The documentary became a piece of work titled “In Pieces”, produced under Reduced Listening, which aired on BBC Radio 4’s Illuminated on Sunday 12th January, and is now available as an episode of the Illuminated podcast. The Illuminated series showcases unique and unexpected one-off audio documentaries featuring innovative sound design and captivating storytelling to shine a light on hidden worlds.

We spoke to Hana to find out more about “In Pieces”, the challenges of creating this work, as well as her use of sound design in telling her story…

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your Illuminated episode, ‘In Pieces’?

I’m Hana… I guess the topline is that i’m a purpose driven, multi-award-winning storyteller, sound artist, and speaker. I’ve spent over a decade developing ideas and concepts, establishing (and fucking with) formats and finding brave and beautiful ways to tell stories for multiple mediums across radio and podcasting, documentary film, narrative non-fiction, and events. Lead by an insatiable curiosity, my work centres on helping us understand ourselves and each other, to take the big world stuff and make it human and include everyone in the conversation. Underpinning all of my work across all mediums has always been the drive to tell stories that empower. “In Pieces” does that in a very intimate and tender way. It’s a sound rich one-off documentary and one-off podcast about what it means to put yourself back together when everything has fallen apart.

Hana Walker-Brown – Photograph: Liz Seabrook

“In Pieces” is a very personal piece of work, what made you decide to turn your experience with burnout into this one-off documentary? What challenges did you face when creating it?

The intention was to try and alchemise the pain and trauma of the psychological impact of burnout into something useful, beautiful, and ultimately human and to do that, bravely confront the shame that so often tells us to hide so that other people who might feel this way could feel seen and heard and hopefully cultivate the courage to speak out. Stories are often how we create shape from the mess, how we make sense of the world, and often how we survive it. Giving us the power to hold what feels unholdable. I think burnout is still very misunderstood – certainly its severity on a psychological level and how intensely shameful it feels. Shame and stigma are so isolating but I think whenever we share our stories we encourage others to do the same.

The response so far has been utterly overwhelming – the amount of people that have reached out and said, “I thought I was the only person that felt like this,” which meant they had convinced themselves they were somehow failing. I think that’s such a defining factor in whether you feel deserving of help or not. But we all deserve help and support, we really can’t do it all by ourselves. I think it’s increasingly important in the times that we’re living in for us to find ways to show up for each other in any way we can and that was a huge motivator for me in making this. To provide a kind of peer support, the commissioner at the BBC called it “public service journalism” which feels right to me.

I think there are always challenges when you’re making anything creative and putting it out in the world – that’s an insanely vulnerable thing to do but when it’s about you it’s like a piece of your soul has been cut out and put on display (it’s giving Voldemort’s horcruxes for the millennials amongst us) but making this was an essential part of my recovery too – it feels like an exorcism, in a good way. An act of creative sublimination. It’s nice to be out the other side!

Credit to my incredibly kind exec Anishka Sharma at Reduced Listening here too – her guidance and grace were hugely important in getting it over the line.

It’s a masterful production and your sound design plays a large role in the storytelling; can you tell us about your decision to use sound in this way?

This is interesting on two levels because the real kicker with the burnout, the cruel twist I suppose but also the thing that made me finally accept something might be up, was that I lost the ability to edit and sound design. It was as if that part of my brain had been scrubbed out or like my entire software system had been changed into a foreign language I didn’t understand. Initially, I put that down to not sleeping but it all unravelled because of that and then I was signed off. I know now after extensive conversations with psychotherapists for the podcast, and privately, that this was my brains way of getting me to finally pay attention to what was happening because I was ignoring everything else. Clever, huh?! But more importantly, I think that sometimes when we go through these big psychological experiences we often don’t have the words to describe what’s happening but I have always known how to express myself in sound – it’s strange, maybe it’s my neurodivergence, maybe it’s the musician part of me, maybe it’s a bit wanky – probably a combination of all of those things – but I just know how to translate feeling into sound intuitively so it was important in not just telling the story but also in me figuring it all out myself. I have quite a distinct sonic signature that runs through all of my work and I usually build soundscapes before I do anything else. That was certainly the case here, I had all of these moments of sound, these little explorations of emotion literally in pieces, that I then started to weave together.

You mention CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) in your podcast episode, are there any other organizations you would recommend for people who suspect they may have burnout?

I think a medical professional – be it GP or therapist – is always an essential port of call if someone is struggling although access to both can be limited for some people. One thing that I realised through this experience is that there are so many free helplines in this country which means there are so many people who are on the other end of the phone whose sole purpose is to help you, to listen to you. So even if you think there is no one you can turn to (friends/family etc.) there is! I think there’s something powerful in being listened to – in saying our struggles out loud too – but really listened to and held without judgement by someone who can validate what you’re feeling and help you find gentle ways to take steps to move forward.

Samaritans: 24/7 emotional support at 116 123

Shout: 24/7 confidential support at 85258

Rethink Mental Illness: Advice and information on therapy and medication at 0300 5000 927

Mind infoline: Information on mental health problems and where to get help at 0300 123 3393

CALM Helpline and webchat: Open 5pm to midnight, 365 days a year at 0800 58 58 58

Hub of Hope, a national database that connects you with local mental health services

An interview like this isn’t comprehensive enough to delve into the complicated journey of recovering from burnout, but is there any advice you feel you could offer someone who is burnt out, or feels they are approaching burnout, as a first step along the path to recovery?

I’m not an expert and certainly not a psychotherapist but from my experience I would say the most important thing you can do is to be very honest about what’s happening, to acknowledge how you’re feeling and tell somebody that can support you and then to borrow the words of my friend Gabby, “to be aggressively kind to yourself.” That was something I didn’t do in the beginning out of fear and shame and well, you can hear how that worked out initially in the podcast!

Some readers will know you from your work with Broccoli Productions, especially the “Anthems” collections and We Were Always Here as well as Audible’s The Beautiful Brain which became your debut book “A Delicate Game”, but could you tell us more about your route into podcasting? What attracted you to podcasting in the first place?

It wasn’t a deliberate route to be honest, it was just a very natural evolution from working in radio and sound design. I wanted to tell compelling stories in sound, and it didn’t really matter to me how that was labelled – radio/feature/podcast – just that I could do it. I did an MA in Radio at Goldsmiths where I now teach and was working for Falling Tree Productions and Radio Wolfgang for a while and then freelancing around until I was headhunted by Audible to come on as an executive producer, and later Broccoli Productions. The industry looks very different now and the barriers to entry are much higher and harder to break down, especially with the loss of places like Broccoli whose whole mission was really to advocate for and platform those who were being left behind. I think it can go from hopeful to hopeless real quick but we all have a responsibility to ensure that we’re doing whatever we can to leave the doors that we have unlocked opened for others. I think it’s also important to be creative in how we adapt and evolve. I work in many different mediums, but I still find sound the most powerful – how you can take someone out of their everyday and into other worlds just through their ears! I think it’s rare and precious to establish that kind of intimacy in the world we live in, especially with strangers, to provide solace, comfort, and connection in ways other mediums simply can’t.

Hana Walker-Brown – getting back to nature at Hamstead Heath – Photograph: Liz Seabrook

What was the first podcast you ever listened to?

It was Serial! It had just launched, and I was working for Falling Tree Productions at the time and Alan (Hall) and I were flying to Chicago for the Third Coast Audio Festival. I listened to it the whole flight, I was first struck by the theme tune – I thought that was iconic – how it had such a defined identity just from the music alone but more vividly I remember being at the festival and this very visceral collective feeling that everything had changed now, that this was a new era. I don’t personally listen to true crime, I find the fetishisation of dead women and the ethics of consent in this genre very, very murky but I think Serial was and remains the most defining moment for audio journalism/podcasting not least because it was finally being regarded on a global scale.

Which podcasts do you take inspiration from?

The late, forever great, Short Cuts. It was an incredibly generous space for creativity and adventurous audio and a pleasure to hear how producers (new and experienced) from around the world were interpreting sound storytelling, meeting, and responding to the world while often finding their own voice within it. That’s a gift – to be allowed into those worlds and be invited to just get lost for a while. Thirteen years is a hell of a run for a show and even though it’s lost its home on the BBC, I know that the spirit of all of that will long continue in whatever Eleanor (McDowall – series creator) and the team tends to next.

Which one podcast episode that you have worked on means the most to you?

It was an episode of Anthems Home by Anton Ferrie. During the pandemic we knew a lot of people were out of work and totally isolated, so we (Broccoli) launched Anthems Home inviting people from all over the world to pitch to us and participate in Anthems in a way we hadn’t done with the previous series we’d made. It also felt like a good way to document that utterly mad moment in time where we were all just at home. I remember getting this email from a student in Glasgow who was living with his Grannie on a council estate at the time, and it just absolutely floored me. Anton’s writing was so eloquent and emotive and authentic, just a naturally gifted storyteller. I couldn’t believe he’d never done anything like it before so we gave him a commission and it remains to this day my favourite Anthems episode. It really struck a chord with so many people and it made the Bello 100 Best Podcast Episodes list that year.

What’s one podcast you’re really enjoying right now?

Miss Me with Miquita Oliver and Lily Allen. As a woman, it really feels like the collective breath we’ve all been holding. Protect them at all costs! Also, the theme music slaps.

Can you tell us anything about your plans for 2025? Do you have any other podcast series or one-offs in the pipeline?

I’m constantly exploring how I can use storytelling as a force for good, not just in the work I create but through the talks I give and the workshops I teach most notably in young adult prisons, using creative tools to help participants regain confidence and agency. I’m leading on two brilliant projects within Women’s Prisons for the Prison Radio Association – that include co-facilitating workshops with the formidable Lady Unchained. Some of the work that’s coming out of the projects, especially from the women themselves is incredible although everything we make will only be heard within prison. I’m also writing another book. I guess in the way The Beautiful Brain podcast evolved into my debut book “A Delicate Game”, “In Pieces”, or certainly the themes of it, will be expanded upon and explored in my second although that’s as much as I can say right now! For anything else… watch this space…

Where can the Pod Bible readers find out more about you?

I’m only (and sporadically) on Instagram now and my website.

Listen to “In Pieces” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcast apps >>

The post In Pieces: Hana Walker-Brown’s reflection on burnout appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Pod Bible: When did you begin the Not Your Demographic podcast?
Stella Cheeks: We started our podcast right before SummerSlam in 2015. We posted pretty consistently every single week for four years with a few short hiatuses (usually with supplemental content) or missed weeks due to life circumstances.
Erin Cline: Technically it’s “still running” on our Patreon but it’s become much more sporadic.

PB: From where were you sourcing your inspiration for content?
SC: Our content was a healthy mix of stuff from our life (listeners seemed to want to know about us. No idea why) and from wrestling news and content. We focused pretty heavily on WWE due to ease of consumption, but we also peppered in things like Lucha Underground, Impact, ROH, Shimmer, etc. Part of the reason we were so tied to and consistent with weekly podcasts is because we covered current wrestling happenings and, as you know, wrestling moves fast!
EC: Even when we wanted to slow down a little, there was always so much new and exciting content that it was impossible to talk about all of it once a week. People kept telling me to watch Progress for so long and I kept putting it on the backburner that now I feel like I really missed an experience since it’s basically a completely different thing now. But there just wasn’t time for it. And, truthfully, I really prefer live wrestling and, given that chance, prioritized that for a long time over new internet accessible content.

PB: What was your relationship like with your followers/subscribers?
SC: Really positive. We never had a huge listener base when compared to other podcasts; our biggest numbers were around 3,000 an episode, but it fluctuated wildly. Some episodes were 3,000 and some were 400, but the people who stuck around and were invested were overall really lovely. We consistently interact with “demmies” on twitter and hardly ever have to use our block button.
EC: So great! I still talk to a lot of the people I interacted with regularly and have many friendships in real life now that started because they were listeners. It made me sad when I got a corporate job and had to lock my twitter account; it cut a big part of the experience at the knees for me.

PB: At what point did you consider pausing/stopping your podcast?
SC: Not sure about the specifics, but it was sometime during the last year. We were just burnt out. Personally, watching the product, recording the show and finding time to edit while dealing with multiple jobs and school was just exhausting. We also flatlined in terms of numbers, so it felt really stagnant. Like it was a lot of work for very little reward.
EC: Shortly after I started boycotting WWE it became clear that our format from before just wasn’t going to work the same way. With it being Stella’s actual job, too, it was so much harder for her to watch additional stuff. And, for me, it started to feel like we were just talking about how much we disliked WWE all the time, to the point that it wasn’t fun anymore. Once we started more just shooting the shit I started to enjoy recording more again.

PB: Did you ever discuss the burnout on the podcast itself or through another medium with your followers/subscribers?
SC: A little. We would make jokes and, over time, our focus really drifted from talking about wrestling to talking about literally anything else. I feel like you could tell our hearts weren’t in it.
EC: Yeah, I feel like people thought we were joking but we were really serious when we talked about how burnt out we felt about wrestling. People warned us in the beginning that if we were going to make wrestling our jobs we were going to grow to hate it and they were right! Monetizing your hobbies is hard.

PB: Before deciding to take a break from your podcast, did you discuss the idea of taking a break with anyone not associated with the podcast itself (other podcasters, other content creators, family, etc?)
SC: I talked about it all the time! People would be like “she has a podcast” and I would be like “NOT FOR LONG!” I also discussed it heavily with my husband, to weigh the pros and cons. The thing is that I love podcasting and I love doing it with [my co-host] Erin, but I just needed a break and I needed someone with an outside perspective to give me the green light to voice that.
EC: I talked it over with my husband a lot; he hosted an MMA podcast for a long time and they disbanded because they were all burnt out, so it was nice getting some firsthand experience-guided advice. The thing I liked most about it in the end was getting to hang out with Stella, and he was good at pinpointing that and being like you know you can still be friends right?

PB: Did you try to do anything to change your relationship with the topic on which you were podcasting?
SC: This was a huge problem. Our schedules (but taking full credit, mostly mine) are wild and it was hard to find consistency. In addition to that, our relationship with the content changed drastically. I won’t speak for Erin, but for me it became something that was very much a job and not fun to talk about. I already talked about WWE for my social media job, so it always felt like a rehash. As far as adding other content in, I just couldn’t bring myself to devote any extra time to wrestling. Sure, I knew stuff outside of WWE was probably better and worthy of my time, but I had to watch WWE and I found that I didn’t want to watch other wrestling at all after that. Don’t get me wrong, I love my social media job, but doing both the social media and our podcast was difficult. I found myself enjoying our podcast more when we hardly talked about wrestling at all!
EC: It kind of made me hate wrestling for a while! So I had to adjust to how I was consuming something I clearly wasn’t enjoying anymore, that’s a huge part of why I decided to boycott WWE. Even now, I still prefer watching with a group of people because sometimes I can’t motivate myself to watch it when I’m alone, even if it’s stuff I know I enjoy. I looked forward to the recording day because I liked hanging out with Stella on a regular basis, but it changed the ways I felt about Thursday (or Fridays depending on what year) because I always felt this anxiety about if the episode didn’t drop on time because no matter what the issue was it was totally out of my control.

PB: Have you encouraged other podcasters/creators to become aware of their own burnout, or discussed this topic with them after pausing your own podcast?
SC: Not really. I mean, I’ve talked about it casually, but not really as a warning. I do think when you’re an independent podcaster it’s so hard to not burn out. When you do everything yourself, don’t have a producer or a big company behind you, don’t have ads, etc. it’s hard to find the energy to keep going. I hardly know any of my podcast friends who were once whipping out pods every week/month who still do it.
EC: Yes. I have another podcast I’m kind of in the beginning stages of getting together and we had to have conversations in the very beginning about recording schedules and not overloading ourselves. Even when you like talking about something you love and are really knowledgeable about, doing it more than once a month adds up so fast.

PB: Do you miss creating your podcast?
SC: I really do. It was such a big part of my life for four years that it’s hard to not have it every week. I also miss seeing Erin every week. I mean, we text every day, but we don’t see each other as much. I have known her for over a decade and the podcast really brought us closer in a way that I miss. I do think we’ll bring the pod back eventually but the content and structure will be wildly different.
EC: Yeah, I totally do. I hope we can get it back up in some form or another, but I think our time as wrestling pundits is transitioning away. In some ways that makes me happy though, it means things are different enough than when we started (when there was only one other female run podcast about wrestling, The Heels in Heels). Women, nonbinary, and queer folks have always been part of the wrestling landscape and I’m glad the critique and critism landscape is starting to reflect that.

PB: In retrospect, do you think there is any way you could have prevented or delayed your burnout by doing something differently?
SC: Yeah, I think not tying ourselves so closely to a weekly product and being more deliberate with what we covered would have helped. Also, Erin can attest, I am a bit of a control freak and maybe delegating things more would’ve helped my personal burnout. Erin always offered and I was like “no I got it man. No worries!” but that was dumb as hell. If we do come back those are two things that I for sure would want to address.
EC: Finding ways to more evenly split up the work (or have a producer so neither of us had to worry about it) would have helped. And, like Stella said, not tying ourselves in so closely to the week by week format would have helped in the long-run, but it wouldn’t have been the same show that way.

The post What Is Burnout? appeared first on POD BIBLE.