EP133: Restorative practices and Nonviolent Communication with Cindy

Dr. Cindy Bigbie, “America’s Communication Coach, ” is President of The Bigbie Method (TBM). An award-winning trainer, consultant and speaker, she created The Bigbie Method to address America’s trauma epidemic. Dr. Bigbie has dedicated her career to bringing restorative practices and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to all segments of society. In 2019, she won the Dennis Maloney Award for Youth-Based Community and Restorative Justice Programs from the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice. She holds a PhD in Instructional Systems Design from Florida State University. Her newly published book, My Link to Mildred: Interrupting the Epidemic of Trauma via Nonviolent Communication has been designated an Amazon Best Seller.

NVC - helps you get clear on talking back to your critic, what you are feeling and what you are needing. Awesome to help with mental health and trauma recovery.

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to the Heal Thrive Dream podcast, where trauma survivors become healthy thrivers.
Each month will feature a theme inthe trauma recovery and empowerment field to promote
your recovery, healing and learning howto build dreams. Here's your host,
Karen Robinson, transformational coach and therapist. Hi. Everyone, Welcome to Heal

(00:30):
Thrived Dream. Our guest today isdoctor Cindy Bigbie. Doctor big B is
America's communication coach. She is thepresident of big B Method and she calls
that TBN the Biggie Method. Anaward winning trainer, consultant, and speaker,

(00:55):
she created the Big Mee Method toaddress America's trauma ab atime. Doctor
Bigbie has dedicated her career to bringit restorative practices and non violent communication to
all segments of society. In twentynineteen, she won the Dennis Maloney Award

(01:17):
for Youth based Community and Restorative JusticePrograms from the National Association of Community and
Restorative Justice. She holds a PhDin Instructional Systems Design from Florida State University.
Her newly published book, My Linkto Mildred, Interrupting the Epidemic of

(01:42):
Trauma via Nonviolent Communication and has beendesignated an Amazon bestseller. So thank you
doctor big B for being here today. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to stop out the book. Oh of course you are.
It's a big deals. We weretalking before airing. It's your baby,

(02:05):
it's your movement, your purpose,and it's a beautiful one. Anything that
makes the world a better place.I guess I read this in the book.
But obviously people don't have your bookyet. Maybe maybe somebody does that's
listening. Hopefully if they don't haveit yet, that they'll go and purchase.
But tell us, how did youdecide that what would be really helpful

(02:30):
in stopping the epidemic is nonviolent communication? Like, how did you get there?
Oh gosh, there's a long storybehind that, the condensed version.
The condensed version. Well, Ithink on a personal level, I grew
up with trauma, and I cameup with the name of the book is

(02:53):
my link to Mildred. Here's acopy of it right here. And I
had the title for twenty five yearsbecause I realized about twenty five years ago.
One day I was like, youknow, I can totally trace my
own quote. Crazy, like Ican see how it was handed down from
you know, what happened to mygreat grandmother, and then what happened to

(03:15):
you know, my grandfather as aresult, and then my mother and then
me was like, man, Icould and I can see the way that
it plays out in my interactions.So, you know, I came up
with the name of the book,my link to Mildred who is my great
grandmother, by like looking at thehistory of trauma passed down through the ages,

(03:36):
and then I happened to be blessedto come into knowing non violent communication.
I don't even know, probably fifteenyears or so ago, and I
have owned it and learned it andused it and ran a program with it
as the backbone, seeing like wow, how powerful it is just with people,

(03:57):
but also living it myself, right, So living it and seeing the
way that it played out in particularin my own relationships and in the way
that I moved in the world,how helpful it's been. So that's a
quick quick answer to your question thatwas that was great because it kind of
divides us into areas too, Soyou know, what sort of traumas would

(04:19):
you say that your ancestors have thatare pretty significant that helped you do this
link. Well, my great grandmothercame from Russia Poland, where they were
more or less thrown out of thecountry because because of their Jewish heritage,

(04:39):
like you're going to die or getout of here. So it was that
trauma. And she came over tothe United States when she was eleven by
herself, so she lost her herfamily, her ties to her family,
So that was traumatic. My mygrandfather, her son, was is abused,

(05:00):
physically abused because he was grew upoften in an orphanage because she was
working in the factories around the clockso in those days, you know,
so she couldn't be with her children. They were put into a turn of
the century orphanage and used to bebeat up. If he would run away,
he would come back and get beatup. So he had physical abuse.

(05:23):
And then when when he had mymom, he had all that anger
pent up in him and you know, didn't know the first thing really about
having a family, and you know, how do you deal with stuff when
it comes up. So he wasphysically abusive to my mother, physically and
verbally abusive to my mom grew up. I write in the chapter in the

(05:46):
book, how when she was ababy. You know, her parents literally
like fed her her vomit because theywere frustrated and didn't know. So that
was kind of the abuse handed downthrough the centuries. And then my mom.
She didn't necessarily, she didn't beatus, but there was a lot
of what I would call verbal verbalabuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(06:10):
so she did try to do alittle better, but she had a lot
of struggles of her own to overcome. Yeah, she definitely did better,
and I do think that every generationhas the potential to improve upon the last.
Thank goodness, Yeah, thank goodness. I do believe that there's really
a lot of truth. Now.She was pretty aware. She had a

(06:31):
lot of awardness, but you know, she had a lot of very built
in program and be built in program, it's hard, it's hard to undo
it. And yeah, so nothing, I mean, I think she definitely
didn't give to us what she wasgiven, thankfully. But you know,
in the book, I also talkabout how even you know, biologically,

(06:53):
if it's if it's not handed done, excuse me, environmentally. You know,
there's so much research now that justshows that even and like genetically,
it's built into our systems more thanlikely actually, as a protection mechanism weirdly,
but you know, we it's wereso safe, right yeah, yeah,

(07:13):
and we call that epigenics. Isthat the word that you're thinking of?
That is our inter transgenerational trauma,right, you know, in our
in ourselves, in our DNA.Yeah yeah, yeah, And I you
know, one of the main thingsthat I really wanted to get across in
the book. There's many points,but that I'm actually fortunate because I can

(07:35):
trace the lineage of my trauma,like I It helps when you can put
it in context. You can seethe way that you're moving in the world
and the way that you're interacting andhave explanations for it. But there's so
many parts of our society. There'sso many segments of our society where people

(07:56):
don't have that understanding or knowledge.It's called dec textualized trauma, right where
you know, you're showing up ina certain way. Like if you think
about you know, African American population, so much of what happened in slavery
was so traumatic, and yet familieswere torn apart and many people have no
idea about the lineage that was handeddown right still playing out in us in

(08:20):
a way. And that's called decontextualizedtrauma. And yeah, I just I
want to give a lot of attentionto that because they think that that's very
much in play in our daily interactionswithout even having an awareness of it.
I agree, and that's where thenon violet communication, I think is huge.

(08:41):
But before we jump over to that, I wanted to say, one
of the beautiful pieces of the book, in my opinion, is how understanding
your family's historical trauma you seem tohave. I should say, I'll let
you decide if you have it ornot. You seem to have loads of

(09:01):
compassion for your mom. That doesn'tmean that you always had patience for her,
because you know you're human, butyou seem to have a lot of
compassion for her. What would yousay about that? Yeah, Well,
the book. My mother asked meto write the book when she was dying.
She died a little bit over ayear ago. It came out of

(09:24):
nowhere. We didn't see it coming. My mom seemed perfectly fine, healthy,
and the next thing you know,she had stage for lung cancer and
died within a month. And asshe was dying, she asked for me
to write the book because she andI were fully aware of the way trauma

(09:46):
played out for us, and thenhow the non violent communication has been so
huge in the way that she andI have been able to communicate and be
with one another. It gave usmajor potential to have healing with one another
and real honest conversations and hard conversations. I think it's very rare. You

(10:09):
probably could speak to this where peopleget the up where people get the opportunity
that the person that that imported theharm to you is able to say I'm
sorry and really mean it and takeownership of it. And I had that
with my mom thanks to non violentcommunication, thanks to the way that we

(10:31):
learned how to communicate and hear oneanother. In the last year of my
mother's life, we had some reallyintense, beautiful conversations where my mom just
was just really got very deeply howsome of her behaviors affected me and left
an imprint and she was really devastatedby that and was able to share that

(10:56):
with me. And yeah, soI think for largely due to knowing non
ball communication and having a different wayand being with someone and hearing each other,
my mom and I had a lotof feeling in our relationship. In
the end and I'm so grateful forthat, because it would have been hard
to have her past with any ofthose things not feel Yeah, it would

(11:20):
have felt like the grief would beenway more complicated. I know it's probably
still complicated, but way more complicatedif you didn't have that piece. One
of my favorite scenes is the yogaat the cemetery. Can you tell us
more about how you get the ideato do that. Well, I've been
doing yoga for a long time.It's definitely a part of my morning practice

(11:46):
and so just something I do everyday anyways, and yeah, it just
seemed like a really sweet thing todo, to go there in the morning
and be with her and be withher in that way. I did it.
My mom died on May fifth,which was a Thursday, and then
we buried her Friday, very nextday, and Saturday, I think I

(12:11):
stayed in bed the entire day andSunday was Mother's Day and that's when I
first went to the cemetery after wehad buried her. And that was the
first time that I ever did yogathere. But I do it. I
still do it. I'll still goout there in the morning, bring my
yoga mat, and it's so sweet. It's just such a sweet thing to

(12:33):
be able just lay there right nextto her on the earth. It's comforting,
which is very surprising to me.Like I really thought it would be
scary initially when I went there,but still, you know, initially and
even now, I just there's somethingvery comforting about laying on the earth right
there where my mom is, youknow, not scary at all. I

(12:58):
thought to be very beautiful. Andit didn't sound like her transition it was
scary either. It sounded peaceful.Would you agree with that? Her transition
is still mind bottling to me ina good way. Like I said,
my mom came here on she wasShe didn't live here. I'm in Tallahassee.

(13:20):
She lived down in South Florida.She had a pain in her neck
that she was really complaining about andcouldn't get any attention. So I had
her come up here. And thatwas on April first, and then she
died May fifth, So it wasliterally one month where everything happened so fast
for her. She was not shedidn't seem scared at all the whole way

(13:43):
through it. It was it wascrazy to see her bravery and openness and
acceptance to it. All she evenI know I mentioned this in the book
at one point near the very end, like the last couple of days,
she said, this isn't amazing experience. Like that's literally what she said,
this is an amazing experience. Andyeah, I think my mom did a

(14:07):
lot of spiritual work through her wholelife, and I guess she was just
an acceptance. She really didn't everystep of the way. This is what
she would just kind of when shefound out she had, you know,
something fluid in her lungs, shejust kind of shrugged her shoulder when she
found out she had cancer stage four. No there, you know, there

(14:30):
was going to be no treatment forit. It was just she seemed okay,
which was also a blessing because Italk a lot nowadays how I've been
really so fine since my mom passedagain. I think that's got to do
with we had so much closure andshe was okay with the dying. There's

(14:50):
very few places in our society whereyou can have a mother die and it's
okay to be okay, right,Like, I mean, that's not a
thing you usually hear so many otherthings. But it was a very beautiful
experience when mother's passing was a beautifulexperience. Yeah, and I'm grateful.

(15:11):
I'm grateful that it was that wayfor her. I'm grateful it was that
way in my experience of it.Yeah, well it's the way you described
it in the book. It didseem very beautiful. I really did so.
Yeah, I can appreciate that youhave gratitude for that. Yeah.

(15:31):
There was so much time. Therewas so much time to just we laughed.
We spent so much time together.My whole family spent so much time
together. But it was really beautiful. I mean it was. There were
some really heartbreaking, sad moments,but there was a beauty there all the
way through it as well. Yeah. So switching back to your your life's

(15:54):
work, your purpose, reminder,who the founder of non violent Communication is
again? His name's escaping me,doctor Marshall Rosenberg. Okay, doctor Rosenberg.
You actually got to work with him, is that right? Well?
I trained with him years and yearsago. He used to do and the

(16:15):
Center Phenomenal Communication still does do thesenine day intensive trainings. He was the
one that started the nine day intensivetrainings where she would do all over the
world. So I was fortunate enoughbefore he passed to do a nine day
intensive training with him, and youadapted his training, you know, based

(16:36):
on your experience of teaching it fora while. And so tell us,
you know, I don't know howto think you can be, but how
did you get it to really workwell with the disenfranchised populations. Yeah.
So I was very fortunate to getto run a restorative justice program here for

(17:03):
close to ten years, and Iwork with kids that were at ages thirteen
to seventeen, most of whom werereferred to us because they were involved in
our legal system, like they hadbroken the law. So some really quote
hard kids, right, And whatwe did in the restorative justice program mostly
was teach and model and live thisnon violent communication process. And how I

(17:27):
got it to work was every stepof the way. It's been just like
trial and error. When I firststarted in the program, it was hard
because non violent communication NBC for short, is really about power sharing that whenever
there It's based on this idea thatwhenever there is conflict, it's because there's

(17:49):
an imbalance of power of some sort, right, And so these kids that
are coming in and showing up,but you know, so much of their
life is internal well because of powerimbalances. That they've been working with.
You know, we're dealing with theirentire life. Now they're asked to go
to this program. So they're pissedoff coming in to begin with, right,

(18:10):
And here I am trying to teachthis whole process that's really more about
sharing power. Right. So itwas it was very difficult at first.
I at my very first day,I think I wrote in the book about
how on the first day when theycame in and I said, well,
you know, if you don't wantto be here, I'm not into forcing
anybody on anything, you can leave. And the entire class basically got up
and left. And then I wenthome and like, I wrong question.

(18:36):
A few of them came back becausethey felt bad for me. I was
like, a whole class left.No, this is no exaggeration. I
went home and I cried to myhusband. I was like, this isn't
gonna work. This isn't gonna work. And then I started thinking, well,
you know, I've fought a lotof adults in my community NBC.
What if I call my village andasked people to show up, and then
if I have enough adults in thegroup, And I started to break them

(19:00):
up into diets because literally teach empathy. With NBC, we teach a process
of empathy in breaking people into dietsto give and receive empathy. So I
asked people to show up, andI had enough people show up, So
I ended up with this one toone ratio of kids to adults in my
community. And then when I wasteaching the NBC process, when I would
break them into diets, I'd havea kid and a grown up and one

(19:23):
would give, the other would receiveempathy, and then they would switch and
it was like magic. It reallywas magic because it sounded magical. Yeah,
just like I still to this daywish that I could videotape or pick
get the kids' faces before and afterbeing heard in a deep way, just

(19:48):
because it was probably in our wholeentire life when somebody just heard them,
truly just heard them with no judgment. So that's kind of the that's the
at the crux of end is beingable to be able to hear and speak
without judgment, which is a verybig deal. Like there's so much judgment

(20:08):
in our conversation without us having evenawareness of it. And for people that
have had trauma, which is mostof us, we need safety emotional safety.
In order to have emotional safety whenwe're talking back and forth, we
need to be able to take thejudgment out of the way that we're communicating.
But yet there's so much judgment.Just even in very benign things that

(20:30):
we say to one another, there'susually judgment there. So yeah, so
for these kids, it was quitemiraculous to see them receive being heard in
a way like that. Does thatanswer your question beautifully? Absolutely? Yeah,
I was thinking too that. Youknow, I've been at therapist a

(20:52):
long time now, and at thebeginning of my career, the wh're working
with someone out of control, therewas you know, takedowns and holds,
and it never felt good. Itwas definitely power over. And then later
in my career the non violent communicationpiece would come in and it's just so
beautiful how just just listening with yourtwo ears and a few simple words could

(21:17):
totally de escalate someone that's hurting.Yeah, it's just it's just amazing.
So we don't have to rent tothem and inject them with something, or
rent to them and tie them up, or oh I will hold them.
Yeah. I have some teachers nowthat here in Florida we call it like
exceptional education, you know, forkids that they have behavioral issues, right,

(21:41):
and they're trained to do crisis intervention, which is kind of what you're
talking about, which is, youknow a lot of hands on stuff when
things are getting out of control.But a few of the teachers now that
have taken the NBC process, theysay that like that's like one of their
number one tools in their pocket thatthey pull out now when they're in that
kind of circumstance, Like that's they'reusing the processes being able to hear in

(22:06):
a certain way, to be ableto de escalate, not even having to
move in to put hands on somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
done it behind a closed way doorwhere a student, it was a school
social worker for a while. Astudent barricaded himself in a classroom and I
just listened to him behind the oneway door, bend the one way door,

(22:29):
behind the door, and you know, asked him and just was in
the moment with him and it wasokay. We didn't need to call a
police and brick down the door.We were able to get him out.
He just wanted to be heard,that's all he wanted. Why did we
make this so hard? Oh,gosh, it's such a good question.

(22:51):
I mean, that's what ended up. That's why I ended up going to
get trained with Marshall Rosenberg because Ihad a situation with the kid my daughter's
best friends, kind of was goingto be Baker acted. Here in Florida,
it's called Baker acted when something kindof goes you know, she had
a moment with her mother, andthis was a very out of the ordinary

(23:11):
experience, which you know her,she got very upset about something. I
happened to run into her right inthat moment, and I had the littlest
knowledge of NBC at that moment,and I just brought her into my house
and took her to my arm andI just listened to her in the way
that I had been trained. AndI did that for about an hour,

(23:32):
just folding her and listening, notdoing anything else, but just listening,
listening for needs. An NBC allconflict is a tragic expression of an unmet
need. So what you're looking forand listening for the needs underneath whatever is
going on for a person. Andit was amazing after an hour how much
this young lady just totally became regroundedand wanted to know how to step back

(23:55):
into the circumstance with her mom,and I remember doing having the exact same
question that you just said. Thenext day, I was driving around thinking
to myself, dear guy, isthat all it took was to listen in
a certain way like she most morethan likely she would have ended up at
the hospital, you know, orhaving to be called the police, to
be called in. And we'll lookat all that was avoided just by someone

(24:18):
knowing how to listen in a certainway. Yeah. Yeah, So tell
me what the plan is if thereis why. I know there is when,
but I don't know how worried itis at this point. How are
you getting this method to people?And I know that was one of your
questions in the book. Did youget it answered for yourself? In it

(24:41):
in a way where you feel likeyou can get it into schools and juvenile
detention centers? Like? How doesone do this? So? Yeah,
I do. My company is calledthe Big BI Method. Right now,
we've I've worked very closely with somereally good instructural and design I never thought

(25:02):
I could do this in an onlineformat because it's a lot of process.
But when COVID happened, when SuperintendentClose by here. She challenged me.
She's like, sure, you can'tset this up in and my instructional design
friend she was like, oh,we could do it. We could definitely
set up. So that's been afew years now, so I have a

(25:22):
I have all the process is fullyonline. People can sign up to take
the intro class, which is eightweeks, and then after the intro class,
I have something called the Empathy Gymthat we have designed because the intra
class, I usually say when youcome in to learn this, you're unconsciously
unskilled. You don't even know thatthere's this way and this thing that you

(25:44):
can learn to help you have connectionin all kinds of disconnected circumstances. Right,
It's like an anchor to bring youback to it. And then after
eight weeks, I say, you'realmost in a worse place because now you
are if you are consciously unskilled,you know it, you know the thing,
but you still can't fully do ityet because it's behavior changed. Right,

(26:06):
especially if you've had trauma, whensomebody you know does something and you're
triggered, you want to resort tothe whole way of responding. So really
you have to stay in the gameto reprogram yourself. And so we've developed
the Empathy Gym, which is anongoing it's like a gym where you can
come into. It's all online,and we've made a performance space. So

(26:26):
that was another thing. Pete.I was challenged by a friend of mine
who's a physics professor, who's like, you should make this performance space that
At first I was like, oh, no, you can't. Well,
actually we can. You know,I've set it up in such a way
where there's a level system and youcome in and you only you know,
go through the assessments as you're ready, So nobody's forced to do something like

(26:48):
that. But when you're ready andyou want to get feedback on your skills,
you can get it and level up. And it now that I've seen
people going through my system as theylevel up, they surely are like using
it more in their life and theyhave this skill. And you know,
I've had some of those people comethrough and now our facilitators for me,
So we are beginning to grow andexpand. So I am in schools and

(27:11):
I'm beginning to get some really gooddata by the way, showing that like
teachers that are using these processes arethe ones where they're discipline issues and their
classes go way down in comparison.It's quite amazing to see the difference between
people that are trained and people thatare not, because now when a kid
does something in your classroom, youdon't necessarily respond from your own fight.

(27:33):
Fight fore is like your own traumresponse. You have awareness and you know
you have a different way of movingin that moment. So we've been doing
some work in schools. I've beenworking with many different businesses. Businesses have
been hiring me and or my facilitatorsto come in and we will train businesses
that you know, the number onefactor and a thriving business is a level

(27:56):
of connection that employers and what youshave with one another. Right, That's
what sets a business support and that'swhat we're teaching. It's like, no,
it's not a soft skill. Youcan actually teach connection. How do
you make sure that you build inconnection to your organizations? So, yeah,
we're set up, We're ready togo. Like I'm ready. My

(28:17):
dream is to get this human wayI consider it like a human technology into
the hands of as many people aspossible before I check out here, right,
Like that's a globe is a dreamglobal. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
In fact, I do have.I have several people in my class.
I have some people from Poland,from England, from Germany, right

(28:38):
now Costa Rica. I have somebodyin Costa Rica that's taking the course.
Yeah, so it's everywhere. Imean, you can be anywhere. Australia.
I have some people in Australia thathave taken it. So yeah,
you can be anywhere and take it. So for the average listener, how

(28:59):
can can they best incorporate this intotheir lives? Like should they take a
course? Is at where to start? So I have two questions like how
can someone do this on a personallevel to make their life better and their
family better? And then the secondhow can they help get the word out,
help get it into their local schoolsor hospitals and whatnot. Yeah,

(29:23):
so thank you for asking those questions. Well, anybody can take the course.
You don't have to report on anorganization or school or business. It's
set up also where it's open enrollment, so you can at any point come
to www. Dot the Big BMethod, big bs, Big bi E

(29:45):
method dot com and on there you'llsee where you can enroll in the intro
class. It's three hundred dollars forthe eight weeks, and each of the
eight weeks you have a there's aself paced component where there's videos on a
process, and then there's a seventyfive minute zoom session each of the eight
weeks where you're practicing the process.So that's a real easy way for people

(30:06):
to just dive right in and getfamiliar with the process. And I would
recommend that if you're wanting to bringit to your schools or to your organizations,
it's nice to be able to geta little taste of what this is,
right and knowingness of it, andthen you know, you'll, my
guess is be ready to share itaround with others. I did write the

(30:26):
book. The book, I thinkis it's just a little taste of NBC
again because it's behavior change. Sothere is a whole chapter in the book
on you know, the basics ofthe process. But I would say,
you know, you don't ever reallylearn how to do this by reading a

(30:47):
book. You'll get the intellectual knowledge, but you won't get the behavior change.
So the book is all, yeah, the book's a really good way
to at least get a sense ofwhat it is. And I think people
have really enjoyed it. I weavetogether the Brain Research and NBC and then
my own personal narrative and my journeywith my mother. So I think it

(31:07):
makes it very user friendly. Iguess we're digestibles probably a better word for
people. So that that's where Iwould start. I would go check out
our website. I also have apodcast too. I have a podcast.
It's cool. It's all about connectionNBC with Doctor b We have like I
don't know, one hundred and fiftysome odd episodes out there, short and

(31:30):
get a lot of really nice feedbackfrom people that you know. That's another
way to just at least start tohear and listen and learn a little bit,
a little bit by little bit aboutwhat the process is beautiful? And
do you have sponsors at this time, like people that will have scholarships for
those who can't afford the FIA atthis point? Is there scholarships or sponsors

(31:52):
yet? No, we don't havethat. I mean what I try to
do is for nonprofits, we putthe price way down if a nonprofit or
a school wants to have us comein and do a cohort for them.
Individuals. We did actually have asmall little endownment going in be in honor
of my mother when she passed,and so there might still be a few

(32:16):
of those available for people that can'tafford. But honestly, I've been trying
to locally here in Tallahassee. Wehave this whole gun violence thing which I
think is probably happening all over theplace, and I really wanted to use
a lot of that scholarship money tofocus on our local community and getting some

(32:37):
of the people that are doing thework on the ground skilled up with NBC
because I know how important it is. It's really important. Yeah. Well,
if you're listening and you have deep, big pockets, this is a
real way to make a difference inyour community. Just bring in something like
us, you know, and it'llbe nice at some point to see studies

(33:00):
of how it does bring down goodand violence, right, because I believe
I believe it would. I reallydo, Yeah, hands down. I
mean I think I really do thinkit would as well. Yeah. Yeah,
So other than your website, isthat well, is that the best
way for people to reach out toyou if they have questions or want to

(33:21):
work with your team? Yeah,the website's a really good place to start.
You could also email me at doctorB just DRB at THEBIGB Method dot
com. I'd be happy to interactit. This is my most favorite thing
to talk about or to teach people. My husband retired in February, and

(33:42):
everyone keeps asking me, when areyou going to retire. I'm like,
I don't see myself retiring, atleast not for a good long time,
because if you love what you do, it's much easier to say that,
isn't it. Yeah, it's toowell. And also, I mean,
there's just so much disconnection in theworld. I think most people can agree
that our number one is is disconnectionor see it everywhere playing out, you

(34:04):
know. And I think that this, you know, the trauma epidemic is
truly it's it's what is underlying thatdisconnection. And I truly believe that non
all communication is a very powerful toolto help build awareness and give people skills
to undo all of that. So, if you know something that works really

(34:27):
well for this number one issue insociety, it would be a tragedy and
it would Yeah, just it wouldn'tbe right for me to just go retire,
right, this is something that's tooimportant. Yeah, Well, hopefully,
hopefully the people that you train towill will carry on your message after
you pass. Not that that's happeninganytime soon, no, but I really

(34:52):
a lot of the people that aredoing the work with me now, which
it keeps growing too, so that'samazing. That's I feel very excited that
there they live it in as muchintegrity because it's not just like, you
know, you can't just take thistraining and then do it like you have
to live it. So here's anexample. You know, you're you're giving

(35:14):
a training and somebody is saying ordoing something that's triggering, and you know
you're feeling triggered in the moment.How do you in that moment embody this
thing that you're teaching, Right,It's not a so easy thing to do
because I still get triggered. It'snot like that goes away. So it's
it's a tricky thing, number one, to teach it to people. And
then if I'm teaching it to peoplewho are then going to turn around to

(35:35):
teach it to people, they can'tjust teach it. They have to live
it. We have to live theprocess. And yeah, I feel so
happy that I do have all thesewhat I used to joke, I'm gonna
call them little bees because I'm abig bee. That's why we have all
these little bees. I'm gonna gowe can just call you a queen bee.

(35:59):
I'm We're starting actually eight new cohortsthis next week in schools for different
schools. Eight new cohorts, andI'm only doing one of them. I
feel very happy about that and relievethat, you know, they're all going
to be done facilitated by other people, not me. I'm still doing one
because they just you know, Ilike to keep my pulse on how things

(36:19):
are going. But yeah, thegame plan is to solely be able to
work my way out of it andleave it with a lot more people that
can keep the ball going forward.My head is like, as you're talking,
my head's still going kind of fast, as like, not only would
I help with gun violence, butI'm thinking even trafficking drugs and alcohol abuse

(36:42):
would go down. Like it's justif people feel heard, it's huge,
it's everything. It's it's yeah,and there's definitely something to it, right,
Like people trust me when I sayit's a it's not a soft skill
to be able to hear someone,Like, it's a very replicable skill that

(37:05):
we can teach other people how todo so. If you know that you
have this replicable process, then thereyou go. There's the answer. We
just need to make sure everybody learnsit and puts it into place and like
you said, places where I cantouch in our society where we have all
the issues. It's yeah, I'mon a mission because I know just there's

(37:27):
so many places where it's it's it'sneeded. Well, thank you for getting
the work you're doing. Yeah,And just so you know, like with
the kids that I used to workwith, it got so crazy in a
good way in that program because thosekids, those very same kids, they've
walked out on me. Right tenyears later. You know, the program
is still going because I figured itout right, it's actually still going now.

(37:52):
We used to have at times likeforty to forty five people in a
circle in this room, like packedin it in a circle, because what
would happen would be the kids wouldnever want to leave. But at first
they're court ordered and they're so angryabout being there. And then they came
into this community situation where they theyexperienced being heard and accepted right, experience

(38:17):
being in a place of true nonjudgment. Maybe for the first time.
And oh, by the way,it was beautiful because it didn't matter how
old you you know, we hadold people in their young people and their
black people and their white people intheir middle class, you know, people
in poverty. It didn't matter.We were like a full, like cesspool
of people. It didn't matter.And I we would have the issue of

(38:40):
like too many people because I couldn'tturn away the kids, and they would
just keep coming back. They wouldcome back to volunteer. I still have
several of the kids now, theywork for me, getting paid doing this
work. Now, one guy who'sbeen with me for you know, probably
eight years or so. Now that'skind of how it's And so you know

(39:00):
that in and of itself is verytelling. Some of these kids that you
know, people had no way ofreaching, are the ones that want to
just keep coming back and doing andbeing part of this. That's very common.
Yeah. All right, well,thank you so much for sharing your
knowledge and wisdom with my audience today. Yeah, you're so welcome. Thank

(39:24):
you for having me. And yeah, the book is my link to Mildred.
You can get it on Amazon.If you do read it and it
impacts you, please leave a reviewMy understanding is that's how it gets traction.
It's by people who interviews and yeah, thank you so much for letting
me come on and share. Yes, and listeners, it's worth the read.

(39:45):
It's a wonderful gem of a book. So thanks. I've had a
few people that don't read very muchthat have told me that they got sucked
in, so that's a good sign. Also great, thank you for listening
in today. Please join us nextweek, same day and time. Also,

(40:05):
I would love for you to checkout my website heel thrivedream dot com.