EP221: On Motherhood, Mothering, and Identity with Kimberly Ann Johnson

Kimberly Ann Johnson is back today. She's the author of The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality. She joined us earlier this year and talked about pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery and sex. Today we spent our time on motherhood, mothering, and identity. I'll warn you - Kimberly and I are both really curious and really comfortable talking about uncomfortable things and we went for it in this conversation.

We explored discovering the mother you are, how to be with your timeline and your kid's timeline, relationships among mothers, being a single parent, self care vs community care, expectations on mothers and expectations held by mothers, and the differences and similarities between birthing a book and birthing a human. We also go into some trauma theory, unshaming responses, and what happened when her #metoo video went viral on Facebook.

About Kimberly Ann Johnson:

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner, Certified Sexological Bodyworker, doula, postpartum care advocate and single mom. She works at the intersection of birth, sex, and trauma, specializing in birth injuries, birth trauma, and sexual healing. She leads women through a bottom up She is the author of the upcoming book The Fourth Trimester: A New Mother’s Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality to be published by Shambhala Press this Fall. She leads small groups of women on intimate dives to get the sexual education they never got and claim full sexual expression.

In this episode, Kimberly shares:

1. Mother - Daughter wisdom
2. How perfectionism shows up in family relationships
3. Asking "what works" instead of clinging to ideals