AND/BOTH Podcast - Real Conversations, Shared Experiences, and the Community You've Been Missing

Amanda Timonere spent a decade at the top of the clinical world — chief clinical officer of a multi-state mental health and substance use treatment center — before becoming a mom and realizing she wanted to do something different. Not because she couldn’t do the job. Because she was missing time with her kids and because she saw a gap in care for mothers that she was uniquely positioned to fill.
Now she runs Zenful Mamas, a private practice and coaching platform built around perinatal mental health and the concept of matrescence — the neurological and psychological transformation of becoming a mother. In this conversation, Ashley and Amanda talk about what that transformation actually looks like, why so many women arrive at motherhood completely unprepared for it, and what it means to break the cycle of the blueprint you didn’t know you were carrying.
In This Episode
What matrescence is — and why most mothers have never heard of it
The neurological reality of what happens to our brains when we become parents
How Amanda’s own anxiety through pregnancy and postpartum led her to this work
Walking into motherhood with a generational blueprint you don’t know exists
Why women — especially high-achieving women — resist asking for help
The difference between therapy and coaching, and how Amanda decides which one a client actually needs
Her 12-week program “Rewrite Before You Repeat” — and what it’s designed to do
Navigating the relationship between new parents and grandparents when parenting philosophies clash
Why the women who appear to have it all together either have a lot of help or aren’t telling the whole story
The AI dependency conversation — what it means for mental health support and clinical training
Solo parenting a two and four year old while running a practice — what that actually looks like
Her vision for Zenful Mamas as a hub for maternal mental health — therapy, coaching, breathwork, Reiki, and more

Quotes From This Episode
“We’re walking into motherhood with a blueprint that we don’t even know exists.”
— Amanda Timonere
“It’s not a matter of weak or strong. There is a neurological change in our mind that’s happening and it’s so far beyond our control.”
— Amanda Timonere
“Preventative care is the best care.”
— Amanda Timonere
“Having kids is like holding up a mirror to yourself. It’s like everything is exposed and we’re figuring it out.”
— Amanda Timonere
“There’s no prize at the end of the day for doing it all perfectly. There’s never going to be a medal ceremony and someone will be the valedictorian of motherhood.”
— Ashley Blackington

Resources & Links
Zenful Mamas: zenfulMamas.com
Instagram: @zenful_mamas
Zenful Mamas Inner Circle — low-commitment monthly groups for nervous system regulation
12-week coaching program: Rewrite Before You Repeat

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/

Betsy Cornwell saw a gap — artist residencies she qualified for but couldn’t access as a single parent — and instead of waiting for someone else to fill it, she built something herself. She crowdfunded the purchase of a historic 1906 knitting factory on the west coast of Ireland, turned it into a residency and retreat space for other single parent artists, and then wrote a memoir about how all of it happened.
In this conversation, Ashley and Betsy talk about coming out of an abusive marriage, what it means to write honestly about hard things as a mother, the gap between the writing life you imagine and the one you actually have, and why the accomplishment Betsy is most proud of isn’t her New York Times bestseller or her university teaching post — it’s being a single mom.
In This Episode
How Betsy became a single parent and why she found herself proud to be one almost immediately
The gap she identified — artist residencies she qualified for but couldn’t access because of caretaking logistics and finances
The castle that didn’t work out, the pivot to the knitting factory, and why this place ended up being a better fit
What crowdfunding a house actually looked like — including the 2am moment when everything came down to the wire
Why she gives residency recipients a cash childcare stipend rather than on-site childcare — and what that trust means
The Smith College Friday Tea tradition and the online community that supported her through the most isolated stretch of her life
Writing about emotional abuse — “he never hit me” — and why that makes some readers deeply uncomfortable
The ethics of writing a memoir as a parent: how she handled writing about her son and his father
Why mother’s silence is not the solution to the complexity of women telling their stories
Writing Ring of Salt on the edge of a bathtub — and what that says about the art you can make in the life you have
Raising her son in an Irish-speaking region of Ireland — and what she’s observed about life in Ireland versus the US
The “keep it alive” approach to creative practice for caregivers
What she hopes happens when someone comes to the Old Knitting Factory and gets to breathe for the first time

Quotes From This Episode
“The accomplishment I’m most proud of is being a single mom. And I think that will always be true.”
— Betsy Cornwell
“I don’t think the brunt of all that complexity should be borne through the simple solution of mother’s silence. That is not right to me.”
— Betsy Cornwell
“The book that I could write is the book that I could write in the life that I have.”
— Betsy Cornwell
“Have you kept your art practice alive today? It’s just about keeping it alive.”
— Betsy Cornwell
“We’re kicking the bar down the road and wondering why our toe hurts.”
— Ashley Blackington

Resources & Links
Ring of Salt (memoir): available at any bookstore or via oldknittingfactory.com
Old Knitting Factory: oldknittingfactory.com
Support the residency on Patreon
All books including YA novels: betsycornwell.com
Friday Tea on Substack: find Betsy on Substack

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/

Laura Navaquin spent nearly 20 years in corporate America before one Wednesday meeting pushed her over the edge. Her husband said “just quit, we’ll figure it out.” She did, and then spent the next few weeks wondering if she’d made a catastrophic mistake before realizing she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Today Laura and her husband run four businesses rooted in real estate — a consulting practice, a wholesaling company, a framework for real estate agents called Beyond Commissions, and a contracting business — while raising four kids, three of whom are three and under. In this conversation, Ashley and Laura talk about the messy, non-linear reality of building something from scratch while staying present for the people who matter most.
In This Episode
Why Laura left corporate after 20 years — it wasn’t the job, it was losing control of her own schedule
The Wednesday she quit on impulse and the fear that followed immediately after
How she and her husband grew their real estate portfolio from four doors to twenty-one in under two years
Why they scaled too fast, stepped back, and what that taught them about sustainable growth
Creative financing — what it is and how it changed what was possible for them
How four businesses became interconnected rather than overwhelming
Beyond Commissions — the real estate agent framework they spent 2025 building and launched in January
The entrepreneur catch-22: needing help, hiring help, and ending up doing it yourself anyway
How they navigate four kids and four businesses — shared office, shared calendar, shared flexibility
Getting kids involved in the business in age-appropriate ways
Why the nine-year-old’s salsa company ambitions are being taken seriously
The shift in how we talk about money, investing, and entrepreneurship with the next generation
Where Laura sees things going — development, fundraising, and building on a larger scale

Quotes From This Episode
“Some weeks I take off entirely, or I work weekends and late nights — but I’m still able to work that schedule around my life.”
— Laura Navaquin
“Being able to have that flexibility and creativity with the way you do things allows you to pivot and still keep that business alive.”
— Laura Navaquin
“When you pressure test the system, then you start to pivot. Then you start to say, what is a reasonable ask for me?”
— Ashley Blackington
“I never saw myself in real estate in any capacity — but to see where we are nowadays and all the future plans that we’re making. It’s somewhat comical, but in all the best ways.”
— Laura Navaquin
“Non-traditional is becoming traditional.”
— Ashley Blackington
Find Laura
LinkedIn & Instagram: @LauraNavaquin
Website: lauranavaqquin.com
Beyond Commissions: beyondcommissions.io

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/

Everyone dies. And yet most of us have no idea what dying actually looks like — because we’ve been shielded from it, and because everything we’ve seen on screen is wrong.
Jade Adgate is a death doula, educator, and founder of Farewell Fellowship in Middle Tennessee. She’s spent years walking alongside families at end of life — not as a tour guide, but as a fellow traveler — and she’s on a mission to normalize the experience of death so that fewer people have to face it completely unprepared.
In this conversation, Ashley and Jade cover a lot of ground: the real dying process versus what we expect it to be, how we live is how we die, the role of control in caregiving, what those extended months of treatment are actually buying us, and what it looks like to bring sacredness back to the end of life — even when it’s messy and ordinary and nothing like the movies.
In This Episode
How Jade got into death doula work- from Hurricane Katrina, to moving in with her great-aunt Sis, to hospice volunteering
The parallel between parenting teenagers and supporting families at end of life, both require learning to hold while letting go
How death became less ordinary and why that’s a tragedy
The idea that modern medicine has learned to extend dying, not just life
Quality versus quantity: what people think they’re buying with treatment versus what they’re actually getting
Roxanne: the client who tried to control every detail of her own death, and what Jade learned from her
Adeline: a pediatric client who died just before her fifth birthday, and the home funeral that gave her family something different
Why 90% of people end up in a hospital bed at end of life and why that matters to know
What actually happens in the hours after someone dies and why slowing down is the most important thing a death doula does
The gap between the Forrest Gump death scene and reality
How Jade protects herself in this work as a self-described recovering codependent eldest daughter
The future of death doula work, bringing these tools into communities and families who can’t access a professional

Quotes From This Episode

“How we live is how we die. Who we are is who we are when we’re dying.”
— Jade Adgate
“If we are going to buy more time, can we know at the beginning that this is the time we’re buying? It starts right now — instead of we’re going to do all these treatments and then start our time when you’re feeling better.”
— Jade Adgate
“Death is the teacher. As much as I think I might know, it is totally different for every single person.”
— Jade Adgate
“This is not wisdom that needs a gatekeeper. This is all of our collective wisdom.”
— Jade Adgate
“There are no monsters around corners if you know where all the corners are.”
— Ashley Blackington

Resources & Links
Farewell Fellowship (in-person doula services, education & library): farewellfellowship.com
Instagram: Farewell Library
Book referenced: Gone From My Sight — Barbara Carnes
Show referenced: Dying for Sex (Hulu)

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/

Libby Ward built one of the internet’s most recognizable platforms for honest motherhood, and she did it by saying the things most moms were too afraid to say out loud. Now she’s put it all in a book: Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself, published by Crown.
In this co-hosted episode, Ashley and Erin sit down with Libby to trace the full arc, from the small town church community where motherhood was put on a pedestal, to the postpartum rage that finally broke her open, to the sociology class that reframed everything, to going viral on TikTok during a pandemic, to writing a book for Crown that she nearly wrote as someone else entirely.
It’s a conversation about what happens when women stop doing everything for everyone else and start asking who they actually are, and why that question so often doesn’t get asked until something breaks.
In This Episode
Who Libby was before TikTok- a 26-year-old in a conservative church community trying to be every kind of mom at once
How her second child’s higher needs broke the plate-spinning and sent her to therapy for the first time
Why her postpartum depression showed up as rage, not sadness and why that made it harder to recognize and name
The shame spiral of “what is wrong with me” and the therapy session that cracked it open
The sociology of sex and gender class that introduced her to the mental load, default parenting, and feminism
Finding TikTok during the pandemic and posting as a form of dissociation, not really believing anyone would find her
The moment she stopped making humor content and decided she didn’t want to joke about things that were crushing her soul
Going no contact with her mom and how that coincided with the book deal coming through
The writing process: imposter syndrome, a pivot away from research-heavy writing, and learning to trust her own storytelling
Why she didn’t lose herself in motherhood, she never found herself before it
Doing it guilty: why waiting to feel ready or unashamed means never changing anything
What “honest motherhood” actually means and why it starts internally, not out loud

Quotes From This Episode:
“I didn’t lose myself in motherhood. I actually never found myself or knew myself when I was younger. Motherhood was the catalyst to help me find the self I never knew before motherhood even began.”
— Libby Ward
“It’s not that I’m exhausted because I’m not enough. It’s that the load is too much for any one person. That shift is so important.”
— Libby Ward
“How do you get rid of the guilt and shame? You just do it guilty. You do it feeling a little bit ashamed. And then you’re retraining your brain — actually, we survived. Actually, it’s okay.”
— Libby Ward
“I am so tired of women being the butt end of jokes. I no longer want to joke about the things that are crushing my soul.”
— Libby Ward
“You deserve to be well just for the mere fact that you’re a person who deserves to be well. Your kids just happen to benefit from that.”
— Libby Ward

About the Book
Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself by Libby Ward is available now wherever books are sold — Amazon, Indigo, and most major retailers.

Find Libby
Website: libbyward.com
Instagram: @libbyward
TikTok: @libbywardofficial

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/