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 79: When You Stop Chasing the Dream and Become the Dream
What does it feel like when your energy becomes truly magnetic? That space where dreams manifest unexpectedly, where people are drawn to you, and where you feel deeply connected to your authentic self? This isn't about perfect circumstances—it's about alignment.
I'm recording this episode from a hotel in Albuquerque where I've brought my son to his baseball tournament despite his ongoing health struggles. After 14 weeks of missed school this year due to physical and mental health challenges following our difficult divorce process, I made the intuitive choice to prioritize his mental wellbeing over physical recovery. Following this aligned decision led to an unexpected miracle: after mentioning to a friend how much I was craving s'mores earlier in the week, we randomly ended up at a hibachi restaurant where we could make them at our table!
This perfect manifestation illuminates the core of what alignment truly is. It's not about waiting for your kids to be older, your business to stabilize, or life to get easier. Alignment is a frequency where what you dream of begins happening naturally. When we embody who we truly are instead of hustling to become someone else, we create a radiant force that people notice and trust. We stop reinforcing outdated identities and start living from our vision rather than our wounds.
I invite you to picture the most aligned version of yourself—the one that feels free, bold, and expressive. What would it look like to live from that version today? What decisions would they make? Remember, alignment isn't far away; it's already here waiting for permission to shine. This is the oxygen you've been craving all along. And before you go, be sure to download my new hiring ROI calculator from my website—a tool I've spent six months creating to help you understand the impact of receiving more support in your life.
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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 pod squad friends, welcome back to the Power of Oxygen First.
Speaker 1:I am recording this episode in my car in Albuquerque, new Mexico, at a baseball tournament, so that means I'm kind of living the mom work for yourself dream. Last weekend we were in Dallas, texas, and we were there to watch some Rangers games and just really celebrate the chapter that we closed, the divorce being over and the chapter of what was really hard. However, it turns out that Dominic had pneumonia while we were there. He missed the final day of the games and we didn't go to the roller coaster park like we had planned. But I do have to say, you know, even with him homesick again this week, having missed his 14th week of school this school year health with the mental health challenges, with his physical health, with all the things from surgery, from the divorce, from the rejection he's dealing with in his body, all the things, we've had it hard. But I do have to say, even amidst all of that, we are doing really well. We are manifesting bold miracles and, I think, becoming more and more connected to ourselves and to each other than ever in many ways.
Speaker 1:That being said, I have a kid who is struggling with mental health challenges, and that's not something I'm super familiar with within myself. Yes, I've had down times, I've had depressed times in my life, but really I tend to be operating at such a higher frequency and not comfortable in those spaces for long. Meanwhile, I don't know if you know this, but my mom has struggled with being manically depressed my entire life, and so I've seen that it's just different to deal with with your own child. But all of that to be said, the topic of today's podcast is actually about diving into what it feels like to have magnetic, radiant energy and an energy that comes from a place of being in full alignment. But I just have to say being in full alignment does not mean life is easy and does not mean life is good like perfect and what we expect this magical unicorn of a life to be. At times my life has been anything but that. In the last year and a half it's been really really freaking hard. It's been heavy, there's been so many tears, but within that I have worked hard to realign with myself and become in alignment. I have worked hard to feel all of the feelings and also to feel what I want to feel like in the future. So it's that moment when we're kind of not just chasing the dream but we are the dream.
Speaker 1:Going to Dallas last weekend and watching the Rangers was a dream, and last minute texting my childhood best friend, amy, to let her know we were there and her and her brother driving up to meet me and spending a day with her filled up my cup in a way I cannot begin to describe, and following that I flew home with Dominic, took him to the doctor. He had to have his first breathing treatment ever, which I was a child with severe asthma and had so many of those with severe asthma and had so many of those, and it was terrifying and devastating to hold my child while he had to experience his first. But I was there, I was the parent that was there holding him and I was the parent who was designed a life and a business. That means I get to be there for these moments Now. It doesn't make it easy. It doesn't mean that this week I wasn't feeling the waves of caretaker fatigue and claustrophobia, but it does mean that I'm living in alignment in a way that helps me recenter, faster, and it means that, like I was, I just take walks and I go sit in the sun and I let myself feel the yucky, I let myself feel the frustration, um, and I get back to the gym and I do the things that I know I need to do. I reach out to people for support. I let them know I'm struggling and within that, one of the freaking amazing things that happened this week is I was talking to a friend about s'mores and how much I was craving s'mores, and then here we are at the end of the week.
Speaker 1:Dominic was home all week, sick again. Like I said, week 14 of missing school. He was home all week and it was a hard week and I was like what? And then I decided the best thing for his mental health would be to come to his baseball tournament this weekend in Albuquerque. So that's a three and a half hour drive for me, both directions to get here. That's a stay in a hotel, but it felt like the right thing to come because I felt like his mental health was outweighing the needs of his physical health right now. Right. And so here we are.
Speaker 1:We came to Albuquerque and we went and did a few fun things. Last night I wanted to go to Free People. I hardly ever get to shop in person. I didn't get anything, but it was fun to touch clothes and see clothes. And I wanted to go to Trader Joe's where we got some sun butter, chocolate cups and his favorite lemon cake. And then we randomly saw we were driving around looking for a restaurant. We saw a little sushi restaurant. We decided to go to it. He wanted sushi, I not so much. Go to it. He wanted sushi, I not so much. And it was a little hibachi restaurant with sushi and different things. And it turns out I watched the people across from us make s'mores at their table and I lost it. Like I had been craving s'mores I spoke that out loud earlier this week had been craving s'mores I spoke that out loud earlier this week how much I wanted s'mores. I even bought s'mores supplies for my house. So I took a line to action and then guess what happened? We got to make s'mores at the restaurant in Albuquerque last night. Because here we are.
Speaker 1:I decided to come because it felt like it was an alignment to be here for Dom's mental health over his physical health. Will he cough? Will we need to rest? Probably, but being here was more important than staying at home. I felt that I can't explain it, but I knew we needed to be here. And what were we? Blessed with the bold miracle of s'mores. S'mores are my favorite right.
Speaker 1:So I don't know exactly how to describe this energy of alignment, but it's a radiant energy and it's not just this chasing the dream. It's when we feel what we want and we live into it and then we take some aligned action. Because when we feel ourselves doing what we love and being who we love, it suspends all disbelief about whether it's possible or not like having a campfire this weekend in Albuquerque was not possible, but randomly being at a hibachi restaurant with a fire in our table was possible. Because here's the thing when we're in the energy of alignment, it is not a checklist, it's a frequency. It's that what we dream of and believe to be our life is happening. And I know like the s'mores are the strangest example, but it lit up my heart and my son's heart and we sat there and we giggled and we soaked it in and it was healing. And Dominic after said this was the best night. I had so much fun, mom. And then we sat in bed in our little hotel which is awful, by the way and um watched our television show that we watched together the Rookie. He loves it so much and it's just fun to have something that we do together most nights. Because that's the thing.
Speaker 1:This energy of alignment is not about having the perfect morning routine or finally clearing our inboxes which mine will never be cleared, let's be real, I have endless emails. It's not about waiting for our kids to be older or when business stabilizes or for our kids to be in school. This energy of alignment is actually about how it feels to see yourself doing the thing that you love and feeling safe enough to believe that it's you doing it. You know, we've all been here before where we walk differently. Our posture changes when we fill it up. Sometimes our moments become clearer because the words come out of our heart and we speak them, and it's when we say what we mean and it lands. This version of us isn't fictional, it's familiar because it's our true north. It's alignment. Alignment is magnetic because people respond to our energy more than our words and we respond to our energy more than words. Alignment within us is magnetic. We see people drawn to us, but we are also drawn to ourselves because we're communicating to ourselves and to others confidence, clarity and certainty without needing to convince anyone, especially ourselves.
Speaker 1:I've struggled a bit with being a full solo parent again and not having a spouse after this latest divorce. That was not from Dominic's dad, because you know you get used to asking another adult in the room like what should I do? And this time the what should I do? Should I take Dominic to this baseball tournament? I just listened to myself and here we are. We got s'mores.
Speaker 1:It's just simple. When we're in the spirit of alignment, it's magnetic, it draws people in and it draws us in. That's why, in relationships and business and creative work or even how we parent, we notice that when we stop hustling to become someone and instead just embody who we already are, it feels right and people notice. And we get s'mores. And people don't just notice, they trust us Because we're like a force and we're flowing. It's funny because this week I've had all kinds of random people from my past reach out to reconnect and I think it's because I'm living in such deep alignment. It truly is magnetic Doesn't mean I don't have to set boundaries with those people because I'm living in such deep alignment. It truly is magnetic Doesn't mean I don't have to set boundaries with those people because I do.
Speaker 1:But the thing is is when we fast track to freedom by letting go of disbelief in the identity we want to live. It's about personal devotion. It's about when we allow ourselves to see a version of ourselves doing exactly what we want going to a rangers game, eating s'mores, instead of just saying maybe someday. It's when we say this is who I am becoming now, this is me now the whole game changes. We stop reinforcing that old identity, we stop living from a wound and we start living from a vision. And visions are potent fuel. Seriously, my vision to have s'mores this week was a potent fuel and then it happened. Because that's where oxygen floods back in, this potent fuel of living from our vision. It's when we let ourselves breathe just as the person you know yourself to be. It's when we take a line to action that makes the future version of us not in agreement and when we say this is me, I don't need to earn this identity, I'm just remembering it.
Speaker 1:So I just encourage you to really shift into alignment. The old voice says you're not enough, it's not time yet, you haven't done enough. Dominic isn't healed enough, don't go, just stay. But it's like background noise on a radio station you forgot was playing. Because those negative perceptions, when we drop them, when we tell ourselves it's okay to just be, when we live in alignment, we become the living proof. We no longer rely on the past to define us and we choose a reference point of ourselves in the future and we anchor to it.
Speaker 1:To it and every action we take from alignment chips away at our outdated self-image and reinforces the true, new one. We don't have to fight our limiting beliefs of I'm not enough. I haven't done enough. I'm not worthy of love as much, because we're busy embodying the expansive emotions of living in the world. We want to live in in that expansive self, and that's why it's magnetic.
Speaker 1:So today I just invite you to pause and picture the most aligned version of you, the one that feels free, bold, peaceful, expressive, like lighting a marshmallow on fire. Let that image breathe, let it speak and let it lead. And then ask what would it look like to live from that version for the next hour? What decision would they make today? What would they believe about what's possible? Alignment isn't far away. It's already here, waiting for permission to shine. This is the oxygen you've been craving. It's already here, waiting for permission to shine. This is oxygen you've been craving. Let it in and let it lead you. And thank you for joining me today. I hope that if this episode resonated, you'll share it with a friend who's ready to stop waiting and start becoming, because, until next time, keep your oxygen first, always. It's so magnetic and it will make s'mores out of a pile of chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers. Be well, be light and keep putting on that oxygen mask first.
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 consultingcom. 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 it, dotrockconsultingcom. 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 dot rock consultingcom 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.
