Founder's Story - The Spiritual Awakening That Saved Her Life (And Could Save Yours) | Ep 260 with Lindsey Van Wagner Founder of the Spirit Vigilante Method

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

We open on a cultural moment: the practices once dismissed as “woo” are becoming mainstream because burnout, information overload, and deep fakes are eroding trust in everything but lived experience. Lindsey grounds that shift in her own story—sobriety in September 2015 as the catalyst—and explains why she built Spirit Vigilante and Haven 101 Wellness Studio to help people move from conditioned scripts to conscious authorship. Drawing on neuroscience and clinical health psychology, she frames “spiritual sleep” as years of environmental programming where the mind and body run the show while the soul goes quiet. The wake-up isn’t a single lightning bolt; it’s a series of honest moments that begin with awareness and acceptance, then continue through daily practices that rewire identity. Key Discussion Points:Instead of chasing identities that keep behavior on autopilot—“I’m damaged,” “I’m this role”—Lindsey teaches a witness mindset: if you can observe a thought, you’re not the thought. Rewriting starts with literal writing. Her method uses awareness journaling to surface narratives, replace labels with curiosity, and rehearse new decisions until the nervous system believes them. She underlines the role of community; isolation convinces us we’re uniquely broken, but shared language and soft accountability make change durable. On “toxic positivity,” she’s blunt: saying “it’ll be okay” can invalidate pain, add shame, and push emotions underground. What helps is presence—“I’m here with you”—and timing, offering resources when the nervous system is ready rather than in the middle of the storm. A personal story of supporting her partner through grief becomes a template for loved ones: don’t fix, sit with, and ask whether they want listening, reflection, or advice. The name Spirit Vigilante crystallizes her ethos: “vigil” means to stay awake; the work includes darkness, boundaries, and defending your inner justice even when the mainstream pulls you away from it. Takeaways:Change starts when you stop labeling moments as good or bad and treat life like experiments with learnable outcomes. Writing is a neurological rehearsal that turns awareness into new behavior. Community prevents spiral loops of shame and accelerates healing. Presence beats platitudes; validation regulates the body so guidance can land. Spirituality isn’t an escape from science—it’s how Lindsey integrates neuroscience with soul to help high-achievers lead authentically. Closing Thoughts:This episode captures a practical spirituality: awake, evidence-informed, and unglamorous enough to work. If you’re at a breaking point, start small—one page of truth, one honest breath, one conversation where you’re heard. Lindsey’s invitation is simple and subversive: stay awake to your soul, and make that your strategy. Get more leads and grow your business. Go to https://www.pipedrive.com/founders and get started with a 30 day free trial. Ditch the other hiring sites, and let ZipRecruiter find what you’re looking for — the needle in the haystack. Try it FOR FREE at this exclusive web address: ZipRecruiter.com/WORK. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's episode is sponsored by Pipe Drive, the number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses. I'm excited to share more about them later in the episode. So, Lindsay, I know we've had a few talks before and what you're doing fascinates me, not only because it's helping and impact people, but also I think it's becoming more and more mainstream. When people would think about this before, it might turn them off or turn them away, but now a lot of people are embracing this. Why do you think many people are spiritually asleep? And what do you find wakes them up? I think that many people are spiritually asleep because from a very young age, we're kind of being programmed into our environment.

I kind of explain it in my book as we were given a script. that we didn't write. So I think through family, through school, through all these systems from the micro to macro, we're being taught how to react to different situations without much of our own intuition being emphasized as important or our own soul, you know, if we're talking about the soul, I kind of interpret your question as our soul is asleep and our mind and body are running the show. So with that disconnection, I think that's really harmful for people. So another way to think about it is conditioning is a word people use. So I think we're kind of in this hypnosis. And until something happens that wakes us up, we'll stay in that and not really

understand where that discontent is coming from and often blaming outside sources, people, places, and things for our unhappiness when it's really all within. Did you have an awakening moment for yourself? Yeah, I think I've had several awakening moments. The one that all of this is born from was me deciding to get sober. So that was September of 2015. And I had just, I was so lost and kind of hit my own rock bottom. There were external consequences, but it was mostly the internal.

My soul had just gotten so dark. so empty and I I wanted to die and so I but something kind of told me what if what if you could live and what if you could improve your life which I hadn't considered because by that point talk about being asleep I had just constructed and reinforced this narrative that I was damaged beyond repair and no one would ever understand me and once I started trying to peel away those layers I realized that there was something underneath which I believe is underneath all of us no matter or how intense our issues have become. So yeah, that was probably that that was the beginning and the foundation for all of this. Why do you think that we give ourselves a label and then think that that

label is forever? I might say, you were saying before how, you know, I am something as if I can't change that something. Like you said, I awakened and I realize I'm not that something anymore. I think that we try to latch on to identities and then whether it's, yeah, I'm damaged. It can even be a role or a career that we're latching onto that thinks that defines us, but those are really just pillars in our lives and not, it's something the ego does because it can dictate our behavior. So it's a nice convenience to say, for me to say, I'm damaged. And then all of my behaviors can nicely align with that if that's what I'm using as my point of reference. So I think we do that just to organize our actions in a way and hold on to that as a guiding point.

But it can be changed because if we can observe our thoughts and feelings, then we are not them. So if we take this witness approach, this neutral approach to getting curious about those behaviors and curious about change, then just that is so powerful in starting to rewrite that script. So when you think about rewriting or unlearning, because I want to be free of something, what either worked for you or what have you experienced when you wanted to unlearn or rewire? Yeah, I think the first part is noticing and accepting. where you are, which is what stops us a lot from even the process. If we're stuck in denial and not willing to do that self-exploration, we're kind of just going to keep coming up

against ourselves and experiencing resistance. But once you can really get honest and commit to this journey and devote yourself to those actions and habits that will help you along the way, then it can be a very cool door, beautiful door to open. And so for me, it was really, really started with awareness, writing. I'm a writer and author now. And writing really, so when I say rewrite my story, a lot of this is through literal writing. I believe we have the power to do that, just like I talked about being programmed to the fact, to the point of spiritual sleep, you know, or hypnosis, through a variety of different things, we can reprogram ourselves. And I think a big way to do that is writing. So that really helped me support in

community, knowing that you're not alone was very important for me because I think we tend to isolate. And I'm the only one who's ever dealt with these issues. And everyone else is just living normally in perfect lives. And why can't I figure it out? you know so so knowing that you're not alone knowing that you're in community and doing the things that other people have done to achieve the life that you want if someone's done it then we we can use that as a model and kind of tweak things day by day to improve our lives let's say somebody is watching right now and they're on the verge of breaking they're saying those things currently if they asked you lindsay this is happening to me right now what would you say to them i would say you're not

alone. I would say do not punish yourself for how you're feeling. Just become aware of it. Notice where you are. Take a deep breath. Know that change is possible. It's funny when you say that though. I do. I want to like personally talk to all of these people and that's really my mission is to help as many people as possible because I know how both sides feel and I just want everyone to feel this gift of liberation and living in their in their truth so i've spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs and one of the biggest pain points they share is generating consistent quality leads most founders spend hours chasing down prospects juggling outreach and still end up with missed opportunities that's why i recommend today's sponsor pipe drive the number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses

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and you can be up and running in minutes. I think that's, you know, these are a lot of conversations I hear. Like, there's just so many things. We're so bombarded with information, could be fake information you have deep fakes we don't know what's true what's not like i think this topic is is not just even like you said about you're living you know yourself and living within yourself but it's also just what we're seeing if you're on social media there's just so much i think we're just so overwhelmed as just a species as a human we're so overwhelmed and that we're just we don't know how to break free. So I'm excited about spirit vigilante. What is the name spirit vigilante? What is that reference? Okay. So we started this interview by talking about being spiritually

asleep, right? So the word, so that's the spirit part of it. The word vigilante actually means to stay awake, the root of the word vigil, like to hold vigil to stay awake to stay watchful. So I see that as waking up our soul so that we can take it upon ourselves to protect that and defend that. Even if the mainstream is saying all of these different things, no one knows you better than yourself. So I believe that we kind of become our own vigilantes, our own superheroes, right? We think of vigilantes. That's Batman. That's Superman. That's people going against the grain to stand up for what's right. So we're claiming that justice for our souls. So that's a high level view of where that came from. And I also wanted to incorporate the fact that it's not all light and rainbows. There's some work that happens in the darkness here. And that's why we need to stay awake and aware. I really enjoy that. I mean, throughout many times in my life, I can say that, I was in those moments, you know, those breaking moments.

And you do feel alone. And any time you have someone tell you, like, everything is going to be okay, it almost makes you more angry hearing that, right? Like, how is it going to be okay? Like, what do I need to do? So I'm glad that you're giving tangible things that people can do, not only just about, you know, telling them to feel better. So when it comes to this, in the coaching world, there's this toxic positivity.

You just talked about, you know, talking about real things. It's not always positive. So how do people start this healing process knowing that, you know, not everything is always going to be positive? Yeah, so I think that this toxic positivity, I don't think anyone has bad intentions with it. I think they really hope that those words are going to help people when they say everything's going to be okay. But what that can do is when someone's sharing their feelings and in a dark space, and then they hear the opposite, which might be a way to fix it, or think about how much you have to be grateful for, it takes away from validating the experience they're having in that moment. So I know when I'm told things like that, not only A, do I feel, I still feel upset about my original feeling, right? because that didn't help it. And now I feel like I shouldn't be having that feeling.

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Last time I had it, I was told this. So let's just shove that away. Right? That's not okay to feel that way. So I think it's really, really important. Our pain is our pain. It doesn't matter if it's the worst pain ever. I always call it the starving people in China approach. When someone's having a bad day, they do not need to be reminded that they're starving people in China and that their problems aren't as hard as that. So then they shouldn't be upset. That logic doesn't work for me. Maybe it does for other people. And like I said, it's the best of intentions. People want to remind you, look at, look at your blessings, you know, but I just don't think in certain moments that's helpful. I think what we need to do is listen. Even if we can't fix it, we can say, I don't know how to fix it, but I'm here with you. I'm here with you in these feelings. And I see you. And I hear you. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I can, I can personally relate to saying those, like saying how I feel and then maybe feelings weren't validated or maybe they were

validated depending on the person I was talking to. If you are the person who has someone in the life going through that, because I think we don't always, we don't always maybe acknowledge or recognize how how challenging it can be to also be with someone who's going through those and maybe not knowing what to do, you know, do help them. What advice do you give to those people who have someone in their life who's going through this right now? That's such a good question. That's such a nice rearrangement of that. So to be on the receiving end of that,

especially if it's a chronic issue or someone that I think I have to use stories to explain these things just to bring it into abstract. So my partner is a widower and he lost his wife. And we were friends first and then eventually started dating.

And he still hits these moments of grief as is expected as is normal and I have never lost a partner in that way. So I can't say everything's going to be okay. I can't say you should be overt by now, nor do I believe that or think that. So what I do is I just sit and I literally what I just said, I'm here. I don't know what your experience, but I'm in the darkness with you and please let me know how I can support you. I don't try to fix it. I might insert, I think timing's everything. You know, I might make suggestions at other times. But when he's in that and he's in the depths of that pain and sharing that with me, I'm not recommending a book to read in that moment, you know? Not the time. Now, if I hear

things along the way, it doesn't mean that I can't take a constructive approach and say, you know, maybe this is a good person to talk to. But in that moment, it's just, I'm here. I can't imagine how you feel right now. So I'm not going to pretend to. But just know that I'm here. I really, and maybe that sounds reductive and oversimplifying. But that can be, I've found that too. I would have to ask him to double check, but I've found that to be very helpful. And it takes the onus off me. I can't solve his problem. I can't. I'm not his caretaker. I've tried to be. And that doesn't work. So just I'm here. Do you want my opinion right now? Do you want my consolation? Do you just want me to listen? Right? And sometimes asking, asking that very question. I think sometimes we just want to be heard, right? Like we just want to be heard. We don't even want someone to tell us what to do or what not to do. We just want to be able to say our feelings. I mean, I guess that's almost the premise of most therapy I've ever had in my life. They didn't really teach me anything. kind of like listen and I was able to sometimes when you say something out loud you start to

solve and you start to hear yourself but it's like I just want to tell something to someone who isn't then going to judge me on the receiving end I maybe what we all need to do is read spirit vigilante together and then we can have a once a week session we all talk about it so people want to again if you want to find the book because it sounds like you know there's a lot of hurting people a lot of people that are at their breaking moments right now in the world and healing and and this type of work hopefully will will solve some issues but if people want to get the book how can they do so they can again i'm on instagram at spirit vigilante and my website is the spiritvigilante dot com literally if you google spirit vigilante you'll find a bunch of different ways to find me i have

events i teach virtual writing classes um and yeah i'd love to hear from you the book is very conversational, very accessible. So like I said, you know, Daniel just asked me a question and I answer it with a story. I think that, so I do show the behavioral, you know, I have a background in health psychology. So I show that this is based on clinical evidence, these ideas that I'm proposing these techniques. But I also bring a story into it to kind of ground those abstract concepts into everyday life. So you can relate to it. So it's nice, it's nice no matter where you're coming from, it will really, really meet you where you are and guide you through what you're going through. I think that's a good mix because people always want to know, like, what's the science,

what's the facts behind something, right? Not just the feelings. And then the stories bring it all together. So what an exciting book. Thank you, Lindsay. I know that you're going to probably help hopefully millions, maybe a billion people, I'm sure, in your lifetime. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. And thank you for joining us on Founder's Story. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. much for the work you do and thank you for having me.