A north-east postwoman has swapped the hustle and bustle of her morning round for the slower-paced vocation of holistic therapy as she hopes to help those feeling anxious during lockdown.
Vickie Robson, a former postie from Turriff, has retrained as a strategic life coach and master practitioner of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) as she tries to “offer a little light in all the darkness of lockdown”.
The 41-year-old says her new qualification couldn’t have come at a better time with more and more people struggling to cope with anxiety, stress and depression during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.
“I have always been in to meditation and mindfulness,” she said. “During lockdown last year I came across EFT and did my master practitioner course online as well as my strategic life coach training.
“It’s really effective for helping people and for those who don’t want to take medication.
“We try to peel back the layers of why they are feeling the way they’re feeling. When you ask the right questions you get to the root cause of someone’s depression, stress or anxiety and most of the time the reason they first give you isn’t the real reason at all.
“Once we’ve got to the root cause we know what recipe of EFT should be used to help them.”
Similar to acupuncture, EFT focuses on energy hot spots between the head and chest, known as meridian points, to restore balance to the body’s energy.
It’s believed that restoring this energy balance through finger tapping and breathing can relieve symptoms a negative experience or emotion may have caused.
“I teach people how to tap themselves,” Yorkshire-born Miss Robson added.
“It’s techniques that anyone can use anywhere, which is great especially at this time when people’s anxiety levels are through the roof. A lot of people have lost jobs, or loved ones or aren’t seeing their families.
“Stress is one of the biggest killers. It’s a disease and if your body remains in a state of stress it can never repair itself.”
This new vocation is a far cry from her old jobs in oil and gas and more recently postal rounds.
She said. “This is something I’m doing for me. What a difference it makes when you are doing something that you love. I’m helping people and getting some really good results.”
A general tapping recipe can be used any time and anywhere and takes just five to 10 minutes to complete. Sessions take about an hour though. Miss Robson has been offering up free videos over Facebook to talk people through the therapy until face-to-face treatment can begin.
“Our bodies are all energy and it flows around ,” she said. “With the tapping we are redressing energy and putting and blockages back into flow. Meanwhile the breathing techniques are a way to calm you down too.”
She’s encouraging people to give holistic therapies a go to connect with their emotions during the pandemic at a time when stress levels are high.
“I know a lot of people don’t want to reach our and get medication for being depressed and they thing they have nowhere else to go,” she added. “People think that holistic therapies are woo woo and don’t work. I am trying to get the word out that they do work in so many ways.
“I am hoping it a bit of light in all the darkness and it will give people encouragement to get out and so something they would like to grow themselves – especially when we are living under more restrictions every week.”
To try out some of Miss Robson’s free sessions on the VR Strategic Life Coach Facebook page.