Episode Details

What if forgiveness isn’t about excusing someone else’s actions, reconciling with them, or pretending the past never happened—but simply getting them out of your head?

In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Katharine Giovanni, an author, speaker, and practical forgiveness educator who has spent decades teaching people how to approach forgiveness in a practical way.

Katharine’s perspective comes from a deeply personal place. She describes growing up in a dysfunctional household with two alcoholic parents, attempting suicide in eighth grade, overcoming breast cancer, and maintaining more than three decades of sobriety. She says her life has given her “more than enough” people and experiences to forgive.

Her central idea is deceptively simple: you forgive for yourself, not for the other person.

Katharine explains why forgiveness doesn’t mean the other person was right, that you were wrong, or that you need to rebuild a relationship. You can forgive someone while maintaining boundaries, refusing contact, and continuing with your own life.

She describes forgiveness as a way of reclaiming mental and emotional space. When anger and resentment occupy our attention, she argues, they can prevent us from focusing on relationships, health, opportunities, and the other parts of life that matter.

Katharine then walks us through the practical forgiveness method she developed. Rather than starting with the person who hurt you most, she recommends making a list of people and experiences you feel you need to forgive, rating them from 1 to 10, and beginning with the easier ones before gradually working toward the harder ones.

She explains how she uses visualization, speaking to the person in her imagination, expressing what was left unsaid, and then repeating a forgiveness statement. She also discusses adapting the exercise for people who find visualization difficult.

For particularly painful memories, Katharine describes “pulling apart” the memory—breaking it into individual people, places, objects, and circumstances and working through them gradually. She emphasizes that this process is a marathon rather than a sprint.

We also explore shame and self-forgiveness. Katharine argues that forgiving ourselves can be especially difficult and encourages people to include themselves on their forgiveness list.

The conversation then turns to intuition. Katharine describes intuition as something she believes everyone possesses and encourages listeners to pay attention when names, memories, or ideas unexpectedly come to mind.

We also discuss whether forgiveness can have implications beyond the individual. Katharine imagines what might happen if people learned to release even the smaller sources of anger they carry toward everyday situations, public events, politicians, sports teams, and other frustrations.

Ultimately, Katharine’s message is not that what happened to you was acceptable. It is that you don’t have to keep allowing the memory and emotional charge of what happened to occupy your mind.

As she puts it, forgiveness means getting the person “out of your head” so you can live your own life.

Listeners can learn more about Katharine, her work, and her books by visiting her website: KatharineGiovanni.com.

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Food for thought: “Peace is possible.”