Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Forgiveness: The Power of Letting Go
Catherine Giovanni shares her powerful forgiveness system that transforms mental health by releasing people from our thoughts and reclaiming our authentic power. She teaches the step-by-step process of forgiveness, explaining how to start with easy forgiveness targets before tackling the most challenging ones.
• Forgiveness defined as "wanting someone out of your head," not reconciliation or condoning behavior
• The link between forgiveness and business success—clearing personal resentments directly impacts professional opportunities
• How to rate forgiveness targets on a 1-10 scale and work systematically through them
• Forgiving the energy around people and situations, not just the people themselves
• Breaking down "unforgivable" memories into components you can forgive individually
• Why forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting or resuming relationships with harmful people
• The science of anger as "toxic" to physical health through the Japanese Water Study findings
• Limiting forgiveness work to 10 people per night to avoid "energy sickness"
• How forgiveness attracts better people while some relationships naturally fall away
You can find Catherine's book "The Ultimate Path to Forgiveness: Unlocking Your Power" on Amazon in ebook, paperback, and audiobook formats. Visit katherinegovani.com for private sessions and join her newsletter "The Thriving Times" to learn about her upcoming forgiveness books.
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
All right, Welcome to another episode of Playing Engine. We have a three-time award-winning best-selling author of 12 books, an international speaker, transformation and forgiveness coach, Catherine Giovanni. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So I always love kicking the show off with who is Catherine and how does she spend her time today.
Speaker 2:I'm a forgiveness coach, and the fact that I can call myself a forgiveness coach probably implies that the universe has given me entirely too many things to forgive. So yeah, you know, I am a, I, I am a, I am a teacher. At this point, if you want, the really one word answer is I'm a teacher. That's really what it boils down to.
Speaker 1:You know it is something you know. We all need to forgive, we all do Right, we all have certain things that we need to give. I've never heard of somebody who wants to teach people how to forgive right, but I think so many of us are either stubborn, we don't know how we don't need, we don't know that we need to right, we're not aware of it, and so it's so many things that I feel like you can show folks about forgiveness when it comes to healing and it comes to growing, and so I guess I want to understand from you first of all, how did you even get into this work of forgiveness? How did this happen for you?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, you're absolutely spot on right. Everybody teaches you, everybody teaches you.
Speaker 2:You have to forgive your parents, your pastor you have to forgive your parents, your pastor, your teachers, Okay, how, they just say to do it. Nobody tells us how. And then what? If you don't want to, then what do you do? What if it's unforgivable? So, on a 10 scale, with 10 being unforgivable dumpster fire and one being the easiest person to forgive, Everybody's thinking of their number 10 person, and that's why nobody wants to do it, Because you're thinking of that one person that hurt you the most. It's totally fair and in my world you don't have to forgive your number 10 people. Why? Because there's a lot of people, places and things I did say places and things, Please don't click off that you can forgive before you even get to that person. So how did I get here?
Speaker 2:Well, in the eighth grade my parents were very pickled, meaning they were raging alcoholics, and I was terribly bullied in school because I was different. So in the eighth grade I tried to commit suicide and a friend of mine pulled me out and I just spent the next decade kind of floating through life, kind of like you know, like you're floating in water, just kind of drifting. And you know those teenagers I'm talking about, we all know them. And then one day 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 and we sent her to rehab and we spent the next three years closer than close, closer than sisters. We practically finished each other's sentences and we forgave each other. And then she died of breast cancer, which I eventually got it in 2012. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I didn't change what I was doing, I was going to die. I knew it in my gut, so I quit drinking. It was the only New Year's resolution your girl here ever kept.
Speaker 2:I've been sober 35 years and when you go into the rooms, you're told to make amends, You're told to forgive. Okay, you're just throwing the word at me. I was shy. I'm an extrovert and introvert now because I taught myself but I was really shy and remember we didn't have technology. So you had two choices. If I could text those people, I would have done it in a heartbeat, but I couldn't do that. You could either call and risk getting yelled at, or you had to see them in person and get yelled at. So who wants that? So I quietly forgave people all alone in my apartment.
Speaker 2:I was in New York City at the time and I accidentally stumbled on to my forgiveness system the first part of it and from there it just kind of took hold, because the more people I forgave, the better I felt and the more people I forgave I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've had a lot of businesses and the more people I forgave of my personal life, the more money I made. I went to college and back then this is like 20, 30 years ago I thought there should be no correlation. Forgiving people and cleaning my personal life up should not affect my business bottom line. And it did. It was a direct correlation. So I continued that path until today. I stumbled my partner and I figured out the secret sauce and the exact way to forgive a step-by-step system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's what I was going to ask is why is it so important to forgive? What do you think you unlocked through forgiving people? That unlocked the business success and the success in other areas of life. What was it?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love this. Okay, for anybody who's listening to the broadcast, I'll talk you through this. I'm holding a purple coffee cup to the side of my body. Now look at my body language, josh. You know you and I can have a conversation. You can coach me, and I'm Now. Look at my body language. Josh, you know you and I can have a conversation. You can coach me, and I'm going to look at you and say I can manage my anger. It's okay, we don't need to talk about my anger. I got this. Well, I do, because I'm holding this little purple glass of anger off to the side. It's easy. But if I continue to hold on to it and I don't start forgiving people, humans irritate other humans, don't we? So I'm going to keep putting more stuff into the cup. Now I'm using two whole hands to hold up the cup to the side.
Speaker 2:I still can conduct my life, I can talk to you, I can go out, I can go to work, but it's starting to creep into my thoughts. It's starting to take over my life, and if I still don't forgive anybody, it's going to get even heavier life. And if I still don't forgive anybody, it's going to get even heavier. And now I'm holding it in front of my face. It's my life has stopped. It's all I can see. It's all I can do. It's creep, it's. It's full-fledged in my head now. It's all I think about. I'm missing opportunities, money-making opportunities, because I'm so focused on the anger in my story that I'm missing the life opportunities, the dream career, the dream relationship, a good new way to lose weight.
Speaker 2:There's a reason to buy the book. But if you know so, by using my system and starting with the easy people, what I'm doing is now the glass is off to the side again. So now your power is. Now you're going to be able to see things again. You're going to be able to pay attention because you're going to notice things, you're going to notice opportunities, you're going to notice people. So you're literally bringing your power back and the person that you came to the planet to be, that authentic person. Now you can be it. Why couldn't you be it before? Because you couldn't even hear your intuition. Men call it their gut feeling. You couldn't hear it. Why? Because anger acts as a shield. You literally couldn't hear that little bird in your shoulder. So by clearing the anger, now the opportunities, and you can see the opportunities. You can breathe again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot over the last month or so. Is you know our thoughts and when we kind of go through the world, these thoughts that we have a lot of times come from past experiences, right, Sure? They do past experiences right? Sure, they do. That's anger, things that probably bring us some fear, and you know, these come from a lot of times, past experiences and people that we haven't forgiven or we haven't gone back and kind of cleared that up with ourselves so that we can actually move forward.
Speaker 2:I've seen people say you know, josh, you should move to. You know you should move to Michigan, you should. You know whatever, you should move to New York. You had a bad, bad experience in New York. It's a trigger. So you don't want to move to New York, but your dream career is probably there. All right, you're already shooting yourself in the foot. So how do you get rid of the triggers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that comes from forgiveness. And so here's another layer Right when it comes to forgiveness, is you mentioned before, like you know, hey, reaching out to people, calling people, texting people, right? Do you necessarily have to reach out to people if? If for forgiveness, right? Um, especially if it's forgiveness, as we've all heard, is not necessarily for the other person, right, it's for yourself and, like we talked about, to kind of break these barriers and, um, reach your full authentic self and your full potential. Do we have to?
Speaker 2:actually, let me help the stress level of your audience. Right now you do not have to reach out and call anybody. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't. I've probably put barriers and I've put some you know safeties in place. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean make amends, may not even be appropriate. Here's another one. Just because I forgive you and this trips up everybody just because I forgive you doesn't mean all of a sudden I'm giving in. It doesn't mean all of a sudden I'm saying you were right and I was wrong, and now I'm coming over and it's all good.
Speaker 2:I think this stems from our childhood, when somebody in the playground punches you in the eye and the teacher comes over and says now, children forgive each other. Well, I don't want to. They just punched me in the eye. Why should I forgive? But we're meant to? And then they tell us to go play, and I think we all connected some unseen dots that should have never have been connected, because just because I forgive you, I'm doing it for me, I'm not doing it for them. It's never for them, in fact, they don't even care. They're just conducting their life. They don't even know you're mad and you're sitting in your house eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, which, I swear to God, should say serving size one, and not six, I really say, and we should just say one, right? So you're the one who is upset.
Speaker 2:So here's the formal definition. For me, forgiveness means I want you out of my head. That's it. I want you out of my head. I want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop crying about you, I want to stop spinning stories about it. I want you out of my head, period. And you don't have to reach out and talk to anybody. And, that being said, that also means you can forgive dead people, because where they are or are not doesn't matter a lick. If they're alive and well in your head, it can be forgiven that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Is is a lot of times, and I've never heard it like that. I want you out of my head, right.
Speaker 2:I want you out of my head. That's the formal definition.
Speaker 1:And I'm releasing it. I'm releasing it, giving it up, I'm letting it go.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't mean they were right. It doesn't mean I even want to talk to you. A lot of people took my father was a number 10 and it took me a long time to get my father forgiven. This is a marathon, not a sprint. And a podcaster a while back said I have a question for you. Do you have a picture of your father in your house? Really good question. I, I, I practice what I preach and he died years ago. Just because I forgave him Doesn't mean I want a relationship with him if he were alive, and it doesn't mean I want to look at his picture every day. I have his picture but it's in a cabinet. It doesn't mean I want the relationship. Forgiveness means I need to be set free. Here. Buddha has probably the best quote to describe what I'm talking about. Anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Bottom line. So this system, which is a step-by-step system, is going to help you forgive. And one of the keys and I'll go over the exact system for you but one of the keys to the system is I'm going to start you with the easy ones. You save the dumpster fire for last. You start with the guy who took your parking space at the grocery store yesterday. You can forgive that person. You start with, you know, the client who yelled at you the other day. Well, he was having a bad day. That was probably not who he really was. You can forgive that person. And you a bad day. That was probably not who he really was. You can forgive that person and you want their business. So you should forgive those persons. Hello, you start with the easy ones. Now here is the secret sauce to it.
Speaker 2:Einstein proved beyond a shower of doubt that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Stay with me. It just transforms from one thing to another. He also proved, and many scientists proved, that everything on our planet, including this little silver microphone, has an energy field around it. So why don't people stay forgiven? Why do you get triggered? People tell me all the time I did do the work, I did. Forgive them. You did. You did the work and you got to a place of forgiveness in your heart. Then why aren't they staying forgiven? Why are you getting triggered by buildings and by smells and by seeing, just seeing their name on Facebook? Because you didn't forgive the energy.
Speaker 2:The system, one part of the system is it's a very simple mantra I'm a very simple soul. You don't have to burn incense. Yes, that's really what you like to do. You don't have to hold any crystals or dance around. Lest you like to dance and hold crystals, who am I to judge? It's a very simple poem. I want you alone in a room and it simply means I completely forgive Josh. I completely forgive the energy around Josh. I completely forgive myself. I forgive the energy around myself, I forgive the energy around the entire relationship, and so it is amen, go with God, end it any way you like. That's part of the system and it's a simple, simple thing. But forgiveness is like an onion you peel off layers. There's a lot of layers to forgiveness, lots and lots and lots of layers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's almost like building the momentum right. Oh yeah 100%, To eventually kind of build that forgiveness muscle, to eventually forgive folks. Like you mentioned before. We hit record forgiving the unforgivable, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And what if you are the unforgivable?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yourself, yourself is right there on the top. Yeah, I have so many you know kind of situations that you know as I build awareness and as I build kind of more understanding of life. Right, um, I look at past experiences, I'm like man, I can't believe the way I treated myself out of these situations. Right, you know mistakes that you make, forgiving yourself, right.
Speaker 2:That's a big, huge one. This is the first book of three and the next book which I just finished the first draft is my partner and I are writing it together and she's got it on her desk now but it's about how to forgive yourself and how to forgive the unforgivable and how to forgive money.
Speaker 1:Hello. So how do we do that? First of all, I guess the one starting off with the unforgivable and I know you said, hey, it's a momentum thing and obviously it comes with time and it's a marathon, not a sprint Getting those big major blockers out of our head what's kind of like the practical ways or the tools that folks can start to use to eventually maybe it's not the first day, maybe it's, you know, not the first 30 days, but what can folks start to do to eventually get, filter folks out of their mind or, you know, get things out of their mind?
Speaker 2:I got your back. I want everybody to be alone in a room, no little humans, no big humans with you. The dog, the cat can be in there, but nobody else. And then I want you to do something that's going to be really hard for some of you I want you to turn your phone off.
Speaker 1:That's the hardest part.
Speaker 2:Off button on that thing. Okay, and if you're visibly twitching at the thought of turning off your phone and I've seen people twitch in front of me when I say this, it's actually kind of entertaining there there is a button on there where you can mute it. Don't vibrate, because then it's going to dance in your desk and you're going to want to look at it. Just mute it. Just don't forget to turn it off. Mute when we're done. Right. And now I want you to get a piece of paper and a pen. Again, I know you're twitching. You want the PC, you want technology.
Speaker 2:Years and years ago there was a study done at Harvard University with a group of kids about 30 of them or something. Half the kids were told to just say their goals out loud to the room. The other half were told to write them down on a piece of paper, and then they followed these kids through the years and the kids that wrote those goals down on a piece of paper were twice as successful as those people that didn't. So there's some kind of magic that happens when you literally write it on a piece of paper. So get a piece of paper and a pen and I want you to write a list of all the people you think you need to forgive of paper and a pen. And I want you to write a list of all the people you think you need to forgive, and I know the unforgivables will be right at the top. That's fair. Mine were too. But keep going and don't judge the list.
Speaker 2:If you write a list, if you come up with a name and it says Billy, don't judge the list and don't judge the name that you just wrote down. You probably knew a Billy at some point in your life and you were mad at him and you need to forgive him. Obviously that would be a number one person, but write the list. I want you to think of everybody, from the time you were in third grade to present day. And then I want you to number the list between one and 10, one being super easy, hence it would probably be Billy, because you don't even remember the kid, and 10 being absolutely unforgivable. And then I want you to start with the number ones.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't care if you have 20 number fives, I really don't care. I don't even care if you skip a number, doesn't matter to me, but what I do care about with all my heart is you start with the people you labeled a number one, then I want you to sit in your bed alone. You do not have to call these people and I want you to imagine the person is standing in front of you Now. If it's Billy and you went to grammar school with Billy, I don't want you to think of the adult. I want you to see the kid in front of you, the kid that you knew back in the day. That's who I want standing in front of you and I want you to imagine it in your mind's eye. And if you can't see the kid in your mind's eye, put a chair in front of you and talk to the chair. Not everybody can. Let's say, can you see your childhood bedroom in your head right now?
Speaker 1:Yep Very clear.
Speaker 2:Can you see the bed? That's, by the way, not to scare you, but that's. Clairvoyance Doesn't mean that you're going to see a ghost like Stephen King walk into the kitchen right now. It just means that's how you see your intuition. Some people hear it, see it, feel it or just know it. It's another book I wrote, because of course I did. But if you can't see these things in your mind's eye, then talk to a chair. You could even put the person's name in the chair, you could put their picture I don't care Whatever and then let them have it.
Speaker 2:If it's a level one person, you're probably not going to need to say anything because it's so easy. It won't matter. But if it's a level five, six, seven, you might have some things you want to say to this person, especially if they've passed on. Maybe you need closure. You're alone in a room. You can say anything you want. You could cry, you could scream, it doesn't matter, you're alone. When you think you're done, I want you to put your hand on your heart, and it's really just to remind you to say the words from your heart, because the words are just for us. It's the energy behind the words that actually means the most Say the mantra that I just said a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2:And there's worksheets and stuff in the book. And then I want you to check in with your body. You still angry? Was it a level one person? Is it zero? Great Cross their name off the list. Go to the next one. Was it a level three person and you're still a little mad? That's fine. Was it a level three person and you're still a little mad? That's fine. Go down one number, wait 24 hours, do it again. And this next one happened to a friend of mine. She was a level three person, figured it was easy. She checked in with her body and it shot up to a 10. What happened?
Speaker 2:We're supposed to be going the other way. Your brain is a wonderful tool. It protects you like an overprotective best friend and in the back of your brain is a closet that's in padlock for decades and there's a movie playing in there. You would have turned it off decades ago if you knew it was there. She didn't know it was there. It's affecting your life and it's affecting your relationships and it's playing. And what she did is she unlocked that closet because your brain said, ooh, josh said the magic password, he's ready. I'm going to flood his brain with memories he doesn't even know is there. And that's what happened, because I saw it happen. The memories just came right out and she just got really mad right in front of me.
Speaker 2:So you cross off the number three, you put a 10 next to it, put her at the end of the list, keep going. And you know, for the unforgivable, they're a bear and sometimes I really think and I really really do, genuinely believe this that there are some unforgivable things out there that you will never be able to forgive. I really mean that. And everybody's level of pain is different, especially in sports, right. Some people can tolerate pain, some people can't mental and physical pain. So your number 10 is going to be different than everybody else's. So if you're forgiving let's say, one of your parents and you have a lot of siblings and your siblings are looking at you, going why you should be over this. This is easy to forgive. I got over it years ago. With all due respect, I don't care about your sibling and I mean that with all the love in my heart that I could muster. I care about you and if you think it's unforgivable, then that's where it needs to be on your list. Remember, you're alone in a room, you don't have to contact anybody. So to forgive the unforgivable, I want you to do something a little bit different. I want you to pick apart the memory. I want you to pick apart the memory. If you are not ready to forgive the person, try forgiving the energy around the person. If you're not ready to even do that, we're going to pick apart the memory.
Speaker 2:Let's take one of my own memories the bullying in grammar school. So, to use an example, let's say you're driving in a car and you're going to work and you usually turn left at the light. Today you turned right and you passed your grammar school. You didn't even pay attention. You're thinking about other things. You had a brilliant morning. It was 70 degrees, the sun was out, the coffee was great. You had a really nice morning and by the time you get to work, you're irritated, you're grumpy and you're cutting people's heads off and everybody's looking at you and saying what happened, what happened today? Why are you so grumpy? And you have no idea why. Well, that movie in that closet started to play the minute you drove by that school. It was a trigger and your brain saw it. So how do you stop the triggers? You pick apart the memory.
Speaker 2:I wasn't ready to forgive the bully. I wasn't even ready to forgive the energy around the bully. To be quite honest with you, when I first did this exercise, I just didn't want any part of it. So I picked apart the memory. I forgave and I'm serious. I forgave the school building, the energy around the building. I forgave the desk, the energy around the desk. I forgave the chair that I sat in the classroom, the energy around the classroom. I forgave the schoolyard. I forgave the swing set. I forgave the grass. I forgave the kids who stood around and didn't help me and the energy around all these things.
Speaker 2:It took me a minute. I forgave New York City. And I did. I said I completely forgive New York City and the energy around New York City. I even forgave 1974, because that's the year I tried to commit suicide. And I actually sat there and said I completely forgive 1974 and the energy around 1974, because it was kind of a trigger. And once I did that I checked in with my body and I was ready to forgive the energy around the bully. Now, remember, I still haven't forgiven the bully yet. I have picked apart the memory. Will I ever be able if it's really unforgivable, will you ever be able to forgive that person? You may not, and that's completely fine. But you're going to be able to forgive the energy of all these other things within the memory, and that's completely fine. But you're going to be able to forgive the energy of all these other things within the memory and that's going to free your soul, that's going to free your mind. So you forgive what you can and you keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because a lot of times you see things in life, things passing. You might see 1974. You might see a car or something like that, or color, or color. That will trigger the memory, right, and so it's to forgive the things that trigger you, exactly.
Speaker 2:The things that trigger the memory.
Speaker 2:People don't understand. Everything is forgivable. You can forgive politicians, dare I say, not going there. You could forgive the war in the Middle East. What's it going to do for the war in the Middle East? Absolutely nothing. But it's going to do wonders for you. If it's on CNN or it's something in your life, you can forgive it because it's the energy that is screwing you up. Let's say, let's use my father as an example.
Speaker 2:I did, took me a while to forgive my father and I didn't really want to forgive him. So I picked apart some memories. I, I, he used to. He used to lecture us at the dining room table and it felt like he. We were there for hours. I was a kid, it was probably just, it was probably not hours, but I was a kid, I didn't know any better. So I picked apart the memory. I forgave the dining room table and the energy around the table. I forgave the food in the table I'm not kidding the energy around the food. I forgave me. I forgave my brother. I forgave my mother. I forgave the house, I forgave the city, and after I did that I still wasn't ready to forgive the man. So I picked another memory and I did it again and eventually, through trial and error, I was able to do it, and I always was very careful to wait 24 hours and do it again.
Speaker 2:You can't forgive too many people in a row. There was a here comes some science at you. There was a study done in the Japanese Water Study. And there's another phrase that people bandy around without thinking Anger is toxic. Okay, how? Don't just tell me these things. Tell me how. How is anger toxic? Well, it's going to affect your organs. How, don't just tell me these things. So here's the how.
Speaker 2:And it was done by a guy named Hasumoto. I can't pronounce his name and if you just Google Japanese water study, I promise it comes right up. But what he did, in the interest of time, I'll say it fast. He took several containers of water. The first container of water. All he did was talk to it, that's it Said beautiful things, told the glass of water that he loved it. The other container hate, pure hate, nasty things. And then he put it under a microscope. He froze the water and then put it under a microscope. The water that he spoke love to had these beautiful, beautiful crystal formations. The pictures are right online. They're cool. The water he spoke hate to looks sick and it was kind of decaying into itself with these kind of black kind of things.
Speaker 2:Why am I telling you this? The human body is over 95% water. So when your self-talk is bad, when you're filled with anger and hate in your heart, what do you think you're doing to the water cells within your body and what are those water cells doing to your organs? You're literally making yourself sick from the inside out. So forgiveness is literally going to heal you from the inside out, wow. Now, that being said, I want you to do only 10 people a night and I want you to do it before bed, because when you do this work, you're going to get really tired. My older son did this and he got exhausted. You do it sometime, you know, after dinner, so within earshot of going to bed, and I also he.
Speaker 2:I've also heard that a lot of people their shoulders feel lighter. It's really weird, but it does. Some people feel energy, leave their body Great. I do my own exercises. So when I first came up with this, I wrote my list. There must have been 50 people on this list. I'm a little bit of an overachiever shocker and I thought this is going to be great. I'm going to be like a phoenix rising from the ashes. I'm going to be like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and everything's going to be gone. I'm going to be a brand new person. Okay, universe has a little bit of a sense of humor and it didn't exactly play out the way I wanted it to play out. I did forgive a lot of people on the list and I spent the next three days in bed with it and what everybody thought was stomach flu, it was not the stomach flu.
Speaker 2:Remember those water cells. Your body heals itself when it's sleeping. So if you only do 10, it can mitigate. Your body will easily toss that and be able to heal itself. But if you do more than that, you're going to have what a Native American Indian told me about 20 years ago and it's called energy sickness, and you're literally, your body is going to literally get sick from all of that, having to release all those toxins. So you didn't eat a piece of bad fish, I promise, it's just. Your body is just clearing itself. But if you only do 10, and I would only suggest to do one high level person who you've rated an 8, 9, or 10,. Only do one of those a night because you need to give yourself time to clear, so do this. I practice this every night before bed and I usually do 10 at a time, and I do it every night before I go to bed.
Speaker 1:So deep, especially energy sickness, Right and people you know energy, it's real, it's so real Right. So deep, especially energy sickness, right and people you know energy protection it's real, it's so real, right.
Speaker 2:Have you ever been talking to somebody. Maybe you're playing a particular team and you walk away and you're exhausted and I mean just exhausted. Maybe it was just a conversation, but you're really tired and you just think I've been working too hard burning the candles. No, you have energy sickness, Because what they did is they were literally sucking the energy out of you as you stood there. This is real stuff. I know it sounds like it's brain stretching kind of thing, but it's real because we've all felt that 100%.
Speaker 2:That's the why the Native American Indians call it energy sickness. Wow, they're not wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, so tell me this right when it comes to the, the momentum of this right when you start to forgive, does it become easier over time, Like now, when you forgive people, even if it is, even if it does feel major to some degree, it becomes easier for you to forgive. Is that something that becomes easier? Is it still? Um, it can have a major emotional charge to it, even over time.
Speaker 2:Depends who you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm originally from New York City and I can promise you with 100% certainty and I can speak for every New Yorker we don't forget ever. So telling me you can forgive and forget doesn't apply to anybody who is from New York.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe even New Jersey, we don't forget. So what I can promise you is you can go on social media, you can see the person's name, you can look at them at a party and there will be no emotional charge anymore. You won't care good, you won't care bad, you're not going to care. I've actually forgiven a lot of the stuff from my childhood and I can look back now and, instead of regurgitating all those horrible things that happened, I can actually see the pockets of love. I can see the people that were trying to help that kid and I haven't forgotten my past. But I've got a different perspective Now. I've been doing this process for many years and, yes, it is very easy for me today and I could probably do more than 10, because I've kind of built up the muscle, if you will, and I have forgiven a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Do I still have number 10s occasionally? Sure, I do, because humans irritate other humans, but I don't hold on to it. When it happens in the moment and somebody makes me angry I'm only human. It happens. I'll go out to my car and I've been known to just sit in there going. I forgive them, I forgive them, I forgive them. I don't mean any of them. But if I just say it over and over, it reminds me, it kind of puts me back into that forgiveness vibe, if you will. And it kind of puts me back into that forgiveness vibe, if you will. And then obviously I popped their name on my list that night and I start the process and it's a marathon.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get a number 10 person down to a one overnight. It's not going to happen. It's going to take a minute. Be kind to yourself. That's why I want you to start with the easy ones, because as you do the easy ones, you're going to, you're going to feel better and people are going to notice. They're going to say did you get something with your hair or did you lose weight? I mean, you look so good today? Well, of course you do, because you've lightened your energy field and everybody's going to notice. But there's certain things that are going to happen to you once you start the process. Like energy attracts, like energy. So you're going to be attracting new people into your life, better people, people that think like you. That's brilliant. Bring it on. We love that. But there's another sign of the coin To play devil's advocate, you're also going to have jackrabbits.
Speaker 2:These are the people that have been running with you for years and they kind of like the old Josh, so they're going to take off. I think the term now is ghosting and you may or may not ever know why they just bolted. I had a bunch of them in my life. To this day I still haven't seen them. Then you have the saboteurs. Usually you live with these people. They might be family. Family really screws you up, don't they? They like the old you. They don't want you to change, so they sabotage it. So it's up to you. Jim Rohn is a very famous motivational speaker and one of my favorite quotes is you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with your choice. And when those jackrabbits come back because now you're making some money, you're happy, you're in a relationship. Now they want to come back and run with you. Well, now you have to make the choice. Do you want them in your, in your tribe, or not? Your choice, yeah 100 percent, Catherine.
Speaker 1:Where can folks find the book forgiveness Right? This is a this is a big subject, Right, and I don't know how many books is out there where they're actually getting the path right of how to forgive. So your book, the Ultimate Path to Forgiveness, Unlocking your Power right, Unlocking your Power. Where can folks find the book and really get a step-by-step process to forgiveness?
Speaker 2:You could go to Amazon. I have the ebook, the paperback and the audio book available because I understand not everybody wants to read. So my younger son produced the audio book and we're still speaking to each other, so you know good times.
Speaker 2:Not as easy as you think. Speaking into a microphone man. I have mad respect for anybody who does voiceover work. It is not as easy as you think Speaking into a microphone man. I have mad respect for anybody who does voiceover work. It is not as easy as you would think. You don't just talk into a microphone. You can also go to my website, which is katherinegiovannicom, and Catherine, thanks to my mother, is spelled a little weird. Thanks, mom. K-a-t-h-a-r-i-n-e-g-o-v-a-n-i dot com and you can do private sessions and all the information about me is right there on the website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very great website I'm looking at it right now and different section podcast services, books. You also have a blog right. So a lot that you have going on, catherine, and you added a ton of value here. I mean, you just gave us some practical tips that folks can do today to start to forgive those folks in their lives and unlock their power. So we definitely appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Our world is really quite broken right now, so if I can help by teaching people to forgive, I'm happy to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to forgive and unlock your power. Right, that's right. I think that's the biggest key is, you know, a lot of folks think that people don't deserve forgiveness. Right, they don't deserve for me to forgive them, they don't deserve that. Not knowing that it's to help you unlock your power, get your power back.
Speaker 2:If you're an athlete and you're a really good athlete can you imagine how much better an athlete you will be once you lose some of that hate?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm actually not kidding. Can you imagine where you might go if you start to be your authentic self?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're able to just flow, just have a different.
Speaker 2:I had somebody come. I know we have to go, but I had somebody, a gentleman no disrespect to any men out there, but it was what it was and he came up to me and I don't remember where my husband and I were and he looked at me and he says I don't agree, okay, I'll play, bring it. He said I've made a lot of money. And I thought in my head, mind you, because I trained concierge and customer service for years, I actually didn't say this out loud, but in my head I'm going okay, so, and I have a lot of businesses and I have a lot of houses. Okay, and I did it on my bed of hate. I did it on my bed on my story and I had a horrible and he told me a little bit of story and I did it and I had a story and I built my business on that and I got to where I am today. Okay, I'll play. I'm sure you did.
Speaker 2:There are two trains you can take. You could take the express or you could take the local. The local train stops at every single stop. It's like going into a hotel and you're going up to the 72nd floor and some punk kid just left the elevator and you're on the second and pushed every single button between one and 72. So you have to stop at every single floor between zero and 72. It's like the local train You're going to get bloodied. You can get there, but it's going to be painful. Wouldn't you like to get off the local and hop on the express, because I think love and forgiveness will get you twice as far, twice as fast as that local chain will. And you're worthy of this. You're worthy to live a life of love and you're worthy to live a life of joy. It's your birthright.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a different energy right.
Speaker 2:It's a completely different energy.
Speaker 1:And that I didn't hear. I have, you know, amazing friends. I have amazing relationships in my life. You know fruitful people that I can give to right, it was all kind of these. You know money and objects and different things like that which you know. Hey, it's amazing, but the energy that you hold when you lead with love is just a different type of energy and a different type of-, and it attracts more people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:People want to be with you. They just want to be in your energy and sometimes they don't even want to do anything. They mindful because it still makes me tired. Depending upon who I'm forgiving, it still makes me tired, so I wouldn't do this before you go to work, unless you're able to take a nap during the day. Trust me, I did it once and it was awful. I had to go to my car and sleep for a five or 10 minutes, I'm sure we all have done that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we've all done it before. We've all snuckuck in somewhere right, I love it. Well, one more question. I know you mentioned the website, anything else, any other places that folks can find you and continue to follow, work or just?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm easy to find. I'm on Facebook, linkedin and Instagram and I post all the time. I also have a newsletter called the Thriving Times, which posts good news and some other stuff that I'm doing. This is the first book of three, so if you join my mailing list I don't that's. The only thing you'll get is the Thriving Times and you'll know when my next book comes out probably this summer.
Speaker 1:Wow, the Thriving Times you are writing as we speak, so we'd love to have you back on the show and, and, and and talk about this summer, um, when that book drops. So, um, man, I'm looking forward to folks here in this show and, uh, man, we just appreciate it, all the value that you shared today.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:It appreciates you.
