Vicky helps Individuals finding their real identity back by helping them make clarity in their situation and helping them heal their trauma's to be able to find their own power from within and life their lives in peace.
Vicky Theunissen, Mental Health Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
I grew up in a small village in the south of the Netherlands. My childhood was difficult because I had separated parents. But my parents got along well with each other and that helped me a lot. I was a very shy but always cheerful girl. My parents called me a Sunday child because I always laughed. But besides that, I was so shy that when someone was trying to talk to me, I hid behind my mother. But I was a happy, calm and content girl who loved to dance and sing as much as possible. And on one hand, I was a real girl because I liked playing with Barbies and I liked playing with make up and nail polish. But I also played with cars and I climbed trees. So the cool and adventurous side was there already from an early age.
Can you share more about your philosophy and approach in empowering individuals to create a meaningful life by being the boss of their emotions? What inspired you to focus on this aspect?
I have always been a very spiritual girl. When I worried about something, I always prayed instead of going to my mother, because I was always sure that there is more between heaven and earth. God/The universe is the secret of my strength. I was also a very curious girl. I always had a lot of questions because I just wanted to understand things. That is why I started observing situations and people at a young age. I just wanted to understand why the world is the way it is and why people behave the way they do. I discovered that everything starts within ourselves.
Everything starts with feeling stressed and stress comes from emotions. So we react out of emotions, and where do those emotions come from. From things we experience in our lives. I wondered why we aren't taught at school how to deal with our emotions because then the world would be a much better place. Because this is why we get sick and this is why people treat each other like garbage to the point where they kill each other. So it all starts with feeling unhappy from inside and why do we feel unhappy from inside that’s because we do not pay attention to our emotions and therefore our traumas are stored in our body and thus diseases arise.
What specific techniques or strategies do you employ to help individuals take control of their emotions and find their own power from within?
I help people process their traumas. I do this by discovering together with them where those traumas started. Because every problem can only be solved by discovering where it started and start working from there. So I go back to these painful moments with my clients because it is important to experience and feel the pain. Because as horrible as that is, this is the only way to feel better. Because to heal, we need to feel. That’s just how it works. I’m made a 3 month program for this. The first phase consists of getting clarity of where the problem comes from. The second phase consists of going back to that period by talking about it and having the client write down all the emotions that come with it. Next to this I practice breathing and meditation techniques with my clients to resolve the stored traumas step by step. And I have now started studying Holistic Psychology to be able to add these techniques as well. Because these techniques helped me a lot.
The third phase consists of building up because many people lack self-love and self-worth because they don't really know themselves, and if you don't know yourself then you can’t build self-love and self-esteem. So my program is a transformation program which consists of going back to the root problem and working and building from there, so that in the final phase the client will experience more peace from within and will have come to know himself, so that the client will now feel much better and will no longer make choices based on emotions.
Could you share a bit about your own personal growth journey and how it has influenced your passion for empowering others in the realm of emotions and self-discovery?
I had the opportunity to put together this program because this is the path I have been through myself. Because I had a very challenging life, one intense situation happened after another, which meant that, like most people, I also didn’t had time to pay attention to my emotions.
So I lived in the survivalmode, like a soldier. Just be strong and distract yourself with things that make you happy so that you don't have to think about what is actually happening because if I do that I will collapse and that is not possible because I have to take care of so many things. That was the way I lived. But because one heavy situation happened after another and I had to handle everything in my own, my health started to deteriorate and I had been in a burn- out for years that I could not surrender to, which resulted in me literally almost dropping dead. This is an intensely and long story that I am going to write about. But because of this I know everything about living in the survivalmode and distract yourself with pleasure because you don’t feel a sense of meaning in life.
Do you have any notable success stories or testimonials from individuals who have benefited from your guidance in becoming the boss of their emotions?
I'm not a person who is sharing personal stuff with many people but because I was almost dead, people hear this in the area where I lived. So this is why people get to know my story and since that moment people started reaching out to me with the question if I want to talk with a friend or family member of them because they felt so bad mentally and they didn’t wanted to talk to anybody but they told them about me and then they said that they wanted to talk with me.
Even though I had just escaped death myself and lost my mother a few weeks later, I said yes of course. Just because I know that I have the power to do it and because I have the blessing that i’m a very happy and optimistic person by myself and I know that it is difficult for much people to think positive and to believe in their own power. I just had a few conversations with them and they told me that they felt so much better.
The people who reached out to me for them told me that they saw a whole new person because they saw them smiling after a very long time and they start loving life again while they didn’t wanted to live anymore before and didn’t saw a way out anymore. Because the doctors and specialists in the rehabilitation center also told me that they find me a very inspiring person and that they consider me an example for many people, I decided to do volunteer work in hospitals and nursing homes when I my health was going a bit better.
Because the doctors and specialists don't have time to really pay attention to the patients and because I am a proof that you can survive while the doctors actually told me that there is no hope anymore.
It’s all about mindset and discipline, I’m going to tell this story in my columns but because of this I was able to help so much people in different heavy situations who didn’t saw hope anymore and who now living a happy peaceful live. Don’t get me wrong, i’m not a doctor or a wonder woman because the only thing i’m doing is giving people guidance and tell them about my story and experiences in life and about all the knowledge I have from studying life deeply for 10 years.
Because the only one who can bring you out of every situation is yourself. But because it’s difficult for much people to think and see things in the way I do, I feel super blessed to be able to help already so much people finding themselves back and I feel so grateful to have my own online business in this now because this gives me the possibility to help people from all around the world.
In your experience, what are some common challenges individuals face when it comes to emotional empowerment, and how do you help them overcome these challenges?
Like I said, it's all about a lack of self-love and self-esteem and not knowing who you actually are. Because then you live in the surviving mode, by distracting yourself with pleasure to be able to survive.
That’s why I made my 3 months program for trauma healing and that’s why I started studying Holistic Psychology now to be able to help people with healing their trauma’s because that’s where all problems come from. Because if we take care of our body our body has the possibility to take care of us. But it’s a combination of taking care of our Physical, Emotional and Mental state of being because our body must be in mental and physical contact to function properly, but this connection is disrupted by most people due to unhealed traumas stored in the body. That’s why I help people to get their body and soul connected again.
What is your vision for the future of your work in empowering individuals? How do you hope to make a lasting impact on the lives of those you work with?
I’m super grateful to be able to started my online business in Mental Health Coaching now because this is something which I didn't even dare to dream about because I should have been dead and over the past 10 years it was still a big question how long this is going to take because the doctors still told me that I had just bonus years.
So it is my dream that my business will become a great success because I see it as a great blessing that I have the opportunity to help people finding their happiness in life and it is clear that it is my calling to do this in life. But I believe that my business will be a success because I already have 10 years of experience in Coaching, people just need to get to know me outside of the Netherlands now and I am always working on self-development so I always shall have new techniques and new knowledge to share. And when I have completed my studies in Holistic Psychology, I also want to organize retreats all over the world.
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
My greatest career achievement is that I have been able to help so many people feel happy again while they no longer wanted to live anymore. And that this became my biggest career achievement naturally because it was never my plan to be a Coach. Life brought me into this road naturally because people asked me to do this. So while they saw me as their inspiration, they didn’t realize that they inspired me to make this my career. Because Mental Health is the most important thing to have a good balance in in life. And through all the dark tunnels I had to walk in my life, this became my career.
This is something I could never have imagined myself. So my biggest career achievement is that I became naturally step by step a Mental Health Coach without realizing it and that the tough life I had made me the poweful woman I am today who is able to help other people finding their happiness in life and what automatically results in making the world a better place. Because when we feel good, we behave good.
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
That Mental Health Coaching and Life Coaching is taken more seriously because people talk a bit jokingly about life and mental health coaches. While it has a much greater value than psychology. Because you can study something from a book for years, but you still don't know anything about life because you don't learn from reading books or studying. You learn from experiences. Because I've tried to talk to a lot of psychologists in my life, respect for all of them but it was clear that they had no idea about life so I didn't go more than once because i didn’t had anything about it. And the others told me honestly, Vicky i’m sorry but I have no idea what I need to say to you because you are so wise that I learn from you. So they told me that don't have to come anymore because I don’t need help.
What was terrible for me because I thought Hello, I go trought a hell and i’m in my own so I just need someone to talk with and to listen to me. Luckily I found later in my journey an amazing woman who understood this. But from only talking we don’t heal our trauma’s. There is much more needed then that to heal our trauma’s but there is no doctor who’s telling you this. The only thing they do is giving your medicines to suppress the problem so that you don't feel the pain, but that doesn't solve the problem. In fact, this is how the most serious diseases arise.
They are good at diagnosing diseases at an advanced stage or doing a surgery but they can’t tell you where the problem is coming from and how to solve it. While because I go trough a lot of own life experiences from sickness till dead first with my mother and after by myself and because I observed everything very well and did all the research about it, I can tell you much more then much doctors and therapist who studied things from books for years and still have no idea. I’m sorry, respect for everyone’s specialty but I just experienced and saw to much things in my life.
So if I could change one thing about my industry it is that people take it more seriously because it literally can saved lives.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
I think that the answer about this is clear. But I lost my mother at the disease Alzheimer at young age and I lost my own life almost because of heavy brain damage. I needed to learn everything from the beginning like a baby and at the same time I had to organize the dying bed from my mother from my hospital bed. I’m going to tell this story in my upcoming columns so if you are interested take a look at my instagram page to be updated and when my articles are published in Brainz Magazine and my website is coming soon.
What would be your advise for people who are struggling with their health?
Start with asking yourself where this could come from. Because deep inside you know it. It’s always because we didn’t take care of ourselves. Mentally. Emotionally or Physically. And start working on the root problem instead of taking the easy way out and taking medication or pretending nothing is wrong. If it is difficult to do this in your own, there are a lot of Coaches and Therapist available with whom you can work from your home. If you are interested in getting my help. Take a look at my istagram or my website what is coming soon and feel free to send me a message to book a free call.
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