Katharine Giovanni, Path to Forgiveness

[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's worthwhile, worthy of our time, energy, belief, and action. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. To me, it's building mind, body and spirit wellness towards peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit. Let's pursue these topics together to find holistic health and wellness. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Forgiveness is selfish. You do it for you. I get so many people coming up to me and saying, I did the work. I did forgive them. Yeah, you did 100%. You did the work. But you're still being triggered. You're still thinking about them. You still see the color purple and now you're thinking of your mother or something like that. You're still getting triggered. It's because of the energy. Einstein clearly proved that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It just transforms from one thing to another. So when we get angry, what happens? We yell. It comes out of our mouth and we all think it dissipates. In the universe, 10 out of 10 people don't even think about it at all. They don't even think about where it goes. Well, it doesn't go anywhere. It hangs in your energy field until you clear it. The secret sauce to the entire method is energy. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Hey there. It's Ramsey here. That was Catherine Giovanni. Catherine has written more than 12 books, has won multiple awards for her writing, and was instrumental in creating the modern concierge industry. Today we spoke about forgiveness, what forgiveness really means, why it is essential, why it is often difficult and elusive, and how we can gradually forgive and therefore let go of even the worst traumas over time. Catherine believes it is all about the energy forgiving and letting go of the negative energy associated with people, places, and events. At one point, we took a surprising turn when Catherine began describing her intuition and how she sees, hears, and understands many things. I thought this was a fascinating talk with a fascinating woman. Let's see what you think. Here we go. Hey, Katherine. How are you doing today? [00:02:12] Speaker B: I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. I'm excited to have you here with me today. You are a prolific author of more than a dozen books, a sought after speaker, a cancer survivor, and one of the original founders of the concierge industry. Your most recent book is called the Ultimate Path to forgiveness, Unlocking your power. So let's start there. Why and how did you decide to write a book about forgiveness? [00:02:46] Speaker B: Well, to write a book about forgiveness and be a forgiveness coach implies that I've had a lot of the opposite in my life. So I had a plethora of things to forgive, if you will. I come from A pretty pickled background. My parents were both alcoholics, and I was terribly bullied in school, and in the eighth grade, tried to commit suicide. So I just kind of bounced through life until one day when my mother fell down a flight of stairs, bless her heart, she 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 spent the next three years closer than sisters. We forgave each other. We did everything together. And then she died of breast cancer, and she was gone. And I knew right then that I needed to change my life. And as I've told many clients and many people, everybody, you know, hindsight is 20 20. You know, I should have done this. I could have done that, that kind of thing. But every one of us can see that flashpoint, that one time in their life where everything changed. Some of us have more than two, more than one, but that was a flashpoint. It was the only New Year's resolution I actually ever kept. And so I quit drinking. I've been sober now for. What year is it? 35 years. And when you go through the rooms, you're told to make amends. This was the 1990s. Was it the N? Yeah, it's the 1990s, and we didn't have text messaging or computers. I would have happily texted people to make amends. That would have been awesome. Because I was shy, painfully shy. And I'm now what they call an. What do they call me? An ambivert. Which is like a extroverted introvert back then. Yeah. Calling somebody on the phone who might yell at me. Yeah, I had no desire to do that, so I just paid it lip service, and I did it quietly, you know, and I did it by myself. And I apologized and said I was sorry and that kind of thing, but even though I was only. There was no energy behind the words particularly. It started to work, and my life started to open up and things started to click, and my life started to take off. And the thing about forgiveness. And when that. In 2020, a bunch of that breast cancer, all. More water came under the bridge. But in 2020, I finally figured out the secret sauce to the entire method. And came the step by step system that teaches people how to forgive. But the thing about forgiveness, 10 out of 10 people listening right now on a 10 scale, with 10 being unforgivable dumpster fire and one being the easiest person in the world to forgive, y'all are all thinking of your number tens. Totally fair. The One person or moment that absolutely threw you off and threw you right to the ground. That's totally fair. So my system is designed to take people through from the easy people to forgive and quite honestly, up to those number tens. See, the thing about forgiveness, Ramsey, is everybody teaches you that you should forgive. Your pastor, your family, your parents, your teachers. Okay. But nobody teaches you how. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:59] Speaker B: And what if you don't want to? Then what do you do? I teach the how. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's tough. So, you know, I think that forgiveness is most often thought of as an act or a gesture toward another person, so specifically the person that has done us wrong, that it's, you know, for them. But is forgiveness more than that? Like, what is it? And how is it a practice that is for our own benefit versus the person or the thing that it is that we're trying to forgive? [00:06:33] Speaker B: Great question. A few things to answer. First of all, just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. Quite frankly, I probably don't. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean you were right. I'm not all of a sudden giving in. I'm not all of a sudden saying, you were right and I was wrong and I'm coming over to the dark side. It does not. And I think that stems from our childhood when the kindergarten teacher said, now, you know, I know Johnny hit you in the head, but say you're sorry and go off and play with each other. And I think we connected some dots that should have never been connected because it's not correct. Forgiveness is selfish. I'm doing it for me. I'm not doing it for you. You're still wrong. You probably still have to make an amends. You have to do what you need to do. I'm forgiving because it's for me. And forgiveness, the formal definition for me personally is simply this. I want you out of my head. That's it. Bottom line, I want you out of my head. I want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop dreaming about you. And if I go into a bakery and I smell chocolate chip cookies, I don't want those cookies to trigger me, because now I'm thinking about you. That's what it means. Forgiveness is selfish. You do it for you. And besides of which, the person you're mad at probably isn't even thinking about you at all, because they're not. You're eating a pound of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and they're living their life. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So how does that help, then? So, you know, like, if what. What does. What does unforgiveness do to us? How does it eat us up? [00:08:10] Speaker B: I have a whole chapter in the book on science. For anybody who doesn't believe me, I got studies to back me up. But there was a Japanese water study, and if you Google that, you'll actually find it named Masu. I can't pronounce his name, but it's Masamoto, something like that. And in the interest of time, I'll. I'll. I'll simplify it. He took several containers of water, one container of water. All he did was talk to it. That's it. Said beautiful, loving words to it. It told it it was beautiful and loving. The other container of water hate. The most hated things he could possibly think of, he said to that water. He then froze the water and he put it under a microscope. The water that he spoke love to had these beautiful formations. It's right online. It's really interesting. The water he spoke hate to had malformations, these black and brown, nasty kind of going inside of itself. So why am I telling you this? The human body is over 95% water. So when you have bad self talk, when you're filled with hatred and anger, what do you think you're doing to the water cells in your body? You're literally making yourself sick from the outside in. Anger is very toxic and it's, it's something. And once you start to forgive, some things are going to happen. Now, my system is designed to start you off with the easy ones and work your way up to those horrific ones. So you're going to forgive the person who cut you off on i95 yesterday. You're going to forgive the person who stole your, your, your parking space, things like that. Really, really super easy people to forgive. And as you forgive, you're going to start to feel better. Those water cells in your body are going to start to change and you're going to start to pay attention to things around you. Why didn't you pay attention before? Because you were too focused on the anger. But now that you've relieved some of that anger, now you can see new job opportunities, new health ways, you know, new ways to make money, a new relationship. Because you're starting to pay attention to the world around you. And I haven't even gotten to the number 10 people yet. But the secret sauce to the entire method is energy. I get so many people coming up to me and saying, I did the work, I did forgive them. Yeah, you did 100% you did the work, but you're still being triggered. You're still thinking about them. You still see the color purple, and now you're thinking of your mother or something like that. You're still getting triggered. Or you see their name on Facebook and takes you 24 hours to come off the ceiling. It's because of the energy. Einstein clearly proved that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It just transforms from one thing to another. So when we get angry, what happens? We yell. It comes out of our mouth, and we all think it dissipates. In the universe, 10 out of 10 people don't even think about it at all. They don't even think about where it goes. Well, it doesn't go anywhere. It hangs in your energy field until you clear it. Einstein also clearly proved that everything on our planet has energy around it, including this silver microphone in front of me that has energy around it. So what people are not doing is they're not forgiving the energy around the person. So my mantra, there's a whole system to it, but in the middle, there's a mantra I want you to say. And the mantra is very simple. And it simply says, I completely forgive Ramsay. I forgive the energy around Ramsay. I forgive myself. I forgive the energy around myself. I forgive the energy around the entire thing. And so it is amen. Go with God, whatever. You can end it any way you like. It's the energy that people don't realize that needs to be forgiven as well. [00:11:50] Speaker A: Well, energy is an amazing thing. I have, I've heard about, and I've seen the experiments you're talking about in terms of water and about how different emotions being expressed in vicinity of water will change its structure. You know, for example, like as it's freezing and crystallizing like you described. And I think and talk a lot about on this podcast about mind, body, and spirit and how they're interconnected and how one impacts the other. And, you know, yes, energy is neither created nor destroyed. It's just. It changes forms. Right. And I want to hear more about forgiving the energy, because that just sounds really, really interesting to me. I'm not sure I grasp exactly what you're trying to say, but tell me more about forgiving the energy around yourself or forgiving the energy around someone else. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Okay, let's talk about forgiving the unforgivable, because it's a really easy way to explain the energy. We'll take one of my own number tens, which was the bully back in school in the eighth grade. Okay. And I wasn't Ready to forgive the bully. And at one point, I was so angry, I wasn't even willing to forgive the energy. So I picked apart the memory. Let's say, for example, you're driving for work, and every day you make a left at the light to go to work. But today, for some reason, you needed to run an errand. You went turned right, and that right turn took you by your old grammar school. And you saw it out of the corner of your eye, but you didn't really pay much attention, but your brain saw it. And by the time you get to work, you're completely discombobulated. You're grumpy. You don't even know why you're grumpy. Well, I know why. Because the school triggered a memory that you didn't even remember. So you can forgive the energy. The energy is what you need to forgive. So I forgave my childhood grammar school, the actual building and the energy around the building. I forgave the desk that I sat at and the energy around the desk, the table, the chair, the park, the kids that stood around and didn't help me, and the energy around the kids, the playground. You could other pieces of the energy. So now that number 10 might be down to a 9. And I haven't forgiven the number 10 person yet. I didn't even forgive the energy yet. I've picked apart the memory. So now it's maybe now it's a nine. Can I. Can I forgive the energy around the person, the actual bully? Maybe I'm going to give it a shot. So you're going to. If you can't Forgive the number 10. And quite frankly, Ramsey, I think there are unforgivable acts out there that are so dark that you're just not going to be able to forgive them. So we forgive what we can and we keep going. So forgive the energy around them yourself and then pick apart the memory. And that's going to free you up so you can continue your life. The energy around the objects, the memory, a lot of people will call it triggers, forgive the triggers. [00:15:01] Speaker A: So it's not just the person that you're forgiving. It's. It's everything wrapped up in the act or the acts that the person did. It's the. It's the circumstances around it, it's the places where it happened. It's all of those things combined. And so that is that part of your system in terms of making the. The unforgivable 10 sort of chipping away at it and gaining some progress towards being able to Forgive that. [00:15:35] Speaker B: You have to chip away at it. You're not going to get a number 10 person down to a one overnight. It is not going to happen. This is a marathon, not a sprint. A lot of people call this shadow work because they're working in the shadows of the past. So you might be able to chip away at it and slowly get that number 10 down to a 9, down to an 8. Took me forever to forgive my father. And what I did is I picked apart various memories. He had a tendency when he was drunk to keep us at the dining room table. Would seem like hours. It probably wasn't, but I was a kid. It seemed like we were there for hours getting lectured. So I would pick out memories. And I forgave the dining room table we sat at. I forgave the. I forgave the chairs. Now fast forward many, many years because I'm as old as dirt. And we were downsizing and wanting to move, and I didn't need that table anymore. So I went to my adult sons and I said, do you want this table before we sell it? And they said, no, that's the homework table. We don't want that table. See, it was a trigger. It was a trigger. They remembered doing homework at that table. These are triggers that you can forgive. Now, my system is designed that I'm going to have you sit down and I'm going to have you write down all the people you think you need to forgive. Now, for the young people listening, I totally get you're going to want to do it on your tablet or your computer or your phone. I get it. But there's been hundreds of studies done that something magical happens when it goes from your brain down to your arm and you write it with a pen and paper. There was a study done at Harvard University years and years and years ago, and they followed some kids. And one half of the class, they said, just say your goals out loud to the room. The other half, they said, write it down with pen and paper. The kids who act. And then they followed the kids through the years. And the kids that actually wrote it down on a pen and paper were twice as successful as the kids who just said it out loud to the room. So write it down. And then I want you to rate these people from 1 to 10. Now, you could have 20 number fives. I don't care. You could skip a number. I also don't care. But what I do care is you're alone. Your technology is, oh, I don't know, there's an off button There. There's. It's a magic button. [00:17:47] Speaker A: They have off buttons. There's no off button. [00:17:52] Speaker B: And. And I don't want you to have it vibrate because then the damn thing is going to dance in your desk, and you're just. You're going to want to see who it is. So make sure that you just turn it off or mute it, and then don't forget to turn it on later. And I want you to be alone in the room when you do this. So you look at that number one person, and a real easy, easy one. And I want you to imagine that they're standing in front of you. If it's a person from your childhood, imagine them as the person you knew them back in the day, not the adult. I want the kid to be standing in front of you that you remember. And then if you have to say something to these people, go for it. You're alone in the room. This is your private party. You can cry, you can scream. You can do whatever you want. And once. Once you get whatever it is out of your system, then I want you to say, put your hand in your heart because it reminds you to say my mantra through the heart. And the words are just for us stupid humans. It's the energy behind the words that really is where the magic is. And then I want you to say the mantra and then check in with your body. Did that person get forgiven? Great. Cross them off the list. Did they not get forgotten? Because it's a number five person. Is it a four or a three? Great. Cross the number and write the new number next to their name. Did the number go up? Are you even more angry than when you started? Wow. Why did that happen? Because the brain is a marvelous, wonderful tool, and it protects you. And what happened was, is there's a back closet in your mind, and it's padlocked until Ramsey says this. And it's like an onion, and you just forgave the first layer, and your brain's going, okay, Ramsey, you're ready. I'm going to open up that back closet of your mind. I'm going to flood you with memories. Oh, joy. And so now you're going to remember all this. And now you might be a 3, but now it's up to a 7. Happened to a friend of mine. So you have to go through the memories that you just remembered and to clear it one thing at a time, and be. Be kind to yourself. This is. This is. This is a process. But as you forgive the ones, the twos, the threes, the fours, the fives. You're going to start to feel better. More people are going to magically be attracted to you because like energy attracts like energy. So you're going to get new people in your life and then you're going to get some jackrabbits because they don't like what you're doing. So they're going to ghost you. You're never going to see them again. Happened to a bunch of friends of mine. I've never seen them again. Still haven't. And then you're going to get the people that are either family or close friends or you live with them who like the old Ramsey. They don't want you to get better. They like the old you. So they're going to try and sabotage it. So be mindful of that. You might get some saboteurs. And I always think if I'm pissing somebody off, it means I'm doing something right. So I just keep doing it. [00:20:33] Speaker A: That's because you're sassy. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Tell me I can't do something because now I just want to do it because I want to stick it to you. Yeah, I'm from New York. Can you tell? [00:20:45] Speaker A: So this sounds like a lot of work. It sounds like it's very valuable, but at the same time, you know, it's. It's reopening a lot of maybe wounds that have kind of grown over, covered over, not really healed, but at least have, you know, some layers. Is there, is there some trauma to be expected as you sort of re. Dig back into this and, you know, how do people sort of work through and process their trauma? In this case, I suppose, you know. [00:21:25] Speaker B: You'Ve forgiven somebody when you could look at their name or meet them in person and you just don't care. It happened a while back for me, my ex business partner, and usually seeing her name just would make me fly off the handle. But I actually stared at the name and I. And I caught myself and I thought, wait a minute, I'm not angry. So you're not going to forgive and forget, because that old adage is absolutely wrong. You're not going to forget. But what I can promise you is that it's going to remove the emotional charge. So you're not going to think good or not going to think bad. So using my own life as an example, I can look back at my childhood and I remembered certain things. It caused me to cry. It caused me to get angry. My number tens went down to a nine and then they went up to a ten again. I mean, this is a. This is a bumpy ride. It's called shadow work. You're working with the shadows of the past. But now that I've done the work, I actually. I could probably regurgitate. I'm using that word purposely. Regurgitate. Those horrible things that happened to me. I probably could remember them if I. If I wanted to, but, you know, I don't anymore. I don't remember them. I remember the love that was there. I remember the love that. And the adults that were trying to help that kid in the eighth grade. I remember the love and the feelings of love back there. So have I changed my past? Yeah, I have. Because now I can look back at it with love instead of hate. It was a journey to get where I am, but now it's been replaced by love. So I get totally understand. You don't want to go back there. I didn't either. But I'm only asking you to go back a few more times, and then you'll be free of it forever. And that's freedom. [00:23:05] Speaker A: That sounds really beautiful. Replacing the. Whether you want to call it energy or whether you want to call it emotion. It's like there's all of this negative energy, emotion wrapped up with things that happened. And it stays with us. It stays near us. It even manifests in physical locations and in symbolism. And what I hear you saying is that forgiveness is the act of releasing that emotional. Releasing that energy or transmuting it into love instead. Is that a fair characterization? [00:23:47] Speaker B: That is a fair statement. You're. You're literally flipping the energy from dark to light, and it's going to affect the water cells in your body. You're going to start to feel better. People are going to notice. They're going to look and say, ramsey, something's different about you. Did you lose weight? Did you get your hair cut? What's. What's up with you today? You just look so good. And you can either tell them or not. Because forgiveness is selfish. It. And because I don't have to reach out to anybody. You do this in the privacy of your own home. You don't have to reach out to anybody. And that being said, 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, you can be you. They can be forgiven. You can get that closure you've been seeking. [00:24:29] Speaker A: So can we get metaphysical for a while? Do you think this forgiveness is something human? Is it something natural? Is it supernatural? Is it a gift from God? Is it all of the above? Like, how do you think of it? [00:24:46] Speaker B: Where. [00:24:46] Speaker A: What do you think it is? [00:24:48] Speaker B: It ticks every box that you just said. It's the little bird in your shoulder. I've written a lot of books when I'm very intuitive. And I don't like to use the word psychic because I just don't like it. I think. I think of a used car salesman whenever I say the word psychic. So I don't, you know, I'm gonna have my crystal ball, that kind of thing, but. And that's why I was bullied in school, because I was different. But that little bird in your shoulder, it's not just me. I'm clairaudient and clairvoyant. But everybody has this inside of them. We're not meant to be here alone. Everybody is intuitive. Absolutely everybody. And forgiveness is part of that intuition. When you're angry and you're filled with bitterness and awful self talk, what that acts as is a shield. So you can't hear the little bird in your shoulder as well. You're blocking it because you're so angry and you're so inner focused on what other people have done to you. You can't even hear the intuition or hear why you're on the planet, or hear what, what your higher self and. Or even live your authentic self, because you're. You're blocking yourself. So as you forgive that, your intuition is going to start to get stronger because you're going to be able to hear that little bird in your shoulder. [00:26:03] Speaker A: Tell me more about your intuition. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Everybody in the planet sees it, feels it, knows it, or just senses it. How many people have walked into a room and it just feels off? That's intuition. And you're always right. Can you imagine your childhood bedroom right now? In your mind's eye, can you see it in your head? [00:26:25] Speaker A: Yes. [00:26:26] Speaker B: Can you see the color of the walls? [00:26:29] Speaker A: Sort of. [00:26:30] Speaker B: That's clairvoyant. It doesn't mean it's not a Stephen King thing. You're not going to see ghosties walk through your doors. You know, you might, but I doubt it. What it means is you see the answer. It's called clear seeing. So you see it in the written word. You see it in the world around you. You pay attention with your eyes. That's where you get your answers. I am also. I'm actually three of them combined. I'm also clairaudient, which means it's clear hearing, which means I hear voices in my head. And I kept this ability hidden for years and years and Years when it started, because I knew if I lay. If I told people that I was get hearing voices in my head. It was the 1960s. People, they would have put me in a funny farm and put me up with medicine because society had this horrible habit of if you. If you were a little bit intuitive, they'll. They'll sl. They'll slap a she's crazy as a bedbug sticker on your forehead. And my family would have committed me. So I didn't tell anybody, but I. I knew I was. I was. Something was wrong when I was talking to myself and getting answers. Yeah. Okay. So I'm also. I'm clairvoyant. Clar. Audit and clairsension. And the other ones is sometimes you don't know something, and then all of a sudden you know it. And you kind of get that quote unquote mom or dad voice, and it's that don't bleep with me voice because you know, you're right. Those are. Those people are clairsentient. Then you get the feelers, and it's. You're either empathic or the. I can't remember the particular clear feeling. You've hired somebody to work with you. They were dressed perfectly. Their resume was stellar. They said the right things, their experience was great. Their references were perfect, but it just didn't feel right. But you did it anyways because your brain talked you out of it. Three months down the line, you look and everybody, every single one of us has said, I knew I shouldn't have done that. You didn't pay. [00:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You didn't pay attention to your gut. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Yep. Men call it their gut, women call it. The women call it their intuition. True story. In 2011, all of a sudden I heard, you need to start running. Okay. If you go into the dictionary under the word exercise, my name is right next to it. I was violently allergic to exercise my entire life. And all of a sudden, the little bird on your shoulder. And you can call that little bird anything you want. God, Jesus, Tom, Dick, Harry, I don't care. But it's always right. It's kind of like a higher energy than yourself. And I couldn't get it out of my head, you need to run. You need to run. So I started the couch to 5k running program, which is right online, and it's brilliant, and it does exactly what you think it does. And. And I eventually ran, kind of walked around it, a 5k, and I went from a size 1416 down to an 8. Knew the weight was coming off too Quick. I knew it was coming off too quick. And the day before my birthday, I found a lump, and it was stage three breast cancer. And the surgeon said if I hadn't taken up running and lost all that weight, the lump was in such a weird spot, they never would have found it, and I would be dead. I can't tell you if you go on the Internet how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of stories are out there with people who hear that little bird in their shoulder and it saves their life. You can hear that bird purposely. And once you relieve some of your anger, once you start to replace it with joy, then you're going to be able to clear the energy away from you so you actually can get some clear answers. [00:30:08] Speaker A: Again. It gets back to the energy. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [00:30:14] Speaker A: And so is. Where is the energy emanating from? And. And where is it going to, you know, are. Are we receiving this energy? Are we creating it? Are we transmitting it? Is it being broadcast back and forth? I mean, what do you think? [00:30:32] Speaker B: I don't think it matters, to be honest. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:35] Speaker B: I mean, we have an energy field around us, and it's. It's called a vibration. And science has actually proven this. And we're all vibrating. Even this little microphone in front of me is vibrating. And we're all vibrating in different ways. And that, at the end of the day, that's why bullies bully people, because they discover you're vibrating at a different level than. It doesn't feel good. Years ago is a really funny story. We have some intuitive friends, and I went out to lunch, and the waitress came up to the table, and she politely remember, I'm a concierge trainer, customer service. So I'm all over this stuff. She politely took everybody's order until she got to me. And then she walked to the other side of the table, the color drained from her face. She looked at me and said, what do you want? Kind of put off by it. And I politely gave my order because my concierge training kicked me in virtually immediately. And then she ran back to the kitchen. I thought that was a little odd. I thought. I dismissed it. I thought maybe, you know, she was young, she was a kid. And I thought, well, maybe. Maybe the kid's having a bad day. She comes back out of the kitchen with everybody's lunch. She very politely puts everybody's plate right in front of them until she gets to me. Color drains from her face again. She takes my plate, and she tosses it like a frisbee across the table, literally threw it through the air. Then she takes another look at me and she flies back to the kitchen. I really expected to be sprinkled with holy water or something when she came back and my friend turned over, turned to me, and she said she's scared of your energy. And indeed, if you think through your life, you shake somebody's hand and you haven't even said anything, and you have an immediate dislike, or they immediately dislike you. I don't take it personally because I know it's because my energy is so dramatically different from that person's. They literally can't stand it. So I don't take it personally anymore. I could be in the grocery store, on. In the frozen food aisle or wherever I am. And it's empty when I'm there. And often it'll be full when I leave that aisle. I should send them a bill for getting people into their store. I. You know, that kind of thing. But it's also, you know, it's also the opposite is true. People are also repelled by my energy. And I don't take it personally because I know what's happened. It's my energy. Some people are attracted to it like a moth to a flame, and some people aren't. Energy is an interesting topic because it's very misunderstood most of the time. But it's like the law of gravity. It's going to work whether you believe it or not. You can call the law of gravity the law of keeping Ramsey on the planet. It doesn't care. It's going to work anyways. Okay, I don't believe in the law of gravity. It doesn't care. [00:33:20] Speaker A: It's still going to fall down, still. [00:33:22] Speaker B: Going to fall down. And you can't see it either. This energy is the same. So next time you're in a store or you meet somebody and you have that instant dislike, don't take it personally. It's probably your energy that's your fly is open or something, but it's probably your energy. [00:33:41] Speaker A: I'm curious, kind of what your faith looks like and what role does faith play in your life? Like, what. How does this. How did. How does your understanding of energy sort of fit into your sort of beliefs about faith and God and the universe and that sort of thing? [00:34:05] Speaker B: I was raised Episcopalian. I read the Bible pretty much straight through. But I am not very. I am not really into church anymore because I'm really, really spiritual and I have a real friendship with God at this point and speak to God and the other side on a daily basis. I'm also a Medium and a past and a past life healer. So I speak to the other side on a regular basis. I have zero fear of death and that's where I get all my answers. I believe in God and I speak to him all the time. That's just me. So am I religious? I used to be. [00:34:51] Speaker A: Well, religious is always a sticky word. Different people mean different things by that too. I very much believe in God and I speak to him on a regular basis and try to speak with him every day as well. One thing that I connect with forgiveness on a regular basis is also the idea of gratefulness. And I really have the sense that forgiveness and gratefulness work together and that they're two of two, like really essential keys to our, you know, mind, body and spirit in terms of finding peace, finding healing, finding joy. What do you think? Do you connect forgiveness and gratefulness? [00:35:44] Speaker B: I do. I believe in God and Jesus and all of the above. And I believe that, that in order to forgive, gratitude is something that we all should practice. And I do this every night and right. I do it right before bed because your body heals itself when it goes to sleep. So the first thing I'll do is I will think about the three things I'm most grateful for that day. And it could be just that I've had a hot cup of coffee that day. Some days are like that. Some days I'll think of a lot of things and then I'll start in on my list. And yes, even though I wrote the book, you know, humans irritate other humans. I've always got fresh, fresh, you know, people to forgive because that's the way we're built as humans. And I will start to do my forgiveness practice. And I do it before bed because 90% of people who do this get really tired after they do it because remember that water study? You're, you're releasing all those cells and you're flipping the energy and so, not that this is a much of a shocker, I'm a little bit of an overachiever. So I do my own exercises. So when I came up with this exercise, I must have come up with like 50 people, I kid you not. 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 this great new person tomorrow. I'm going to be, it's all going to be gone and I'm going to be free when I wake up. That work not work out that way. I did forgive many people on the list But I also spent the next three days in what everybody thought was a stomach fluoride because those water cells needed to go somewhere and I had forgiven too many people and my body couldn't keep up with the energy. So if you do spend a little time in the bathroom after you do this, don't be scared. You didn't eat a piece of bad fish. If this will pass very fast, it's just your body trying to get rid of decades and often centuries of crap that you've been carrying around. [00:37:43] Speaker A: Hmm. [00:37:45] Speaker B: That's why I really only want you to do ten people a night. And if you're dealing with the higher level numbers like the eights, nines, and tens, only do one because it's going to take a lot out of you and you'll probably be, you're going to probably be tired now. Some people feel it. I feel an energy shift in my solar plexus. And for people who don't know, it's right below your, your ribs and above your belly button kind of in the center of your body. So most people get tired, some people get thirsty, some people get energized. But everybody feels something at the end of the day, and everybody is unique. So you'll probably be able to tell after you do it a few times. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So physical manifestations, physical symptoms, results. Hey, so what are you, what are you excited about? Coming up. What you got coming up? What are you thinking about this year? What are you excited about? What's on the horizon for you? [00:38:45] Speaker B: This is the first book of three, so I'm actually writing the second book right now. And the second book is all about how to forgive yourself. Drop the link. [00:38:56] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. [00:38:58] Speaker B: So I'm writing about how to forgive yourself because at the end of the day when you write your list, a lot of people put their own name and a number 10 next to it. [00:39:08] Speaker A: And is that fundamentally different from how to forgive other people? [00:39:12] Speaker B: It is, because it's you. And you're going to feel, you'll probably feel guilty, you might feel bitter, you might. There. There's so many emotions that you can be thinking about. But I, I advise everybody, and there's more to it, but to be simplified, I advise you take you, you, you go after forgiving yourself in the same way you would forgive the unforgivable. I want you to pick at it. So you pick a memory. You know, let's take the eighth grade. It was 1974. I actually forgave 1974 because I decided I needed to forgive 1974. I forgave new York City and the energy around New York City. You can forgive anything. You can forgive politicians. Dare I say, you can 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 a lot for you. So I looked at that girl in the eighth grade, and she did what she could to survive, and she. She did survive, but she had limited tools at her disposal, and I am able to forgive that. So I picked apart the memory and I forgave the pieces of the memory, and then eventually was able to forgive that kid and the energy around the kid. But it took a while to pick out the memory, and then I picked out another time in my life, and I did it again. So instead of forgiving people, you want to write a list of memories that you need to forgive. And if it's just one big, huge, dark memory, okay, write down the little things within that memory that maybe you could forgive and start there. And if you're really fighting everything that I say. I had a man come up to me and he said, I'm not sure I agree with you. I said, okay. And he said, I've made a lot of money in my life, and I've built it on my bed of anger. And it's my story, and it's gotten me. It's why. It's how I get up in the morning because that's. I don't want to be that person. And I. I built my entire life around that anger. Okay, let's talk about that. Sure. You're going to a city, and you have a choice between taking the express or the local. Both trains will get you there, but the local is going to be more painful. It's like going into an elevator in a hotel. And trust me, we've all been there. And some punk kid has pressed every single button between 0 and 75. And you've got to stop at every single floor. And by the. You do get to the 75th floor, but you're like a bloody mess by the time you get up there. So you can get there using the hate and anger chain. Sure you can, but wouldn't you rather take the express? You'll get twice as far with love, forgiveness and joy than you will with hate and anger. You can still get there. I've been on that local chain. Trust me, people, it's not fun. Been there, done that, got off. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's like using. It's like using the dark side of the Force. [00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Instead of using the. [00:42:17] Speaker B: The light, you can get there, but it's not going to be pretty. [00:42:23] Speaker A: I want to. I want to. I want to jump back to one thing that you said. You said something to the effect of, you know, you can. You can forgive that war in the Middle East. Will it do anything for the war in the Middle East? No. But do you think that when we release kind of energy that we have negative energy around a person, around a thing, and, you know, many of us have that, and many of us are releasing that energy for giving it and improving it, do you think that that energy does potentially affect the people or the things that we are forgiving? [00:43:05] Speaker B: Let me tell you something. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Or do they. [00:43:07] Speaker B: And this is going to stretch people's brains just a little bit, but it is. [00:43:10] Speaker A: Let's stretch it out. We're already here. Let's stretch it out. [00:43:14] Speaker B: We're already the point of pain, so we might as well just go for the whole thing. I forgave a level one person in my life that I went to school with, and it was easy. Couldn't even remember why we were angry at each other. So I sat in the middle of my bed, did turn my phone off, did everything I just told you to do. And I imagine that she was standing in front of me as I knew her back in the 70s. I had not spoken to this person in decades. And I said the mantra, and then I went about my day. I only forgave the one person because I was testing out forgiveness and systems. So I just forgave her. And I just kind of walked around. My kids were. They're all grown and adults now, but back then they were just little kids, so I had to go carpool and all these things. Two hours later, she calls me up on the phone, and again, my concierge training kicked in because my jaw dropped to the floor. I was absolutely stunned. So we made the right noises, we said the right things. We did what people do when they're reminiscing. But I couldn't stand it. And I said, you know, I have to know, after all these decades, why did you choose to call me today? She said, you know, it's the damnedest thing. Two hours ago, which was exactly when I was saying my mantra. A figurine you gave me in school flew off my shelf and landed in the middle of the floor. And I saw it, and when I picked it up, I thought maybe I should give you a call. So if forgiveness energy has the power to move a figurine off a shelf, 700 miles away from me and it has the power to change the water cells within my body. What do you think it's going to do for to your life? Or what do you think it's going to do when it gets to the higher numbers? [00:45:03] Speaker A: This is psychokinesis to the list. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. She was 700 miles away from me. That is a true story. You can't make this stuff up. [00:45:19] Speaker A: Well, Catherine, I have to say that this conversation went in directions that I never expected or imagined. And I loved it. [00:45:29] Speaker B: I get told that. [00:45:31] Speaker A: Do you now? So thank you for taking the time today. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for expanding my mind and hopefully expanding the minds of lots of others. You know, I think that so many of us have so many things that bother us and that have bothered us and, you know, instead of trading bother for bother and retaliating, you know, how much more wonderful would the world be if we could all sort of do the work within ourselves to forgive and to, you know, release that energy and transform that negative energy into love and positivity. And maybe while we're at it, we can knock a few figurines off some shelves. [00:46:26] Speaker B: There you go. [00:46:27] Speaker A: So let's do it. Let's make the world a nicer, kinder, more wonderful place. Thank you so much. I just am so excited to talk to you. Where and how can people get in touch with you? How can they learn more? Where can they get your books, all that good stuff? [00:46:47] Speaker B: The book can be found on Amazon and I've got the ebook, the paperback and the audiobook available because I understand not everybody likes to read. And you can go to my website and learn all about it and that kind of thing. And it's Catherine Giovanni.com and thanks to my mother, my first name is spelled a little bit odd. Thanks, Mom. And it's K A T H A R I N E giovanni dot com. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Well, I'm sure you've forgiven her for that already. [00:47:11] Speaker B: I have. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Have a great rest of your day. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Thanks so much for having me. [00:47:18] Speaker A: Where to go from here visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman. And please reach out to me and let me know what you think. I don't want this podcast to be some message in a bottle thrown out to sea. I want to hear back from you. Please send me a message or an email or hit me up on X, LinkedIn or Instagram. And please leave a rating and review for the what's Worthwhile podcast on Apple, Spotify, Iheart or Amazon. Thanks.