Episode 3- Rebuilding with Intention

Episode 3 – Rebuilding with Intention

Podcast: The Badass Thriving Podcast with Caressa Dunphy

In this bold and honest episode, Caressa explores what it really means to rebuild your life with intention. Picking up where Episode 2 (Trustfall) left off, she invites you to stop patching over what's broken and ask what needs to be torn down completely. Rebuilding isn’t about hustle or perfection—it’s about radical honesty and designing a life that reflects who you truly want to become.

Caressa shares her own story of healing from a serious hip injury and starting over—physically, emotionally, and mentally. You’ll hear how to let go of misaligned expectations, rebuild trust with your body, and take meaningful action even before the vision is clear. This episode is a call to realign with purpose and move forward—messy, imperfect, and powerful.

Top 7 Takeaways:

1. Rebuilding isn’t fixing—it’s clearing the rubble.
2. You don’t need a perfect plan—you need to begin.
3. Your highest self is already within you.
4. The hardest part is the honesty.
5. Your ego might fight you—but your body holds the truth.
6. There’s power in starting over.
7. It’s a lifelong cycle of realignment.

Journal Prompts:

• What am I still holding onto that no longer aligns with the woman I’m becoming?
• What would I tear down today if I had the courage to rebuild?
• What belief do I need to rebuild from the ground up?
• What would my highest self do this week—or even today?
• Bonus: "I’m building a life that feels like truth. I trust the woman I’m becoming."

Stay Connected:

If this episode hit home, share it, leave a review, or tag @badassthrivingpodcast and let us know what you’re rebuilding this week.

For more real talk, GFDF nutrition, energy, and badass living—subscribe to the Badass Avocado Newsletter at www.aisforavocados.com. One bold email each week with mindset gems, food wisdom, and reminders to show up like the badass you are.

You're not behind—you're rebuilding. And that is the most badass thing you can do.

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 @badassthrivingpodcast
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@caressardunphy

Transcript

0:01

Hey, badass. Welcome back to the Badass Thriving Podcast. This is your host, Caressa Dunphy, and I am so glad that you are here. So, last week we had talked about trust. We talked about rebuilding trust with your body, your choices, and your intuition, and really doing that deep audit on yourself. Really asking yourself, you know, what's, what's been? Underneath those layers of survival. You know, coming back to who we were meant to always be, you know, it took me decades to get back to who I feel like I was always meant to be. It's been a very long journey, and that is my hope, is to help you come back to yourself to come back home. So welcome home, my little badass. And so from here, from last week's episode of Trust, we are going to go deeper. We're gonna talk about rebuilding with intention because if you felt sort of like, great, we talked about trusting your intuition, but now what? What am I supposed to do with that? This is the next episode for you. So we are going to get into it and we are gonna get cozy and comfy and we are gonna have a great conversation. So let's dig in. So the question that I would invite you. To ask yourself is, do I trust myself enough to channel the next badass thing I know in my gut is meant for me? What do I know to be true? What is the next thing? And to really ponder that with some. Deep thoughts, right? Like, like I said, we're getting cozy in here. It's like having a cup of coffee with yourself and really having that deep chat. And so if you answered yes to that question that I just posed for you, then the next question is, okay, well now what? What do I go from here? What is the next stepping stone? So the next question to ask yourself is what? Do I need to tear down? So we're doing that audit, right? What do I need to tear down? What is no longer serving me? What is no longer aligned, what hasn't been aligned for a very long time, but I've just been really hella comfortable doing the same old thing, right? Like, what can I tear down? What do I need to build over from scratch? What do I need to start over with? Where do I need to go Back to square one, you know? I think we all kind of know that, but we don't really want to be honest with ourselves. So again, it's about having that radical honesty because that is the starting point. That is our sort of launching PLA pad, if you will. Rebuilding a badass life doesn't mean fixing what's broken. It means demolishing what is no longer aligned. So that means like. Picture a construction site, right? Stuff has to get torn down, blown up and cleared out in order for something else to be built in that same location. So if you think about what can I, what can I demo here? What can I, you know, put in a dumpster and haul out? I mean, it's kind of the same thing, right? So it's deeper than just changing a habit. It is about being radically honest with yourself about who you needed to be to survive. And now who do you want to become so that you can thrive, right? Like we are stepping out of that old identity and into something maybe brand new, or maybe it's just coming back home to yourself. So you get to decide who you wanna be now. Right. This is a decision. That decision is in your hands. You get to have that power. You get to say and ask all the deep questions. You get to say, what am I holding onto that is no longer serving me? What roles am I performing to keep others comfortable? What do I want, like as in truly want when no one else is watching me? Like, who am I by myself? You know, it's coming back to those very basic questions. Alignment like that doesn't always feel safe, but it is where your power lives and it is giving away your power every time you depart. From it, right? Every time you people please, every time you are being codependent, every time you selfa abandon, all of those things are taking away from who you are and giving other people the power over you. And it is a slow process to take that power back. But again, if we're demoing some shit here, it can be a very natural process to just be like, I'm done doing that. I'm not going to selfa abandon and people please and be codependent anymore. I am going to have this radical audit on myself and I'm gonna rebuild because this badass bitch is coming back. You know? So I just wanna share like a little story. This happened to me literally yesterday. I was at the gym and I had. You know, been toying with the idea of doing some heavy lifts again, that I haven't done in a really long time. Um, three years ago I had a really bad hip injury. I was training for a half marathon and I blew out a labrum in my hip. A labrum is the ligament that holds your femur into your hip socket, and it shredded and I was in so much pain it took about. 10 months for it to get diagnosed and to finally get the surgery I needed for it to get repaired. And then it was another two years after that where I was still in a lot of pain. I was really struggling because I was, you know, trying to keep up with family life. And I was going to school and commuting and dwelling, doing all the things, but being in so much pain all the time. It was really difficult. I had to learn how to walk again. I had to learn how to move again. You know, I had to learn how to strengthen my body again, and it was becoming evident that I needed to give up the ego that told me, oh, you can do all the the things you used to do. And my body was like, no, you need to start over. You need to rebuild from scratch. You need to become a beginner again, and you need to just let your ego take a long walk out the door, and you just need to be in tune with what your body needs right now to rebuild from scratch from this hip injury. And it was a very sobering experie. Because I couldn't do all the things that I had wanted to do. Right. Um, not to mention I wasn't running anymore. Um, you know, my weight training and my workouts are very much like a mental release for me when I'm really stressed. And so I didn't have what I used to have. So when I was. Trying to struggle my way through rebuilding from scratch. I just had to remember to keep showing up. I had to remember that it would take time. And little by little I rebuilt that strength and now I can move relatively pain-free. I still have a little bit of like hip flexor and pelvic issues, so I can't run anymore. But you know, I've been working really hard to come back from that. And so yesterday. I'm setting the barbell up to do a sumo deadlift, which is just a beast all by itself. And I threw on a weight that I was like, you know what? I haven't done this in a long time, but I'm gonna try. And I did it and it was a little rough, but then I was like, you know what? I could even go a little heavier. And I did. I put on an extra 20 pounds and I had a personal record, and it was amazing feeling to be. You know, in that place, in that mindset, after almost three years of being like, wow, it takes time to rebuild, like in. A time and age where we want everything to have this like instant gratification. Something like this takes time and that is my reminder to you. All of it doesn't happen overnight. You have to give yourself the grace when you're like, well, I reverted back a little bit. I backslid into some of my old habits, into my old thinking, right? Because it takes. Time and I was just having a beautiful conversation with someone recently about all this where she's trying to make some really beautiful life changes into health and fitness and she's like, before I knew it, I knew I was back home after just going through the McDonald drive-through and it didn't even occur to me until afterwards and I was like, you know what? That's okay. It takes time to get these new habits in place like it is work. To keep returning back over and over and over into a mindset that is brand new to us if we are rebuilding habits, you keep trying. You give yourself the grace when you are human and you fuck it up a little bit and then you just say, you know what? Tomorrow's a brand new day and I'm gonna try again. And that's all you can do is rebuilding takes time even though we are demoing this shit, right, like our brain likes to latch on to the old familiar patterns and habits. That we have used for decades to survive. And so even though we'd like to think that is a very clean break, that we can just sever it like that, it does take, you know, some effort. So I do want to just encourage you, like, don't give up. It takes time and you have to learn that it won't be perfect. You have to trust yourself to just keep going and to know that you in your heart. Are doing the badass work to rebuild. So it's not pretty, it's not powerful or it's not polished. That's what rebuilding looks like. It's not pretty, it's not polished, but it is very powerful. So just remind yourself like, okay, tomorrow is a new day and I've totally got this because I am a bad ass. So from here I would like to pivot just a tiny bit, um, over at my other platform, A is for avocados, where I talk more about nutrition, specifically about celiac and lactose issues, as well as weight loss and just healthy eating. I have started something called the MythBuster Monday, and I thought that the quote I put up over there was also very applicable here and the myth. Is that you need a perfect plan before you can rebuild. And in the nutrition context I was going after was that you need like the perfect diet plan. The perfect fitness plan, and I just wanna be like, Nope, that's not right. The truth is that you just need to start. It doesn't matter about having a. Perfect plan because it is not about being perfect. It is about the progress. It is allowing yourself to be messy. It is allowing yourself to be a beginner. It is allowing yourself to make the mistakes, like in this context, I would like you to be a C student. I don't want eight plus students here who are obsessed with perfectionism and getting the best grade right? Like I. Was an A plus student in college, so I understand that drive. But in life, you're allowed to be. C plus doing your damn best. You know, making the effort and allowing yourself that grace and that flexibility because if you hold yourself to this perfectionism standard or, or the rubric, if you will, you will drive yourself crazy. You will second guess Ev. Free thing that you do, and then before long you're gonna get into your own head again, and that little hamster wheel up in your brain is gonna spin and spin and spin, and then you're gonna end up giving up because you're gonna just be paralyzed. You know that paralysis by analysis analogy of just going, okay, I can't, I can't be perfect, so why bother? Right. And so I would encourage you to let yourself just. Start, let yourself just follow the next right step. Follow that intuition, follow that, you know, gut feeling, that you're rebuilding the trust with yourself to know what that feels like. So rebuilding doesn't always require having a hundred percent clear picture. It's not always clear like that, but it does require audacity. It requires you to go, you know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna do it. I don't really care what anybody else says. You know, the other people in my life might, you know, give me the whole pro con list of why I should or shouldn't do something, but that's not me. I need to follow in my heart what I know to be right, because if other people are going to sit here. And, you know, shit, all over my, my big plans or whatever I am, you know, working towards that says more about them and their limitations than it does about you. And that is something I just wanna remind you of. I've had people who are very well-meaning in my life who are like, oh, I don't know about that. And I'm like, mm, yeah, but you know what? That's not. That's, that's you speaking. That's not me speaking. Right? Like I know in my soul where I'm supposed to to go. I know the path that is laid out for me. I may not be able to see, you know, more than a couple steps in front of me. But if I follow the one step and then the next step, then it's gonna lead me in the right direction. And so, you know, whether you are rebuilding your relationship with food, you are rebuilding. Your new fitness program, you know, any of those things, whether it's life things, stop waiting for it to feel perfect. Just start where you are. The messy action is so much better than perfect inaction. So I'm gonna say that again. Messy action is better than perfect in action. So just start just. Take the next messy step and just let it go. You know, let the chips fall where they may, right? Isn't that the same? So becoming your highest self is really going back to this visualization of visualize your highest self, then start showing up as her right. If every moment. Of every day you are trying to align with that, that is your compass, then you're on on track, right? You know, and if you can take a couple of minutes in the beginning of your day, before you get out of bed, before you hit the floor and you know, start having to run after kids and do breakfast and what have you, take a couple minutes to visualize that self of you. That is. Just crushing it, right? Like we all have this like persona in our mind of what the badass version of us looks like. Like start embodying her and you're gonna be her, right? You can literally manifest that shit by just coaching your eyes for a few minutes, putting your hand on your heart, taking a couple of really deep breaths. And just like you're putting the clothes on your body in the morning, put that on you. Put that persona on you. So don't say I'm gonna do it someday. Not when the conditions are ideal, but like now, like literally right now. Close your eyes for just a couple minutes. A couple of deep breaths and just think about who you are when you are feeling your most badass self, when you're feeling that kind of a way, right? That's you right there putting it on. Do that every single day, and you're gonna totally crush it. Do it several times a day if you need to. If you feel like you're departing from that badass a little bit, come back, honey, come back. Ask yourself, what would that badass version of me do today? What would she let go of? What boundaries would she enforce? What workout or nutrition program would she commit to, even if she didn't feel like it? If you weren't afraid of failing, what would you do? Again, you don't need a perfect plan. You just need to show up in alignment with the woman that you are becoming every day, multiple times a day. Ask yourself. Am I being badass right now? Do I need to reali? Do I need to take a little moment to myself to take a couple breaths, right? So demolish design and rebuild honey, like let's be real. You can't build something strong on a shaky foundation. You have to demolish that. You have to stand in the rubble of what you have just blown up and say, this wasn't it, and I'm going to build something better. Because I really do think you can build such a beautiful life. You know, it took me three years to come back from that hip injury. It's taken me years to come back from the, you know, whole abusive relationship that I had growing up. It took me years to find my voice again. It took me years to finally stop feeling small, and it was just every day trying. Trying, and that's all you can do is try every day trying to move that needle just a little bit towards the goal, right? So those little tiny things that you are trying to do that align with the badass self, they eventually all add up. You get to design the new version of you no one else does, right? Like we have a lot of external influences all the time telling us what we should do. Well, let me, let me just remind you of a sweet little reminder that one of my favorite professors has told me was, don't should on yourself, as in to say, don't shit on yourself. So if anybody is shitting on you, you can just be like, thank you for your opinion. But I'm gonna continue doing what I wanna do. Thank you so much. You can say it very nicely. Of course, you get to rebuild with your own intention, right? Like you get to say yes when it's a whole body. Yes. You get to say no when it's a mm. I don't think so. That feels like a maybe to me. You get to rebuild with strength, you get to rebuild with that trust in your. Self that you will know what the next thing is that is meant for you.'cause that is what makes you so powerful. And it's not easy, but it's being honest with yourself. You came to this human form from, wherever you were at as a soul. And this was your assignment, right? if we are here for just this short period of time in a human form, what are we supposed to do? are we supposed to just lead the most joyful, beautiful life that we can, you know, if we only get this one life, I wanna make it a good one. How about you? Do you wanna make it a good one? Or do you wanna be like, oh my God, I did the thing and it was terrifying and it was awesome and it was awful. then it was beautiful because I said yes to what my soul was leading me towards. That's what I'm here for. I'm here for a joy filled life. I am here for happiness. Happiness is being here with a purpose, knowing that I am trying my best to make a difference, even in just a handful of people's lives. Like if this podcast goes absolutely nowhere, and two people hear it. Then I know that at least two people hopefully got something from it, right? we are only here for a short amount of time. So make it a good life. Make it a beautiful life. Make it a scrapbook worthy life that you can be proud of. You know, it's rebuilding trust with your own body again, and to know that you're. Body has been doing the damn thing to keep you going. It has been, in that survival mode for so long but it has also been holding your truth. And so it is, rebuilding that connection so that you can move forward and follow your truth. It's coming back to yourself every single day. It's coming back home and saying, my body is telling me something. And I have to remember that if my big, beautiful brain is got all these big, beautiful ideas and also this old programming that I am coming back from and heal my old, wounds our brain is gonna get ahead of us and we have to remember to bring our body along for the ride, right? We talked about how we are in this fight or flight all the time, and we have to return back to that rest and digest. We have to return back to that parasympathetic nervous system. We have to remind ourself it is safe to thrive. You have to come back to yourself every single day. Breath work and deep breathing and humming and working out. All of those things are beautiful ways to do that, and you have to remind yourself over and over again. I am safe here. I am safe to step into this new timeline, into this new chapter. I am safe to come back home to who I've always been deep down inside. You can tell yourself, I am safe. You can tell the parts of you that are fearful. I hear you. I hear you, but you're not going to drive the bus, right? You can tell the fearful part of you. You're not in control, but you can come along for the ride, right? I'm not going to ignore you, but you can't be in control. I need you to sit down and chill, right? So again, it's. Just coming back home, you know, getting your body out and moving, replenishing yourself with good nourishment, resting, rebuilding, that whole connection with yourself. Rebuilding isn't a punishment, is a partnership with your body. It is working in tandem, right? It is just the most beautiful thing when you can get this beautiful relationship. Between your big brain and your big beautiful body to be out and doing the things in a really harmonic way, and it is going to take work because we have been taught for so long to selfa abandon, to not listen to that intuition, to deny ourselves, right? That was episode two when we talked about trust. So if you haven't listened to that, I highly encourage you to go back. So to build, we have to evaluate, we have to align, and we have to repeat, Audit yourself with radical honesty. You have to demo all the shit. You have to clear that out, and then you have to rebuild. You have to rebuild a strong foundation. If anything is on your itinerary that doesn't align with what these new habits are, you need to say a really powerful sentence. no, thank you is a very powerful and respectful sentence. You know, you have to over and over and over again. Ask yourself, does this align? Does this align? I am building, I'm rebuilding. Does this align with my new design plans, my new architectural plans, my new life plans? Right? You have to evaluate over and over. Does this feel like me? Is this aligned with me? You have to continue that conversation and then adjust as possible. So, without shame, without quitting, just be honest of like, well, that didn't work. Okay, well, what can I do? How can I, you know, change this so that it does work? And then you just have to repeat that over and over and over again, forever and ever and ever. Give yourself lots of grace. Give yourself the permission to be audacious, to step into this brand new version of you, the brand new version of you that is coming home, right? It takes a very powerful person to leave behind everything that doesn't serve you. It takes a lot of audacity. It takes being a true badass deep within to say, I'm going to stop playing small, and I am going to. Thrive. I am going to step into what is mine. I am going to ask for what is mine? The universe doesn't have a budget. I'm gonna start asking for the moon, right? It is rebuilding into this beautiful life, the one that you can only dream of. Like why not? Why not just go for it? Right? It's a long game, but that is how we live as bad asses. So in this next section, I would invite you to take about five or 10 minutes to do a little journaling around this. So these are some prompts that I am going to leave you with to give you a little homework, if you will, and allowing yourself to be a C student here. I don't need perfectionism. You don't need perfectionism. It's just some question to sort of. Get your gears going, if you will. So the first question here, what am I holding onto that is no longer aligning with the woman that I am becoming? What am I still holding onto that no longer aligns with the woman that I'm becoming? Question two, what would I tear down today if I had the courage to rebuild? Question two, what would I tear down today if I had the courage to rebuild? Question three, what belief do I need to rebuild from the ground up? What belief do I need to rebuild from the ground up? Number four, what would my highest self do this week or even today? What would my highest self do this week or even today? And a little bonus, extra credit, if you will, write a mantra for you to rebuild for your next season in life. An example could be, I'm building a life that feels like truth. I trust the woman that I am becoming. Here are this episode's. Top takeaways. Number one, rebuilding isn't fixing. It's clearing the rubble. You don't need to patch up what's broken. You need to tear down what's no longer aligned and rebuild from truth, strength, and authenticity. Number two, you don't need a perfect plan. You just need to begin. Progress is messy. Let yourself be a beginner. Perfectionism paralyzes, but messy action moves the needle. Okay. Number three, your highest self is already within you. Visualize her, embody her, show up as her in small, intentional ways every damn day. That's alignment and action. The hardest part is the honesty. Radical self audits require courage. Ask the hard questions. What's no longer serving me? What am I clinging to out of comfort? Number five, your ego might fight you, but your body holds the truth. Healing requires tuning into your body, respecting its signals, and rebuilding trust, one choice at a time. Number six, there's power in starting over. Starting from scratch isn't failure, it's freedom. Rebuilding allows you to redesign your life on your own terms. Number seven. It's a lifelong cycle of realignment. Evaluate, align, repeat. This is the work over and over with grace, grit, and authenticity. If this episode hit home, please share it like it or leave a review. It truly does help our podcast get sent out into the rest of the big podcast world. Tag us on Instagram at Badass Thriving Podcast and tell us what you're rebuilding this week. We would absolutely love to hear if you want more of this real talk meets nutrition, energy meets fitness and badassery. Sign up at. A is for avocados.com for our weekly newsletter, the Badass Avocado one bold email a week with mindset, gems, food wisdom, and reminders to show up like the badass that you are. Just a reminder, you're not behind, you're rebuilding, and that is the most badass thing that you can do.