240. How To Forgive The Unforgiveable with Katharine Giovanni

This episode is for you if you want some profound new insights into the transformative power in forgiveness.

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Today we’re talking to Katharine Giovanni, a three-time award-winning best-selling author, speaker, and one of the original founders of the independent concierge industry. Katharine has authored over twelve books, including her latest release, ‘The Ultimate Path to Forgiveness: Unlocking Your Power.’ Katharine’s journey, from battling stage 3 breast cancer to navigating a challenging childhood, has given her profound insights about resilience and forgiveness. Join us as Katharine shares these invaluable lessons and explores the transformative power of forgiveness. Get ready for a conversation brimming with inspiration and empowerment!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hello, hello, beautiful souls. Welcome, welcome. This episode is for you if you want some profound news insights into the transformative power in forgiveness.

If you have trouble forgiving someone, this is for you. And for that I have today’s expert with me Katharine Giovanni, a forgiveness coach, three time award winning bestselling author of 12 books, and she is also a dynamic speaker, trainer, and advisor. Isn’t that amazing?

Welcome to the show, Katharine.

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

Okay, I’m diving straight in with the tough question, Katharine, is it even possible to forgive the unforgivable?

Maybe. Everybody who’s listening and watching your show right now, 10 out of 10, and probably you as well, on a 10 scale with 10 being unforgivable dumpster fire and one being super easy, everybody’s thinking of their number 10, everybody. And you probably don’t want to forgive that person.

And you know, that’s fair. It may not even be appropriate to forgive that person. And you don’t have to forgive that person.

And I’m the only one that’s going to tell you that. And why? Because you’ve got all the people you’ve rated one to nine to forgive first, before you even get to that dumpster fire.

So it’s possible. Now, everybody tells you, you have to forgive. Nobody teaches you how.

And then they go on to say, well, you need to forgive and then forget. No, not going to happen. I don’t know one person who can forget.

There might be one unicorn person on the planet somewhere that can magically forget these things. I, however, I’m not one of them. So with my method, you’re not going to forget, but you’ll neutralize the memory using my method.

You won’t think great thoughts. You won’t think bad thoughts. Forgiveness to me, the definition of forgiveness merely means I want you out of my head.

Bottom line, I want you out of my head. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want the memory there.

I want you out of my head. That’s really what my definition is.

I like that definition. It’s something different. And it’s so true, because what’s what’s on our thought is going to trigger our emotions and in turn lead to different actions after, right?

Right. Yeah. With forgiveness, there’s a couple of there’s a couple of principles with forgiveness.

Forgiving somebody doesn’t mean they were correct. They weren’t, they’re still going to be wrong. Forgiveness means I want you out of my head.

Forgiveness, if I forgive you, it doesn’t necessarily mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don’t. And that’s fine.

Now I’ve been sober for 34 years. And part of recovery, this was dinosaurs were roaming back then, but they do tell you, you need to forgive and you need to make amends and you need to reach out to these people. Okay.

Um, I really have a problem with that because I was actually kind of shy growing up. So I didn’t really want to reach out to anybody. And if you’re reaching out to somebody, you need, you need to forgive.

It may not even be appropriate to reach out to this person. So my method is you can do it in the privacy of your own home and nobody has to know. And I want you to take your, I want you to sit down with a pen and paper and here’s the meat and potatoes of it.

I want you to sit down with a piece of paper and just write down the people, places, and things. I did say places and things stay with me of people you think you need to forgive. And then I want you to rate them from one to 10 and you might have three number threes and five number fives.

It doesn’t matter to me, just rate them. And then I want you to start with the number ones, the person in the grocery store that cuts you off on aisle four, you can forgive that person. The kid in grammar school who cheated off your paper, you can forgive that person.

The person that cuts you off on I-95 South, you can forgive that person. And as you forgive people, you’re going to start to feel better. You’re going to start to feel lighter.

You’re going to start to pay attention to things that are not having to do with these horrible memories. And it’s going to start to make a difference. And then the piece that nobody really knows about is Einstein proved that energy is neither created nor destroyed.

It just changes form and everything on the planet has energy. When you get mad, what do we all think? It leaves my mouth and it magically dissipates in the universe.

It does not. It hangs around your energy field and it will stay there until you clear it. So when you forgive people, the reason they have a nasty habit of not staying forgiven, unless it’s in Martha and you have to go have Thanksgiving with her every year, is because you didn’t forgive the energy around the person.

So you forgive the person, the energy around the person, yourself, the energy around yourself, and then the energy around the entire thing.

That is something different than what we’re used to be taught as we grew up. It’s a lot deeper than just the surface. Oh, I’m sorry.

Or, oh, I forgive you. It’s a lot deeper than that.

Because sometimes if you just say, I’m sorry, and I forgive you, you really don’t. Yeah. Because you really don’t.

You go back to your car and you just you’re steaming. And then of course, you want the person you’re angry at to be as angry as you are. But they’re not, are they?

They’re going about their life. They’re going out to dinner and they’re going to work. And you’re the one who’s miserable.

You’re the one who’s sitting there stewing. And your friend’s circle has probably gone down to zero because who wants to be around you? Because you’re angry and you’re talking about it all the time.

And that’s the problem. But if you sit down and you start forgiving the easy ones, it’s going to be easier in your life. For anybody listening, I’m about to hold an opaque cup in front of my face.

When you’re first angry, it’s easy to keep the anger off to the side. But as you keep that anger, look at my body language. Okay.

You and I can still have a conversation, but it’s a little bit more hard because it’s starting to take my life over. So it’s starting to come into my conversation. Now I’m holding the cup in front of my face.

Now look at my body language. My arms are engaged. I can’t see you.

We can’t engage. So what forgiveness does, especially my method, it’s going to allow you to put your little glass of anger down. Now look at my body language.

I might see a job opportunity. I might see a brand new client come into my business. I’ve been a serial entrepreneur for years.

And why didn’t I notice it before? Because I was paying attention to the anger. Imagine that client you just had that just dissed you and you lost the job.

Forgive that client. Forgiving clients and people will actually raise your bottom line. Why?

Because you’re going to start to pay attention. You’re going to pay attention to opportunities. You’re going to pay attention to all sorts of things.

And you’re probably going to get compliments. You’re going to say, Lucy, you’ve done something with your hair. Something about you is different.

Well, you can tell them or not, depending upon you, but sure, your energy is different. You’re not as angry anymore. So you feel better too.

Yeah.

It’s really a powerful, powerful thing.

Yeah. I hear that a lot though. One of the things I’ve heard before is this, I’ve forgiven, but I’m still angry.

Right?

Obviously we want to.

How do we get rid of that anger? How do we get, how do we get rid of that energy that’s still there?

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

So what you’re going to do, let’s say you’re trying to forgive somebody who you’ve rated a level eight, right? And, or let’s, let’s just dive into the tens. Tens are tough.

You’re not going to get a 10 unforgivable dumpster fire down to a one in one sitting. Ain’t going to happen. It’s just not going to happen.

But you can pick apart that memory. You can start by saying, I forgive myself for not being able to forgive. Start there.

That’s going to move a little energy. Let’s say you need to forgive a bully from childhood, like I did actually. And every day you drive to work.

And when you get to that one red light, your old school is right on the corner and you see it and you see the playground. And all of a sudden that movie’s playing in your head and you’re remembering what happened in the playground and how the bullies really bullied you. So by the time you get to your office, you’re kind of pissed off.

You’re kind of in a really bad mood. So how do you get rid of it? Okay.

I want you to go into that memory. And remember Einstein also said that everything has energy around it, even the inanimate object. So what I’ll tell you to do is forgive other pieces of the memory, forgive the school, forgive the kids who didn’t help you, forgive the playground, forgive the desk, the table, the chair, forgive yourself.

And as you forgive that, the memory is going to lighten up. So the 10 might get down to a nine. So then you wait 24 or 48 hours and you do it again.

It’s like an onion and you’re slowly peeling back layers of the onion. And as you peel back those layers, sadly more memories will pop up, but you forgive that layer as they come. And eventually you can get the 10 down to a seven all the way down to a, to a believable two or three, and then you can probably toss it.

But in the meantime, you’ve managed to lighten up your life. You’ve faced that brick wall. And instead of trying to power through it, you’ve walked around the brick wall and you forgive what you can and circle back later.

I think that’s a great reminder that everything we want in life pretty much takes time, but it’s your determination, your decision to make it happen. Right. And then the belief that it will happen.

And this goes with so many areas of our life.

My question now is, is there a certain set stage in forgiveness?

Oh, like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief?

Yeah, there is. Instead of stages, I call them the numbers.

They’re level tens down to a five down to a one. And you might start out and think, oh, well, this person is a three. And after you do my little mantra, and it’s a very simple little poem, there’s nothing to burn.

There’s no, there’s nothing. It’s just a very simple little poem. And you might think, well, I’m still kind of angry at this person.

So maybe that three was actually a six. So in, in my method, I want you to rate all of these people and everything is correct there. You can’t, you can’t mess this up.

It’s not possible. As long as you start with your number ones and you move through it and you know, you’re not going to forgive your tens right away. And you’re probably still going to be angry, which is actually why I want you to start with the easy ones, because that’s going to make you’re going to start to feel better.

Coffee will smell better, food will taste better, because you’re not living in the past anymore. It’s very hard to be your authentic self to a faith through a haze of anger and resentment and bitterness. So by forgiving people, you’re finally going to be the authentic person and you are meant to be when you came to this planet, you’re finally going to be able to walk that golden path.

Beautifully said.

For someone who’s listening. I always say, remember that you have to forgive yourself as well for holding on to these anger in the past, right? For what you have gone through that you weren’t able to let go at the time.

That’s really an essential part of forgiveness as well. Would you agree with me?

I a hundred percent agree with you. Um, this is the first book of three and the second book is probably going to focus on number tens and how to forgive yourself. And if you having trouble forgiving yourself, I want you to pick it or your, I want you to pick it apart.

Like you would a number 10, you’re going to have a whole bunch of memories. It may be one memory. It might be 10 memories that you’re, you’re beating yourself up about, but I want you to pick the memory apart and forgive other things within that memory.

If it’s something from work, you can forgive your boss. You can forgive the people who didn’t help you. You can forgive the table, the chair, the building and the energy around all of these things.

And that’s going to lighten it up. And you’re not going to be as angry anymore. Forgive yourself for not being able to forgive yourself.

Start there. Just start with that simple. I forgive myself for not being able to forgive myself and the energy around this.

Just start there. And that’s going to loosen up the energy a little bit. And then you can make, you know, you could write a list of things that you’re beating yourself up for, rate them from one to 10 and just go through it.

Starting with the number ones. This is a process. This is not a quick fix.

This is going to take you some time, but it’s 100% worth it because the more I’m an entrepreneur from way back from 95, when dinosaurs round, and I’ve been, I’ve been doing this a long time. And when I first discovered this method, I started to forgive people and my business bottom line went up. I started to get more clients.

And I thought I’m a college educated girl. Why is forgiving somebody in my personal life affecting my business bottom line? The two shouldn’t be, there should be no similarity yet.

There it was fact. One was absolutely affecting the other. So this will help your personal life, your relationships, and it will help your business.

Oh yeah. When we change the business of our life, we change the life of our business. That is like one of the best lines I’ve heard.

Yeah.

Everything changes. And don’t be surprised if people leave your life because they will. Jim Rohn said, you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.

So who are you spending time with? And as you get more positive and you get more loving and you get lighter and lighter and more optimistic, the negative Nellies in your life are going to go, what’s she up to? And they may either leave your life or try to sabotage it.

Don’t be surprised. Just spend your time with people who are brighter, happy, optimistic people, which is what I try and do. I try and spend my time with people better than me.

And it’s, if it’s family, it’s going to be very hard. If you’re living with your number 10, I think we can both agree. Please move to another location.

If you’re living with your number 10, if you can’t move well, then try and spend time with people who are not number 10.

Yeah, that is so true. One other thing that I hear a lot when it comes to being hard to forgive someone else is that having to admit that you are wrong. Sometimes when we feel like, oh, if I forgive this person, that means they were right.

And I am wrong. How do you shift your mindset on that?

I’m not a very religious person, but there is one. I went to a very weird school and I had to memorize Bible verses when I was a kid. And one of them has always gotten me to forgiveness.

And it’s how I forgave my parents. And it’s how I forgave myself. Jesus is nailed up on the cross, probably in a lot of pain between you and me.

I mean, that’s painful. And he said, forgive them, father. They know not what they do.

Meaning if I’m talking to a five-year-old and they don’t know trigonometry, I can’t get angry at that because they haven’t learned it yet. My parents did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. Was it good enough?

No, but they did their best. And I can forgive that with a little Simone Biles level of mental gymnastics. I can get myself to forgive my parents.

And when it comes to myself, you need to forgive yourself for becoming the person you needed to be in order to survive. Today is a brand new day. You woke up and it’s a brand new person.

And the person you were yesterday, you needed to be that person so you could survive. You can forgive that person. They did the best they could with the tools they had at the time.

Forgive that person. And when you’re dealing with stuff like that, it really doesn’t matter who was wrong and who was right. It’s in the past and the past can’t really hurt you anymore.

So forgive that person, whatever happened, forgive that person. They did the best they could.

Okay. So with your experience and clients, what are some other reasons you’ve seen why people can’t forgive someone else?

They don’t want to.

That’s the number one. They enjoy being angry.

And the number one reason is change is very scary. And if I lose my story, who am I going to be? I’m a survivor.

I survived this horrible thing and I’m telling the story and I’m writing about it and talking about it. It’s my identity. It’s my armor.

It brings me strength. The hate and the anger, it fuels my fire. It’s how I get going in the morning.

And if I lose all of that, well, that’s very scary, isn’t it? Who are you going to be? But imagine if you’ve gotten as far as you have using anger as fuel, imagine how much farther you could go if you toss the anger and you use the love instead.

You’ll get twice as far, twice as fast if you actually allow yourself to let go of all of that.

That is so good. And the victim mentality is so dangerous.

Yeah. And you have made money and you are doing well, but you could do twice as well and do twice as much and attract three times as many people if you lose that. And you could still tell the stories.

You can tell, I was here. This is what I did. I do it myself.

I’ve gone through a lot in my life. But it’s a question if you do it from a place of love as opposed to a place of anger. It’s a completely different breed of cat.

That is powerful right there. So what was your story, Catherine? How did you get into, I mean, you talked about it a little bit, right?

In your business, it helped your bottom line. How about your personal life? Was it something you talked about your parents a little bit after forgiving them?

How did it change your life?

Well, I think the flashpoint in my life was when my mother died and I was raised by two alcoholics. And about three years before she died, she 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 and she went to rehab and we had three beautiful years together. And then she died. She died of breast cancer.

And I knew that if I didn’t clean my act up, I was going to die too. So I quit drinking. I’ve been sober for 34 years.

And in the rooms and AA, they teach you about forgiveness and you have to make amends and do a fourth step and all of these things, but they don’t really teach you how, but I was giving it lip service and just robotically saying, oh yeah, I forgive them. No, I wasn’t. But I’m going to say it anyways, because that’s what you want me to say.

And I kind of floated through life and I finally figured out forgiveness. And I am a concierge trainer by trade. And very early in the concierge industry, the independent concierge industry, I started doing workshops, teaching people customer service and how to become a concierge.

But I can’t teach you to be warm, friendly and approachable and offer five-star customer service. If you’re angry inside, because the anger is going to bleed through your body language, whether you want it to or not. So I had to come up with a method and anybody who’s my age knows that back in the 1990s, you didn’t bring a soft topic to a workshop.

It wasn’t done. Well, yeah, I’m crazy. I did it because I needed to get rid of their anger.

And that’s actually how it all started. I was trying to get these concierge who often couldn’t even leave their desk to lose their anger at somebody at a client or guest who comes in front of them, piss them off. Okay, well, you’ve got another guest standing behind.

How do I lose that anger? How do I move forward fast? And that’s how I came up with a lot of the forgiveness methods I use today.

But I’m retired from that industry. So yeah, now I’m just doing this.

Amazing. Okay. So for someone listening, if they’re holding on to some grudge inside of them still, what are your top tips for them right now?

My top tip is to sit down and on a piece of paper, write down, you can try 10 at a time, the top 10 people you think you need to forgive. And then I want you to rate them. I’m very serious about this.

I want you to rate them from one to 10. And whoever you’re thinking of that unforgivable, I’m bitter. It’s my ex-partner.

I’m never going to forgive that person. They’re a 10, write them down and work on them last. Do the work before you go to bed because your body heals itself as you sleep and try and only do 10 at a time.

So because it’s going to be easier on your body and start with the people you label a one, two, and three. And after you do the mantra that I have in the book, and I’ve worked sheeps and all that kind of stuff in there, check in with your body and see if you’re still angry. And if you’re still angry, don’t put a check by their name, wait 24 hours and do it again.

And if you really can’t forgive the person and you’re really thinking, I don’t want to forgive the person and just forgive the energy and nothing else. Forgive yourself and the energy, and then try again in 24 hours. This is a process and it is like an onion.

And even if you don’t think it worked, it did work. I guarantee you it worked. You just forgave the first layer.

So you’re not going to feel a big shift, especially if you’re dealing with the higher number of people. You can do this and women, you’re worthy. Men don’t have this problem, but women have this irritating, I’m not worthy bug in their head.

And I’m here to tell you, and I know Lucy’s going to tell you too, you are worthy. You can do this. You deserve a life of joy and happiness.

It’s your birthright.

So good. Beautifully said. In any days when you need an uplift, is there a favorite quote that you go by in life, Katharine?

I, a favorite quote of mine, you know, I actually love that, that Jim Rohn quote. You’re the, some of the five people you spend the most time with. And that that’s one of my favorites.

And there’s another favorite of mine, which I think is Benjamin Franklin. And as an entrepreneur, it’s one of my favorites ever. I haven’t tried 1000 ways to make the light bulb work.

I’ve successfully discovered 999 ways that don’t. So I love, I love that quote. Just keep trying, you know, absolutely.

So good. Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about your book.

What is the, you have 12. So we’re just going to go with the latest title.

It’s the ultimate path to forgiveness, unlocking your power. You can find it on Amazon. And I do understand that a lot of people don’t like to read.

So the audio book is available as well as the paperback and the ebook. And you can also find me at Katharine Giovanni.com and Catherine, thanks to my mother is spelled a little bit odd. It’s K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E.

Thanks mom. Giovanni.com. I love it.

I love it. Well, thank you.

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