Hey there and welcome to Piper Harris Coaching, a podcast where I share how you can embrace your poema, your masterfully created purpose. Poema is a foundational anchor that defines your character, directs your decisions, supports your growth, provides protection and healing, engages resilience, and serves those in your lives. Harnessing your uniquely created poema and putting it into action is necessary for healing, actualizing goals, and living a full and content life. We will dive into topics surrounding positive psychology, shifting your mindset, and how to overcome behaviors that are holding you hostage. My name is Piper Harris, and I use my 20 years of experience as a mental health counselor, coach, business owner, mother, and wife and dig into deep and complex issues that you are facing and empower you to overcome and harness the courage to chase after your best life. Thanks for joining us today, and welcome to Piper Harris Coaching Podcast. I am actually recording quite early in the day, and I'm working to ensure that I get a transcript of today's podcast. So this is gonna be a weird one. This is gonna be a weird one. And I just ask that you bear with me. So the reason that I'm coming to you and I'm I'm recording a podcast so early in the morning is because I had a dream. I had the most bizarre dream. And for how as long as I can remember, certain dreams have stayed with me over my life. And for whatever reason, I chose not to ignore them. And throughout my life, um, there's been some pretty, I guess, odd things that have happened with my dreams. And so, as a matter of course, when I feel um like I can't release a dream, you know how many times we have dreams and and um we easily forget them. We recognize we had one, but we we forget all the details. But when I can't um forget the details, when when those details are so firmly implanted in my mind, I know that it's something important. So for example, years and years and years ago, oh gosh, it's probably been, oh, I don't know, probably almost nine years ago. Um I had started my first business. I had two little boys, um, three and one and a half, and um, I was in this new place. We had just moved to the suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, and I just didn't know anyone. And I thought, I've got to do something. I'm I I love being mom, but I need something else. And so that's when I started doing some private chefing. So I started this company, and um, well, I didn't do any research about the laws where you cook food. There's a lot of different laws about you can't cook food in your own home and then transport it, whereas bakers can, this crazy stuff. So ultimately what happened was I had to close my first business. It was called Abundant Provisions, and I was heartbroken. I mean, I was heartbroken and and even more so, absolutely mortified and embarrassed because I had to return money to all these clients that I had. I was actually having really incredible success for out of the gate, but I had to close everything because it really came down to there was another chef in the area, and he didn't like that I was getting his business, and so he turned me into the county. So, all that to be said, I I closed up and I really was heartbroken. I I really love cooking. It's one of those creative outlets that I have in my life, and um, I'm self-taught, but I I I love food. And so it was just a really hard thing to walk away from. So about a month later, I started having dreams about food. It was so weird. And I would literally wake up every morning at 4 a.m. remembering these distinct meals that I was making in my head, head. So much so, y'all, that I remember the smells. And so after a couple days, it's probably three or four days, I was exhausted because I kept waking up at four o'clock. And I just thought, this is wild. What in the heck? And I thought, well, you know, maybe it'll help me to grab a tablet of paper and put that beside the bed and write all these recipes down. I don't know why I'm dreaming about this. Obviously, I'm heartbroken. That's all this is about. So the dreams continued. They continued for a good three weeks. And I'm telling you, 4 a.m. came and I knew I would wake up. I knew I would have the smell in my nose, I would have the visual of what the plate would look like, and I would know the exact ingredients. And so I started writing these things down. Well, I started paying attention, and wouldn't you know, about four or five months later, I created my first cookbook. And it was called The 4 A.M. Chef. And it's one of those reasons why I don't ignore my dreams. And I've had many other ones throughout my life that are, I believe, God breathed, you know, my faith is a um Protestant Christian woman. Um, and so I've chosen not to ignore them. If I have a dream about someone I know or someone I used to know, and it's a consistent dream, I tell you, um, that tells me, okay, something's going on with this individual individual, reach out to him, whatever. So again, you know, with the 4 a.m. chef, I pay attention to my dreams. I pay attention to my dreams. And, you know, there's a lot to be said about dream work. It's a very old process, psychoanalytical process brought about by Freud himself. And really with Freud, he was talking about when he brought about um dream work um and the psychoanalytic process, he was really talking about the manifest and the latent of the dream. So, manifest is really what you remember of the dream and you're sharing that with your therapist. Whereas the latent part of those dreams are those kind of repressed things that are in your mind. So that's kind of the psychoanalytic kind of short version of what dream work is. Whereas Jungian kind of did, Carl Jung did similar dream work, and his idea with the dream work was that the thing that he added to it was something called amplification. And really what he was saying, Carl Jung was saying was that we all have share a common, universal experience. That's really what Young was saying. So as he would work with his patients based on their dreams, yes, they would go through what is the manifest part of this dream, those things that the client remembers, what are the latent things? Let's talk about that. What could this represent? But then he would really bring in amplification. How does this tie to our community, to those around us? And there's been other dream work, gestalt theory does um dream work, but in gestalt, you actually play out the dream. So, you know, dream work has been around a long time. When I was in my undergrad, um, I had a professor, and honestly, I can't remember the professor, but I can remember the work that we did. And he had taught us, taught us how infinitely powerful our mind is. Now, granted, he didn't have a faith perspective that I do, um, but he taught me how to clue into what my mind was telling me at night. And for me, I believe many times what my faith, my the Lord is telling me. But I remember um he had us decide, okay, what is something that we don't know how to do? What is something we don't know how to do? And then he said, What I want you to do is right before you go to bed, I want you to study that thing that you don't know how to do. And he's saying to us, when you're focusing on this, it allows your subconscious to work through and teach you how to do that thing. And conversely, most of the time, a lot of us, or I shouldn't say conversely, but along with it, most of us would start dreaming about this process. So I thought he was crazy. I mean, I'm in my undergrad, I'm thinking this guy's a wack-adoo. I'm just brand new into psychology, but I thought, well, what the heck? I'll try it. And so I decided I did not know how to drive a stick shift. Um, my best friend in high school had one, and she used to try to teach me. And I'm telling you, I ground those gears, I stalled out that car. I was awful. She tried so hard to teach me. So I remember thinking, well, I'm gonna teach myself how to drive a stick shift, even though I think this guy is completely out of his mind. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And so I did exactly as he prescribed to us. It was studying right before bed how to do a stick shift. And he said, don't go super deep into it, allow your mind to do this while you're sleeping. So I did the basics, you know, first gear, second gear, I can't even remember it now. It goes through five, right? And then reverse. I can see it on the knob in my mind. And so basically visualizing it, kind of studying it, and allow the subconscious to do its work. And so before you know it, he was right. I started dreaming about being with my friend from high school, but I was successfully driving her car. I was I was successfully driving her car. So we did this for the entire semester or half of the semester. I'm I'm trying to remember, it's been over 20 years. And so then what we had to do is we had to find out if in fact we actually learned something. So we kept dream logs, we had groups about this, we you know, applied psychoanalytic theory. And let's talk about what does this represent. So many times with my dreams, I just couldn't get it. And I kept stalling out of the car. And so he would ask questions about okay, well, you actually stalled out the car, these are the things you saw, but what do you think this represents? It was a fascinating process. Here's the wild thing. Here's the wild thing. He was right. Wouldn't you know? Called my friend, said, Hey, can I try to drive your car? And she was like, Piper, you're insane. There's no way I'm letting you drive this car. You don't know how. And I said, No, I think I do. And so what happened? I got in that car. I was so nervous. I'm like, I am crazy for thinking I know how to drive this car. And guess what I did? I drove the car. I didn't stall it out, I didn't grind the gears. It was a success. She was flabbergasted. She said, Who taught you? Your parents don't have a manual um car, you have all automatics. I said, Well, I taught myself in my psychology class. I taught myself through my dreams, and she thought, you're crazy, but it actually happened. So, again, kind of bringing things back full circle. I had a dream last night, and it was so vivid. And I couldn't shake it this morning. I I could not shake it. And so I thought, okay, I'm I'm going to apply what I learned in school and what I've been practicing for over 20 years, this approach approach to what are the actual manifest parts of this dream? What are the latent part of these dreams? What is the amplification? What does this mean? And I'm telling you, as I describe this to you today, obviously, it is more vivid in my mind. It is so vivid in my mind. There's color in my mind. And so as I describe it to you, it's not going to have probably the most the same powerful effect on you. So I'm going to do my best to describe to you what I saw. But the reason I'm sharing with it for you with you today is I think that there is such a powerful truth to it. And it applies to all of us. It's that amplification that Young talked about. It's this thing that we all share. And I just, it was so powerful. I I woke up the kids. They went out with the grandparents today. It's it's summer break, and my husband heard me talking very loudly. He's like, You are literally the rudest person in the morning. But I was like, babe, you have to hear. I had this dream and I've I've written everything down and I've been up and he's like, okay. And he knows when I have dreams, boy, watch out. I gotta, I gotta get this out. So I want to start by telling you about this dream. Now, part of dream work is obviously recognizing parts of the dream and why they're in the dream. And so I'll share those with you as well because there are parts of the dream that I understand why they're in there, and it's kind of funny. Um so I'll share those parts with you. So here it is. Stay with me. I know this is gonna sound absolutely insane. This is probably gonna be one of my longest podcasts that I've done in a while, just because I think there's just so much to pull out of it, and I want you to listen and visualize along with me. So I have this dream, and I'm walking into this restaurant with some of my family members. It's my husband, my children, my parents, my in-laws, but I get this very strong impression that there are multitudes of people. And now, y'all, I just told you how much I love food. But this restaurant, I mean, the anticipation and buildup for all of us walking into this restaurant, I felt it. It was swanky, it was beautiful and bright and clean, and all of us were dressed to the nines. When I walked into this restaurant, the the walls were this kind of soft whitish cream. Everything was like a whitish cream, and there's this long, very lacquered white table. And we all took a seat at the table. We were talking and bustling about the anticipation of what the chef was going to serve us. We had heard that this restaurant was just to die for. And I remember thinking very at a more conscious level in the dream, Piper, where is this restaurant? Did you read about this restaurant? We have got to make reservations. So I was able to very consciously kind of put myself into this dream and think to myself, I have to find this restaurant. So we all walk in, and I mean, you know how it is when you're with a group of people and you're all on a high, you're all excited. Maybe it's a wedding, maybe it's a baseball game, you know, that that that charge of energy that you feel surrounding you. That is what I felt. Everybody was chatting. There was joy in the air. I felt love, I felt surrounded by love, I felt confidence, I felt delight, I felt calm, I felt peace. I felt this immense anticipation and excitement for what was to come. And as I stood there, I if you can imagine, I walked into the restaurant and I'm facing this giant lacquered white table in this beautiful restaurant. I mean, there's there's chandeliers everywhere, and they're catching the light, and it's it's just pinging off the walls, and the carpet was very bright, and in the table setting, it was just these beautiful napkins and this glistening silverware. I'm I'm telling you, it was just oh, it was beautiful. It was beautiful, and it spoke to my soul, it spoke to this soul of mine that loves food, and I just couldn't wait to eat. And as you can imagine, I'm standing there at the end of this very long table, and everybody's filing in. And I decide to sit at the end, the far left. So if I walk in, I'm staring at it, and I decide to walk around the far side, the closest side to me of the table. So the far side is against a wall, if that makes sense. And I choose to sit kind of near the end of the table with my mom on my left and my husband on my right. And I sat down and everybody's filing in, and y'all, so many people were there. I just kept thinking in my dream, this isn't all my family. Like there were just so many people, but I didn't care. I didn't care that I wasn't sure who exactly was at the table. Everybody was just light and joy-filled, and and everything was clean and new, and it was amazing. I mean, I just I can't even tell you like the feelings I have right now. I was so overwhelmed with excitement. I I could feel the energy in my body that I knew this was going to be an amazing experience with this amazing group of people that gosh, I I know some of them, and I'm sure I know all the other ones that are filing in, but this is amazing. So that's how my dream starts. And it was a it was just it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And then all of a sudden, I think I have to pee. Now, here's the funny part of the dream. I actually did have to pee. So, how many times have you had a dream that you have to go to the bathroom and actually you have to go to the bathroom? So I know at a very conscious level, my body was working through the dream, telling me, Piper, you need to wake up and go to the restroom. But in the dream, I had to go pee. So I excused myself, and I knew there was a door at the very far end of the table, but I couldn't see it. I just inherently knew it was there, but it was really far away. So I chose to the left of me. I'm looking at everybody at the table. Mom's right there at my immediate left, and there's a door behind me. It wasn't the door that we walked in, but there's another door, and I inherently knew, well, that's the closest restroom. So I decide I need to go to the restroom. So I excuse myself and I walk into the restroom. It was the filthiest, most dark, most disgusting. I I have chills right now, restroom I've ever been in. It's something out of those horror movies that we see. The the lack of cleanliness. I mean, I can't even, it was there was nothing clean. There was no source of light, there was no white, like the rest, the restaurant. Like, I couldn't understand when I walked in this room. Like, wait, how is this restroom a part of this restaurant? I don't understand. It was moldy and black, and there was rust dripping from the handles of the toilets and pools, pools. I'm not even kidding, pools of what I can only imagine was feces and urine. It was immediately just revolting. And I walked in and I didn't know what to do. I just thought, well, I have to go. And so I stepped into this awful space, and it smelled, and it was dark, and the lights were flickering over my head, and I just kept thinking, Well, I'm gonna try to walk around these things, but I can't. And immediately to my right, I see the back side of a woman, and she slowly turns to me because she hears me walk in. Here's another weird part of the dream. Well, it's all weird. Um, and she has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and she's got no teeth, so she's kind of gumming that cigarette in her mouth, and she's got a plunger, and she's plunging away at a toilet and just staring at me. Now, there was no emotion in her face. There was there, she was completely void of anything. Her eyes, she didn't blink, she just stared at me and let the cigarette hang out of her mouth and just plunged away over and over again like she was some robot. Now, the funny part about this is that my son clogged the toilet yesterday. So I know on a very conscious level, that is why I added in the plunger. It makes sense because my son needed the plunger yesterday. So I I'm looking at this woman and I feel such immense fear. I feel this dank, disgusting, repugnant, filthy place. Like I feel it on my shoulders, and I'm watching her, and I want to flee from her because she's scaring me. But physically, I can feel my body telling me, but you have to go to the bathroom, you don't have a choice, you have to go. And so I'm fighting myself. I felt it, I felt this immense anxiety. Like I have got to run. Have you ever been in that situation? Have you ever been in a situation where you want to run? You want to run so badly, but you don't know if you can, you might freeze or might talk yourself out of the fear you're feeling and say, Oh, it's not that bad. Have you ever felt that? That is exactly what I felt in my dream. I remember bringing my conscious more into the dream and saying, Piper, this is a dream. You're safe, it's not a big deal. There's nothing really here to fear, but I'm telling you, I felt the fear. So I'm looking at this woman and I'm like, Well, I have to go. I don't have a choice. This is the only bathroom. Keep in mind, I know in the back of my very Very, very back of my subconscious mind as I'm going through this. No, I I betcha there was one at the other end of the table. I bet you there was another bathroom. But I just kept telling myself, no, I'm stuck here. I have to go. I don't have a choice. This is this is my choice. So I'm searching stalls to find a stall that I can use. And I walk into this stall and I quickly throw that latch. And I remembered thinking in the dream, that does not keep you safe. That latch is not keeping you safe. There's that woman out there that's void of humanity out there. You're not safe, Piper. And I stood there and turned around, and I'm just staring at this swirling cesspool of a toilet. I'm literally looking around, like I don't even know how to cover the seat. It's so filthy, but I've got to go. I have no choice. This is all I know. This is the restroom I chose. And I just stood there staring at this toilet in this stall where the walls were growing with mold, black and deep green, and there's brown everywhere. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's rust. I don't know if it's fecal matter. I don't know what it is. And I stood there staring at this toilet and I fought it. I was so scared. I didn't know what to think. What what am I seeing? What's going on? And I just remember um the immense feet fear, this this overwhelming, I don't know what to do. I feel stuck. I'm here. I'm stuck. And I kept turning around and checking the latch on my door, like, well, at least I locked the door, right? And I kept checking it. And then I'd look at this toilet, like, how do how do I do this? I know what I'm supposed to do. I've gone to the bathroom for 42 years. I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't want to do it here. I don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. I don't want to be here. And then I'd turn and I'd stare at the latch and make sure that the latch was locked. And I was stuck in this place of, I feel like I have to do this, but I don't want to do this. And I felt once again my conscious come through and say, Piper, you don't have to choose this. This is just a dream. And then I woke up. Wild dream, isn't it? And you're probably sitting there going, Okay, Piper, this is so bizarre. Why are you making a podcast about this? Why? It's really gross, and we don't want to hear about your bathroom habits. Totally get it. But I'm telling you, I woke up at 4:30 from this dream, went to the restroom because I had to, and I laid there and I could not fall back to sleep. And this movie, you know, this dream kept playing through my mind. And I just thought, oh, this is crazy. Go back to sleep. You need to get some sleep. So I fell back to sleep for about an hour. And I woke up again. Um, and I spend every morning very early before my family rises in prayer and study of my scripture of my Bible. Um, and then I just prayed about it. I was like, that was so weird, and I don't know why I'm focusing on it. What am what am I supposed to learn from this? Because this is weird. Why is it why? What am I what are you telling me? What am I supposed to get from this? Because frankly, it was not the funnest dream to wake up out of. Like, why could I have gone back to the restaurant and eaten that food? I mean, come on. I knew the food was going to be amazing. And guys, let me tell you, I love visiting restaurants. I I mean, like, it is my favorite thing to do. Why didn't my dream allow me to go back into the beautiful restaurant with the joy and the people? And why, why did I have to end it? Was I that afraid that I couldn't face this? What was it? But I remember in my dream, I said, you don't have to do this. So very consciously, I was like, Oh, Piper, you just got yourself out of a dream because it scared you. But then I started thinking, no, there's something to this. So I did a little free association. So again, a lot of this psychological stuff comes in with my faith. And I I understand that many times they don't coincide, but you can bring them together when for me, I have a faith that allows me to invite, invite the Lord into what I'm I'm thinking and what's going on. And listen, I I I do know that for some of you, you might not be Christians, and that's okay. So, so please just stay to the end and listen, okay? Because I know there is a message in this for you. There is a message in it for all of us. So I sat on that couch this morning and I'm like, what does it mean? Go through this Piper. What's the manifest part of this dream? And that's what I've shared with you. The what I saw, the smells, the feelings. But what's the latent part? What what what are these feelings? What am I seeing? And this is what I've come up with. On a very personal level, and one that I would love for you to join in. On a very personal level, these places, the restaurant with this beautiful light and the feeling I had of comfort and joy and cleanliness and newness with all these people I couldn't even see at the table. Absolutely, that represents my faith. That represents the invitation that I have received at the table as a Christian. That's what it is. I didn't know all those people at the table because I'm not going to know all the people at the table when I eventually die and I believe I go to heaven. So, yes, at that faith level, that's what that represented. And that bathroom, that represented what I chose to walk away from. But as I started thinking about that, and I was praying about it, I'm like, listen, not everybody believes the same way as me, but I know there's something that's applicable to everybody based on what I dreamt. What is it? And then I started thinking about it more. We all want to experience joy and light, cleanliness. I felt confidence and beauty in that restaurant, not just because a restaurant with beauty was beautiful. I felt it. I felt relief, I felt calm, I felt peace. Don't we all yearn for that? Don't we all wish we could just run away and have that? The newness, the cleanness, the lightness, the joy, the peace. Don't we all desire that in our life? All of us do. There's no way that you have never thought that. There's no way. Because again, if I bring it back to what Carl Jung said about the amplification part of our dreams in this dream work, is there is a shared experience through the world. And so I know, I have no doubt that you long for that. But that restroom, what is that? I chose to go to the closest restroom, didn't I? I chose to go to the easiest thing, the thing that was closest. I knew it was a restroom. Rather than walk all the way down that that table, right? Rather than, gosh, it's a little intimidating with all those people. I don't know them. I took the easy way. Or I took the way that I knew. I could just pass mom. That's all I had to do to go to the restroom on the left. And walking into that restroom, the feelings I had were of oppression, of ugliness, of fear, of anxiety, of being paralyzed, of I just don't know what to do. Do you feel like that now? I'm willing to bet that the filth in your bathroom, this bathroom we're talking about in this dream, are those things that you are used to and you turn to because they're the things that you've always done. I don't know what they are. Could be a lot of different things, but as I talked about this morning with my husband, we started talking about it. And that that restroom, that that filthy restroom, it absolutely represents where we're caught, where you're caught in mindsets that are holding you hostage from realizing new, beautiful, clean, peaceful you. The one at the other end of the table in the beautiful restaurant. What would I have felt in there? I mean, I can't even imagine. But walking into that filthy restroom and thinking about how this apply to all of us. It represents our hearts and our minds, doesn't it? It can represent those limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves. I'm never going to be good enough. I'm unlovable. I'll never overcome this addiction. I will always carry the shame of the abuse that I endured. I will never, ever heal from the trauma that was put upon me. I will never heal from this depression and anxiety. I will never feel loved and new. I will always feel fear, maybe anger. It's loneliness. It's longing. Because when I stood in that bathroom, I longed to have chosen the other door. But I kept telling myself, but this is this is what I have to do. I have to go to the bathroom. So as you think about yourself, if you think about your bathroom, I'm not even kidding. You think about your filthy bathroom that you're standing in, look around. What does that represent? What is it? What are you feeling like? I don't have a choice. I'm stuck here. This is what I'm supposed to do. But here's the thing. Why then did I dream about the beautiful, clean restaurant? Because that represents that we do have a choice. It represents that we can choose a different door. It represents that that mold and that rust and that grime that we saw in there. We can choose a place of cleanliness, of newness. Now listen, that doesn't automatically happen, right? I mean, this disgusting bathroom is going to take work. I'm going to have to scrub it. Yes, I could walk down to the other door, but what happens with that? I have to walk. And I'm telling you, that table was miles long. I couldn't see the end of it. But I can tell you what I felt. I can tell you what I felt walking in that restaurant and seeing these people file down this table to take their seat. It was immense joy. But guess what? I would still have to walk all the way down there to the other restroom. It wouldn't have just happened. I'd have to traverse that long table to get there. And that's what we have to do. That's what you have to do. You have to recognize it takes work. We're not going to instantaneously choose to be that whole new person that's loved, that has self-acceptance, that values themselves. We have to do the walk. We have to do that to get there. And we have to choose. When we're standing in that filthy restroom, when we are scared to death, when we're staring into these void eyes of that woman plunging a toilet, we have to stand there and say, I don't have to sit here and plunge my toilet. I don't have to sit here and feel this fear and oppression. I can choose to turn around. But here's the funny thing that I realized about this dream. You know, when I told you I walked into the stall and I just I locked the stall door and then I'd stare at the toilet and I'd look at the stall and I make sure it was locked. I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. What that represents is something that all of us do. We put safety measures in, don't we? We put safety measures in when we feel fear or we feel stuck or we don't know how to overcome. So as I'm clicking that that stall door, knowing this isn't really going to keep me safe, but I kept doing it. So what are you doing? What are you doing to give you a little bit of relief from that oppression and that fear and that anger and that disgustingness that you feel in your heart and your soul? What are your safety measures? Is it drinking? Is it going to the fridge and eating? Mindlessly eating? Is it screaming at your loved ones? Is it avoiding everybody around you, even though that loneliness is just about unbearable? I mean, we all have safety measures. Maybe you just avoid it. Maybe you just escape. You do whatever it takes. You shop. You hide under the covers at home. We all have safety measures. And many times we create those because we need them. Excuse me. We need those safety measures in our lives. But pretty soon what we recognize is those safety measures have unintended consequences. And I've talked about that. This the safety thing that we've done to just help us feel a little bit better from all that disgusting, dirty things that we feel so deeply about ourselves. We we keep clicking that stall door because it gives us just a little bit of relief. But it's not really safe, is it? It gave me a little bit of relief every time I changed, you know, making sure the lock was clicked a little bit, but then I turn around and stare at this cesspool of a toilet. The relief was minuscule to the pain and the oppression and the heaviness that I was having staring at this toilet and fighting with myself, saying, But this is what I have to do. But what if, what if you unlocked that stall door and you chose to walk out. You chose to look at that woman and say, You don't scare me anymore. I'm not going to become you. And I'm going to do this hard walk. I I I want that clean, beautiful restaurant out there. I want to feel that love and joy that was surrounding that table. I I want to embrace the laughter. I want to embrace the confidence. I want to embrace the peace. You've got to walk out of there and choose never to go back. You've got to know as well that it's not just going to happen with one choice. You're going to have to make that choice every single day because guess what? That restroom was just closer, wasn't it? I just chose the closest one because it's what I know. It's what I do. So you're going to have to choose every single day. You're going to have to stop yourself and say, no, I'm not going to choose the one on the left. I'm going to choose the one on the right. I'm going to take that long walk to get there because I know, I know it's better over there. I just, I don't know. Maybe, maybe you're listening and you're like, Piper, I have given you too much of my time. This is already 45 minutes. I just don't see this in my life. Okay. Okay. Totally turn me off. But I have to believe this is speaking to you. I do. There's no reason I would have had this dream. I just believe that. On my faith level, you all, this is what I had to experience. I had to step out of the burden, the pain, the ugliness. I had to freely accept the gift that Jesus gave me. And you can too. And I understand if you're listening to me and you're rolling your eyes because you have no faith at all, okay. But please hear me. This is my life now. And I believe you can have that. I'd love it if you'd want to talk to me more about faith in Jesus. I'd love that. But if you don't want to, if you are so hard towards that, you don't believe in it, fine. Then listen to what I'm saying. You do not have to be this weird, scary robot woman devoid of emotion and just doing the same thing over and over, plunging that toilet and living in this heart and mindset that is oppressing you, is breaking you, is filling you with all the ugliness and trying to hide from you the healing that you can have and the newness that you can have. You don't have to live in that. You don't have to feel the anxiety anymore. You don't have to feel the fear anymore. You can choose to do the work, to choose a different door, to embrace all the new things that are there for you. And it's gonna take some work. You're gonna have to stop turning to the left when you've always turned to the left. And you turn to the right. And here's the thing: when all of us are working on ourselves and we're trying to overcome those limiting beliefs or even those behaviors, we fall back to them, don't we? Of course we do. We're human because it's what we know. We're used to feeling oppressed, we're used to feeling fear, we're used to feeling anger and loneliness, and we're used to it, right? So of course we turn back to it because it's we're used to it. I had to go to the bathroom, but we can say, gosh, you know, I'm I'm I'm gonna try something new. I want to eat at that restaurant. And I know I gotta go to the bathroom, but dang it, I'm gonna go to the one way at the end because I know when I come back, when I know I come back from that clean restroom that's way down at the end, all that is for me is a table filled with wholeness, newness, joy, comfort, peace, confidence, self-love, and the tools I need to fight against going to the bathroom on the left. There's strength in that. There's strength in taking that trip down to that little bathroom way at the end of the table. I can't even tell you the table. It was like crazy. But I had to choose it and I didn't in this dream. I eventually chose, I don't have to be here. This scares me, and I'm done. And I locked, unlocked that stall door, and I walked out. I don't know. You know, it's it's a wild dream, and it's it's one of those things that I just felt um I had to share. And obviously, as a counselor and training and a coach for women, anyone this is applicable to, I can see this. I can see that my current clients need to hear this. I can see that my past clients need to be reminded of this. I can see that the future clients of my own or those that I want to encourage to go speak to someone, they need to hear this. This is not just some rainbow and unicorns and piper, you have your head in the clowns. It is absolutely not because I'm telling you, the women that I've worked with, and by the way, the work I've done in my life, it's gut-wrenching. It is so hard. You just want to give up and just stay in that stink and stall. It is, and I'm not telling you it's easy. In fact, it will be one of the most painful processes you will ever go through in your life. But if you go through it and you go through it with someone that absolutely knows you can choose another door and you can be seated at that table, you will get there. Because you have somebody along with you that absolutely believes in you and they will hold you up. They will pull you from that bathroom, they won't allow you to sit in that stall. They will guide you through that door over and over and over again and remind you of what you're worthy of, of what you can experience. It might not be me that you work with, and that's okay. But please find someone. I know it is vulnerable and it's scary to share your muck and mire with somebody else, but I know there's somebody out there that has the same kind of heart that I do, that they will for you, that they believe so wholly in your healing that they will help you get out of that bathroom. They will help you be strong, they will hold you up. But you've got to decide to unlock that stall and take the first step of looking at that really scary lady and saying, Okay, I can't keep doing this. Wow, right? Definitely on my soapbox today. And I really, I really do hope that this lands smack dab in your heart. I would really invite you to just um Google an image. Um, I had posted some on my Facebook page and um LinkedIn and all that, but Google an image of a really filthy restroom. I think I I Googled filthy restroom and um stall, something like that. Print it off if you want to. And I want you to label those things. I really want you to do this. This is homework, right? This is part of the CBT approach. I want you to label those things in that bathroom, what they represent and and how they're holding you back and keeping you hostage. What does that and I want you I want you to label them and I want you to think about what did they make me think and feel? And then I want you to do some visualization of the other place, the clean place. Maybe it's not this amazing restaurant like it is for me, because you know I love food. But I want you to think about that too. What do you feel there? What do you see? What do you smell? And maybe you have no clue. Maybe you're like Piper, I don't even know what that place is. Okay. Imagine it. Imagine what it would be. And then I want you to start thinking about those thoughts that you have in that bathroom that are keeping you captive. What are they saying to you? Are you saying, are they saying to you you're not strong enough? Are they saying to you you're not worth it? Are they saying to you that you're unloved? Are they saying you're just weak? What are they saying to you? Because those are the thoughts. Those are the thoughts that are holding you captive in that bathroom. And we've got to work to change those thoughts, to recognize the lie in those thoughts. Are you unworthy? Absolutely not. If I thought you were unworthy, I would not be recording this crazy long podcast. Hey, at least you've got me. Are you unloved? Absolutely not. Because I'm here to tell you I love you, and that's why I'm doing this. Are you always going to be afflicted with whatever addiction you're fighting? It's making you who you are, sure. But I'll help you get out of it. We'll help you get out of it. We can learn tools, but you've got to fight that thought in your head that this is just who you are. It's not true. There are many wonderful, beautiful things about you, and we've got to start fighting against those. Now, this is just a step in the work. There's so much more to do. And I wish, I really wish you were here sitting with me in my office or, you know, on the screen. I do all my um sessions remotely. I wish you were here so we could work through this, these thoughts. And we would work to bring compassion to your life, compassion to yourself, why you created those safety measures of clicking that stall over and over again, and understanding how they've led you to where you are in your life. And we'd rewrite them. We would, but it takes time and it is so painful. So I'm not promising you that this won't hurt, but I am telling you that if you work through it with someone like me, you will find that peace that you're longing for. And most importantly, you'll learn you are not alone in that nasty restroom. You're not, you're not alone. You don't have to be afraid anymore. There's someone right outside the door ready to open it for you and take your hand and say, Let me show you what's coming up. Thanks for listening today. So, your filthy mindset, are you ready to change it? Are you ready to open that door and become new? Hey there, thank you for joining me today on the Piper Harris Coaching Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to share it on your social media. Share it with your friends and your family. And if something really spurred, stirred something inside of you, send me a message. I'd love to chat with you about how you can find your poema and harness it for healing and vitality in your life. Thanks so much. I appreciate you, and you'll hear from me soon in future episodes.