Episode 181: Dr Sian Williams
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr Sian Williams is a journalist and broadcaster and author. She trained as a trauma assessor while working at the BBC and is a registered counselling psychologist. She presents the fabulous Radio 4 series and podcast ‘Life Changing’ which I totally recommend.
She has 5 children, the eldest being in their 30s, the youngest 17.
Sian told me about having her glorious and unexpected first son when she had just got her first job in the newsroom in London. She also talked about how she values her close relationship with her step daughter.
Sian has just published a new book called ‘The Power of Anxiety: How to Ride the Worry Wave’ which talks about turns sensitivity into a strength.
I felt instantly relaxed by Sian’s beautiful voice and gentle counseling manner… and almost revealed all my deepest secrets to her!
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Sbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, aged between seven |
| 0:19.8 | years old and nearly 22, |
| 0:21.6 | so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:23.6 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:26.6 | but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. |
| 0:30.6 | I want to be a little bit nosy |
| 0:32.6 | and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:43.2 | Hey, how are you? I feel like it's been a while. |
| 0:51.4 | I don't know how much I've shared with you about how this podcast works, but basically when I started it, oh, golly, six years ago now, I thought, right, how do other |
| 0:57.1 | people do podcasts? And I decided, right, I did 10, 10 weeks on, month off, 10 weeks on, month |
| 1:04.3 | off. And the month in between, and the month off is usually more like five weeks and sometimes six. |
| 1:13.1 | So, yeah, I guess it's been about six weeks, hasn't it? |
| 1:16.7 | It was my intention to make it a month, but as I probably shared, |
| 1:20.6 | podcast is a pretty dinky little thing, really, in terms of its infrastructure. |
| 1:29.3 | Obviously, it's me. Host, researcher, guest booker. |
| 1:35.3 | Then there's my producer, friend Claire, who sits with me on 95% of the recordings, |
| 1:43.3 | makes exquisite edit notes that gets sent to Richard. |
| 1:48.0 | And then Richard, my husband, does the edit. |
| 1:52.0 | And then we have Ella May, who does the gorgeous artwork. |
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