How Are You Feeling?

How are you feeling today? Compare it to yesterday. Better still, compare it to an hour earlier, 2 hours, 3 hours earlier…. Let’s be honest: did you notice how much your feelings generally change? And they sometimes oscillate like a roller coaster…. & then it’s like: “Oh, boy, what a ride!” J

Are you fully aware of your feelings? They are so part of daily living that, sometimes, you don’t give them your full attention. Still, they do affect your reactions to your surrounding circumstances & to people around you. Feelings speak; yell, sometimes…. And “of all existing languages, that which speaks your emotions is most profound…”.

Allow me to remind you of this: one key to your own psychological health is to notice your feelings (especially the more negative ones), label what you’re experiencing, and properly deal with your emotions. This is the exact process used in any area of self-development.

Not noticing your feelings can get you confused; denying your feelings can lead to implosion; suppressing them may lead to ultimate explosion; shoving them under the carpet only makes them creep from way under disguised differently into harmful ways over and over again.

So what are you to do when you notice & identify those negative feelings? Stay with them for just a little while, understand why they emerged, & then change them. And the latter is simple. It’s all about how you interpret what happens to you. Think hard: what could be a more positive evaluation of the situation?

Voila…. Feeling better?? It’s all self-service….  Really…. J Let’s remain sane. Deal?

Your Personal Coach

          Dania

Dania Dbaibo Darwish (Triple Ds) in ACTION. All about what I do...

In my spare time, I created this short video (pictures, clips, & stuff like that) to explain what I do. Dania Dbaibo Darwish ROCKS to the sound of QUEEN :) 

Am I Having the Worst Feeling or What?

In my line of practice, I usually work on transforming feelings of distress to those of empowerment. My clients come with different baggage, problems, and challenges. They all, however, share one commonality: A perception that they’re experiencing the “worst feeling” of all times. And it’s true. It’s all relevant to one’s character or situation. As our dialogue proceeds, and as they describe those “worst feelings”, I find myself oscillating between acknowledging how difficult these are on one hand, and aiming at alleviating their pain, on another. Respecting their decision to confide and share their deepest emotions always, my mind’s eye reaches out for the “greener side” of their life landscape. I need to help them shift their perception as they process all their negative emotions.

As I listen to their experiences, my mind speaks before I can think; yells if I may. Sometimes my reasoning slips out loud in an instant. At other times, I direct our dialogue to support them reach more helpful conclusion. Here are some scenarios they voice out as “worst feelings”; and how my automatic “hunt” goes like for a more empowering stance to alleviate their predicaments every time:

- I’m having that worst “feeling of being all alone; I don’t have any good company!”

My mind yells: “Yes, honey, being alone is a terrible feeling; solitude can be bliss, if you think about it. Some people are yearning to be left alone. Do their own thing. No responsibilities attached to anyone else; no one telling them what to do; no one holding them from using their full potentials. If you can’t enjoy your own company, how do you expect anyone to enjoy yours? How can you better use your time to self-entertain and be happy with the only person you’re forever stuck with: YOU?”

- I’m having the worst ”feeling of being all alone even in the company of others”

My mind yells: “Aha!! Here’s someone who is on a different wavelength from those all around. That’s the perfect chance to check for their uniqueness. I bet they’re the “deeper” type. Let me tell you this gorgeous: You may just be affiliating with the wrong crowd. Where can you find your type? Let’s check how you’re like and examine your options. Maybe you need to go on a “search” for those of your kind…. Expand your “network” is your next step ….

- I’m having that worst “feeling of having no choice!”

My mind yells: “Are you serious, sugar? You always have a choice; what you actually “do” may be different. You daily choose what to eat, dress like, or do, … Choosing “not to do” remains a choice. And if you’re driven into a situation by force, the way you react to it remains your choice. Perhaps it’s just that your choice in that specific situation has difficult repercussions. You can deal with it if you’re really determined, don’t you now? Just don’t generalize feeling powerless to all else in your life. Keep choosing to have the right attitude at all times.”

- I’m having that worst “feeling of having been stabbed in the back!!”

My mind yells: “oh sweetheart, this is how you learn who’s friend and who’s foe. You’ll find those people who’ll love you and support you just as you will find those whose whole life purpose may be that of bringing you down. Give a listening ear to your internal detectors. You knew it all along; you just weren’t paying attention. Learn from it and move on….”

- I’m having this worst “feeling of being changed into a person I’m not”

My mind yells: “oh my, oh my…. Why would you easily allow that angel? Where’s your strength of character? Right, it’s not that solid…. Perhaps we need to toughen that base as a start. You can’t possibly be comfortable living in your own skin if you let others define who you really are. It would never be your core, would it?”

- I’m having this worst “feeling of being so incomplete, so not up to the expectations, so imperfect…”

My mind yells: “Good God, how I wished we could all be complete at some point during our life-time. Engage in downward comparison, precious. That old adage: “things could be worse” comes in quite handy in this case. Examine those less fortunate. You’re probably comparing yourself with those who you think have it all. You don’t truly know what they’re struggling with in their lives, minds, or hearts. They may just be similarly striving for perfection; and are in fact dealing with their own @#/!#@. Perfection is too far-fetched, dear, but at least it keeps us busy working on it.”

- I’m having the worst “feeling of having lost a dear one in my life”

My heart sinks…..

My mind stops yelling….

I empathize….

I become all heart……..

Could this be the worst feeling of all, I wonder? They’ll have to form an alliance with “time”…. I’ll be their spiritual crutches …... then… I’ll be watching them grow…..

Snap Out Of It: Dissociate. Here Is The “How”

Disappointment, discouragement, hopelessness, helplessness, or sadness are but few of the negative states that can put us in a depressed mood. The reasons vary; and when horrific things happen, negative emotions become paralleled with foggy thinking. We may become imprisoned by a chain of negative thinking until our emotions change to the better. Great…., but how do our feelings change? Would you wait for them to change on their own, or rely on external factors to make it happen? What if that doesn’t take place soon enough? How about you play a more active role instead of waiting? Consider the options you have when you find yourself in a depressed mood. You have at least 3:

1. Stay in your negative state, beat yourself up with further distressing thoughts, and worsen your mood further.

2. Kick away those negative feelings directly and bounce back to an opposite state as if nothing happened (more like denying yourself any experience of negative feelings).

3. Allow yourself to stay there a bit just to process what triggered your bad mood; then, change state and focus on finding solutions.

It goes without saying that the nature and the magnitude of the trigger can place you somewhere on that continuum at first; nonetheless, you have a choice to move out, away, or into healthier responding. But which of the above three options do you think is considered “healthier responding”? You deserve to live your life fully, so why restrict yourself to negative states? Hence, the first option is by no means the best choice. One of the beauties of being human is that you have feelings; and to deny yourself getting in touch with your feelings only deprives you of your humanity and gets you in more complicated emotional problems. Hence, denying yourself the variety of emotional experiences is, similarly, unwise. The second option, therefore, is ruled out. This leaves you with option three. Do I hear you say: “Easier said than done!” or “you don’t know what you’re talking about; it’s too difficult to snap out of it”? Let me suggest a tool I often use in therapy and coaching. It’s called “Dissociation”. Many use it intuitively, and it has widespread other uses besides changing states.

Sit in a quiet comfortable place in solitary. Start a mental scan of the events that precipitated your bad mood. If you’re unable to identify a specific event for your low mood, just examine how the previous hours went by. You’ll be surprised as to how easily the main cause emerges.

Assess: Start processing your feelings (processing here means identifying and labeling your feelings). Delve behind the feelings for reasons; analyze and dissect the situation into its main components. Your thoughts about it will feed into your feeling further down, so just allow yourself, then, to be fully associated with your negative state (i.e. feel, visualize, and hear the external and internal dialogues).

Dissociate: When you’re through this examination, physically stand up and face the place you were sitting in. It may seem bizarre the first time, but you’re alone (hopefully) and no one will wonder what in the world you’re doing (keep playing the game of dissociation). Visualize yourself sitting in that seat (make a mental picture of how you were sitting exactly – the other you). Imagine that the one standing, now, is your best friend (i.e. the best friend of the one sitting). Being your best friend now, what would you objectively advise the person in front of you to think feel, and do? Narrate the counter arguments of the situation, draw attention to the bigger picture, list the empowering possibilities, and reignite that person into a better mood.

Associate: Bring in several memories of times that you felt totally happy, confident, motivated, or any other positive state. Associate yourself with those good feelings every time by mentally visualizing each of those incidents, seeing all the details, hearing all the sounds, and re-living those feelings that dominated then. Let the picture become brighter, the sounds become louder, and allow those feelings to grow each time. Finally, get back into the body of the person sitting in that place (both mentally and physically). You still carry those positive vibes, so just permit them some time to take over that prior state as if you were receiving the new empowering vibes now.

When you do this, you will realize how much our thoughts affect our internal states. It is very easy to give in to negative thinking, but these exacerbate our negative emotions. If you want to snap out of it, just allow yourself some time to process what happened then change your thoughts. Changing your thoughts guarantees a change of state. Now you know how you can do that. Dissociate, but follow that with associating into good memories. Says who we cannot be the nautical wheelers of navigating your own ship of emotions?..….

The Stigma of Psychotherapy…. And now Coaching!!

So I am a psychotherapist….. yeah, that line of practice surrounded by confidentiality, secrecy, pain, distress, and all sorts of tabooed venting….. I’d rather refer to myself as a counselor so as to avoid the “therapy” word in “psychotherapy”. Therapy connotes malady which already is disempowering to any prospective client. I, also, am a hypnotherapist. It still has the “therapy” word, but even if I change it to hypnotist, both are equally scary to those who have not tried it, or listened to my thorough explanation debunking all misconceptions. I, additionally, incorporate “Life Coaching” to my practice specifically to offset the harrowing effects surrounding the process of my dealing with too much psychological distress. Coaching, although confidential like therapy, is more upbeat and cheerful. People who seek coaching are those who function just well, but who want to become exceptional and more fulfilled. Those who seek psychotherapy are mainly dysfunctional, but are daring enough to face issues standing in their way of normal functioning like the average person does.

So what’s with that introduction about what I do? Picture this: The sign at my office door has my name and the several titles I hold below it: Life and Career Coach, Counselor, Hypnotherapist, and Trainer. I usually keep my door closed when I’m with a client. I keep my business card (that has my contact information) below the sign in case someone passing by is enthused to take an appointment. When the card is removed (which is often repeated), I replace it by a new one. I got a message the other day on my mobile by an anonymous asking whether I had another office elsewhere. Anonymous reflected concern and hesitation in coming to my clinic, so I simply explained that it’s not a clinic; it’s just an office. I stressed my theory on clients in counseling as individuals who are not coping well; and that they are not sick people. I added that the only office I met clients in was that little place. How I wished I could add I already pay a high rent for that location. A week later, I got another message from the same anonymous. This time giving her name and expressing the same concern. “I have a lot of issues to discuss with you, but I don’t know if I will have the courage to actually take an appointment. People know me on that floor and I don’t want to be seen there.” she explained. That’s it!! I called her. I didn’t want to keep discussing things through messages. When we talked, she seemed like a young lady who badly needed someone to talk to. After some give and take, I explained that I could see her at times when all other adjacent offices ended their operations. She said she’ll think about it.

Our conversation was like a kick in my chest. It dredged up all past misdemeanors which made me grapple with the idea of stigma surrounding psychotherapy in Lebanon. I was fully aware that my clients in counseling are not too comfortable letting others know about their seeking professional support. I never asked them for my website testimonial despite how much it would add. I base my practice highly on referrals, but people rarely mention undergoing therapy. Most of the time, it is knowledge of someone else who does. Gladly, I have hypnotherapy that branches out from my practice. Unfortunately, that, too, is unfathomed by many except those who have guts and are open to try it (and then ignorance around it transpires favorably). But hey…. I am, also, involved in coaching – the luxury service – that few choose to indulge in. I boost all up with NLP techniques. Helllloooo….I tackle self-development in a variety of ways. To my disappointment, lately, I feel the same reluctance to share with others the idea of being supported impinging and stretching repeatedly to include my clients in coaching as well. And I’m like: “what the heeeellll????” Whatever is discussed remains confidential, but the process of having your own personalized paid-for support system doesn’t have to be. Is it too ego-threatening to mention that they are visiting this hothouse of growth? WHAT’S WITH YOU PEOPLE????

OK, some self- therapy needed:

Identify your emotion Dania: Frustration

Pin point the accompanying repercussions: boiling inside, disgruntled, feeling misunderstood, my office seems to trigger trepidation, this secrecy is counterproductive to what I do, people are ungrateful (I know they all benefit so much), powerless over this one, reaching an impasse, doubting my career choice, dim future vision, slowly sliding into oblivion, it’s going to be way tougher than I thought, more questioning: so is that why many say they will resort to being coached but never start?…….

Change perspective to feel better: Don’t get narrow focused on those who don’t talk about it. There are a few who do. Dania….., you know you’re good at what you do. You always say: “Stir it up or down; left or right; the cream always rises to the top”. Patience precious, patience….. The stigma will surround nothing soon. You’re just now fanning the flames of psychotherapy in the most positive attractive approach. You’re just introducing coaching to your community and even created an association to facilitate that. Your diligent approach on emphasizing self-development will come to fruition. You have friends who resort to you for psychological comfort all the time. Together with your clients who already engaged in the escapade and are experiencing the sing-song effect, these should suffice to eliminate any self-doubt. So what if a few remain secretive? It’s not like nobody is saying any good word about you, is it? Besides you are a psychology instructor and a trainer. There’s no stigma attached to these two areas. You get a lot of satisfaction there. Shrug it off!!

Identify new emotion: Mental toxins flushed out :) Feeling better :)

Future vision now: I believe I can support people change in so many good ways if they choose to. If they choose not to lift up the secrecy veil, then it’s their world and I cannot intrude or impose. I am building awareness with all these blocks being thrown at me. My efforts can’t but spell success; I am sure…..

Self-Therapy session concluded.

Feeling waaaay better :)