Gentle Parenting with KJ from Big Life Journal #27

Episode Transcript
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Jon @WholeParent (00:00):
Hello and welcome to this episode of the
whole parent podcast.
My name is john, I'm at wholeparent on all of your social
medias and today we have a guestepisode for you.
It is a conversation that I hadwith a friend of mine named kj.
She is on instagram at twohandles.
One of them is gentle healingmom that's her personal handle
that talks about parenting,specifically gentle parenting or

(00:21):
conscious parenting and shealso is one of the co-creators
of at big life journal, which isa resource for parents.
They put out like weeklydownloadables and stuff.
You can find out more aboutthem in the show notes.
But I had KJ on because I justthink that the resources that
they put out and the things thatshe says specifically are
incredible.
So I have edited ourconversation, uh, broken down

(00:45):
and we talk about a lot of stuff.
We kind of go on some tangentsand so I've tried to cut those
down a little bit, but it's beena.
It was a really amazingconversation connecting with KJ.
I'm really excited for you tohear it.
We talked about reparenting.
We talked about, again, thoseresources that they provide.
We talked about her number onetip for learning becoming the
parent that she wanted to be.
She talks about her journeyfrom being raised in an

(01:07):
authoritarian household raisedwith spanking and timeouts and
all of those ineffectivepunishments that I talk so much
about and moving into becoming aparent and just doing those
things and then changing whenher child was a toddler and she

(01:30):
shares, like her number one tipfor that.
One quick note about the audioin this episode.
Kj's audio is fantastic, butthis episode was recorded on
like the day that my book wasdue Uh, one of the editing
cycles, I think.
It was like the line edit andso I was just absolutely
exhausted.
I wasn't thinking super clearly, tired, hungry, all of the ways
in which you should not havetry and do work.

(01:51):
I was, I was there, I wastrying to do it anyway, and I
made the mistake of of recordingthe entire episode through my
computer speaker instead ofthrough my microphone.
So I was talking to mymicrophone.
If you're watching the YouTubeversion of this, I was talking
to my microphone the whole time,but it was only being picked up
by my computer, so my voicesounds really bad.
But honestly, I really carethat you hear what KJ has to say

(02:13):
more anyway, so I'm going toput out the episode with the
full knowledge that I sound likeI don't know what I'm doing, so
I appreciate the grace.
I'm really glad that I got mybook in and, yeah, a little peek
behind the curtain what it'slike.
So, without further ado, thisis the episode with KJ.
I don't want to talk any moreabout it.
I just want you to hear it fromher.

KJ @gentlehealingmom and @ (02:34):
It's a brand new day.
Wake up every morning and sayit's a brand new day Take a good
day.
Make it great Okay.

KJ from Big Life Journal.
Welcome KJ.

KJ @gentlehealingmom and @bi (02:51):
Hi , thanks for having me on.

Yeah, absolutely.
Well, we're excited to hearmore about Big Life Journal, but
we're also, today, talkingabout resilience.
We're talking about journaling,which is something that I am
working on, and we're talkingabout reparenting, which is
something that I am working on,and we're talking about
reparenting, which is somethingthat I have not done an episode
on yet.
So I'm excited about thisepisode.
What about you, kj?
Are you ready to be here?

KJ @gentlehealingmom and @big (03:12):
I am so excited to be here, and
reparenting is a topic that Ilove talking about and sharing
my own personal journey andhelping other parents on their
journey, whether they juststarted, want to start, or have
been on it and just are seekingsome additional guidance.
I think it's such an importantstep in the way we are parenting
this new generation of children, so I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, so one of the yeah.
I cannot agree with that more,and I think that this is like
the missing link for so manyparents.
Would you agree with that, Like?

Oh , absolutely.

So many of us on social media are, are, are
giving the like tactical, okay,here's how you do this thing
with your you know, here's like,bend down in this way, you know
, I, I speak in this intonationof voice but all of that
requires that parents are incontrol of what they're doing,
which is, I think, an assumptionthat many of us kind of make

(04:10):
but is maybe not accurate For somany of us.
It's not, we're not in controlin those moments, generation of.

I call non-traditional parents
because there's so much, youknow, negative connotations of
whether you call yourself agentle parent or a respectful
parent, whatever label you use.
If you are a traditional parentor you know somebody that's
skeptical of this new wave ofparenting, you view every
non-traditional way of parentingas permissive parenting.

(04:42):
So I talk a lot about howthere's a difference between
permissive parenting.
So I talk a lot about howthere's a difference between
permissive parenting and beingan authoritative parent.
And, like you said, you canfollow.
You can read all the books,listen to all the podcasts,
follow all the parentingaccounts and learn different
techniques, but they're notgoing to work if you haven't
also worked on yourself.
Because those techniques orreparenting or doing things

(05:05):
differently from how you wereraised and if your child is
still continuing to behave inways that are triggering for you
, you're going to view thosetactics or those strategies
you're trying as failure.
You're not going to feel likeit's doing anything and you're
going to think it's not workingfor us or my child can't be
gentle parented or I just cannotbe that calm parent.
I'm just not capable of it.

(05:26):
And so I try to help parentsdifferentiate the difference
between what it means to be agentle parent, like for me.
I call myself a gentle andconscious parent and I tell
parents gentle parenting isn't asolution or a way to fix your
child.
It is a lifestyle change, it'sa mindset shift.
It's a way to commit to raisingchildren in an environment that

(05:49):
is free of shame, judgment,fear, basically giving children,
recognizing what each of yourchildren needs, because every
child is different, whetherthey're siblings and growing up
in the same hole, same home.
Every child has different needsand we need to be able to

(06:12):
recognize their needs andsupport them and give them a
childhood where they can be kidsand learn in a non-stressful
environment.

I love that you said that they're growing up
in the same hole, because to me, I look back on so much and
maybe this is just me beingweird, but I look back on so
much of our.
This is just like me beingweird but I look back on so much
of our parenting conventionalparenting, wisdom, or why kids
do the things they do from asomewhat evolutionary
psychological perspective and sooften, like our kids are
behaving like they're likelittle cave people like, and

(06:38):
they're just, they're just goingthrough the world that way.
And so you're like yeah, I mean, you have to treat every kid
individually.
I think that there's so,there's so much power in that.
And then, at the same time, Ithink that that mindset also
leads to, kind of my onlypushback against that is that
when I say that it becomesevidence or justification for

(07:00):
some parents to say, okay, yeah,you're right, every kid needs
something different and my kidneeds to be hit, my kid needs to
be screamed at Like if you hadmy kid, you would do that too.
And I think that that's the the,the kind of unfortunate truth
that I that I would offer iswhat I like to say to those
parents is this and maybe I'mgoing to like lose a bunch of

(07:22):
followers over this, but what Ilike to say to those parents is,
if I were you, I would probablyfeel the same way, and and what
I try and say and that's aphrase that I use my kids all
the time too, and it sounds alittle patronizing because of
the way I'm about to describe it, but it really is a really
empathetic thing to say and it'sa humble thing to say because
it it acknowledges that if youwere raised in the way that that

(07:46):
parent was raised, if you camefrom the same cultural and
religious context as them, ifyou had their parents and all of
their life experiences, thatthey're not just a hateful,
hurtful person who wants to hurttheir kids, that they think,
because of the collective ofthose experiences, that this is

(08:07):
not only warranted but necessary.
And you know I run into thatconstantly in comment threads,
but even in like research forthe book.
You know what a lot of peoplefail to realize is that until
like 2012, this was 70% ofAmerican households that said
you know, hitting kids is notonly warranted, not only like do

(08:30):
I do it sometimes, but it'snecessary that kids require this
form of discipline, and so ifyou're expecting, that's 2012.
So, if you're expecting to beable to parent in a different
way, without going back intoyour own childhood and
appreciating the fact that sevenout of 10% chance like 70%
chance you had a parent whoprobably had that perspective

(08:54):
that that you're not going to beable to parent in a what you're
what you're calling anon-traditional way, right, so
tell us more about that, becauseyou're trying to reach people
who are already on the path.
They're already like, oh okay,I'm doing parenting.

KJ @gentlehealingmom and @b (09:09):
And I always, even when I, when I
am explaining, right, when I'mtrying to explain the difference
, I'm constantly now like gentleparenting is not permissive
parenting, and in my captions onposts and stuff on social media
, it's like not to be confusedwith authoritarian parenting.
Or I'll say gentle parenting isunder the authoritative
parenting umbrella, not to beconfused with authoritarian

(09:30):
parenting, because that'scompletely different too and
that's something that you can'tjust like quickly explain to
somebody that you run into, youknow, on the street, right.
So people like people recognizethe term gentle parenting and
you're either going to havesomebody that's anti-gentle
parenting because they thinkit's permissive parenting and
they don't want to take the timeto learn the difference.
That's not, those are not mypeople, and I wish I could reach

(09:52):
them because I want to helpevery child out there.
But there are groups of parentsout there who are like OK, I
don't like how I'm parentingright now, I'm losing control.
I'm I'm, you know, I wouldconsider myself an authoritarian
, traditional parent, but Idon't want to be.
So what else is there?

I think that, yeah, in that way, your, your
mission and my mission aresomewhat different in that a lot
of times I tend to be the guywho's reaching people who are,
who are not sure yet.
They're like okay, but convinceme.
Not sure yet, they're like okay, but convince me.
And so I'm going to co-opt youand I'm going to bring you onto

(10:31):
this side for a moment and helpme understand.
Why is this way of parenting?
I mean, like, I have myperspective, but you have your
perspective why would you saythis?
But this form of parentingraises more resilient kids.

How much time do we have today,
just kidding.
Well, I want to go back reallyquick, because conscious
parenting is a little differentfrom gentle and authoritative
parenting.
It is still underneath theauthoritative parenting and the
way I describe the differencebecause I call myself both a
gentle and a conscious parentand the way I define them is
gentle parenting is what peoplesee on the outside, how your

(11:05):
children experience yourparenting, right, like we, we.
We offer them choices or weremain calm, or we speak
respectfully.
We model the behavior you know.
To me, that's gentle parenting.
Conscious parenting is internal.
It is how we are gentle parents.
In order to be a gentle parent,we have to know, okay, what's
going on for us internally.

(11:26):
Why is my child's behaviortriggering me right now?
You're asking those questionsto get to the root, right.
Why is my child behaving thisway?
What are they needing from meright now?
Is it a physical need?
Is it a need for attention?
Are they tired?
Like, what do they need?
And then, it's okay, I'mtriggered.
What, like what do they need?
And then, it's okay, I'mtriggered.
What do I need right now?
And if something is difficult,a parenting moment is difficult,

(11:47):
it's reflecting later on, like,okay, I didn't handle that very
well.
Why is that and what can I dodifferently next time?
Like that is consciousparenting.
You can't see consciousparenting on the outside,
because that's the work thatwe're doing on ourself in order
to be the gentle, respectful,peaceful parent to our children.

Well, and you can't, I guess.
I guess my argument would belike the reason why I don't love
these labels with gentleparenting is it is not conscious
parenting, like part of mygripe with it is that so many
parents try and do this workwithout doing their work, and
even you know we were talkingabout this before we hit record.

(12:28):
But even some of the bestparenting books, the ones that I
recommend above all others andthat don't try and cover
everything, because, as you know, as I know, you can't cover
everything in one book, althoughElisa Pressman sure did try the
five principles of parenting,but you know, in like the whole

(12:49):
brain child, like there's not alot about doing your own work,
there's not a lot aboutdeconstructing your childhood,
and so that's, I think, astruggle for so many parents is
that, like, in order to moveforward, you have to be willing
to go back.

I can tell you I was very much
raised in a traditional home andI was punished, timeout,
spanked, all those things.
I love my parents, right, likethey it's not to say that our
parents were all terrible, butthey they raised us with the
tools they had in that time andthey raised us by how they were
raised.
Right, it's a cycle and now wehave so many more resources and
we're learning to to break someof those cycles and to parent
differently.
And it's hard because we'relearning at the same time that
we're teaching our children andthat's very hard.

(13:28):
But you think about, okay.
So you ask why is it importantfor us to parent our children
this way?
Now?
Well, think about your ownchildhood and think about how
that's affected, how you aretoday.
I can tell you I'm very much apeople pleaser.
Still, I've been working on itfor years.
I was raised in a home.
You don't question authorityever, right?
Adults tell you something, youlisten, and also my mom's from

(13:50):
the Philippines, and so there'sa high respect for elders there,
right?
You don't ever question eldersLike you do something, and or
they tell you to do something,you do it, you don't question it
.
And it's dangerous to teachchildren to follow authority
blindly right, like we want toraise children to question
authority blindly right, like wewant to raise children to
question things.
I'm raising my son to question.
I don't want him to just dosomething because I told him to.

(14:13):
I want him to know the reasonwhy I'm asking him to do it
right, and I want him toquestion things.
And if he challenges me orquestions me, I want to take the
time to explain the reasonsbehind it.
And the reason why this is soimportant is because if our
children don't feel safe,challenging safe people, us in
our homes, how are they going tolearn to challenge other people

(14:35):
outside the home who maybe areunsafe?
Right, and so we were not.
As children did not receivethose tools to be able to stand
up for ourselves outside of thehome, to be able to stand up for
ourselves outside of the home.

So how can parents break that?
If we're like, okay, we wantout, we want to move to a more
effective form of parenting, andI'll just offer that my
30-second reason for wanting toparent this way, beyond
everything that you said aboutobedience and compliance being
problematic.
And goal is that we are in atime in history where children

(15:10):
have never been more vulnerable,and so our parenting has to be
that much more excellent.

KJ @gentlehealingmom (15:13):
Absolutely .

Our parents could kind of phone it in.
But we were growing up into aworld where I'm not going to say
that that was good, but theycould.
And we were growing up into aworld where, like, bad parenting
didn't result in, like massiveteen mental health crises.

Now it does so so we're playing a
different game.

It's harder now.

It's so true, I mean, and there,
even though we're trying tobreak a lot of those traditional
ways of parenting from when wewere kids or kids of the
eighties and nineties right,we're trying to break some of
those cycles, but we're alsostill very much in this new way
of parenting that nobody's beenthrough before.
Social media, the internet,this is all so new to everybody
and we're like we're adapting aswe go.

(15:56):
We're seeing how social mediais affecting our children.
Now they're teenagers now, like, and so now children with kids.
You know my age, my, my son issix.
I'm like already thinking, okay, how do I protect him from
social media?
Like having a smartphone, right, like we're seeing things as
they're happening and that's soscary and at the same time,
we're trying to work onourselves while we're trying to

(16:19):
break other cycles from when wewere kids.

Yeah, let's talk about journal.
So what?
As a tool?
This has been the tool that'sbeen most effective for me.
Obviously, you work for acompany called Big Life Journal.
So what is journaling?
How is it effective for parents?
How can we use journalingalongside other resources that
you all provide to actually getto a place where we can, on a

(16:42):
reparenting journey, moveforward?

we can, on a reparenting journey,
move forward.
Yeah so, big Life Journal, Iwould say one of our main focus,
one of our main goals, is tohelp parents and educators raise
growth-minded, confident,resilient children.
So it's really in addition toeverything you're talking about,
about reparenting and raisingchildren differently from how we
were raised.
But now we're kind of at let'stake it another step further.
Let's give our children thetools they need to think

(17:12):
critically, to view failure aspositive instead of something
negative, where they want to tryand fail versus avoid because
they're afraid of failure orrejection.
Right, we want children out inthe world feeling confident in
who they are, so they can gomake friends and not worry so
much about, you know, becomingpeople pleasers and worrying

(17:34):
about what other people arethinking about.
And, honestly, our journals arejust one like little part of
our company.
I mean, it's a huge part of it.
We have so many of our memberswho have benefited so much from
our journals and we have a lotof them, but that's one tool,
right, that we can help childrenuse to build that growth

(17:57):
mindset.
So our journals, specifically,are specific.
We have a bunch of them.
Depending on how old your childis, we have a journal for them,
and so I'm actually workingthrough our daily edition with
my six-year-old right now, andit's perfect because I have.
I have a child that doesn't wantto do it, like he does not want
to do the journal, and so myapproach to it is okay, like

(18:19):
let's just do this one pagetoday, like we do it slow.
It's not something where I'mlike you have to do this, you
know, for 20 minutes or whatever.
It's more of like, okay, let'sjust read what this page says,
right, and it's, and it's, it'sa way for them to kind of start
building those skills andlearning.
What does it mean to have agrowth mindset?
What does it mean to buildresilience?
What do I like about myself?

(18:40):
Right, you're starting to helpthem establish that inner voice
already through working throughthe journal.
So my goal with him is, youknow, this year we're planning
on going through this journaland we'll see, you know, what he
learns and over time he'll beable to practice spending time
thinking critically, thinkingabout himself, thinking about

(19:01):
how he can communicatedifferently.
And then, you know, progress toother journals we have.
We have one for tweens andteens.
We actually have an adultjournal too for parents to do
for themselves.
So we those are.
That's just one tool that weoffer for parents to help their
kids.

And the thing that I so like the reason that I
got into big life journal alsois the downloadables too, which
I'm I I'm kind of putting you onthe spot to pitch your product.
So, like I've said this a bunchof times on the whole parent
podcast like I don't dosponsorships and I don't do like
ad revenue, like maybe somedayI'll like do ad revenue I don't
really know even how to do that,but I don't do like you know

(19:41):
kind of force endorsement where,like somebody comes to me and
they're like, okay, I'm gonnagive you this product, but like
talk about how great it is.
Like literally, yours is likethe only one that I've sought
out because I've been like no, Iactually really like these,
these downloadables, and I havesome of them printed out.
I meant to put one up behind me, but my, for those who are
watching like the whole screen,like my house is a disaster

(20:04):
right now because my kid triedto put an aquarium together
behind me, but anyway, I was notpaying attention and it's it's
a huge mess, but but yeah, sothese downloadables, can you
tell us more about those?
Because, honestly, that hasbeen hugely helpful for me.

Yeah , yeah, and I I honestly don't
come on and really promote ourproducts either but since we've
been talking so much about justthe tools and resources for
parents and we really do likejust working with a team of
parents and our goal really islike, okay, how can we make this
easier for parents?
Like what we're constantlythinking, like what do parents
want to learn?

(20:38):
Like what do they need?
How could it make, how could wemake these parenting challenges
easier for them?
So we do have a lot of freeresources.
So I don't want to share all ofour products.
We do have products that youcan see on our page, but our
journals are one of them.
But we do have free printablesEvery Friday.
We have a free printable thatwe release every Friday in our
newsletter, so you can sign upfor Friday newsletters for free

(21:01):
and get a new printable.
It's available for seven daysand a new one was released every
Friday.
And then we also have anewsletter every Monday for
parents of younger childrenaround you know, I would say
five to 10, and we have aparenting guide attached to it
for free, like just a resourcefor parents, and now we have.

(21:21):
We also have a teen newsletteron Wednesdays and we are now
starting to add free resourcesfor teens that are more digital,
because teens don't want to doprintables but maybe they'll
save up a screensaver that has aquote on there, an inspiring
quote.
So we're coming up with contentto help parents help their

(21:42):
children, and that's what I loveabout this company so much.
I joined Big Life Journal acouple of years ago and I just
fell in love with the mission ofBig Life Journal because it
aligns so much with my ownparenting goals and values, and
I just love that we like.

Honestly, our main mission is to help parents,
and so that's why, yes, I wanteveryone to know about what free
resources we have available ifthey want additional tools, no,
and I think that, like, I meanthat's I guess I can kind of
sense that because, like, when,when I so I do this work and I

(22:19):
oscillate back and forth betweenthe like, okay, we had to hire,
like, a person to help usmarketing because, like,
literally, you know, if I don't,I don't make X amount of money,
then, like, I can't cover thecost of my email list and like,
so you know, I'm podcast hosting, like, and so there's a,
there's an aspect of like youhave to be able to, to, to have

(22:40):
some sort of revenue coming in,but like, truly, this is that's
that's been my mission too whichis just how can I help parents
to grow to kind of have thesetools, to really rethink this,
and if I can help parents to dothe reparenting journey, like I
said, like this is probably thesecond great point of me writing

(23:02):
the book is that I feel likethat's just not, we don't talk
about it.
Of me writing the book is thatI feel like that's just not, we
don't talk about it.
I mean, yeah, shefali does, butvery few parenting people out
there are saying the truth,which is you can have all of the
tips and tricks you can listento all of the podcasts.
If you don't do your own worksurrounding your childhood, how
you are reactive, then what isthis really going to accomplish?

(23:26):
Which is just no.
You're just going to create ashame system for yourself where
you continue to act out of yourown dysregulation.
You continue to get triggeredand react and I've talked about
this a million times but youliterally have to change your
emotional response because yourlogical brain is not going to
work as quickly as your emotionsand so people who are like I'll

(23:47):
just out logic, my emotions,like you're always going to be
in second place, like you'renever going to be able to get
there.
So do you have a tactic or atool that you would say?
One thing in your parentingjourney that has been like
transformational moving fromgrowing up in an authoritarian
household Like what is the thingthat, from the reparenting

(24:08):
aspect that you've said okay,this is something that I started
to do completely changed theway that I engage my kids?

I would say the main thing that
if I could share one tip or onething that changed my life in
parenting is I learned to startrecognizing what's going on in
my body.

Like I, just started to become aware.

And so in the in the past, right, I
started becoming a gentleparent when my son was in a
toddler.
So he was two, two and a half,and I was the authoritarian,
yelled, timeouts, all that stuff, Right, but I was that parent
that felt terrible.
Afterwards I'm like there'sgotta be a better way to parent.
There has to be like this.
I'm only parenting this waybecause that's how I was raised

(24:49):
and that's what society istelling me I need to do to get
my child to listen to me becausehe's naughty, he's bad, all
these labels, right, and itwasn't until I started learning,
ok, so things are happeninginside my body, right, when I'm

(25:11):
getting triggered, I didn't evenknow what it, what it meant to
be triggered, and I just wouldreact, whereas now I'm able to
take that pause, which is soimportant, and just recognize
like, oh, okay, like something'shappening.
I'm, I'm clearly triggeredright now.
I'm not, I'm not in control ofmyself right now.
And being able to recognize.
That is huge, because until youget to that point, you're just
going to react, you're going toyell louder than your child,
you're going to hit, you'regoing to do everything that your
body does when it's in survivalmode.
And until you can pause and beaware like, oh, okay, I'm there,

(25:35):
I'm triggered, and then you cantake a moment and figure out
okay, what do I need to do rightnow?
So a lot of this work has tohappen before you're in that
triggered moment.
You have to have a plan.
You have to think okay, whenI'm triggered, I'm going to do
this, I'm going to pause, I'mgoing to focus on deep breathing

(25:55):
, because I know that that'sgoing to help regulate my
nervous system I'm going to walkout of the room, I'm going to
go outside.
You need to have a plan of whatyou're going to do so that when
you're in that moment, you'renot struggling, because it's
hard for us to think logically,we're not in our logical brain
when we are triggered.
So I would say I would say thatwas a long answer, but I would
say that being aware of what'sgoing on in your body is like a
huge skill and something thateven I'm still working on.

Yeah, it's a work in progress for all of us.
I love that you said that,because so, like my, my one, my,
my one and only paid workshopthat I've ever done, like I have
the membership and then there'sthat, but I've done one off
paid workshop about how to stopyelling at your kids, and that
workshop this is the exactconversation and the metaphor

(26:38):
that I use for that is downhillskiing, where I feel, like so
many of us I don't know ifyou've ever been skiing it's
something that when, when Ilearned how to ski this is kind
of a funny, random story butwhen I learned how to ski, the
person who is teaching like justit was a perfect storm of of
like bad circumstances, so that.

(26:58):
So I I thought that I was goingto snowboard, but I didn't
really have.
Like it's like I had asnowboard that I got from
walmart and like I was on a realhill, so like you can't do that
.
So so like I got stucksomewhere for like an hour and a
half and I missed all theskiing lessons.
And then I came back and I said, okay, but like I actually need

(27:19):
to rent some skis or whatever.
Like can I, can I rent skis?
And the guy who was on theschool trip with me.
He's like yeah, yeah, we'll runyou skis.
There's no, no, no, big deal.
Your parents like told us thatthis might happen.
So like, here it is, and we likerented the skis but I missed
all the ski lessons and so Iwent down the bunny hill and I
had like grown up likerollerblading, doing different

(27:39):
things, so like ice skating, oh,this was like not so bad, like
I wasn't even really falling.
I was like that's fine and Ifeel like that's parenting right
.
Like all of us are like well, Ifeel like I kind of got this,
you know, all right, like mykid's one year old Like, yeah, I
did not do well with the sleepdeprivation, but like, on the

(28:00):
whole, like, look at this, I'mlike fast at changing diapers
now.
I like, look at this, I'm likefaster changing diapers now.
I like know how to feed them.
I like know how to do thesethings.
And then he was like I was likeokay, so how do you get?
Is this?
It like this is bunny hill.
He's like no, no, you gotta golike up the ski lift to the big.
So I go up the ski lift andhe's like just do the green ones
.
Those would be the easiest ones.
I didn't want to slow down.

(28:20):
I didn't know how to stop, Ididn't know how to turn, really,
and so I just bombed thesehills, Like I'm just flying down
these hills totally out ofcontrol.
And if anyone had come into mypath the rule in skiing is the
person above you on the mountainhas to watch out for the person
below you and if anyone hadwandered into my path, any of

(28:45):
these three-year-old kids whowere learning how to ski had
just faded into the wrong area,I would have just decked it like
I would have just run over him.
I had no way of stoppingwhatsoever.
Now, thank goodness I did, yeah, but I feel like when you're in
a before you do yourreparenting work, it's like
trying to ski down the mountainwithout ever learning how to

(29:05):
slow down or stop.
And, like you, you're like skispointed straight down and by the
time you even realize thatyou're triggered, you're halfway
down and and, as anybody knows,like, I guess, anybody who's
like a pretty confident skierunlike I was at 14 years old,
like you you don't like't likereally, really great skiers,

(29:26):
like the best in the world, theOlympic guys and Olympic women,
like they can stop on a dimegoing super, super fast.

KJ @gentlehealingmom and (29:31):
That's .
I love that metaphor and Ihonestly I think that's the
perfect metaphor to be speedingdown the hill and then being
like what just happened.
Like what, what just happened.
But then the important stepthat a lot of parents don't do
is they don't take that momentto look back and be like what
did just happen.
What could I have donedifferently to make that a

(29:53):
little bit less stressful or alittle bit less overwhelming, so
that when I go back up and tryagain, I have a little bit more
control over what I'm going todo?

Right, and so I think, yeah, I think that
that's I don't know, that's kindof a weird metaphor to end on,
but I really appreciate all ofyour time having this
conversation.
How can we follow you?
How can we get your freeresources?
How can we learn how to slowdown before we go plummeting
down the mountain and absolutelyrun over all of our kids?

Yes , we have all of our resources
on Big Life Journal.
We're on all social mediaaccounts, so whatever social
media platforms you follow,we're on there Big.
Life Journal.
You can check our link in bioon Instagram for all of our.

we have a bunch of free resources in our
link in bio and every day wepost your link in bio will also
be in the show notes of thisepisode.

Oh , amazing.
Yes, that's perfect.
There's a ton of free resourceson there and we have daily
posts on tips for parenting,reparenting.
We have events, live Q&A eventsthat we open up to the public
to talk to experts in the field,to learn about things, and,
yeah, and then the newsletter.
So we have a ton of freeresources to help you on your

(31:06):
journey.
So, yes, I think there'ssomething for everybody.

Perfect, awesome.
Thank you so much, kj, forbeing on the Whole Parent
Podcast.

KJ @gentlehealingmom and (31:16):
Thanks for having me.

Thank you again to KJ for an amazing
episode.
Such good information, suchgood takeaways.
I obviously am recording this alittle bit later, this outro,
and just going back andlistening to the podcast, I'm
thinking about all the thingsthat I want to change about my
own parenting and all the thingsthat I learned listening to it.
After the fact, If you want toconnect with her all of her

(31:40):
information is again in the shownotes below and make sure that
you rate and review this show.
I told you I was going to havean update on who had more
reviews on the Thursday episodesand this is a Thursday episode
at least, so that's when it'sbeing released and so I checked
and currently the Spotifylisteners have raised their lead
.
They are not looking in therearview mirror at this point.

(32:02):
They have 56 more reviews thanthe Apple listeners.
So if you're an Apple listenerand you haven't rated and
reviewed the show yet, please goand do that.
Try and make up some of theground.
Again, you guys outnumber theSpotify listeners two to one.
So you guys got to show up, yougot to show up in the ratings
and if that's not a good enoughreason for you to rate and
review the show.
It really does help to pushthis out to parents so that more

(32:25):
parents can hear about thetypes of things that we're
talking about in this episode.
More parents can hear frompeople like KJ, they can get the
resources that she's offeringand that Big Life Journal is
offering, and they can learnmore about their own parenting
journey on other episodes of thepodcast.
So if you haven't shared thiswith a friend, that's another

(32:46):
great way that you can grow thebase of people who are listening
to this show and trying tobecome more holistic,
wholehearted, whole parentsUntil next time.
This has been an episode of theWhole Parent Podcast.

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Gentle Parenting with KJ from Big Life Journal #27

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