Discussing resentment and kinship care

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Anger often feels like a protective shield. We think that if we stop being mad at the person who caused the family trauma, that we're leaving the gate open for it to happen again. But my guest today, Catherine Giovanni, argues that just forgive is actually the worst advice you can give. Why? Because nobody tells you how. Today we're auditing the mental load of resentment. We're discussing why anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. The science of the Japanese water study and a three-list system to help you put the dumpster fire people in your life to bed forever. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. I've carried that purple cup Catherine talks about. You know the one, the cup filled with anger that starts off to the side, but eventually you're holding it with two hands right in front of your face until you can't even see your grandchildren anymore. I've realized that my rage wasn't a boundary, it was a fog. In this episode, I share a moment of real connection I had with my granddaughter, not through fantasy, but through a real-world cooking project that only happened because I started doing the work to lift that fog. Our guest today is Catherine Giovanni. She's a transformation mentor and forgiveness expert. She's an amazing woman. I can't wait for you to meet her. For more than two decades, Catherine has helped people release emotional weight, heal old wounds, and reconnect with who they truly are. Her work blends forgiveness, intuition, and lived experience into a grounded practical approach that helps people stop dragging the past into the present so that they can finally move forward with clarity and peace. Catherine, I can't tell you how nice it is to have you back on the show.

SPEAKER_18 3:26

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

SPEAKER_05 3:29

The topic I want to talk about today has to do with forgiveness, how we teach it to our grandchildren, how we manage forgiveness ourselves. I know that anger often feels like a protective shield. And if we stop being mad at the person who caused the trauma, we feel like we're leaving the gate open for it to happen again, right? But you argue that just forgive is actually the worst advice we can give. Walk us through why that fails us and how your step-by-step process allows for relief without requiring us to minimize the harm that was done.

SPEAKER_18 4:07

Everybody tells us to just forgive. Nobody tells us how. And what if I don't want to forgive? Well, that's a problem. And then you say just forgive, and I see other people easily forgiving. And if I can't manage it, well, okay, now I'm a failure.

The challenges of forgiveness

SPEAKER_18 4:28

Now I'm going to go into shame because I'm feeling shame because I can't forgive these people. So just unilaterally saying just forgive, it's not very helpful in the grand scheme of things. And by forgiving somebody, it doesn't mean all of a sudden I'm saying you were right and I was wrong. Doesn't mean that. You're still wrong. You're still probably a dumpster fire. You still don't deserve my forgiveness. I'm forgiving for me. Being angry, according to a quote by Buddha, being angry is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. So the anger is turning into toxins within your body. So you're literally making yourself sick. The longer your self-talk is bad, the longer you hold on to that anger. And it's bleeding out into your family and your grandkids. And they're seeing it through your body language. Kids are smart and they pay attention. And they're paying attention to what you say, what you do, and how you're acting. And if you're doing it from a core place of anger, that's what they're going to pick up.

SPEAKER_05 5:35

So shifting the narrative from doing them a favor to cleaning your own internal balance sheet, holding on to resentment creates a mental load that slows down your leadership. Tell us a little bit about how to process acts of abandonment or trauma without feeling like you're condoning the behavior.

SPEAKER_18 5:57

Because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't. And the my forgiveness system is going to, it's personal, it's selfish. You do it for you. My forgiveness system allows you to process the negative feelings. I don't want you to turn away from that anger and negative feelings. I want you to process it. So the step-by-step system, and I'll go over the step-by-step system. The step-by-step system I have come up with is going to allow you to process those feelings so you can put this to bed forever. Let me give you a visual, which I think I gave the last time. But and for those listening, I'm holding a purple cup coffee cup right to the side of my body.

Dealing with anger over time

SPEAKER_18 6:36

This cup represents anger, okay? And when I first get angry, I can easily hold it off to the side. I mean, look at my body language. I can have a conversation with you. I can go to the grocery store. I can, you know, be with my grandkids. But the longer I hold on to my anger, humans irritate other humans, don't we? So I'm going to keep putting more anger in the cup. And if that happens, it's start to get painful. So now I'm using two hands to hold up the cup. I can still play with the grandkids. I can still conduct my life, but the anger's starting to seep into things that I'm saying, things that I'm doing, and my thoughts. And if I continue to hold on to the anger and I don't let anything out, now I'm holding the cup in front of my face. I can't even see you anymore. I can't see Laura. I'm missing opportunities. I'm missing opportunities of really good conversations with my grandkids because I'm so focused on my anger and my pain. I'm missing things. So by using my system, which is going to start with the easy ones and we're going to work our way up to those dumpster fire unforgivables. Now look where the coffee cup is. It's back over to the side of my body. I'm starting to feel better. I'm starting to pay attention more. I could see opportunities for myself and my grandkids. I'm eating better. I'm sleeping better. Coffee tastes better. And if you continually start to forgive using my system, now I've got both hands free and I put the cup down. So now I really can do it. But it's a question of I'm the only one that's good in the world that's ever going to say this to somebody, but you don't have to forgive the unforgivable. You don't. You don't. Some things in this lifetime are 100% unforgivable. But there's a lot of people, places, and things, and I did say places and things, please don't click off, that you can forgive before you even get to that person.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

Well, I can speak from experience because I've read your book, The Ultimate Path to Forgiveness, and I've actually done a session with you, which was powerful. I mean, I'm looking forward to doing more with you, but I highly recommend reading the book. The process that Catherine leads you through is powerful. And so essential. One of the things I've learned more to do is to use my sixth sense to discern the difference between internal peace and external access. Right. So forgiveness versus reconciliation has been a really important understanding for me to get to in my process because these kids have triggered it all in me and continue to do. So I'm still learning about this process, but it's powerful. How do we help a grandmother realize that her peace is more powerful than her rage? How do we stop using anger as a substitute for boundaries?

SPEAKER_18 9:21

Anger is operating like a ledge shield around your body. And it's preventing you from seeing the love that's there in other people. It's preventing you from tapping into your intuition. Ten out of 10 people on the planet are intuitive. You see it, feel it, hear it, or know it where you sense it. Everybody. You wouldn't be human on the earth if you weren't intuitive. Everybody can do this. But the more angry you are, the more anger you're holding on to from the past, it's actually preventing you from moving forward, from preventing you from seeing the authentic nature of your grandkids, even if you think you are. It's acting like a shield. And why is it acting like a shield? When you get angry, no matter when that was, you could have been three years old, and now you're 70. It doesn't matter. When you get angry, and I'm the only one that I'm the only crazy person that actually wonders these things, but when you get angry, it leaves your mouth and it does what? We assume, I'm the only one that assumes this, that it just dissipates into the universe and it's gone. It leaves my mouth and leaves my body. I vented, I feel better, now it's gone. Got rid of the anger. I'm ready to go. Uh, no, sorry. It does not. What it does is it hangs around your energy field. Everything on our planet is energy, including this little silver microphone. Everything has an energy field around it. And what you're doing is you're creating a black cloud around your body. So it's very hard to see through the mist. It's like it's like a fog. When you're trying to drive down the road and there's a huge fog and you can't see more than a couple feet in front of your car, that's what you're doing. And once you forgive and we and you forgive people, the fog is gonna lift. And now you're driving down, you can see the trees, you can see the road, you can see people. It's like a brand new world when the fog lifts. What you're doing is lifting that fog. And as you teach your grandkids this process, they're not gonna have the bags and luggage that we do because they're gonna learn how to process it faster. I've taught both my sons this method.

SPEAKER_05 11:24

And I know a lot of people might say, oh, that's kind of woo-woo stuff. But when you go through this process and you feel that lifting, it's real. Oh, it's very real.

Connecting with my granddaughter

SPEAKER_05 11:36

And we all know how children who have been through this kind of trauma are before they before they make connection.

SPEAKER_06 11:45

Right.

SPEAKER_05 11:46

And when they make connection and there's love there, you see it's like night and day. I experienced this with my granddaughter the other day. I've been struggling on how to connect with her beyond just being a caretaker. And I came up with this idea to do a video for YouTube, a channel for grandkids that are being raised by grandparents. And what I saw happen, because she has a problem with being in this fantasy world that really doesn't exist, but it has a lot to do with her past, um, wanting to try and keep that as a comfort thing. And we did a very real real world thing. It didn't uh involve imagination, it was real. We cooked together, we created stuff together, we talked about her pain. And what I saw was a different child. I saw her lifted from this heavy burden that she carries around with her all the time. And I went, that's the kid that I want to bring out. So it's real. It's very real.

SPEAKER_18 12:55

I I can give you some science. This will help. Some actual scientific study. This will help the people who think that it's woo. This is not woo. This is science, people. There was a gentleman who named Hasumoto Masumoto. I can't get his name right to save my soul. And but it's it called the Japanese water study. It's on the first page of Google. If you Google that, it's right there. And you think he wrote a book about it. In the interest of time, I will just say it really fast. Took two containers of water, one container of water, all he did was talk to it. That's it. And by the way, this study has been replicated by other scientists over the over the years, and everybody gets the same, the same results. So he he said these beautiful words to this container of water. That's all he did. Beautiful. I love you, you're gorgeous type of thing. The other container of water, he just talked to it and said hateful things. The most horrible words you could say to a human, he said to this container of water. He then froze the water and he put it under a microscope. The water that he spoke love to had these beautiful crystal snowflaky kind of pictures.

Importance of positive self-talk

SPEAKER_18 14:03

I mean, they're gorgeous, they're right online. And the water he spoke hate to had these kind of black and brown malformations that kind of look sick. Why am I telling you that? The human body is over 95% water. So when your self-talk is bad, when you're filled with anger, even if you've stuffed that anger way down deep into your soul and it happened 50 years ago and you've stuffed it down, what do you think you're doing to the water molecules within your own body? You're making yourself sick from the inside out. That's why they say anger is toxic, because you're you're literally changing the water within your body. So when you forgive, you show gratitude, you show love, you're literally changing your body chemistry. And it's gonna make you feel better, it's gonna make your grandkids feel better. They'll be able to learn better, they'll be able to pay attention more.

SPEAKER_05 14:51

Yes, absolutely. In our world that grandparents uh raising grandchildren are living in, we carry a lot of shame about our children's failure. Yep. Or failures. And I don't know how um how do we apply your method to ourselves for the solution person that we tried to be but couldn't succeed at? I got how do we forgive ourselves?

SPEAKER_18 15:17

I got this. Let me go through the basic method and then I'm gonna talk to your question. The basic method is I want you to sit down in a quiet room. I prefer the grandkids where at school or something or sleeping. I would like you to just be alone for a little while. The dog can be there, but I kind of want you alone. I'd love your cell phones to be off or at least vibrating or you know, something. And I want you to sit with a pad of paper and a pen, and I want you to write down all the people you think you need to forgive. Now, 10 out of 10 people when they do this exercise are gonna put the most horrific ones first. Those first three or four people are gonna be your unforgivables. It's normal. Keep going. But you're gonna put put the people who hurt you the most first. But then I want you to keep going. I want you to think about the people you went to college with at high school. Who did you do in grammar school? Did somebody cheat off your paper? Did somebody steal your parking space yesterday? Were you on I-95 South and somebody cut you off? I want you to write all these people down on paper. You are best friends in high school, but you haven't spoken to her in 40 years. Okay, put her on the list. That was mine. So then I want then I want you to rate these people from one to 10. 10 being unforgivable, one being the easiest person in the world to forgive. Now you could have 10 number sevens. I don't care. You could skip numbers, I actually don't care. What I do care about is you're going to start with the easy ones and you're going to work your way up. So once you look at that first person, and we'll take my friend from high school, I want you to put your hand on your heart and I want you to imagine that he or she is standing right in front of you, not the adult. I want the kid who you had the falling out with standing in front of you, the original kid, whatever age they were. We're talking about adult, the adult should be in front of you, right? Now let them have it. If it's a level one person, you're probably not going to say anything to them. But if it's a level five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, you're going to want closure. Let them have it. You're alone in a room with an image of the person standing in front of you. If you can't get an image of the person, talk to a chair. I'm actually not kidding. Put a chair in front of you. You can put the person's name on the chair, talk to the chair. Let them have it. Scream. Cry. Burn sage. I don't care what you do. Dance around the room. This is your moment to get all the negative anger emotion out. When you're done, then I put your hand in your heart and say, I completely forgive Laura. I forgive the energy around Laura. I completely forgive myself. I forgive the energy around myself. I forgive the energy around the entire relationship. And so it is. That's the secret sauce. Energy. The only reason people are not staying forgiven and you they keep getting triggered is because you didn't forgive the energy. So now I want you to check in with your body. It are you still angry? No. Okay. Cross the one off. We're we're good to go. Was this a level five person and you check in and still angry? It didn't go away. Okay. What number is it now? Cross the five, put a four, wait 24 hours, do it again. Was it a level? This happened to a friend

Unlocking subconscious memories

SPEAKER_18 18:19

of mine. Was this a level five person? You made that first pass with that mantra I just said. Now it's shot up to a 10. Went the wrong way. What happened? Well, there's a closet in the back of your mind and it's padlocked. But there's a movie running in that closet, and it's affecting everything you say and everything you do, but you don't even know it's there. It's just running. And you would turn it off if you knew it was there, but you don't know it's there. And what you just did with that first forgiveness mantra is you unlocked that door and your brain said, Ooh, Laura's ready now. I think she's ready. And she's, I'm gonna flood her brain with memories she forgot about. So my friend crossed out the five, put a 10, put the person at the end of the list, kept going. Now, once you get through this list, I don't want you to do them all at night. I want you to do no more than four a night, and eventually after a few weeks, you'll get through the list. There's two more lists I want you to do. And you can do this any way you want. You can do you can do your first list, peoples one through five, then you can do the second list, and then you can do the third list. You can do them one at a time, you can mix and match. I actually don't care. But the second list is a list of people who need to forgive you. I want you to write down the names of the people that you think you need forgiveness from. I need you to write down the incidents. Maybe it's not a person, maybe it's because you dropped the ball uh at work. Write down, give that event a name, put it on your list. Maybe it was a phone call you forgot to make and they died before you could say what you wanted to say. Give that phone call a name, put it on your list. Put all of these things. Maybe it was an apartment, put it all on your list. And again, as before, rate them from one to ten, start with the easy ones, work your way up. You're just gonna flip the language. You're gonna say, Laura completely forgives me and the energy around me. So you're just gonna flip the language a little bit. Real easy to do. The third list is about money. I want you to write down all the events and people regarding money. You owed money to some you somebody, write down that person's name. You went into bankruptcy, write the word bankruptcy on your paper. You had to live in an apartment in New York City and you got it in August, and it was right over a fish market, so it really smelled. And that was mine. But write down the fish market, write down the the fact that you that was all you could afford. I also, what was your parents' views about money? Did they were they wealthy? Were they poor? Did they go through money like water? Did they gamble? Write that down. Write down all of it. And then I want you to rate them from one to ten, start with the ones and move your way through. So what's gonna happen when you do these three lists? You're gonna feel better. See, anger really does act like a shield. So when the fog lifts, now you're gonna see the opportunities. Now you're gonna see the people, now the money is gonna start coming through because it doesn't have to compete with the fog anymore. It's literally lifting the fog from your brain. Very, very powerful, powerful stuff. A little PSA. Energy sickness is real. I've had it many times. And when you forgive too many people, places, or things, the energy, remember the water study? Well, those cells have to go

Nighttime healing practice tips

SPEAKER_18 21:42

someplace. And your body heals itself when you're sleeping. So I want you to do this practice before you go to bed because your body heals itself when it's asleep. If you do too many at a time, how do I say this as politely as I possibly can? You might be in the bathroom for a little bit. Might feel like the stomach flu, shall we say? You do not have the stomach flu. You did not eat a piece of bad fish. It's your body just trying to get rid of the energy. So nine out of ten people get really tired when they do this work. So give in to that. But please, please, please, if it's a high-level person like an eight or nine or ten, only do one a night. And if it's a lower level person, you could probably do up to four, maybe five.

SPEAKER_05 22:23

And don't do all three lists at the same time.

unknown 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:28

Don't do all the three lists at the same time,

Choosing task order from lists

SPEAKER_05 22:30

right?

SPEAKER_18 22:30

You know, I'm kind of I'm kind of pretty easy about that. Personally, I would probably do one list, then the second list, then the third list, because that's just me. But I actually have clients who did a few from list one, a few from list two, and a few from list three, and they did like all the ones on all three lists, and then they do all the twos on all three lists. There's about a thousand ways you can work with the three lists. It's completely up to you. I mean, personally, I actually did do one at a time, but if you want to mix and match them, that's fine. The only thing I am absolutely 100% passionate about is if it's a level eight, nine, or ten, you save it for last. Because they're a bear and that's a different process.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Now, is this in a new book? Have you put it into a new book?

SPEAKER_18 23:18

So every in it, even if you don't know technology, you can take it because every day you're gonna get an email from me, and in that email will be a chapter of the book, and it'll be a video that that is a direct link to YouTube, and you will be able to watch it like 10-15-minute video, and it's 10 days, and I'm gonna walk you through the entire method.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

How convenient. That's awesome, Catherine. Tell us tell the listeners where they can find the information and your website name.

SPEAKER_18 23:47

They can find the information at KathrynGiovanni.com, and my first name is spelled a little odd, thanks to my mother. It's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-A-Giovanni.com.

SPEAKER_05 23:57

And we will put that link in the show notes. Catherine, I just love talking with you. One of the things that I'm asking everyone now, because Catherine will be in a chapter of the new book that I'm writing. I have three questions for you to answer. The first question is a systematic question. Many religious and social systems use forgiveness as a tool to keep victims quiet and compliant. How do we reclaim forgiveness as an act of rebellion and strength?

SPEAKER_18 24:28

The more you forgive, the stronger you're going to get. As you forgive the levels, you will remember new things, things that they probably don't want you to remember. But you're going to actually become your authentic self. The person you came down to the planet to be, you're finally going to be. And you're finally going to be able to forgive that unforgivable person you vowed you'd never forgive. And how are you going to do that? Well, you're going to pull apart the memory. You're not going to be able to forgive the, say, my father. I couldn't forgive my father or the energy around him, so I pulled apart the memory. I forgave the house. I forgave the table, the bed, the chair, the park, the car, the, you know, that kind of thing. And the energy around these things. And by forgiving other things within the memory, everything you can remember, well, now it's gone from a 10 to a nine. And you keep chipping away at it until you can forgive the energy around the person and the person itself. That's the shortest I've ever taught that in my life. But the more you forgive, the more your authentic soul is going to come out. And the love is going to come out. And the joy is going to come out. And that at the end of the day is what your grandkids say. You're going to start to become human again,

Finding energy through healing

SPEAKER_18 25:43

if you will.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

Well, I witnessed this in one of the most difficult parts of my life early on after we got our grandchildren. They'd been with me for about a year and a half when I met Catherine. And that process relieved so much fog and discomfort in my life that I had so much more energy after I started doing this process. And I continue. People comment all the time how do you do what you do? How do you take care of the kids? How do you run a podcast? How do you get things done around your house along with all of that? And then how do you go out and volunteer in the community? And I can attest to the fact that we were made to be humans that loved and did these things when you feel like life is such an effort, which I really think a lot of grandparents that are doing this job, which seems impossible, you actually have more energy when you go through these processes, because there's there's just a lot of emotional weight that we're carrying. And I don't think many of us realize it, which is why, in a way, this position that we're in is a blessing because it's an opportunity to heal ourselves in a way that we never would have otherwise.

SPEAKER_18 27:09

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. And when you get used to being in survival mode, you get used to the dysfunction, if you will. The minute you step out of dysfunction, your body's going, ooh, that doesn't feel good. So I'm gonna pull you back to dysfunction, right? And that's the process of forgiving is not only gonna get you out of dysfunction, but it's gonna allow you to stay out of dysfunction and out of shame. Shame loves it's shame loves it. Shame wants to keep you tiny in a corner in the fetal position. And this process is going to allow you to finally come out of shame. And your grandkids, who are little walking sponges, are watching everything. And they're gonna watch you go through this process. But rather remember the water study, you're gonna start to feel better. You're gonna get more energy, you're gonna start to get healthier because you're gonna pay attention to healthy, more vitamins, the new ways of cooking. You're gonna start to notice things and you're gonna start to feel better.

SPEAKER_05 28:09

And toxic thinging thinking begets sickness.

SPEAKER_18 28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:13

So eventually this will eat ourselves up if we don't process it.

SPEAKER_18 28:17

Even if you're spinning the stories funny, you're still saying the stories and you're still telling them. See, everybody say, No, I've got this, I've got a handle, I forgave them years ago. Maybe you did, but why are you still telling me the story?

SPEAKER_05 28:31

You know, I I just flashed back on something that I experienced when I first interviewed you, Tommy, who processes a lot of pain in his body. He talks about a lot of body parts hurting him. We actually began to physically take it and pull it from his body. I would I would say, I don't know how I got this idea. I think it was before I met you. But I would say, Where's it hurting? And he'd say, My leg, you know, or my arm, and I'd say, What does does it hurt? What where's that pain coming from? He goes, Oh, you know, um, I'm sad. And I'd say, Well, let's get that sadness out of your body.

Describing the forgiveness process

SPEAKER_05 29:17

So we would pull it until it was like a long rope, and I go, Is it out yet? He goes, No, there's still more, and we'd pull it some more. And we would literally open the door and throw it out the door and shut the door, and he was amazed. Now, I I think that this process is similar to that, although we're able to put it into words a little bit more effectively than little children are. But uh it's a very real thing. The ultimate path to forgiveness actually lists this process in the book.

SPEAKER_15 29:54

It does.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

It does. And it's a very quick read. I found it was a very easy read. What?

SPEAKER_18 30:00

A simple soul. Yeah. I I write like I speak. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:04

Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to try this, I want you to write in and tell me what you experienced. Because we need to dump this shame and guilt. It is just so important. Otherwise, we're gonna pass it on down to the next to the kids and to their families. I am so adamant about not doing this to these children. I mean, caring.

SPEAKER_18 30:31

Yes. Yep. It is 100% real. Well, I'm not gonna trauma dump on the kids. No, not consciously, but you're gonna tell stories, you're gonna have anger in your body, they're gonna read your body language, and everybody reads it. Everybody's reading your body language, and you're gonna pass it on. Your fears about money, you can pass that on. Your fears about other people, you can pass that on. So, by doing the three lists that I talked about, by doing this process is going to stop that intergenerational trauma. There we go.

SPEAKER_05 31:07

Yes, I pray that's what we all do. So, my policy question is if you were COO of family restoration, what one forgiveness protocol would you mandate for every kinship household to ensure the adults aren't passing their resentment down to the children?

SPEAKER_18 31:24

I would make everybody before they go to bed, I would want them to do two things. The first thing is I want them to write a gratitude list, the top three things they're most grateful for from that day. It could be coffee is a thing. We have days like that. I'm grateful coffee is on the planet. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Grateful every morning for coffee.

SPEAKER_18 31:44

That might be I'm grateful there's running water out of my tap. You know, sometimes it's hard to think about what you're grateful for. And then I want you to think about one or two people that you could easily forgive that happened that day. Maybe somebody cut you off on aisle four of the grocery store. Okay, forgive that person. They were late, you know, something happened. And using my forgiveness watch, it just forgive the one person. That's what I'd want everybody to do. And if you don't want to start with the people in your past, that's fine. Just forgive the people from yesterday. And one little PSA, if you're watching or listening to this broadcast thinking you have nobody to forgive and you're good, okay. I want you to repeat after me and say it for the next three to five days. I completely forgive myself for not being able to forgive and the energy around this thought. Say that every day for a week, and that that closet in the back of your mind, it's gonna open and you're gonna start thinking, you're gonna start thinking of names and situations and places. Don't judge the list. Write them down, rate them from one to ten, start the journey.

SPEAKER_05 32:51

Thanks, Catherine. Thanks for all your gifts and sharing them with the audience on the show.

SPEAKER_18 32:55

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_05 32:57

You feel that lifting. It's real. Oh, it's very real. And we all know how children who have been through this kind of trauma are before they before they make connection.

SPEAKER_06 33:12

Right.

SPEAKER_05 33:12

And when they make connection and there's love there, you see it's like night and day. I experienced this with my granddaughter the other day. I've been struggling on how to connect with her beyond just being a caretaker. And I came up with this idea to do a video for YouTube, a channel for grandkids that are being raised by grandparents. And what I saw happen, because she has a problem with being in this fantasy world that really doesn't exist, but it has a lot to do with her past, um, wanting to try and keep that as a comfort thing. And we did a very real real world thing. It didn't uh involve imagination, it was real. We cooked together, we created stuff together, we talked about her pain. And what I saw was a different child. I saw her lifted from this heavy burden that she carries around with her all the time. And I went, that's the kid that I want to bring out. So it's real. It's very real.

SPEAKER_18 34:22

I I can give you some science. This will help. Some actual scientific study. This will help the people who think that it's woo. This is not woo, this is science, people. There was a gentleman who named Hasumoto Masumoto. I can't get his name right to save my soul. Uh, but it's called the Japanese water study. It's on the first page of Google. If you Google that, it's right there. And you think he wrote a book about it. In the interest of time, I will just say it really fast. Took two containers of water, one container of water, all he did was talk to it. That's it. And by the way, this study has been replicated by other scientists over the over the years, and everybody gets the same, the same results. So he he said these beautiful words to this container of water. That's all he did. Beautiful. I love you, you're gorgeous type of thing. The other container of water, he just talked to it and said hateful things. The most horrible words you could say to a human, he said to this container of water. He then froze the water and he put it under a microscope. The water that he spoke love to had these beautiful crystal snowflaky kind of pictures.

The impact of emotions on health

SPEAKER_18 35:29

I mean, they're gorgeous, they're right online. And the water he spoke hate to had these kind of black and brown malformations that kind of look sick. Why am I telling you that? The human body is over 95% water. So when your self-talk is bad, when you're filled with anger, even if you've stuffed that anger way down deep into your soul and it happened 50 years ago and you've stuffed it down, what do you think you're doing to the water molecules within your own body? You're making yourself sick from the inside out. That's why they say anger is toxic, because you're you're literally changing the water within your body. So when you forgive, you show gratitude, you show love, you're literally changing your body chemistry. And it's gonna make you feel better, it's gonna make your grandkids feel better. They'll be able to learn better, they'll be able to pay attention more.

SPEAKER_05 36:18

Yes, absolutely. In our world that grandparents uh raising grandchildren are living in, we carry a lot of shame about our children's failure. Yep. Or failures. And I don't know how um how do we apply your method to ourselves for the solution person that we tried to be but couldn't succeed at? I got how do we forgive ourselves?

SPEAKER_18 36:43

I got this. Let me go through the basic method, and then I'm gonna talk to your question. The basic method is I want you to sit down in a quiet room. I prefer the grandkids where at school or something or sleeping. I would like you to just be alone for a little while. The dog can be there, but I kind of want you alone. I'd love your cell phones to be off or at least vibrating or you know, something. And I want you to sit with a pad of paper and a pen, and I want you to write down all the people you think you need to forgive. Now, 10 out of 10 people when they do this exercise are gonna put the most horrific ones first. Those first three or four people are gonna be your unforgivables. It's normal. Keep going. But you're gonna put the people who hurt you the most first. But then I want you to keep going. I want you to think about the people you went to college with,

Making a forgiveness list

SPEAKER_18 37:26

the high school. Who did you do in grammar school? Did somebody cheat off your paper? Did somebody steal your parking space yesterday? Were you on I-95 South and somebody cut you off? I want you to write all these people down on paper. You are best friends in high school, but you haven't spoken to her in 40 years. Okay, put her on the list. That was mine. So then I want then I want you to rate these people from one to 10. 10 being unforgivable, one being the easiest person in the world to forgive. Now you could have 10 number sevens. I don't care. You could skip numbers, I actually don't care. What I do care about is you're gonna start with the easy ones and you're gonna work your way up. So once you look at that first person, and we'll take my friend from high school, I want you to put your hand on your heart and I want you to imagine that he or she is standing right in front of you, not the adult. I want the kid who you had the falling out with standing in front of you, the original kid, whatever age they were. We're talking about adult, the adult should be in front of you, right? Now let them have it. If it's a level one person, you're probably not gonna say anything to them. But if it's a level five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, you're gonna want closure. Let them have it. You're alone in a room with an image of the person standing in front of you. If you can't get an image of the person, talk to a chair. I'm actually not kidding. Put a chair in front of you. You can put the person's name on the chair, talk to the chair, let them have it. Scream, cry, burn sage. I don't care what you do. Dance around the room. This is your moment to get all the negative anger emotion out. When you're done, then I put your hand in your heart and say, I completely forgive Laura. I forgive the energy around Laura. I completely forgive myself. I forgive the energy around myself. I forgive the energy around the entire relationship, and so it is. That's the secret sauce. Energy. The only reason people are not staying forgiven and you they keep getting triggered is because you didn't forgive the energy. So now I want you to check in with your body. It are you still angry? No. Okay, cross the one off, we're we're good to go. Was this a level five person and you check in and still angry? It didn't go away. Okay, what number is it now? Cross the five, put a four, wait 24 hours, do it again. Was it a level? This happened

Unlocking hidden memories

SPEAKER_18 39:45

to a friend of mine. Was this a level five person? You made that first pass with that mantra I just said, now it's shot up to a 10. What the wrong way? What happened? Well, there's a closet in the back of your mind, and it's padlocked. But there's a movie running in that closet, and it's affecting everything you say and everything you do, but you don't even know it's there. It's just running. And you would turn it off if you knew it was there, but you don't know it's there. And what you just did with that first forgiveness mantra is you unlocked that door, and your brain said, Ooh, Laura's ready now. I think she's ready. And she's I'm gonna flood her brain with memories she forgot about. So my friend crossed out the five, put a 10, put the person at the end of the list, kept going. Now, once you get through this list, I don't want you to do them all at night. I want you to do no more than four a night, and eventually, after a few weeks, you'll get through the list. There's two more lists I want you to do. And you can do this any way you want. You can do you can do your first list, peoples one through five, then you can do the second list, and then you can do the third list. You can do them one at a time, you can mix and match. I actually don't care. But the second list is a list of people who need to forgive you. I want you to write down the names of the people that you think you need forgiveness from. I need you to write down the incidents. Maybe it's not a person, maybe it's because you dropped the ball at work. Write down, give that event a name, put it on your list. Maybe it was a phone call you forgot to make and they died before you could say what you wanted to say. Give that phone call a name, put it on your list. Put all of these things. Maybe it was an apartment, put it all on your list. And again, as before, rate them from one to ten, start with the easy ones, work your way up. You're just gonna flip the language. You're gonna say, Laura completely forgives me and the energy around me. So you're just gonna flip the language a little bit. Real easy to do. The third list is about money. I want you to write down all the events and people regarding money. You owed money to somebody, write down that person's name. You went into bankruptcy, write the word bankruptcy on your paper. You had to live in an apartment in New York City and you got it in August, and it was right over a fish market, so it really smelled. And that was mine. But write down the fish market, write down the the fact that you that was all you could afford. I also, what was your parents' views about money? Did they were they wealthy? Were they poor? Did they go through money like water? Did they gamble? Write that down. Write down all of it. And then I want you to rate them from one to ten, start with the ones and move your way through. So what's gonna happen when you do these three lists? You're gonna feel better. See, anger really does act like a shield. So when the fog lifts, now you're gonna see the opportunities. Now you're gonna see the people, now the money is gonna start coming through because it doesn't have to compete with the fog anymore. It's literally lifting the fog from your brain. Very, very powerful, powerful stuff. A little PSA. Energy sickness is real. I've had it many times. And when you forgive too many people, places, or things, the energy, remember the water studying?

Detox effects and nighttime practice

SPEAKER_18 43:07

Well, those cells have to go someplace. And your body heals itself when you're sleeping. So I want you to do this practice before you go to bed because your body heals itself when it's asleep. If you do too many at a time, how do I say this as politely as I possibly can? You might be in the bathroom for a little bit. Might feel like the stomach flu, shall we say? You do not have the stomach flu, you did not eat a piece of bad fish. It's your body just trying to get rid of the energy. So nine out of ten people get really tired when they do this work. So give in to that. But please, please, please, if it's a high level person like an eight or nine or ten, only do one a night. And if it's a lower level person, you could probably do up to four, maybe five.

SPEAKER_05 43:50

And don't do all three lists at the same time.

unknown 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Don't do all the three lists at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_18 43:57

You know, I'm kind of I'm kind of pretty easy. About that. Personally, I would probably do one list, then the second list, then the third list, because that's just me. But I actually have clients who did a few from list one, a few from list two, and a few from list three, and they did like all the ones on all three lists, and then they do all the twos on all three lists. There's about a thousand ways you can work with the three lists. It's completely up to you. I mean, personally, I actually did do one at a time, but if you want to mix and match them, that's fine. The only thing I am absolutely 100% passionate about is if it's a level eight, nine, or ten, you save it for last. Because they're a bear and that's a different process. Now, is this in a new book? Have you put it into a new book? Actually, in my online class, I have an online class right on my website. It's a 10-day class. So every in it, even if you don't know technology, you can take it because every day you're gonna get an email from me. And in that email will be a chapter of the book, and it'll be a video that that is a direct link to YouTube, and you will be able to watch it like 10-15-minute video, and it's 10 days, and I'm gonna walk you through the entire method.

SPEAKER_05 45:04

How convenient. That's awesome, Catherine. Tell us tell the listeners where they can find the information and your website name.

SPEAKER_18 45:14

They can find the information at KatherineGiovanni.com, and my first name is spelled a little odd, thanks to my mother. It's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-A-Giovanni.com.

SPEAKER_05 45:24

And we will put that link in the show notes. Catherine, I just love talking with you. One of the things that I'm asking everyone now, because Catherine will be in a chapter of the new book that I'm writing. I have three questions for you to answer. The first question is a systematic question. Many religious and social systems use forgiveness as a tool to keep victims quiet and compliant. How do we reclaim forgiveness as an act of rebellion and strength?

SPEAKER_18 45:54

The more you forgive, the stronger you're going to get. As you forgive the levels, you will remember new things, things that they probably don't want you to remember. But you're going to actually become your authentic self. The person you came down to the planet to be, you're finally going to be. And you're finally going to be able to forgive that unforgivable person you vowed you'd never forgive. And how are you going to do that? Well, you're going to pull apart the memory. You're not going to be able to forgive the, let's say, my father. Yeah, I couldn't forgive my father or the energy around him, so I pulled apart the memory. I forgave the house. I forgave the table, the bed, the chair, the park, the car, the, you know, that kind of thing. And the energy around these things. And by forgiving other things within the memory, everything you can remember, well, now it's gone from a 10 to a nine. And you keep chipping away at it until you can forgive the energy around the person and the person itself. That's the shortest I've ever taught that in my life. But the more you forgive, the more your authentic soul is going to come out. And the love is going to come out. And the joy is going to come out. And that at the end of the day is what your grandkids see. You're going to start to become human again, if you will.

Finding energy through challenging times

SPEAKER_05 47:10

Well, I witnessed this in one of the most difficult parts of my life early on after we got our grandchildren. They'd been with me for about a year and a half when I met Catherine. And that process relieved so much fog and discomfort in my life that I had so much more energy after I started doing this process. And I continue. People comment all the time, how do you do what you do? How do you take care of the kids? How do you run a podcast? How do you get things done around your house along with all of that? And then how do you go out and volunteer in the community? And I can attest to the fact that we were made to be humans that loved and did these things when you feel like life is such an effort, which I really think a lot of grandparents that are doing this job, which seems impossible, you actually have more energy when you go through these processes, because there's there's just a lot of emotional weight that we're carrying. And I don't think many of us realize it, which is why, in a way, this position that we're in is a blessing because it's an opportunity to heal ourselves in a way that we never would have otherwise.

SPEAKER_18 48:35

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. And when you get used to being in survival mode, you get used to the dysfunction, if you will. The minute you step out of dysfunction, your body's going, Ooh, that doesn't feel good. So I'm gonna pull you back to dysfunction, right? And that's the process of forgiving is not only gonna get you out of dysfunction, but it's gonna allow you to stay out of dysfunction and out of shame. Shame loves it's shame loves it. Shame wants to keep you tiny in a corner in the fetal position. And this process is going to allow you to finally come out of shame. And your grandkids, who are little walking sponges, are watching everything. And they're gonna watch you go through this process. But rather, remember the water study, you're gonna start to feel better. You're gonna get more energy, you're gonna start to get healthier because you're gonna pay attention to healthy, more vitamins, the new ways of cooking. You're gonna start to notice things and you're gonna start to feel better.

SPEAKER_05 49:36

And toxic thinking thinking begets sickness.

SPEAKER_18 49:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:39

So eventually this will eat ourselves up if we don't process it.

SPEAKER_18 49:43

Even if you're spinning the stories funny, you're still saying the stories and you're still telling them. See, everybody say, No, I've got this, I've got a handle, I forgave them years ago. Maybe you did, but why are you still telling me the story?

Discovering the source of pain

SPEAKER_05 49:58

You know, I I just flashed back on something that I experienced when I first interviewed you, Tommy, who processes a lot of pain in his body. He talks about a lot of body parts hurting him. We actually began to physically take it and pull it from his body. I would I would say, I don't know how I got this idea. I think it was before I met you, but I would say, where's it hurting? And he'd say, My leg, you know, or my arm, and I'd say, What does does it hurt? What where's that pain coming from? He goes, Oh, you know, um, I'm sad. And I'd say, Well, let's get that sadness out of your body. So we would pull it until it was like a long rope, and I go, Is it out yet? He goes, No, there's still more, and we'd pull it some more, and we would literally open the door and throw it out the door and shut the door, and he was amazed. Now, I I think that this process is similar to that, although we're able to put it into words a little bit more effectively than little children are, but uh it's a very real thing. The ultimate path to forgiveness actually lists this process in the book. It does, it does, and it's a very quick read. I found it was a very easy read.

SPEAKER_18 51:26

What? A simple soul. Yeah. I I write like I speak. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

Yeah, yeah. And if you want to try this, I want you to write in and tell me what you experienced because we need to dump this shame and guilt. It is just so important. Otherwise, we're gonna pass it on down to the next, to the kids and to their families. I am so adamant about not doing this to these children. I mean, caring.

SPEAKER_18 51:57

Yes. Yep. It is 100% real. Well, I'm not gonna trauma dump on the kids. No, not consciously, but you're gonna tell stories, you're gonna have anger in your body, they're gonna read your body language, and everybody reads it. Everybody's reading your body language, and you're gonna pass it on. Your fears about money, you can pass that on. Your fears about other people, you can pass that on. So, by doing the three lists that I talked about, by doing this process is going to stop that intergener gener poof, intergenerational trauma. There we go.

SPEAKER_05 52:33

Yes, I pray that's what we all do. So, my policy question is if you were COO of family restoration, what one forgiveness protocol would you mandate for every kinship household to ensure the adults aren't passing their resentment down to the children?

SPEAKER_18 52:51

I would make everybody before they go to bed, I would want them to do two things. The first thing is I want them to write a gratitude list, the top three things they're most grateful for from that day. It could be coffee is a thing. We have days like that. I'm grateful coffee is on the planet. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

Grateful every morning for coffee.

SPEAKER_18 53:11

That might be I'm grateful there's running water out of my tap. You know, sometimes it's hard to think about what you're grateful for. And then I want you to think about one or two people that you could easily forgive that happened that day. Maybe somebody cut you off on aisle four of the grocery store. Okay, forgive that person. They were late, you know, something happened. And using my forgiveness watch it, just forgive the one person. That's what I'd want everybody to do. And if you don't want to start with the people in your past, that's fine. Just forgive the people from yesterday. And one little PSA, if you're watching or listening to this broadcast thinking you have nobody to forgive and you're good, okay. I want you to repeat after me and say it for the next three to five days. I completely forgive myself for not being able to forgive and the energy around this thought. Say that every day for a week, and that that closet in the back of your mind, it's gonna open and you're gonna start thinking, you're gonna start thinking of names and situations and places. Don't judge the list. Write them down, rate them from one to ten, start the journey.

SPEAKER_05 54:17

Thanks, Catherine. Thanks for all your gifts and sharing them with the audience on the show.

SPEAKER_18 54:21

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_05 54:24

Take a breath and look at your three lists. Who is your level 10 unforgivable? Catherine reminds us that you don't have to forgive the unforgivable today, but you can start with the person who cut you off in aisle four. Ask

Dealing with anger and trauma

SPEAKER_05 54:40

yourself, is my anger a lead shield or is it a toxin? Remember, your grandchildren are little walking sponges. They don't just hear your words, they read your energy. If you want them to be free of intergenerational trauma, you have to be the one to drop the cup first. Go to our resource library and download the Forgiveness Audit Worksheet to start your list tonight. Join us next week as we welcome Tammy Gangloff to the boardroom. In the life of a kinship CEO, the body is often the first asset to be sacrificed. We focus so much on the children's stability that we ignore our own chronic pain, our changing health, and the complicated ways we've used food to cope with the midnight calls of family crisis. Tammy is an eating disorder expert and therapist who specializes in the intersection of chronic illness and disordered eating.

Health audit and compassionate leadership

SPEAKER_05 55:39

She's here to help us perform a health audit, moving away from the hustle of control and into a leadership style grounded in compassion. If you've felt like your body is a failed system under the weight of this stress, you won't want to miss this masterclass in biological resilience. Still nurturing and still here. Whether you're writing your gratitude list or pulling sadness ropes out of a toddler's body, you are the architect of a new legacy. Keep leading, keep forgiving, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.