EP063 - How to improve mental health for better leadership with Iulia Oprea at Dragon Coaching House
About the episode
This episode focuses on improving the mental health of leadership. Resilience and mental clarity are essential to lead and make better decisions. Helping leaders with these areas will help the entire company and all teams included. To discuss, Iulia Oprea joined the talk, which is coaching leaders with the Gestalt methodology, working with teams in Europe, online as well as offline.
About the guest
Iulia Oprea is the Founder of the Dragon Coaching House. She is a Leadership Development Expert known for her approach that smoothly blends her business background with coaching for teams and executives, all grounded in the transformative principles of Gestalt Therapy.
The business is strongly committed to tangible impact, reflected in a detailed analysis of growth, change, and ROI in every leadership development program. Iulia works internationally with Senior Leaders, Startup Founders, and Venture Capital Managers.
Connect with Iulia on LinkedIn.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
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Welcome everyone. Welcome on the Leadership Anywhere podcast. Today, we are discussing and talking about a topic that is really close to my heart. And I've been looking for someone who can speak about this topic for a while. I think, and I'm sure that others who are listening can agree or will agree working remotely has I wouldn't say toll, but like its own challenges with our mental health. Because how we collaborate, how we work together is even more challenging in the office, but it's like a different challenge when we are working remotely online because we are at home alone. We have to deal with our problems alone at home again. And not many companies are really geared towards supporting these people so they can actually prepare to be productive mentally, not just intellectually for a remote work. So today we are talking about mental health a lot especially by the way, gestalt type of psychology, but my guest will tell me a little bit more about that. I have Iulia Oprea from Dragon Coaching. Hello, Iulia.
Hi, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
I appreciate your time for coming here and talking about mental health. I think it's a crucial and important topic. So tell me a little bit more about your story. Precall, we discussed that you are coming from Transylvania, but lived in Budapest as well but you are now in Berlin, but live in Portugal. So it's insanely confusing where you are. Tell me what was the journey? What's the adventure that led us to you here?
So my studies brought me to Hungary. My partner brought me to Germany. And my heart brought me to Portugal.
So that's an amazing, that's an amazing story already.
Yes, I missed the sunshine and it was always a dream of mine to live close to the sea or the ocean. And yeah, there was an opportunity so I took it. Together with my partner, we moved there this year and it was a good decision.
I know. And by the way, Portugal is really big in supporting remote workers and digital nomads right now.
Yes, that's true. Yes.
Mainly I think it's mostly important for the U S people because of the visa and stuff, but it's still important for us European citizens as well, because there's a good, big community there. How are you working from there? Lisbon?
Yes. I'm currently in Lisbon. But I'm trying to explore also the Porto area. I'm curious to see what is there.
Nice. And what did you work before and how did you end up working remotely? Tell me a little bit more about your professional journey.
My professional journey started in human resources and especially in recruiting and later in executive search. And it traveled across a few industries. I really started working as an entrepreneur. I had my first business when I was 23, learned everything the hard way. And once I exited that business I felt very lost. I didn't know what to do. And I think the depth of this, not knowing what to do with yourself, which I think many 20 years old experience, that's when I stumbled upon coaching as a coaching methodology. And then with advice of a very good friend from Hungary, I started to study it and I was really surprised at what kind of transformation it offered it really showed me right from the start areas of myself that I was judging a lot, but then I start to understand how they're actually supporting me as well in my life and in the successes that I appreciate so much. So I really started to go deeper and deeper in this area. And so I started to study psychotherapy. That was another four years of very intense training. Doing your own therapy, then also learning to coach teams, which is again another thing because you have to really understand group dynamics and also team dynamics. Then just the whole area, another area emerged of self development and practicing your own self awareness and it's just started to completely change the direction that I took in life. So for example, I was still working in Berlin in recruitment and in executive search, mainly in the tech field in additive and advanced manufacturing. So working a lot with big companies who are manufacturing things or selling big machines to factories. And I was noticing the more technological an area is the more you need to focus on the humanity aspects of the people who are working in this field. So this is where the idea came, which is at the core of the Dragon Coaching Houses to really help leadership develop a concept of conscious leadership in order to do something noble, which I like to call it noble because you just start to turn around things for the better so that you just transform things for the better than they were when you found them for sure. So that's very fulfilling to experience.
I can relate to that. Yeah. I can relate to that because if you change a leader, you can change the whole team and it goes down and down and down and also changes the entire organization.
So good that you mentioned this, that it starts with the leader because earlier in my career, I did committed the mistake of entering an organization and working directly with the broader team where in fact the problem within the leadership team. So it was a very, usually that's the case. Yes. It was a very painful lesson for me to learn. And since then, I don't move forward to the broader team unless I worked first with the leadership team. And if all is great and there's a lot of clarity and alignment and everything and a lot of awareness about what they want, that's great. But it's a step I no longer jump over because it can really backfire.
And you work here with your clients remotely most of the time?
Yes. And since I moved to Portugal, even more.
Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. And so tell me this is a really great journey because just quickly not just recap, but just to reflect on that, that you started more so with a self improvement journey, and then it quickly turned into self awareness and then it quickly turned to coaching and therapy, and then it turned into like group dynamics and organizational change. So it was an organic journey, which started with you. But at the end you ended up with people whom you are helping now. So it's interesting to have that. And by the way, side note, most of the leaders don't spend that amount of time or energy on that kind of self reflection and self awareness that you did. That's why probably you can coach them to do that journey.
Yes, I have on one hand, a private praxis for my therapy and on the other hand, I work with organizations as well. And there, I also do one on one coaching with the members of that particular team. But also in my private praxis, I work with people who are in leading roles and they usually come to this kind of work on themselves when they realize that something's off, something's not right and I can't seem to overcome it and I can't and I seem to repeat the same thing over and over again, or I just feel like I'm so done. I don't know what to do. It's too much change. I don't know how to perform well in this change. I don't want others to see that I'm suffering. What can I do with myself? And it's something I can't do alone. I think it's a good point to come to a wall in one sense and then say, okay, I need to do something. And that's where the change starts to happen when you realize I need to do something.
And why do they hit the wall? What are the main challenges or problems that you see? Obviously, don't hurt anyone's feelings by sharing their actual example.
No, I can just generalize.
Generalize yeah.
Yeah, I can just generalize and it's very, it can be very unique. But the most common thing, all of the cases that I'm working with is relational. It's all relational with their teams or with their peers, with their boss, with their clients, with it's all relational topics or relational topics from home, which are so severe that it impedes them from doing the work that they want to do at work. So somehow in all cases it's relational. How we are in these relationships just really impacts our lives so much. And that's why I really like the work of Esther Perel, who is main work is on relationship, right? She's doing couples therapy, but not just for romantic relationship, but just in general, also in the workplace. And I just find that so valuable because a lot of our problems come because we just don't know, don't always learn how to be together, especially in difficult times. Since you're in the good times, but difficult times, that brings out another aspect of who we are.
Esther Perel talks a lot about relationship loyalty and stuff like that but that loyalty can be I wouldn't say applied, but at least it can be a parallel example for team cohesion and team bond at the work as well. And what do you think the relationships are experiencing these kind of like turbulent problems that you see, is it a communicational problem? Is it a self awareness problem? Is it more I don't know. What do you think?
If we go again to look at the common denominator, it's again, it's when you have a lack of self awareness, it also impacts the way you communicate. So it impacts the way you start to make decisions, right? It impacts the way you build that relationship or the way you build that trust. So it impacts also how you are in touch with your own strength or your own kindness, or how clear are you in which direction, just, let's just say in the case of an organization, can you provide a clear vision and a strategy where everyone's heading or so many companies you ask the team members, what's your strategy? What's the vision? I don't know. I couldn't say it is a problem. People don't know why they do what they're doing.
Sorry please, you're saying that if you're not clear about yourself, how can you be clear about your team?
Yeah. You're missing out on a lot for sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cause when you lack self awareness and you start to communicate from that point, so to speak. It's hard for people to come to you with an honest topic or with something that's important. They might just avoid speaking with you just rather avoid the whole thing altogether and maybe move on to another company.
And how can therapy or coaching or just you or maybe just not just you, but like external help in general can help to address these issues. Can you make people self aware a little bit more than usual?
Absolutely. That's at the core of what I do all day, every day. So I can only work with people and by people. Also organizations. They also made from people. I can only work with people who come to the point where they say we would like to do something. I don't know how and what but I'm looking for options. So if you have to have this sort of openness and willingness, otherwise don't try to convince someone to become more self aware cause there's no point. And what we do in my work is we heighten awareness. This is at the core of gestalt methodology is that we believe that first of all, yes, you are capable of change, but we don't start with the change. Change is the result of the work that you do. And if I could break it down into four simple steps, it's heightening your awareness. Therefore you see new choices that you haven't seen before, simply because they were in blind spots all around you. You didn't see those new choices, new perspectives can enable you to take different decisions than you have done in the past. And these different decisions can bring you the change that you're looking for. But if you start with the change, then what you're dealing with is a very strong resistance.
Why?
Because resistance means I'm protecting something. Even if I come to you and I say, Peter, I want to change. And you say, okay, I will change you. I will help you change. I will sabotage the process unintentionally. Or not completely intentionally, but there's something at our core in our human nature which resists being changed. And I also say that people don't resist change, they just resist being changed. So it has to come from a very deep realization. And this is what the heightened awareness and this process of becoming more conscious can help you to do. And it's such a gift. You know why? Because you realize this came from me. This was in me all along. This person is working with me, has no idea, right? They just know how to do this, but this solution comes from me. And this is just helps you to get in touch with your inner strengths. And that force that you have in you, which maybe you thought is not there but the process can help you to get that connection back and to have more self confidence moving on.
And that, so you believe that change is indirect, it's a combination of self awareness, situational awareness, contextual awareness leading to I will behave a different way compared to I behaved previously within these scenarios. And whoops, that it's already a changed thing but it's indirectly changed. And you need to be receptive to be self aware. That's what you're saying. So they need to hit certain types of walls multiple times in order to make sure that they are willing to go under any kind of therapy or coaching or...
I thought the first so much with people. I know a lot of people come to this point, me being one of them. But I've also met just recently 17 year old who says this is important in life. I want to deal with this now or someone who is hitting obstacles on top of obstacles and still haven't figured out that they actually need to do something about it. So it's so unique how and where it's the kind of like the start of this in life. Some people it's when their child is born or when they lose a loved one that can be such an impactful event in their life, they have no choice just to look inwards a bit. And when we look a bit inwards and we make friends with what's inside, on an emotional spiritual level, then it's just amazing what you can do also in the business world.
And in terms of groups. So you mentioned that there are different group dynamics as well. So obviously a more self aware leader will be able to manage more self aware groups.
This person sets a model. This person can completely set an example, be an intentional role model so to speak for the whole team. I remember I had in one of the companies where I worked at a CEO, his name was Michael, he would come in and go through the whole office. And look around and he sensed if something was wrong and he went there and he's what's wrong? What happened? Tell me what's up. And people would just go and talk to him honestly. And he knew always and in time what was going on because of this. He was approachable. He had this sensitivity, he had not all the answers to all the problems but because he was just aware and just so approachable by people. He somehow always found with the team, the right solutions for all the problems that came up. So that was for me, amazing to witness. And at the time I was working in helping from the HR side to build a team. So that was really nice to see, to have such a leader in the team.
Tell me a little bit more about that. So what do you think are the good characteristics of a great leader in terms of like mental health or mindset?
I think I really liked the way you formulated it before, like there is a psychological minimum that you need to have in order to enter a leadership role, because when you're a leader, you really impact a lot of people, you impact the organizational development, you impact the productivity of the team, you impact how much revenue your team is generating. It's like the list goes on and on. And I think it's the minimum is, are you working on your self awareness? Yes or no. If you're not then usually that's a big problem. Because It's very hard to overcome all this crisis on top of crisis, which we experiencing today without having self awareness and without having that type of relation with your colleagues and with your teams to work as a whole together and not scattered or against each other. That's the worst, right? When people are stepping on each other's toes, so if you do have this intention and you're also doing something about it then you are communicating differently, then you communicate in a way that is impacting productivity, then you can take better decisions than those leaders who are not working on themselves, simply because you can gather around yourself that team of smart people that you hired, and they can also tell you and help you to make those good decisions. You can become more resilient, because if you work on your self awareness, you are working a lot with things about yourself and your life or your environment that are very unpleasant. And you see how you have overcome them and see how you can still overcome them and work on them without being crushed and not being able to stand up again. So how do you recycle, so to speak, that inner strength and that energy? First you have to know that you have that inner strength to get in contact with how did I actually get over this situation? Or what happened there with me? What resources that are mobilized within myself that I was capable to do capable of doing that. And similarly, when I know about myself that I was capable, I can help my team. To see, okay, what are our resources as a team? What can we do together? And this is a very nice aspect of Gestalt approach is that it doesn't come from the aspect of, okay, let's change what's not working. It always starts with, let's look at what is working really well already. What are your strengths? What is your support system? And let's strengthen that by making it really aware and clear. And from that strength, we look at together, what needs to be improved and how do we want to do that as a team. So it's a very inclusive, extremely high collaborative process, which in the end results in higher acceptance to change. Which is a problem in change management that people just don't accept the process, right? But if you are included from the start, you have a saying then it's also almost yours. There's also a strong sense of ownership in the whole process. So yeah, I can also give you an example of a process we did recently. I work with a really amazing company here in Berlin. We did a longer process where we redefined their vision, mission, and their values after a merger and acquisition deal. When this happens, almost always you have to work with the culture. You have to coach the leaders. You have to look at that aspect of how it is when two different things come together and how do we want to move on together forward. So we worked with the leadership team as well and then we moved on to the broader team. Once the leadership team defined for themselves how they want to bring this forward was then put up for discussion by the broader team in small circles. So in smaller circles of 10 12 people where everyone had the space and the time to express themselves. So I facilitated all of these workshops and I made sure that everyone has their space and their opportunity to speak up. Then we looked at the results and then the leadership adapted what they wanted and they took the feedback from the team and then they created together something end result. And this also ended up in a celebration in the end, which was really nice because then everyone is clear. Everyone is on the same page. It lasted almost a year. This project was a lot. But people know, now they know. And I've heard from many people that it was probably the first time that they have been included in anything like this and how amazing it is because now they have they're on board with it. They're more aligned with the others.
Do you have any numbers after that? For example, like less churn, more loyalty, usually these things can be tracked as well, by the way.
Yes. We measure employee engagement. I have an amazing partner from Canada and we are measuring the engagement every month of the team and we are addressing top three areas, which are great. And then we also see the percentage of the people who participate in this engagement surveys and also what is the percentage of the engagement of the team itself when it's up, what brought it up, if it's a bit lower that month, what brought it lower. Yes, we were tracking the whole thing on specific topics we also create focus groups. Which is great because there's a topic which was flagged. The team can be included in suggestions. How would you like to solve this? Then there's a vote on the suggestions. Which suggestion do you think is best? And then you take the top five or six. You go to the team and you start talking, okay, this is your suggestion. These suggestions you think are valuable. So let's work with these six and figure out how we want to do this together so that we've solved the problem. So this is an immense support for managers, I think, because They don't have to just sit around and figure out what should I do but you do it together. So it's relational.
Again and this is a core problem that we also have everywhere one of the key things that I loved about what you said is that yes, the psychological minimum, because in most of the leadership development, everyone is talking about practices, how to do this, that and that it's all about communication and how you manage people and document things. And it's like boring because most of the cases in the background, it's always a psychological trait. It's always the individual. It's always the person. And we always talk about feedback loops, right? For the leadership and the team but where is the feedback loop for the leader itself? So with yourself, you should have a feedback loop as well. And that's how you can utilize anything that you talked about before. Let's switch the perspective a little bit because we are always talking about leadership and how they form the teams. But from a, I wouldn't say average, but like a normal team member and employee, what kind of challenges they can face in terms of mental health if they are working with bad relational issues at the company.
I think what people are dealing with is very high stress when they don't know what's expected of them. So if communication is not clear enough, there are no clear expectations when it's vague when it's so yeah, when it's not clear, this is one, a very big one. I think when people don't talk enough, it also leaves rooms for a lot of assumptions. And assumptions are these ideas that form themselves in our head and then become monsters, which are very difficult to manage. So I think it's also a very important skill to understand and become aware. Wait a minute. Is this true? Is this a fact? Do I know this for a fact? Or is this an assumption? And if it's an assumption, then the question is, who and what can help me check if this is true or not? And then if I don't know who to talk to if I can't reach out to my manager or the leader of the company because they're just, they're not even true as well, or I'm afraid, or who knows, I will be shamed or blamed or I'm gonna ask something. I'm afraid I'm gonna ask something stupid or I'm not really well at using my voice in different situations. Then confront, this can seem like a confrontation.
Yes.
And confrontations are difficult to manage when we are far away. And when you communicate in writing, it leaves room for so much misunderstanding. So I think this is also a difficult one. I think that, I think If some people don't know how to plan their day, like you said as well do I know how to prioritize? Can I manage my time? Do I get enough sleep? Do I have a clear boundary? When do I start and finish work? And do I have things to do after work as well? Or is this all just one big blends all in together and then there's no separation anymore from your personal life and your work life. Is there clear working hours in the company, or do I expect evening calls or do we respect the time zones in which the people are, or do I have to get up at one o'clock because I don't know, one of my teams in the U. S. has a meeting there and I have to join. So it's a lot of seemingly small things that can have a big impact.
I wanted to ask this question so much from someone who actually works in this relationship business, but it might be controversial by the way. Do you think...
I like controversial.
Yeah. Let me challenge you then. Do you think there is, or there should be a work life balance in general? Because let me give you a context. I think it's made up. So I don't think that there is a clear differentiator between the two, even though you are an employee and you're not 100 percent responsible for the company's growth in terms of as an owner of entrepreneur or leader. Maybe the work hours that can actually put a barrier between the two in terms of how much time you allocate to the work and how much time you allocate to the personal life. But if there's a fight in your personal life, it will obviously affect your work life. And vice versa. So these are two interconnected things. And I don't really feel that there should be a really clear barrier between the two. I think it's more like a I don't know, it's like fluid, flux of jelly. I don't know. It's really hard to figure out. What do you think about that?
I was thinking about one of the coaches I worked with and some of her teachers told her once there is no such thing as work life balance. There's only life.
Yes.
And so how do you bring your balance, that balance into your life? it's I think on one hand it's different when you are running your own business. And I think it's different when you are an employee where an organization is more or less setting up a framework 40 hours per week from this hour to that hour, you have to be available. So it's a bit more given when, and where you need to be present and you need to be reachable and you have to also work. I think it also matters how frequently these very out of the ordinary things are happening. Yeah, of course it happens once or twice, there are companies which are in crisis. And if you also agreed to support them in the crisis, is this something you sign up for? So you have a saying whether, do I want to be that involved and available to this extent? And is that, fairly compensated as well? And if you agreed to it, then sure, why not? But it's not so black and white because, I don't know how you're feeling, but I love to work on weekends simply because I'm more well rested and if I have ideas and I have this impulse to do it then I just sit down and work. And there's so much work to do that is not client work, right? I think setting the boundaries, I think with every client, it's almost like a new negotiation of your time.
Yes.
I think it's a matter of really clarifying and setting up a framework and I just if I know and I agree what I want to do and what I have to do, then it's perfect. It's not a problem. The problem always starts when it's getting out of hand. And even then you can always come back to the table and rediscuss and readjust as necessary because nothing is like this. And this is what I'm so grateful for my own work that I'm doing in gestalt style therapy. And it's not ending. We also have to be continuously in supervision. We have to work on ourselves because we're working with people. And I'm so grateful because it's this understanding that you always have a choice. You can always clarify, you can always communicate you learn to become aware of your own needs. And this reduces the chances of living in a resentful, bitter life. Because you can agree to it, it enables your decision making in a different way that you thought was possible. And some people don't like it, and some people appreciate it very much, and it's just a matter of choosing who you want to work with and then it's fine.
This will be, might be a too generic question, might be too cheesy to ask us, actually but during my practice, not just in mentorship and working for others but like my 20 years of career in general, one of the biggest challenges is they always with not just for leaders, but employees as well, that people are afraid to be self responsible. They don't think that the decisions that they make is in their hands to make. They think that they are like a victim in a situation, a victim in a workplace, a victim in a relationship with them in a career choice that they do or victim of their financial choices. For example, okay, I need to work on this workplace and this job because I have other commitments financially within my personal life. So it means that I cannot be fired. So I need to swallow a lot from a, I don't know, a-hole boss or a leader. And I'm a victim of the situation. And I always said that, yes you are in a situation, but you're not in the situation as a victim, but you're in the situation because you actually chose to be in that situation from the very start with having kids, with having relationship, with having financial commitment and so on and so on. So everything has consequences and people don't like to hear that everything that they do have consequences. So why do you think is that?
I think we're just human and we make mistakes sometimes. But it's okay. And it can be that you are a victim in a situation, but if you, so here's where the part of working on yourself is so rewarding, because even if you feel like, Oh, I really, if I fell victim in a situation, then what do I do with the situation next is where the amazing work can happen. So I can have options A, B, C, and D to go through and see what could help me ease my situation or change it or ultimately get out of it, if it's unsustainable. So I think it's hard and I feel a lot of compassion for people who don't know how to get out of a situation but for example, it's what I've learned to appreciate gestalt therapies that when we're stuck, it's almost like this aspect of we don't know how to mobilize the resources and the energy we have in the right direction so we can take the right action to solve our problems. So we always go back to the awareness. Self awareness and awareness of the situation part because when we see clearly, when we understand clearly and also without judgment, our current reality then we can see different choices and start to take different decisions and ultimately get out of a situation.
Do you have any practical tips on because we are always getting back to the self awareness contextual awareness, and just to be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing stuff. And just to give you an example from my end is that if you're working remotely I think it should be inclusive and diverse in terms of how you work. But it also has to be transparent and honest. As many individuals we have in the team, they are working differently. Some of you are an nightowl, you are early riser, you are direct communicator, you are more like a soft chit chats person these are totally different ways, how people behave and how they prefer to work, which is okay, by the way. And but it should be transparent and honest for others. So for example, if you. Personally Iulia, you don't approach, you don't prefer to be directed super clear instructions for whatever reason, and you're more preferring the soft approach. As a leader, I should be aware of that. Otherwise I will offend you and you will leave and whatever. And one of the practices or tips that I usually give is just write up your user manual like written This is how I like to work. This is how I communicate with others. This is how I prefer to be communicated with this is when I am trying to work during which day of the time. So if you will schedule a meeting with me at 8 a. m I will probably die or stuff like that so like personal preferences. Any other tips from for example, the gestalt therapy on how to make people a little bit more self aware?
So self aware would be if I know about myself, what I need and how I like to work. That's already great. Do I know where I thrive and where do I suffer? In what environments or what context that's amazing to know, because then you can communicate it with others, but it's also one thing that I always advise to managers when they have team members is to sit down and discuss how they want to work together. So if you know your own style, share it and then co create the way this is going to work out in the context of this workplace. So sometimes you got to give and take a little, yeah, so it's a negotiation whereas I need to know my non negotiables in order to be able to negotiate this thing. And I also need to be able to have this, kindness in myself to know that I don't have to force the other person to, do things according to my way, because inevitably you will meet resistance in a passive or active form. And that's just not always very good to deal with another thing that I think is so easy to do, but not many people do it, or I hope more and more people do it, is just to focus on your breathing. Start to make it a habit that you focus on your breathing and you understand, am I breathing until here? Am I breathing until here, this shallow breath? Or am I breathing until my full lungs in my calm, or am I in this fight or flight state? Because that tells something about the situation I'm in, that's an information. So I can start to increase my self awareness when I know what's happening in my body. Do I have pain anywhere? Do I have tension in the body? Am I clenching my jaw? Is my forehead muscle completely wrinkled the whole time or? Are my arm like shoulders like this the whole time or can I check in with myself and see how is the stress level in my body? What do I need? Maybe I just need to go for a five minute walk to calm down. Maybe I'm just so stressed out. I just should calm down first. Or maybe I'm noticing how relaxed I am. And I'm actually quite well, I'm breathing well. I'm not cramped up. My stomach is not like this. so for example, if you go into a meeting and your stomach jumps into this in the form of my fist, and your breathing is shallow. That's an information. So if you start to pay attention to what's happening, we pick up things. We don't do anything alone. We always do it in a relation with others and with our environment. Am I safe? Am I not safe? What am I afraid? Am I holding back? Am I attacking? What am I doing? Am I just like freezing? Oh, there's so many cases where people freeze with client situations. It's very intense and all this intense energy and this direct aggression that comes towards some people. You can make them freeze. The others can make them fight back. It's like, how did you learn to deal with difficult situations? What we're calling gestalt, the creative adjustment is very much informing you what you're about to do next. Some people just don't say a word and they hold back, they don't even breathe. Others were shouting at the other one and also get maybe violent it depends how you learn to deal with difficulties.
This is so interesting that you're listening to your personal body language can totally change how you be more self aware on a mental level.
Yeah.
So maybe it can be extended into group sessions as well. So I wouldn't say group meditation or something like that, but like more breathing techniques or any kind of physical activity.
There's one very simple one you can do always when you feel that it's too much. There's a technique where you inhale to the count of four, you hold your breath in for a moment, and then you exhale through the mouth through the count of six. And what this does, it's always twice, two seconds more exhale than you inhaled. And what this does is that it helps to activate the vagus nerve, which is then in touch with your autonomous nervous system. So it can take you from this flight state into what they call the parasympathetic functioning, which is the rest and digest. So you can notice that after you do this type of breathing you don't have your arms and your legs crossed, but you find the more you stabilize your body in the chair where you are, or wherever you're laying down, you try to stabilize yourself. You start to make it conscious that my back is supported. My feet are on the ground, I'm breathing and all this kind of things can help you to be more present and to calm down. So there's so much that you can do to help in in difficult situations. I do this at the beginning of my sessions, not all the time, but most of the time. I also did it in business context, which was at the beginning strange for my clients, but then they got used to it. I think, I said, okay, let's breathe. What do you mean? Just breathe. You can close your eyes, leave them open as you wish, but let's just breathe before this meeting together.
Nice.
And then you notice, Oh, so what did you notice? You don't have to share, but just notice where was your breathing. And then some people also share always Oh my God, I was noticed that I'm very shallow breathing. And if you don't breathe, you can't think well, of course, you just make your whole meeting so much productive. If you ground yourself a bit and you are present and more connected to the others and then the fact that we were just breathing here together for a moment, two minutes, and then we can continue with business as usual.
So actually that and it works perfectly remotely, by the way.
Yeah, I did it online actually.
Yeah. Yeah.
So just for you can leave it on. It's up to the group to decide, it's a cool thing to do together.
Nice. Do you offer any kind of remote work, remote coaching for leaders as well? And if so how people can find you?
Yes, I do. Right now I work mainly remote from Portugal and then every three months I'm in Germany for a couple of weeks. The best way to find me is through LinkedIn from my personal and my business LinkedIn profile.
Perfect. It will be linked within the show notes of this episode, by the way. Iulia, thank you. Thank you for coming here. These are so great insights and I hope this can actually help people to be a little bit more clear with their mental health, a little bit more self aware and a little bit more relaxed. It's just relation. I don't want to devalue, but it's just relationships. You don't have to stress over everything. And I hope everything that you shared is really helpful for improving that.
Yeah, I think I really hope that more and more people become kinder to themselves and even if they're not doing things well, that it's okay and they can anytime switch. I'm trying to be more allowing and kind to, it's okay. No problem if we're doing anything wrong, it's okay.
Yes. We can learn from it. Again, thanks for coming here.
Thank you so much. Thanks.
