What does it mean to break a cycle when you’re still inside it? Michelle Gibson is a psychotherapist, CEO of Gibson and Associates and the Nest Collective, and a mom of one, and she has spent her career helping people find language for experiences they were never taught to name.

In this conversation, Michelle and Ashley cover a lot of ground: childhood trauma and the path into psychotherapy, the complicated terrain of parent estrangement, why adverse childhood experiences are disproportionately common in entrepreneurs, and what it looks like to lead a business and a family, from a place of genuine self-connection rather than survival mode.

It’s an honest, warm, and unexpectedly funny conversation about doing the work while also just trying to get dinner on the table.

In This Episode

1. How Michelle’s childhood (alcoholism, trauma, adverse childhood experiences) led her to psychotherapy
2. The magnetic effect of finding language for what you’ve been through
3. Why social-emotional learning in schools is changing what middle school looks like for kids today
4. Reparenting yourself while parenting someone else — and the double labor that involves
5. The rise of estrangement from parents and what’s driving it
6. Michelle shares her own experience estranging from her father — and why having a daughter changed the calculation
7. Ashley shares her own experience with estrangement
8. Why entrepreneurs so often come from hard childhoods — grit as a survival response
9. The moment Michelle looked up from years of grind and realized she’d been in survival mode her whole life
10. What it means to lead from a heart-led place versus a fear-led one
11. The privilege of support — naming it honestly so other parents don’t compare their back end to someone else’s front end
12. “Your parents’ ceiling is your floor” — and how Michelle thinks about expanding that for her daughter

Resources & Links

1. Gibson and Associates: gibsoncounselling.ca
2. The Nest Collective: thenestcollective.ca
3. Email: michelle@gibsoncounselling.ca or michelle@thenestcollective.ca
4. Find Michelle on LinkedIn

Connect with Ashley:

Website: https://www.ashleyblackington.com

Podcast website: https://www.andbothpodcast.com/

Dovetail® App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dovetail-app/id6744341822

Instagram: @mydovetail.app

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyblackington/