The Road Back Podcast

#9 – Building Blocks to Dreams, Pt. 2 – Community & Action

• Season 1 • Episode 9

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In Pt. 2 of our “Building Blocks to Dreams” conversation, we dive into the power of community, abundance, and action in bringing your desires to life. From celebrating each other’s wins to taking the next right step—even when you don’t see the whole path—this episode will inspire you to dream bigger and walk it out with courage. 

Because your dreams aren’t just for you—they nourish the world around you.

Want to get clarity on your dreams? I can help. Reach out to Melissa here:

https://melissarunacres.com/offerings/

For info on Dez's 2026 mentorship, check out her website:

https://desireeamarieiconsulting.squarespace.com/

Don't forget to follow and review. Thanks!



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Welcome back to this episode of the Road Back Podcast. I am excited to dive into part two with Dez today on a conversation that is near and dear to our hearts, which is the topic of dreaming. Last week we talked about some of the building blocks of dreaming and the keys to taking action on things that are desires in our hearts. We talked about the difference between dreams and goals. We talked about the importance of clarity, letting go of the how, and this week we're gonna get into some more stories and examples from our own life on the topic of dreaming and how we have walked dreams out and seen them fulfilled in our own lives. And we wanna give you guys some of the keys today as well. It's gonna be When you think about these building blocks to dreaming and being connected to dreams as a part of guidance in your life, courage is one of the building blocks that we both said is so vital. And so would you want to share place in your life or in your dream life that you have chosen not to settle? What was that like when you had courage to not settle? Yeah. Courage is so important for anybody who is wanting to live a life that is fully alive, that is fully expressed. I don't think that you can go through life and pursue dreams or any desires in your heart if you're not willing to step outside of your comfort zone. And that in a nutshell is what courage is to me. It's being willing to face the fear and move forward anyway. And anytime we want to step into a desire in our heart, we have to let go of the familiar and step into something that is unfamiliar because dreams by nature have a futuristic sense to them. It's not something that I already have today. It's something that I'm wanting to step into and courage is needed for that. In order to embrace courage, I also had to hit a point where I chose not to settle anymore, I hit a point where I said, okay, I've done it this way up until now, but in order to go where I'm going, I need to draw a metaphorical line in the sand and step over it. And so a really practical fun story that I had to share this is the house that I live in now – I've been here for about eight years. Before I lived here, I lived in another state. And when we moved, I actually left my dining room table behind. Now we had a bar height dining room table that fit really well in the house that we were in. There was this kind of kitchen nook. And the bar height table was really good in that. But in the house we were moving into, it wouldn't have suited at all because the dining room was more rectangular shaped. And I definitely needed a rectangular dining room table. But here's the interesting thing We left our house and moved to our new house. But I didn't have a table with me. And I didn't have any ideas at the time of the table that I wanted. But I was in a season of really learning to give expression to my heart's desires. was in a season of learning to say no to things that felt less than what was actually in my heart. And it was a season. It hasn't always been true for every season of my life. But I remember moving and saying, I would rather have no dining room table than a dining room table that I don't like. And it was part of me learning about the abundance of God as well and learning not to settle. And so we moved here and for months I did not have a dining room table. We had a kitchen table. We had a bar in the kitchen, so we had places to sit. It wasn't like we had no place to sit. And we had some outdoor furniture that we could sit at outside, but our dining room had no proper furniture in it for close to a year after we moved here. And it was this internal journey for me of saying, I am not going to settle anymore. I know I want a nice dining room table. We didn't have a huge budget for it at the moment, so I couldn't just... go out and shop for it right away. So I was also on this journey of trust. I had connected to the desire of, I want a nice dining room table. I want something that feels good. I want something that I feel proud about having people sitting around with me. There was always an invitation of like, well, I could just settle and go get something that I don't really like, but would fill the gap. But I felt such an internal resistance to that. If I want this, I want to do it well. And so a number of months after I lived here, was in a small group with some friends and we had decided to create some vision boards. This was fun. I love vision boards. So we had all cut out pictures of things that we wanted and we took turns sharing our vision boards with one another. And when it time to share my vision board, I'd cut out a picture of a table from Restoration Hardware. Now, if you know what Restoration Hardware is, it's a super nice home decor furniture place. Kind of bougie, you know? And so I had cut out this picture out of a Restoration Hardware catalog and I'd put it on my vision board and I had put a bunch of other things. It wasn't just household stuff. And I'd shared it with my friends and we all shared our vision board and encouraged one another. I'm not kidding. Less than a week later, one of my friends called me and said, Hey, Melissa, you'll never guess what I just saw on Facebook marketplace. She's like, your table is on Facebook marketplace. And I was like, what? And I got on and lo and behold, there was a Restoration Hardware table that this person was selling with eight chairs, barely used, had sat in their formal dining room. And long story short, I got it that weekend. less than a week after sharing my vision board, which we can talk about the power of sharing things in community a little bit later. But I got my table and it was such a lesson to me in holding out for what I wanted. And then when I got it, it was actually even better than what I had expected. I had not expected to get a Restoration Hardware. At the time, I couldn't afford to buy it new, but I ended up getting this fantastic deal on it, plus eight chairs thrown in that were basically brand new for a fraction of the price of what I would have had to pay had I gone in and bought it out of the store. And so it was such a wild story for me where I had been invited into the season of going, okay, I'm gonna be courageous. I'm gonna own my desires going to be willing to not settle as I step into them. And so it was wild and sharing it with my friends and then she quote, quote,'happened' to see it on Facebook four days later. And then within a week I had it in my dining room. It was a wild story, but it's one of those things that's very tangible for me to hold onto and to even encourage people. Like if you're being encouraged to let go of something don't be afraid of leaving some space. You know, I had to be okay with having people over at my house and having them think like, doesn't she have a dining room table? But I decided to not make it a big deal. And so it wasn't a big deal. And it felt so much better having held out for the thing I really wanted and which was actually even nicer than what I would have originally imagined, that it was very much worth the wait. And I remember having this moment with Jesus when I was getting the table and I was like, Oh my goodness, you know, I cut this picture of this table out of the magazine, but hadn't even really thought that I was going to be able to get it. And I remember Jesus saying to me, I wanted you to have a nice table because the people you're going to host at your table, I want you to feel proud about having them in your space. And so ended up just being special on multiple levels. Yeah. Right, I love this story because as you highlighted, there is an in-between, there's an uncomfortability in growth, in changing, in going for your dream. Like from leaving what's always been to where you want to be, there is an uncomfortable feeling. And what you're talking about is not settling if we can actually reframe that that's what growth feels like. Yeah. That being on your way to something that you want feels like this. It can feel like, oh, I don't have anywhere to sit somebody or if you can feel like, this is a little stretching, this is slightly uncomfortable, maybe I'm feeling super vulnerable because I'm putting myself out there because that's what I want. And so I just, love that story because I think it's relatable in the feeling that there can be a disconnect between where we were and where we wanna be and that holding out and being okay in that uncomfortable feeling actually helps you get there. Absolutely. Knowing that discomfort is part of the growth experience. Call it growing pains, call it the courage required. And, and you know, I left a physical table behind in my old house, but sometimes the process of dreams require us to leave more than that. Maybe we need to leave a job or a relationship or an environment that is holding us back from where we are wanting to go. And knowing that that's not uncommon, that it's actually normal to have to leave things behind when you're wanting to step into the deeper desires of your heart. Our heart is to normalize this conversation so you don't feel like you're the only one having to do challenging things when you're wanting to go to the next level. Yeah, absolutely. So courage, dear hearts. We are encouraging you to take courage. Yes. Dez, one of our other building blocks would be the power of community in helping us walk out our dreams. Why do you think it's so important to share our dreams rather than just always keeping them to ourselves? What's the power of sharing them with community or trusted people? Well, there is something really important about when I can share the dream, a person can actually mirror to me, that's a beautiful dream. First, I think speaking it, sort of births it. It gives validity to something. Whereas I'm holding it in, I'm not telling anybody. It's like, not quite in the realm of existence yet. So by speaking it and having a safe community, I'm such a visual person, but one of the visuals that I get, it's sort of like what is needed to actually birth the dream. If you think of a woman who goes into labor, she needs her doula, she needs her midwife, she needs the mothers and the women around her to help bring this into fruition, to help her deliver this. So community is so key to me. For one, you get to speak it. Two, they get to honor and see what is, and they get to value it as like, please do this. This is so important. And what a community can do, the amount of strength and support that you can have, you don't have to deliver your dream by yourself. That's not how it was meant to be delivered. It was meant to be delivered in community with the strength of those around you, with the experience, with the heart, with the love. It's just an environment for birthing that I think is so, so important. agree. I agree. And I think there's something about sharing with people where they can agree with you because there's power in agreement. There's power in bearing witness to other people. And it's a power that you can't... It's not a logical thing. can't just logically acknowledge it. It is an experiential process. The power of sharing things with safe people, safe community. And we've talked about this already, and I think it's something that we'll continue to talk about, but we're both huge advocates of healthy community and the power of letting other people into your process. And it's the right people. It's not just anybody. You need to be thoughtful. What would you say to somebody who's looking? Yes. Yeah, a delivery room. You don't just let anybody into delivery room. That is a select safe few that get the honor of being there. But when you're talking about community our third building block is the building block of abundance. Abundance in dreaming is actually very important part of connecting to your desires and success in your own dreams. Mel, is there anything you want to share with us about how celebrating another person's win or accomplishment has actually supported you in this building block of abundance? I see abundance as an inherent belief that there is plenty to go around for everybody. We're not fighting over one cosmic pie of success. And so if you have your dream, that doesn't mean that the corner on those dreams just taken out. Like Dez got that section, so there's nothing left for Melissa. And so I think the value of abundance is there's enough for all of us. You can have your dreams and I can have mine. And I think to look at the flip side of celebration, if we get envious or jealous or feel competitive with other people when we see them succeeding, and if there's something in us that rises up and goes, I don't really like that. There's definitely been times where people have gotten things and I've felt disqualified by them succeeding. For sure. Yeah. healed and as I've become more more connected to the belief in abundance, now it's fun to celebrate other people because their win doesn't take away from me. Now I choose to look at it through the lens of, if they're succeeding, they're showing me what's possible. And if it's speaking to something in me, it's speaking to a desire of my own heart and they're showing me what's available to me, it's not a disqualification. Yeah, I love it because when you can notice jealousy or like, my goodness, this person is doing something similar to what I want to do, it actually shows you what's important. It shows you more of your dreams. It shows you more of yourself, which we have such a high value for. But yeah, I think creating this understanding of like if she can or he can, then I can. There's something I say, well, why not me? Like I asked that question, you well, why not me? And it really can fuel you rather than disqualify you. So if a person is writing the book and I wanted to write the book, that can actually fuel me. I've noticed the more I celebrate other people, the more naturally abundance comes to me. And living in the belief your dream doesn't take anything away from my dream is really important. That there's an economy where both get to exist and there's enough to go around. There's enough support, there's enough money, there's enough... good family dynamics, there's enough connection, there's enough goodness, there's enough love to go around. Mm-hmm. You can have your dream and I can have my dream too. And I think that's such an important conversation because we don't generally live in a world that believes this. A lot of people have that dog eat dog mentality. I got to get mine and if I've got to take you out in the process then that's fine. I just need to keep, keep, keep for me. I don't want to be too generous. I don't want to be too celebratory because I don't want you to get a leg up. And yes. a disempowering belief. And to me it's heavy. It weighs me down. If I engage in those kinds of belief patterns, I'm expending needless energy on worrying about what people around me are doing rather than focusing on the thing that I'm supposed to be doing. And like you said, Dez when we celebrate others, we reap what we sow. And I want to be celebrated when I'm doing things. And so sowing it, celebration into others and... genuinely from my heart, wanting them to succeed, while also recognizing that if there's something that comes up in my heart that doesn't want people to succeed, that that's actually just showing me an area where I need further healing in my own heart. Because reframing beliefs is a big thing that we come to again and again. And understanding that we live in a world of abundance and not scarcity is a big, big building block for dreams. Right. Ugh. So good. It's just one of those bigger conversations, but I'm glad that we can touch on it here. One of the things we talk about and the book of Proverbs actually says "Desire fulfilled is a tree of life." Just to encourage our listeners, how have you experienced stepping into a dream yourself? How has it nourished you but actually also provided nourishment to other people? Yeah, you know, I'm going to give an example, but I feel like a yes to your desire and dream is sort of like a ripple effect on water. By me engaging in the yes in my heart, there will naturally be ripples and other people will be invited to engage in yeses in their own heart. And the ramifications, the effects of those ripples are something that you can't even begin to measure or comprehend exactly. But I think about a dream that I had in 2024 and I had to honor it like this is good, this is a pure intention, this is valuable, this is worthy. I didn't disqualify myself before I even started, but I said yes to this mentorship program where, yeah, I got to work with uh colleagues, which I worked with you and Karen and I brought you in, which was something my heart loves to do. I love to collaborate. I love to work together. So I'm engaging in all these things that are making me come alive. And had this dream of being really intentional with eight months of the year of going after our hearts, going after identities and working in a really new way. In a way I hadn't really seen modeled to me. And so I just took myself seriously along the way and created even this opportunity for us to travel to Spain, to walk the Camino de Santiago. And when I said yes to this, I gave the opportunity for others to say yes to their invitations, to where their hearts wanted to engage. Of course it's not for everybody. It's not supposed to be for everybody. Your yes won't send everybody towards you. It's just the right people. And so, I can't even begin to really evaluate the impact of the last eight months in this mentorship program. We've had people go on sabbaticals and find new new hearts desires and new career paths connect to unspoken dreams that they've never had, people who have safety to heal in a community of women that had once been a big pain point in their life and now they're feeling safer in relationship than ever. And I even think in my own heart, this has been for me a beautiful place for me to come alive and for me to be in my identity. it's worth it if my heart is coming alive. And so naturally by honoring what's happening and I lean into that, then other people will have similar, unique, but you know, similar ways that that will spur on their own dreams and their own desires in their life. Yeah. Such a good example. And I've witnessed it firsthand, seeing these beautiful women step into desires in their heart, which could they have gotten there anyway? Yeah, maybe. But you saying yes to you opened up a space that invited them into a very unique experience and one that you get to partake of as well as them, which I think is really... really beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. So coming to our final building block for this conversation, one of the things that we have both learned is the importance of taking action on dreams. I think we've both been in environments before. I definitely have been, and I have been the person myself who had big dreams, but didn't understand the value of taking action on my dreams. I had a belief system that largely held to like if it's God's will, it will just happen. God needs to tell me every step of the way. We talk about this a little bit in our last episode as well. But taking action on dreams is such a significant part of walking it out. And what would you like to speak to that? Yeah, I mean, this is so relatable, just overcoming inaction. One of the things I like to think of, and that's probably given me the momentum in my life around my dreams, is again, this is back to this core belief, that if I believe that connecting to my heart is connecting to my desires, it's connecting to my body. This will look different in different seasons. I'll have different desires in different seasons, different dreams in my life. But to be in action is to be embodied, It's to embody what my heart and my body and my mind is understanding as the next right thing. And so when I think of action, I... I'm simply like, yeah, I actually taking this seriously, this is embodiment. This is my desire. This is my life. For me, it's extreme ownership, which is what you and I both were lacking, any ownership.

were like powerless to get our dreams fulfilled because so many other people had to act:

either God, we had to have confirmation, the pastor had to tell us, we had to be invited. The empowering feeling of embodiment means this is my life, I get to own it. This is my story, this is my desire, this is my path. The journey is the destination, so to speak. It's the whole reason. And that's enabled me to stay consistent and in that momentum energy. As I'm embodied, I am in action. What do you think about that? Yeah, I love the embodied part that you're talking about. It's not necessarily the way I'd always thought of it. So I love hearing different people's perspectives. You're actually, by walking it out, the active part is bringing it from the idea phase into a practical, even physical realm phase. Because like the Bible says, "Faith without works is dead." I can have a dream or a desire or something that I'm thinking about or I'm pondering or I'm visualizing or I can even make the dream boards and all those things. But if I'm not taking action, it stays in that vision stage. And I think it stays there until I move on something. And sometimes, it's just taking the next right step, but you need to take the steps. And I personally wasted years of my life waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting for another sign, waiting for another confirmation. And it was a pain point for me and a place where I had to take ownership and go, some of these things aren't happening. Not because it's not God's will, but because I am assigning to him something that is not his role. And we have been made so powerful on this earth and we have been given authority. We have a lot more power than we realize we do. And taking action, you don't have to wait as much as you think you do. And in fact, what is it? uh Bow your head and move your feet. Pray and act. Bow your head, but move your feet. And so I'm acknowledging God in all my ways. I'm acknowledging him in the process of walking out my dreams. I'm checking in, I'm praying about it. I'm seeking wise counsel. I'm pulling on community. Taking action is what we're doing after we've done those other things. We have the people speaking into our life. We're not an island unto ourselves. but we're not sitting there waiting for something to materialize when Jesus is like, I've given you the authority, go do it yourself. As I'm hearing you talk about the importance of empowerment and reconnecting to some of these building blocks we talked about, I would love the listener to understand that I truly believe that God can put a stop to something if that's what he wants to do, but you're the only person who can disqualify you from the dreams and desires that you have. You're the only person that can limit you. You're the number one person. I actually believe that Papa God is so good that I am as a mother, my kid's like, I want to go and be an astronaut. I'm like, yes. I would not ever want to cap and limit my child. And I just don't believe that Papa God is like that personally. And so I find that I'm the one person that disqualifies me the soonest. And that's what you were sharing. Years, we've spent decades disqualifying ourselves before we ever began, really not entering into any of our own power and ownership of the things that are coming up. And so I want to just bless you. Just like you're the person who can say yes to the things of your heart that you've always wanted to do. And it's going to be great. That's going to be beautiful. The world needs it. The world needs your expression as you in your identity, in the goodness that God has put inside of you to come out in the world and to be present and to take up your space and to take up all the room that your dreams and your desires would like for you to take up. Anything you would want to bless and wish for our listeners as they're thinking about their own desires and dreams? Yeah, the word that comes to me is agency. May you know the agency that you have been given purely by virtue of being a human on this earth. You have been given agency to step out on the dreams in your heart, to give them voice, to give them expression, to call for help. You were never meant to do this alone. You get to be supported in the journey and do not be afraid to make those courageous next steps because when you give yourself to the process, we can stand here as ones who have done that ourselves and say, oh, girlfriend, it is so worth it. Embrace the agency that you've been given. Embrace those dreams. Don't hold back because the world needs that gift that you bring that no one else can express the way you do. Yes. Yes. So good. Yeah. I just want to add as we wrap up, if you feel a stirring in your journey in your life right now, an invitation to dream, I want to just encourage you to hop over to Melissa's website. We'll post it somewhere in the links, grab a dream session. If you're in the place to really start to put some meat on the bones of the dream, so to speak, and you really want to go after it, go ahead and find my website because we have some really exciting things coming in 2026 that are really designed to help you connect to your authentic dream and your own flow and who you are and how you want to show up. So that's coming next year in 2026. Thank you so much for being here. and we're excited for what's to come. We'll see you soon, friends. See you, bye.