Resurrection: Becoming Your (New) Self Again

This season finale is about resurrection—returning to yourself, renewing your mind, and finding the courage to dream again. After storms, loss, transition, or the long cocoon seasons of life, there comes a quiet moment when you realize: I’m me again. And I’m ready for what’s next.

If you’ve built dreams, lost dreams, or outgrown dreams… this episode is your invitation to dream again.

To name what’s next.

To renew your mind.

To step into the future grounded, whole, and unshakeably yourself.

Go dream. Go build. Go become.  

And if this series has encouraged you, please share it with your friends and your timeline.

Season 2 is coming soon—where we’ll go deeper into the Dream Blueprint and introduce you to dreamers who have lived it.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Dream Blueprint, where we build your dream into something real. I'm Catherine Craddock, and today we conclude our first season of this podcast with episode 10, Redux and Resurrection, Returning to Yourself and Dreaming Again. There was a day last fall when I felt myself return to myself. After years of quiet working on self-care, better self-talk, shutting down negativity, and learning to relax my hypervigilance, starting to trust again, drinking more water, cutting out caffeine, getting consistently good quality sleep, adding fitness back into my life, adding core spiritual practices back into my life, slowly, day by day, removing the parts of the cocoon that still clung onto me and adding back in the core things about myself that I love writing, speaking, animals, children, deep conversations, humor, goal setting, living and dressing simply and practically. And then one day I looked in the mirror and I was myself. I was who I was hoping to return to be. I was my old self and my new self, and I liked both. And I felt like me again. But better yet, because I knew unshakably who I was and what I liked and what I was good at, no matter what anybody else says. I know these things are true about myself unshakably. I then felt strong enough to explore and dream again and change towards the future without fear. I could change because I was happy with who I was and I was grounded in who I could be. There wasn't a timeline on when this happened. It just returned one day. And I even took a photo of myself that day and posted it because I said to myself, there she is. The light was back in her eyes. This person that I felt who I was in my soul. I just fell back into myself. This is what resurrection feels like. It's not loud or dramatic or public. It's quiet, steady, internal. It's a returning. And once you return to yourself, you're finally strong enough to face what comes next. In the hero's journey in the screenwriting and writing world, it's called the return with the elixir, where the hero has gone through the whole dream blueprint journey cycle and is now returning with the healing balm back to his community. And that's what I hope to do today in this episode. Because once you return to yourself, you're finally strong enough to face what happens next. Over the last eight years, I've become part of a small group of friends, and they're all couples, and they've been chosen very carefully because they're funny and fun, but can also cry together and laugh together and they're trustworthy. They're really high integrity. They give back to their communities all the time. They're constantly striving after being disciplined, planning goals. And we've really come to love and trust these couples so much so that we live all over the country and we all have very busy schedules, but we make time to come together. We're actively working on ourselves and our businesses. But once a year we do come together and we just laugh, share, rest, and encourage one another. And this past year, at what we call the fire pit of truth, the question was posed: what would you tell your 25-year-old self? Which should be an easy question. Most people were giving, I would caution them against this, I would tell them not to do this. But when I thought about myself at that age, I was young. I was newlywed. I was young in motherhood. I was strong and happy and full of hope. I had a beautiful new house that I just loved. I had the perfect dog, my best friend Samba. I was writing, I was opening up my home. I was respected. I played soccer. I played with toddlers. I ran ministries. My house and my life was full of possibilities. And everyone that I loved and cared about was still alive. And I thought about her and how beautiful her life was, and how happy and naive and hopeful and innocent and pure-hearted she was. And when it came to my turn to speak, I just broke and I began to sob deeply. I wouldn't tell her anything, I said. Her life is beautiful. She's perfect just the way she is, and she doesn't know what's coming. She doesn't know that her entire world is about to be completely wiped out 10 years later. I want her to stay just as she is and enjoy her life for as long as she can before the storms come. I didn't want to change anything about her. And I hid behind my husband's back and I just sobbed and sobbed. Even though the group offered hugs, I couldn't fully accept them in that moment because I was grieving the girl that I had lost. I was grieving the caterpillar. But when I came back to myself around that fire pit and the safety of friends, I had come to know my new life as a butterfly. I knew that I would tell her one thing. A storm is going to come. It will attack you and your children. It will wipe away the world that you love. But you are strong enough to survive it. And you will walk out of it safely and unharmed. And you know what? As I thought about it, if you recall my story, that message that I would give to my 25-year-old self, it's exactly the message that God sent to me in the real night dream that He sent me just before the storm hit my life. That the hurricane came and would dismantle my life, that my children and I would be embattled, but that we would emerge unscathed. Maybe, my friend around the fire pit said as he gave me a hug, you needed that cry. I didn't want that cry. I lay awake the whole night tumbling the grief around in my head. I was angry that that box had been opened unexpectedly, that I had to deal with this grief and this loss that I thought I had resolved. The scab was off. But months later, I can see that he was right. I needed to honor my caterpillar self. I needed to cry for her, but also to say goodbye to her. Because my life is different now. It's not better, it's just different. And I have beauty and good things to share in this life too. And I don't really even want to go back. As I sat with all of that, the grief, the gratitude, the releasing of who I used to be, something else rose up inside of me: a memory, a realization, and a thread that had been there all along. I remembered that our real estate company was first named Redux Realty, and it's now the Redux Group, meaning an old dream that was good, that has needs to be revised and brought back and revived so that it fits its current environment. And I realized it wasn't just us bringing back and reviving homes like flips and renovations, or even bringing back and reviving the lives of clients who were looking for a new dream. As the Redux group grew, it also became about building a community of dreamers and dream builders who were committed to reviving and reduxing their own lives and dreams and could now lead and help others to do the same. And that realization hit me right around the same time that I had a conversation with someone who'd watched our entire journey unfold. I was sitting at a conference just last week, and a friend who had known me since high school and I were talking, he was actually my high school best friend's dad. And he had been watching the whole journey from the time I was 16 years old until now at 47. And he's a dream builder himself. He actually changed his own life trajectory by joining our real estate team. And he saw it all in our weakness. He was inspired. He said, I admire that you and Chris never stop growing and leveling up. And we talked about the fact that growth changes your circle. He paused and he said, That's hard. We sat silently together in the acknowledgement that pain, that loss, he knew he saw, and yet he was inspired in his own life. The next morning I woke up and I texted my group of friends from my new life stage, my new circle that I didn't know that I wanted or needed. I texted them and I said, I am so grateful that for all of the friends that I had to leave behind, you all were the friends who were waiting up ahead for me. Your new life, your new self, your new friends, they're not better, they're just different. But different can still be wonderful, and different can still be a dream fulfilled. This is a resurrection, not just returning to yourself, but releasing who you were, blessing him or her, and stepping back into who you're becoming. And I would add this for many of us who've lived a while on this earth, we've built or attempted to build many dreams. Some have come true and some have died, but some are yet to be. If you're listening to this, it's because deep down you know that it's time to dream again. It's time you search your heart for what else must I do on this earth before I die? What am I born to do and bless and be a light for before I die? What callings and passions have I hidden, put aside, forgotten, and have yet to do? We don't know what a day will bring. Today is what we have. So today is the day. And if you don't know what your dream is, ask those who love you, what do you see in me that I don't see in myself? This is the moment in the Bible where the prophet Elisha asked the widow, What do you have in your house? She thought she had nothing. Her two sons were about to be sold into slavery. She was starving. But she had oil. And when she began to pour it and sell it and give it to her neighbors, it didn't run out. Your dream is like that. It's already in your house, it's already in your story, already in your hands. Once you know your dream, research it, gather the tools you need. Surround yourself with mentors who've done the thing you wish to do. Humble yourself and listen to their answers. Take a brief pause. This is for all you go-getters. Take a brief pause. Count the cost to you, yourself, your friends, and your loved ones before you charge ahead. Get unity with your spouse and your children. Don't be afraid of the death of your dream. You're a survivor. You know how to rest. You know how to heal. You know how to reconstitute. And if you don't, then that's part of the gathering, the tools and the mentors. That's part of the journey. You can do it. You're stronger now. You have the tools now. You can fight for your dream, even if it's an ordeal. And you can dream up a new dream. You can. You just have to decide to do it. This is what the Bible means when it says in Romans 12, 2, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Renew your mind. Remind yourself of what God's done in your life, what you survived, not to be afraid that it will happen again, but to know that you now have the power in Christ to go forward. Jesus says in John 3, he says, you must be born again. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. You can't take your new self and your new skills and put it into your old self. You're something different and new entirely, and that's not bad. Resurrection requires renewal. New dreams require new identity. New seasons require new wineskins. You know, back in our pastoral days, my husband Chris was the officiant at a wedding, and at a rehearsal dinner, I was seated beside the grandmother of the groom who was a widow in her 80s. I politely was making small talk and I said, What do you do for fun? And I was expecting her, I was picturing her in a lazy boy in front of a TV, like cross-stitching, and saying that she watched Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy and that she was lonely all day and maybe only had a few visitors. But her answer shocked me. She said, I'll run five K's. I said, You what? I couldn't even hold it back. She said, I'll run 5Ks. I've broken my hip and just had it replaced. But as soon as I get through this rehab, I'm gonna run 5Ks again. She was a dreamer. Her nest was empty, her husband was in heaven, but she'd pivoted and found a new purpose and a new dream and a new community and something she loved even in her 80s. She was incredible. Better yet, even though she'd had a catastrophic setback, she had the fortitude to know that she was strong enough to keep dreaming. And so she was, and so she did. Dreaming and moving forward wasn't a hobby for her, it was her identity. Not I ran 5Ks. Even sitting there next to me with a completely shattered hip, even in her later years, she said, I run 5K. Not I was a dreamer, I am a dreamer. I am a dream builder, and so am I, and so are you. So here's my blessing for you: go dream, go build, go become. Tell me the dream you're building. Tell someone you trust, tell the people who love you, tell the world. And if you've loved this series, please share it with your friends, post it on your timelines, send it to someone who needs to dream again because season two is coming. I'm brave enough to do this again. And in season two, we're going deeper into the dream blueprint, and I'm introducing you to dreamers who followed it in their own lives. People who built, rebuilt, resurrected, and launched dreams of their own. You are not done. You're still breathing. You are not behind. You're right where you need to be. You are not late. God is giving you the oil right now. It's in your house. You are a dream builder, and today is the day that you share those dreams with the world and start building. See you next season.