The Healing Power of Forgiveness: How Letting Go Restores Health

What if the fastest way to strength is letting go of what’s living rent-free in your head? We sit down with best-selling author and forgiveness mentor Katharine Giovanni to unpack a clear path to release anger, dissolve triggers, and reclaim energy without giving anyone a pass. No platitudes, no pressure to reconcile — just a step-by-step method that works in real life, backed by neuroscience and grounded in compassion. You'll find the complete process in this episode.

Giovanni shares the “anger cup” visual that explains how resentment quietly steals focus, opportunities, and joy. Then we get practical with her Two Lists Method: one for people you need to forgive, and another for people who need to forgive you. The twist is powerful — don’t just forgive people, forgive the energy around people, places, dates, and objects tied to painful memories. That’s how you cut the cord to triggers, sleep better, and think clearly. We also demystify the toughest part: self-forgiveness. For veterans, medics, law enforcement, and first responders carrying “what ifs,” Giovanni offers a strategic route that starts by forgiving everything but yourself, then slowly moves toward forgiving the energy around you.

Along the way, we explore why forgiveness improves mental health, heart health, and sleep; how to pace the work to avoid emotional overload; and why boundaries get stronger — not weaker — when you release old hurts. Giovanni’s

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Chapters

• 0:00 Forgiveness Redefined: Strength, Not Surrender
• 2:10 Show Open, Mission, and Listener Shoutout
• 2:53 Why Forgiveness Matters for Health
• 5:01 Meet Catherine Giovanni
• 6:13 Catherine’s Flashpoint and Sobriety
• 8:58 What a Transformation Mentor Does
• 11:10 The Anger Cup: A Visual Metaphor
• 12:58 10-Day Forgiveness Program Overview
• 14:36 Science, Trauma, and the Case for Forgiveness
• 17:03 Myths That Keep You Stuck
• 19:06 Energy, Triggers, and the Water Study
• 21:33 Sponsor: Emergency Preparedness Essentials
• 23:04 Self-Forgiveness for Medics and Veterans
• 25:06 The Two Lists Method: Step-by-Step
• 28:21 Handling Triggers and Hidden Memories
• 30:24 Forgiving at Work and On the Spot
• 32:08 The Second List: Being Forgiven
• 33:58 Nature Micro Story Interlude
• 34:51 Forgiving the Unforgivable by Parts
• 38:09 Replace Fear with Love, Not Amnesia
• 40:24 Pace Yourself: Energy Detox and Rest
• 43:02 Teaching the How of Forgiveness
• 44:13 Links, Book, and 10-Day Class

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

New normal big life.

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

They're absolutely wrong. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't. I have boundaries in place. Well, Catherine, they don't deserve my forgiveness. No, they don't. Absolutely, they don't for deserve your forgiveness. You're not doing it for them. They're gonna continue doing whatever it is they're going to do. And if they have amends to make, they're gonna still have to make those amends. You're doing it for you. You're not doing it for them. You're doing it because they're inside your head. Okay, well, here's the big one. Just because I forgive you, I don't want to admit that I'm now giving you a pass. Now I'm if I if I forgive you, it means that I'm admitting you were right and I was wrong. Wrong. They're still wrong. They're still a dumpster fire. You're not doing it for them. It doesn't mean you're giving in. It means you're showing your strength. You're doing it for you. Here is the big, huge definition from my perspective. Forgiveness means I want you out of my head. I want you gone. That's it. I want you out of my head. I want to stop the triggers. I want to stop thinking about you. I want you out of my head.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

Imagine carrying a backpack stuffed with bricks from every betrayal, every slight, until one day you drop it all and sprint toward freedom. That's the raw power of forgiveness. Not as a soft-hearted gesture, but as a strategic unlock for your deepest potential, drawing from neuroscience backed breakthroughs and real life triumphs. This episode reveals how letting go isn't weakness. It's your edge in leadership, relationships, and self-mastery. Best-selling author, forgiveness coach, and transformation mentor Catherine Giovanni shares her proven path to forgiveness, proven that forgiving the unforgivable catapults you from surviving to thriving. Ready to shed the weight of the pain you're holding on to? Your breakthrough starts here with action steps you can take today. Let's dive in. Hi friends, welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural news and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside in adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned and create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Lee, the Wellness Warrior. Before we get started, I wanna give a shout out to Sun, a new listener. Son, it makes me so happy to know that you, a 53-year-old woman, learned how important grip strength is as an indicator of your overall health. Thank you for the kind words and the five-star review on Apple Podcasts. I appreciate you, my new friend. Today, we're talking about the healing power of forgiveness and how letting go can restore your spirit and health. In the high-stakes arena of modern leadership and in always on life, where burnout lurks like a shadow and grudges fester into career and relationship killers. One overlooked tool stands ready to redefine your trajectory, forgiveness. Not the Hallmark card version, but a deliberate science forge practice that dismantles emotional barriers and unleashes unbridled momentum. Picture this: a C-suite executive chained to a decade-old betrayal by a former mentor, watching opportunities slip away while resent me slippers beneath boardroom poise, or an adult holding onto a painful childhood memory from an unforgivable act that seep into their presence. Veterans, law enforcement, and first responders living with the trauma of those they can't forgive or actions they wish they could do over for a better or different outcome can find relief. You'll learn how, starting today, in a guided release, the chains can shatter, paving the way for a promotion that once seemed impossible, better relationships with those you love, and greater love for yourself. This isn't fiction, it's the alchemy of forgiveness at work. At its core, forgiveness rewires the brain's threat response, trading chronic stress for clarity and resilience. Harwood Health reports that embracing forgiveness correlates with measurably lower levels of depression, anxiety, and hostility alongside reduced substance abuse, elevated self-esteem, and amplified life satisfaction. It's no mirrored platitude. John Hopkins Medicine underscores how this act slashes heart, heart attack risk, optimizes cholesterol, and enhances sleep quality, vital to your overall good health. Let's meet our guest, Catherine Giovanni. Catherine Giovanni is a three-time award-winning best-selling author, international speaker, and transformation mentor with more than two decades of experience. She helps people find peace, healing, and hope. The author of 16 books, including The Ultimate Path to Forgiveness, Unlocking Your Power. Catherine is best known for guiding people through her simple step-by-step forgiveness process because everyone tells us to forgive, but no one teaches us how. A breast cancer survivor and someone who has overcome significant personal challenges, she brings warmth, compassion, and practical wisdom to help others release guilt and shame, reconnect with their faith and inner strength, and step into a lighter, freer way of living. When she isn't writing or speaking, Catherine enjoys time with her family, caring for her plants, including grandpa, her beloved 32-year-old houseplant. Wow, that's a green thumb. And adding to her ever-growing stack of books. Hi, Catherine. Welcome to New Normal Big Life.

SPEAKER_00: 6:10

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

So, what I find is that most people who are intentional about what they do for a career, they are looking to solve a problem or be the person they needed most in their life when they had some kind of challenge. How did you come into becoming a transformation mentor?

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

Well, the fact that I call myself a transformation and forgiveness mentor implies that the universe, which has an incredibly bad sense of humor, has gifted me with more than my fair share of things to forgive. Let's just say that. So that's how I kind of came. I come from, I could just say it fast, I come from a dysfunctional family. Both parents were alcoholics. I was terribly bullied in school, tried to commit suicide in the eighth grade, turned into one of those teenagers, you know, had one friend draped in black, that kind of thing. But I lived in New York City and everybody was draped in black. So I'm not sure I should keep saying that, right? And then I, you know, I kind of drifted through life until my mother fell down a flight of stairs, broke her hip, and ended up in the hospital. And even my mother couldn't get a gin and tonic in the hospital. So she dried out, went to rehab, and we spent the next three years tighter than tight, closer than sisters, practically finished each other's sentences. We forgave each other. We we did everything that we squeezed as much life into those three years as we could, and then she died of breast cancer, which I eventually got in 2012. And I don't carry the gene, so figure that one out. But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I didn't change my life, I was gonna die too. So I quit drinking. I've been sober now for 35 years, maybe it was the it was the only New Year's resolution I ever kept. And that's kind of how everything started. I tell people all the time, everybody, 10 out of 10 people, have what I call a flash point in their life. And it's the one moment when you look back at it, hindsight is 2020, you could identify that moment that your life completely changed. Didn't know it at the time, but when you look back, it's like, you know, if that hadn't happened, this hadn't happened. My mother's death, as horrible as it was, was my flashpoint. And everything kind of stems from there.

SPEAKER_01: 8:35

Wow, that's an incredible journey. If we have time, I'd like to ask you some questions about breast cancer uh survival. And if not, then I'd love to bring you back on another time to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00: 8:51

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01: 8:52

Happy to. So when I think of a transformation mentor, I get several images. What exactly does a transformation mentor do?

SPEAKER_00: 9:03

In my world, it's transforming you from the person you think you are today to your authentic self, the person you came to the planet to be. The only reason you are not that person, some people are that person, but many people are not, is because of anger and lack of forgiveness, unforgiveness. And you have so many things in your past, anger is acting like a shield, and it's preventing you from being your authentic self. Now I can I have a visual. If you're listening to this broadcast, I'm gonna talk you through it, so it's okay. I'm holding a purple coffee cup off to the side of my body. This coffee cup represents anger and resentment and all the bad things. But look at my body language. You and I can have, I can manage my anger, I can hold it off to the side. It's easy, it's not heavy. I got this. And you can say, you know, Catherine, you we got to talk about your anger. And I was like, nah, I got this. But here's the thing about humans: if we don't take any anger out of this little cup, we're gonna keep adding anger into it because humans irritate other humans and family really messes you up. So eventually it's gonna start to get heavy. So now look at my body language. I can still conduct my life, but I'm I'm taking two hands to hold up this cup. It's starting to get into my brain. It's starting to come into my language. It's I'm starting to tell stories about my past and my story. Look what I went through. If I continue to hold on to the cup and I still don't forgive and I still don't release any of that anger, now I'm holding the cup in front of my face. My life has stopped pretty much. It's all I can talk about, it's all I can think about. I'm losing friends because it's all I'm just talking about my story. My dream relationship just walked into the room and I missed it because I was so focused on my anger. I didn't see it. A huge money-making opportunity just walked in and I missed it. So my forgiveness system, which is a very easy step-by-step system, is going to allow you to, if at the first part you use it, now the cup is back off to the side. My life has started to open up again. I could see things. And eventually, if you keep at it, eventually you could put your cup down. Now I can see the opportunities. Now I can be my authentic self.

SPEAKER_01: 11:31

Catherine, that was very powerful. And you actually have a 10-day forgiveness program coming up soon on October 20th. Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_00: 11:41

It's a 10-day program. Now you can get the forgiveness system in my book, and you can go to and you can listen to this, to this uh podcast because I'm going to go through this step by step. But it's a 10-day class that's going to arrive in your email box and it's going to take you through my forgiveness system step by step, as this as if I'm kind of sitting there right with you. And it's a 10-day class because I don't think I think maybe 10 days is probably enough.

SPEAKER_01: 12:11

I love that because some people spend years and years in therapy, talk therapy, and still are not able to move forward in their lives and get past the unforgivable. Can you tell us a little bit about why we need to forgive, in addition to what you already said? Do you have any thoughts about what it does to your body from a chemical basis and the kind of inflammation that it creates and the health challenges that it creates when you don't forgive? One of the reasons I'm asking this question is because I know that a lot of our listeners are former military and law enforcement. So we have veterans, we have Leos, we have first responders. And sometimes when you have a trauma from losing someone significant to you or not being able to help someone enough or save someone, that can create a lot of guilt. Can you speak to the importance of forgiveness as it relates to your overall health?

SPEAKER_00: 13:18

Sure. I have science to back myself up. When we talk about forgiveness on a 10 scale, with 10 being an unforgivable dumpster fire and one being the easiest person in the world to forgive, 10 out of 10 of the people watching and listening to this podcast, everybody, including yourself, is thinking of their number 10 unforgivable person. Everybody across the board. That's why you don't want to forgive, because they don't deserve it and you don't want to. So I'm the only one in the world that's going to look at you dead in the eye and say, you don't have to forgive the unforgivable. Stay with me. Don't click off. The reason you don't have to forgive the unforgivable is because there's a lot of people, places, and things. I did say places and things. Again, just hang with me, that you can forgive before you even get to that dumpster fire. My system's going to start you with the easy ones. There's also a few principles that people bandy around that are absolutely wrong. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't. I have boundaries in place. Well, Catherine, they don't deserve my forgiveness. No, they don't. Absolutely, they don't for deserve your forgiveness. You're not doing it for them. They're going to continue doing whatever it is they're going to do. And if they have amends to make, they're going to still have to make those amends. You're doing it for you. You're not doing it for them. You're doing it because they're inside your head. Okay, well, here's the big one. Just because I forgive you, I don't want to admit that I'm now giving you a pass. Now I'm if I if I forgive you, it means that I'm admitting you were right and I was wrong. Wrong. They're still wrong. They're still a dumpster fire. You're not doing it for them. It doesn't mean you're giving in. It means you're showing your strength. You're doing it for you. Here is the big, huge definition from my perspective. Forgiveness means I want you out of my head. I want you gone. That's it. I want you out of my head. I want to stop the triggers. I want to stop thinking about you. I want you out of my head. So holding on to the anger, what does that do to your body? There was a study done by, and I never can get this gentleman's name. I have a block against it. I think it's Hasumoto, something like that. But it's called the Japanese Water Study. It's right in the front first page of Google Search. You'll get it right away. It's called the Japanese Water Study. I think he even wrote a book about it. In the interest of time, I'll say it quickly. He took two containers of water. One container of water, all he did was talk to it. He said these beautiful, I love you. You're beautiful. He said the most beautiful words to it. The other container of water, all he spoke was hate. The most hateful things you can say out loud, he said to this water. He then froze the water and he put it under a microscope and took a look. The water that he froze that he spoke love to had these gorgeous snowflake transformations. The pictures are right on Google. They're fascinating. The water he spoke hate to had these black, sick kind of malformations that looked like it was eating itself. Why am I telling you this? The human body is over 95% water. So when you're filled with self-doubt and your self-talk is horrible and you're filled with hate and anger and resentment, what do you think you're doing to the water cells within your old body? You're literally making yourself sick from the inside out. So by using my system, and there's a secret sauce to it that nobody's figured out that we've embedded into it, which I'll tell you about, is going to allow you to start changing those water cells in your body so you can breathe again and you can be free and experience joy. Joy. Remember joy? Yeah, joy.

SPEAKER_01: 17:07

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SPEAKER_00: 20:00

Well, I'm gonna go through the forgiveness system and that's gonna answer your question. We're gonna do two lists. We're gonna do one list of people that you need to forgive, right? Your, you know, whatever your unforgivable people and the easy people. The second list is gonna be a list of people that need to forgive you. Okay. So what I want everybody to do, the special sauce to the whole thing is the read I have people coming up to me all the time that say, you know, Catherine, I did do the work, I did forgive them, but they didn't stay forgiven. I can, you know, I'll go into the bakery and I'll smell the apple pie and I'll immediately think of my mother, and everything comes right back. I keep getting triggered. I walk by a building and I got fired in that building, and I spend the next day really irritated, that kind of thing. Well, that's because you didn't forgive the energy. Science is proving that everything on our planet has energy around it, including this little silver microphone. Everything has an energy field around it, absolutely everything. And everybody thinks that when you get angry, actually, nobody thinks this, but if you did, this is what you would assume. You when you get angry, the words leave your mouth and dissipate into the universe. They do not, they hang around your energy field until you can't carry. Remember the cup? It hangs around your energy field. And it's gonna stay there until you clear it. So you're literally walking around in a little black cloud and you don't even know it. So by forgiving the energy which is tying you to the last person on earth that you want to be tied to, that's gonna cut the cord. That's gonna cut the energy. So when you forgive this person, it's it's permanent. So you can go on social media and you can see the person's name, or you can see the event that happened, and it won't trigger you. You're not gonna get upset, you're not gonna care good, you're not gonna care bad, you're not gonna care. Happen. I'm a serial entrepreneur because of course I am. And I've written a lot of books and I had a lot of business partners because I'm just that old. And one in particular did real damage at one point. She did. And I was that mad at her for years, and she was one of my number tens. And using my system, which I'm gonna talk about, I got her down to a forgivable letter and I tossed it. It was her birthday, couldn't remember. I was on Facebook and I saw her name. Usually seeing her name would send me to the ceiling, and you'd have to peel me back, and I'd have to call my bestie and say, You're gonna have to peel me off the ceiling. Here's why. This day, I didn't care. And I caught myself and I thought, wait a minute, I don't care. I don't care. That's freedom, that's joy. That means they're out of your head. So, what I want everybody to do is I want you to here's the hardest part of the whole system. I kind of want you to turn your cell phone off. This is the hardest part. And if you can't turn your cell phone off, just turn the volume off or leave it in another room or something. What I really want is I want you alone for a few minutes. No dogs, no cats, no, I want no humans. I want you alone. Get a pad of paper and a pen or your laptop. It doesn't bother me. And the pad of paper and pen is actually better. It's not because I'm old school. There was a study done at Harvard University that followed some kids through the years. One group of kids was told, just say your goals out loud to the room. The other group of kids was told, write your goals down on a piece of paper with a pen. The kids that wrote their goals down in the paper twice as successful later in life than the kids who didn't. So some kind of magic happens when it goes from your head down your arm onto a piece of paper. So what I want you to do is I want you to write a list of all the people you think you need to forgive. The first five people are going to be unforgivable people. I get that. I did it too. I've done this exercise. I on my own guinea pig. That's fine. But I want you to keep going. I want you to remember the person who cut you off yesterday on I-95 South. Forgive that person. I want you to write down the person who stained your sweater in high school. Forgive that person. Write that person's name down. Don't judge the list. Just write random names. The people you used to work with, you know, all of these names. Write a list. The person who cut you off in aisle five of the grocery store yesterday. Come on now. You can forgive that person. The lunchroom sandwich thief. Write that down. You can forgive that person who steals your sandwich every day. Don't put hot sauce in it and just sit gleefully in the corner and watch them die. Just forgive them. Put them on the list. Then I want you to take the list and I want you to rate these people between one and ten. One being super easy, ten being horrible, unforgivable. You could have seven number eights. I don't care. You could skip a number. I also really don't care. It's your list. However, what I really care about is that you start with the easy ones and you work your way up to the number tens. Number tens are a bear. And we're going to talk about how to forgive the unforgivable because there's a little trick to it. And they're they're hard. So I want you to start with the number ones because it's going to start to anybody labeled between one and seven is going to open up your life. It's going to make you feel better. This is a marathon, it's not a sprint. You're not going to be able to do this overnight, right? So I want you to look at the first name on the list. Let's assume that their name is Martha, because I don't really know any Martha's. And none of my family is named Martha. It's a pretty safe name. And maybe you went to high school with Martha and you don't remember. So, you know, easy person to forgive, right? So I want you to put your hand in your heart. It's merely for you to remind yourself to say the words from your heart. The magic is in the energy, not the words. And I want you to say, I completely forgive Martha. I forgive the energy around Martha. I completely forgive myself for anything I may or may not have done. I forgive the energy around myself. I forgive the energy around the entire relationship. And so it is. And it any way you like. And so it is. Man, whatever you want, right? Now check in with your body. Are you still mad? No? Cross the one off? Cross them off. Was it a level three and you're kind of still angry? Replace it with a two. Was it a level five person and now you're really angry? And it shut up to a 10? Okay, what happened? Okay. The person who you're mad at doesn't have to be alive. You can forgive dead people, and you can get closure with these people because where they are or not doesn't matter a lick. Because you're forgiving for you in the privacy of your own home, all by yourself. You don't have to call them, you don't have to reach out to them. You don't have to tell anybody you're doing this. You do it all alone in your house by yourself with nobody but you, you and you. So right before you see the mantra, if you feel guided to say something, imagine the person in front of you. Let's say Martha was horrible to you in high school, right? And really did some damage. And maybe she was a level six person and you got stuff you want to say. You don't have anything to say with a level one, but with a five, six, or seven, you might have some anger issues there. You're alone in the room. Say anything you like. Let her have it. And if you can't imagine that she's standing in front of her, in front of you, put a chair in front of you, talk to the chair. And if Martha was a kid from school, I don't want you to imagine the adult is in front of you. I want you to talk to the kid. Say anything you want, laugh, scream, cry, dance, burn sage. I don't care what you do, get it all out. This is your time to get closure. If they're already passed away, doesn't matter. Let them have it. Then say my mantra and then check in with your body. I did this with a friend of mine. She was right in front of me at the time. And she it really was a level five person, and she did let the person have it as best as she could, and she checked in with her body. Both of us expected it to go down to a four. It went up to a 10. What happened? Did she do it wrong? No, she didn't. The brain is a wonderful, beautiful tool, and it protects you. And there's a closet in the back of your brain that's padlocked with a big, huge chain. And there's a movie playing in the closet that you don't even know exists. You turn it off if you knew it was there, but it's just playing in silently in the background. And what the forgiveness does, it's like an onion, and you forgave that first layer of the onion. And your brain said, Ooh, Antoinette just is she's ready now. I'm gonna open up this closet and flutter with memories because she's ready for them now. And my friend just you could see it on her face. The memories were just pouring through. So we crossed the name off. We put it in the number 10 column. She waited 24 hours, and then she began the long slog to forgiving the new number 10 person. This is a really clean way to get closure and forgive people once and for all because you're getting the closure and you're forgiving the energy. But remember, it's not like AA. Remember, I went through all those things. You don't have to reach out to them, you don't have to make amends. Now, what if it's you who's the number 10? And you have, I was a concierge, I'm a concierge trainer by trade. I retired in 2020. And I had to come up with a method to get people to forgive when they couldn't leave their station with a customer that would come over that just yells at you in your face or something like that. How do You release your anger on the spot when you can't take a break. This is one of those ways. You use my system quietly in your head. Or what I've been known to do, really, I did I've done this. I went into my car, somebody really pissed me off. And excuse my language, but I'm originally from New York. And they really pissed me off. And I went into my car and I went, I forgive them, I forgive them, I forgive them. Didn't mean one of them. I forgive them. I forgive them. But it reminded me about my my mantra, and it reminded me. And that person got popped on. I do this every night before I go to bed. I popped on my list and I did it before bed and began the long slog. But if it's something that you need to be forgiven for, I want you to write a second list. And these aren't the people you want to want to forgive, these are the people that you want to forgive you. And you put down all the things that you can think of, and then you rate them from one to ten. And you start with the ones and you work your way up to the number 10. The exact same way. And you flip the language. Instead of I completely forgive Martha and the energy around Martha, you flip the language to say, Martha completely forgives me and the energy around me and the energy around Martha. Don't let your brain think about, well, does Martha really forgive me? We're not doing it for Martha. We're doing it for you.

SPEAKER_01: 31:26

Before we cover the next topic in this episode, I want to introduce you to the Adventure Sports Lifestyle with what I call a micro story about an adventure that I've had. The Adventure Sports Lifestyle and my deep connection to nature is essential to my good health. So here's the story. And harvest cinnamon grill pumpkins to make my friend Lisa's another Northwoods Woman's pumpkin bread recipe. I hope this inspires you to get outside an adventure along with friends or the people you love most. Now back to the show where we're talking with Catherine Giovanni. Catherine, tell us about how we might feel after we're capable of forgiving the unforgivable person.

SPEAKER_00: 32:17

You need to feel free. Right now, you're unforgivable as a one person or people or events on the planet you don't want to forgive. Let's take one, I'll walk you through it because it's it's a little it's a little bit of a dance. And this is where the places and things come in. We'll use, I'm trying to think of one of my number 10s. We'll use my father as an example because he was one of my number 10s. And he passed away maybe 30 years ago. So this is me forgiving dead people, right? He was an alcoholic, horrible man, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. And it took me a long time to get that number 10 down to a one, right? So when I first came up with this method, I thought, I don't want to forgive him. Doesn't deserve it. I don't want to. In fact, I didn't even want to forgive the energy around the man. That's how angry I was. So I pulled apart some of my memories. I took a Thanksgiving memory, and I forgave everything but my father. I forgave, and I'm actually dead serious. I forgave the table we sat at and the energy around the table. I forgave the food of the table, the energy around the food. I forgave the chair that I sat in, the energy around the chair. I forgave the house we were in, the energy around the house. I forgave the city we were in at the time, the energy around the city. I forgave the date. That's how I forgave my bully in school. I forgave everything. I forgave my childhood school. I forgave the classroom, the table, the teacher, the floor, the playground, the kids who stood around and didn't help me. I forgave New York City, the energy around New York City. I forgave 1974 because that's the year I tried to commit suicide. So and the energy around 1974. But let me be clear, I still haven't forgiven the bully, and I still haven't forgiven my father. So what have I done? I've started to pull apart the energy. So now that number 10 might be a 9.5. I'm starting to chip away at it. Am I I check in with my body? It's a 9.5. Okay, making progress. Am I still furious? Of course I am. Am I ready to forgive him? No. Am I ready to forgive the energy around him? Maybe. Maybe not. If I'm not, I pick another memory and I pull it apart. I forgive the table, the bed, the chair, the car that took you there. There's a lot of unforgivable things. I was attacked in college. So you, you know, you don't want to forgive the attacker, right? So you forgive the table, the bed, the chair, the fact that I got into the car or you went on that date. You forgive the telephone that you used or the Zoom call or whatever it is. You forgive the restaurant, you forgive the sidewalk, you forgive the everything but the attacker. And that's gonna take the energy off. Now, and I'm not bashing speakers, I promise I'm not, but a lot of us will talk about that wall that people hit. Been talking about it for 50 plus years. Okay, pull a few bricks out of that wall. Forgive what you can, walk around the wall and keep going. If you can circle back later and forgive the actual attacker or the number 10 person, great. If you can't, that's fine. And forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for getting into the car or having the relationship or sit, you know, whatever it is. So by doing this, I actually got my father down from a 10 to a one and a podcaster, and I forgave him. And believe it or not, we still have a good relationship to this day. Yes, I know he's dead, but you know, I'm not spitting anymore. I actually think good things and I actually remember the love that was back there. You know, forgive and forget is also something that people say that's absolutely wrong. I'm from New York City, honey, and I can promise you, with every fiber of my being, forgetting is not in our DNA. We never forget. But I can look in my past, I can look at all that dysfunction, I can look at my dad back there. And now I remember the love. I remember the people that were trying to help that kid. I remember the actual nice things, as few as they were. I remember a few of the nice things. So I haven't forgotten, but it's been replaced by love and it's been replaced by a different memory now. That's what this system offers you. It's offering you peace, it's offering you joy. And if it's yourself you have to forgive, well, a podcaster asked me on camera, actually, it's out there somewhere. If you had to do one thing over in your life and you had one regret, what is it? The one I've been married over 33 years, and the one regret I have is I didn't allow my father to walk me down the aisle because I was mad, rightfully so. I was mad, and everybody agreed I should be mad because what he did was horrible. But I've had 33 years to think about it, and it was mean. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because he behaved badly doesn't mean I should behave badly. I'm, you know, better than that, right? So it's the old adage when they go low, you go high. I didn't go high, I went low. And I regretted it. And so I realized that in the heat of the moment, being angry at my father, I must have done things to him that hurt him. So once I got dad down to a one, I realized I had to go the other way. And I had to create another list of things that I had done that I needed him and other people to forgive me for. And getting to that number 10, pull apart the memory. If you're a paramedic or something, think of the memory. Don't forgive yourself, pull apart the memory, forgive the gurney, forgive the ambulance, forgive the fire, forgive the firehouse, forgive the city, forgive the wheels of the car, forgive the the road that you drove down, forgive every part of that memory except yourself. And when you're ready to forgive yourself, then start with just forgiving the energy around yourself. And then you'll be able to chip away at it, and eventually that's not going to haunt your dreams anymore. But this is a marathon. You're not gonna, you're not gonna do this on Friday and be free on Monday. I promise you, you won't. And I don't want you to do more than if it's a person you labeled between a one and a seven, I think you could do five a night. Do as I say, not as I did. If it's eight, nine, or ten, one a night every 24 hours. Why? Remember that water study we talked about? Okay, I'm an overachiever. And I did this exercise, and I had a list of, I swear to you, it must have been 50 or 60 people on the list. And I thought, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna be like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I'm gonna be like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. I'm gonna go to, I'm gonna forgive all these people. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning and everything's gonna be gone. Okay. No, it didn't work out the way I planned it because the universe was laughing at me when I said that. I did forgive many people on the list. I did. However, I spent the next three days in bed with what everybody thought was a stomach flu. It was not the stomach flu. It was energy, it was energy sickness, which is what I call it. I'd made, I literally made myself sick because my body was trying to process the energy and get rid of all that bad energy and all the energy stored in those whole and those little cells, and it it couldn't do it. It couldn't do it. So I literally stayed in bed for three days. Now, most people, when they do this, nine out of ten people are really tired after they do this process. So try and do it after dinner within within eye shot of bed. I do it right before I go to sleep. Some people, like your, like yours truly, are in the bathroom for a little bit. That's just my body's way of processing. It doesn't mean you ate bad fish. It merely means your body is just trying to process that dark energy. And if you feel that, oh, it didn't work, I didn't feel anything. It oh, it worked. You just forgave the first layer of the onion. Keep going and check in with your body. Are you still angry? Then put another number on it and wait 24 hours and do it again.

SPEAKER_01: 40:48

Catherine, I sincerely feel that the ultimate path to forgiveness needs to be taught in every college, every elementary school, high school, junior high school, all law enforcement, all first responders and military need to receive your plan and your program because it's going to be life-changing. I feel like I have had the most entertaining and informative and realistic transformational talk of my life right now. And I thank you for it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:21

Oh, my pleasure. This is this is a life-changing method. You know, the problem with forgiveness is everybody tells us to forgive. Nobody teaches you how. What if I don't want to? Then what do I do? What if it's me and I don't want to? I don't feel I deserve it. I'm not worthy. You know, it's this is a this is a system that people can use that's very clear. And it's, I mean, it's a literal step-by-step system. Do this, do this, do this, that kind of thing. So it's it's it's gonna help a lot of people. That's why I to give the system out in every podcast I do, because I really want people to uh hear it and teach it and talk about it and get this out.

SPEAKER_01: 42:02

Well, people, you can access all of this information and sign up for Catherine's 10-day program and buy her book from the links in the show description. Catherine, what more do you want to leave listeners with?

SPEAKER_00: 42:17

I really want people to know with every fiber of my being that you're worthy to lead a life of love and joy. It's your birthright. We're not meant to live in a refrigerator box on the street. We're meant to be happy. We're meant to live in joy, we're meant to learn new things. This is your birthright. So if you don't feel worthy, let me be the first to tell you you are worthy and you do deserve this.

SPEAKER_01: 42:47

Thank you so much for joining us today, and I'd love to have you back again.

SPEAKER_00: 42:51

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 42:53

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