How To Forgive Yourself: My 4-Step Process

What if the reason you’re stuck in fear, self-doubt, and negative thought spirals isn’t because you’re “broken”…
but because there’s something you haven’t forgiven yet?

In today’s episode, I’m sharing a powerful pattern I notice in all my clients and it led us straight to one root cause I’ve seen over and over again in my 10+ years of personal development and 5 years of coaching:

👉 You can’t become the observer of your thoughts until you forgive yourself first.

This episode dives deep into the connection between fear-based thinking, self-criticism, guilt, shame, and forgiveness - and why forgiveness is the missing link to emotional freedom, clarity, and faith-based thinking.

If you feel trapped in your own mind, replaying past mistakes, projecting old pain into future scenarios, or living under the weight of guilt and self-judgment… this episode is for you.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why fear-based thinking keeps repeating until forgiveness happens
• The difference between living in a mental cage vs. a mental garden
• How guilt and shame quietly turn behaviors into identity (“I messed up” vs. “I am bad”)
• Why you can’t outwork self-hatred or think your way out of it
• The real reason your inner critic keeps bringing up past mistakes
• How unforgiven moments block presence, peace, and self-trust
• The connection between forgiveness and emotional intelligence
• Why forgiving yourself naturally leads to forgiving others
• A powerful reframe for guilt: behavior vs. identity
• The 4-step forgiveness process you can use 
• How past versions of you deserve compassion, not punishment
• Personal stories I’ve never fully shared before—including quitting tennis, identity loss, and healing old shame
• Why forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation—and how boundaries still matter
• How releasing the past frees your future creativity, confidence, and faith

This episode is an invitation to stop punishing yourself for who you were…
so you can finally live as who you’re becoming.

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Kati Lillian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that, because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you'll never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. I wanted to start off this episode with telling you about my walk. I, was on a walk and I love pairing my walks with responding to voice notes or if I don't have any client voice notes. Then I'm listening to podcasts, whatever, and today I responded to two client voice notes and both of them had a lot of similarities. It was about living in fear. So one, and obviously not to give too many details, but one was essentially feeling guilty for speaking up for herself. Um, she also felt a lot of shame about motherhood. My other client was talking about how. Uh, there was a certain past event that had happened to her, and so she's taking that past event and projecting it onto future scenarios that haven't happened yet. Basically, her doomsday scenario, and so she also is living in fear, and since I've started. Business coaching, and I mean, I've been doing this now for five years. That is probably the number one thing that I help my clients with is removing or at least reducing and lessening the fearful thoughts. And shifting it more into this faith focused thought process. And I'm 10 years into my personal development journey. I'm five years into coaching, and so I feel like I have mastered the skill, but. To communicate this and to help my clients. It's a whole nother ball game because I can say it all day long until I'm blue in the face, but unless you believe the words that are coming outta my mouth, and two, actually apply it to yourself and heal yourself. You will never live in a place of thoughts being more faith-based versus fear-based. A lot of our minds are you think of like a cage versus a garden. Oh, funny enough, if you're watching on YouTube, I have this painting here behind me. I got it like TJ Maxx or something, but it's this woman and her brain, her head is a garden. And so it's this idea of like always thinking about the higher self thoughts and the dream, and the vision and the love, and you know, really having hope for. Our world and finding so much beauty and gratitude in it. And if you don't live there'cause because again, we're human please. Like I have my negative thoughts, I have my days, but I do quickly pull myself out of it. I do have to say my, um, my foundation is normally living in a faith-based. Reality and it's so much fun. So one of my clients also mentioned that I live in La la Land. I'm like, amazing. What's the alternative? You know? So anyways, I want to devote this episode to tackling this idea of. Forgiveness because that was true in my journey when I didn't know, well, what's a negative thought and what's a positive thought and how do I switch and right. Like that's really hard to do at the beginning of your journey because you don't know anything different from your thoughts. Unless again, you work with a coach and you start to understand how to dissect them and be the observer of your thoughts, you know, that kind of thing. But it starts on an emotional level. And what I have, what I have drilled it down to, and um, Burt was actually just talking about this too, I need to look it up. He said there was someone talking about this as well, but um. You cannot become the observer of your thoughts until you have forgiven first yourself. And then it's kind of like a nice byproduct of that forgiveness. Then you also forgive others. So you have to start with forgiving yourself so that you can forgive others. But all of that is forgiveness under the same umbrella. And once you. Figure that out. And once you forgive, then you can really become the observer of your thoughts. And when you become the observer of your thoughts, then everything I say makes sense. Because now you can pick and choose which thoughts you actually want to listen to, and no one's going to want to pick a thought that says, you're dumb, you're stupid, you're not good enough. Right? Everyone will notice like, Ooh, that doesn't feel good. So let me go over here and pick this other thought that is more empowering and uplifting. So if you haven't forgiven yourself, the way to describe that experience is this self hatred. The, the self-loathing, right? Like that is kind of in the way of you living your best life and, and having peace and presence and becoming the version that you want to become. And it's simply because that self-hatred has. Basically, I've been piling on for years. If you haven't done the work to heal and forgive, so it keeps getting in the way and it will continue getting in the way in the future. You can't outwork self-hatred, right? It'll always be there. It'll always come back. And so again, when I talk about like your inner critic, that inner critic is constantly reminding you essentially of past fuckups. Of past guilt, past shame, right? Whatever was super heavy for you. If you have not forgiven yourself for it, well that shit's gonna stay there and you cannot observe your thoughts. So with guilt, as like a subset of this guilt is simply put, like you did something that was out of alignment with your morals, your values, your belief system, in that moment. Right. You acted or said something that was out of alignment and the way I do that now, so again, I'm human, I am responsible, and I, and I'm accountable to that action or to what I said. So I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm messed up like I own it. But then I also know, well, I'm not gonna do that again.'cause I didn't feel very good, right? I didn't like how I acted in that situation. And so, because I'm not gonna do that again, I'm going to change what I'm going to do in the future. Now recognize that that is simply a behavior change that I'm going to make. But what happens, and this is what happens with a lot of people that I work with, they're starting with this guilt and shame almost from a place of like identity or a life sentence. So instead of thinking like, I messed up, I don't wanna do that again. So I'll change. It's more of like, oh shit, I messed up and now insert the identity. I'm a bad mom. Or coaches, I launched this thing. No one signed up. I'm a bad coach. I suck at entrepreneurship. I. Haven't made any money, so I suck. And that's a really dangerous place to be in because now what could be simply just a behavior change is your identity, and once it's your identity, that shit is really, really hard to unravel and re-identify by yourself. I've always had someone catch me and tell me, that's super limiting, or you don't have to, you know, beat yourself up over it because it feels normal to me, and they had to point it out. I'm like, oh, I didn't even know I was doing that. Right. So. Again, behavior like you can have a bad day. You can yell at your kids. You can feel like you had a shitty client call. You didn't post, you didn't do any outreach. Whatever it is, you are a bitch to your partner, right? But you can still be a good human. You can still be a good mom, you can still be a good coach. You can still be a good business owner. It doesn't have to mean something about your identity. It could just be a behavior that, ah, you know, I wasn't feeling good today, so I'm gonna change it tomorrow. Or I'm gonna go out for a walk and make myself feel better. I'm gonna go drink some water. I'm gonna go treat myself to an nice iced coffee. I'm gonna go have a dance party in my living room. Whatever, change your state. So that you can change the behavior. But that's all it is. It's a behavior. And so I want you to know, and, and maybe there are some memories coming up for you of what did you take really, really hard on yourself and where did you act out of alignment with your values and morals and belief system? And are you still holding that today? And if you are, I have a four step process for you, and then we can unpack it and you can treat this like a workshop or a journaling workshop, if you will. And then I'll give you some examples of what I had to forgive myself for and others. So, um, I guess I should say more like the overarching theme. In terms of how to forgive yourself, number one, you take AC accountability. Two, you learn the lesson, and then three, you release yourself from this past experience, this past version of you because now you know better. Once you know better, you can do better, and we move on. So how to forgive yourself. Take accountability. Yeah, I fucked up. Yeah, I was a bitch. Yeah. I said this. Yeah. I yelled, I said something really nasty to you. I whatever, take accountability. But now you learned like, Ooh, I don't wanna respond that way. Or, Ooh, you know what? Instead of in the heat of the moment, I'm actually going to ask you that. We talk about this behind closed doors once the kids are asleep and then you release yourself from the past. You don't have to hold it as baggage anymore. So the four step process so that you have tangible tips and you can actually apply action to this. Number one, name it. So guilt, shame, regret that all loves to live in the darkness, in the invisible, and the more you shine a highlight. Highlight, the more you shine a flashlight on it and you say, no, this is what it was because you wrote it down in a journal. Or maybe you even say it out loud. I personally love journaling, so I would write it down in a journal. What. What happened, right? Just name the experience. So I really messed that friendship up because I did X, Y, and Z, or I really messed up that consultation call because I did X, Y, and Z. Or I can't believe I quit something in the past, but I did. Like we have to bring it up to the surface, and this is probably the hardest part, right? Step one is because we don't want to own up to it. It's really painful, right? It's really maybe embarrassing or again, the guilt and the shame around it, but we have to name it. So write it down in a journal. See the words, feel the emotion. Obviously do this in private, do it in a safe space, but we need to shine a light on it. Number two, radical responsibility. So if you haven't written it down already, where did you mess up? What did you do? How did you fuck up? It's simple. Just what was the issue? Number three, learn a lesson. So something that's really, really powerful. A good question for you to ask if this situation happened today. How would I respond differently? That shows growth. That shows, okay, we've acknowledged the situation, we acknowledge the guilt and the shame around it, but now I'm a different person. I'm a different version of myself, and so if I can already foresee a new version of myself actually handling a situation that's similar to this differently, I'm gonna feel so much more confident and empowered and healed. Right now my brain has proof and evidence like, oh, okay, like we trust that you'll be fine next time if and when. So that's a really powerful part. And then number four, create closure. So you could write your past self a letter, and the way I want you to do this is by. It's a past self, so it is a younger self. But when you think of a younger self, I want you to think of almost like to a child, right? Like Dear Katia, and then you're talking to her as if she were your child, your younger self. And that lens, that perspective is really important because you wanna be soft, you wanna be gracious, you wanna be compassionate. With your words when you write this letter, and again, whatever emotions come up, let them come up. And then I want you to celebrate and I want you to blast the music and I want you to have a dance party to celebrate that you have now forgiven yourself. So examples for you. I did this at the Tony Robbins seminar, and this was 10 years ago. I was 24, do the math, and, and there were 10,000 people at this unleashed the power within. And, um, he made us go in the past and he made us reflect on past decisions and past hurt and past pain, and again, any guilt, any shame that we were holding. And I didn't know what I was holding until that seminar where I was like, oh my gosh. So example number one, I quit tennis. I played tennis in high school and I was really good at it. I made it varsity freshman year. I was team captain. Senior year. I went to play junior college for two years and I quit after my sophomore year because part of me didn't feel like I was good enough to then, you know, head to like the big leagues, which would be, um, CSU or uc or whatever. And then. I, um, I also had this belief in my head that it's time to get a real job now. You know, like tennis was cute and fun and it was a hobby, but you could never make money from this, and so you need to go get a real job. That was my thought process. So I quit and that was really, really hard for me because I loved tennis and of course my identity was wrapped up in it, right? Like athlete and all that stuff. And, um. Yeah, that junior year was probably really hard for me. The hardest year for me in college, because everyone talks about the freshman 15. But mine was like the junior 15 because I did gain 15 pounds and I developed binge eating and I lived with roommates that were just cruel to me. And I mean, I wasn't the best either, let's be honest, but you know what I mean. It was just like a toxic living situation. And then at the very end, two of the roommates took me to small claims court'cause I was trying to break the lease early, but. There were lots of reasons why I was trying, trying to break the lease early and it just got really bad and I don't actually don't think I've ever shared that before on the podcast, like in that detail, but it's true. And two years later I had to forgive. That version of Katya quitting tennis. I think I helped a, I held a lot of guilt and regret, and then also shame around it. And shame was. Why I started binge eating, and it wasn't until I actually forgave myself and looked at it like you did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time. You didn't know any better, and you also didn't have anyone that mentored you and told you like, Hey, you're really good, like you have a chance at this. I think the only person that had that conversation with me was Bert. My husband and I just have so much love for that younger version of myself because she didn't know any better, you know, and, and I just also have so much love and compassion for her because she also just didn't have anyone in her circle that was really looking out for her success in that way. Of course, everyone was well-intentioned, but they didn't know either that. Perhaps she could go much further than she did. And so that was something huge in my college days that I had to forgive myself for. Um, I, because I forgave myself, I told you at the beginning of this podcast episode that once you forgive yourself, it's much more easy. It's easier to forgive others around you. And so that was like a very natural, um, byproduct of forgiving myself. I had to forgive my parents and for the longest time, I pointed the finger at them when I quit tennis because I was like, well, why didn't you like, why didn't you mentor me? Why didn't you tell me that I should continue? Why? Did you not show up to all my games? Why didn't you support me more? Why did you tell me it was just a hobby and that I can't make money from it? Why did you tell me to go get a real job? And that was also really hard for me. But then once I forgive myself, you can realize that other people are just almost like little kids running around in adult bodies as well. And I had to see my dad as a. Sorry if you, you're my daughter. I had to see my dad as a little boy. I had to see my mom as a little girl, and I had to put myself in their shoes when they were that young, and I had to feel their fear and I had to feel, feel what they were going through when, you know. Um, my, my dad's dad left him when he was six years old, and my mom's dad died when she was also around that age, I think 11. And so just imagine like that household that you're growing up in and the trauma that you've never unpacked, because emotional intelligence and talking about your feelings was not a thing back in the sixties. So yeah, I, you know, you have so much love and compassion for yourself, and therefore you can see. Those that hurt you perhaps in a different light. And also understand they've got their issues too. They have battles that they are facing too. They have also been hurt and rejected too. And so none of this is anyone's fault. It's just truly a projection of hurt. And so if I can give them forgiveness, well that's not taking away. What they did, especially if it's a really bad situation, obviously context matters. It doesn't take away that, that what they did, and it doesn't make it okay by any means, but it gives me so much peace then, then I can move on. Right? Like just recently too. Um. Two of my best friends, we don't talk anymore, and there was some stuff that happened and I forgave myself and I forgiven them, but I also don't want to have friendships with them anymore. It's kind of like the forgive, don't forget phrase. So you can forgive, but then you also can see their true colors and you can, you can, you know, see the action that they took or remember it or whatever. Again, it depends on the context and the nature of the situation, but, um, you get to move on when you forgive and move on with your story and your life and your dreams and your desires. That doesn't make the the person that you forgave, right? It just means that you've forgiven them and now we can move on and you can remain and keep your distance if that feels good for you, and that's what you want. So I really hope those examples help. Um, I'm sure there's so many more that I can think of, but those were the top two that came up for me. And, um, yeah, just always know that this is a safe space for you, this podcast. And my dms are always open on Instagram, but that is the first thing to do and I invite you, and I empower you to take some time this weekend, maybe block it out in your calendar on Saturday morning with coffee, whatever you gotta do. And. Go through this four step process. If there is something that's coming up for you that you're like, wow, I need to, I need to forgive myself for, and then, um, just see how healing that is and see if that can help your thoughts a little bit more, and you become the observer of those thoughts. So that's what I got for you this week. If anything about this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor. Take a screenshot of this podcast and post it on your stories and tag me at Katya Lillian. I would love to connect with you. So thank you in advance and I appreciate you. Until next time, no.