Heartfelt Transformations: G. Brian Benson on Healing, Resilience, and Living with Purpose

Creating your own reality. Is it possible for me? I am Jennifer K. Hill, the Consciousness Architect, and I am here to tell you that it's not only possible, it's closer than you might think. Welcome to the show. Hi friends, and welcome back for another episode of Regarding Consciousness. I am Jennifer K. Hill, host of this show and CEO of OptiMatch, om.app, and I'm so grateful today To bring you another brilliant thought leader who I feel lucky enough to get to call a friend, G. Brian Benson. He is not only a TED speaker, he's also an author, award-winning author of the number one bestselling self-improvement and children's book as well. Filmmaker, intuitive mentor, podcast host, spoken word poet, actor. He is also a 4-time Ironman triathlete and cross-country Bicyclists. Brian knows the value of hard work and never giving up on dreams, a message that he shares with audiences through each of his creative expressions. Brian's last book, Habits for Success: Inspired Ideas to Help You Soar, was an Amazon number one bestseller and selected as a 2019 Book Excellence Award winner in the motivational book category. Brian, I've had you on other shows in the past, never had the opportunity and pleasure of having you on this one. I'm so happy that you're here with us in our audience today.

Yeah, thanks, Jennifer. It's a pleasure and it's always wonderful to connect with you.

Yeah. Since you and I have last done a show, we've both been through some ups and downs and some challenging times. And right before we went on air, we were just powwowing about today's topic and how we wanted to deep dive into this from the standpoint of consciousness. And one of the things that I really loved that you said, Brian, was how everything we do, it brings us back to love and connection. And yet sometimes we go through these dark nights of the soul and these transformations where we don't even recognize ourselves or these circumstances. So tell us a little bit about your journey, Brian, and how you keep bringing yourself back to love and connection.

Wow. That's a big question.

No pressure.

Yeah, I think it's just, there's so many different ways that can happen to us consciously, unconsciously, tough situations. I myself, like you mentioned, in I had prostate cancer 4 years ago and had to navigate all of that. And there was many blessings through that experience. And most recently I had open heart surgery. And I've always been a healthy person. And it was just 3 months ago. Boy. And there's been a lot of blessings from that too. These things that just pop up out of nowhere, really for myself, have really initiated a surrender into the whole situation. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that kind of in a weak way. Like I didn't fight it to try to get better or whatever. There's a difference. Yeah. Sometimes when we fight things, it's a, it's a rough energy and it's not always going to benefit us as we go through something. Sometimes we need to surrender and we need to just stop, get off the hamster wheel and relax into what is happening to us and just allow the love that is out there and within us to come through in a different way. And sometimes we have to just get smacked to have that happen.

So true. And I like that you talked about the word surrender. And the word that came up to me is resistance. Sometimes when we have resistance to something, it could be a disease, it could be the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or transition in our lives. That resistance then causes whatever we're struggling against to last longer and to be more painful. And yet here you are 3 months after heart surgery. So open heart surgery nonetheless. So kudos to you first and foremost for having the courage, the audacity, and the bravery to get through that. And what were your go-tos? How did you mentally, emotionally balance it? And yeah, I have to have open heart surgery and I'm still going to surrender. What was that process like for you?

I think Having had the prostate cancer experience 4 years ago and using that as a model, I found that I'd probably never felt more at peace in my entire life. No, this sounds crazy. As I was going through that experience, it just, it gave me permission to just breathe and take a breath and get off the hamster wheel that I was on. I was in LA and I'd been there for almost 10 years grinding, trying to make things happen. Most of us who go to LA try to do for whatever reason. And it, it, the blessings that I got from that experience, what I found looking back, that break that I took really helped me to see that I was using a lot of what I was doing, and I'm proud of everything I've done, but I was using it as a validation tool. And so that break I took, and I ended up driving around the US for 6 months, about a year after that, after having surgery. And it, and it was just really freeing for me to be anonymous and just come back to who I was and maybe start from where I was instead of trying to be this person who felt like he needed to be perfect and almost pious because he was doing self-help books and talks and such. And so, it was very freeing for me in a lot of ways. So, to answer your question in regards to this experience, the most recent one, I knew that For whatever reason, I needed to step off again and just relax and breathe into it and see what was there for me. And what I learned this time, I've always— receiving has been very difficult for me and learned how to receive during the last 4 or 5 months. I had to do a GoFundMe to help with the bills, and that was incredibly humbling. And I felt just not like a failure, but I just, who I Look at me, look at my bio. I should not be someone who has to set up a GoFundMe. And that was ego as well, but it just, I really learned how to just receive and allow the love in that maybe I had not been allowing in from myself and from others. And so I've had incredible shifts over the course of the last 4 years for myself, and which is only going to make me share more authentically going forward and just have a lot more empathy.

I totally get it, Brian. It's sometimes people think you have your bleep together, right? They're like, oh, you got it figured out. You've done a TEDx, you've written a bestselling book, or in my case, you've sold a company. You've done this. You know what? You still feel like a failure sometimes. I personally go through that where at least once a week I feel like a complete imposter, like a failure. Who am I? I can't figure life out. And yet on the outside, People are like, oh, you travel the world, you're friends with these people, you speak on these stages, and whatever.

What are you complaining about?

Yeah, how dare you complain? You know what? And yet you still have the same internal struggle. And I think the only thing that would be different for you or I from anybody else is how we ground and center and how long it takes us. All of some of the great— I don't want to say all— many of the greatest thought leaders I've had the privilege and honor of being friends with and having on the show. We all go through heartache. We all go through hardships. We all go through physical and mental and emotional well-being concerns for ourselves and our family. And I think that's where tools come in. I think that's where tools like whether it was the first book you wrote of tools for self-help and self-development, having that tool belt at your disposal and our perspective. You know what? I'm just downloading this as we're saying it, Brian.

Yeah.

Is that it's our tool belt multiplied by our perspective that gives us the outcome in any circumstance. Because if we have all the tools in the world but we have a shitty perspective, it still equals zero, right? Or if we have the most amazing perspective but no tools in order to remedy it, again, you get to zero. But if you multiply perspective times tools, then that becomes infinite possibilities, and that's our lives.

Absolutely. And struggle is part of the human condition and we're here to learn and grow and connect and love. And it all brings us back to that as we talked about at the start. I'm really lucky in some ways that my very first book, which I accidentally wrote as I was working on myself about 15 years ago, was a bunch of different ways to stay in life balance. So like you said, I had that tool in my kit from the get-go and that helps. And I've always tried to be an observer in my own experience as well, which can be very helpful if we're being honest with ourselves, but can also get in the way too and lead us to overthinking and what have you. But yeah, I've always tried to be the best version of myself even before I really realized that I was trying to do that. All those years of racing in triathlons and doing some of those Ironmans, those gave me confidence as well. And, and so maybe another chip to put in my back pocket. So when tough things came along, I knew that I had it within me to go for it or to try something or to weather something. And as well as the tools that we had just mentioned, The Balance Tools, another book that I had a whole bunch of different habits that really can be helpful to help us stay grounded and move forward. And so, whenever I do encounter difficult times, I feel like those give me a little bit of a leg up as well as just, I'm, it's funny, I can be really patient in difficult times too, even though there's a part of me that's not patient at other times, but I can really just Because I think it just, it almost gives me permission to relax because there's this part of me that wants to keep forward moving and I've got a million ideas to do this and this. And like yourself, I struggle in feeling like I should be further along or have this stuff done. But yet during difficult times, it's like almost, okay, I can have a break now and I can just learn and grow and just relax.

Yeah, it's such a good point that you raised, Brian. It's so unfortunate that we spend our whole lives striving, driving, achieving, and accomplishing, having a kid, having family, having the right job, achieving whatever accolades we feel like will bring us greater happiness. And yet, unfortunately, when we do get really challenged physically and mental health or physical health, that's where the universe or whatever you want to call it just says, and You're just gonna do nothing. And when I say nothing, you're gonna do nothing. Like, I remember there was some time I was ill in the last couple of years, and you just sit in bed. And there's nothing that drives me crazier than sitting in bed and doing nothing. Like, and don't get me wrong, I love to spend 2 hours a day in prayer and meditation, but that is intentional nothingness, not nothingness not of my own choice.

Right.

So it's how, when something like that happens, when you got the diagnosis, for example, with the heart thing, and you found out that you had to have heart surgery, open heart surgery. What did that process look like for you internally, mentally, emotionally?

It was tough at first. I was at the gym in December and I started feeling faint and fluttery and it was odd. And I just started my workout and I've always been very healthy. And so I went to the urgent care. They did an EKG and they said, you need to go to the ER. I was like, okay. So I went to the ER. I was in the hospital for 2 days up here in this little area where I'm at. And then they moved me down to Phoenix for 6 more days while they ran 7 or 8 different heart tests to see what was going on. Which was scary. What they ended up finding out was that I had a little congenital hole that had never filled, as well as my mitral valve was starting to fail for some reason. Then when they told me that I had to have open heart surgery to replace the valve and to patch that, man, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a few cries and I just went through this crap 4 years ago. What the hell?

This is not fair. It shouldn't be this way.

Yeah. But then I just Just, there's no use fighting something like that because it just doesn't help. And so I just kept a stiff, what do they call it in English? Say a stiff upper lip and just, just, just, what's the word I'm trying to think of? Melded into it. And I had a few other appointments I had to have before we figured out what the actual process was going to be. And I had a couple of things where my insurance didn't cover it. So I had to switch insurances and I switched doctors, but I ended up getting. Probably the best doctor in America and people fly from all over the place to have him do it. And he was a nice guy too. So it was, it worked out perfectly. And surgery was actually 3 months ago today, March 21st. And the first 6 weeks were rough. Just, that's when you just, just know that it will hope, trust that it will get better and you just rest. And I had a lot of love being thrown at me from family and friends. And that was wonderful. And yeah.

What advice would you offer to somebody who maybe is going through a diagnosis of their own that they're grappling with, or a diagnosis of a loved one? What advice might you offer them?

Yeah, just everybody's situation is so different and trust in the process. Try to find love wherever you can, hopefully from within and as well as from without. And just trust that it will get better and just keep fighting in a passive way, if that makes sense. Just stick with it. Just do the things you need to do to weather it and find some tools and go for a walk if you need to clear your head. If it's for somebody else, just give yourself some time and just know that you don't have to figure it out immediately. Sometimes some things take a little while and we don't always know what the lesson Is going to be, then just trust in the process, find some tools, step into that love. And yeah, and reach out to people that have maybe gone through something similar.

Hmm.

If you feel like they're maybe the right person to talk to, some, not everybody will be. It's interesting, real quick. I remember like when I was going through the prostate cancer experience, a lot of people said you should find some support groups. Okay. But then I started just peeking in on some of those things and a lot of this stuff was negative and it just didn't, I didn't want to plant those seeds in my head. So I really didn't do anything like that. I just trusted and just went through the process myself. And that's what I did with this as well. That's not to say support groups can be very helpful, but you just want to make sure that you're vibing at the same, the person you're connecting with is vibing at the same place where you want to be vibing at.

Yeah, I totally get it. You want to be sure that you're feeling uplifted and not dragged down by more negativity.

Yeah.

Yeah. Have you ever heard of this idea of talking to your body part that's asking for help? For example, your heart or your prostate. Did you ever try any of that? And did you have any response if you did?

That's a really great— yeah, I did do that a little bit. Absolutely. And it's funny that I had to have my heart Literally opened up to have my heart opened up. And yeah, I had some conversations and just, you know, did some meditations. And after surgery, my resting heart rate was still pretty high and that was unsettling. And so I would do a lot of meditations and try to just— and they said it was, it did take a little while and it did, but yet until it does, it's scary. And I had to fly. About 6 weeks after to go up to visit family because I had a family member pass. And so my heart, it was very scary getting on the plane just because I didn't know what was, you know, this is not a good place to have an issue, but I just, I meditated through it on the drive down to the airport and on the plane. And it really, everything really helped doing that helped. And so, yes, I have.

Yeah. What I'm really hearing you say, Brian, is just to Be fearless in taking action. It's just take those next little baby steps and whatever you need to do, whether it's breathing through it, meditating, et cetera. So many friends I've known have told me miraculous stories, truly, utterly miraculous. A friend of mine, you can Google her story, Denise Desimone. She was diagnosed with 3 months, I think it was, to live with stage 4 cancer in the early 2000s. And so she had a choice, die or talk to her body. And she put a hand on her, on her throat because she had throat cancer, stage 4. And she decided to call it Pin, pain in the neck. So she called it Pin. And every day she would talk to Pin and she would say, Pin, what are you here to teach me? Pin, what do you need me to know? And then her life was prolonged another 6 months. And now here she is, God, 20-plus years later, cancer-free and amazing. And I had another friend Who had a similar situation out of Australia where she went to go see her doctor in Oz. She was living in LA at the time, and he said, "We need to do surgery immediately and operate on you. You have something on your vocal nodes that's going to be life-threatening." And she said, "Please, Doc, can you give me three months before we do surgery?" And he said, "No, not a day more. Not one day more than three months. You better be back in my office for surgery." Same thing. Very confidentially, she talks to this node on her vocal cord every day. Asking it what's their teacher, asking her what it needs, what, why it's trying to communicate to her and showing up in her life. 3 months later, she goes back to her doctor in Australia, and he is enraged. She said, how could you? I can't believe you did that. She said, did what? He's, I can't believe you had surgery without me. She said, I didn't. He said, that's impossible. Here was like the size of your tumor, and then it's not there anymore. So clearly you had surgery. It's only been 3 months. And she said, no, I didn't. And there are so many miraculous stories. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of traditional medicine. My mom was an oncology nurse for 45 years. My dad was a firefighter. I am not by any way, shape, or form discouraging people from using regular medicine. Sure. Though I think there is something to be said for our bodies are physically communicating with us whether we like it or not. Sometimes I'll notice I wanna say something to somebody, and if I don't say that thing or express myself in a healthy way, I'll get a sore throat the next day. I'm not sure if you've ever had that. Wow.

No, it's so interesting. Thank you for those stories. And just to follow up with mine, so I got on the airplane and my resting heart rate probably hadn't gone below 85 since surgery. Normally I'm probably in, you know, my 50s or 60s or whatever. Once I got to Oregon, almost like miraculously, I felt completely different. I had energy there. I don't know if it was just because I was in my heart even more, just, you know, connecting with family and being of service, trying to, but I was like going from 2,000 2,000 steps, just trying to walk a little bit to doing like 12,000 steps almost like 2 days later for a week and a half, just feeling almost normal. I don't know if I just was just, did this happen coincidentally or speaking, meditating through it, opening

up our heart.

But I believe, but yeah, there's definitely, it's everything. It's all, it's Western, it's Eastern. It's, it's Healthy food. It's the works.

Yeah, it's, it's funny actually. One of my dear friends is one of the most top cardiologists in the world, Dr. Rakesh Suri. And he told me one day, I'm like, Rakesh, for crying out loud, everybody has a different fad diet. You're supposed to be keto, you're supposed to be carnivore, you're supposed to be vegan. Help, Rakesh, help. What is the secret to a healthy heart? And this blew my mind cuz another guest we had on several months back, Dr. Fab Mancini, also said the same thing at the same time as Rakesh did. And they both agreed that the best way to keep our hearts at least and our bodies healthy is to eat only between 4 to 8 hours a day. And this has been blowing my mind. I'm the sort of person where I used to eat from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, like little, like mini eating, right? Whatever. And mini snacking. But both of them agreed that 4 to 8 hour windows for the body to eat is the best thing to give your whole entire, all the organs in your body, the best time for recovery. Because otherwise we didn't evolve to eat as much as we do eat. And I actually found out after that, I was mentioning this over brunch one day here in Lisbon and somebody said, do you know why we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner? I said no. They said it was a nobility thing. The nobility wanted 3 times a day where they could come and gather and socialize. So it's really shifted my perspective, number one, on food. And not that I love my body, I've been in a great space with it for many years. And at the same time, just to be more thoughtful of, oh, that's interesting to know. Like they would tell me that patients they would see during Ramadan were Muslim and would fast that whole entire day, had the best health statistically of their whole life during that period of Ramadan. So I thought that was really interesting.

That's that whole intermittent fasting thing, basically, right?

Yeah. Who knew? I just, I was exhausted by hearing of all these fad diets. Do carnivore, do this, do that. Don't do that. And to have 2 prominent doctor friends both share that at the same time. And here we are talking about your heart.

No, I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. I don't disagree. We eat way more than we need to, for sure. And we grew up with the whole 4 food group thing and that was just created by all the industries.

I know, I broke my heart. I'm going to go totally off topic here, but this literally crushed me. I was talking to a marketing expert guy lately, a sales and marketing guy. Do you know how everybody drinks orange juice every day? And I was like, yeah. And he's, do you know why they drink orange juice? And I said, no. And he said, because like one of the big OJ brands 30 years ago, 40 years ago in the 1980s had a surplus of oranges. They hooked up with a marketing agency that said, hey, let's tell people that a glass of orange juice a day is good for you. Where actually, if you look into it, I'm not a doctor, go fact check, this is terrible for you because the sugar and all that stuff. And yet I crack up now whenever I go out to breakfast and I see people ordering orange juice because we've just become programmed. To think, or food groups, orange juice. And, and so I think part of it is think for ourselves and think for our own bodies. What might be gluten-free for one person and be amazing, or vegan for somebody else, or carnivore for somebody else. We have to honor our own physiology, and that really only comes from listening to our bodies and listening to ourselves.

Absolutely. I was really lucky all those years of racing in triathlons. I was very hyper-aware of how I felt just in, in so many different ways. But I just carry that through. I just listen to how my body feels after I eat something. Does it give me energy? Does it make me feel slow? Does it hurt? You know what I mean? It's just like, I can tell you pretty much before you put anything in front of me whether or not it's going to work for me or not.

Yeah.

Now that doesn't always mean I abide by that, but—

That's another funny story. I have a, I got a blood allergy test once a year. I get a blood allergy test. to check food allergies. And I got a test a year and a half, 2 years ago, and from a very legitimate doctor, one of the top in the world. And he's, yeah, so you have an allergy to coffee, like a level 4. And I'm like, no, no, I don't. Absolutely not. Do not pass go. That is not going to work with my lifestyle. Cause I love coffee. Like I'd given up for 3 years, like 20 years ago, but every day I like to have 1 cup of coffee. I don't overdo it. And so Tried everything, Brian. I tried switching to matcha. I tried switching to dandelion. I tried whatever, chicory, and I was just not having it. After about 6 months of this, I talked to a friend of mine who's a prominent healer in Australia, and he says to me, Jennifer, here's what you're going to do. I have another solution for you. I said, anything, give me any other solution. He said, I want you to hold your cup of coffee every morning and with intention say everything that is good for me in this cup of coffee, remove anything that is not. Now, to be fair, during that whole period of testing dandelion and matcha, I was still drinking coffee every day. I was like, fuck, I don't care. So at the end of this, I, then I go 6 months and I'm getting ready to do my next blood allergy test. And I've been drinking coffee every day this whole year that I've been allergic to it. And I got another blood allergy test and I had zero allergy to coffee. So voilà. Everything that is good for me in this, remove anything that is not. That is my gift to you.

I love it.

Beautiful.

So true.

Brian, you've been through so much. Are there any other pieces of wisdom or parting thoughts that you'd love to leave with our audience, our listeners, our viewers of maybe a tip, a tool, a perspective of how they might persevere in the face of their own challenges?

Yeah, I don't know. I always say love yourself and everything falls into place. And I know that probably finding self-acceptance and self-worth is the hardest thing that we as humans have to do, but anything you can do in that regard, step into it, work toward it, find it, because it really does make a huge difference. Self-acceptance and self-worth.

I love that, Brian. Well, if people want to find your books, find out about you, the work you do, where would they go to do so?

Yeah, thanks. gbrianbenson.com and most all the social media places, and it's the handles G. Brian Benson.

So what does the G stand for? Inquiring Minds Want to Know.

I tell people it depends on the day of the week. And but today it stands for Gary, but it's my dad's name. I'm not a junior, but I've never been called it. And so it's not like I'm trying to be a fancy author or something leading with a letter. But yeah, that's what it is.

Oh, it could have been something so much more mysterious. But now we know the little secret. I could just feel everybody was inquiring and wanting to know. Thank you so much, Brian. It's such a pleasure to have you again and to reconnect with you and to have you share. Your journey, and I just acknowledge you. I acknowledge you for everything it took to go through the prostate cancer, now through the heart surgery, and just to give others hope. I think that's the one thing is if we can just light that spark of hope in another person,

yeah,

really we can become invincible. So that is my wish for each and every one of us. May we go out in this world this week, wherever, whenever you're listening, and may you light that spark of hope in yourself. Or in someone else. I am Jennifer K. Hill, and I thank you for your time.