You're listening to Women's Dream Enlightenment.
Welcome.
Today I have Bracca Goetz.
She is a Harvard-educated author of 41 books
That help children's souls shine and a candid memoir about her journey to joy.
Thank you for being here today,
Bracca.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to be with you.
One of the very special things about Bracca is that she is the same personality type as me.
So we were both tickled when we found that out and I'm so happy to have another INFJ here today
That I want to talk about that in depth and let our listeners who are that connect with that and
Who don't know what that means find out a little bit more about us through that.
Basically,
I'm just going to talk a little bit about the INFJ thing and then I'm going to say
Some characteristics of INFJs and we'll talk about it.
For people that don't know what we're
Talking about,
There's the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment.
We are basically
One of the very rare types.
It is 1% of the female population.
So yes,
There you have it.
Now,
The primary function,
Of course,
Of INFJs is introverted intuition.
And so,
Of course,
That lets us really hold a special place in the world because we are so intuitive.
And INFJs are often referred to as counselors and nurturers for that reason.
So tell me a little bit
About what you feel the INFJ is and then I'm going to read some other statements that really
Resonated with me and we'll play with those.
Yeah.
And also,
This is Myers-Briggs,
We're
Really strong idealists.
If I had to pick a word about myself,
That's who I am.
In some ways,
I'm almost barely in this physical world because I live so much in a spiritual world.
So actually,
For many years,
I was suffering because I was never taught about the spiritual
World.
And I felt something was so missing from my life,
But I had no idea what it was
Because I was only taught about this physical world.
And so,
I didn't even understand the
Desperation that I was feeling and the intense hunger.
Where was it coming from?
I didn't know
I was a soul.
So learning,
Finally getting the spiritual nourishment I was craving totally
Changed my life and brought me so much happiness.
It really fills my life up every day with joy now
Because I'm getting that spiritual nourishment.
Without it,
It's really hard for me to survive
In the world.
Yes,
And I resonate very much with that feeling like you're not really completely
In the physical world.
And people going,
Come back here,
Come back to this.
This is reality.
It's like,
Well,
Maybe.
Maybe it is,
But it's an illusion also,
Right?
Yes,
Exactly.
And the J part
Of that INFJ is interesting in that we like to get things done.
We like to accomplish things
Even in this world.
But what we like to accomplish is kind of in the spiritual vein of helping people,
Of healing people,
Of making the world a better place.
That's what our lives are devoted to.
And sometimes it's either a J or a P at the end.
And the P people sometimes might have a harder
Time in accomplishing,
But that part of us is concrete.
We like to get the things done
That help the world be better.
Yes,
And that plays perfectly into the first bullet point on my list,
Which is intrinsic drive to help others realize their potential.
Yes.
It's so spot on.
I got to tell you this,
On my application to go to Harvard,
I didn't even know why Harvard
Accepted me and wanted me there.
But on my application,
In fact,
For all the Ivy League
Schools,
That's what I wrote about,
How we've got to utilize the human potential.
I didn't even know,
I didn't know about this INFP stuff back then.
But that my whole essay was about actualizing
Our potential.
Yeah.
Well,
That's why they that's why they.
The second thing I have is crave a
Meaningful life and deep connections.
And that is though there's two things there and both things
Are really important.
Having meaningful life,
Having living a purpose,
Knowing what your purpose
Is,
Knowing that you're making a difference,
But also the deep connections,
Which is part of the
Reason that I created this podcast and called it subtitled Deep Discussions,
Because that's the
Kind of conversation that I want to have.
I would rather have one small moment of a deep conversation
Than an hour of polite conversation.
Oh,
It's unbearable.
It's actually unbearable for people
Like us.
You know,
I love podcasts because it's we have a DMC immediately.
That's all we do is
Talk about the most important stuff.
I feel like podcasts were made for people like us.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And I'm so glad to have discovered them.
It took me a while,
But I'm here.
Me too.
So complex,
Complex,
You know,
We are very complex characters and we live in a world of
Hidden meaning and possibilities.
Now,
That isn't true.
If that isn't what drove me to
Dream analysis,
I don't know what I would have.
Just that whole desire,
Knowing that there is a
Hidden meaning gifted with deep insight into people is the last bullet point,
Which,
Of course,
Yes,
Beautiful,
Beautiful.
I'm so grateful that you found your way to this.
It's so rare.
What
You're doing is such a rare thing in this world.
I never met another dream analyst before,
You know,
And this is something so important in in my religion,
In Judaism,
In the Hebrew Bible,
Dreams play a really significant role.
So this is fascinating to me to meet you and
And just learning about what you do.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That means a lot.
Well,
I want the listeners to hear about your enlightenment journey,
Too.
And you mentioned
A little bit about it at the beginning that you had a spiritual hunger that you
Did not realize that you had.
And you wrote a autobiography about that.
So talk a little
Minute.
First,
Let me ask you,
What does enlightenment mean to you?
Enlightenment.
You know,
When things were really difficult for me,
The whole world seemed gray.
Nothing mattered.
Everything lost its color.
And then,
You know,
It became like in the movie The Wizard of Oz when the colors come back,
Everything's vivid
And beautiful.
That's enlightenment to me.
The light is shining out from everything now.
It's
A whole different kind of world than that world that I barely wanted to live in anymore,
Where nothing mattered and everything was gray.
Yes,
That is a beautiful analogy.
I love that.
So talk a little bit about the scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset.
I love this concept.
I feel like so many people,
Including so many women,
Struggle with this
Mindset,
Maintaining that abundance mindset,
And how the scarcity mindset can really
Just affect your whole life course when you're clinging to that.
Yes,
Clinging.
That's a good word.
That's the word.
When there's a scarcity,
You are clinging
To any little pleasure you get.
And a very easy pleasure to get is the pleasure from food.
I mean,
Food is designed to be pleasurable.
I mean,
It could have been we took a tasteless pill
Every day,
And that would fuel us.
Or it could have been we didn't need any food at all,
And we just survived like that.
Instead,
It was designed with all these natural,
Amazing,
Pleasurable experiences for us to consume.
But what happens is,
When we feel that there's a scarcity
Of pleasure in our life,
And we're eating something pleasurable,
We just keep stuffing our
Faces with it,
If we feel that sense of scarcity that there's not enough pleasure in our life,
It doesn't happen as much with the natural pleasures.
Like an orange,
It's hard to eat a
Whole bag of oranges.
That's not what happens.
But a person will eat a whole tub of ice cream,
A whole bag of potato chips,
A whole box of chocolate chip cookies,
Because that food,
It's designed to be as delicious as possible and as addictive as possible.
Well,
This,
The natural
Foods are designed to be as delicious as possible and as nutritious as possible.
They're totally
Different substances.
So we can't even blame ourselves when we overeat,
Because our bodies
Are responding in the way the food is kind of programming us to respond in an addictive way.
So just that thought alone can take away a lot of the shame and guilt that a person feels
When they're overeating,
Because their body's just responding in the way that the food is
Making the person respond,
Actually.
But anyway,
Back to what we were saying,
Which is that
And feeling like there's not enough pleasure in this world is one of the things that makes
A person overeat or take other addictive substances into their lives or addictive behaviors.
They get stuck there as a way of comforting themselves and as a coping mechanism to
Not face the emptiness within.
Yes.
And like you said,
That can happen in any form of addiction and also any behavioral pattern,
Even if it's not full-blown addiction in that way.
When we feel like there's not enough
Of something or we're stressed or panicked or worried about the lack of something,
And we're focused on the state of lack,
Then we can't at the same time be focused on the state
Of gratitude.
Yes.
Yes.
We can't have those two feelings at the same moment.
If we're being grateful,
Then we're not being miserable.
In that moment,
It's amazing.
It's all,
Like you said,
The focus.
What we focus on grows.
That's what gets bigger.
And so that focus on what we're lacking in life just causes us to feel even a slight
Disappointment.
A person gets in the habit of just filling up with that comforting food
To cover up those feelings of disappointment.
After a while,
It's just a habit in life.
But
When we become aware of that habit,
Then we can start to come out of it.
And also the recognition
That there's truly an abundance of ways to bring pleasure into our lives at any moment
Changes everything.
I just want to mention in my 600-pound life,
That Netflix show,
They all say the same thing.
This is the only thing bringing me pleasure anymore,
The food.
So it's about opening up to the possibilities of all the other ways we can bring pleasure
Into our lives at any moment.
Yes.
And connecting with,
As you said,
Acknowledging the fact that we're even in that mindset,
Because that's not obvious.
And it's a continual process.
And I find with dream interpretation,
That can very often
Uncover those subconscious feelings that you don't realize that you're walking around with
In your waking life.
You may think,
Well,
I don't feel that way,
And I'm okay with the way things
Are.
But in the back of your mind,
You're actually not.
You're actually focused on some other sense
Of construct,
The way your life is perceived.
And I found that stories often tell that very well.
Well,
It's such an awesome healing thing that you're doing.
And like I said,
So few people
Are doing this.
I mean,
You probably know other people,
But I don't know of any.
And it's such,
It's getting to that other hemisphere.
And again,
That's a better,
It's such a healing way to come
Out of where we're stuck.
So beautiful.
And it holds that for us.
It holds that potential.
It holds that possibility.
Through dream work,
We can uncover those unconscious blocks.
We can
Reprogram those repressed feelings that we're holding,
And we can heal through the dream work.
Because the more that we understand what's going on in the dreams,
The more we can address it,
The more then it affects our waking life,
The more that then affects the sleeping life and the
Dreaming life.
And it really has an evolutionary,
As you said,
Healing quality and capacity.
I want to ask you,
Have you helped women specifically with their overeating problems
Through their dreams that you've seen them take on a different lifestyle and approach to eating
Through your work?
I have dealt with situations where,
For one reason or another,
Their mindset
Of scarcity or insecurity or other mindsets are informing and promulgating their behavior in their
Waking life,
And they don't realize it.
So they don't realize that there's this undercurrent
Going on.
And it certainly could benefit that.
I just haven't had the opportunity to work with
That specific client yet.
But there's so many potential applications for dream work.
And that
Certainly is one,
Which is part of the reason that I wanted to discuss it with you today,
Because I feel like so many women struggle with that.
And this is another layer of self-care.
And self-care is so important.
And it's even more empowering when that self-care can be done
With yourself from answers inside yourself versus someone trying to apply something to your problem
And you struggling to integrate that into yourself.
Why not just try and get that answer
From within yourself?
It is already part of you.
It is just separated.
And that integration
Of that other self and those other feelings and those other preconceptions then leads to a wholeness
Which in itself can be very healing.
Yes.
If you don't mind,
I know I'm supposed to,
But I just am curious to know,
What changes you've seen in people's lives through your work?
Other addictive behaviors that have decreased or what types of progress you've seen?
I think that in general,
I've seen that it can uncover subconscious,
I'll call them blocks,
But there's a lot of other ways to refer to that,
That they are not aware of.
So it could be
A feeling of insecurity or lack of self-confidence or basically lost many times.
So having dreams
About being lost or being chased are very common.
And I'm not going to say that they mean the same
Thing for everyone because they don't.
But usually if you're being chased,
Obviously you're
Running from something,
Usually part of yourself.
If you're feeling lost in a dream or that you've
Lost your possessions or you've lost track of someone,
That is your disconnection with that
Part of yourself.
And many times I talk about this in another episode,
If you have a dream that
Your teeth are falling out,
That is also a very common dream that people report and that can have
Its basis in loss.
It's a feeling of loss and it also can be a feeling of embarrassment or instability,
Transition,
So many different layers to that.
And so our dreams really speak to us in our own
Unique language,
Even though there's a lot of commonalities amongst dreams.
And sometimes
People can easily categorize them and say,
Oh,
Well,
I had a dream about being chased.
So it's
Just another one of those chase dreams that is like everybody else's chase dreams.
And it's like,
Well,
No,
It's very specific.
What did you have on?
What was the weather like?
Was it night?
Was
It day?
Where were you?
How did you feel?
Who was it?
Who was it?
Did you know them?
Did you
Turn around and confront them?
Where did you go when you ran from that?
And there's so many
Details that unravel the true meaning for you.
Beautiful.
Yeah,
I love this.
Thank you.
Yes.
And you mentioned that you're obviously very,
Very intrigued in them and they're part of
Your culture.
Have you had experiences where in your journey where your dreams helped you or
Tipped you off or let you see something you didn't know was there?
When I was back in college,
I was in some type of seminar where you had to keep a dream journal
For a week.
And I don't usually remember my dreams.
So I was up to the sixth day and I had nothing
In my journal.
I didn't remember any of the dreams.
So that night I went to sleep and I said,
So that night I went to sleep and I said,
Please come up with something.
I've got to hand in
Something.
Well,
I sat there and I wrote for like an hour.
I remembered this whole series of dreams
That night.
It was so fascinating.
I guess I just really forced myself to have a consciousness to
Remember it.
And I don't remember much about what I wrote.
I just remember one aspect that still
Stays with me.
It was my mother that she was like not happy,
But when she'd greet people at the door,
She had a big smile.
And I just,
I felt the phoniness of it.
And it bothered me so much.
I was so upset by her being two different faces.
That's all I remember from that whole complicated
Dream that I had,
But that's the part that stayed with me.
It's interesting.
The part that stays
With you.
Yes.
And I find that story fascinating.
I love that you didn't remember them,
Which is a
Situation for so many people,
So many.
And I didn't realize this going into it because
I do.
But I didn't realize that so many people were interested,
But didn't know how
And didn't.
And it really is.
That's where affirmations like what you did make a huge
Difference.
If you go to sleep and when you're going to sleep,
Say,
I will remember my dream
Tonight.
I will remember my dream.
That is one of the ways you can actually induce that recall.
And
It is a trained skill like anything else,
Like typing on a keyboard or anything else that you,
Once you start doing it,
The more you do it,
The more you remember.
So I think it's great that you
Finally figured out how to will that,
Because that is really what so many people would need
To do to kickstart this process and to be able to harness that power.
You have to be able to
Remember them first.
Mm hmm.
Yeah,
It was funny.
I was like desperate.
I got to hand in something.
Please.
I was amazed that it worked.
Yes.
And that same that same application is one of the methods,
One of the techniques for lucid dreaming.
I don't know if you've had one of those,
But those
Can be really,
Really healing,
Really transformative because you realize that you're
Dreaming and you can actually influence the course of the dream.
And one of the techniques for
Inducing lucid dreaming is the affirmations before you go to sleep that just translate the insert the
Word lucid.
I will have a lucid dream tonight.
Wow.
Over and over.
And there's many other techniques,
But that is one of them where you're basically telling yourself,
OK,
This is I can influence
My reality.
This is what's going to happen.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Although I don't remember my
Dreams,
Usually what does happen to me is that I wake up in the morning where like a whole book
Is written.
I mean,
I didn't know how to write it before I went to sleep.
I get up.
I have a pad by
My bed and I'm scribbling furiously in the dark,
You know,
So I don't wake my husband up and I want
To write it all down as it's coming.
It's amazing to me that almost always it happens early,
Early
In the morning before it's even light before dawn.
All the the books come together,
The words I was
Missing,
Everything,
Everything that I need.
It just comes.
Yes.
And as an as an author with so
Many books,
Which is very impressive.
I love hearing that because I think that the that's
Part of the reason I created the what Dream Dirty called the Treasure Box,
Which works both with
Lucid dreaming,
But it also works in just tapping dreams for your creativity,
Because that's our
Brain is still working while we're sleeping and it's really working on things for us.
And it gives
Us that clarity and access to that creativity that the busy waking mind cannot,
Cannot access.
And I have been inspired by my dreams and my writing.
And I know I've of course,
There's so
Many great authors who have as well.
So I love I love that hearing about that.
Yeah,
It's fascinating
To me.
I can get the title of the entire book because it's a picture book.
So I can get the
Whole thing just like that.
And also then I remember things in the morning that happened during the day,
But no way was I going to remember it.
And there it is right there for me to remember.
I love how
That works.
What is going on in the mind,
All the processing,
Fascinating,
Integrating,
Integrating.
It's yeah,
It's amazing.
We spend so much of our lives dreaming and yet we don't even not aware
Of what's going on there.
Yes,
Absolutely.
That's what I find so captivating about it is that it's
Not just this invented thing or invented system where we're going to say,
OK,
And apply it to our
Lives.
It's happening.
Whether you whether you pay attention to it or not,
It's happening and
Everyone is doing it,
Whether they think they are or not.
Even if they say,
Oh,
I don't dream,
I've never dreamed,
I don't remember.
You are still dreaming.
You just haven't.
You know,
Transformation is about how much we're willing to see.
And you have to be willing to
Thin that veil and to have that curiosity and to have that bravery even sometimes
To uncover those parts of yourself.
It really is a personal growth journey.
Yes,
Yes.
Beautiful.
And I guess there's a lot of childlike parts to it,
Too.
I imagine
Because it's that playful side,
It's the imaginative side of you.
It's the it's a
Flowing part of you that is awesome to be able to capture glimpses of.
Yes.
And I assume that
Tell us how it led you to what you're doing now,
Because you've written over 40 children's books.
And so how did your.
From your memoir,
I know you're what you remember after,
But from your
Memoir to the children's books and that trajectory,
How did you arrive at that point where you decided
That's what you were going to do?
Yeah,
Well.
My goal is to write the books that I wanted to have
As a child,
Books that explain from the beginning of life that we're spiritual beings that need
Nourishment every day,
Just like our bodies need nourishment.
So some of my books are about
Healing the body to a books about the prevention of abuse,
Books about disabilities,
How to include children with disabilities,
Books about swimming safely,
Eating in a healthy way,
Exercising,
All these things,
Teaching children about how amazing our fruits and vegetables are,
Like the awesomeness.
But other books are just spiritual,
Like the Invisible Book.
There's so many things that we believe in that are invisible,
Like time,
Like gravity,
Like our feelings,
Our thoughts.
So it becomes less farfetched then,
As we realize that,
To believe that we,
Too,
Are invisible spiritual beings.
When you see the effects in the world of
All these forces,
You know they exist,
The same thing with our souls.
So I'm loving teaching this
To children in a concrete way,
And also teaching gratitude skills,
So they can learn these happiness
Skills throughout the rest of their lives.
When you teach these habits early on,
Then the road becomes easier to keep those habits going once they're implanted in children.
That's wonderful,
Yes.
When we're younger,
We do have closer access,
I feel,
To that,
And we lose
It as we get older,
Partly because we feel like we need to lose it.
We need to set it aside,
And we completely lose touch with that perspective that we might have had as a child,
And that acceptance of the unseen.
I love what you said about that,
Because I feel like we always,
Like you said,
There's things that,
Like Wi-Fi,
For example,
That we take for granted,
That we
Say,
Well,
Yes,
Of course,
This is how it works,
And that's normal and part of life and everything.
Well,
That's energy,
And so are we,
And when you walk into a room,
And you walk into a group of
People,
You can feel their energy,
And they can feel yours before you say anything.
That's part
Of how we communicate with animals and everything else,
And to pretend that that doesn't exist,
And that that doesn't have a place in our wellness and in our purpose is missing
A whole part of our existence.
Yes,
And to recognize that we're all connected
To the same source energy and to each other,
It's just such a joyful feeling,
And all of that is what made me begin to trust again in life,
Trust in myself,
Recognize that there's a good purpose to everything,
Eventual good purpose to everything,
So
That's how I began to trust again in the world and not need to be having the binges constantly,
Because I wasn't so fearful of this world anymore,
Afraid of it.
And not feeling so separate as well.
Yes,
Exactly,
Because,
And addictions,
They add to that separation.
You feel estrangement.
It closes you into a prison
That gets narrower and narrower,
And the prison is made of our thoughts,
And the thing is that we have the key,
And part of the key,
I think,
That you're offering
Is within our subconscious,
In our dreams,
Unconscious,
And I found in ancient mystical
Wisdom too,
That key to how to get out of the prison and reconnect,
Form those connections again.
Absolutely.
So what are three takeaways that you hope listeners learn from this interview?
Okay,
So I did want to share,
I don't know if there's time for me to share about the pleasure
Ladder,
But that really affected my life.
The lowest physical,
There's five levels to the
Pleasure ladder,
Which I think correspond to our five fingers.
We can bring pleasure into our lives
At any moment,
And these five levels correspond to the five levels of the human soul.
So the lowest
Level,
This is not from me,
This is again ancient mystical wisdom.
So the lowest level of the soul
Is the part that's connected to our body.
This is the part that when we enjoy these natural,
Physical,
Sensual pleasures,
They have the potential to nourish our bodies as well as
Our souls when we experience them with gratitude.
That's the key.
So when we experience them without
Gratitude,
It doesn't uplift our soul in the same way.
And love is the next level up.
How can that be totally empowering?
You'd think it's dependent on someone else,
Love,
But it's
Really focusing on the virtues of another.
Even in prison,
A person could focus on a grandmother that
Did a kindness and be uplifted with a warm emotional feeling of love that inspires them.
So
We can bring love into our lives at any moment by focusing on the virtues of another.
So first it's a physical thing,
Then another being,
And then meaning,
Doing something good
And meaningful in the world,
Something positive.
We are giving back with gratitude that we can give
Back.
I was on a show where a person said he ate two slices of pizza
And he was about to plow through the rest of the box because he was just sitting there lonely.
A knock on the door and his neighbor wants his help with something for two minutes,
He comes back after he doesn't want the pizza anymore.
He filled up,
He just filled up his soul
With gratitude,
Giving back to someone.
He could put the rest in the fridge for the next day.
So that's,
We can all relate to that.
Higher than that creativity,
When we're in a state of being creative,
We don't notice time is passing.
We don't feel like eating
Or sleeping.
We're in a whole nother zone of pleasure.
And the highest level is transcendence.
That's when we transcend our own limitations.
We make a tiny crack in a bad habit.
We do something
New we haven't done before,
Something positive.
It's also what we feel under a starry,
Starry sky
When we know we're a part of a greater universe.
It's that feeling that it transcends the barriers
Between us.
So each level up brings more connection.
And this is how we can break out
Of our addictions,
Break out of our habits,
Bring the sense of abundance into our lives
And overcome that sense of scarcity.
And people could put this on their fridge,
On their cabinets
To remind them that there's an abundance of ways.
So yeah,
And this is downloadable from my website
Where it's in more,
Much more details about how each level is helpful.
So that's something that
I love to share with people.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
I think that's extremely powerful.
And I'm so glad that I will put a link in the show notes so that everyone can download
That chart as well.
I think having that handy is a great reminder of all the different ways
That we can do this.
And that I love the transcendence piece,
Of course,
That's
The road to enlightenment.
Once you get out of your own way,
Set yourself aside,
Realize that
It's bigger than you,
And then you're not so separate anymore also,
Then you're part of a
Bigger thing that supports you.
It's not just giving yourself over to it and kind of losing
Your identity,
But it's actually supporting your existence.
Beautiful,
Beautiful.
It's that feeling
Of aloneness that gets people to feel that scarcity of pleasure.
It's recognizing the
Connection that we're always connected that it changes everything.
Yes,
It does.
Well,
Thank you
So much for being here today,
Baraka.
I had a wonderful time chatting with you about so many
Different things.
And I know our listeners will love hearing all about your wisdom as well.
Thank you so much.
A great pleasure to be with you,
Megan.
Thank you.
