Season 2 Ends - It's All Up From Here! podcast update...

Laly exploring in Lane Cove National Park, during the full moon, 2018

Wow Season 2 of It’s All Up From Here flew! The last episode was uploaded a couple of weeks ago, and features Shona’s beautiful parents Al & Sheryl, chatting openly about some of the things they learnt as parents and what wisdom they gained along the journey. It’s a sweet episode, a lovely way to end the season. I loved listening to the recordings of their interviews and I admit, I did feel a little emotional to know I can’t interview my mum too. I wonder if she were here, would she let me, if I asked her? I wonder what she would say? Those were the thoughts going through my mind. And as far as my Dad goes, I wouldn’t even dream of asking him, so that also made me a little melancholy. None of which takes away from the openness of Shona’s parents though, in this last episode, so if you haven’t had a listen yet, please do.

A run down of our most popular listens so far: Season One’s most listened to episode was “Setting Boundaries”. And Season Two’s has remained strong with “How to Know When To End A Relationship, Part One”.

It’s so interesting that these episodes have been the most popular - it shows that there are some major shifts going on in our society, shifts that I know are so crucial to our growth and evolution. It’s exciting, but I understand how challenging these times can be when we are in major life shifts. Both Shona & I have been through a lot these past 2 years, and we’ve been as open as possible on the podcast, with respect to the people we love in our lives, I’m sure there is more to come as we each process these changes and find the jewel lessons in these experiences.

The break between Season 2 and Season 3 will be extended as Shona has just embarked on a 6 week adventure to America and England - a trip with great significance, which she will be sharing some of the details with us upon her return. I’m super excited for her - for those who have been listening to us on the podcast, you’ll know why this trip is such a big deal, but there is much more to be revealed, all in time!

Both Shona & I are pumped for the next season - we’ve already recorded a few of the episodes so they will be ready to share as soon as she returns. We will be covering some big topics, creating space and shedding light on things that are so often taboo in families. Often we don’t realise what we don’t talk about with family members until someone else shares their story with us, and that’s our intention - because both us know how powerful it is to shed light on dark areas in our lives. So get ready for season 3!

If you’d like to catch up on episodes in the meantime, you can head here, to my podcast page. I upload all episodes there, and you’ll also find the occassional show notes, with resources to explore certain topics further. We’d love you to put a review in on itunes! It will help others to find the podcast too, thank you! And if there are episodes that resonate with you and you’d love others to listen (but you don’t feel confident to bring up the topic yourself), let them know about the podcast so they can listen in - it’s a great way to open discussion on things you otherwise feel timid to bring up yourself.

Any topics you would love discussed? Don’t hesitate to email me or Shona or let me know in a comment below. See you soon for Season 3!

With love,

Pia

Episode 6 Podcast : Redefining Success...

Laly and her friend Mya enjoying some intuitive mark-making together, reminding me of Shona & I 'at play'. In fact, a photograph I captured of this joyful moment between the girls became the backdrop for our podcast logo. The beginnings of beautiful collaborations!

All 8 episodes of the first season of Shona Smith and my podcast titled “It’s All Up From Here!” are now available. I’ve just finished having a listen to all of them - Shona does all the incredible behind-the-scenes stuff that is involved in making a podcast, so I don’t listen to the episodes until they are out there! It does make me feely slightly vulnerable but hey, I’ve had plenty of practice at allowing myself to experience vulnerability when it comes to putting things out there, so this is all part of the journey.

I can say with all my heart that I have enjoyed being in conversation and listening to every single episode. It’s a big deal for me to say that - artists tend to be hyper-self-critical and nothing ever reaches ‘perfection’ (that’s because there is no such thing, but we forget that!). So I hope that comes through in the podcast and that you enjoy listening in.

One thing I’ve thought about since listening to the episodes is that we have said this is a ‘parenting’ podcast because it revolves around our experiences with our own children along with Shona’s extensive experience & knowledge as a youth worker, however it occurred to me that it’s broader than that - it’s as much about parenting of ‘self’. Because essentially, while we are parenting children, a huge part of it is that we are also learning so much about ourselves, and this is strong in our conversations.

The episode topics for this season are:

How to set rock solid boundaries
Intuition -How to use this powerful parenting tool
The Teenage Years - how to approach them with excitement and lose the dread
Redefining Success
The Mother Rage
Doing Christmas + Festive Season Reimagined

And I’ve just written up some show notes for “Redefining Success” as I mention a number of resources in it that I wanted to be able to link to. Shona and I haven’t intended to include show notes, but I think I will write them up slowly when I have the time as I see the benefit of the notes. I’ll let you know when the other notes go live, but for now here are the notes for “Redefining Success”. So, if you haven’t already subscribed, you can listen on apple podcasts or whooska, and I’ve also included each episode on my website here.

A big thank you to Shona for being my co-host and for all that she has done to make this happen - it has been such a joy to work with her over these months and I look forward to many more collaborations together!

With Love,

Pia xx

It's All Up From Here! podcast is now live...

I’m so thrilled to let you know about this collaboration, it’s something that I’ve been working on in the background for the past 6 months and here it is…

Welcome to Season One of the It’s All Up From Here! parent podcast, hosted by radio producer/presenter + ex-youth worker Shona Smith, alongside me, Pia Jane Bijkerk. This is a refreshing, unscripted & honest podcast opening up discussion on issues and topics of today, with the focus to bring back the fun to our parenting.

What I love about this is that both Shona & I have very different parenting styles, backgrounds & personalities - while Shona is effervescent and knowledgeable, I am, well, the heart wanderer: travelling along my parenting path led by my intuition & creativity. We are very good friends, and this collaboration came about after many wonderful discussions. I found I walked away from our conversations feeling uplifted and empowered to be on this wild parenting journey. There was so much great information shared. And after hosting some parenting workshops together in Sydney in 2017, we soon realised a podcast was in the making…

Shona’s passion is to bring the joy back into parenting, for so many of us who feel overwhelmed and pressured to ‘get it right’. And my passion is to live wholeheartedly, guided by intuition. In this podcast we come together with honesty, openness and reality, without the bells & whistles or smoke & mirrors of social media. In fact, that is the topic of one of our upcoming episodes.

This is Shona Smith! I love this photograph - it captures the humour, joy and warmth she brings everywhere she goes.

Each time Shona uploads an episode, I’ll post it here on this page, but you can also subscribe via Apple Podcasts and Whooshkaa. Without further ado, a very big welcome to It’s All Up From Here! Bringing the joy & heart back to parenting.

With love,

Pia xx

UPCOMING EVENT: The Alchemy of Creative Intuition

This Saturday, October 27 from 4:30-6pm I’ll be on the talks stage at Turn Out, a fete for grown ups! I’ll be interviewed by my dear friend, presenter and podcaster Shona Smith, about the alchemy of intuition - what it is, why we need to prioritise tapping into it now, how we can benefit from it both creatively and in our lives, and what it has to do with developing a ‘bullshit-free zone’.

Shona will be asking some great questions! She’s a lot of fun and such a great presenter, so I can’t wait to answer her questions and meet the audience. I’ll be doing a Q&A at the end, and there will be time to chat and sign books as well. I’ll have all copies of my books, including (hopefully! It’s still at the printers!) my new Festive Season, Reimagined - of which there are only a handful left to purchase, thanks to everyone who has been pre-ordering up a storm! All books will have a special fete price, and can be individually signed.

Here is a peek at the book sample I received earlier this week. I’m so happy with the colours and paper stock - it’s beautiful matte paper, not too thin and not too thick, 100% recycled, printed locally.

I don’t do many events through the year as you know, much preferring to be hunkered down in my artist’s retreat, allowing my ideas to run rampant! So it’s a rare & special occasion to be out under the spotlight for a moment or two, I hope you can join me.

Shona & I have also been working on something fun (“and very useful!” says Shona) together which we will be announcing on social media as early as this afternoon! And we will be talking about it at Turn Out too. The above pic is a little clue!

Happy full moon to each of you.

With Love,

Pia xx