to session two, and I have a wonderful surprise for you.

And that is that I am joined by a very good friend and colleague, Danielle Benzon.

And we are discussing day-to-day topics that not only come up for us,

but I bet they come up for you too.

So I invite you to listen to each episode, see what sparks for you.

And take it from there.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the final and the last Wisdom Wednesdays with Wendy.

I am so sad that this is coming to an end, but I have enjoyed these conversations so much.

And Wendy, you're going to start us off with a quote today.

I am because we are talking about surrender today.

And I was reminded of a quote by Joseph Campbell, which I think is so powerful.

And he said, we must be willing to let go of the life we planned

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

You know, and I'm just going to jump straight into this here,

because we've been building something.

We've been building a podcast network.

And I've been talking a lot to people about kind of doing before you're ready.

And real is always so different from how we imagined it.

But it's always so much better too.

And I mean, in everything, not just in business, not just in projects.

But when we imagine something, I don't think we can get the complexity that realness has.

You know, when you imagine a perfect relationship,

or you imagine your perfect home, or you imagine your perfect job,

it's always kind of two-dimensional, even when it's perfect.

You know, whereas reality, even though it comes with,

you know, little failures and bits and bobs here and there,

it's always so much better.

And I don't just mean because it's real.

I mean, it's better because it's more textured.

It's more full.

It's more, it's got more depth.

You know what I mean?

Yes, I do know what you mean.

And something else that's popping into my mind right now

is the difference between AI, naked, and us showing up as ourselves, right?

So AI can perhaps give us a perfected idea of something.

But if it doesn't have our heart and soul, then it has no impact.

So being real is actually what has the impact

because real people respond to that.

You can't have empathy with something that doesn't have emotions, you know?

And you can't facsimilate, facsimilate?

Does that work?

You can't replicate emotions.

You can pretend, you can try, but it never works, you know?

No.

And that's the kind of difference between just letting yourself be

and trying to show something.

When I was in acting training, there was always this kind of,

you know, you can tell the people who work from the outside in

because they're trying to build something from observation.

And it's always too general.

It's always like really stereotypical.

It's always kind of two-dimensional

because human beings are so complex.

It's impossible to replicate human behavior

because we're so chaotic and we're so unpredictable

and we're so weird that it is impossible.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And when I think about how everything is energy,

that's what I believe, that it takes energy to connect with energy.

And in a way, when I think about surrender,

it's not that it's a release of energy,

but it is more inviting a greater energy.

I'm reminded of how I used to believe

that what surrender meant was the white flag.

The white flag.

Oh, like submission.

Yeah, sort of like not just surrender,

but giving up like we're done, like, you know, you win.

Whereas I have a new meaning of surrender

or certainly a new sense of surrender,

which is where it's a win-win, not a win-lose.

And it takes, surrender, I believe,

takes going within to remember the truth of who we are

and open to sort of what the next phase,

the next chapter, the next step is.

Yeah, well, I think it's kind of the opposite of control, right?

Because control is like you're fighting your circumstances

to try and create something else.

I don't think of surrender as giving up or giving in.

I think of it as going with the flow.

You know, I'm not trying to fight anymore.

I'm not building a dam, I'm building a raft

and I'm gonna go down the river and see what happens.

You know, hopefully I don't go in a waterfall.

But I think of that like surrender is more about

kind of going, okay, what is, is.

And like radically accepting that

and not saying that it's, not excusing things that aren't okay.

But accepting that this is where we are.

This is where I am in this moment.

If I want to change it, I can change it.

But I have to be where I am first.

And then I can maybe find a path of least resistance to change

because sometimes, you know, the combative isn't always the best way.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's definitely not usually the best way

because in combat or in combativeness,

I know that for myself, I tend to retreat.

I retreat back to where I felt most safe, which inside,

which doesn't necessarily mean it's my highest self or my greatest self.

Sometimes it's a protective self, you know.

And yeah, it's, I agree with you that a true surrender,

the way I'm hearing what you're saying is more of an opening.

You know, when I think of spiritually speaking,

I remember when I used to, and fill in the word God, spirit,

whatever is right for you and anyone listening.

But to surrender to that felt like I didn't have my own life anymore.

That means I needed to listen to this voice that knows everything,

is everywhere, and all that.

And I'm just so grateful that we can grow and change, Danielle,

and that we can look at what we have believed

and certainly find our way to new beliefs,

because I don't believe that about spiritually surrendering in that way anymore.

Like, to me, I feel like my, you know, how can I put this?

That I only know, really, truly know my past and my present,

what I perceive about my present.

But in surrender, if I believe that there is a higher intelligence, which I do,

that I can be more informed.

And then I'm at choice as to whether I'm ready,

whether I want to, and I don't believe there's judgment either,

or whether I move into it and see how it goes, you know.

So, surrender is becoming a beautiful thing that I'm trusting more and more.

Yeah, I don't think of myself as particularly spiritual,

but I do kind of think of like ego versus, I don't know, like presence?

Or just, you know, feeling more in tune and less self-conscious.

And I do feel that in that kind of surrender state, my ego is less active.

I'm less like, I'm trying to do this thing, you know.

It's less that and more, it's almost like a flow state for me.

And the more present I am, the more I feel like I'm surrendering

to reality, you know.

And it's not that I don't have agency.

I feel like I have a lot of agency, but it's almost that kind of like,

you know, that, you know, it's like a dance with what's going on.

Instead of kind of going, you will do this, I will move this.

It becomes, flow is the only word I've got.

I'm afraid it's kind of overused.

But I do feel very much that kind of, you know, everything is more fluid

and there's enough time for everything.

And you can dodge the things you need to dodge

and you can do the things you want to do.

And it's almost like time slows down and I get to be super present and super aware.

And not aware so much of the past or the future,

but just right now in this moment, I guess.

Yeah.

And for me, that's the more I, I think I confuse sometimes

presence and surrender for myself.

Oh, interesting.

They are different things.

Sometimes I think of them as the same thing.

You know, Danielle, that's brilliant.

You brilliant girl.

You know, but seriously, the truth is,

we do need to surrender to be present.

We have to surrender what was before, what might be after.

We do.

I think that's brilliant what you just said.

What we decided was going to happen.

What we played out in our heads beforehand.

What we want so and so to feel or think or say.

And I think that's, that's also, it's a wonderful way to be

and like in relationship as well.

Because instead of making a decision about how someone else is feeling

or what, what they're saying means before,

before you even start the argument, you get to be more present

and really listen and really kind of deal with what's actually there.

Which is not the same as not attachments, but they're all kind of linked together.

And I think, I think it's very important to not fight reality.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, it's true.

So when you say reality, Danielle, are you saying what is,

is that what you mean by reality?

Yeah, that's what I mean by reality.

I mean, like, if I'm, if I want something to be,

if I want someone to feel a certain way and they don't,

or if I want, I want it to be sunny and it's raining.

And me getting upset about it isn't going to change anything.

I'm not going to make the clouds part because I'm having a little temper tantrum.

As much as I wish I could.

Yeah, that's right.

It's been done before.

Nevermind.

Yeah.

Yeah, not, not the reality I've made in my head,

not stories, but just kind of, you know, what is.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And you know, I, I know that, that I've spoken in my podcast before

about being willing to question what we've believed up until now.

So when you think of surrender in terms of podcasting, Danielle,

do you have a thought about that?

Well, it's that whole one take thing, right?

That's a surrender.

All right.

It's just going to do it.

You're just going to do everything in one take.

And if I mess up, I mess up.

And if I say the wrong thing, I say the wrong thing that,

I mean, that is a form of surrender for sure.

Allowing things to be imperfect.

You know, I have my standards, my standards exist.

I usually don't reach them.

That's okay.

Growing into them, you know, and yeah, that kind of surrendering to.

Letting go, not really surrendering, but so much letting go of my.

It is, it's my ego.

You know, I want things to be a certain way.

I want things to be perfect and they're not.

And that's okay.

In fact, imperfection is one of my values.

So I do have this very funny little, little war going on inside of me because my ego wants

everything to be perfect, but my values are like, imperfection is really important to you.

I'm like, yeah, I know, but can I just be perfect and still value imperfection?

And the answer is no, I can't.

You know, Danielle, something that.

I really appreciate and respect about you is.

Again, sayings in my mind, just come and go.

But this saying is shoot for the stars and you'll, you'll get to the moon, right?

And that's what I see you doing.

Like with the podcasting, you know, you're shooting for the stars and.

You know, it doesn't mean it's, it's a failure if we're at a moon phase.

Do you know what I'm saying?

And, and I'd really.

You know, that is a form of surrender in a way that I would like to support people to,

to go for the best that they can imagine or that they desire.

Even though there might be a thought that says.

Or a reminder of someone saying you'll never get there.

Don't shoot that high.

Yeah, but, but to actually do it because we don't know what's possible until we actually try.

We don't really know very much at all.

And that is something that I've had to learn because, because I do have such high standards.

And because I, I did used to think very much in black and white.

Learning to kind of allow myself little stations on the way.

Instead of shooting for the stars.

And because, you know, you could just land in the black somewhere and that would be terrible.

Thinking of maybe more like climbing a mountain and having all these little camps along the way.

So it's not like I either reached the peak or I died.

So that's how I used to do things.

It was all or nothing.

And some of my projects would crash and burn because I didn't plan.

Kind of minimum viable products.

So I didn't go, I didn't allow myself to accept that failure might be an option.

And now I do.

And that's much easier because it used to be if I don't get the perfect thing,

everything crashes and burns and it was all useless, which is a horrible way to learn.

And I've, I've ruined some relationships that way.

And I've definitely learned some projects that way.

But learning to kind of go, okay, well, this is what I want.

What have we got halfway there?

What would that look like?

What if we only got a quarter of the way?

What would that look like?

And what are all those little milestones and stepping stones on the way?

So we can reevaluate, you know, when we're halfway to the finish line,

we can stop and reevaluate and go, okay, is it realistic to get to the finish line?

Or what about, what about three quarters of the way?

Could we aim for that instead?

And just constantly kind of allowing, I don't want to say like failed things,

but allowing your success to happen in stages

so that you don't have to do a hundred percent the first time.

And then any little increments is enough because it never used to be that way.

And I hurt myself and other people very badly because of that.

And because of that kind of black and white thinking.

So I'm very glad I'm thinking stages now.

I'm not quite sure when that changed.

I think I started thinking about minimum viable products and kind of going, okay,

best case scenario, worst case scenario.

Like what is my absolute lowest bar?

That helps.

You know, it really makes a difference.

Yeah.

And something that's popping up for me in all this

is about the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

I used to believe that it had to be pretty fatal before the Phoenix arose from the ashes.

But what if the Phoenix is always arising from the ashes when we don't stop?

I love this.

Like the dawn of a new day.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What if every time we stop, it's a little stop.

And every time we start again, it's a new beginning.

I love that.

Yeah.

And the only way, again, that we're going to know that that's true

is by allowing ourselves to go the distance and have it be where it is.

And then like surrendering and then opening to something new again.

Mm hmm.

And allowing yourself to celebrate your small successes, too.

Because if it's all or nothing, you don't measure, right?

You're not measuring all the steps all the way there.

You're like, I either climbed the mountain or I didn't.

Instead of, I did 10 steps today.

Was only 10 steps, but I did 10 steps further than I was yesterday.

You know, I did one step today, or I did 20 steps.

Whatever it is.

You know, acknowledging how far we've come, we're very good at deleting our successes,

deleting our progress and only looking forward.

And I think that can be very, very dangerous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I totally agree.

And I can totally relate to, you know, oh, my God.

I remember when I read a book, the name of which I'm not recalling right now.

But it said, you know, a shift can be like, let's just use physical exercise as an example

or fitness as an example.

Even if you do one sit up, as an example, in the evening, and then increase it by one.

I think it was something about 1%, you know, increasing by 1%.

Yeah, that it can make all the difference.

But if we don't do anything on some level, these are my words now, psychologically, it

diminishes us.

When we do not even one thing, it will diminish us because there's that part of us that says,

you're not doing a darn thing.

Like, hello, you know, but even one says, I'm taking a step forward.

You know, and yeah, and, you know, it maybe it doesn't take what we think that it does

to build success.

Yeah.

I think we like to do it in the flashy way.

You know, oh, lots of fireworks.

We're gonna do it all at once.

It's gonna be the big deal.

Whereas really, it's more of the slog.

It's the everyday when you don't feel like it, just doing something.

I'm having to really, I'm having to really embrace that at the moment myself.

I keep coming into all these obstacles.

And I'm like, you know what?

As long as I do something, if I do something every day, I'm not getting everything that

I want to get done, done.

I'm letting people down still.

But if I could just keep moving forward, eventually, I'll get there.

And it's not going to be tomorrow.

And it may not be next week.

But eventually, I'll get there.

And it's slow.

And it's painful.

But I think it's very easy.

And it's very sexy to kind of push yourself for a short amount of time.

But that's not consistent.

And then what after that, you know?

Consistency is something that I've had to learn.

Yeah.

Consistency.

Well, you know, something that I'm thinking about, you know, in terms of surrendering

is surrendering to our humanity.

But knowing that we also have high parts, you know?

Like we also have things that are really good.

And one thing, I've never been in the position that you are, Danielle, in business up until

now.

But one thing I've learned is that when I am feeling like I'm not showing up in life

the way that I think I should or the way that I want to, when I keep in touch with

people, you know, when I don't, because I used to, whenever I would make a mistake,

let's just say if I was learning to do something, whether it was singing a song or playing the

piano, I would go right back to the beginning.

Right back to the beginning.

The whole thing had to happen all again.

But what I'm realizing is that, so I used to retreat.

Again, I guess maybe that's something I used to do a lot.

Because I felt bad about myself, I would hide.

Hide from others.

But what I've noticed, especially about you, and if I can just say working with you, you

are always keeping all of us up to snuff on what's happening.

You're not, you know, feeling so ashamed that you can't admit that things aren't going the

way that you would really like them to go and is really your bar.

And I mean this not only for you, Danielle, but for other people, it happens.

So, you know, I can only tell you as an example, it warms my heart that you are still in touch

with us.

And, you know, when things aren't quite perfect, as you might say.

You know why?

Because to me, it's trust building.

It gives credibility.

None of us is perfect.

None of us is perfect.

But hiding from others in shame, I'm, of course, speaking for myself, but hiding from others

in shame for being imperfect, nobody's winning.

Nobody's.

You know, that's so important for me to hear because, and this is where increments really

come in, I think, because consistency is still something I'm very much learning how to build.

And I also, I hide.

I very much kind of elastic band, socially, especially.

Uh, and it's funny, it's just funny to me because I have been hiding a lot, but not

from you guys.

So I've gotten to the point that my business where if I have an existing relationship with

a client, I can stay in touch with them.

But like my social media and people that I don't know very well and all that kind of

stuff, I, that kind of stuff is so high from.

So it's just so interesting that there's, for me, there's layers of intimacy and I used

to hide from everybody.

And now I have like my very intimate social circle.

And then I have kind of like my intimate client circle.

And then that's kind of where I'm able to not hide at the moment.

But then I also have my not intimate client circle, which I do still hide from sometimes.

And then like the public circle, which I very much hide from a lot.

So it's just, it's interesting.

It is, it's, it's building incrementally.

Like I'm, I'm building my capacity.

I used to disappear for months and then come back.

And I still do that, but only on, only on the top layers now, instead of all of the

layers.

So, you know, that's, I really like hearing that because that makes me think maybe it's

possible to get to that point with everybody.

Wouldn't that be amazing?

Wouldn't it be great to just show up in my life all the time?

That would be like, really?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I really appreciate you sharing that, Danielle, because to me, you know, I was

thinking about the credibility and trust I feel with you when that happens.

But it sounds like there's also a credibility and trust in you, for you that happens as

a result of keeping showing up in the best ways that you possibly can so that nobody's

thinking, where's Wendy?

Where's Danielle?

Where's, you know, and like, oh my God, have they left me?

You know, kind of thing.

And it's, you know, and it's, it's not the, I think this is such an important thing to,

to keep showing up as much as we can, because we're all human.

We're all human.

And it is shame, I think.

Um, for me, it's, it's shame because, you know, I'm aware that I have so many emails

in my inbox that I haven't responded to.

And I'm aware that I have so many emails in my LinkedIn and my Facebook that I haven't

responded to.

And I don't want to post until I've responded to them because I feel like that's rude, you

know, just to kind of be like, hey, I'm here when it happens, you know, and so there's,

there's so much going on there around politeness and around respect and around shame.

And I don't have the answer yet.

But it's something that I find interesting about myself.

And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I think a lot of people feel this way, so.

No, no, but it's really about.

At it.

Yeah, well, exactly what I was going to say, not only keep at it, but make sure that the

people that we're with the most, where we have that control is the people that know the

truth of who we are and accept that, that they are human also, so they can have some

compassion for when others in our circle are, are human.

And, and the, you know, every moment, honest to God is a new moment.

Every moment we can choose again, if we're willing, if we're willing to surrender the

previous moments and any decisions we're going to make when we're willing to surrender

to now is a new moment.

I have a choice.

What will it be right now?

Oh, Wendy, that's so beautiful.

I think that's such a beautiful way to end this because letting go of all of the heaviness

and the garbage and the like, the catching up of the past, letting all of that go.

Letting yourself be here.

Letting yourself be present.

Saying goodbye to Wednesday, Wednesday, wisdom, whatever.

Wednesdays with Wendy, say goodbye to that and hello to a new season because this is

the end of our season together.

Yes, that's right.

And, um, and also appreciating and kind of waiting expectantly to see what that new beautiful

Phoenix will be as these flames die down and these ashes cool to see what comes next and

how exciting that will be and not ruining what comes next by comparing it to what was,

but just allowing every moment to be its own beautiful self.

Do you have any final wishes for our listeners?

I think it's just the wish that each one can build their confidence in looking at something

that they've believed before that is really actually not working for them and know that

there is, um, there's another, there's another belief.

There's another way.

There's another opportunity and to just keep opening.

Yeah.

And surrender to what is so that you can so that you can implement whatever change that

you want and you can actually start to grow into what you want to be because you will

never get where you want to go through denial.

It'll never get.

Yes.

So embrace reality.

Let your, let yourself be human and messy and infallible and move from there because it

is a beautiful place to be.

And thank you.

Thank you for these amazing episodes.

This has been such a joy, such a, such a rich experience for me.

Thank you so much.

You too, Danielle.

You too.

I'll see you soon.

See you soon.