Expert Q&A: Leveraging human design with Vickie Dickson
The following interview is a transcript excerpt from The Heallist Podcast episode. Listen to the full audio version or watch the video below and subscribe to get notified of new episodes.
In this episode of the Heallist Podcast, Vickie Dickson, known as the Business Whisperer and host of the Bodygraph.com Podcast, delve into the transformative world of Human Design. Vickie shares her insights on how Human Design can empower individuals in their personal and professional lives, dispelling common misconceptions and emphasizing the importance of understanding one's unique design.
The conversation covers the basics of Human Design, the significance of profiles, the interplay between defined and undefined centers, and how this knowledge can lead to greater self-acceptance and healing. Vicki also discusses the relationship between Human Design and astrology, the impact of transits on personal transformation, and how to effectively integrate Human Design into business strategies. This concludes with practical advice on recognizing oneself and embracing one's unique gifts.
Human Design: Types, Strategy, Profiles Explained
Vickie Dickson: My very favorite description of what Human Design is is that if the chakra system, the I Ching, astrology, and the Jewish Kabbalah had a baby, it would be Human Design. Because it makes it accessible to most of us who have had these healing modalities in our lives for some time. It's based on your birth information. So it's not, it's not subjective. It's something that's fact. It's never going to change.
One of the questions I get a lot, “will my Human Design change the more deconditioning or healing work I do?” And no, your Human Design is always your Human Design. Some of the things that I get frustrated with are people thinking that their Human Design dictates whether they can do something or not. Should I have a group coaching program because I'm a projector? Your Human Design doesn't tell you what you can do. It tells you how to do what you do. It gives you your path of least resistance. You can do anything you want to do. We all have all of the design. It's just which parts are you going to activate and use for the particular work that you're doing.
The other big frustration is using your Human Design as a label or an excuse, which is kind of the same thing. I can't do that because I'm a projector. I can't do this because I'm this. I can't do that. And on and on it goes. Human Design is so much more than your type. One of the questions I asked you when we started was what's your profile? Those two little numbers: it means so much in your design. We want to look at all of the areas and see the nuances together. That's often missed in this cookie cutter content saturation place that we live in right now.
Getting Baseline Readings and Integration
Vickie Dickson: What I would strongly suggest is a baseline reading for almost anyone who's really on a healing path and finding, I feel like I'm missing something. I feel like something is off here and I can't quite grasp it. Either my work isn't right, my relationships aren't right, something's off. I don't feel really good about this experience that I'm having. And find a reader that you can really relate to. Find a reader that you understand the way she speaks, get the way that they present these concepts. We really need someone who can unpack all the pieces in a way that you can take it away and go, okay, well, this is how you're going to use this in your business.
What I would really invite you to do is to understand your own design. Have that basic reading from someone that you trust, and then get into really unpacking all the pieces of your own design, which is going to take years. There's still things in my design that I will say to someone else in the field, can you give me your perspective on this? I loved what you shared about finding out your projector in your business because it's all about your lived experience. So you're going to have a reading or some baseline to start with, and then you're going to take that information, hopefully, and you're going to live it. And then that might open up some more questions for you. And maybe you'll be ready for another level of it. But start with the basics. And please don't think you have to learn Human Design. It's just living your own design.
When I first started with Human Design, using it as part of my business, I was in holistic health. I had a holistic health practice for about 10 years. And I worked with women at midlife, perimenopause and menopause, that's my jam. There was something missing. The one number one driver for women seeking help was unfulfilled expectations, and I think there's a real drive for purpose at midlife. Human Design just cuts through the noise. It is so personalized that you can look into your Human Design and you can see who you're here to be at your highest self.
Messaging by Design: Finding Your Voice
Vickie Dickson: I'm a 2-4 profile, second line in Human Design. I can't see myself. And it was so interesting to hear these women talk about what they got out of it. And it seems to be that one of the things that I do is that I weave Human Design so effortlessly. I've built five different multi-six-figure businesses across five completely different industries. And I love, love, love business. But what I didn't love was that I burned myself out three times in those businesses.
I look around and I see a sea of women who are completely burned out in their businesses. So my secret sauce really seems to be helping you to see how you can do your business your way. There is absolutely no reason you can't have whatever business, whatever goal, whatever you want in your life. But let's do it in a way that you don't burn down your life every seven to 10 years to get it done. Let's build it in a way where “I can do whatever I want during the day as long as I get the other work done when the energy is there for it.“
I'm a Manifesting generator. I need to be doing 16 things at once. We all have been conditioned to be generative. My conditioning says you have to stick to one thing, you have to do it this way, and it has to be one thing. I just take all of that out the window. Look at your unique Human Design. We could talk for days about all of this stuff. But we can look into your design and we can see, are you bent more towards group work? Are you bent more towards one-on-one work? Because there's this danger in the online space where we tell women that the only way they're going to scale their business is to offer a group program and to sell it en masse. But if you don't have any circuitry for a group program, good luck holding that group together or not falling apart yourself.
I have these beautiful women who make excellent one-on-one coaches. And they get so discouraged because they think they're never going to be able to scale because somebody somewhere told them that's not the way to run a business one-on-one, you're going to kill yourself. But if that's their gift and that's their genius, then let's find a way that they can actually scale that one-on-one work so that they're lit up every day of their life and they don't burn themselves out and they do good work on the planet.
So there's all these, I use every area of your Human Design to say, how can we get you where you want to go with your path of least resistance? To me, that's what your Human Design is for. It's the map of how you're going to do this thing that you came here to do without breaking your life.
Providing a Guide to Your Own Blueprint
Vickie Dickson: I think that's an often overlooked place where Human Design could be used more than it is in true manifesting generator fashion. One of my other careers, I'm also a copywriter. I love linguistics. Everything about writing is what I love. And we've got so much conditioning around who we are. And then we try to show up online, and I will say it's like trying to show up at your 30-year high school reunion naked and expect you won't be judged or be afraid of people judging you. That's what it feels like to be in the online business sometimes. And people are buying all these templates and these formulas and now ChatGPT prompts and all of these things, but there's deeper work to be done.
If we haven't done the deeper work on actually what are all those things that we've been told about ourselves, most of the time, the women that I work with, they pour out their hearts on their keyboards and they're ready to do the post. And that delete button is their best friend in life. They have got so much inside of them that is unsaid. So instead of saying what they really need to say, what they really mean to say, they delete it all and they put up something inspirational or educational, because educational content, if I just keep educating people and telling them how to do this or telling them this about Human Design or this about Reiki or whatever it is, then surely they'll think I'm smart enough and they'll hire me. Meanwhile, it's stuck in your throat what you really need to say, what's actually going to bring your soul fit client to you, is when you say that. So that's the work that I do with my people.
Applying Human Design to Body Transitions
Vickie Dickson: There definitely are correlations with the gates to the physical body. Generators and manifesting generators have loads of sacral energy. Every day, they get a new load of energy. And this starts very young. What we do with all people, but generators and manifesting generators, we sit them down at a desk for eight hours and we don't have them moving their bodies. You need to physically move your body daily.
If you're a generator or manifesting generator, you absolutely have to move that energy through your body. When you don't, you will experience ADD, ADHD, unscattered thought patterns. You could have thyroid issues because the energy doesn't have anywhere to go. Because all energy, in Human Design, is trying to get to the throat so it can have effects on your thyroid. And then, you can't sleep because you're buzzing.
Projectors, manifestors, reflectors–completely the opposite. You have amplified, taken on, sucked up so much sacral energy that isn't yours throughout the day that what you want to do is have about 30 minutes where you can be in a prone position before bedtime by yourself and let all of that sacral energy dissipate. This should not be watching scary movies or having conversations about money or any of those things. It's maybe reading a nice book, having a bath, laying down in the tub, but you really need to let that go so that then you can relax into sleep.
It's also really a benefit for– we call them non-sacral beings– people who do not have a defined sacral: projectors, manifestors, reflectors, to sleep alone so that you're not being conditioned while you sleep, because then you wake up and you don't feel like yourself when you're sleeping with somebody else that's conditioning you while you sleep. If there are any channels, a channel is the full line between two numbers. If there are any channels between your spleen center and your root center, you need to sweat daily. You have to work out daily to get rid of that energy.
