Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast
Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast: where culture, communication, and context meet at work. Discover what cultural influences have formed the careers of noteworthy leaders in a variety of professions, by exploring the groups that shaped who they are today. Learn about the collective context and experiences that affect their worldview, leadership style, workplace communication and behaviour.
Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast
Christine Gibson – Healing Modern Trauma
Bio for Christine Gibson
Dr. Christine Gibson is a family physician, trauma consultant, author, and facilitator in Calgary, Canada.
Episode highlight
Christine Gibson took her own intense personal experiences and laced them to her deep curiosity about healing trauma together with her background as a medical doctor.
Links
Email: contact@christinegibson.net
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-gibson-md/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gibtrotterMD
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktoktraumadoc?lang=en
Websites:
Quotes
“The trauma isn't the event, the trauma is your response to the event.”
“When a caterpillar has to form the cocoon, it dissolves its own skin in acid before it emerges as a butterfly, and I really like building a safe cocoon for that dissolution.”
Takeaways
Childhood Incidents
Growing up in Edmonton, Canada, Christine’s work in health equity was inspired by seeing her parents overcome obstacles, and the encouragement she received to pursue her interests.
Christine’s curiosity and desire to learn more about people was primarily fueled by her mother’s innately intuitive disposition.
In school, Christine’s circle of friends included people from all different social and activity groups. That was her beginning of becoming a “trans-disciplinarian.”
Influential Groups
Christine’s father came from a small coal mining town in Fife, Scotland. At the age of 16, her father dropped out of school and left the UK for a musical life in Canada. This decision later influenced Christine to chart her own course in life.
Christine was taught a lot about Ukrainian culture and a strong work ethic from her maternal grandparents. She also learned the “there’s just nothing I can’t do” attitude.
After Christine survived an earthquake in Nepal in 2004, her work and reach expanded to explore trauma. This helped her realize and understand the collective trauma in the world.
Temperament and Personality Influences
Christine has always been a curious person and has explored bringing that “curiosity, creativity and fun” into her work. She also considers herself an early adopter of ideas and trends.
Cultural Epiphanies
Christine realized that she hadn’t understood decolonization, and was still operating from a colonial culture’s mindset until an Indigenous woman from Brazil navigated her through those difficult conversations.
Advice to an Employer
Christine enjoys working with people who expand beyond check boxes to see what’s possible and are willing to be playful around tough concepts.
She also loves when she can provide space for deconstructing and regeneration, and thrives when she can work with the sensibility of exploring what can come from the ashes.
More Great Insights!
Christine’s book, The Modern Trauma Toolkit, is a solution and strength-based piece written to help manage trauma by using metaphors to enable catalyzed growing. Her training module is designed to help professionals and organizations create safer work spaces.
