We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dalia Halabi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dalia below.

Dalia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

A defining moment for me, both professionally and personally, was experiencing complete burn out while working a corporate job. There’s nothing like hitting rock bottom to help you gain perspective.

From the outside I was living THE life… I had just gotten a promotion at the PR agency I was working at managing a roaster of multinational clients that any communications professional would dream of. I was living in my gorgeous apartment in Dubai, galivanting around one of the most extravagant cities in the world, with all the ‘nice things’ I’d acquired. So yeah, I was living THE life…the one I was sold from a young age and was conditioned to believe would make me happy. but the price I paid was my wellbeing.

From the inside though, I was miserable. Long hours at the office working a job where you had to always be ‘on’ left me drained. I’d come home too tired to work out or cook, so I feasted off the dopamine hits my addiction to sugar and ‘crap TV’ afforded me. In short, I was stuck in this vicious cycle of wondering why I was so unhappy when I ‘should’ be happy. But since nothing good ever comes from shoulding yourself, eventually my mental and physical health took a toll until I was completely burnt out.

Here are three things I realized at rock bottom:
– Breaking down is a blessing because it gives you an opportunity to rebuild.
– To build up, you must first break down the subconscious programs and patterns you have been operating from and repeating.
– To set solid foundations, you must first get to know yourself, what your values and strengths are, and how to align your goals and actions with them.

The beauty of rock bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up, and that requires inspired action which is somewhere between ‘being’ and ‘doing’.

The being looks like…nothing…as in doing no thing. In our productivity obsessed culture that can be a tough pill to swallow, especially with the productivity guilt associated with resting but the rest is as important as the hustle and giving yourself the grace and space to integrate and just be is so important. People wear being busy like a badge of honor, and I think because at some level we derive a sense of worth and identity from what we do…but realizing that we are inherently worthy has been a game changer for me…you don’t have to do anything to be worthy…you just are. Remember you are a human being, not a human doing.

When you do do make sure you are ‘doing’ the work. That looks like unlearning outdated coping mechanisms, unhelpful narratives, and archaic perceptions of self, while learning how to reparent yourself, emotionally regulate, and rewire your subconscious. I spent time getting to know myself all over again, who I really am, what I really want, and I finally understood that part of the reason I was so unhappy was because I wasn’t utilizing my strengths and natural talents to create a life that is truly reflective of me. It was time for a career change… I had always been interested in mental health, so I decided to go back to school.

I got a Master of Science degree in Applied Psychology, studied Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Neurolinguistic Programming, and became a certified Life Coach, Energy Healer, and Yoga teacher. Basically, I spent the rest of my career funding my education and applying what I learned on myself, and boy did my life change. I healed from things I didn’t even realize were holding me back, I processed trauma that I didn’t even know was living in my body, and I reached into the depths of my soul and found the strength to recreate myself and my life.

When I saw how much my life positively changed, I knew I had to share what I’ve learned with others. So, I started taking on clients, teaching workshops, and creating free mental health content on social media. Soon I had made a name for myself, seeing clients regularly, being paid to teach and speak, I was finally doing what I knew I was meant to be doing, I just had to hit rock bottom, and change my entire career and trajectory to get there.

Dalia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a Lebanese American, trauma informed, mental health professional, accredited coach, certified energy healer and yoga teacher. I give private and group sessions, teach workshops, courses, and masterclasses, and offer corporate packages to help businesses empower their workforce.

What makes my approach unique is that I mix various tools from different disciplines to curate a customized healing experience suited to my clients. I remember studying clinical counselling in graduate school and feeling like there must be a better way to help people than just talk therapy. I didn’t want to have my clients open the same wound over and over again so I began exploring different methods to compliment my degree. I went on to study a lot of different modalities over the years from cognitive behavioral therapy to hypnotherapy, neurolinguistic programming, Reiki healing, Theta healing, sound healing, Access Bars, and more. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from having worked with a myriad of clients internationally over the past decade, is that there’s no one size fits all, and I was able to make a name for myself by being able to curate my sessions around my client’s needs and learning styles. I made a promise to myself early on in my career in wellness to never let anyone become dependent on me, to teach them how to be their own therapist so they can do the work themselves.

Other than my extensive education, my life experiences have contributed to making me a good practitioner. I relate a lot of Carl Jung’s ‘wounded healer’ archetypal figure which he described as a person who has gone through profound suffering, trauma, or personal struggles and has emerged from those experiences with greater self-awareness, wisdom, and healing abilities. I have seen and been through a lot- from being a third culture kid moving around a lot, to my parents’ divorce, to living through wars, experiencing abuse, being held at gun point, I mean my list could go on for a while. However, having faced and integrated my own wounds and shadows, allows me to better help others in their healing journeys.

A lot of my most successful offerings revolve around things that I’ve struggled with and overcame and include what has helped me most on my own journey. Here are my top three:

1. Inner child healing/shadow work: Did you know that 50% of our mental and emotional programming is done by the adults in our lives by the time we’re five years old? Our later experiences then reinforce these beliefs, and we create a ‘script’ or ‘narrative’ around who we have to be and how our lives should be. We then carry these immature scripts with us into adulthood — where they run our lives more than 90% of the time. Learning how to reparent our inner children, rewrite those scripts, and rewire our subconscious is a powerful practice. I experienced a lot of trauma in my childhood and doing this kind of work helped me shift and heal a lot so I know it’s possible to flip the script and take matters into your own loving hands. Along with the private sessions I offer, I teach a ‘Connecting with and Healing your Inner child’ workshop on my website www.daliahalabi.com that people can download and do the work themselves. Inner child healing is by far the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced-I’ve never taught or gave a session on this subject without witnessing people having the most profound breakthroughs, and till this day I have a habit of talking with my own inner child, a practice that has literally changed my life.

2. Empowerment Coaching: this package consists of six sessions each thoughtfully designed to address specific areas of personal growth and development: Rooted in Positive Psychology, what distinguishes my coaching style is that I like to focus on what’s right with you, not just what’s wrong. I help you identify your values and set goals that are aligned with who you really are, cultivating your inherent strengths and natural talents, rewire your subconscious mind to implement positive cognitive and behavioral changes. arm you with coping tools and skills and teach you how to manage your emotions. You also get a comprehensive 50-page workbook filled with valuable knowledge, exercises, and practical tools tailored to support your progress and allow you to continue your personal growth journey long after the coaching sessions have ended. Remember the story of how I recreated my life and shifted my career? Well, I can help you do the same.

3. Anxiety Relief: I struggled with anxiety most of my life, sometimes without even know it was anxiety. Most of my youth was spent in and out of hospitals complaining from stomach pain but doctors could never figure out what was wrong. It wasn’t until I was a senior in university that a doctor recommended that I see a therapist because my stomach issues were all psychosomatic. That’s when I learned that trauma lives in your body and can create anxiety, and that emotions are called feelings because you can actually feel them. Learning how to regulate my nervous system, move trauma somatically, and become mindful of my cognitive distortions or thoughts, helped me overcome anxiety was a major turning point. I feel
absolutely blessed that I now get to show others how to do the same. Other than seeing clients privately, I also offer a ‘Managing Anxiety’ workshop on my website that people can download and self-study. It’s rooted in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and uses tools from CBT and Mindfulness practices to teach you how to alleviate anxiety.

I like to think that I’m a walking tribute to doing this kind of work. After ‘doing the work’ on myself I had so many friends ask me what I was doing different because they couldn’t explain or understand my ‘glow up’ it was subtle yet profound… I just vibrated at a different frequency, and as my energy changed, so did my life. If I can do it, so can you. I’m here to remind you of your own power, while showing you the way.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

In the wellness industry, it’s one thing to have the right knowledge, and it’s another to actually apply it to yourself. One thing that I hold myself very accountable for is ensuring I’m constantly working on myself, applying my teachings onto my own life, and leading by example. In other words, I don’t just talk the talk, I walk it, and I let my life be a testimony of what I can do. From this place of authentic embodiment, I am in a position to attract the right clients, and opportunities that lead to success.

The wellness industry is really booming, especially after COVID when mental health became a trending topic. I know from my own practice, the number of clients who came to see me because they were struggling with anxiety skyrocketed during that time. It wasn’t because people suddenly started getting anxious, it was because people were finally realizing that they have been struggling with it, but they were too busy distracting themselves to really pay attention. The one good thing that came out of this is that the stigma around mental health began to decrease, and more and more people were speaking out. The not so good thing that also happened was that a lot of unqualified people began to position themselves as mental health experts, and while they may have meant well, the advice they gave wasn’t always the most beneficial, or they were just reciting some ‘therapy speak’ without really applying it to their own lives.

There’s one thing I tell people when they are looking for a therapist, coach, healer, or mentor… Is the life of this individual reflective of the teachings you’d like to embody? Are they actually practicing what they preach?

Have you ever had to pivot?

This is the tale of how I uprooted my entire life from Dubai and moved to LA at the height of my career. Everyone called me crazy, but I followed my intuition here and haven’t looked back.

By now you know the story of how I shifted my career from Public Relations to Mental Health and wellness. When I finally began living in alignment with my most authentic self, and doing the work constantly, opportunities began to flow to me. I was a regular on one of the most prominent morning shows in the region talking about all thing’s mental health, I had a little stint in reality tv, Nike recruited me to do a campaign for them and I was teaching yoga and mindfulness for one of the most iconic brands in the world. I was on cloud nine, really enjoying my newfound recognition and the freedom of doing what I knew I was meant to be doing.

Did I mention that I was also a hiking guide? I would take people hiking in the desert, mountains or valleys of the UAE. I’m a big nature lover and hiking is one of my favorite things to do. One day I was on my way to lead a sunrise hike and got into a horrible car accident. It was one of those near-death experiences that makes you revaluate your entire life and what’s actually important. By that point I had been living in Dubai for 10 years, and it had been very good to me. I had a great life, great friends, great career…but after my accident I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was still missing. I had fractured my neck and collarbone and hurt my back so I wasn’t able to teach yoga or take people hiking.

My sister had just moved to LA from New York and invited me to come visit her for a little change of scenery. I had been to LA many times, and it always had a special place in my heart. I’ll never forget how on this visit I was sitting on the shore of Laguna Beach and witnessed the most magnificent sunset. Hues of red, pink, and orange painted the sky with the most exquisite brushstrokes that it brought tears to my eyes. I feel most connected when I’m in nature and it really hit me right then and there that that was what was missing. Don’t get me wrong the UAE has nature but to get to the nearest mountain it’s like a 2-3 hour drive and the kind of nature there is very different. I wanted to live a life where I can wake up and find myself on a hiking trail or be in a closer proximity to a forest or a waterfall.

I decided right then and there that I would go back to Dubai, pack my things, and move to LA. I didn’t really have a plan for what I would do when I got here I just knew this is where I needed to be.

Leaving a place where people knew who I was to move somewhere nobody knows me was such an ego death experience. It forced me to take inventory of who I was without all the titles that decorated my name and tap into my essence. I learned so much about myself and found comfort in my resilience and courage. It’s been two years since I moved here and while building up my practice is happening slowly but surely, I understand that life is more than just how many clients I have, and how much is in the bank. Success to me is about waking up each day feeling grateful to be alive, doing what I love to do in a place where I feel connected to myself, and to the divine.

Being in the place where people come to make it I find myself with a new burst of inspiration, taking the role of content creator very seriously. I’m currently working on a YouTube channel to share psychoeducational content as well as yoga flows and meditation and am also working on a new podcast for myself and my guests to share vulnerably and honestly about the things that they’ve gone through and how they’ve overcome them. I truly believe if we were all a bit rawer and more shared our wisdom the world would be a better place… watch this space… I hope you’re ready for me LA

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.daliahalabi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daliahalabi88/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalia-halabi-00385139/
• Youtube: watch this space ;)
• Other: Podcast coming soon

Image Credits
Nadine Reader (for coaching pics)