Brand the Interpreter

The Art of Self-Care for Interpreters: Exploring Strategies with Gabriela Bocanete

• Mireya Perez • Season 6 • Episode 102

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What if there was a way to overcome the grueling challenges faced by interpreters and emerge from each assignment with energy to spare? That's exactly what we're exploring in today's episode with our special guest, Gabriela Bocanete. A veteran conference interpreter, trainer extraordinaire, and health coach, Gabriela is here to share a wealth of self-care strategies for interpreters. Her practical advice ranges from the importance of breaks and fresh air to ward off fatigue, to mental and emotional preparation techniques that ensure you're in the best shape to take on your assignment.

We also get an intimate look at Gabriela's impressive educational and professional trajectory, where languages, literature, and even contemporary dance have all played a part in molding the expert she is today. We hear the harrowing story of a colleague who faced a major setback at a medical conference, a potent reminder of the crucial role preparation and self-care play in optimal interpreting performance.

But it doesn't stop there. We zoom out to the larger picture, discussing the urgent need for recognition and unity within the translation profession. Gabriela lets us into her experiences with the Asociación Colombiana de Traductores e Intérpretes (ACTI) and her volunteer work with the Chartered Institute of Linguists in the UK. We wrap up our enlightening chat with Gabriela's invaluable tips on maintaining health and well-being in the interpreting field. From tidying up your workspace and minimizing distractions to simple yet powerful practices for rest and self-care, there's a gem for every interpreter in our discussion. So, don't miss out on this journey into the world of interpreting with the remarkable Gabriela Bocanete.

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Connect with Gabriela!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela-bocanete/ https://www.facebook.com/vitalityandgentleresilience https://www.instagram.com/gabrielabocanete/ https://gabrielabocanete.com/vitality-resilience/ https://vimeo.com/gabrielabocanete
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Other Episode Mentioned:
👉 Mindful Interpreting with Francisca Hoces
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👉 Orange County Department of Education 7th Annual Interpreters and Translators Conference - September 29th and 30th - at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, California

Conference registration site link: https://link.ocde.us/ITC2023

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Thanks for tuning in, till next time! 👋

Connect with Mireya Pérez, Host
www.brandtheinterpreter.com
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Speaker 1:

Are you hungry for more knowledge and eager to perfect your interpretation craft? The Academy of Interpretation offers a wide range of courses, workshops and language testing to elevate your interpreting skills. I know firsthand how challenging our job can be, but that's why Brandy Interpreter exists. And now the Academy of Interpretation is here to support your journey even further. Trust me, their resources are a game changer. I've had the pleasure of collaborating with their team on multiple occasions, so why wait? Visit their website today, academyofinterpretationcom, where excellence in interpretation begins.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back Language Professionals. Thanks for joining me today on another episode of the Brandy Interpreter podcast. Today's episode brings us Gabriela Bocanete all the way from the UK. Gabriela has been a conference interpreter for over 20 years. As a trainer, she has designed and delivered specialist courses and webinars on health and stress-related topics, lately focusing on brain and hearing health. As a health coach, gabriela draws on her multidisciplinary skills and expert understanding of stress, its causes and consequences, offering gentle interventions and bespoke solutions for improving brain performance and building resilience. She loves coaching clients to use embodied awareness to create holistic habits for mental, emotional and physical health. Sounds like something interpreters and translators can use. In our conversation, gabriela shares some strategies on how to overcome some of the difficulties we face as interpreters. She shares practical steps to take before, during and after an interpreting assignment. She also shares some pretty easy practices that we can implement, such as taking breaks and getting fresh air in order to prevent fatigue and increase focus. So yes, you've guessed it today's episode has to do with self-care for interpreters. So don't skip this episode. Definitely something we can all use in our day-to-day, particularly for those difficult assignments.

Speaker 1:

So, without further ado, please welcome Gabriela Pocanete to the show. Gabriela, thank you so much for being here today. I am so happy to have the opportunity to bring you on the show, have you as a guest to share all your wisdom and knowledge on today's specific topic, which we'll get into in just a little bit. Welcome, thank you for having me. Absolutely, absolutely Nice to meet you too, gabriela. Yes, and I'm so excited, as always, to bring these topics as they are related to the interpreting profession. So I'm happy to have you here and I'm happy to be able to share the information. Let's get started, shall we Beginning with getting to know Gabriela just a little bit, if you would be so kind, gabriela, to share with us where you grew up and what a fond childhood memory is of yours.

Speaker 2:

I grew up in Mischa, romania, western Romania.

Speaker 2:

So this is an area called Banat which has always been multilingual and multiethnic, and I was lucky enough to have both a great grandmother and a great mother, who actually raised me, who were multilingual without having gone to university, so they were speaking the languages of the other minorities in the area.

Speaker 2:

They have friends and exchanged recipes for typical foods, and my grandmother who raised me, she used to have a recipe book for Hungarian foods that she took notes in in Hungarian, for German foods in German and for Serbo-Croatian foods in Serbo-Croat. So I grew up in this area with lots of languages around me, which of course influenced my interests and my love for multiculturalism and diversity, and also they saw that I was good at languages, I guess from an early age, and then they got me a private French teacher. When I was six I used to go to private French lessons with another girl she was probably one year older than me and we had this very good French teacher and I was so happy coming home from these afternoon lessons and speaking to my grandfather and my grandmother in French and they spoke French. They were happy to see me speak French.

Speaker 1:

So that was good. So you were showing off that you could actually speak in French now, even though you knew that they didn't understand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was just practicing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And they were like yeah, good.

Speaker 1:

She's learning.

Speaker 2:

It's a good investment.

Speaker 1:

That is actually a very great way to grow up in understanding and at least having that visual representation and experience of multiculturalism and multilingualism right. You had the ability to grow up in that environment and, in addition to that, seeing that your core, your family in this case your grandma and you were also experiencing not just the language but also the food that of course, comes with many cultures, which I mean. That's such a beautiful way of growing up. When did you begin doing the English language in a more formal academic setting? Do you recall?

Speaker 2:

So I was born in this small town 30 kilometers south of Timchara, and then we moved. So when I went to high school I had to pass an exam, because this was a very good school and there were lots of like three pupils for every place.

Speaker 2:

So, I passed this exam and we moved. I was lucky enough to live near the school and I told a lie from the other school because they asked me what languages in Romania at that time there were two. You would study two foreign languages and my first was French and my second was Russian, which I didn't want because it was obligatory. Nobody loved it because it was imposed later on, of course I regretted not having studied it, because this is a vast culture in Russian, right. But so I said French and English.

Speaker 2:

And then they let me go to a couple of classes and then, of course, my paperwork came and they said you didn't do English, you have to go to your Russian classes. So I went and then in the afternoon, in the evening there was some sort of evening school for adults. So I started learning English with a classmate's father I was sitting next to him, so the old adults and I was the only teenager and plus some private lessons. So I continued my Russian classes, but it was just doing the minimum effort just to pass the subject. But English was something that I really wanted to study, so I put lots more effort into it. And then at uni I went and I had English as my major and again, I passed quite a competitive admission test. Wow, and English as a major and French as a minor.

Speaker 1:

So at this point, how many languages were you speaking?

Speaker 2:

So from my family, because my stepmother's family are German. So I was speaking some German I could understand, as everybody else some Serbo, croat and some Hungarian in my environment at school, and all that and I was speaking already French and English and I knew a couple of songs in Russian, what was required to pass school.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, that's so great. You ended up at some point thinking, potentially, that you knew what you wanted to do when you grow up. What was that thought? Do you recall what you thought or aspired to be once you got older? It was so difficult for us.

Speaker 2:

We were not allowed to travel, so I was dreaming about traveling and seeing the world. So I thought maybe I should become a flight attendant and I could travel right.

Speaker 1:

And use your languages.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't to be so. I did travel a lot, but I had to work for a commercial airline to travel almost free.

Speaker 1:

So at some point you ended up deciding then that you were going to focus on the interpreting field or using language professionally. Walk us through that experience and how that all came to be.

Speaker 2:

So my generation was the first year when in Romania they specialized high schools. So they specialized high school and I was at this school that was specializing in they call it a philology story. So philology, humanities, practically philology and history, and I had. So I had Latin, I had history of music, history of arts, history of some history, but we had so more humanities. I was studying French language and literature and lots of about French culture.

Speaker 2:

And the four years of Latin, of course, were very useful for later on, when I studied, when I learned Spanish, I didn't even have to study it, I was just reading in Spanish. And having all these background structures in grammar and having learned Romanian, french, some Italian at university as well, plus Latin, it makes it very easy. And so when I was in last year of high school, there was a possibility because I was participating in academic olympiads. In French. I was a champion in academic olympiads, so first it's school level, then the region and then a country level, and my French teacher was very proud of me, of course.

Speaker 2:

So he said you could go and pass this test to become an interpreter. You could be a specialist interpreter for tourists, and it was actually. You were an interpreter and a translator. So, officially, if you passed this test and it was specialized like journalism and literature, business, I think. So I did it both for French and for English before I got to uni, before that year. That same year, when I had passed to the uni course, I also did my and I also did my dancing certificate.

Speaker 1:

Really.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I was. That was funny because I was in a contemporary dance group again evening school, and we had to go to Bucharest to present this test and it was kind of in the same dates when I was doing my university admission test. So the whole group were in Bucharest presenting this test without me and I got there about two hours later and the jury were two or three choreographers and dance teachers were like okay, so do the dance and count for yourself, because I didn't even have the music. They had done it two hours earlier and they had left the venue and I was like one, two, three, one, two, three. So that was very important. Everything happened that year. Oh wow. Of course I've never become a dance teacher or anything, but I still love dancing whenever I can. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's so amazing, Especially when you're doing all these different things that you enjoy and doing it at the same time. And I say that because I've heard of other guests on the show that have actually combined their different interests to ultimately something that becomes something new, right, where they're utilizing both the interpreting and other aspects or other skill sets and make that into something completely new. So I like that because I think it's integrated eventually later on down your path, this love for the arts or, you know, in this case, dance right or music sound. So we'll talk a little bit about this in just a little bit. But academically, did you at some point begin a course in interpreting studies or how did that go for you?

Speaker 2:

So it turns out this four year plus dissertation course which is not quite, it's more than a BA in the Western world, it's almost like an MA course was very good and more intense because we didn't have Saturdays free, so we used to study on Saturdays as well, half a day. And so when I worked as a teacher, as an English and French teacher, for a year or so before I got married and I moved to Colombia and I realized in Colombia how good my education had been because I got to work with other language teachers and my qualifications and my knowledge was far superior, and so they used to give me in Colombia in my teaching jobs they used to give me to teach the most difficult classes and the sequence of tenses and all the grammar that nobody else wanted to teach. But I was happy, I like grammar. And among the practices that we had because we had summer practice and almost like like internship jobs in the summer during the university years there was also I went to be a tour guide once. I did lots of translation. I published in the university newspaper the translation of a short story by Jerome K. Jerome, oh, really, yeah, I have to retrieve that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so there was a lot of good practical skills as well. So my tour guide work experience was of course also interpreting not in a booth, but we did have at university. It was also very well set up with. We had a phonetics lab where we had to record ourselves and listen. So there was lots of overlap with interpreting practice. But then my first job in the booth was in Colombia and the first time actually was not paid. But an older colleague, more experienced colleague, took me with her and she said do a few minutes, do a few minutes. And she allowed me to do it, and so I got a little bit of practice and she just trusted me then and we started. We started working together, wow yeah.

Speaker 1:

What languages was it for? English, spanish, or what languages?

Speaker 2:

Spanish, yes 20 years that I lived in Colombia, I worked almost exclusively between English and Spanish, except for a couple of trials that were held in in Iranian. But yeah, so then when I moved to London in 2007, I thought well, to improve my interpreting skills into Romanian, and now that I'm near to Romania I'm going to do a master's course interpreting. So I had lots of experience, but it was almost exclusively Spanish, english into Spanish, spanish into English. I worked a lot with high level meetings and negotiations and technical courses and clients because there were plenty of mergers and acquisitions and stuff like that business settings and also even focus groups and, yeah, a lot of international events in Bogota and in Colombia and in Bogota and in Cartagena. There's a beautiful conference center in Cartagena by the Caribbean Sea.

Speaker 2:

So I came to London, I moved to London and I did this master's course at London Metropolitan University and that's when, having gained my yoga qualification, my coaching qualification, I was so lucky, I was so blessed. Always I could, I had this curiosity for learning more, but also I had the facility and sheer luck. I was friends with an academic director of one of the business schools the best business schools in Bogota and she used to organize the evening courses like master's courses or diploma courses that were for people who worked, so they were coming from work to these very good quality tuition courses. As long as she had like 10 or 12 paying, she could invite one or two people, and I was always invited to these, like business communication courses, nlp coaching, all sorts of hypnotherapy, and I was just learning and learning. I was so happy. So then of course, here in the UK I continued to do and I got another coaching qualification and my yoga qualification, which I loved.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. So it's safe to say that you, that you did appreciate interpreting once you had the opportunity to enter the booth out in Colombia, and then so much so that when you come back to London, you enter into the master's program. And what did you? I guess, what did you get out of that program that you didn't necessarily realize beforehand about? About the profession.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was curious to know. First of all, validation right, I wanted to validate that I was doing a good job and I was also curious about scholarship. So what do the scholars, what does the theory teach us about interpreting? And I had very good lecturers as well for theory, for interpreting theory, and then later on I became a tutor myself on the master's course for for students who were doing it with Romanian, just like myself.

Speaker 3:

Oh really.

Speaker 2:

And so which was a beautiful experience as well I worked there for four years and yeah, and so I could then apply my my specific listening skills and people were telling me that I was giving extraordinary feedback. So, because it was kind of holistic now thinking back, I was paying attention to the emotions, that in the tone of the voice of the interpreter and how I would teach them, how to improve that and other things that maybe other tutors wouldn't necessarily do that that way, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and here, like this is this you would say, what you're bringing in through your experience, as particularly your coaching experience with, with yoga and those aspects. Right, you're it's sort of naturally coming into your feedback process based on these experiences.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and also the fact that at this commercial airline, when I was working part time for 10 years, the rest of my time I was translating and interpreting. So I did two years probably on telephone sales, and then you learn to listen to that emotion in the voice and you recognize people by their voices. And it was useful as well, you know, for that aspect of giving feedback after listening to an interpreted performance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what you know. We just I just interviewed someone that actually spoke about the feedback process and the importance of feedback in the interpreting industry and the work that we're doing. And then, of course, it's feedback, but that's useful feedback in a way that is actually going to help your performance. But, in addition to performance, I think it's also a great way of assisting and supporting you as a professional, mentally as well, because I think that there are components in the feedback process, of course, depending on who is giving the feedback, that either inspires you to continue growing or sort of halts you and questions, right. It makes you question yourself and your and your abilities.

Speaker 1:

So I could only imagine how appreciative your students, when you were tutoring in the feedback process that you were giving, being able to sort of give this, this more of a holistic approach for improvement, right, or growth, rather than it feeling like it was focusing maybe potentially on all the negative aspects, which, of course, right that that does tend to happen depending on who's giving the feedback. So you end up doing nearly, or more than 20 years in conference interpreting. Talk to us now. Let's get into what some of those experiences were. What did you identify as even potential gaps as a professional, now trained interpreter and then bringing in, you know, the this whole holistic approach into your work to, I imagine, improve your performance as well. But let's begin by understanding what some of those gaps were that you identified as you are doing the work yourself.

Speaker 2:

So gaps. At the beginning I noticed that lots of people because I was listening to voices and and tone of voice and and I'm very sensitive, to stress myself, so I can sense it even if it's unspoken, and I can being trained as I am in yoga and to go on another such disciplines. I can see it in the body sometimes or other times I sense it in the air. So what I was noticing at the beginning was in the UK was a lack of stress management techniques and people sometimes got almost panicky in the booth when something was not going perfectly or or freezing as some. It happened to to a colleague of mine once at the very big conference.

Speaker 1:

Oh really, talk to us a little bit about that experience. What was that like, or what were you witnessing?

Speaker 2:

Hmm. So this was a huge conference, but because there was so many intermediaries, like the agency who was putting together this probably never worked with interpreters before and they just they didn't send any materials. It was a medical, medical mix with pharma, and when we were asking to, to have something to prepare on, to prepare with, they were just they just sent us an email saying oh, it's a medical conference and they're going to talk about something to do with the centrifuge Centrifuge, yes, something to do with the centrifuge, and I still have to laugh. And the three days of conference, nobody ever said the word centrifuge, of course, oh no, so it was quite tough.

Speaker 2:

We were eight booths, I think, at least eight, and there was a chef, the keep, who was, if I'm not mistaken, I think, in the Russian booth and she was filming the first day because they had told us again, this middleman agency, you cannot have coffee with the delegates. And of course she was furious because this was insulting to to a team of professionals who hadn't been able to prepare. At least we could have gathered some information in the coffee break, right, at least they brought us some, some documents as the conference started, but it was no and near enough for what we would have liked to have to do it perfectly right. We tried to do it as best as we could have possibly done and my colleague, who was a very good interpreter in public services.

Speaker 2:

That's a community interpreting here in the US, exactly so in the UK it's called public services and she was used to working for the police, for the courts, very experienced. So as soon as the conference started and I think I may have started and then her turn, she just froze. She froze completely. She couldn't utter any, any kind of word or sentences. So I I continued working until the break and then I had to take her to quiet corner and say, look, it's difficult for everybody, but we have to do our best because it's not the delegates fault that we couldn't prepare. So we do our best, breathe, calm down and and just do your best. So so then later on she did, actually she did, and it was, it was okay, but she had frozen because she was not used to this level of technical medical information and and doctors Some doctors Very high technical, yes, and also some people.

Speaker 2:

When the speaker comes and says I've prepared this for it's a three hour presentation but I'm going to rush through it because we only have half an hour. No, that never happened. So those moments, those speakers, I was doing and she was doing the more normal ones and it was good. In the end it wasn't a success.

Speaker 2:

But there was this moment of you know the nervous system, the human nervous system, like any mammals, we have this rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic and mode of our nervous system. And then we have fight, flight or freeze. So the freeze is the worst. We never want to have that kind of. In other mammals, like the gazelle for example, when she's chased by a big cat and she's caught, the nervous system shuts down because the natural evolution has made it so that the animal doesn't suffer all that pain. So you freeze and then you're totally disconnected because otherwise it would be an enormous amount of pain and nature is wise like that and nature tries to avoid. So in the human the freeze reaction is you go blank, you go blank, you freeze, you can't find your words and you can't think straight and you also disconnect from the neck down.

Speaker 1:

It's a whole body reaction, huh.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so that's what happened to my colleague.

Speaker 1:

It makes me think of. So the gazelle you mentioned, but also the fainting goat. When they're scared, it's like a complete lock in their body. I don't know if anybody's ever watched any videos of fainting goats, but when they get spooked, their entire body locks and they just drop. So it's interesting. I don't know the science behind it or why, but it could potentially be something similar to what you just explained about the gazelle. So that's just it's interesting, because you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1:

In the human, if we've ever experienced the moment in which we freeze for any reason, it's everything right, it's vocal, it's physical, it's mental, like there is just everything, just freezes. So I could only imagine in the booth and I'm sure it's happened, even, like you mentioned, she's a public service interpreter, community interpreters experience that whenever we are also encountering a situation in which we do not know what to do or we have not prepared or have not encountered, it's almost like there's a hesitation to do anything. So anyway, we're going to get into this in a more deeper. But I want to go back to you, gavrila, and you were talking about your experience as a whole, just entering into the industry and identifying with this example. You just showed us that there was initially. You begin to identify some of these issues within the interpreting profession. What else were you identifying once you started professionally that you can remember?

Speaker 1:

The Orange County Department of Education is proud to host their seventh annual Interpreters and Translators Conference September 29th and 30th at the Hilton Orange County Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, california. This conference promotes the incredible work of interpreters and translators, bilingual persons and staff tasked with providing language access in schools and in the community. Know your path. Each step matters. To ensure language access is this year's theme and main focus. Conference sessions and engagements will respond to the core belief that language access is a foundational part of an inclusive and culturally responsive educational ecosystem. Participants will delve into unique opportunities to acquire and refine their skills, learn tips and strategies to enhance their professional practices, keep up to date with the latest trends, laws and expectations, and explore the use of diverse platforms and tools that can streamline their language service efforts.

Speaker 1:

Language access is a priority in public education and, as interpreters and translators working in the K-12 system are more visible than ever, becoming a substantial part of every educational encounter, it is imperative to professionalize the field through continuous improvement, training, growth and networking. The Orange County Department of Education Language Services team is at the forefront of providing these professional learning opportunities and experiences for its interpreters, translators, bilingual staff, school administrators and community liaisons, and is committed to communicating across cultures to provide meaningful language access to their families, students and the communities they serve. Join them this fall at the 2023 interpreters and translators conference to continue your professional learning and networking. Registration is now open, so head on over to the episode notes to find out more about the interpreters and translators conference hosted by the Orange County Department of Education's Language Services division, taking place September 29th and 30th. Hope to see you there.

Speaker 2:

So I had. In Colombia I had been a member of the ADA, the American Translators Association. I even helped organize certification for translators certification tests for them because I was certified myself. So they trusted me to hold these certification exams for them. And I was a founder of one of the associations, the Association Colombiana de Traductores Interpretes, which later on added another T for terminologists and so the ADA. My image about the ADA was like this huge association which actually represents very well the profession in the States and can set some standards and is well respected. And here there are so many.

Speaker 2:

When I came to the UK I realized there were several and there was not like I felt, because I became a volunteer for the interpreting division at the Charter Institute of Linguists. I was excellent for organizing CPD events and hosting beautiful events in Central London and very nice food and good speakers and everybody loved them. But I didn't feel like this unity and this big body that represents and that sets some standards and I'm talking specifically in terms of payment and having that cloud of recommending at least. You know it's a total taboo to talk about payment or about money in the English culture in general. But also I didn't feel that there was this drive forcefully enough or powerful enough to gain protection of title and to bring about the law like in Australia?

Speaker 2:

Right, there are not many countries around the world, but there are countries where you are protected by law and you have studied like so many years. And why should people respect lawyers and accountants and more than they respect us? They have no idea what we do and they generally say things like oh, where have you picked up your Spanish? I haven't picked up anything. I've studied and I've broken my bones studying and applying and practicing, and it's a profession and still not. It still doesn't have the representation and the cloud that I think it deserves. So that's what, unfortunately, is still ongoing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, unfortunately. Indeed. Yes and this is something that I think is a continued topic that is brought up by many guests here on the show is the desire to one day be recognized as a true profession, so that other things that fall under that category can also basically come into play, such as appropriate pay or appropriate salary right. So, yes, thank you so much for having shared that. I'm curious, then, eventually, how you ended up bringing in your holistic experiences aside from the tutoring aspects, or when you were doing the feedback, when you really began to formally introduce or combine, I should say, your passion for holistic approaches, particularly within the industry. Maybe did you start with yourself and starting to see some benefits. So talk to us or guide us through how these two worlds combined eventually.

Speaker 2:

Yes, definitely. I started with myself because, as I said, I'm quite sensitive to detecting stress in an environment and especially because from childhood I had a series of major surgeries and also my digestion has been delicate. I've had to learn, adapt, restrict, learn, adapt, restrict and again and again and again to stop having the issues that I had immediately after those surgeries because the doctors at that time didn't say, oh, you can't eat this, that and the other, because they have cellulose or whatever. You have to avoid this, and that they just did their bit. And that was it. I had to learn by trial and error, to go back in an ambulance sometimes, but it was a learning curve and I'm still here.

Speaker 2:

And that's how I started to become interested in women's health and in digestive health and together with yoga and specialist yoga courses like Yoga for Stress, chronic Fatigue and ME, so fatigue conditions, yoga for Digestive Health. So all these were initially my own interest to apply for myself, and then starting to notice around me that women approaching menopause, for example, women who had levels of stress that yeah, I'm not saying that interpreting is stressful for everybody, but life is at this increasingly a faster pace, is in the digital age, is becoming more and more demanding, and interpreting is a mentally taxing Everything is mentally taxing and all those efforts that we do cognitively Take a toll, so we have to Learn how to compensate that and how to avoid Burnout and so many other consequences that could come right. So that's first of all. It started with my own and then applying little by little to to others and my students when I was a tutor at London Merck University and I started giving these presentations Stress management for for linguists.

Speaker 2:

There's management for interpreters, voice management, which also has so much to do with your emotional state, right, you, the voices the most, the most telling Thing about your, your inner state, right, and so it grew, yeah, and then, before the pandemic, I had already created an online course and then, of course, the lockdowns came and luckily, my, my husband, who is a sound engineer genius, help me Make the transition to to online, and we adopted my, my garden studio for for webcasting as well.

Speaker 1:

Wow, so great for our listeners that don't have the ability to see the background. Would you describe what it is that we're seeing in your background there in your room? Because it's beautiful, by the way.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. So there are five large gongs. Two of them are planetary gongs the earth gong and mercury, because of course mercury communication, interpreting, travel. And then there is one gong which is Nepalese gong, which is hand edged, has beautiful etching on the on the surface. There's one in the middle that is called the she moon gong, which has more of a silvery light and color and radial scraping. It looks like the moon with its moonlight. And then here an Italian gong which is called the Desert rose, in the middle. It has like a beautiful rose design and they all have different characters and different tonalities and they play beautifully together.

Speaker 1:

That's so great. So I want to go back to your experiences as an interpreter and as you are beginning to sort of bring in these other aspects of your you know, of your career, or rather of your interests writing. You spoke about the yoga practices. Here you have what is it called, by the way, when the song, the music or the sound therapy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's called sound therapy and they're all the sessions are called gong bath, and I combined them with yoga need a meditation is, which is the easiest form of meditation. It's almost like a guided relaxation, but it has more profound effects.

Speaker 1:

The sound therapy and all of these different things that, of course, potentially you are utilizing for your health benefits right, because of the experiences as a child but in what ways that you identify that these, these things were also supporting you as an interpreter? Because I think that, as you mentioned, you begin using these assets for yourself at first and then identifying that it is helping you in a way, so much so that you decide to put together workshops about it. So talk to us a little bit about what you identified, how you started to use some of these components into Integrating it with the profession, and then maybe we can transition into some of the things that potentially you can share. Somebody can put together for themselves.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so my specialist yoga courses in in, for example, the course in yoga need a meditation, but also the course in yoga for fatigue conditions. They were all teaching, training me how to teach people how to train their nervous system into down regulation. So what? What does it mean? Down regulation means coming back to calm state, to your base level, because and and also I was started to have these light bulb moments about Interpreters, brains in when I was taking these, these training courses.

Speaker 2:

So, interpreters, you know that saying that we're Attention goes, energy flows, right, yeah, so our attention has interpreters, with all these mental Simultaneous efforts, right, the all that cognitive activity with listening, and we know that the efforts model right, that we are listening, we are processing, we have to understand there, reformulate and then speak and all that. So the whole energy and focus and awareness for me, focus and awareness are one and the same thing in these situations are here, up here. So neck up, neck up, yes, neck up. And then what happens?

Speaker 2:

Neck down, so it's not that you freeze and disconnect from everything, but neck down many interpreters when they work a lot and don't take enough breaks and don't recover, don't give themselves time to recover, this disconnect effect going on. When you forget to eat, you forget that you're thirsty, you forget to hydrate, you forget to take a break and move, because sitting down and in starting to become hunched and starting to close down you, you have to exert much more effort to breathe. There's not enough oxygen coming to the brain, let alone the fact that in the interpreting booths sometimes we don't have Propogenization and enough oxygen. Right midway through the day we start feeling that fatigue setting in because there's less oxygen in our booth. So unless we can open the window or have fresh air, sometimes conference rooms are in the Basement, right, yeah and there's not much.

Speaker 2:

There's the same recirculated air that comes through the air con system, which is not great quality, but that's the way it is. So we have to understand what's going on, why the fatigue sets in, specially after lunch. And then we have to do that, to Go outside for a little bit of fresh air in the breaks, because the brain needs oxygen. Brain starts shutting down in the afternoon, especially if it's a long day With that kind of speakers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow. So you begin utilizing what was one of the first techniques. If you recall that you began personally using, during or after your interpreting assignments, that you felt, wow, this is really helpful. Do you recall?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm breath, breath, breath. Work and using the breath is the most powerful and it's free and everybody can do it. You just need to, obviously, to do it well, you need to mind your posture, keep upright, allow the show does not come forward and allow this open position for your thorax and and then breathe. And, of course, it's important to not have blockages in the nasal passages as well. So I always tell people if you have, if you're not breathing well through the nose, it's not good. Breathing through your mouth is not good.

Speaker 1:

It's so interesting because we think about, you know, when it comes to actually doing the work, and the stressors that really affect our responses. It's usually outside of ourselves when we think about it, right, when we have An understanding of what stress factors can affect our performance as an interpreter not really understanding the within part or ourselves, such as, for instance, body posture, as as simple as that. And you are absolutely right, it's not until someone even mentions posture that it comes into your awareness, and then most of us, such as myself, the moment you said posture, we straighten up oh yeah, posture, right. And so it's a constant Work that we have to continuously do, in addition to the performance right, in addition to everything we're doing to interpret accurately.

Speaker 1:

I had someone as a guest before and I'll make sure to link her episode in the episode notes. She spoke about mindfulness during, specifically during interpreting assignments, and the whole breathing aspect Was so important, particularly when we felt that stress. And so it's just funny to hear it again, because we have to be so conscious of what is happening within that is also causing stress and being able to not just identify it but also have something to help it. Maybe write. Some have some sort of resources, so let's get into that. Maybe potentially, gabriella, and the few minutes that we have left for today's episode. What are some of those tips that you can provide interpreters that are currently listening On what they can do to improve their performance, whether that be during or even after some of those feedback points, maybe?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So I like to teach posture and work station ergonomics and it comes hand in hand and it's very important. So we think, oh, yes, I have a good desk, but it has to be ergonomic for your body, it has to work for your body. So you have to have the desk, the table in front of you not higher than your elbow level. Ideally, your seat should be adaptable, adjustable not only in height, but also you should be able to tilt your pelvis. You should be able to even stand sometimes when you need to, because otherwise that the back starts. We can.

Speaker 2:

If you're all the time leaning and and relying on the backrest, your weakening your, your core. And I don't mean by the core, the abdominal muscles, I mean by the chorus. When you imagine a person standing, the whole midline is the core, whole midline, from the instep on your arches, the whole midline. So, saying that you want to imagine that from the crown of your head somebody's lifting you up so energetically, you want to be lifted from the crown and the chin. Your head shouldn't be forward or backwards or lifted. You have remember the head is quite heavy. So if you see a person from the side, then those natural curvatures of the spine are okay, but also the head should not be forward. So the digital age again and the interest that we find in the screens absorbs us and we have this head forward posture which causes all sorts of tension and back aches and all sorts of other unwanted consequences.

Speaker 2:

So important to have the head well balanced on this thin axis which is the spine, the shoulders relaxed, open position for breathing effortlessly. So I say, lift from your sternum and lift from your crown of the head, so both, and then your arms almost hanging if possible. But then again, remember that also your feet have to be both feet on the floor and connect to your feet. So, coming back to that multitude of mental efforts and the energy that is concentrated so much high up here, grounding through bringing your awareness to your feet is very powerful and very calming immediately. If you bring your awareness to your feet, shoes off. If you can spread your toes and occupy more space with your feet, that mirror, bringing the awareness to the feet, that mirror act of bringing the attention down in your lower, most point. Let's say that is grounding and calming. If you do it, you'll notice immediately.

Speaker 1:

I mean, all I'm thinking about is everything wrong that I'm doing when I'm providing remote interpreting, just from even the posture, definitely using the back support and the back of my chair. And here I thought, oh, I've got a great ergonomic setup, but if I'm relying too much on it, you're absolutely right swinging my legs to sort of stretch them out. And really, because I'm a short person, I don't really difficult for me when I'm sitting to find a seat that I could actually feel the floor.

Speaker 2:

I'm also short. I'm also short and I always tell people buy some yoga blocks or a small stool and have your feet supported when you're sitting, because dangling your legs is putting strain on your hips and your lower back. So lower back, you may have lower back issues if you don't. If your feet are in the air when you're sitting, it's not good. You have to have your feet supported. So I have a meditation cushion plus a yoga block, because I'm also short and I have a standing desk.

Speaker 2:

But it's made for tall people. Yeah, so even at its lowest point it's still a bit tall for me. So I adapt and sometimes in the booth it should have seen us like. Next week I'm going back to a job that is a repeated course that I've interpreted a month ago or so and the booth was everything but ergonomic. So we had to take a pillow from the room in the hotel to put on the chair and then we had to just all sorts of things. But at home you invest in yoga blocks that are not expensive or a small wooden stool, you know. Just make sure it's a good height for you.

Speaker 1:

Those are great suggestions, gavrila. I hadn't even thought about the yoga blocks and being able to put something underneath. I mean, we did it when we experienced the lockdowns and immediately identifying the technology that we needed to use and being able to elevate, you know, even just our computers we ended up using, like the big textbooks whoever had, you know, there are pictures of interpreters with big textbooks. So, whatever you can find, just to find that correct positioning. And, by the way, you're absolutely right, I do have lower back issues. So there you go, I'm contributing to the problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, now you know, and you're going to see the difference. Of course, movement is very important as well, right?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So you know kind of movement, age appropriate exercise, everything that you enjoy doing, do it and move often and move naturally. I always tell people to move like their favorite pet. So, playfulness, bring some playfulness and make it enjoyable. It doesn't have to be totally structured.

Speaker 1:

And secondly, you are going to be presenting on this topic at the ATA here, so talk to us a little bit about what you'll be sharing and so that, that way, our listeners that are attending this year's 2023 ATA conference in Miami Florida could look for your specific workshop.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm really pleased and honored to be included in the program. So my session is called caring for your brain and hearing health, because I have also a program. So my coaching programs are for holistic health, brain health and hearing health. So my session is scheduled on Friday from 11 to 12. I think it's Friday 27th of October. I hope to see you all in Miami. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

How fun. Yes, absolutely so. Hopefully you can look for her if you're attending ATA's conference this year. Look for Gabriela's course or workshop that she's going to be sharing. Gabriela, a couple last questions for you before the close of today's episode, the first one being what recommendations would you give any interpreter that is out there seeking potentially ways to improve their performance by means of adapting some maybe holistic approaches or just healthy ways in which they can improve performance, whether that is during or after, or both? What recommendations, aside from what you've given us today, could you give these new interpreters?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So if new interpreters are young people, young people are very conscious about their diet as well. So eat right for your brain. Right, try to hydrate, stay hydrated, and water I mean water, not soft drinks. Right, and avoid sugar as much as possible and avoid ultra processed foods, which, unfortunately, are everywhere. Right, convenience does not equate health, right, not. Long term health and longevity is not coming from convenience foods. Right, so cook from scratch, prep your meals, think about lots of colors on your plate, good quality protein, good quality fats Don't be afraid of good quality fats are vital for your brain and adopt deep rest practices.

Speaker 2:

So deep rest practices mean either yoga, meditation or guided relaxation, or if you have trained in any kind of progressive relaxation, or if you like to listen to recordings that are guiding you if you have somebody favorite, or also on my website, there are some recordings for free. But have deep rest practices. Eat good foods for your brain. Enjoy playing right, like dance, whatever you like to move like your favorite animal, that kind of don't lose the joy. Don't lose the joy. Be childish every now and again and do the things that make your heart sing. And singing is one of very good practice, because singing and humming relax the brain.

Speaker 1:

I like that so much too, as a form even of a practice for your vocal warm-ups right before you even start. That's actually something that I learned with Darynka's episode not too long ago to be able to do vocal warm-ups. What are things like? Let's say, for instance, if I wanted to begin implementing some steps, very practical steps, let's say, before I start interpreting, and then if I find myself in a high stress situation, what is something that I can do during an interpreting assignment in which, suddenly, I've encountered something high stress? And then what should I be practicing once my assignment is over, immediately to sort of do a closing of okay, this is ended. So what do you suggest we can do as interpreters before we start an assignment, during an interpreting assignment, and then, once the assignment is over, what would you recommend?

Speaker 3:

Welcome to the Turn Yourself into a Booked Out Freelance Translator Podcast, a mix of both solo episodes and expert interviews. Our ideal listener is an early career, ambitious and passionate online language services provider. She is committed to professional growth and achieving success in the fiercely competitive translation in interpreting industry. She balances multiple responsibilities with resourcefulness, values, mentorship, is open to learning and investing in her professional development journey. She embraces technology and seeks to optimize workflow. Eager to connect with like-minded peers and build out her professional network, she is determined to overcome challenges and become a sought after freelance translator. In the meantime, why not head over to wwwentrepreneurialtranslatorcom to access all our tools and resources to monetize and future-proof your freelance translation business? And don't forget to hit the plus button in Apple Podcasts or iTunes, or subscribe and Spotify to be notified when new episodes drop. For regular tips and insights, business strategy or marketing techniques straight to your inbox, please sign up at wwwentrepreneurialtranslatorcom.

Speaker 2:

So, before and as I'm obviously prepared, you know that I don't have to tell you but from the holistic health point of view, make sure your desk is tidy, make sure you have everything at hand your water, your tissues, if you need to avoid any distractions. Yes, I cannot do remote, for example, if my husband is in the house because he goes to the bathroom upstairs and is next to my office and I'm easily distracted. So you know your environment and you try to avoid those kinds of distractions. Phone on silent, that is obvious. But what I like to do is a centering.

Speaker 2:

A centering, a very short centering, and you can take a few breaths and gather. So, like this is a Qigong inspired exercise. So gather the life force and bring it in and you stand right with your feet, hip distance apart, which is the most stable posture, hip distance apart, and you breathe and gather. If you want to do that kind of breath practice and focusing on in-breathing, prana, vital force, mental clarity and all that, you can do that During an assignment, if there's a very stressful moment, bring your awareness to your feet and focus on your out-breath. So, again, your breath is your friend. But to calm yourself down out-breath. So travel your attention with your out-breath and bring your attention to your feet If you have the space right. Because if it's very quick you just do a couple of longer out-breaths and it will help. But if you have five minutes, you can also bring your awareness to your feet, wriggle your toes and place them down again, occupying more space. That makes you feel more stable and after go for a walk.

Speaker 2:

Definitely go for a walk. Go outside, spend time outside If it's too cold and there's a blizzard, or whatever. Play with your pet if you have a pet. But being in nature is the best thing because we not only have so much effort and so much taxing for our cognitive system and efforts, but also the non-native EMF, so electromagnetic fields affect us slowly but surely. So we want to be outside in nature and if you can take your shoes off and go barefoot on the grass or on the beach or walk in the sea, whatever you can do to be as near skin-to-skin with Mother Earth will help you.

Speaker 1:

I cannot say how many times I've actually heard that, in terms of being able to connect to nature as much as you can, even just when you are trying to contemplate things, going out into nature in your backyard, just like you said, taking off your shoes, feeling the grass and feeling grounded, is how I've heard the connection made.

Speaker 1:

But I think that it's so important, particularly after our assignments, because if you've done interpreting assignments, I think, just like you mentioned Gabriela, we know as trained interpreters that it doesn't stop.

Speaker 1:

Our brain doesn't shut off the moment that we are out of that assignment. Our brain keeps going, potentially even thinking about different ways in which we could have said a term or in which we could have interpreted it right. It is still going. And so being able to find almost like a routine to allow our brains to know that it's time to shut off at least from that assignment, and so maybe even that unconscious practice of OK, now I'm going to go out for a walk which hopefully triggers the brain into understanding it's time to shut off, maybe you think about it a little bit, but then with the walk it helps you to maybe start thinking about what's coming next or something of the sort. So I really like that as a closure to completely to the assignment, not just oh, I'm out of the assignment, I mean it's done, but to help your brain understand that as well, because our brain keeps going yeah.

Speaker 2:

I know, and it's if you've been on a long conference and working in the booth for several days. You have that for one or two nights, but then that's where the deep rest practices come in. So so I use a half an hour recording and I send my clients have another recordings of yoga, need a meditation, and that helps. So if you have, if you do this half an hour practice, it's almost like you had a good to our nap in terms of the benefits for your nervous system and your brain. But it also helps you sleep better. It helps you down regulate.

Speaker 2:

Coming back to the nervous system, right, it helps you down regulate and come back to that base level easier. And, of course, the more elements of nature you have around you. If you have a beautiful forest where you can hear the birds song, yes, you have your plants, your house plants. You want to be in contact, you know, with so as many elements of nature as possible, right, and some people talk about interpreters high, and that's what happens, because we get to no secrets, we get to rob shoulders with important people and it brings us to a certain I don't know ego and but we have to come down to earth, so grounding and everything which is very useful for getting rid of non-native electromagnetic fields the body has its own electricity, has its own electricity and electromagnetic fields, but the non-native ones, the Five G's and and all these devices that we are dependent on, is something else for the body.

Speaker 2:

we haven't evolved in this kind of a non-native electromagnetic fields during the evolution, the human evolution. So we need a little bit of cleansing from that point of view as well. Yeah, of course, good food, again good food, and not just going to the convenience.

Speaker 1:

All of these would also work on the left, or let's say I, when we experience those very high, sensitive or high motion interpreting encounters, these would also be support, would also help us during those, or do you have an additional practice that you could share? When we have a very high stress encounter particularly, I'm thinking about our community interpreters or public service interpreters that are supporting right Individuals themselves, sometimes in interpreting assignments that Could have that very sensitive topics in nature yeah, you're thinking about the vicarious trauma, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, so I have. I was thinking about that another one, but if we have time I can give you the two. So one is like a protection. You create your protection bubble Before, beforehand, if you know you're going to go to a difficult assignment which can affect you because we're women where mother is, or we have other women and there are lots of horrible Settings where we get to work as interpreting, as interpreters, and we could be affected, which is only human. So you can create your own protective bubble and this is, if you want to call it a spiritual practice, it doesn't matter whatever energetic Practice as well.

Speaker 2:

So you again stand with your with your feet hip distance apart, raise from your sternum and your your crown of the head. So be in this upright position, allow your shoulders to relax, arms hanging, and imagine so you can close your eyes or not, depending on how you want to do it. Imagine around yourself that this beautiful bubble like a neck shape bubble Protection is around you almost like a crystal Bell, but like an X shaped bubble works best for me and you. Some people use it like almost like it has a watery feel. So it's like a bubble but has that kind of flexibility and bounce to it, but you're safe, you're protected inside of this. This is your Protective self space, your safe space where you are totally in your center, you can be Assertive, you can be strong, stable and all these qualities that you know you need. You put them inside that protective bubble and practices. They take two or three minutes or even less, once you've practiced it enough, and take that with you before you leave the house, if you know you're going to a complicated or emotional, difficult as engagement or you. You can even practice it for everything right before an interview or before an exam or before any kind of difficult or demanding situation, really for a negotiation, for example.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then the second one that I was thinking to teach your listening, your listeners, is Post, post job. So it's again standing in your Balanced posture with your feet distance apart, but then you bend your knees and you become floppy and you shake. So you imagine you shake it off and this again, if you can do it outside it's better, but if not, you just imagine you're shaking everything off. You can even brush With your hands from your shoulders and down your chest and down the back and brush everything and imagine you're giving everything up to mother earth. Recycle it into something more beautiful. I always like to say and this kind of brushing is again I'm from to go inspired and so and shaking shaking is a very good practice and shake everything. You can shake everything, you bounce, you can even bounce on your heels and that's very powerful. It resets your nervous system. So, again, two or three minutes or even shorter, try it and you'll see how powerful it is and it's free.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it's free, and I just, I love how, how simple and and easy practices these are, that they're not so time consuming, because I know that for for us, for for everyone, particularly as you mentioned earlier, that just the society in which we currently live in is is so fast pace and always focusing on deadlines or, you know, time commitments, and so being able to give ourselves even two, three minutes before and after to ensure that Just the longevity, as you had said, right, and creating these safe spaces for ourselves, because only we know what we encounter in our profession, and I think that they're just natural and great ways to be able to prepare. And then, of course, let go, like Taylor Swift song, shake it off at the end. How simple, simple, but yet how powerful, right. So, gavrela, today's episode has been beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely appreciate that you were willing to come on this platform and share these beautiful resources with our interpreters. I'm, as always, hoping that these great resources are going to help them improve in their practice and just feel better about themselves and the way in which they are doing their work and have something that is theirs, to call their own. But it wouldn't be possible without guests such as yourself being willing to Give away your time to be able to share these beautiful resources with our audience. So I want to thank you so very much for the opportunity, and my very last question to you is where can our listeners find out more about you and the work that you do?

Speaker 2:

First of all, thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure and my website is Gabriella book and it Com. Please connect with me on LinkedIn as well, if we aren't connected already on Instagram. I'm still on Facebook, but not very active, but LinkedIn. Linkedin is my favorite social media, and also Instagram lately. So, and you'll see on my website, I have a page called Vitality Resilience, which is my fundamentals program, coaching program, and there is also the masterclass on brain health. And my latest program, as I said, is for hearing health, for those people who have started with RSI, experiencing tinnitus or hyperacusis or other hearing issues. Again, my coaching programs have had good results for people. Lots of colleagues have written testimonials about their experiences and from offloading some clients to colleagues Making time for self care, to getting rid of tinnitus, to improving their levels of vitamin D because they followed my advice, and so many other wonderful results which which I'm thrilled about and which keep me motivated to to still do this for people. Wow, how beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, especially I'm sure that a lot of remote interpreters have, like the, the insufficiency, never mind lack, of vitamin D levels. I'm sure right, or vitamin D. So absolutely I can. I can see how that would be an absolute benefit, particularly to those doing remote interpreting full time. Gabriela, it has been an absolute pleasure. I thank you so very much to our listeners. If you want to find out more about Gabriela's amazing work, please go to the episode notes and connect with her and find out more via her website. Thank you, thank you.

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