The Everyday Mystic

Beyond the Intellect: Why Your Brain Can't Solve Your Emotional Problems w/ Vince Dickson

• Corissa Saint Laurent • Episode 76

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:05:40

For the high-functioning leader, the intellect is the ultimate tool. We use logic to solve problems, strategize growth, and navigate conflict. But Vince Dickson, a former model and founder turned breathwork coach, argues that the intellect has a hard ceiling.

In this episode, Vince joins Corissa to discuss his journey from the high-paced world of NYC fashion to the somatic depths of breathwork. He shares the story of a devastating breakup that shattered his identity and forced him to realize that his thinking mind was not the solution to his pain…it was the fuel.

Corissa and Vince dive deep into the physiology of perception. They explore the staggering difference between the body's processing power (11 million bits/second) and the brain's limited bandwidth (50 bits/second). Vince introduces the concept of Glimmers: positive triggers that can rewire the nervous system, and explains why the most effective leadership strategy is often to stop thinking and start breathing.

In this episode, we cover:

  • The Bandwidth Problem: Why your brain is a dial-up connection in a fiber-optic world, and how to access the full data stream of the body.
  • The Middle Way: How to avoid the trap of spiritual bypassing (floating above reality) and drama immersion (drowning in it) to find the sweet spot of flow.
  • Glimmers vs. Triggers: A practical protocol for stacking micro-moments of joy to interrupt the stress cycle.
  • The Bottom of the Breath: A simple somatic practice of pausing at the end of an exhale to find instant presence.
  • Faith as Strategy: Moving from a clinging mindset of control to a faithful mindset of safety.

Notable Quotes:

  • "I’ve always been someone who was very in their head and really thought that the intellect will solve it all... getting out of my head was the solution." — Vince Dickson
     
  • "Our bodies take in 11 million bits of information per second... our brains process 50 bits." — Vince Dickson
     
  • "The veil is thinner in real suffering... there’s a connection to something larger than yourself that it’s very hard to access when life is good." — Vince Dickson

Resources & Links:

CONNECT WITH CORSISA

If this conversation awoke or inspired something in you, please consider leaving us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review to help us reach more people.

Thanks for tuning in!

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Hey beautiful souls, welcome to the Everyday Mystic where we demystify the mystical and transform your everyday life into one of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy. Today we're going deep with Vince Dickson. He is the co-founder of a sustainable products brand called Hunu. And he's also a breathwork coach, which is how I it's not how I met him. We actually met at a mutual friend's house, but it's how I got him onto the podcast because I didn't know that he did this work. I really enjoyed our connection when we met, and I knew that he had lots of depth to him in the time that I got to spend with him. But it wasn't until I saw his posts about breath work that he's offering in the world that I reached out to him to come onto the podcast. Breath work is such a powerful connecting practice to our spirit, to the wholeness of ourselves. So I love talking to anybody who is both practicing and also guiding people in breath work because it helps us to unlock our bodies. It helps us to unlock the mysteries of our soul, which reside deeper in sometimes caged within our physical shell. And our mind can be very powerful and running on overdrive quite often. But our bodies, which have so much intelligence, which have so much inherent connection to our heart and our spirit, that oftentimes our bodies can become very rigid, even though our mind might be very fluid, our bodies can get stuck. And breath work is just such an incredible way to open all of that up, which means we're opening into wholeness, we're opening into the fullness of ourselves, we're opening into our deeper understandings of who we are, and also connecting more deeply to spirit as a whole. So Vince and I get into all of that. We talk about his journey of actually getting here because he um started out his professional career as a model and has been a multiple founder over the years. So he's very entrepreneurial. But the breathwork thing came more recently and it came out of a deep dark time that you'll hear about. And he shares that story with us. Get ready for a beautiful conversation, a drop into your own breath, and an awakening, I hope, of something that will be inspiring to you to move forward into a life with greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy. And now on to my conversation with Vince Dixon. Here we go. Thank you so much for joining us on the Everyday Mystic. Vince, it's really wonderful to see you.

Vince Dickson:

Very good to be here. Yeah, thank you.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I know I didn't prep you much on like what we're gonna talk about or what uh what this is all about, but I know you have a little sense of the podcast and what it is. And called to talk to you because when we met, one, I just enjoyed meeting you. I loved our conversations. I just just being in your presence was lovely.

Vince Dickson:

That's really nice to say. Thank you.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

You're welcome. And so that was part of it. And then I noticed on Instagram that you are breathwork therapists. You're utilizing breath work both for yourself as well as for clients. And that uh pinged me again to ooh, I think he and I could have a really interesting and juicy conversation on the pod. So welcome. And how are you, first and foremost? What's going on?

Vince Dickson:

I'm good. Yeah, really good. Um, I am in New York. The weather's good. I've just got back some travels, so I'm readjusting to Brooklyn. But yeah, overall things are very good. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Were you in like totally different types of environments than very different?

Vince Dickson:

I was in Indonesia for a few weeks.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Oh yeah.

Vince Dickson:

It was uh it was my birthday recently, and I've yeah, went on a surf trip with some friends. It's something we've talked about for years. It's been quite a few years since we uh did it, so it was a good it was a good excuse to take the plunge and get everyone together. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So awesome. Well, happy belated birthday. It sounds like a beautiful way to celebrate it.

Vince Dickson:

It was good, yeah. It was good. Just nice to change up your environment.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

When's your birthday? Because I just had one too.

Vince Dickson:

It was in May, middle of May.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Okay, mine's end of May.

Vince Dickson:

Okay, yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, good time of year, I think.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, and what a great time to to go and and do a little surf, be with friends. Um, you live in New York most of the time though?

unknown:

Yes.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, New York's been home for 12 years or over 10 years now. Yeah. So it's uh it's a love hate with New York. It's amazing when it's amazing, and it will beat you relentlessly when it's not, but you keep coming back.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Now, did you originally go there for work for modeling?

Vince Dickson:

Originally came here for work, yeah. So that, yeah, as I say, about 12 years ago. Never with any sort of intention of I'm moving there permanently, but it just sort of happened that way. That one day I realized I'm living here now. And yeah, it's been good. I've lived I've lived multiple lives in New York. So just I keep finding new spaces in the city and new ways of being, I suppose.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

That's what you know it's so magical about the density and the creativity of cities like New York. That yes, they can be so heavy and so much, but it's it is that way because there's so much going on.

Vince Dickson:

So much. And that there's just there's an energy here that I mean everyone talks about it. It's the cliche of the sort of New York, but there really is. There's something you feel part of something in a way that I haven't felt anywhere else. And in that you sort of walk out your door and there's life happening in a million different ways, and you just have no idea what you're gonna encounter. Like I think I've as someone said to me a long time ago, and I've always remembered it, is that uh New York will give back exactly what you put into it. So if you if you're here and you sort of stay out of things and you're removed, it's gonna be quite a tough experience and and feel quite lonely. But if you put energy into it in whatever form, if you make an effort, it will reflect that right back at you. And I've definitely found that to be true. That there's just this sort of energetic thing here that that rewards diving in, I suppose.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. I don't know how you with that many people in one area, one dense area like that, how you could not be impacted by the energy, whether negatively or positively, or or whatever.

Vince Dickson:

I mean, I Yeah, it can go both ways.

unknown:

Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So sum up your the lives that you've had there. What were what were your versions of Vince in New York?

Vince Dickson:

Um, well, as you mentioned, I came here to model. Um, so that was the sort of first few years were very um nomadic, I suppose. I was traveling a lot, I was bouncing between different apartments. Um, I was very new to the city, still hadn't planned to live here, just sort of became home. Um, and then I ended up uh moving in with a friend, um, and we had we already set up like this amazing life where we were traveling a lot and um we were living in a kind of more um quiet, chill part of town, and it was just a much more stable kind of way of being here. And then I suppose post that I was in a relationship for many years, and that was a whole chapter on its own, and then that relationship ended, which is partly the kind of brought me into some of the stuff we're gonna talk about today, I suppose the breath work and some of this journey. And so this chapter now is a sort of new one in a way. It's it's feeling very at home in New York, but in a different way to what I have before. Um, and it's finding new spaces here and connecting with new people, and that's been really interesting.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I love it. Reinvention, reinvention in a big way, yeah. You know, for those listening who don't live in a big dynamic megalopolis like New York City, you know, this type of reflection and reinvention can happen anywhere, right? I think New York forces it on you to some degree. You know, play some places will really like dress like drive you into that type of lifestyle of like you have to respond. Whereas if you live in a more placid place, you're not necessarily provoked in the same way to respond to it, but the opportunity to do that is everywhere. That is life, right?

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, I think I think New York can be brutal if you don't adjust to it. It's it's a particular it was strange. I I um, as I mentioned, I went through sort of hard breakup and for and this relationship was sort of my whole life for a long period, and left New York post that. And at no point did I not think I was gonna come back. And so many people said to me, like, why are you going back to New York? And why there's so much sort of there's so much stuff to work through. And it was interesting, it just always called me back. I just knew that this is where home was. And I think part of that is knowing that there's sort of energetic stuff there that it needs to be worked through. I think there was always a sense of like leaving on the in the way I did temporarily and kind of getting out of it because I needed to sort of find some space. I didn't want to leave on those terms and that coming back, it was it was it's really kind of sitting with the sitting with all the debris that I need to work through personally, the sort of energy of it and my own personal stuff, and it was it's this is such a beautiful place to do that because it confronts you in so many ways all day, every day, with this just so many people, and the the fact that you're part of something so big and can so often feel out of it. And it's a very lonely city, New York, in many ways, ironically, because you you there's so much happening around you that if you're not engaged with it, or if you don't feel part of it, or you can feel almost more removed. Whereas in quieter sort of places, there's not as much of that sense. You can sit on your own and be quiet and you don't feel like you're missing out. Whereas New York, there's this constantly confronts you with how amazing everyone else has it and how everyone else is so busy and social and popular. So if you're not in that environment, it can be this, you can be a real feeling of kind of low unity. And and everyone I speak to who's come here and lived here has gone through that or goes through periods of that of just feeling really detached from it, particularly because you walk down the street and there's millions of people and you you feel this sense of disconnection. And I think part of what I find so amazing is is using that as a way to to kind of reconnect in a way, of like realizing that you are part of something and really noticing that detachment, I suppose, and and sort of questioning it and and seeing what person is in me that's making me feel that way and what I need to work with to get beyond that. Yeah, there's so many lessons here. It's a it's a great teacher in New York.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So many. I it's so funny, like what you're describing. It's like social media FOMO, but in real life.

Vince Dickson:

In real life, constantly.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

But people feel that, you know, on social media where they're like, oh, look at all how amazing these people's lives are and what they're doing. And if you feel that way, you know, been the reflection of of real people, you know, IRL as you walk around New York City, it's probably that original FOMO.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah. I think I think on the on the flip side of that is New York is an incredibly welcoming, open place. I think they are there are places where people are a bit more standoffish. And I think New York can feel intimidating. But if you if you put yourself out, as I've said, people are like you can form new communities and connections and friendships and so quickly here. If you're in the right space in your life, or if you're kind of looking to build or experience new things or start something new, it's a place where you can do that very quickly. And that's what's incredible. Like your life really can change very rapidly here. You can go out in the morning with no expectations and meet someone who talks about something and you end up there in the afternoon, and by the next morning, you have a whole new sort of chapter of your life. It's already been really interesting. And it that stuff really does happen here. It's sort of like a movie scene sometimes.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I was just talking about this with my husband this morning about how the flip side of this, like in a corporate environment where you're in corporate walls, where you go to the same office and you see the same people every day. That's not just true of corporate, but that that's the sort of typical environment that you would have that type of experience where you are literally with the same people in the same walls and take you out of New York City. Let's say you're like in a small state or and that's your life, and you are in that environment. There isn't that same level of opportunity for serendipity and for spirit to kind of come in, and unless, you know, yeah, I mean, I think that honestly anyone could be a messenger or an angel for you or deliver something that you need, even if it's someone you've been sitting next to for seven years in this the cubicle, and all of a sudden they say something, you're like, whoa, okay, that was that was a message from the divine. But in a place like New York or a place that's more vibrant in a place where you are naturally just bombarded and interacting with different energies all the time, there's just that much more opportunity for that to happen.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, there's there's a lot, a lot to play with. Totally.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And I love what you said about you know, it's an opportunity to get to see, you know, what is it in me that is resisting this, or what is it in me that is being triggered by this? And you have so much opportunity to actually self-reflect amidst all of those people. So that's another thing. I I'm not saying it's a misnomer because you can absolutely go into silent meditation and go in a cave or go, you know, away on a retreat and do that reflection also. But what I find interesting about life is to be able to take that back into dense places, highly populated places, places that aren't just like the beautiful Tulum retreat space where, you know, and and now you're in it. Now you're in the midst of this. How can you use that to reflect? How can you also transcend that to get into a place of peace and a place of calm?

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, it's something I've been sitting with a lot lately, is that I I think I've spent a lot of my life really lost in this sort of detail of it all, in the kind of drama at a sort of very personal scale, very like selfish in my own shit. Um, and then I've had periods where I've gone way the other way, where I've got into the sort of spirituality of it all, and like, well, it's all doesn't mean anything anyway, and we can just sort of meditate above it. And I think I've I've I've reached this really beautiful place. I've sort of had some quite amazing realizations over the last while of actually, as exactly what you said, the juice of it is that middle ground of like not allowing yourself to dive too deep into it and not sitting above it, and that those are the same thing. I think there's so many people who get into these sort of spiritual mindsets where they they think the the goal is to get above everything and to be detached to a point where you are not lost in the sort of drama and that that it's there's a disconnection, and actually it's the beauty is really experiencing life and diving into it and all the sort of pain and the pleasure and the day-to-day stuff and the boring stuff and and trying to kind of surf that that middle ground. And I think that's what gets really interesting of trying to like maintain that balance, and when you're in that state, that's the sort of flow state of you're you're aware that there's all your shit, and you're aware that it doesn't really mean anything, but you're in you're in life, you're in the reality of it from that state. And I think that's a really interesting thing to kind of sit to that quite a lot. And it's not it's not it's not always obvious, but uh when I catch myself getting lost either way, uh I sort of there's um is recentering, I suppose.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, it's so true that those who have uh and you you meet them uh often in the spiritual communities that you pass, you know, as you explore, I would say. You know, exploring the spiritual path, you know, from a moment of awakening is is a journey. You know, we're all on that journey anyway, but it's the realization of the journey, and then you the the meeting of the characters along the way. And absolutely have met, you know, countless people who are stuck on that side of the same spectrum, right? They're on that, in that place of that's their identity.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah. Which is what when you realize it, it's it's the same. If you're completely unaware and stuck in like your selfish sort of needs and desires and and all the drama of life, or you're sort of think you're above it all, and all you do is sit in a cave and meditate, it essentially you're you're playing the same game because you're missing out on the kind of juice of all the lessons and all the stuff that is in front of you, I think. And I think that was a huge realization for me of of being careful of there's a point, maybe points I've got to where I was like, I'm better than all, you know, I'm sort of I know more, and I I'm I have all this realizations and and realizing actually at that point I'm detached from the day-to-day reality and actually confronting what's in front of me in the same way as I was before I had any of those realizations, and I was lost in my anxiety and sort of worries and personal problems, and so totally you know.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I had a guest on whose and she sp speaks very openly about this. She wrote a book about it, so I'm not revealing anything that you know um personal to her that she hasn't shared already, but her husband committed suicide, and he was a person that she connected with on a spiritual level. He was a deep meditator, he was what appeared outwardly highly successful, and what he was doing was hiding in his spirituality, he was hiding out in his meditation. So he used it as a means to feel okay about the world of his earthly being crumbling and him not understanding and knowing how to deal with that, not understanding how to know to how to bring that back to the center that you were talking about. He was incapable, well, not incapable, but he felt incapable of doing that. So he would go off and meditate and go off into that spiritual realm to escape. And then he did essentially. What she calls the final escape was to leave this earthly plane because he couldn't handle it. And I think if we choose to come down here and deal with this earthly plane, we're choosing it all. Like you said, the joy, the pain, the love, the sorrow, the hard stuff, and the really fun, amazing light stuff. We're choosing to have that experience.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, I think it you can kind of reach those peak states, but be aware that they're they're peak states and you you always come down again. And it's it's trying to bring that back into everyday life, and really it's the boring shit. Because you wake up in the morning and you still have the problems to confront, and it's still very like no matter what your sort of spiritual belief or what your thought is on how this is all an illusion or not, or whatever it may be, it's still very real. Um, and the ground is hard and the pain is painful, and kind of being able to sit in that and and be aware of how beautiful it is that you get to experience that and use it. And it's been a journey and a constant practice to kind of constantly recenter to that. And yeah, I think tools, and that's where that's where I kind of ended up with the Breathwork, which I suppose is how you kind of connected in terms of the podcast here. That's been such a major tool for me that that brought a level of awareness that I think I didn't have before.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

How did you get started with it?

Vince Dickson:

Well, yeah, as I mentioned, I think a huge turning point in my life was this breakup that I went through. I've always been curious and explored a lot of I I suppose the full range from the kind of cheesiest self-help to the sort of spirituality. And I there'd been points in my life where I kind of thought I got it to a degree. And but I don't think I ever really got it. And towards the end of the relationship, and I suppose largely what contributed to it ending was I was in such a self-involved, anxious state. I was so lost in sort of my problems and or the perceived problems. And I think I just wasn't very present in what was happening, and obviously it wasn't present in relationship and and and I was very aware that I wasn't where I wanted to be, who wanted to who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be kind of responding to things. And but the tool I was using to try and solve that was my mind. I've always been someone who was very in their head and really thought that the intellect will solve it all. And I accessed all of that stuff, no matter how spiritual it got or how self-helpy it got, was always through my head. I'm just like, I needed to understand it and needed to make sense. And I think that led to me being quite I I look back at versions of myself with sort of a lot of maybe shame is the wrong word, but definitely kind of a lot of cringe, and I think how arrogant I was because I thought I knew better, and I would I was I was definitely good at lecturing people on sort of you should be looking at this, and but I never actually looked at myself in the same way. And I think the breakup knocked me so hard that I wasn't able to look away, and I wasn't able to run from it. I was in such pain. And I think both the fact that I wasn't able to look away and the fact that I realized that this was beyond just someone breaking up with me, that there was stuff there that I needed to examine. And if I didn't do it now, there was it wasn't going to happen. If I couldn't do it from that space of just really hitting the bottom and being in kind of I mean, like some dark, dark, dark times. Um, and I I mean anyone who's been through a painful heartbreak, I think it's they can relate. It's is not many things that hit you in quite the same way, because it brings up definitely for me, it brought up so many personal emotions of just the abandonment and and and this it was this feeling of you sort of have this hunch that maybe you're not quite good enough and you're not this part of maybe you're not lovable and you're not, but then you have this person in your life who's like, no, no, you are, and you're like, Oh, I'm imagining it, you know, I am good, and then that person who knows you the best turns around and goes, No, actually, you're right. Like, you're you're not good enough, and I'm out, and then your ego latches onto that and goes, Oh, it's all true, it's all true. I am, I am all those things I thought about myself are all true. I've just been proven. Which that's not what's happening at all, but that's how your your mind attaches to it, and you go through this yeah, yeah, and it latches onto it, and the the sort of self-pity and all of that stuff, which I think everyone goes through. It's it's really interesting. And in hindsight, really beautiful. I heard it somewhere of just like at the low points in like real suffering, the veil is thinner. Like there's there's a connection to something larger than yourself that it's very hard to access when life is good. Like when reality is good, it's great to hang around in it. When it's not, there's the sort of veil to whatever you may call it, the divine, or something larger is thinner. And I think even at my lowest points, I had that awareness of like this something I'm connecting to something deeper here. And that's a really amazing thing. There's real beauty in the in the pain, I suppose. And that led me on a journey, I wish I could say sort of out of choice, but but it was purely out of need of just like really digging in and going in all sorts. I mean, I was anything to end the pain, I suppose. I was clawing at it, and and um all the podcasts and the this and the spirituality, just every modality or this like I was I was really exploring. And I think the point I finally got to was having some experiences where I profoundly realized how getting out of my head was the solution. And all of the stuff, all of the stuff was just adding more information and it was fueling my mind, which was the thing that was causing all the suffering in the first place. It was all the projections of who I thought I was, who I thought I should be, who I thought I wasn't good enough, or who she was, or who I and it was all just these sort of illusions that I was creating. And I there was sort of these awarenesses of like actually, I was quite, it was there was a comfort in that victim mentality. There was a safe space in there. And it was very scary to get out of that because who was I if I'm not this sort of hard done by person. And and the thing that that really shifted things was just, as I say, some experiences that profoundly got me into my body, just showed me that when I let go of my thinking mind and shift into my body, there's a whole different level of kind of awareness that opens up and there's a connection that your mind just can't make, and that there's sort of a peace and a presence and a joy in that. Um, and I think that was the sort of crack in the door that I've been on ever since. And I and I don't want to over-emphasize it, it's a constant practice, and the the the hard days are still there, and it's not there's no magical thing. We as we talked about, we still live very much in reality, and reality is hard and tricky and and just suffering in all sorts of ways. But I I just find whenever I come back into my body, there's a sense of space that that is not there when I try and use my mind to solve these things. And that led me to the breathwork, which was uh I kind of started playing with things, and breathwork's something I've done many years ago and had some really amazing experiences with it, but I it wasn't something that I sort of needed in the same way, I suppose. I wasn't in the right space to receive what it actually was. And then yeah, I ended up diving into it and first session on my own where I just kind of really went deep. I just released so much stuff that I didn't even know was there. Just I like within minutes I was in like bawling and just so much emotion coming out. And I was doing very deep breath work sessions for days, like day back to back to back for a while. And consistently I was just clearing through this stuff. I could feel stuff coming out, and and it was for the first time, it was stuff coming out that I didn't feel the need to define. Or I couldn't really define. I mean, it was just whether it was childhood stuff or whether it was recent stuff, it wasn't really relevant. It was just, it was like massaging a knot, is how I like to explain it. It's like there's a knot there and you massage it out, and once it's released, it's released. And new knots come in and stuff tenses out, but those like old deep kind of ones that you really got to spend some time on. Sometimes they can they can take a bit of coaxing. But when they're out, there's a sense of like openness that you get. And I got to a point after, I don't know, weeks of doing this quite consistently going quite deep, that I remember having this session where I like nothing came up. Oh, not in the same way. There's still very profound experiences through breath work, but it's not it where there wasn't that like emotional clearing. It was sort of the early days where within 30 seconds, I'm just shuddering with sort of tears. And then it took five minutes to get there. And then eventually I'd I'd 30 minutes in, and I'm like, oh, that was just a really beautiful experience. But I I'd sort of let go of so much. And I think that was when I just realized like, wait, this this is so powerful. Um, and that took me on a on a journey deeper into sort of studying and learning a lot more and and getting sort of certified in various ways, and then um working with friends and then doing classes and just some really profound experiences. The more I dived into it, the more I just saw how powerful it was. And it's such a simple thing. I always have to catch myself as well, because I start doubting us. I'm like, is this really like we're just breathing here? And and then I see how it affects people. One of the first kind of group sessions I did with people I didn't know.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, that's when you get to really put it to the test, right?

Vince Dickson:

It's not just your Yeah, because you doubt yourself as well. You're like, well, this has worked for me, but it's so simple. Like, is it and and the the someone in that group, he had never done anything like that. And I got a message afterwards saying it was the most profound thing he'd done in like 45 years of life. And he released, he went to some very dark childhood stuff that was just sitting there, and he was on the floor, and he was a guy, not tough guy, but like he wasn't someone who was he wasn't sort of spiritual or woo-woo or anything. He was he was he never dived into anything like that. And he was on the floor in a ball for like 30 minutes afterwards, just weeping and it just unlocked, and it was so powerful to see that. And I think what I love about this stuff so much is someone like that I'd said three words to before going into the session, and afterwards, suddenly I was he was opening up to me about his like deepest, darkest stuff that that he tapped into, and suddenly you have this connection with someone in that space that is so deep and profound, and and I consistently seem to have that. Like when you have these experiences with people, especially when you guide them and you're part of it, there's like a connection there that's pretty incredible to see.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Well, you get to meet the the real person, right? Their true self, yeah, not guarded by whatever it is, all the walls and then the guards that are standing at the walls of the fortress. You know, you're not you're not meeting them, you're meeting their true self, the more vulnerable self.

Vince Dickson:

And it's and it's the beautiful thing with with breath work as well, is it's such a direct route. Like if you just breathe in the way, and it it's it'll it's will claw its way in. It's it's different to so that there's a lot of therapies that are take maybe a bit more time or meditation or things like that that are incredible. And I do them, but there's not that same direct path. The breath work is like taking a drug, it's like it will have an effect if you consistently just all you have to do is breathe, and it will it changes your physiology and it changes your nervous system and opens up stuff that will kind of dive into all those corners that you don't know are there, and that's what's so powerful is like it's just people have no expectations and they have these profound experiences, and it's amazing to see.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I love that you mentioned it's like a drug, like it has that effect, right? You do something and it actually physiologically, emotionally, and mentally, we could even say spiritually, shifts you, changes you, releases things, like has an action in your body. And I know that, and I've experienced this through breath work, that you can even reach psychedelic states, you know, hallucinogenic states through it by just by the very nature of breathing, which, you know, yes, it's simple, it's autonomic. We all do it. But I think what's so complex about it is that because it's automatic for us, we're not thinking about how our breath has changed or has configured to the trauma in our life. And the breath is so intelligent that it actually will protect you, you know, at times when you needed that protection. And so it sets your body up in that way to be protected. But the problem is that when you don't need that protection anymore, it's you get stuck.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, it's huge. I mean, I work, I work in sort of two broad buckets, and and the one is the sort of transformational sessions where where it's, as you say, it's the kind of conscious breath work where you go quite deep and it's much more of a somatic therapy. And that's incredible. And for many people, that's almost just a door that opens up the possibility. But then almost more profoundly is some of the stuff you're talking about now, is the fact that it is this thing that is so connected with our emotions and the way we feel and the way we go through life. And a lot of the work is actually just being aware of your breathing patterns and how that can shift you emotionally or how you lock into things. And it's just this sort of doorway into like when you get into a certain state, the first thing you do is notice your breath. And then if you can shift your breath, it sort of shifts your state enough to then maybe examine something else. And it just becomes this sort of bottom of a pyramid that opens up to all these other ways, but it's the sort of doorway. And I think a lot of that is just simply getting people to breathe properly and be aware of where they're holding it. There's so many people I work with who just can't breathe into their diaphragm, they're they're so chest because everything is tight and heavy. And the minute you even just get that to open up, there's a sense of sort of space in your body that changes everything. It can really shift things. And sometimes it's that simple of just getting your body to feel more relaxed and to feel more in tune. But one of the one of my favorite exercises, it's not even an exercise, it's just being aware of your sort of normal breath and and being aware of letting your body breathe in the way it needs to. And so taking a sort of normal breath in and taking it out and then pausing at the bottom and not forcing the next breath, just waiting for your body to naturally take it. And when you play with that, and you get to the bottom, and you sort of you get to the bottom and you're you've exhaled, and you just continue to relax into that space of just, and rather than it being a stop point that now you need to fill up again, it's just you keep kind of relaxing your body into that, and then your body will naturally take another breath. And it's just it's for me and for so many people, it's it's the first time you're consciously letting your body be intelligent, not sort of overruled by your mind in so many ways. And it and there's such a there's something so profound, and whenever I really get stuck, I just go back to that of just breathing out and just sitting in that and kind of relaxing into it and feeling that presence and peace there, and then letting your body take over and restart the whole thing. And then it taps into the sort of whole spirituality of it and kind of what are you connecting with? And there's there's so many moments of once you hit that presence of like this feeling of connecting to something broader, and whether it's you whatever your spiritual beliefs, I think there's a sense of presence there that the breath can bring that is such a simple way for a lot of people.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

What was that like for you the first time you connected into that feeling of, oh, I'm connecting into this wider field or uh God or source consciousness and whatever definition you have? What was that like for you?

Vince Dickson:

I mean, it's an interesting question because I've I've spent so much of my life exploring that in some ways. I've meditated for a long time, not always consistently, but it's always been a sort of practice there. And I've gone down the sort of psychedelics route for a long time, and I'm very fascinated by consciousness. And some of those spaces I've I've sort of tapped into in from the in terms of connecting to something broader. I think with breath work in particular, and maybe some of the sort of modalities I'm exploring now, it's less this profound sense of connecting to something broader, and it's more a sense of really connecting to myself, if that makes sense. And and I think that there's a sense of like for the first time in my life, of really trusting my body and not having to understand it and not having to understand everything through logic in my mind. And I think that then leads to sort of a word I've been sitting with a lot over the past while is just faith. And I think as someone who's always tried to kind of crowbar reality to the way I needed it, almost always unsuccessfully, of like clinging to this, these outcomes that I needed and trying to use my intellect to force it and to scheme and to manipulate it, shifting to a space of just trusting, getting into my body and trusting that, and then having kind of faith that things are the way they need to be, and working with that is is like even this language I'm using is is language not that long ago that I would have laughed at myself for. And I think that's been such a profound shift of like as someone who thought they were relatively open to, I don't know, spirituality and and sort of a lot of I definitely wasn't closed off and unaware of this stuff. I've explored a lot of it, but for the first time it it makes sense in a very profound way. And I think part of that is the fact that I've stopped trying to understand it and I've stopped trying to use logic and I've just accepted that there's an intelligence beyond me and I can access it just through presence, and that presence comes about through connecting with your body and removing the logic of it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Completely. And I've experienced the same thing of where I'm very analytical, academic, ego, mind focused, and wanting to understand and figure it out and do that through logic or through the mind and ignoring the body to the point of like self-destructive behaviors, ignoring the body. You know, even as I was exploring esoteric subject matter and spiritual subject matter and things that were tied to emotional understanding. Um, you know, psychology is a great example of that. Like psychology, the whole study is interesting, right? You're studying the psyche, which is just this one sliver of our being. But we tend to rely on this as being, oh, the way to understand the self.

unknown:

And for

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Forget the body, the body intelligence and our gut and our intuition and the gut brain. And then, of course, our heart, you know, and the resonance of our heart and what that teaches us and connects us to, and is so much more intelligent, really, than our mind, as far as guiding us and leading us to the right things and opening us up to uh life in a in a way that your mind just can't do it on its own. So it's what you're describing to me is uh, you know, just describing one partly my journey, but also I think the journey of a lot of people who are finding their wholeness, you know, where you enter into a place finally where connection to God or something outside of us, source consciousness, I like to call it the energy of all that is, like connecting to that comes through self. It doesn't come through a searching out here, whether intellectual or even spiritual, you know, that transcendent kind of searching. It comes through becoming whole or or realizing that wholeness. And then you're just in resonance with it. That's at least the experience I've had. Like it's no longer about that searching. You just come into resonance with it, and you're like, whoa, oh, I don't need to know it or find it, even because it's right here.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, I I think I think to me it goes back to that idea of of faith, and I think realizing that so much of suffering that I think everyone experiences, whatever the source of it, comes down to this idea of not feeling safe. Whatever your sort of individual psychology or stuff that caused it, we all have certain things that have conditioned us to react to the world in certain ways. That really is ultimately a search to feel safe. And and relationship is often that it's connecting to someone and then feeling like that's your safe space. And so when that gets taken away, there's there's all the stuff that comes up, and I'm not gonna be okay in the world. And we're not used to just having faith that it will be okay. Like our minds are conditioned to make us survive, and that means looking out for all the danger and all the things that could go wrong. And and if we use our minds to constantly sort of map out the world, it's they're gonna irr on the side of where are all the potholes? Like, where are all the things I could fall into? And and they're not necessarily focused. Yeah, we're not necessarily focused on like actually, maybe the future's gonna be fucking amazing. Sorry, I don't know if I can swear on it. Yeah, um, maybe the future's gonna be amazing. Like as much there's as much chance that you your things are gonna fall apart. In fact, if you've been okay your whole life up until this point, no matter what happened, you're still here, you're still breathing, things are okay. There's no reason that's not gonna continue. And I think that's something I constantly try and go back to when I get in those moments of like stressed about something in particular. If I really step back and look at it, it's this sense of actually, it's just me worrying that in the future I'm not gonna be okay. And then looking back, there's psychology, and I think all the mental stuff is still useful because we still live in these meet computers that have programming, and it's useful to understand that programming, and it's under useful to kind of untangle that and and maybe mess with the source code. And but rarely, if you can get to a point, no matter what it takes, of profoundly understanding that you are safe right now and you will be safe, a lot of that anxiety goes away. And that clinging to the things that you think you need to keep you safe goes away, because that's where the suffering is. It's it's thinking you need all these things, whether it's other people, whether it's finances or work or whatever the things might be or your identity in the world. And the more we cling to that stuff, the more it can be taken away. And there's fear in that. It's not a sense of just showing up in the world. And if we can get to a point of just feeling profoundly safe in ourselves, a lot of that goes away. And I think connecting with your body is that root. It's it's moving out of your mind and using it for all that it's useful for. It's an incredible thing to use. And by no means saying you should shift out of your brain, it's it's the best thing we have going.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And the brain is part of the body. I mean, that and that's the whole thing. There is no separation. So I think that oftentimes we try to, you know, create this duality between mind-body, but our mind is our part of our body, but the mind can tend to take over the sensations of the body, right? And so then it trumps the body, uh, where we have to then start remembering the body. But the mind-body is one. Yeah. And when we get that, I think that true integration of those incredible, the incredible intelligence and sensation and experience of all of it together is where the magic starts happening rather than like closing off some aspect of it.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah. Yeah. Well said. If you can get to that point, and it's a constant sort of practice to do that. Because I think we're we live in a world that's so mind-focused. So it's it's trying to reconnect. I I have the stat that I saw and repeat quite often at the moment. It's that our bodies are kind of take in 11 million bits of information per second. So all the sort of stimulus coming in, the air temperature and the sound and the sitting on the chair and the feeling and just taste and everything that's happening. And our minds process or our brains process like something like 50 bits of information per second. So if we're filtering everything through our brains, it's a sliver of a sliver of actually what's coming in. And if you can shift the focus on some of that stuff, it's it's it's it's understanding that the thing that you're processing here is a is not reality. It's this micro portion of reality that you've your particular programming and and situation right now and experience and all that is deciding is the most relevant thing. And we can shift what is relevant, we can shift it. And if we can get out of that for a second and reconnect with this, we can sort of shift what comes up and what's allowed to be processed. Um, and that can be really profound.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, and I love what you said, what comes up, because our body is not just a receiver of information from our brain, right? And then it just like animates our body, but our body is is a receiver of information for the brain to process it. It goes all both ways to to have um all those channels open rather than like a top-down type of processing.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, there's so much there, it's a constant journey, and there's and I mean there's so many modalities, I suppose, and there's so many ways of getting to this. But it is a sense of surrender, I think, is the is the word is really allowing yourself to kind of trust in it and let go. And I I think as someone who wasn't very good at that for a long time, it's been a big journey, and it still is. It's a constant thing, and I get shifted out of it very often, and I have to get back there. But I sort of, once that door's open, all of this stuff we're talking about, there's an awareness of it, and and you're always able to kind of get back there and and work with it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Do you feel like at this stage of your life that you'll never go back, that you will keep the door open?

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, it's a good I I'm sure I will. I mean, I'm I'm sure I will. It's a constant practice. And I think when when things are good, it's very easy to slip out of it. So that's when the practice is the most. But we tend to dive into these things when we need them and then forget them when we don't, and then it's sort of a so I mean, but that's part of the journey, isn't it? Is is you you get to play this game of of sort of thinking you're you're I I I um heard this years ago as a quote of something like human beings are incomplete, are incomplete things that constantly believe we're complete. And I think that's the thing. We always think we sort of know it all now, but and then we look down the road and you're like, oh, I was such an idiot two years ago. I was such an idiot five years ago. But at each of those points I thought I had it all figured out, and I uh part of it is getting to a point where you accept that you actually don't and probably never will. So yeah, there's no going back in some ways, I suppose, just in the sense of like the awareness of I I think the biggest awareness for me was how shut off I was in many ways, and and I think that led to some negative behaviors, and and as I say, a lot of that was quite hard to work through. So I I hope, if nothing else, this period of my life has humbled me enough to remember that that I that I don't know and that I need to listen more and constantly be aware. So we'll see. Well maybe, maybe not. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I know, right? Oh, it's a wait and see kind of game. Are you someone who believes that you'll come back, that you're a reincarnated soul, or that this is it?

Vince Dickson:

Interesting. I this is all stuff I'm recently playing into. Yeah, I I I I I feel like I like to believe that. I think I've I've died much more down that side. It makes sense to me in a way that I have never really thought about before. It's not something I've given a lot of thought to. I think I've always I've always believed in a greater consciousness and whatever that means. But I think the idea of reincarnation is sitting better at the moment. I have these conversations with friends. I have friends who are very religious in all sorts of different ways, so it's interesting exploring the way different people see these things. I like it from the sense of the idea that we're here to work through stuff. And there's a sense of peace in that for me, of like, it's all just lessons and it's all a curriculum we get to go through, and the really shit stuff and the really great stuff, and all of it is just this great learning experience, and it's necessary. Whether it's true or not, I feel like that belief makes my experience of the world better. And who's to know? I might find out one day when I die. I think there's a there's a there's definitely a sense of I right now in this moment don't have a fear of death in maybe the same way I've had in the past. Because I have sort of faith that there's something beyond that in whatever sense.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Um I can say, oh, none of us really know, although myself, past guests, friends of mine, people I know certainly know from the standpoint of having experienced memories, consciousness of past lives, of actually journeying, you know, that their soul journeys outside. And I believe that every night we journey, you know, every night we dream, and that's what our dreams are is our soul journeying through consciousness and dipping down into whether it's memory or it's future, or it's just a amalgamation of this consciousness, but in a different way, to show us things that we don't quite see in our waking life. So the journeying of outside of just this, you know, regular life that we're living to me says, well, there's something that's journeying. There's there's something that goes outside of the body or that is separate from the body. So then what's that? Yeah. And then where does that go? And does that, you know, why would that die with this body when you know the you know, so yeah, could it? Could it be an intelligence or an energy about us that just is here only in this lifetime and in this body? Sure. But to me, it seems so much more than that. It seems like it is connected to that vast consciousness of all that is, this energy of all that is. And um, it's just an interesting thing to explore. Like you said, whether or not it's true or not, it I believe allows us to live a more enriched life, a life that can help us, you know, it can help us get out of the just the normal human struggle because it's whether that's paving the way to your faith or it provides lessons for you in a way that, you know, our just our humanness can't.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, it's it's such a this sort of type of belief or this form of spirituality. I think for a long time, what I struggled with around it was this idea of if you really truly believe that this is all sort of there's a pattern laid out and all the experiences in your life are what's meant to happen, and you don't really have free will in that same way that we believe, and that we're there's sort of these are all the things that then come up that we're meant to work through and that we need to work through. Of like, what is the point? Why not just sit on the sofa and sort of stare at the TV and do nothing all day? And I think for a long time I I struggled that of like, well, if it's all meaningless and it's all laid out anyway, then why do you need to engage with it? And and the and accepting again, getting out of my logical mind, accept that they're both true. It can be fully laid out and you still have to. And it's and it's something, even as I say it intellectually, it doesn't make sense, but there's a sense of like it can both be true. And I think there's there's been many things that have come up recently where I've I've stepped into that sort of non-duality of like this and this can exist at the same time. And that's been such a big thing for me to work with and accept that actually I don't have to define everything in these black and white terms. Um, and that's been a really beautiful. And when I have stepped into those spaces, there's a sense of freedom there and a sense of peace that like it's so beautiful of going, actually, it's it's all true. I need to actively enjoy and engage and take part in this, but also there's a sense of just being part of this great cosmic thing that maybe is just a conveyor belt I'm on, and I really don't have a choice in how it plays out.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yes, but you get to choose because you know, free will and destiny, let's call it, are both true. Then you get to choose how you experience the unfolding of your destiny. You know, I think we probably all can think of experiences or of like this of where you try to avoid something that you have this like inkling inside, you have this like feeling inside, you know that whether this relationship isn't right for you, or this career isn't right for you, or you you have the intuition, it's like in the back of your mind, or it's like hear, you know, a whisper inside, and yet you avoid and you distract and you don't. But then eventually it it will come and and tell you, yeah, that is true.

Vince Dickson:

It always comes. I yeah, that that is something I fully, fully believe in is that it'll keep coming back until you work through it. And I've I have so many lessons that I've finally, I hope, taken on board over the last while that I look back at points in my life and gone, oh I can see how that was that happened then, and I ignored it. And I I thought even worse, I thought I'd figured it out, and I hadn't, and I hadn't become the person I needed to be, and I hadn't worked through that. And uh yeah, I think it'll keep slapping you in the face until you wake up.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yes, exactly.

Vince Dickson:

Which again has has led me to this amazing space of the idea that all the negative stuff that we try and resist is really great lessons we have to learn. And and I think being able to reframe some of that. And again, it's not easy. I'm by no means claiming that you just go like, well, this is a lesson I need to learn. It still sucks, and I will avoid the suffering at every chance I get. But when it is there and it is in your face and you can't run away, at least having some sense of how beautiful and necessary it is can shift things.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yes, and accepting that wholeness of life that we were talking about earlier, that pain is part of it, that the experience of that, and but pain, pain can be shorter because I believe that we prolong the pain through the resistance of going into it. So it's it's it's kind of like the ripping the band-aid off, you know, metaphor. It's like we could do it slowly and be like, ow, ow, ow, ow, or we can just be like, ow, and just quick go. Still gonna be painful, but it's it's the speed at which you get to travel through it. And if we're not, if we're avoiding it, it's just gonna be this slow and painful ripping of the band-aid or pulling of the band-aid off, or it's just a go and you it hurts and it's painful. But then you get to go out on the other side of it and get that lesson and get those gifts quick more quickly. And that's the free will part, I believe. It's just like, okay, the lesson's there for you, and it's gonna keep tapping you, slapping you until you decide to face it. And our free will is whether we're stepping into it and how vigorously and how with you know how much of our whole self we're gonna go into it or not.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, it's a fun game. It's all yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Vince Dickson:

It is a fun game. And you and you're if you're I think the awareness of all of this stuff, part of it is just being aware enough that you get to play it, no matter how much it sucks at times. And it's not all just chaotic uselessness that means nothing. There's intelligence out there and there's things happening, and having some sort of trust that you're going through what you need to go through in order to evolve and to grow, is it can make life a lot easier. It can make your experience of life a lot easier.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

You brought up a great point earlier about how you know the brain, the ego is gonna do everything to keep us safe, look for the potholes, look for you know, the danger signs. That's what the brain does so well. And if you're conditioned to that and your nervous system is set up for that, then obviously you're gonna do that even more than maybe somebody who grew up in safer spaces and your juxtaposition, or I guess you know, the what we've talked about today of just giving your body the opportunity to also provide you information and give you information about the world is the beautiful part of the work you're doing now to enter into the body so that that body can be also giving you signs. But those signs aren't all they're not gonna be pothole here, danger over here. It's gonna be peace here, love here, like gentleness there, like openness here. The body gives us the those, oh, if we allow it to, and and we enter it into these in the way that you're talking about.

Vince Dickson:

There's a term I heard and love and keep going back to is something called a a glimmer.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yes.

Vince Dickson:

And I don't know where it comes from, we came up with it. And just that this idea, and I love the idea of it of rather we sort of talk about triggers, which are these negative stimulus of things. That kind of negatively affect us and they cause us to go into kind of heightened states. But there's glimmers as well. And glimmers are positive triggers. So all these moments throughout the day that are you just feel good. And part of my breathwork practice is actually really sitting with those. If I kind of take a moment and really breathe into it when I'm out, and can be the sort of sip of coffee in the morning and just the taste of it in that moment. And just or it can be the sound of a bird or someone smiling at you or just a text you get. There's simple things that just you get that moment where you feel good and there's kind of the sun hitting your face. And if you stop and allow them to trigger you positively, if you start stacking those throughout your days, you can kind of constantly interrupt any negative things that are happening. And you you just become much more aware and grateful for these tiny little things that are happening throughout your day and that you're experiencing and focusing on them in that same way of what you're talking about, sort of conditioning your mind to notice that like all these beautiful things of how kind of great that smile was or how beautiful the sun feels or how like good the food smells or whatever it might be. And sitting and kind of taking a moment and just yeah, like absorbing that and being present in it is a really profound thing.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, it is. It's uh certainly is, and the work that you're doing to help people reconnect to their body, which is connecting to their mind too, but in a different way, that is such a profound way to enter into everything you just talked about. The the being able to notice, the be the being able to take something in with awe and gratitude and be able to breathe it into your body. I mean, there's a lot of metaphor around that, but being able to breathe in an experience rather than just take it in, you know, through your your brain computer, you're like taking it in through all your cells, like through, you know, and it's entering in in a in a deeper, different way. So, how can people find you and connect with you? Are you, I know you're in New York, but are you offering breathwork sessions online?

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, I do one-on-one coaching. So as I say, it's a mixture that's very bespoke depending on where people are at or what they need. And that's great. Obviously, that's a really good way. If anyone's interested, you can I think the easiest way is through my Instagram. There's links to everything on there. And then I run classes. I'm starting to do more in New York. So uh also through my Instagram, I update stuff on there. Yeah, so those are the two main, the two main ways at the moment. And then I sort of put out content and I have a newsletter and all that sort of stuff. And Instagram is the is the distribution point. So if you go on there, you can click through and see everything. And yeah, if anyone's interested in any way, please message me. This stuff has been profound in my life. It kind of constantly is I love doing it. Uh it's a whole journey, and I love talking about it. So if you're interested just to find out more or to talk about anything, please reach out.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Awesome. Uh, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for sharing your your insights on of on your journey, the continuing journey as it is, right? That you're on, that we're all on. I appreciate your candidness and your vulnerability talking about what you've been through recently and and how that's led you to now not coming in as, oh yeah, you know, this is how it's always been, and I've always had this knowledge. But, you know, on uh for people to really see that knowledge is gained through experience and it's gained through not just the good stuff, but the bad stuff or what is the painful stuff too.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, and I would say that to anyone if there's one thing I can say, it's it's knowing that you don't know and and you just have no idea what's around the corner, and that the the most painful stuff, if you're open, you're open yourself up to it, there's gold in there. You can turn that into a much better life. So wherever point you're at now, and and people are in some pretty bad points, and it's and it's hard and it's real, but there's always opportunity there. There are ways of shifting as we talk about this meet computer and allowing it to experience the world in a different way. So keep your mind open.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Thank you so much for sharing all your time and insights with our audience.

Vince Dickson:

Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, it's great.