119. The Mental Load Nobody Names: Reparenting Yourself While Raising Someone Else with Michelle Gibson

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 EpisodeHow Michelle’s childhood (alcoholism, trauma, adverse childhood experiences) led her to psychotherapyThe magnetic effect of finding language for what you’ve been throughWhy social-emotional learning in schools is changing what middle school looks like for kids todayReparenting yourself while parenting someone else — and the double labor that involvesThe rise of estrangement from parents and what’s driving itMichelle shares her own experience estranging from her father — and why having a daughter changed the calculationAshley shares her own experience with estrangementWhy entrepreneurs so often come from hard childhoods — grit as a survival responseThe moment Michelle looked up from years of grind and realized she’d been in survival mode her whole lifeWhat it means to lead from a heart-led place versus a fear-led oneThe privilege of support — naming it honestly so other parents don’t compare their back end to someone else’s front end“Your parents’ ceiling is your floor” — and how Michelle thinks about expanding that for her daughterResources & LinksGibson and Associates: gibsoncounselling.caThe Nest Collective: thenestcollective.caEmail: [email protected] or [email protected] Michelle on LinkedInConnect with Ashley:Website: https://www.ashleyblackington.comPodcast website: https://www.andbothpodcast.com/Dovetail® App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dovetail-app/id6744341822Instagram: @mydovetail.appLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyblackington/