Engy Fouda
She is an engineer, a therapist, a life coach, a marriage counselor, a writer, a social media expert, a public speaker, a teacher, and a radio show host. Honored by thirty-two international awards and grants, she holds a bachelor and master’s degrees in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egypt.
Dahlia Mostafa is a multi-talent, that’s the least we can say.
For her graduate studies, Dahlia moved to Canada. She finished the doctoral degree courses and research in Electrical Engineering at McGill University. After ample years of experience in engineering, she was exposed to a life-adversity upon which she decided to switch her career in psychology. Currently, Mostafa is a Ph.D. Fellow in Leadership, Policy, and Change with an area of focus in Counseling Psychology at Walden University, United States of America. Moreover, half million people from all over the world follow her Facebook fan page.
Dahlia Mostafa is the president and chief executive officer of CLICK Coaching & Counseling Inc. Other than the youth and career coaching, Mostafa is an expert in treating anxiety and depression, anger release and anger management, and fear analysis. Being a mother and happily married give her credibility and life experiences in addition to her study and research to be a successful marriage counselor and parenting educator.
Why switching career?
In December 2007, her mother was in a coma, and the doctors said that she was a hopeless case. Dahlia stood behind the glass looking at her mother with many devices connected to her. Suddenly, the whole world seemed blurry except her mother’s look and the devices’ beeping. Ready to make anything to bring her mother back, Dahlia said in retrospect, “Maybe Allah wants me to do something,” and at that moment, she made a promise. Surprisingly, after a short while, her mother was healed.
The promise was to help others solve their problems and share with them her knowledge and to guide them to know their life purpose. Consequently, she registered for a coaching online degree and decided that this the time for her career shift; since then, her career in therapy has embarked.
Besides, she studied engineering not out of passion rather follow her father who was 62 years old when Dahlia was born. As she loved him dearly, she studied engineering merely to be like him. However, she wished if she could study psychology, but the taboos against such study were so strong.
“Some people know the purpose of their life at once while others recognize it later in their lives. If it is not too late, some have the courage to do the career shift,” Dahlia said.
How to determine your life purpose?
“The mind, that we are talking about, represents 5%, while the client and I have to dig into the 95% subconscious mind,” Dahlia points out to the difference between the conscious mind which is responsible for logic and reasoning while the subconscious mind which is the dormant state, is responsible for the involuntary actions, and contains the beliefs and memories.
As the clients cannot explore their subconscious by themselves; especially, if they suffer from past blockage or trauma, Dahlia discloses her procedure that the first step is to define the clients’ identity by revealing the self-image by tailoring profound questions according to the patients’ personality. Then, defining the values and the belief systems. In other words, the values like finances or family or the different priorities while the beliefs are how the one thinks about oneself: negatively or positively.
For example, if someone’s beliefs, “I am a complete failure,” this is not only a negative belief: it is a self-limiting belief.
“There are three crucial factors that affect the one’s behavior: anger, fear, and guilt,” Dahlia analyses the behavior motives. Emphasizing on these three factors, Dahlia resolves the patient’s suffering. At this step, the counseling and coaching complete each other. She clarifies that probably one of the parents or one the teachers is the reason behind that negative belief of failure; hence, counseling sessions help in decoding the blocking memory and freeing the client emotions from the strident acquaintance.
The difference between coaching and counseling
“There are three tenses in life: the past, present, and future. Coaching is from present to future while counseling is from past to present,” Dahlia declared. Moreover, she states that if people focus on the present, they will have a balanced life.
However, if a negative incident captivates someone causing anger and guilt, the counseling works to help the patient vent and free from the past. On the other hand, if someone jumps to the future, endures worry, and feels lost, the coaching guides by planning the steps and acquiring the required skills.
As the awareness is a usual hurdle for rife Arab people -even in the west- who seldom refuge to the psychological therapy, Dahlia uses her radio show to share her knowledge to encourage her audience to share their problems. Surprisingly, some husbands call her during or after the show to discuss their marital issues while she thought that reaching them and moving their minds were an obstacle.
Radio
To solve the daily problems faced by the Arab immigrants in Canada, Dahlia hosts a show on Canadawy Radio Channel called “Inspirations with Dahlia.” Remarkably, she succeeds to shift some minds towards accepting marital consultation that saved some families from the divorce. Moreover, the program has peculiar guests who share their life experiences with the audience.
Furthermore, she shares her tips on how she balances her work with her house and family responsibilities. In one of her radio pods, she focuses on women, the pillars of happiness, their psychological stability, and its impact on the whole family. Furthermore, Dahlia talks about the popular psychological problems that woman faces from fear, peeve, guilt as a mother, wife, and daughter.
Advice to all parents
In the account of a final precious advice, Dahlia warns parents, who live in the west and return to the home countries during vacations, from family members’ harassment. Accordingly, she vouches for believing the children when they mention that they were exposed to sexual harassment and to defend them.
“Sometimes the harassment happens from the children’s cousins or uncles. This is sad and devastating! Parents must keep their eyes on their children when they are back home,” Dahlia concluded.