“The BIG success is getting your time back to yourself to choose how you want to spend it.”
Burnout Recovery: How Doodling Rebuilds Self-Trust
Burnout recovery is often framed as a complete overhaul — quitting your job, booking a retreat, blowing up your schedule. Alexandra Reid, a former research scientist turned creative wellness coach, found a smaller, faster way in. During the earliest and most pressured months of the pandemic, while helping approve emergency ventilators for a medical device company and homeschooling two kids from her bedroom, she hit a wall so hard she couldn’t even step into her own art studio. What eventually pulled her out wasn’t a plan. It was doodling through Zoom meetings.
Why Small, Judgment-Free Creativity Works
Reid had spent years as a serious artist, showing work in juried exhibitions. That history made doodling feel almost beneath her — until she noticed her shoulders relaxing and her breathing slowing down during meetings where she let herself draw without any pressure to make it “good.” That low-stakes practice became the seed of what she now calls creative wellness coaching: forward-focused, goal-oriented work that uses simple drawing exercises to process stress rather than just talk about it.
The Batteries Exercise: Making Burnout Visible
One exercise Reid teaches, called batteries, asks clients to sketch a battery for each area of life — career, home, self-care, relationships — and rate how full each one is. It sounds almost too simple, but putting invisible energy drains on paper is often the first time people see clearly where their time and attention are actually going. From there, small shifts become obvious: less time on one battery, more on another.
From One Habit to a 12-Week Program
That single habit eventually grew into Reid’s Creative Reset, a 12-week program built for high-achieving women, many in STEM, who are used to pushing through instead of pausing. Most clients start the program convinced they don’t have time for it. Most finish it saying they’ve somehow gotten time back — not because their schedule changed, but because they got clearer about how they were spending it.
Burnout recovery doesn’t have to start with a five-year plan. Sometimes it starts with five minutes, a pen, and permission to make something imperfect.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Alexandra Reid on The Purpose and Progress podcast: https://tinyurl.com/Progress-and-Purpose-Podcast
Episode Highlights:
02:01 Meet Alexandra Reid: From Bench Science to Burnout
03:21 The Ventilator Project That Triggered Her Burnout
07:55 Recognizing Burnout: Invisible Labor and Bad Habits
09:33 Reclaiming Time Through Self-Awareness
11:22 Inside the Creative Reset: Batteries and Boundary Work
16:01 The First Step: Change Your Scenery to Reset Your Mind
18:39 Where to Find Alexandra Reid’s Wellness Program
19:15 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts
Resources:
📖 The Adventures of Harold from the Hood Book Series:
🚙A Trip to the Park: https://bit.ly/40Lvv6h
🤝🏽Friends Like Different Things: https://bit.ly/4ocAQxq
🍟 Fun Time Lunch Time: https://bit.ly/4odUCJ1
😤 When I Feel So Annoyed: https://bit.ly/4l6WSPt
Meet Alexandra:
Meet Alexandra:
Alexandra (Lexi) Reid is a creative wellness coach, business owner, and former research scientist who helps high-achieving women in STEM overcome burnout, rebuild purpose, and strengthen resilience through creativity, mindfulness, and reflection. Drawing on her background in quality and regulatory affairs and her own experience of pandemic burnout while leading emergency ventilator projects, Alexandra developed The Creative Reset, a 12-week, science-informed program that uses simple, pressure-free drawing and visual journaling to help women reclaim their time, set healthy boundaries, and reconnect with joy. Through 1:1 coaching, group programs, and online resources at Mind Art Wellness (mindartwellness.com), she supports women at every stage—from grad school to mid-career pivots and beyond—in building sustainable habits, deep self-leadership, and a more creative, aligned life.
Quotes:
08:04 “Women I work with are in very high positions of power, and so they feel like they have to mask their emotions. A lot of times it’s not letting themselves be themselves at work, and so that’s an extra burden of carrying that weight.” —Alexandra Reid
08:51 “Burnout is basically a series of bad habits that lead you into taking on too many things at once. That adds up really quickly. But the problem is when you crank up the pressure slowly, that’s when the burnout sort of sneaks up on you.” —Alexandra Reid
09:20 “It’s not like time is a magical thing. We all have 24 hours a day. What’s interesting is how you spend that time and how you choose. That’s the key thing: choosing, awareness, and intent.” —Alexandra Reid
10:11 “The BIG success is getting your time back to yourself to choose how you want to spend it.” —Alexandra Reid
13:48 “Coaching is very forward-focused. It’s about working towards a goal, whereas therapy is more about dealing with things in your past.” —Alexandra Reid
16:46 “Just take yourself somewhere else and spend time with yourself. Let yourself think about your life and try to get comfortable with yourself again. A lot of times, we’re on autopilot, dealing with all the things on our to-do list, and we forget to check in with ourselves.” —Alexandra Reid
19:56 “Motivation is key. Growth happens all the time when you put in the action.” —Dr. Jim Price
transcript:
Alexandra Reid: Things that add up really quickly. I often talk about the frog in the water, and you start cranking up the temperature. And suddenly, the poor frog, he’s in the boiling water. But if he jumped into it initially, he would jump right out. But the problem is when you crank up the pressure slowly, that’s when the burnout sort of sneaks up on you. And what’s interesting after the women go through this program, and I’ve worked with both one-on-one and with groups. And one of the biggest successes is saying they have time again. And it’s not like time is a magical thing, right? We all have 24 hours a day, 60 minutes. What’s interesting is how you spend that time, and how you choose, and that’s the key thing. Choosing, awareness, and intent. Where do you spend that precious time?
Dr. Jim Price: Hello, I’m Dr. Jim Price, and welcome to The Purpose and Progress Podcast. This is the place where we explore how purpose can guide our actions, and how growth can become a part of our everyday lives. On the show, I talk with amazing guests, from educators and creators to everyday people with extraordinary stories about the challenges they face, the lessons they’ve learned, and how to keep moving forward. My goal is to share conversations that inspire you to live intentionally, embrace growth, and take meaningful steps to your own purpose. Let’s get started.
Welcome, everyone. Once again, this is The Purpose and Progress podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Jim Price, where we share motivational stories and inspirational stories about amazing folks from all industries to share their journey. We always see the success of someone, and we look at the glamor and the glitz of success. But sometimes, a lot of times, we don’t know the backstory to how a person has reached success, which always can be actionable steps. Steps that take time to build over time. So today is no different. We have a wonderful guest. She is a creative wellness coach, business owner, and former research scientist who helped high-achieving women, particularly those in STEM, rebuild purpose and resilience through creativity, mindfulness, and reflection. After experiencing burnout during the pandemic, she discovered that simple, pressure-free drawing helped her slow down, rebuild self-trust, and reconnect with joy.
Today, she shares practical, science-informed strategies for managing burnout, setting boundaries, strengthening self-leadership, and making meaningful progress when the next step feels unclear. Her approach shows that progress is not always about doing more. It can begin by learning to listen to yourself again. And today, we have Lexi Reid with us. How are you doing, Lexi?
Alexandra Reid: It’s great to be here. Thanks, Jim.
Dr. Jim Price: This is so great to have you on the show. We talk a little bit beforehand about parenting never stops and stuff like that. How that goes and everything like that. So it’s definitely great to have you on the show today to share with the audience some motivational things and stuff like that. That’s what we do. So I think we start off with asking like, when do you feel like your journey started? And what influenced that for you?
Alexandra Reid: Yeah. It all depends which part of the journey you want to pick up. There could be the part where I loved doing art as a child, but I also loved doing science. And when I was heading off to school and university, my parents really thought it was probably a sure bet to go into science rather than fine art. So that being said, I did science for a number of years. Did the academic ladder, the bachelor’s, the master’s, the PhD, the postdoc. So I did the academic ladder, and from there, I kind of moved to working for a not-for-profit, working with the federal government. And then lastly, working in a corporate environment. And that’s where I hit the burnout that you mentioned. So I was working for a medical device company. And during the pandemic, we landed a large government contract to build emergency ventilators. So this was the early days of the pandemic. We’d all just been sent home. I had two kids at home. One just started high school. One just started middle school. I was working 24/7 from my bedroom being on Zoom calls, all of that. Trying to juggle homeschooling kids. I was in quality and regulatory affairs, so we were the ones basically approving these ventilators from design all the way to prototyping.
And yeah, it was before we had the vaccine, so we wanted to get these out to the public. Like tomorrow, basically. So there was a lot of pressure, but we also knew we were being regulatory. We were the last ones to basically say, yeah, these are safe to use on people. And so there’s a lot of pressure. And for me, up until that point, I had a studio at home, I did a lot of art, I used to do jewelry, and I found during that time I couldn’t even go into my studio and start. I would stare at my supplies like I was just feeling so numb from everything. I was numb from work. I was numb from juggling my family. And for me, somehow getting back to my creativity, I had to start really slowly, baby steps. I just started doodling on these endless Zoom calls during the meetings, and I was never a big doodler before. I was an artistic snob, doodling’s not my thing. If you’re not making a real painting, why bother? But I started realizing that my breathing was slowing down, my shoulders were relaxing, and so I started investigating art therapy, and that led me to mindfulness, and that led me to a positive mindset and to coaching.
And so I started first doing these exercises myself, and then developing it into a curriculum. That’s what led me down the path of creative wellness. Then I basically started the entrepreneurial journey, and worked with women in STEM. So Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Very much my background, and working with women in all stages of life from early masters, beginning grad school, beginning a med school, all the way to mid-career crisis, life crisis and beyond. And what does retirement look like? What should I do? What if I start a new job? 5th or 6th careers down the road. So yeah, that’s the broad sweep of how I got going on this particular journey.
Dr. Jim Price: Wow, that’s amazing. We talked about the pandemic because I know exactly how that was. I’m a school counselor. So during that time, I have to do social groups. They were supposed to log in at a certain time for social groups. And a lot of times, they wouldn’t log in. You wouldn’t see anybody, and the principal comes and checks just to see what’s going on, and there’d be no students. I’m still waiting and stuff like that. I could totally connect with that. There’s such a disconnect back then. Many people went through so much during that time. This is just amazing how that’s been a few good years ago now, and it seems like it hasn’t. But with all the social distancing and everything, that’s an amazing aspect of how you share that. The creativity, connecting the creativity through situations of crisis, in a sense, and using that to regulate and have things even out for you in that way. That’s amazing. I also wanted to, in terms of maybe any obstacles or challenges, I know you mentioned the burnout and stuff like that, but can you maybe go into that a little bit? Give the audience a little bit, people are feeling burnt out, and maybe some things that they could do to kind of maybe curb before they get to that point and stuff. Maybe things that they could do for themselves.
Alexandra Reid: Yeah. So a lot of the women I work with, and obviously this applies to men as well. I feel like women face a lot of other, what they call invisible labor. There’s a lot of times that the women I work with are in very high positions of power, and so they feel like they have to mask their emotions and just be one of the boys. And so a lot of times, it’s not letting themselves be themselves at work, and so that extra burden of carrying that weight as well. And so when I talk to them about beginning to work with me or just what problems they are facing, I ask what their number one obstacle is for working with me, and it’s always that perceived lack of time or one more task to do. And what’s interesting is after they go through, it’s a 12 week program called the Creative Reset, and it’s been shown that you kind of need 12 weeks to build new habits and start getting rid of bad habits. And burnout is basically a series of bad habits that lead you into taking on too many things at once. Not being able to say no, overcommitting. Just a lot of things that add up really quickly.
I often talk about the frog in the water, and you start cranking up the temperature. And suddenly, the poor frog, he’s in boiling water. But if he jumped into it initially, he would jump right out. But the problem is when you crank up the pressure slowly, that’s when the burnout sneaks up on you. And what’s interesting after the women go through this program, and I’ve worked with both one on one and with groups, and one of the biggest successes is saying they have time again. And it’s not like time is a magical thing, right? We all have 24 hours a day, 60 minutes. What’s interesting is how you spend that time, and how you choose, and that’s the key thing. Choosing, and awareness, and intent. Where do you spend that precious time? And by doing a lot of these exercises, we do a lot of self-reflection and also discussion, whether it’s one-on-one with me, and we go quite deep into the topics. Or in a group, and we have that shared commonality of, oh, I feel that way. Oh, that’s a different way of looking at it. So both shared experiences and different perspectives. That’s the biggest obstacle. And yet the big success is getting your time back to yourself to choose how you want to spend it.
Dr. Jim Price: Absolutely. I think the audience definitely can resonate with time because a lot of people say, oh, there’s not enough time to do everything you need to do on a typical day. And I always see that too. A lot of people sometimes get caught up with the rigors of everyday life with their own situations that they forget to get back to themselves and do something for themselves, do some self-care things for themselves, and break up the monotony of all the responsibilities of life. Bills, kids and families, cooking dinner and all those things that entail everyday living and stuff like that. So I think those are fabulous points. I think the audience will definitely be able to utilize stuff. And sometimes, people, like I say, self care is important too. And people do forget that aspect of things to do those kinds of things, so thank you. In terms of your program, talk a bit about the program just a little bit more. Give our audience a gist of, I know you touched upon it, but just for the audience, members who may want to be a part of getting service and stuff in that way.
Alexandra Reid: Yeah. So actually, there’s two aspects. There’s the creative reset, which is that 12 week program. I should let people know there is a taster on my website. They can try it for five days, and it’s a very similar experience. You’re basically given a video, and it’s me demonstrating an art therapy inspired exercise, a creative wellness exercise, and it can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes to do the exercise. So they’re meant to be quick. That being said, you can also spend as long as you like. Because sometimes, I find people actually really get into what they’re drawing, and it can be as simple as just, I say it’s like the level of doing pictionary. Like it’s stuck people, it’s drawing what means something to you. It doesn’t have to look like a finished piece of art. It’s really more like a visual journaling. So it’s getting what’s swirling around in your head onto paper that allows some objectivity. Once it’s on the paper, you can look at it, you can share it, you can put it away, and then come back to it.
So as part of the Fuller program, there’s two activities each week. And each week is themed. So maybe we’ll look at what we call energy zappers. What’s draining your energy? Who’s draining your energy? Setting boundaries Looking at things that light you up, things that fill your cup. And some of these are names of activities that we do. There’s an exercise called Batteries, and this is very simple. You basically draw a series of rectangles and put little tops on them, making them look like batteries. And each of these rectangles represents some aspect of your life, whether it’s your career, whether it’s your home life, whether it’s self care. Maybe it’s spirituality. Some aspect of your life. And basically, you just scroll, is it 50% full? Is it quarter empty? And then maybe draw some things or write some words. What’s ever easier, what are some ways that you could increase that battery or decrease it? Maybe you’re finding that you’re spending too much time on career, and maybe you want to shift that energy towards family. So it’s a very simple drawing exercise. But the thoughtfulness and awareness of things that come out of doing that by taking time to reflect, where is your energy going? Where would you like it to go? How can you change those various aspects? And then we get into different habits. How do you work towards setting those goals? Because what I like about creative wellness coaching, as opposed to pure art therapy, is that coaching is very forward focused. It’s about working towards a goal. Whereas therapy is more dealing with things in your past, and it’s still very valuable. But I like the positive, moving forward aspect of the coaching side of things.
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Dr. Jim Price: I love the drawing aspect. Because with drawing, you could become comfortable, and you can do it without feeling any bias, or any judgment upon anything. And then at the end, you have a visual representation of what you’re experiencing, and be able to figure out what that visual representation really means and stuff. I love that aspect of doing it that way. Sometimes, people get more meaning out of visual things. It’s good to have therapy and talk too. I think that’s a good thing too. But having that visual representation definitely brings a different dynamic to the whole experience in terms of trying to overcome maybe cases of burnout, or stress, or anxiety, and all of those things. I love that aspect of that whole component on how it fits that together. Thank you. If you were to give your own personal advice about taking that first step, some people are so afraid to take the first step there, they feel like they’ll overburden themselves by taking that first step toward trying to rectify a lot of these things, whether it be anxiety, stress, burnout and all those things. What would you give our audience, any advice to get them to understand about taking that first step in that way?
Alexandra Reid: Well, definitely one of the first steps that I would say is try to give yourself a different perspective. Maybe go to a cafe and just take some paper and a pen, and go sit outside. Sometimes, just that change of scenery literally is something that will shake you up. It’s not like you’re at home and you’re thinking, I should be folding laundry, I should be doing the dishes. It’s not like you’re in the office thinking, oh, I should be answering the next email. Sometimes, just literally that change of scene is enough to sort of reset your brain a little bit, and then you can start spending that time and self awareness of, okay, I just want to think about things in my life right now without all these external pressures being thrown at me. So I would say that’s the simplest thing. Take yourself somewhere else, and spend time with yourself. Just let yourself think about your life, and try to get comfortable with yourself again. A lot of times, as you said, we’re on autopilot dealing with all the things on our to-do list, and we forget to check in with ourselves. How am I actually doing? Am I doing what I want to be doing right now? If I’m not doing it, what needs to change? And yeah, I think that’s the simplest thing. Take yourself on a date and go somewhere nice. And maybe bring a pen, some paper, and you can start almost just doodling these thoughts out for yourself.
Dr. Jim Price: I think that’s good too. Because sometimes, that self care aspect intertwines with that. Even with myself, I count some kids and all that stuff. So by the time I get home, I need at least like 45 minutes of quiet time. No TV, no radio, no anything. And for me, that’s my cool down time where I’m able to just relax and get things back in order. Then once the time is up, then I’m able to, or I’m ready to get back in. My mom used to live with me, she likes to talk. So she would be home. I got home, and as soon as I cracked the door and almost put my foot in, she was ready telling me everything that happened when she got up to get breakfast, first meal, she ate for breakfast, everything like that. So I said, you got to give me at least half an hour, give me 30 minutes, and we worked it out and everything like that. But I think that is so important to be able to do those things. And getting out in nature too. Nature has a way of rejuvenating people in a way when you put yourself in another environment. So I think those are great points and valuable points that our audience can definitely utilize in terms of taking that first step. How can our audience be able to connect with your service and connect with you in that way?
Alexandra Reid: Yeah. Easiest thing? Internet. My website is called mindartwellness.com. As I mentioned, that taster little challenge is there to do the five day creative reset. Also, there are a series of blogs that I’ve written with different creative exercises. If you’re more of a reader and like the slow process, that’s a nice way of doing it too. I also have links to all the other podcasts that I’ve been on, and so you can get different flavors of things that I’ve talked about before as well. So there’s a lot of resources on my website at mindartwellness.com.
Dr. Jim Price: Excellent, excellent. I know our audience definitely got some valuable gems in terms of not just, when you think about therapy, when you think about the holistic view, the holistic perspective with visual representation too, to be able to really dive into issues, concerns, whether it be stress, anxiety, whatever it might be, burnout, things of that nature, the things that can really help gravitate you toward a higher level, not just understanding yourself, but working through those issues, concerns and stuff like that. This has definitely been a fabulous discussion, Lexi.
And I’m so happy that we got a chance to connect and have you on the show. I always like to say, motivation is key. Growth happens all the time when you put in the action, actionable steps, and stuff like that. And this is a perfect example of that action, taking action, and utilizing actionable steps toward recovery and healing, internal healing, whether it be trauma, whatever. So we always continue on that journey. Life never stops growing, development, and you’re always able to learn as long as you’re alive and stuff like that. So continue to be motivated. Continue to want to grow and nurture your own self personally. And that will, in a sense, impact others around you too in a positive way. So once again, this is The Purpose and Progress Podcast Show. I’m your host, Dr. Jim Price. And like I always say, stay blessed, and stay prayed up. Take care, and see you next time.
Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Purpose in Progress Podcast. I hope today’s conversation gave you insight, inspiration, or a fresh perspective to help you move forward with purpose. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little encouragement. You can also support the podcast through the donation link in the show notes. Every contribution helps us keep sharing stories that uplift and inspire. Remember, your purpose is waiting, and progress never stops. I’ll see you next time.