Allow me to introduce myself.
Rebecca Burman as Coach, Artist, Support Worker and Facilitator, and Rebecca Livermore as a musician.
I have been a professional violinist all my working life. Working as a principal player in the world of historically informed performance, travelling the (concert halls of the) world. Nowadays I try to spend as much time as possible also working in music education to do my part in ensuring that classical music is not elitist, classist or excluding any minority groups. I am a member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and we are based in an inner city school in London, a perfect combination for me.
In 2014, after a period of poor mental health, I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Things had to change. I started studying visual art, and in 2017 got funding to take sabbatical time to study the life and work of Louise Bourgeois, French-American artist and to develop my own creative practice.
Alongside these studies I was diagnosed with severe Endometriosis – a chronic illness that left me living in immense pain and using a walking stick. I had major surgery in 2019.
Throughout this time I was developing a deep interest in Neuroscience and it was an obvious move to train as a Coach and Mentor. Maybe in another life I would have gone straight into a caring role, I certainly needed an outlet for this part of me.
After suffering two deeply distressing family bereavements – due to Psychosis and a Brain Tumour – another outlet for my need to be caring and helping others led my to working as both Support Worker and a Facilitator with neurodivergent people. It took very little time to become very clear that these were my people.
As a coach I started to look at ways to adjust the coaching practise to work for neurodivergent brains, for those whose brains were firing in different ways and for whom the ‘typical’ coaching exercises were just reinforcing how much they didn’t fit in.
My experience in this field is helping me now work on bring the coaching skills, alongside the years of working in the music profession as a neurodivergent person, together to develop a world of happier, more content and respected musicians.
I admit, there’s a way to go!
