The Power of Oxygen 1st
When my son was little, I was a single mom who was doing it all alone. I was putting everyone else first and my own needs last. To everyone around me, I was successful but little did they know that my success was tied to pushing, stressing, sleepless nights and early morning workouts pushing my body and my limits to the extreme. Until one day I was flying alone and nearly crashed an airplane and I realized that I needed to take care of my own needs first before anyone else. You see, when you’re a pilot, if you have any issues in the plane, you put on your oxygen mask 1st, not your passengers. They need you to land the plane.
This podcast is all about this journey to healing, to getting clear on the desires of your heart… and stepping into them with courage while leaning into, asking for and receiving support. I hope you feel inspired to do less, to follow your passions and infuse them into your daily life and truly claim the life you were meant to live: a life filled to the brim with epic ADVENTURE.
The Power of Oxygen 1st
EP 77: Rockbottom People Are Magic
Have you ever wondered if it's possible to find genuine happiness while your world is still in pieces? In this raw and heartfelt episode, I open up about discovering deep joy at my core even as I navigate the aftermath of a devastating divorce, complete with rumors, betrayal, and literally moving my life out in trash bags.
Contrary to what many of us have been taught, joy doesn't always arrive after healing is complete. Sometimes, the most authentic happiness emerges right in the middle of our darkest moments. I share how even while managing my son Dominic's complex health challenges and rebuilding my life from scratch, I've found a quiet, powerful joy that sustains me through it all.
There's something different about people who have walked through darkness and kept going – a light that isn't performative but earned through resilience. These are the connections I'm drawn to now, people who understand that rising often begins while we're still on our knees. The happiness I've discovered isn't despite the challenges but somehow because of them, reshaping who I am at my core.
Your joy isn't a betrayal of your past – it's a declaration of who you're becoming. This episode is an invitation to let happiness in, even before everything makes sense again. You're allowed to laugh while healing. You're allowed to feel free even if it confuses others. And most importantly, you're not alone in discovering that the rise is worth every dark corner you walk through.
Don't forget to check out my new hiring ROI calculator at dotrockconsulting.com – a powerful tool to help you understand how receiving support can transform your personal and professional life. Connect with me on Instagram @dot_rock_ and let me know which part of this episode resonated most with you.
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Hey guys, this is the Power of Oxygen First podcast and I'm your host, dot Rock. I am an entrepreneur, a mom, a stepmom and a scaling consultant who is obsessed with the art of hiring, support and that dirty word we call delegation. I'm a recovering perfectionist who pushed my body and my limits to the extreme until one fateful day I learned that, just like pilots, I needed to take care of myself first. This podcast is all about the journey to healing, to getting clear on the desires of your heart, stepping into them with courage and leaning into and asking for support. I hope you feel inspired to do less, to follow your passions and infuse them into your daily life and truly claim the life you were meant to live. Well, hello my podcast friends. I am sitting here in Dallas, texas, and recording this podcast. And recording this podcast, I'm on a little baseball tour trip with Dominic, as many of you know. We are trying to visit all of the baseball parks and also, hopefully someday go to a World Series game and the Savannah Bananas. So welcome back to the Power of Oxygen First. This is the space where we practice putting on our oxygen masks first, emotionally, energetically and spiritually. So today I just want to talk about something that feels really beautiful to me right now, and that fact is that I am realizing, I am deeply, deeply happy. Yep, I'm still in the storm, I'm still navigating, like the whole, my whole world burning down.
Speaker 1:It was a such a devastating divorce, given how many people in my life turned their back on me and the gross stories and rumors and things that were said about me, about my parenting, about my step-parenting, about who I am to the core right, and so there's just been so many components of this divorce that have shaken me, rattled me, broken me, and you know the the trash bag move of it all. I literally moved out in plastic trash bags. It was so dramatic, it was, so I'll say, violent. Um, and that being said, from the moment I left, I have not looked back, and the devastation, while that can be true, the joy, is actually every bit as true, and so leaving the marriage was not easy. What has happened to me in my life, the many things that are dramatic and traumatic, have not been easy, but they have cracked me open in ways I didn't expect. It brought trauma back to the surface from the old things. It brought trauma back to the surface from the old things and it's dismantled the version of my life I thought I was building.
Speaker 1:But underneath it all there's this really quiet, strange joy, like if you biopsied me to my core right now, even on the hard days, even in the muck, even as I've navigated this awful health journey with Dominic, you know his mental health is just really difficult and his physical health has been really difficult and they go hand in hand. And the physical started it and the mental is where we're at, and I mean we're in Dallas, texas, right now at baseball games and I might be taking him to urgent care here real shortly because his cough is just so bad. But if you biopsied me to my core right now, even with the mess and the grief and the changes, you would find joy and happiness, real oxygen-rich happiness, deep gratitude and smiles. And that's what I want to just dive into a little bit, because there's this idea that joy can come after healing, after the pain is processed, after the chaos is cleaned up. But I disagree with that. I think that joy shows up in the mess. For me it has, and I notice it. I feel like the rise begins while we're still on our knees. So right now I'm traveling and getting out of the grind. We did this trip just to experience the joy. It was on our bucket list. We needed an infusion of joy because the heart has been really hard the last few months again over this winter since Dominic's had a surgery and getting to this space that's away from day-to-day messes and responsibilities.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of who I am. It reminds me of these parts of myself that I've rediscovered since everything fell apart, and it's reminding me of myself that I've rediscovered since everything fell apart. And it's reminding me of something that I forgot I love who I am, I love who I'm becoming and I feel alive. And one of the things I'm realizing is that I'm really drawn to people, friends, who have also had the rug pulled out from under them, who have made the hard choice to walk away from the ease, from the comfort, those people who have hit rock bottom, maybe from addiction or from poor choices. I am drawn to the people who are vulnerable enough to share that and who have seen the darkest of the dark, because the rise for all of us is so damn good and there's deeper gratitude here. It's really different to find people they have a different light in them who have had the rug pulled out from under them, who have walked through the dark and kept going. And it's not naive, it's not performative, it's earned. Those are my people, and I'm one of them.
Speaker 1:I've picked up the pieces of my life so many times, but this time, this last year and a half two years, they've shifted me. But again, if you biopsied me to my core, even through it, even now, I'm so deeply happy. I'm so deeply happy. So if you're there too, or if you're in the middle of a giant change, or if you're still picking up the pieces, or if you're still picking yourself up off the floor, or if you're still even on your knees on the floor, I want you to hear this you can still be wildly, deeply happy, even here, even now, you're allowed to be joyful in the midst of rebuilding. You're allowed to laugh while you're healing. You're allowed to even feel free, even if it confuses people. Your joy isn't a betrayal of your past. It's actually a declaration of who you're becoming. So here's my oxygen first invitation for you today, this day, let the joy in, even if you're still in pieces, even if nothing makes sense yet, even if you're traveling away from your life just to remember who you are and even if you don't know what will make you happy, you're allowed to be happy now and the rise is worth every dark corner you walk through. You're not alone. Thanks for being here today. I'm sending you light and love from Dallas, Texas, where I'm surrounded by roller coasters and baseball and dark roast coffee and this vibe, this blue bonnets on my walls, it's a thing, and it's helping me remember who I am at my core.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, am I excited to share this new hiring return on investment calculator freebie that I have been working on for about six months. You're probably thinking what the heck is a return on investment? Well, that's when we take our revenue minus our expenses and it calculates how much return we get by investing in something. I've applied this very masculine concept to hiring into the art of receiving support. And so what this little tool does that you can just go and download from my webpage, dot rock consulting, dot com. What you can do is go and download this and use curiosity 15 minutes total of your time. Go through this tool and it's going to help you make a little bit of data-driven decision making around hiring and why it can help you in either your personal or professional life. You don't have to be an entrepreneur, but you could be an entrepreneur and it's going to help you understand the impact hiring or delegating more or handing off more tasks, or even not spending any money on this and simply asking for more support how that could change your life.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about this freebie and I hope you will go check it out. Download itrockconsultingcom Enjoy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the Power of Oxygen First podcast. I hope you walk away feeling inspired to do less, to follow your passions and infuse them into your daily life and truly claim the life you were meant to live, and I hope that you start leaning into the art of receiving support. I'm here to support you on that journey. Find me at dotrockconsultingcom or dot underscore rock underscore on Instagram. I'd love it if you'd go follow me and shoot me a quick DM and let me know what takeaway from this episode hit you the hardest, sending you love and adventures on this beautiful day.
