The resurrection: how to be reborn after rock bottom

A room. A chair. A computer. Outside, life goes on. Inside, a man who didn't know how to code spends six months without leaving the house.

Developing. Coding. Writing. Remembering.

Shortly before, he was on the ground: broke, broken and beaten. Now, every day in front of the screen is a brick. He describes those months as a string of things even he can't explain. Anyone looking from outside sees something else, just as rare: discipline.

What this stage is

In Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey (1949), organized into twelve stages by Christopher Vogler, the eleventh stage is the resurrection.

It is the last and deepest test. The hero faces symbolic death one final time and is reborn transformed. Campbell shows that, in myths, whoever returns from the world of the dead does not return the same: they bring another vision, another strength, sometimes another name. Vogler explains that the resurrection is proof that the change is real. The hero has to show, in action, that they have learned.

Being reborn is not going back to who you were before the fall. It is becoming someone who only exists because of it.

In Bairo's life

Bairo's rebirth began with faith. At rock bottom, he found a door he had not been looking for: in a Christian congregation, he heard accounts and testimonies from ordinary people who had crossed through the impossible. Listening, he came to believe in the God of the impossible. Listening more, he came to trust in the God of love. Faith, for him, took on a simple definition: trusting in something you cannot see.

There was also a road inward, separate from the congregation. Following his own intuition, Bairo says he allowed himself, in his personal search, experiences with cannabis oil, which he describes as a bridge to his innermost being. He wasn't looking for treatment. He was looking for silence. It is his experience, told the way he lived it, and not a recommendation to anyone.

In that search, he says he saw his best self: a prosperous man, not only in money but in peace, living in the presence of the God he loves. He came out of it with an image and no map. So he asked for wisdom, understanding and courage to remember how to get there. He did not ask to learn the way. He asked to remember.

The symbol of this phase came from the sky, literally. Hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, emits a radio signal at 1420 MHz. So that astronomers can hear it, that band is protected by international agreement: no one transmits on it. One only listens. For Bairo, it is the frequency of silence, the image of going quiet and listening before building. It is a symbol, not a device, and it is as a symbol that the number 1420 entered everything he did afterward.

Out of the six months at home came the foundation of the platform and the artificial intelligence of CEASA Bank, a company he had had since 2019: a financial platform for agribusiness, designed to put those who produce, those who process, those who trade and those who buy in direct connection.

And then came the last test: the banks refused to integrate the solution. One more no. Bairo already knew what to do with it. He used it as ground, focused on the technology he could build with his own hands, and set about raising his own infrastructure.

In your life

You don't need Bairo's faith to live this stage. You need something to lean on when nothing else holds. For some, it is God. For others, it is family, community, a purpose, silence. All of these deserve respect.

If you are an entrepreneur who went broke, your rebirth may begin with a simple, stubborn work routine. If you are an immigrant, it may begin with rebuilding a support network in the new place. If you are starting over, it may begin with an honest request for help, to God, to someone, or to yourself.

Questions for the rebirth:

• When you picture yourself as your best self, what do you see? How does that person wake up, work, treat others?
• What do you need to "remember" about yourself that the fall made you forget?
• Where do you find silence in the middle of the noise?
• Which recent "no" could become the ground for your next step?

Three steps to begin being reborn

1. Write down your best self. One page, in the first person and in the present tense. Not as a fantasy, but as a direction. Reread it every morning.
2. Create your building time. Bairo had six months. You may have one hour a day. Set the time, the place and what you're going to build. Protect that time the way you'd protect an appointment with someone else.
3. Seek silence and real support. Prayer, meditation, a walk, a faith or support community. If the anguish is great, see a health professional. Silence is for listening, not for isolating yourself.

The line for this stage

"The impossible is just something that hasn't been done yet."

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez

Next stage

Stage 12: Return with the elixir, turning pain into purpose

Read also

• The God of the impossible
• The frequency of silence
• Bairo's Hero's Journey, stage by stage
• How to start over after losing everything?