#486 Forgiving people isn’t about them, and why forgiveness is your key to freedom, with Katharine Giovanni.

What if forgiveness wasn’t about letting someone off the hook, but about setting yourself free?

Holding onto anger and resentment can quietly drain your energy, health, and happiness. In this episode, forgiveness coach and best-selling author Katharine Giovanni shares her transformative journey and teaches a step-by-step process to release the emotional weight of past wounds — even the ones that feel impossible to let go of.

By tuning into this episode, you'll discover:

1. A practical, step-by-step forgiveness system that starts with the easiest people to forgive and works up to the hardest.
2. How unprocessed anger affects your body and mind — and what happens when you finally release it.
3. The surprising power of forgiving not just people but the energy around painful memories.

Listen now to start your own forgiveness journey and unlock the freedom and peace that come from letting go of what no longer serves you.

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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:

02:35 - The Defining Moment That Led to Forgiveness

05:52 - Why Forgiveness Feels Impossible — And How to Start Anyway

10:53 - The Step-by-Step System for Forgiveness 

14:13 - The Hidden Costs of Holding Onto Anger

20:12 - Dealing with the Unforgivable and Forgiving Energy

28:41 - Self-Forgiveness and Healing Your Own Past

26:09 - Signs That Forgiveness is Working

32:59 - The Ripple Effect of Forgiveness on the World

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MEMORABLE QUOTE:

"You are worthy enough to lead a life of joy. You are worthy enough to lead a life of happiness, and you are worthy enough to make your own decisions and live in love."

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VALUABLE RESOURCES:

Katharine's website: https://katharinegiovanni.com

Mastery Seekers Tribe: https://masteryseekerstribe.com

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Want to be a guest on Personal Development Mastery?

Send Agi Keramidas a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/personaldevelopmentmastery

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Personal development inspiration, insights, and actions to implement for living with purpose.

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Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:00

What if forgiveness wasn't about letting someone off the hook, but about setting yourself free? Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast that helps intelligent, busy professionals develop self mastery and discover their calling so you can thrive in a fulfilling, purposeful life. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 486 by listening to this episode, you are going to learn a practical step by step forgiveness system that starts with the easiest people to forgive and works up the hardest, you will also discover how unprocessed anger and sadness affect their body and mind and what happens when you finally release it, before we dive into the surprising power of forgiveness. Remember, my fellow mastery seeker. If you want to go deeper into the episode, join us at our free community, the mastery seekers tribe, go to mastery seekerstribe.com, now let's get started today. It is my real pleasure to speak with Katharine Giovanni. Katharine, you are a best selling author of 12 books, a speaker trainer and forgiveness and transformation coach. You bring wisdom to the art of forgiveness and unlocking intuition, and you are passionate about helping people heal from past wounds, especially when it comes to forgiving and forgiveness. Katharine, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to speak with you.

Katharine Giovanni: 1:52

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

Agi Keramidas: 1:56

We will explore today, as I've probably hinted already by my introduction of you forgiveness, in particular, how to forgive, which is what your Anglos makes it so unique. Before we go there, Katherine, you've been through some incredibly difficult experiences in your life, including cancer, childhood, childhood trauma, was there a defining moment that led you to embrace forgiveness in your path? The

Katharine Giovanni: 2:35

fact that I call myself a forgiveness coach probably implies I've had a lot of its opposite in my life. There's a lot of water under that bridge, and I probably started in the eighth grade. My parents were very pickled people, meaning they were both alcoholics, and I was terribly, terribly bullied in school because I was different. And so as a result of all of the all of the stress, I tried to commit suicide, and I turned into one of those kids, you know, the kids I'm talking about. And I just kind of bobbled 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 at the hospital, so she dried out and she went to rehab, and we spent the next three years closer than sisters. We were tight, we forgave each other, we did everything together, and then she died of breast cancer, which I actually eventually got in 2012 and I tell a lot of people that if you look back in your life, you can see that Flashpoint. I call them flashpoints, the one day that everything changed. And some of us have more than one, but that was my flash point, and I realized right then that if I didn't change my life, I was going to die too. And I was miserable, I was angry, I was sick all the time. I had one friend, so it was the only new year's resolution I ever kept. And I quit drinking in 1990 so I've been sober for 35 years, and one of the things that happens when you quit drinking as you go into these programs. And I was really shy. I'm actually they call me an extroverted introvert at this point, an ambivert, or something like that. But back then, painfully shy, so I had no desire to make amends with people. If we had had texting, I would have happily texted those people, no problem. But we didn't have texting. We didn't even have computers. That's how I'm as old as dirt. And so you had to either call or go see these people, and they might yell at me, and I was shy, so I didn't do any of it. I kind of played along with it, and I kind of paid it lip service. There was no energy behind it, but I kept doing it, and I kept, you know, trying saying, you know, I forgive you, because intuitively I knew that the hate and the anger was what was holding me back, and I wanted to get rid of it. So I kept doing it, and it wasn't until I eventually went into the concierge. Industry, and I started to teach concierge and customer service, but I could teach you the most beautiful words in the word, let's say, but if you're angry, it's going to bleed through your body language, whether you wanted to or not. Unless you're award winning actor like George Clooney or somebody, you're not going to be able to stop it. So I started to teach forgiveness. And then in 2020 I finally figured out the special sauce that everybody's forgetting, and I came up with a step by step system. But here's the thing, on a 10 scale, with 10 being unforgivable, horrific, and one being the easiest person in the world to forgive. Every single person listening or watching this broadcast right now, everybody's thinking of their number 10, and that's why nobody wants to forgive and that's why it's so hard, because you're starting with the person that hurts you the most. And in my world, with my system, we're going the other way. We're starting with the easy ones, and we're going to work our way up to the end. It

Agi Keramidas: 6:00

sounds like a very sensible approach, the way you said, that's great. Let me start, and we're going to go into the step by step process. As you said, one thing I wanted to ask, because having worked with forgiveness for so long, I'm sure you have noticed some common misconception that people have about it. So I'm sure there are. But is there anything that strikes out, something that maybe it will give us a little bit more of an understanding of what is not forgiveness, and then we can move into what it actually is. Because I would also like to ask your thoughts on the definition. How do you define forgiveness yourself?

Katharine Giovanni: 6:53

I got you just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean repair. I do it for me. I'm doing it because it's a selfish act to be honest. You do it for you. You don't do it for them. You know the person you're mad at. And this is especially true in women with our exes. We want them to be as miserable as we are. We're sitting here eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and they're not thinking about us at all, and they're conducting their life so Bucha has the most one of my favorite quotes in the world, and anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. Here's another big one, just because I forgive you, and this is the one that chips everybody up, just because I forgive you doesn't mean I'm giving in and you're right all of a sudden, it doesn't mean I'm weak. Forgiveness is if you're still wrong, you still probably have to make amends of some sort, forgiveness. I'm doing it for me, and you don't have to reach out to anybody. You can do it in the privacy of your own home. That being said, you could forgive dead people too, because where they are or are not doesn't matter a lick. Because you're in the privacy of your own home, you don't have to tell anybody. So the formal definition for me personally is I want you out of my head. I want you out of my head. I want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop dreaming about you. I want to stop telling the stories, and I want to start to pay attention to something else. It doesn't mean you are right. You're probably still doing it, and you're doing it to other people, and I don't care. I want you out of my head. And there's the other thing that people Bandy around. There's some sayings that are just awful, and what another one is forgive and forget. Okay, I'm originally from New York City, and I can guarantee you I'm not forgetting anything. But what I can promise you is, by using my system, it's going to remove the emotional charge, so you're not going to think good, and you're not going to think bad, you're not going to care. I remember I was on Facebook of a bunch of years ago, and I saw my ex business partner's name, and I usually that would send me to the ceiling, and it would take two days to scrape me off because I was angry. But on that particular day, I stared at the name, and nothing happened. And I caught myself, and I realized, wait a minute, I'm not angry. I don't care. Even wish you're a happy birthday. I don't care. That's freedom, that's peace, and that's what this system, you'll probably remember, but you there won't be any emotion behind it anymore. Thank

Agi Keramidas: 9:44

you. The word freedom that you said is a wonderful way to conclude what you just explained, and I liked very much how you said it. I want you out of my head. Yes, what I wanted. To ask you, you know, something like this that we hold on? Of course, it occupies our mind. It also as an extension of that. It influences our emotions and influences our mental emotional even all the other things that we don't necessarily see or are also obvious. Can you make a comment on that as well? I mean, apart from having something that one finds difficult or to forgive, apart from the occupying their head, what other consequences could there be end up talking about something, obviously, that is, you know, a big one, or perhaps not the number 10 that you said, but let's say over five,

Katharine Giovanni: 10:53

there's a there's a saying that goes around the world. Anger is toxic, and none of us, we all agree with it, but none of us really know the whys or the hows. There was a study done, it's called the Japanese water study, by a guy named, and I always say Masumoto, and I know that's wrong, but it's close, yes. And what he did is he took two containers of water, and it's, it's a lot more complicated, but I'm simplifying it. He one container of water. All he did was talk to it. That's it. He just talked to it. He spoke love to it, the most beautiful words of the world, the other container of water, all he did was spew hate, these horrible, horrible things. The pictures are right online. They're brilliant. And he then froze the water, and he put it under a microscope. The water that he that he spoke love to, had these gorgeous formations, like crystal formations the water he spoke spewed hate at the opposite malformations, black and brown, kind of feeding into himself. And why am I bringing up this study, your body is 95% water. So if you're if you're have bad self talk and you're filled with hatred and anger, what do you think you're doing to the water cells within your own body? You're literally making yourself sick. Here's another visual for you, and for anybody listening to this, I'll talk you through it, but do go over and watch the visual. I'm holding a purple coffee cup in my hand. This coffee cup represents anger and regret and all those negative emotions, but look at my body language. I can handle my anger. I can manage it. I could still have a conversation with you. I'm still kind of open. This is easy, but if I don't forgive and let something out of the cup, it's going to start to affect my life. Because humans irritate other humans, don't we, and we're there, something is always going to irritate us. So I'm still putting more stuff into the cup, right? So now I'm using two hands to hold up the cup. It's not exactly affecting my life, but it's starting to get into my conversations. It's starting to get into my head, if I continue to not forgive and I continue to do this now I'm holding the cup in front of my face. My life has stopped, completely stopped. It's all I can think about. It's all I can talk about. I'm getting sick now. I'm probably down to one friend, and I'm even if I spin the stories funny, it's still bothering me. So what is my system going to do? I'm going to have you start with the easy people, the people you rate are one, two and three, and what's that going to do? It's going to allow you to put that cup off to the side. Now my anger is back on the side. I'm feeling better, and I'm starting to notice and pay attention more. I'm noticing a money making opportunity or a new job. I'm noting seeing my dream significant other. I'm noticing a new way to lose weight. Why didn't I notice it before? Because I was so pay attention to my anger and my body, because now I'm getting sick. That's all I could see. I can't even hear my intuition, because your anger acts like a block. And there's, it's very hard to trust your gut or your intuition if you're angry, because that's all you pay attention to. So that's, that's, that's a kind of a visual of what forgiving is going to do, even with the ones, twos and threes. It's going to allow you to pay attention. It's going to allow you to breathe again.

Agi Keramidas: 14:13

If you enjoy this episode, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it. And you will also be adding value to people you care about. And now let's get back to the episode that's great. I liked very much the visual and the analogy. Can I ask? Because you mentioned anger, specifically what I suppose the same would be for, you know, sadness or some sorrow that we're not forgiving and we feel like that great. Would you guide us through then this step by step process so we can have an overview and understanding of how you approach forgiveness and how you teach. Toot

Katharine Giovanni: 15:00

Sure. I'm going to have you sit down and write a list of all the people you think you want to forgive. And I actually want you to use a pen and paper, young people. I know you want to use your phone. I get it. I do understand that, but there have been hundreds of studies done that when something enters your brain and it goes down your arm and you write it on a piece of paper, it sticks. There was a study done at Harvard University, and they followed these kids through the years. Half the class was told to speak their goals out loud to the room. The other half was told to write them down. They followed the kids, and the kids who actually wrote their their goals down on a pen and paper were twice as successful as the kids who did not. So write it down, because it's going to stick more. And I want you to then rate these people from one to 1010. Being ugly, horrific, unforgivable, and I'm going to talk about how to forgive the unforgivable in a minute. And one being the easiest, people like the person who stole your parking space at the grocery store yesterday. Come on. Now you could forgive that person, the person who stained your sweater in high school. Come on. You could forgive that person. It was, it was 300 years ago. You could forgive them. And I want you to write your list from people you do when you were a kid all the way to the present day. Now, if you have seven number fives, I don't care. That's fine. If you don't, if you skip a number, that's fine. I don't care that either. The whole point is I want you to write a list from easiest to hardest, and then I want you to be alone, and I want you to do something crazy. I want you to turn your phone off. Now, I know some of you are twitching at the thought of turning your cell phone off, but it does have an off button and it also has a mute button. I don't want it to vibrate, because the minute it dances in your desk, you're going to look and you're going to want to see it. I want you alone with nobody else around, unless you have a dog. You can have the dog there, but I want you alone, right? And I want you to imagine the person is standing in front of you, but I don't want you to imagine them as an adult. I want you to imagine them as you knew them when this problem occurred, whether you were three years old or present day. I don't want you to imagine them as as 2025 right? And then I want you to say whatever you want. The person could be alive or dead, doesn't matter. I want you to say whatever it is you want to say, if they're dead, this is your job. This is your way of finally getting some closure, and then when you think you're finished, remember, I want you to start with the number one person. So you shouldn't have a lot of stuff to say, because this is an easy one. Want you to put your hand into your heart, because it reminds you to speak from your heart. But the words are just for the for the stupid humans. It's the energy behind the words with which is where the magic is. And here's the magic. I get people all the time that say, Well, I did do the work, and I did, but they're not staying forgiven, are they? You get triggered, and then you get angry again because you see something or you smell something. Well, you didn't forgive the energy. That's the magic. Einstein clearly proved that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It just transforms from one thing to another. So your anger energy is going to linger it around your body. We also have discovered, and Einstein, I think, was behind it, that everything has an energy field around it, including this little silver microphone. So I'm going to have you put your hand in your heart and say the following, I completely forgive Tom. I forgive the energy around Tom. I completely forgive myself. Hello, I forgive the energy around myself. I completely forgive the energy around the entire situation. And so it is Amen. Go with God and end it any way you like, and then imagine that the person walks and walks away. Now check in with your body. How do you feel? Do you feel like they've been forgiven? Cross them off the list. That's brilliant. Were they a number five level person? Are they now a four or three? Great. Put the new number next to them. Wait 24 hours, and then do it again. Was it a number three person, and now it's jumped up to a nine? Ooh. Why did that happen? That shouldn't happen. We're supposed to be going the other way. The brain is a beautiful, brilliant tool, and it protects you. And what it did was that back closet that's been padlocked in the back of your head, well, it just opened and said, Ooh, Catherine's ready. I'm gonna flood you with memories you didn't know was there. So now you got a new list, because you've got a brand new bunch of memories that you didn't know were there. And now, of course, you remember all these things. You're like, Wow, no, I actually am kind of angry, so you have to add some stuff to the list. Forgiveness is, is like an onion. You're never going to be done with the damn thing, because you're going to always remember things, but you're gonna, you're gonna remove some of those layers. And then I get people who say, well, it didn't work, did we just said and it didn't work. I love it when people say that to me, because it did work. You just got rid of the first layer. There's more layers underneath it. Keep going. Yeah. Keep going people, but when you get the reason I want you to do the unforgivable last is because, my friends, they are a bear, absolute bear, and that's why we call them the unforgivable. And I actually believe that there are unforgivable things in this world 100% so if you can't forgive the person, and you may not be able to, maybe you can just forgive the energy around the person. And if you can't forgive the energy around the person, well, now let's pick apart the memory, and here's where it's going to get weird. Stay with me. Going to stretch your brains a little bit. I promise it won't hurt too much. I'll take one of my own memories as an example. Let's take the bullies in school, right? So let's say I'm driving down the road, and I usually turn left at the corner, but this time I decide to turn right, and that right turn gets me to work, but it's going to take me by my old high school, and I was bullied there, but by the time I get to work, I'm kind of grumpy. I'm biting everybody's heads off, and I had a perfectly lovely morning, and I have no idea why I'm grumpy. Well, I do, because that movie that plays on the back of your head that you didn't know was there started to play, and it remembered the bullies, and it's bugging you. So how do you remove that trigger? You forgive other stuff within the memory. I couldn't forgive the bully. Actually, at the beginning, I couldn't even forgive the energy around the bully. I just couldn't and this happened to me years ago, decades ago. So I forgave other things within the memory. I started to pick it apart. I forgave this building, the energy around the building. I forgave the table, the desk, the chair. I forgave the playground. I forgave the people that stood around and didn't help me, and the energy around all these things. So now I've gotten that number 10, maybe down to a nine, and I have not even touched the actual person, yet. I'm forgiving other parts of the memory. I'm dialing it back, and then you wait 24 hours and maybe you try it again, but never do more than 10 a night. I want you to do it at night before you go to bed, because you're going to be tired after you do it. And if you're doing a eight, nine or 10 level person only do one a night, because it's it's going to make you tired. That's

Agi Keramidas: 22:13

very practical. The way that you say thank you. I You said, keep going, and I understand that with your description, that it is a process, and it might involved a period of time of doing it. One might wonder, so how do I know that it's working? Is there any sign that you know you said that? We you say it and you release the for you forgive the energy and so on. So you speak things, and I suppose you mean you speak them out loud. If that's what I understood, you

Katharine Giovanni: 22:52

can speak it out louder to yourself. You're alone in a room. It's your party. You could scream and cry or say it in your head. It's just as your party. You can do anything you want. Some people can't imagine the people in their mind side. So talk to a chair. I'm actually not kidding. Put a chair in front of you and talk to the chair. If you can vision the person in your head. Some people can't talk to the chair. You can even put their name or their picture on the chair and let them have it. You're alone. Do whatever you want. So

Agi Keramidas: 23:17

is there any any sign that it's working while we are in the process. Yeah,

Katharine Giovanni: 23:24

because you're going to care less and less. I know that sounds a little awful, but I actually mean it. You're going to there. The emotional charge is going to be dialed back. It's not going to bug you as much. You're going to be able to go on Facebook and look at their name, and if they're a level 10 person, it's still good excuse my language, but it's still going to piss you off, but maybe not as much, because if you can get the 10 down to a seven, now it's, it's, it's still there, but you're not going to, it's not going to be quite as as painful. That's the sign that you've forgiven them, because you don't care. You don't care good, you don't care. Bad. You just don't care. And another sign is the reason I want you to do it before bed is because remember about the Japanese water study and the cells in your body, well, they have to be cleared. When I do my own I do my own exercises. So I am my own guinea pig, and came up with this. And I sat down, I'm a little bit of an overachiever. Shocker, and I sat down and I wrote a list, and I swear to you, it must have had been 50 people on it. I had a lot of anger in my background. That's why I can be a forgiveness coach. And I thought, this is going to be great. I'm going to forgive everybody over all at once, and I'm going to be like a phoenix rising from the ashes. I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and everything's going to be gone, and I'm going to be a completely different person. Um, no, anybody in the medical field is probably laughing hysterically knowing, no, it doesn't work that way. You can't get a number 10 person down to a one overnight. Ain't. Going to happen. I did forgive many people on the list, absolutely, but I also spent the next three days in bed with what everybody thought was a stomach flu. It was not the stomach flu, it was my body trying to process all that anger. The reason I want you to do this before bed is because your body is a brilliant tool, and it heals you while you sleep, most people, eight out of 10 people, when they do this process, get really tired. My older son gets really tired, so he we always do it before bed. Some people feel their shoulders get lighter, which is weird, but it's true. It's a strange feeling. Some people feel energy move from their solar plexus. And for those who don't know, it's in the middle of your stomach, above your belly button, right there in the middle. Some people don't feel anything. That doesn't mean it didn't work. It just means you cleared the first layer, and there's probably more work to do, and you're not done yet, but everybody feels something. And if you're in the bathroom for a few for a few hours, you didn't need a piece of bad fish. It's because your body is trying to clear ancient, ancient sludge out of your body. So just be happy.

Agi Keramidas: 26:09

Yes, the word cleansing comes to mind when you the word Yeah,

Katharine Giovanni: 26:13

a cleanse is not as nice as people say. Things happen when you do a cleanse. It is, I'm just saying, your body's happy afterwards, but the process is not very pretty, but neither is forgiveness. I'm asking you to go back into your past, which is the last place you want to go. And I'm only asking you to go back a couple more times, because I did come from a rough background, and I can regurgitate. I'm using that word purposely. I can regurgitate all those bad things. I can cough them up for you, if you want me to. But to be honest, I don't remember them as much anymore, because I've forgiven my past. And it didn't happen overnight. It took months, and I've forgiven them. So now I can look back at my past, and I can see the adults that were trying to help that young kid in the eighth grade, I could see the love that followed me through the years that I didn't even know was there. So now I see the love that was back there. I don't remember the hate as much. So have I changed my past? I've changed my perspective? So the answer is, yeah, I have, because I don't remember it as much anymore. And that's what I can offer you. That's what this system is going to do. It's going to offer you freedom and peace from the from the shades of your past. Many people call this shadow work because you're working in the shadows. Is it easy? No, you're going to cry, you're going to laugh, you're going to be upset. You could do it with a buddy, if you want. It's a it's a great exercise to do with with somebody. There's worksheets and stuff in the book, but please, whoever you do it with, please make sure they're not on your forgiveness list. It could get awkward when you get to their name, and you might want to make sure that they could keep a secret, because you're going to be opening up the skeletons in your closet. So make sure it's somebody trustworthy that's not going to go to social media and start clicking away.

Agi Keramidas: 28:05

That's That's great. So thank you for the practicalities that you share. Catherine, it's always useful. Before I start concluding this fascinating conversation, I also wanted to ask, how much of what we have discussed today is relevant to self forgiveness. Is there any major difference or any major similarity that one could be and that's more of my own personal curiosity in the question.

Katharine Giovanni: 28:41

This is the first book of three. The second book in this series, which I'm actually writing, as we speak, is how to forgive yourself, right? It's such an important topic, I'm devoting a whole book about it and the process to forgive yourself, because quite often, when you are making your list of people you need to forgive, and you rate people as a number 10, many people find their own name up there, 100% so the process to forgive yourself is the same process that I advise other. Advise you to do the unforgivable people. I want you to pick apart the memories. So instead of writing a list of people you need to forgive. When it comes to yourself, you're writing a list of memories. You're writing a list of people that maybe you have hurt, that you need to they want you kind of want them to forgive you. And then I want you to pick apart the memories. I want you to pick apart whatever it was and you can forgive the table, the desk, the chair. If you can't forgive yourself, pick apart the memory the if it's a thing, if it's a Christmas dinner, pick a put you know, the plate that I have. I forgive the plate. I forgive the chair. I forgive my childhood home. I forgive the turkey in the middle. And then wait 24 hours and do it again. But, yeah, forgiving yourself. Self is, is, is hard, but as you forgive the easy memories, eventually you'll get to that hard one and you can you'll be ready to pick it apart. Is it going to make the person you're that you want forgiveness from call you? Probably not, but remember, you're your own prisoner, and you're the one beating yourself up like a prize fighter. So forgiving yourself is going to free you, and maybe someday they will forgive you. Maybe they won't, but you have to forgive yourself first before you can do any events.

Agi Keramidas: 30:36

Thank you. I'm glad I asked, because it was a very interesting point there. So thank you for that. Catherine, where do you want to direct our listeners, the mastery seeker that wants to find out more about this fascinating talk?

Katharine Giovanni: 30:55

Well, my books can be found on Amazon, and for my forgiveness book, which is the ultimate path to forgiveness, unlocking your power. That's on Amazon. And I do have the paper, book, ebook and the audiobook available, because I know not everybody wants to read. You could also go to my website where everything is and it's Catherine giovanni.com and my first name, thanks to my mother, is spelled a little bit odd, thanks, mom. And it's K, A, T, H, A, R, I N, A giovanni.com you

Agi Keramidas: 31:20

that's great. The upside from for that Catherine, I know, because I also have a difficult spell name for, you know, English speaking people, is that it's quite unique. So there is not another one. It's you can't be confused with another. I suppose the same goes with your name. There is no one. So

Katharine Giovanni: 31:48

there are few. There are a few Catherine spelled my way, that I've run into, but we are, we are rare. I mean, I could, I could start a support group.

Agi Keramidas: 32:00

That's great. Catherine, I have two final quick questions I also want to ask you, and the first one is, what does personal development mean to you?

Katharine Giovanni: 32:14

Personal development means to me, and I've been doing it for years. It means I want to be free. I have listened very respectfully to the teachers of my youth, and I listened very respectfully to my parents. And the one thing and I'm in my 60s now, and the one thing that I can tell you for sure is some of them were wrong, hello, and so personal mastery and personal development means to me is I'm finally able to hear that little bird on my shoulder, and I'm finally able to walk that road to wherever it is I'm supposed to go. And I'm now finding teachers that I identify with, and I'm finding books that I identify with, and I'm kind of teaching myself that's kind of how I've learned everything. So you're literally everything you need to know is already inside of you. You just have to move what you've learned out of the way. Don't let what you have learned get in the way of what you can learn.

Agi Keramidas: 33:18

Nicely said and hypothetically speaking, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?

Katharine Giovanni: 33:30

I think I would tell her that you are worthy. You are worthy enough to lead a life of joy. You are worthy enough to lead a life of happiness, and you are worthy enough to make your own decisions and live in love. Catherine,

Agi Keramidas: 33:44

I want to thank you so much for this insightful conversation, and of course, to wish you the very best with your mission continuing what you're doing. I will leave it to you for your parting words or some actionable wisdom for the listeners.

Katharine Giovanni: 34:06

I just want people to know that there is hope for humanity. There really is. And if we could all forgive, even the easy ones, where let's just ignore the unforgivable, because we all have it, and you could forgive anything. You can forgive politicians. Dare I say you could forgive the war in the Middle East. Not going to do anything for the war in the Middle East, but it's going to do a lot for us. And the more we forgive, the better our world is going to be. So I would encourage everybody, even if you don't have anybody, to forgive. Just say, I completely forgive myself for not being able to forgive. And the energy around this thought, say it three times a night for the next week, and magic will happen. Forgiveness really, really is a magic. It's kind of like a superpower, and your life is going to change.

Agi Keramidas: 34:57

You. I hope you have found this episode enlightening, and I ask for one simple, quick favor, if you like this podcast, think of someone else you know who might find it useful and share it with them by doing so you'll not only help the podcast grow, but also add value to people you care about. So thank you. And until next time, stand out, don't fit in.