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Safaa: Hello and welcome to this episode of Voice of Coaches with Safaa Marafi. It is
my pleasure today to interview Life and Career Coach Dania Dbaibo Darwish. Dania is a holder
of a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and a Master's Degree in Psychology from the
American University of Beirut in Lebanon.
She is an Associate Certified Professional Life and Career Coach, a Certified Master
Level NLP Practitioner, a Certified Hypnotherapist, a trained Counselor and an experienced soft
skill trainer. She has a background career in both sales and marketing of consumer goods
and as a psychology instructor at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.
For several years now, she has been running her own practice of Coaching Your 3 Ps, also
known as "personal and professional progress." A coach, counselor, hypnotherapist and trainer,
she has been coaching diverse and leading national and international organizations like
and not limited to Thomson Reuters, M1 Group, Morpho, SETS, the Daycare syndicate, and Hoops.
Dania is the founding president of the Lebanese Coach Association and is very active in other
NGOs. She is known for her dynamic, upbeat and positive personality. Hello, Dania.
Dania: Hi, Safaa. How are you today? I'm doing brilliantly great. Thank you. And you?
Safaa: I'm doing amazing.
Dania: Are you stressed out?
Safaa: I'm not, as long as I'm talking with you.
Dania: That's good to hear.
Safaa: As an expert in de-stressing people, how do you define stress?
Dania: Stress has been defined in so many ways. It was sometimes defined as something
internal. You might hear someone say, "I am stressed out." Other times, it is defined
as something external. For example, "Our house is crazy." or "Our firm is crazy." Sometimes
it's described as a process. For instance, you might say, "I have too many things on
my plate. Scientists and researchers examined these.
They finally came up with the conclusion that perhaps the best definition of stress is a
perception of the inability to cope with the demands of situations. This is when a person
feels a lot of discomfort. Sometimes we can put it in a mathematical equation. Stress
equals the pressure a person is subject to divided by his or her coping abilities. It's
relevant. It's subjective. It is an internal evaluation that the person comes up with.
That is what stress is, in brief.
Safaa: It's internal and external here.
Dania: Yes, it could be.
Safaa: Dania, you call yourself the Stress Detective.
Dania: Yes, I am.
Safaa: How do I know, as a person, if I'm stressed? Some people suffer from stress without
knowing it. Are there symptoms that the listeners of Voice of Coaches should be looking for?
A few examples would be an amazing help for us.
Dania: Stress has a variety of symptoms. They affect our thinking, emotions, behaviors and
our physical body. You can detect a cluster sometimes. For instance, when you are unable
to concentrate, you exhibit poor judgment or see only the negative in things, this is
alarming. This affects our emotions. The person becomes moody, irritable or short-tempered.
Many times, they become agitated easily or have feelings of overwhelm.
There are also physical symptoms of the body. Many people experience tension headaches,
for example. They might have nausea, dizziness or rapid heartbeat. They lose their sex drive
or experience frequent colds or flu.
Many times, the symptoms can be behavioral. People can shift to eating too much or too
little, sleep too much or too little or isolate themselves. If many of these symptoms are
found in the person, it is alarming. The person is under a lot of stress.
What people should know is that too many stressors on the person can become blown out into a
serious medical disorder or even a psychological disorder. It is known and researched that
underlying so many psychological distresses is usually stress. For instance, depression
has stress underlying it. It may be because something terrible happened. Anxiety also
has stress beneath it. There is anger, being maltreated or the anticipation of what's coming.
All of this is subjective. It is relative to the person, how they perceive the world,
their future, the space they are in and the meaning they give to all of the stressors
outside of them. It is the meaning that makes the difference. It is the interpretation of
whether they can handle it or not.
Safaa: You mentioned the word "stressors." What exactly are the stressors and how do
you work with your clients to identify their stressors?
Dania: Sometimes the stressors are very apparent. Stressors usually come in two forms. Either
they are external or self-generated. Sometimes we create our stress. For instance, with external
stressors, in collecting the history about a person, I ask open-ended questions. Here
in Lebanon, they love to share their life story.
They do mention different stressors. It could be the house they're living in, for instance.
It could be too small or too dim. They might have social stressors like dealing with other
difficult people, having a difficult partner or difficult parents. We call these people
"emotional vampires." They suck their life energy.
External stressors can also be the place where they work. There could be organizational stressors.
They could be carrying a work overload. Many times, the stressors are major life events
like the death of a loved one, job loss, divorce, accidents or illnesses. It could come in daily
hassles that accumulate like commuting, traffic jams, feelings of loneliness or mental conflicts.
External stressors come in different forms but sometimes people do generate their own
stress by creating a specific lifestyle that feeds into more stress. For instance, consuming
too much caffeine, not having enough sleep or having an overloaded schedule.
Many times, people talk negatively to themselves. This is negative self-talk. They start criticizing
themselves or having pessimistic thinking. Some people are just prone to having stressful
personality types like the perfectionist who wants to perfect it all or the workaholic
who is continuously working all the time. They do not take a break or a breath. Many
times, they are people pleasers. They say "yes" to everything. Eventually, they have
a lot to carry on their shoulders.
When a client talks about their life story, I automatically start pinpointing these accumulating
on the threshold of what they can bear. If you don't handle the stress, it build up.
Too much stress leads to what we call "strain", which is extensive stress. The extreme case
is having a total burnout, which means the person loses it. They become paranoid and
negative. They can't handle it.
Safaa: They go into a depression, for example.
Dania: Yes, they become depressed. It could also be medical disorders.
Safaa: To avoid those stressors, can you mention how we can manage our stress and deal with
the stressors? I know that the stressors differ from person to person. In general, what is
your advice?
Dania: As coaches, we do try to ask questions that help in discovering solutions. Mainly,
the stressors are exhibited in having problems. I always try to explore with the client if
they can change the situation. To deal with stressors or a problematic situation, you
either have to change the situation or change your reaction to it. We explore if the situation
can be changed.
For instance, someone might be having a hard time with his or her job. I explore the possibilities
if they could find something more attractive. If they cannot change this, I explore with
them if they could avoid what's in that job that is stressing them out. If they are carrying
a heavy load, maybe they need to be assertive with their manager and express the fact that
they cannot carry that heavy load.
There are two ways to change the situation. Either alter it altogether or avoid it. Sometimes
the stressor can come in the form of people who constantly irritate you. You start avoiding
these people. It might be avoiding talking about topics that irritate you. Many times,
there are fights over political issues. Avoid talking about political issues.
If the situation cannot be changed, I always try to explore with them how they can change
their reactions to that situation. Many times, you just need to accept that the situation
exists. For instance, if a teenager has a difficult parent giving them a hard time,
explore with them if it is possible to accept that the parents are difficult and move on.
Deal with them. This is the way they are thinking.
Alternatively, we can adapt to the situation by reframing that a problem exists. If they're
complaining about their parents, I try to direct them that they're lucky they have parents
to start with. So many children have lost a parent or two.
Safaa: You are changing the mindset here, which is amazing.
Dania: Yes. It is the reframing of things or looking at the big picture. This is when
it comes to specific problems. Alternatively, the stressors might be accumulated over time.
This is when an explosion could happen. We might take care of the buildup of stress that
leads to the explosion by taking breaks or doing some stress-busting techniques.
Safaa: You mentioned "stress-busting" techniques. Can you give us a few tools that help with
the feeling of being stressed out?
Dania: The number one stress buster, which I love, is deep breathing. It has instant
effects. It is the natural medication for all anxiety disorders. You just have to breathe.
It's really simple and it takes just a few minutes. Deep breathing is taking a very deep
breath by inhaling and exhaling very slowly.
You can memorize the numbers four, two and eight. You inhale to the count of four slowly.
Then you hold that breath to the count of two slowly. Then exhale to the count of eight
very slowly. The tummy will go up and down.
While you're doing that, you tell yourself, "I'm relaxing. I'm relaxed." Each time you
inhale and exhale, it relaxes you. If you do that 20 to 30 times, it will really reduce
the physical arousal. We have a physical arousal within our body whenever we experience stress.
It affects the physiology and it also affects the thinking. Our brainwaves go crazy when
we're stressed out. It is very high arousal. The amplitude is very high.
Once we start the deep breathing, the brainwaves slow down. This is when you are able to think
more clearly. If someone has stress all day or experiences nervousness all day, I recommend
that they use it three or four times a day; morning, afternoon and night. Breathe slowly
every time. This is very powerful, Safaa.
There are other alternative ways like doing an hour of exercise or jumping and dancing.
Exercise is known to really kick off the neurotransmitters necessary for the happy mood. One hour of
exercise is equivalent to an antidepressant pill. Frankly, no one regrets an hour of exercise.
Their brainwaves, physiology and mood lightens up. This is also another effective stress-buster.
Alternatively, they can listen to music or dance. Many institutions now rely on music
therapy to deal with health issues like cancer. There is also meditation. You focus on breathing,
saying only one word or visualizing only one color. It takes you to somewhere else. It
clarifies the thinking with time. Meditation is difficult. It doesn't happen perfectly
the first time. We really need to practice it for months to kick off the habit.
Many times, I take them to "la-la land." I say, "Visualize yourself in the most beautiful,
amazing, relaxing place. Just go there." Visualization takes you on an instant vacation. When they
start living in the relaxing place in their mind's eye and feeling differently, it calms
them down.
There are so many other ways like positive self-talk, connecting with other people, humor,
laughing out loud, digging up jokes, watching a DVD that makes you laugh or creating "me"
time, making an appointment for a massage or filling the bathtub with aromatherapy and
soaking yourself there. We really can use many things to alleviate the feelings of stress.
Most importantly, we need to target our thoughts to become more positive thinkers in terms
of solutions. We also need to target the physiology, which means changing your physical state from
being very nervous to calm. Sometimes the stress response can be either depressed or
over-aroused. Depending on what you are feeling, choose to change your bodily state.
Safaa: You mentioned something very interesting about self-talk. Can you give us quick examples
like how to change the words?
Dania: Yes. You said something very important, which was, "How to change the words." Some
people worry so much about things that most probably will not happen. They even criticize
themselves or think in terms of helplessness or hopelessness.
For instance, compare this statement to a different one. Someone might say, "I'm stuck.
I'm not able to do anything about this." This already puts the person in a paralyzed state.
Remember, stress is the perception of the inability to control things or cope with things.
We can change the statement from "I'm stuck" to "I'm working on solutions. I'm trying to
find a solution. I will find a solution."
Safaa: A solution is there.
Dania: Yes. This is the thinking that will probably lead to getting to a solution in
the end. Many times, you will hear someone say, "I can't tolerate this. It's beyond my
control." We can change this to, "It's a challenging situation. I'm working through it." It will
really make the person have a different mindset or approach to whatever he is dealing with.
Safaa: It takes time for your clients to adapt to the new self-talk.
Dania: Yes. I challenge them with identifying their negative self-talk. I say, "Write it
down. Whenever you observe yourself saying something negative, write it down and instantly
transform it into something more positive." It will work in alleviating their stress feeling
if they just become more aware of how they are talking to themselves.
Safaa: "Conscious and awareness" are great words. It's being aware of the self-talk.
It will definitely help along with the other tools you gave us today, which is great. Dania,
I really enjoyed having you with us today on Voice of Coaches.
Dania: I enjoyed it, too.
Safaa: I love you so much, Dania. I love your de-stressing tips and hints. To our listeners
on this fine day, if anyone would like to visit Dania's website, it is CoachingYour3Ps.com.
Dania, thank you. I'm sending you and our Voice of Coaches listeners positive vibes.
Dania: Safaa, I want to thank you. It was a pleasure being hosted with you. I love you
more. I'm sending double the positive vibes back to you and all those wonderful listeners.
Stay stress free.
Safaa: You are such a great coach, Dania. Thank you so much.