Alexandra Walker: Healing Through Song

Outward success can mask profound inner turmoil.

Alexandra Walker talks to me about her path from mathematical prodigy to trauma-informed coach, revealing along the way how creative expression can be hindered by psychological struggles, but also become a pathway to healing. 

From an early age, Alexandra displayed dual talents in mathematics and creative arts. A perceptive art teacher recognized abilities she couldn't see in herself, encouraging her artistic development alongside her academic pursuits. This duality continued at university, where she performed Grieg's Piano Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra and wrote a musical while completing her mathematics degree.

Despite her accomplishments, Alexandra struggled with insomnia and two types of OCD that stifled her creativity for years. 'When you're dealing with problems, they can just become so all-encompassing,' she explains. Through counselling, Alexandra gradually recognized these mental health challenges stemmed from childhood emotional abuse – a reality her mind had carefully shielded her from acknowledging.

The healing journey took an unexpected turn when Alexandra and her husband relocated to Scotland during the pandemic. What began as a temporary move became permanent as she found space to process her experiences and envision a new path forward. This transformation led to the creation of Damsel Not In Distress, her trauma-informed coaching business helping others 'sing after the storm' of difficult life experiences.

Perhaps most powerfully, Alexandra discovered that songs she'd written sporadically over the years formed a chronicle of her healing journey – from fear to hope, caterpillar to butterfly. These creative expressions now inform her coaching work and upcoming book, embodying her realization that 'we can't just solve everything with logic... I also needed more of the creative side, expressing emotions.'

creativityfound.co.uk

Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips

Download Fire From the Earth from Liminal Coaching here. Reconnect with your creative energy.

Affordably advertise on this podcast by emailing claire@creativityfound.co.uk, or book a call here.

I would love some financial support to help me to keep making this podcast. Visit buymeacoffee.com/creativityfound

Chapters

• 10:13 PhD, Early Career and Mental Health Struggles
• 15:29 Exploring the Roots of OCD and Anxiety
• 22:15 Family Trauma and Breaking Patterns
• 29:15 Damsel Not in Distress: Coaching Others
• 33:45 Songwriting as Healing and Future Projects
• 36:35 Connect with Alexandra
• 37:00 Support Creativity Found

Transcript

Alexandra Walker
00:00:08.400 - 00:01:09.420
I was outwardly really successful and getting promoted and doing all sorts of cool stuff, but inwardly I was like, I'm falling apart. I don't know what's happening. I don't know why. I feel so uncomfortable and so miserable, and I feel like my brain's working against me.

And it's worth saying those mental health issues really stifled my creativity. I had this plan after the successful musical. I wanted to write another one. It felt like a really important thing to do, but I just didn't do it.

And I had no space or time, because when you're dealing with problems, they can just become so all encompassing. I tried to put a storyline around it, but I wasn't really quite sure what was going on. But I would just occasionally feel compelled to write a song.

And it turns out now, as I look back, that I have this suite of songs which chronicle different aspects of my healing journey. You know, we can't just solve everything with logic. I used to believe that I could, and then I had to discover that logic was amazing.

But I also needed more of the creative side, expressing emotions, all of that.

Claire Waite Brown
00:01:10.460 - 00:01:47.750
Hi, I'm Claire. For this podcast, I chat with people who have found or refound their creativity as adults.

We'll explore their childhood experiences of the arts, discuss how they came to the artistic practices they now love, and consider the barriers they may have experienced between the two.

We'll also explore what it is that people value and gain from their newfound artistic pursuits and how their creative lives enrich their practical, necessary, everyday lives. I'm here with Alexandra Walker. Hi, Alexandra. How are you?

Alexandra Walker
00:01:48.310 - 00:01:51.110
I'm really good, thank you, Clare. It's lovely to be here today.

Claire Waite Brown
00:01:51.750 - 00:01:57.590
Brilliant. Start by telling me then, where your creativity sits right now.

Alexandra Walker
00:01:58.380 - 00:03:06.270
Yeah, absolutely. So I've always been quite a mix of analytical and creative, so I have always loved maths. For example, I did a maths degree and even a maths PhD.

But I've also always had this strong creative side as well, and that comes out in playing music, writing music, that kind of thing, and also art.

But I think it's interesting, actually, because for me, creativity is about kind of innovation and flexibility in how we express ourselves, but also in how we think. And I think we tend to think about creativity in terms of expression, which is absolutely true.

But for me, there's also something about problem solving, for example, has a huge amount of creativity in it. So for me, right now, I set up my business Damselnot in distress a couple of years ago. Creativity has been a huge part of that endeavor.

Just Figuring out how to do a whole load of new things, you know, all the way from tech to how to put an offer together to sell to people, you know, all those different things involve a huge amount of creativity as well.

Claire Waite Brown
00:03:06.590 - 00:03:16.830
Absolutely, they do. Tell me about your childhood and what parts music, art, creativity played in your life when you were growing up.

Alexandra Walker
00:03:17.310 - 00:04:52.400
So. So I was always encouraged really to focus on the academic side of things.

I was that annoying kid in the class who came top of most things and you know, I just, I did love the academic side, you know, math, science, languages. I also had a very creative side as well, and that was encouraged.

I would, I would say as a bit of a side hustle, if you like, to the main show, which I think is fair enough actually, because it was really important for me to develop those innate skills that I had on both sides of the equation, really.

So I started playing the piano at a young age and once I had shown that I was really into it, my lovely aunt bought me my first piano, which in fact is still sitting over here right now. So I've now had it for many, many years.

And I, you know, I played the piano and then I started writing songs, really started with Christmas carols, which got sometimes performed at the school carol service and that kind of thing, which kind of surprised me, I think looking back, I don't know where it all came from really. And then a little later on, my wonderful art teacher started encourage encouraging my artistic side as well.

I didn't really think I had an artistic side and I used to think I was rubbish at art, basically. But she did something incredible in terms of teasing out an ability that I didn't know I had.

And I have had such pleasure over the years in painting and all sorts of different things, particularly landscapes, which I would never have had if she hadn't seen something in me and gently teased it out of me.

Claire Waite Brown
00:04:52.800 - 00:05:01.920
That's a really lovely story because often the story I hear is an art teacher saying, you're not very good and then somebody gets put off and doesn't do art anymore.

Alexandra Walker
00:05:02.160 - 00:06:24.690
Yeah, well, it's, it's really interesting. The story that always sticks in my mind is I can't remember exactly how old I was, but something like nine or ten.

And we were asked to draw night and day pictures. So basically a single scene and half of it was in the night and half it was in the day.

And I did some kind of landscape y thing and I put animals in that were appropriate to the day on one side and the night on the other side. And anyway, one of my lovely friends came along when I'd finished this picture and she.

She just said, this is really nice, Alexandra, but why are there watering cans at the front of the picture? And I just looked at her, a bit sad, and I said, they're not watering cans, they're badgers. And that kind of.

That really, do, you know, these things that just stick in your mind? And I just thought, oh, my goodness, I am rubbish at art. How can a bad be mistaken for a watering can? But my art teacher, she just.

She saw something and it was incredible because I ended up doing my art GCSE a year early because it was the only way I could fit it in because I'd already chosen all these other subjects. And she just said, you'll be fine. And I kind of just trusted her and she was right, I was absolutely fine. It was great.

And then I actually went on to do art A level as well, which is quite something for somebody who thought they had no artistic ability. So, yeah, my art teacher deserves a lot of. A lot of credit for encouraging me.

And I don't know, I must ask her one of these days what it was that she saw that I couldn't see.

Claire Waite Brown
00:06:25.090 - 00:06:35.570
Yeah. Oh, that's lovely.

So you did our A level, but then you've told us already about studying maths to a high level, so how do the two of those go together?

Alexandra Walker
00:06:37.250 - 00:07:18.930
I did maths, further maths and chemistry alongside the art, and I think everyone kind of tolerated me doing art as an A level because I was doing all this heavy stuff alongside it and it just really worked, actually. And one of the things I loved was spending quite a lot of, you know, because you don't have lessons all the time at that.

At that stage, I spent quite a lot of my time at school in the art studio doing my. Doing my big pieces of work, because we didn't live in a very big flat.

In fact, it was a really small flat, so I needed to do quite a lot of my big stuff at school and I just really enjoyed it. It gave me an outlet and I think I would have struggled if I didn't have that outlet, to be honest. So, yeah, it was. It was really, really good.

Claire Waite Brown
00:07:19.090 - 00:07:25.250
Did you still have that outlet in higher education when the maths went even further?

Alexandra Walker
00:07:25.970 - 00:08:56.210
Yeah, so I did. It changed direction a bit, so I did less painting, although still a bit here and there.

I really focused in on the music side of things when I was at university, so I went to St Andrews. And at that stage, it didn't Have a music department. It does now, I think.

But what that meant was you could be a talented amateur a bit more easily because there were no music students. And so I did a couple of big things, actually, which, looking back, I'm amazed at how gutsy I was. It's interesting whether I would do it again.

Whether one would do it again when one was older and maybe had a bit more nerves about it, I don't know. So I performed Grieg's piano concerto, which I had to audition for, and I played it with the university symphony orchestra.

That was really taking my abilities right to their limit, to be honest. I mean, I practiced that so much and I was not professional. It was not a professional performance, but I loved doing it.

And there was something about that. I knew at the time, I will never get to do anything like this ever again. Probably like, this is just such an amazing opportunity.

So there was that and then there was. I. I wrote a musical and there was a group at university that I was part of called the Christian Music and Drama Society.

Kind of did a bit, what it says on the tin, and I did this musical and we put it on together, and that was probably my favorite thing. That was an incredible experience, really. To see one's creation come to life and actually have people come to watch it. That was.

That was a lot of fun.

Claire Waite Brown
00:08:56.530 - 00:08:59.410
What a super opportunity. Sounds like a lot of work, though.

Alexandra Walker
00:09:00.100 - 00:09:33.280
Yeah, I didn't really rest much at university. I was always doing stuff. I think I've always been a very busy person.

I enjoy juggling a lot of things, but I am also aware that I can use busyness to feel okay. And that's something I've become a little bit more aware of recently. Keep oneself on the hamster wheel doing things.

And it's not that those things are bad in their own right, but it can be a slight avoidance of not wanting to be sitting in quiet because that can be harder to do. So, yeah, I always have been quite a busy person.

Claire Waite Brown
00:09:34.000 - 00:09:39.760
Yeah. Tell me about the PhD and about your early career.

Alexandra Walker
00:09:40.960 - 00:14:55.910
To be honest, I started a maths PhD because I really didn't know what else to do. Careers advice was not great. I don't know what it's like now.

I haven't experienced it recently, but I was basically told I could be an accountant or an actuary. And I just sat there and thought, I don't want either of those things. Like, so I knew what I didn't want and nobody gave me any other options.

So I was really good at maths. I Graduated top of my class at university. It seemed natural to kind of keep going and see it through.

So I did this PhD in an aspect of the Northern lights, which always gets people really excited, like, oh, did you get to see the Northern lights? And was that amazing? So I did get to see them because we were in St. Andrews and every now and again they come a bit further south.

But my PhD was very analytical. So it was all about modeling the kind of physical processes involved with the Northern light.

So they're all about particles getting accelerated and then they hit molecules in the atmosphere and that's when you get different colors of light emitted. And I was studying just a bit of this, basically this electrical circuit that's running.

So it's very, very focused on a really small aspect of a bigger thing. I mean, that's what research is these days. I knew within a few weeks of starting that I did not enjoy this PhD malarkey.

When I look back, I can remember the moment when I was sitting in my office and just thinking, what am I doing? And bear in mind a PhD is a minimum of three years. I ended up doing it in four. I had a bit of ill health in the middle. I knew that I didn't like it.

And the interesting thing was, I mean, research is incredibly creative, right? It's about trying to find a solution to something that nobody has found a solution to yet that is inherently incredibly creative.

It just wasn't for me. And I mean, it was really interesting. The lecturers and professors all told me I was really talented and everything, but I didn't see, feel that.

I felt like I could, I could do it. And obviously I got my PhD, but it didn't feel natural. It didn't feel like.

And I think it was partly because I was doing something that was also a bit to do with physics and I was less strong on the physics side. So I have this feeling if I'd gone and studied some other aspect of maths, it might have been a bit different.

So I do think the exact topic that you end up doing can be quite important. So anyway, I did what Alexander always has done, which is dig in and finish the darn thing anyway, even though I really didn't enjoy it.

And then, well, then what happened was I actually met my husband during that period, so that was the really positive thing. He had also stayed to do a physics PhD. So we are a couple that ends social conversations quite quickly. When people say, oh, what do you do?

We're like, oh, well, I do a physics PhD and I do a math PhD and people just look at you and go, that's very nice. Let's move on, shall we? But we met and we actually got married before we graduated.

We landed up on the front page of the regional paper Love Doctors Graduate Together, which was all very amusing, waving little Scottish flags in the St Andrews quad. And then we both decided that research wasn't for us in the longer term.

And actually doing that as a couple is even harder because you have to find a university that does both of your specialisms. There's all sorts of complications.

So we made the decision to go to London and my husband started his career in the world of energy, which he's been in for a long time. And I joined the civil service. So.

And then I had 15 years in London, getting progressively more senior, going to different departments in the civil service. And. And I did really enjoy it.

I did really love the work, but it had started before we moved to London, but it became much more obvious in my mid to late 20s. I just got this pile up of mental health issues. I had struggled to sleep. I haven't slept properly all my adult life, actually. It's a lot better now.

But insomnia was a massive issue that had already kicked in. And then ocd. I have two types of ocd. Just because one isn't enough, I always say. So.

The hygiene one that everyone really knows a lot about, probably, and also another one which was about my responsibility for other people through my action or inaction. So I will sit there and worry, should I have moved that dangerous thing in the street?

Because I've noticed it and therefore it's suddenly my responsibility, even though I don't really have the tools to move it safely and, you know, that kind of thing, worrying about one's impact on people. And so I was kind of trying to deal with all of that. I was inherently very, very anxious. I did not realize that for a very long time.

It was definitely the frog in boiling water syndrome. I had no idea how uptight I actually inherently was at that point.

So I was outwardly really successful and getting promoted and doing all sorts of cool stuff, but inwardly I was like, I'm falling apart. I don't know what's happening.

I don't know why I feel so uncomfortable and so miserable and I feel like my brain's working against me and I don't know how to make it better. So it was. It was a complex period in my kind of twenties and early thirties.

Claire Waite Brown
00:14:56.720 - 00:15:10.000
So how did you react? How did you realise? How did you Resolve. What did you do about the mental health issues? How did you come to improve things for yourself?

Alexandra Walker
00:15:10.960 - 00:18:22.940
Yeah, and it's worth saying those mental health issues really stifled my creativity. I had this plan after the successful musical at university. I wanted to write another one.

It felt like a really important thing to do, but I just didn't do it. And I had no space or time because when you're dealing with problems, they can just become so all encompassing.

So the OCD was the thing which took me to counseling first, because I had this problem because I just, I couldn't walk down the street and not have issues. So I, I found a counselor who was brilliant and who actually I still talk to 15 years later. So she's, she's incredible. She's been a real gift to me.

She, she and I have talked really honestly about things now that it's all progressed a lot further for me. Basically the root of my problem was that I suffered emotional abuse from my father as a child. And it carried on. He was very volatile.

I call it Jekyll and Hyde. You know, he could be really kind one minute and then really difficult the next. And as a child, you don't know what you're gonna get.

And there were lots of very difficult situations which played out. And I was an only child, so I've realized just how lonely that must have felt. So anyway, I, I, that was the real root cause.

And these things were all bubbling up and my counsellor said she knew really early on what the real problem was, but I wasn't going anywhere near it. I was in full denial mode. You know, she would sometimes ask me, oh, you know, what about, what about your parents?

Oh, yeah, everything's fine, don't look over there. Why are you asking me about that? You know, just totally put the barriers up. And I genuinely thought everything was fine on that front.

I had seriously put up a defense mechanism that I could not look at that issue because it was too difficult. So actually the OCD was a way of my brain keeping me occupied so that I didn't really look at the thing that was blindingly obvious to everyone else.

And my husband had figured out quite early on in our marriage what the problem was as well. But again, I was not ready to go there. So my counsellor and I worked on the ocd. We made things a lot better.

I don't think it's something you get cured of. Well, at least not for me anyway. So it's something that I live with, but it's now I have a lot more Coping mechanisms.

I know when it's tipping and getting worse, and I know how to kind of bring it back again. It's more within the bounds of something that's manageable, which is absolutely fine.

Obviously, Covid was a bit of a nightmare for someone with those two types of ocd, because it was about hygiene and. And there was the potential to really seriously harm another person by giving it to them. So that was a very, very hard time for me.

So, anyway, kind of worked through that. And then my mother sadly died when I was in my early 30s, which was a lot younger than I had thought would. Would happen.

And I think my eyes had begun to open in the run up to that.

But certainly when that happened and then some stuff that happened after that, it became much more obvious to me about my father's behavior and what was really going on, and it became more and more complex at that stage. I think I was a lot more. A lot more aware of what was going on, shall we say.

Claire Waite Brown
00:18:23.500 - 00:18:41.100
Yeah, that was what I was going to ask about, actually, because you said you didn't know at the time, whereas other people around you did.

I was going to ask what was it that made you accept that or come out of the denial or start to actually see that that was the situation or had been the situation.

Alexandra Walker
00:18:42.080 - 00:21:44.520
Interestingly, my husband had a really good analogy for this, which kind of links to maths.

He said watching me was like watching someone where the equation had to give a particular answer, which is, my father is right and everything is okay.

But in order to make that equation balance, I had to really mess with the things I was adding up on the other side, like the events that were happening and things that, you know, didn't. They didn't equate, but I had to make them equate because that was the only way I felt okay. And do you know, it's really interesting.

I started journaling, which is a really useful tool for exploring stuff that's going on in our lives and how we really feel about it. But I had no voice for years and years. If I look back at my journals, they're just sitting back here, actually. I just.

I wrote quotes from other people. So I did start to explore books. I think my counselor suggested some books and she just found a way of getting in.

I also actually started exploring my Christian faith and having questions about different aspects of it and finding that I wasn't just accepting the kind of standard answers that I was being given about things. And I wanted to explore it for myself.

And that led me down a particular path of Christians who ask a bit more of these complex questions and therefore navigating the world a bit harder as a result. Like if there isn't just one really easy answer, life is a bit more complex. And so.

So anyway, I was reading a lot of stuff, I was picking out the quotes that really resonated with. And then I think gradually I began to just see things for what they really were. But it took some time. There was.

So my father always used to act up at Christmas time, for example, and Christmas became a really complex issue for me as a result because there were always family flare ups of various kinds and I really struggled with that. I remember there were times where there would be a really difficult Christmas, but then what I would write in my journal.

So I would be thinking, that was terrible. But then I would write in my journal something really bland like, because I was still thinking, what if someone else reads this?

And oh, I better make sure I don't write what I really feel about it.

But just gradually over time these things came out and I do think losing my mum was just a massive part of that process because I had stuck around to protect her, because I knew, I think instinctively. And I said this to my husband once after a massive argument just after we got married. So my father had shouted at me.

My husband was just like, what is going on here? Apparently after that I said to him, I know this isn't right, but I have to stay for my mother. I cannot possibly leave this situation.

And then after that I never said anything for years, apparently. I just, it was like I surfaced briefly, said something and then I don't even remember saying it, but it gave him hope anyway.

When she died, obviously that took that burden of responsibility away.

Now, I would never have wanted to lose her then at all, but it did have the impact of freeing me from that responsibility in a way, if I'm being honest, and therefore I could take the blinkers off a bit more.

Claire Waite Brown
00:21:45.000 - 00:21:46.520
Did you cut ties?

Alexandra Walker
00:21:47.240 - 00:24:27.100
No. His behaviour got worse and in fact, my husband and I actually left his home the day before the funeral because he behaved so badly.

He just picked a really horrible fight with me about how I had disappointed my mother on a particular occasion. It was really, it was really horrible and unfair. I was just like, I'm not doing this anymore.

So I actually walked away and he said, oh, you're not welcome at the funeral and everything.

The next day he got in touch and we did come back together and it was the one time I remember him apologising Although a couple of weeks later, he then started talking about, oh, Alexandra, you generally have very good judgment, but I can think of one time where you showed really poor judgment. And he would start talking about, you know, leaving a grieving husband the day before his wife's funeral. And I just stopped him. I was like, I am not.

I am not having this. We are not talking about this. So Simon and I, my husband and I made the decision that we would stick around in his life because he had no one else.

But I just worked out how to put boundaries up that protected me. The one thing I haven't mentioned, he was inherently difficult and emotionally abusive.

But alcohol did make it worse, and he always had a propensity to drink a bit too much. That escalated after my mother died over time, and by the time we roll forward to Covid, we were at different ends of the country.

I remember deciding to do video calls with him in the morning, not in the afternoon or evening, because I then didn't know what I was going to get. And I had some difficult experiences. I was like, I'm not doing that. So I just made some kind of excuse.

I was like, oh, it just makes sense for me to call you now. And is 11:00am okay? You know, And I don't know how much he ever figured out, but it just meant that we had a.

A better conversation, and I was less likely to come out of it upset. But it did get worse. And he started talking about how he was drinking himself to death.

And at that point, he seriously put the foot on the accelerator in terms of how much he was drinking.

Eventually, in 2022, there was an unexpected event which I've not gone into detail about because it's a very personal thing, but it was really interesting. It happened, and I just knew that was it. I knew I had to call it out. There's something. I can't even describe it.

A line has been crossed, and I have to say something. Otherwise I live the rest of my life in a total mess. And I called it out. And then it was my father's choice how to react, and he reacted angrily.

And so that was then it. So, yes, eventually I cut ties, but only when the situation was forced.

I think I'd always assumed I would just stick around for the duration, but that's not how it played out.

Claire Waite Brown
00:24:27.100 - 00:24:41.860
In the end, you are presumably still working.

I mean, this is something that you and your husband and your father are involved in, but to everybody else around, are you living and looking like you're living a very normal life?

Alexandra Walker
00:24:42.340 - 00:28:04.730
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I say, I kept on doing new jobs and getting promotions and everything else.

And I did, I think, have a way of compartmentalizing work and life, which was helpful for me at that stage. I think one wants to become a more integrated human being, but at that stage, this was more about survival, really.

So I think it was very helpful for me to have a career where I. Where I was kind of more in control and where it was me running the show. Because obviously at home there was just this.

Or not at home, but in my personal life there was this dynamic where I was not at all in control and could be hurt at any instant and all that kind of stuff. So I think the structure and the logic of work was helpful.

Having said that, I did come across some really difficult personalities in the people I worked with, and that was very tough in ways that, again, I can see more clearly after the event because some of them were reminding me of some of the difficult stuff I was dealing with at home. And that was really difficult because I didn't really know what to do with that. I just knew that I was reacting quite strongly against it.

I did start talking about my mental health challenges at work. I had the confidence to do that. So people did know there was some stuff.

And then in the pandemic, I did work completely remotely, and I'd also had a really traumatic stay in hospital with pneumonia as a teenager. The treatment process didn't work very well, and I was left very scarred by that experience.

So you can imagine when I saw people lying in bed with severe Covid in hospital with pneumonia, like symptoms, I was like, I'm not. I'm not going there. I have to protect myself. That is too. Too much to contemplate going through that again.

So I essentially, my husband and I shielded during the pandemic, which was the only reasonable way to manage.

And, you know, I came out of it absolutely fine, but I would not have been fine if I'd been forced into spaces with other people where I just felt it was uncontrollably scary and unmanageable. So, yeah, I carried on. By the start of the pandemic, I moved from the civil service and I became chief operating officer for a charity.

That's a very creative job as well, because you have to. Basically, you do you solve all these different problems for an organization across all sorts of different realms.

So, yeah, that all carried on up to the point that it didn't. The estrangement happened, and my husband and I had decided to come up to Scotland.

In fact, we came up for the winter because we weren't ready to go back to the office. This is, I think 20, 21, 22. And we thought we were just coming for a short period.

We had spent many, many holidays in Scotland climbing all the Munros, so they are the hills above 3,000ft. And it was a wonderful project which I think was very, very helpful on my healing journey. Actually.

There were lots of ways in which walking was very therapeutic. So we were very familiar with Scotland and we came up for the winter. I kind of hibernated.

I was working, but I was also hibernating and I did a lot of thinking, a lot of journaling. And suddenly one day I just looked at Simon and I said, I don't think we're going back.

And this dream of damsel not in distress, which is my new business, began to come into my mind. So we didn't go back. My husband's able to work fully remotely, which has been a real gift for us.

I carried on working in my job for a while, but then stopped and, yeah, then started working on my business a couple of years ago. And we're. I can't believe it. We've now been in Scotland for about four years nearly. The time has gone very, very fast.

Claire Waite Brown
00:28:05.400 - 00:28:16.200
Oh, that's lovely. You're developing the business. What is that and what role do songs have in that? Because I believe songwriting came back into the picture.

Alexandra Walker
00:28:16.600 - 00:32:41.990
Yeah, absolutely. So with Downfall and Distress, it is a trauma informed coaching business, basically. So what I do is I help people to sing after the storm.

That's how I describe it. So we all go through different lifestorms. They might be short and sharp or they might be long and chronic, all sorts of different things.

But there's actually quite a common path to come out the other side. And I love the idea of sing after the Storm because it's, you know, if you think about birds singing, it's just full of joy and freedom.

And that's kind of the essence of what we want to recapture again after we've been through a life storm which has battered us and left us all confused and, you know, small and feeling unsafe and all of that. So it's about how do we. How do we come out the other side and thrive again? So that's what my work is all about.

I have done a group program with people, I've done individual coaching, all sorts of different things.

And I've just recently moved into a more particular niche, which is supporting leaders in organizations who are facing lifestorms because if you think about it, leaders are just kind of expected to turn up at work and do all the things and lead their teams, deliver the staff, just please get on with it. And, oh, could you just deliver a couple more things while you're at it? You know, but they have personal lives as well.

And this is me, you know, this was me in the past. I was doing all these quite hefty jobs and dealing with all this really tough stuff. It's fascinating.

So I mentioned earlier that I thought I would write a second musical and I tried to set myself artificial deadlines. I was like, before I turn 30, I'm going to write this musical. 30th birthday came and went. That didn't happen. And et cetera, et cetera.

But what did happen over the years was that every now and again I would write a song. I tried to put a storyline around it, but I wasn't really quite sure what was going on. But I would just occasionally feel compelled to write a song.

And it turns out now, as I look back, that I have this suite of songs which chronicle different aspects of my healing journey. So, for example, there's a song about fear, because fear was such a big part of my life and OCD is all about fear.

There are songs which are more about hope or even, do I believe this can get any better? You know, can I go from being the caterpillar to the butterfly? You know, when is that going to happen?

I actually wrote a song after the estrangement, in the days after the estrangement. It's quite dark, but it's also. It captures a particular moment.

It captures something that I, you know, one of those emotions, because the emotions change over time. So it does capture these particular moments. So I've got these songs.

And the other thing which I started about six months ago was writing my second book. So I wrote a first book called Reclaiming Christmas. And I've mentioned that Christmas was really tough. So I did this active experiment to reclaim it.

And that kind of gives a whole load of healing techniques which you could apply in a whole load of different scenarios. But it was quite specific.

My second book is going to talk about my healing journey and how it fits in my model of how you sing after the storm, like what the different stages are. It's basically the letters of sing. So storm and then ignition, which is where you make a decision that the storm isn't going to define your life.

I think that's a really important point because storms can be in control and we can be like Hanging on the life raft. And that's perfectly natural. But when do we get to the point where we're like, actually, I am going to steer myself to the other side of this storm?

And then N stands for nerve, which is hold your nerve. You know, it's not just you make the decision and you get there. You then have to see it through day after day, make the good decisions, learn how to.

To develop yourself and heal yourself and all those different things. And then G is genius, which is where you get to the point where you have got to the other side.

And you know, your purpose is more able to be released out into the world because you've been freed of what came. So I've written this book, and the lyrics of the songs fit in different parts of the book. So I have that draft.

I need to go back to it now and read it again. And then I'm gonna put it out there.

And then the next stage is gonna be actually getting the songs out in the world as well, which needs a little bit more time.

But I really, really want to do it because I think for people who are going through that journey, some of those songs would tap into the more intuitive, creative side. You know, we can't just solve everything with logic. I used to believe that I could, and then I had to discover that logic was amazing.

But I also needed more of the creative side, expressing emotions, all of that kind of thing. So, yeah, those are some of the projects which are coming up for me.

Claire Waite Brown
00:32:42.530 - 00:33:08.610
Very exciting. Are you now able to play the piano, write songs, maybe do some paintings? That is just for yourself, for your enjoyment.

We've talked about the songs having a focus on what you were going through. What about just like going out there and going, I'm gonna write a song about a dog or, I don't know, you know, doing it for the fun.

Alexandra Walker
00:33:09.570 - 00:35:09.169
Genuinely, I think it's a work in progress. And I've been thinking about this a lot.

So the last bit of the story I haven't shared is that just over a year after the estrangement, my father died. And it was very traumatic end to a very difficult relationship. Very difficult story, you know, when life does everything to you all at once.

So we were relocating from London to Scotland. I was leaving my career and setting up a new business.

And then as I had just made those decisions to do those things, I got the news that my father had been found. And it was all very, very hard. So I think the last two years have been the culmination of a really long journey. And A lot of difficult stuff.

So I mentioned earlier about keeping myself busy. I do still think that is a thing. And I have literally built my business by myself. I mean, I have not.

I've not brought people in to build my website or whatever, do different aspects. I've literally done it all. And I think being busy was incredibly important, actually, to give my brain time to process everything.

And that's come out in all sorts of different ways. I've had nightmares which have not been very pleasant, but they. They have surfaced things and then they've turned into more empowered dreams.

It's been really, really interesting, actually, the way it's played out. I think the next phase for me is having more spaciousness in my life, having more time, which is just me being me and kind of what you just said.

Why don't I just write a song? Just because or why don't I just play the piano? Just because. Not because I'm trying to achieve something.

Because everything in my life was geared towards achieving, because people told me I was clever and that I should achieve and that I should do all these things in life. I think that's my next step and it's. It's going to be exciting, actually. I'm looking forward to it. I think I've.

I've taken the first tentative steps, but I think it's just realizing, oh, my goodness, I am so used to being busy and completely occupied. How am I going to create that space, to just create for the joy of it and not because it's for a particular project or something?

Claire Waite Brown
00:35:09.800 - 00:35:24.520
Yeah, it's not easy. And you're not the only person that struggles with that concept or it takes some time to get to it. So good luck with it.

Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Alexandra. How can people connect with you?

Alexandra Walker
00:35:24.920 - 00:35:41.160
Yeah, absolutely. Look, come and find my website, which is damselnotindistress.co.uk.

i'm also on LinkedIn, Alexander Walker, you can find me there and also Facebook damselnotindistress as well. So there are a few different options for finding me out in the world.

Claire Waite Brown
00:35:41.500 - 00:35:42.700
Lovely. Thank you.

Alexandra Walker
00:35:43.100 - 00:35:44.940
Thank you so much, Claire. It's been a pleasure.

Claire Waite Brown
00:35:46.060 - 00:36:18.680
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, perhaps you'd like to financially contribute to Future episodes@buymeacoffee.com CreativityFound.

There's a link in the Show Notes if you are listening on a value for value enabled app such as Fountain Trufans or Podcast Guru Feelings, free to send a few sats my way. And if you have no idea of what I'm talking about. You can find out more by listening to my sister podcast called Podcasting 2.0 in Practice.