Still Mad? How Forgiveness Sets You Free (and Heals More Than You Think)

The Power of Letting Go Through Forgiveness

The Power of Letting Go Through Forgiveness: How to Set Yourself Free

Welcome to a conversation that might just change your life.

Today we’re diving into a concept that isn’t always easy to embrace, but is always worth it: forgiveness. And not the kind where you wait for someone to apologize or change. We’re talking about the radical, liberating kind of forgiveness you give yourself—so you can move forward, lighter and freer than ever.

If you’ve been replaying the same painful memory, the same toxic conversation, or the same betrayal over and over in your mind, this message is for you.

Let’s talk about the power of letting go—and how it changes everything.

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Watch the video on YouTube:

Listen to the Podcast Here:

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Why We Hold On (Even When It Hurts)

Ever felt yourself snap at someone who didn’t deserve it?

Lose sleep over a conversation that ended months—or years—ago?

Struggle to trust again because of a past experience?

That’s the cost of unforgiveness. It lingers in our bodies, our minds, and our energy. It doesn’t stay “back there in the past”—it quietly steals from your present.

As the saying goes: “Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Oof. That one hits, right?

Unforgiveness keeps us tied to the people and moments that hurt us. We think we’re punishing them, but really, we’re punishing ourselves.

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From Betrayal to Breakthrough

My Story: From Betrayal to Breakthrough

By Hawkins MD/PHD, David R.

I’ve lived this truth. I loved my job, poured my heart into it—and still, I was mistreated.

Even after I left, the betrayal haunted me. I replayed conversations in my head. I second-guessed my worth. I stayed up at night asking, “Why did they do that?” and “What did I do wrong?”

But here’s what I finally realized: forgiveness isn’t about making them feel better—it’s about reclaiming your peace.

I turned to teachings from Neville Goddard and Dr. David Hawkins’ book Letting Go. These teachings reminded me that I don’t need external justice to feel whole. I can find inner justice—the kind that comes from choosing peace over pain.

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What Forgiveness is NOT and what forgiveness IS

What Forgiveness Isn’t

Let’s be clear. Forgiveness is not:

• Excusing bad behavior

• Pretending it didn’t happen

• Letting someone back into your life

• Waiting for an apology

Forgiveness is:

• Saying “I refuse to let this control me anymore”

• A shift from victim to victor

• A decision to reclaim your joy, clarity, and peace

You might never get closure from the other person, but you can give it to yourself through your imagination, your energy, and your intention.

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Forgive YOURSELF!!

Forgiving Yourself: The Hidden Layer

Here’s something many people miss: sometimes the person you need to forgive most is yourself.

That time you didn’t speak up.

That season when you stayed too long.

That moment you made a mistake—or blamed yourself for someone else’s choices.

We all carry these invisible weights.

Forgiveness says, “That version of me was doing the best they could. I choose to let them off the hook.”

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The science behind forgiveness

The Science of Forgiveness

Beyond the spiritual and emotional benefits, the science of forgiveness is compelling:

• Lower cortisol levels (aka, less stress)

• Better sleep quality

• Improved heart health

• Stronger immune system

• More fulfilling relationships

One of my clients had chronic pain—specifically, frozen shoulder. No amount of physical therapy helped. But once she forgave an old friend through a letter she never sent? The pain vanished. Coincidence? Maybe. But there’s a deep mind-body connection that science is still catching up to.

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Tools to Begin Your Forgiveness Journey

Tools to Begin Your Forgiveness Journey

1. The Unsent Letter

This is one of my favorites. Write a letter to the person who hurt you—but don’t send it. Say everything. Rage, grief, disappointment, even gratitude. Let it pour out. Then destroy it. Burn it. Rip it. Delete it. The point is the release.

2. Journal with Prompts

Ask yourself:

• What story am I telling myself about this event?

• What do I need to forgive myself for?

• What lesson did I learn from this?

• What emotion am I afraid to feel?

Pro tip: Use ChatGPT (or even my $17 “Wellness Buddy” GPT!) to generate forgiveness journaling prompts. It’s like having a coach in your pocket.

3. Mindfulness and Meditation

Sit in silence. Let your emotions rise without judgment. Try repeating:

• “I release what no longer serves me.”

• “I choose peace over pain.”

• “I am free from the past.”

This practice aligns with Neville Goddard’s teachings and with what my coach, Joseph Rodrigues, calls “doing nothing and receiving everything.” In stillness, so much can change.

4. Get Support

Therapists, coaches, or spiritual mentors can walk with you through the process. Asking for help isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom.

I meet weekly with my mastermind group, and every story shared helps untangle a knot in someone’s heart. Sometimes just knowing you’re not alone is the most healing part.

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From Victim to Victor

From Victim to Victor

Here’s the truth: if you’re stuck in unforgiveness, you’re likely stuck in the victim-victimizer cycle.

And the only way out?

Become the Victor.

Stop waiting for someone to make it right. You make it right by choosing to be free.

This means:

• No more “why did they…?”

• No more imaginary arguments in the shower.

• No more proving your worth to people who can’t see it.

Your peace is too important. Your joy is too precious. Your mission is too powerful.

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A real-life metaphor

The Hawk and the Snake: A Real-Life Metaphor

On my last day at that job, something incredible happened.

I saw a black hawk—with a white tail—eating a snake in the grass. It was a stunning moment. Wild. Symbolic. Otherworldly.

The hawk represented clarity, strength, and vision.

The snake? The pain I was leaving behind.

That moment was a spiritual confirmation: the cycle was complete. I had released the poison. And I was soaring.

You Are the Hawk

Maybe you’ve been tangled in bitterness.

Maybe your nervous system is shot from unhealed grief.

Maybe you’re just tired.

Then this is your sign.

You are the hawk.

You are not the pain.

You are not the betrayal.

You are the one who lets go and rises above it.

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Final Thoughts

Forgiveness isn’t just a virtue—it’s a power tool for transformation.

It doesn’t mean forgetting.

It means remembering without pain.

And it doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a practice.

Every time you choose peace instead of pain…

Every time you release the story instead of repeating it…

Every time you speak love where resentment wants to shout…

You heal.

So I’ll leave you with this:

✨ What are you ready to let go of?

✨ What part of your story deserves peace?

✨ What would it feel like to be free?

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About Kathie

Kathie Owen, Coach and Consultant

Kathie Owen is a corporate wellness consultant, mindset coach, and fitness expert with over two decades of experience helping individuals and teams rise, reset, and reclaim their power. As the creator of the Better You Challenge and the voice behind Kathie’s Coaching Podcast, she blends science-backed wellness strategies with mindset teachings from Neville Goddard and Reality Transurfing.

Kathie is passionate about guiding others through burnout, emotional healing, and personal transformation—always with a dose of authenticity and heart. Whether through coaching, speaking, or her custom GPT tools, Kathie empowers people to rewrite their stories and live with purpose, peace, and power.

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Transcript

Welcome back friends. Today we are exploring something powerful, something that doesn't always feel easy, but always brings freedom. That's something is forgiveness and not for the person that hurt you, but for you. This episode is called The Power of Letting Go Through Forgiveness. And if you've been holding onto something or someone, this might be the message your heart has been waiting for. You're listening to Kathie's Coaching podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Owen. Have you ever carried the weight of resentment for weeks, for months, maybe even years? That invisible baggage shows up in unexpected ways, snapping at someone who didn't deserve it, sleepless nights, replaying old conversations, and trust issues in your relationships. Unforgiveness doesn't just live in the past. It haunts the present and it robs us of peace, joy, and connection. I once heard someone say holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Powerful, right? I had the burden of unforgiveness and I had a story where I was mistreated at a place that I worked and I loved my job, but I carried that pain long after it happened. And it impacted my distrust in the leadership that was leading this company, and it gave me anxiety at night, and I even second guessed my worth even after leaving. I. But I realized that forgiveness was not about them. It was about reclaiming my peace. And I talk about this a lot on my channel, the Neville Goddard and, and how we do self-talk in our mind. And I was having these conversations with those people, the CEO of the company, who was, I thought my friend who had my back, or the HR department who was. I thought behind me. I mean, she even told me at one point in time. We all have mistakes that we make. That's all this is. And I thought she was on my side. But it wasn't my place to give justice. Or replay it over and over again because all I found was anxiety until I realized the real justice was letting go. And I've read the book Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins, which is a really powerful book. I'll include it in the links in the show notes and description below. But there's power in that. And not because the people who did wrong deserved it, but because I did, I deserve that peace. I deserved the justice in my mind. And we know that Neville Goddard teaches us this. We can get it in our imagination. But let's be clear. Forgiveness is not condoning bad behavior. It's not pretending that the hurt never happened. Forgiveness is a personal act of liberation. It is saying, I choose to stop letting this pain control my life. You might never get an apology and you might never get closure. But you can still choose peace because forgiveness is something you give yourself. And again, you can get that closure, you can get that apology in your imagination. And once you do and you stop having those ugly conversations with those people in your mind. That's part of forgiveness, that's part of letting go. You know, in childhood, you may remember a time when you weren't picked for a team or you were misunderstood or made to feel like your voice didn't matter, and that childhood pain can stay with us. It can show up in adult relationships until we choose to forgive, not just others, but also ourself. You know, maybe just forgive that 10-year-old aged memory. You don't even realize you were still carrying it. It was a moment that was just left out. And you might make it mean something like, I'm not good enough, or I've since learned. And sometimes the person we need to forgive most is ourself. Just remember that. So there's benefits to forgiveness and science backs this up. Studies show that those who forgive experience lower stress and anxiety levels. Better sleep, improve relationships, and even stronger immune systems. But beyond science, there's something deeply spiritual about forgiveness. And when we release bitterness, we create space for grace. And when we forgive, we grow. I had a client one time that had what was called frozen shoulder or chronic pain, and it mysteriously healed after she forgave someone. I mean just instantly, and whether it was real or psychosomatic. The link between the stress, resentment and the body can be powerful and what she did was, she actually talked about it a lot in our coaching calls, and she would talk about how she was hurting so bad and hurting so bad, and then we got to the root of the situation and it, she realized she wasn't forgiving this old friend of hers. And so she wrote a letter that she never sent. She just wrote this letter down and she had carried that tension for years. And it wasn't just in her body, it was in her heart. But once she let that go, I mean, really let that go. And again, I'm gonna go back to that book Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins because it has some powerful tools in it on letting this go. Just let it go. And once she really let it go, her pain was gone. So there are some practical techniques for letting go, and I just mentioned that, but how do we begin? You can start by journaling. Write out the story, don't hold back. Say what needs to be said just for you. You might be surprised how freeing it is just to put it all down, and journaling can help a lot like. If you have, chat GPT, you can go into it and go gimme some journaling prompts on forgiveness. And you can even ask it and say, Hey, tell me the, the story that's playing out in my mind over and over and over again. How can I let that go? And by the way, while we're talking about chat, GPT, did you know that I have a gPT that I made personally and it's coaching with me and you can just go into it and say hi, and it will give you some advice. Hey, great for showing up. It will, it will sound a lot like coaching with me and of course it's got fitness and wellness in there, and I built this GPT just for you and it's only$17. I'll have a link to that in the show notes and description below. I invite you to check it out. There's also another technique for letting go, and I like this one. Mindfulness and meditation. Sit in stillness and allow your emotions to rise without judgment. Repeat affirmations like I release what no longer serves me. I choose peace over pain. You know, mindfulness and meditation is very similar to what my coach and my mentor, Joseph Rodrigues talks about doing nothing and getting everything. I mean to tell you, we've been talking about this in our mastermind a lot lately about doing nothing and how you still get what you're looking for, and it's amazing how that does, and it's almost like you let go. And to give yourself permission to just release what no longer serves you and choose peace over pain. And then there's another technique for letting go, and that is support. And sometimes we need help to untangle the knots inside. Therapists, coaches or spiritual mentors can hold space for that healing, and you're not weak for asking for support. You're wise. Again, I'm gonna go back to my mastermind and how that is so beneficial. And it's funny because we share stories. In on these calls, there's two calls a week and we talk and talk and talk, and it's funny how everyone is you pushed out and how much you learn in the meantime. So here's a technique that I did when I was really dealing with that anxiety and pain and not actually letting go of all of that situation at that job that I thought I loved. I did, I loved the people I worked with, but I didn't love the people who were in charge. But I did a letter writing of forgiveness that I never mailed, and I talk about it was. Everything that was really on my mind and how I was treated, and it, it just, I just laid it all out and it felt so good. I just wrote everything I needed to say and was, I didn't worry about how it would be received. And I wanna invite you to give yourself permission to do the same thing. I poured that all out pages of truth, anger, and actually even love because I come from a place in my heart. And all of those people, I do have a place, um, in my heart for love for them, even anybody who's ever been a part of my life and had something to do with me. Everybody is you pushed out, and if you don't come from a place of love and letting go, it will harbor resentment. And again, go back to the beginning of this episode when I said, when you hold onto resentment, you're taking poison, expecting the other person to die, and that's not helpful. But when I finished that letter, I didn't send it. I actually just threw it away. And in that moment, something inside of me felt clean again. So forgiveness doesn't mean the past disappears. It means we acknowledge it, but we don't let it define us. It means reframing your story from victim to Victor and I talk about this all the time when we are in victim. There is a victimizer on the other side, and we go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and I will have a link to my victim victimizer articles in the show notes and description below, and I invite you to go check them out because that was my favorite psychologist. Her theory of psychology was the victim victimizer, and the only way out of that is to go to Victor, get out of that ego mentality. Here's the best way to to think about it. Picture an argument, and this goes on in our head more than anything else, but there's a victim and the victim gets tired of being picked on, and then it goes to victimizer and it goes back and forth, back and forth, and the only way out is to get to Victor, which means you forgive. You let go. You go from stuck to strong. Every time you choose to release that burden, you take yourself one step closer to yourself, the whole healed version of you. So I got to tell you, on my very last day of leaving that campus, I saw this black hawk. This black hawk was eating a snake. Right there in front of me. I mean, it was just crazy. And when the, the snake, there was so much symbolism there, I couldn't believe it. I had to really process it and think about it. But it served as a metaphor for clarity, power, and the end of a toxic cycle because that cycle I had been in was super toxic. The leader in charge had told me many times. Said, if it was up to her, I wouldn't be there. She didn't care about the wellness of the team, and that's where I came from. I came from a place of wellness. That's just what I do. And she did not care for that. And she didn't like it. And I, it was a toxic, toxic cycle. It was the victim victimizer cycle and that moment. That I saw that hawk it. It symbolized the culmination of my forgiveness journey. It transmuted fear and pain into strength and rebirth. So driving away from that chapter in my life, I saw something so wild and it seemed otherworldly. It was the Black Hawk. Okay. And it had a white tail. And one of my friends said that was a Mexican hawk. And actually one of my friends said, I know what hawk you're talking about because hawks are territorial and hawks are like my spiritual animal. I just freaking love'em. But that hawk was eating a giant snake right there in front of me and I couldn't take a picture of it. It wouldn't do it justice'cause it was just beautiful and it was. A sign the snake was the pain, but I was a hawk. And I want to invite you to reframe your look at non forgiveness and your look at not letting go because once you do let go, like I said with my client who the pain stopped. It is amazing what happens and your imagination is so powerful, like we talk about with Neville Goddard. And if you are imagining bad things, that's what you're gonna get. That's what your reality is gonna look like. And I quit imagining those conversations with those people. I let it go. It had to happen because if it didn't happen, I wouldn't be where I am right now. Helping healthy. Happy teams, one heart at a time, and they didn't want that. I needed to go where I can make an impact on a lot of people, not just one team. And you, you think about it, that's what, that's what God asked for. That's what God said. And I have to say this right now, right here as I'm speaking to you. The sun is shining. We didn't have rain in the forecast, and it's raining. It's like so beautiful. It's like, I, I can't tell you. That's a symbol too. So today I invite you to ask, what am I ready to let go of? What part of my story deserves peace? And remember that it is just a story. All your imagination is, is just a story. If you are in a place right now that is full of anger and full of victim victimizer, it's just a story and you can rewrite that. But I also want you to know forgiveness is not a one-time decision. It is a practice. But with each step, your heart gets lighter, your future gets brighter, and your soul becomes free. You know if this message moved, you share it with someone who might need it. And remember, you are worthy of peace. You are worthy of healing, and you are worthy of joy. And that's my episode for today. And if you know someone who can benefit from this, please share it with them. And until next time, I will see you next time. And I remind you to rise, reset, and reclaim your power. Alright, peace out and namaste.