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 83: What People ACTUALLY Need During Grief
The moments that test our limits rarely need solutions—they need presence. After weeks of hospital stays with my son Dominic, I've been reflecting deeply on what it means to truly support someone through crisis. That well-intentioned question we often ask—"What can I do to help?"—places the burden of instruction on someone already drowning in overwhelm.
True support looks different. It's my book club friends who gathered money to stock a refrigerator with healing foods when one member's son had surgery. It's driving to be with a grieving family without waiting for an invitation, cleaning their house, running errands, and creating space for their complex emotions. It's sending a text that simply says "I see you" without demanding updates. As Ernest Hemingway wrote, "In our darkest moments, we don't need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection, a quiet presence, a gentle touch."
When someone you love is suffering, don't try to fix their pain or push away their shadows. Just sit beside them through their inner storms. Be the steady hand they can reach for without needing a roadmap. Let love be low pressure but high presence. And if you're the one struggling today—grieving, exhausted, in the thick of something hard—remember that you're worthy of being held, and there's nothing wrong with needing someone to simply walk alongside you. Your pain is yours to carry, but having companions who love you through it can change everything. That's the power of Oxygen First—taking care of ourselves so we can truly show up for others, and allowing others to show up for us.
What's the most meaningful way someone has supported you during a difficult time? I'd love to hear your story. And don't forget to check out my new hiring ROI calculator at dotrockconsulting.com to discover how getting support can transform your life.
Download my free Support + Breathe Calculator here: https://dotrockconsulting.myflodesk.com/hiring-calculator It’ll show you how much time and energy you can reclaim by letting go of what’s not yours to hold.
Remember: your energy is your greatest asset. Protect it, invest in it, and always put your oxygen mask on first.
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Remember: your energy is your greatest asset. Protect it, invest in it, and always put your oxygen mask on first.
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. I hope everyone is just enjoying this shift in weather. Here in Durango, colorado, it's sunny and warm and a little bit too windy, but it's just great for my body to have the sunlight pouring in.
Speaker 1:Obi and I's morning walks are consisting of so much joy. His favorite favorite thing is water hoses and sprinklers, and so they're on in the mornings and it's just like this never ending sprinkler treasure hunt. He bounces around and he's so deeply happy Sadly, like he got a little close to some really high powered sprinklers and they have broken out his bottom teeth and so those are like popping out and he looks like a little bunny rabbit with teeth sticking out of his mouth. It's so funny, and check out some of my Instagram to see that it's cute. But it's just a time filled with rejuvenation and joy and you know, we've now been home from the hospital with Dominic's latest medical situation for a week. Probably by the time this airs, it will be just about two weeks, but and today is the last day of school when I'm recording this and he went today, so he hasn't been there all week and he clearly wasn't there all of last week, but he went today and I just hope that he can enjoy that. He's very weak. He lost 10% of his body weight and so that's pretty profound for him and he's still gray and we're still, you know, working through what we need to work through. They feel like this was a really nasty stomach bug that just took him out, given that he's already fragile with all the other stuff medically going on since since his appendix surgery.
Speaker 1:So you know, it's just been a lot of, I'd say, water hose to the face situations in our life the last like year and a half, almost two years and I've been thinking a lot about what it looks like for people to show up for me in these hard times particularly like when they're really hard, like the hospital type things and what it looks like for people to hold space during those times and what it looks like for people to witness each other's grief and show up in a beautiful way. And what I've learned is that oftentimes when we are in these like so, when we're in the hospital and people ask me what they can do to help, I just have to say like I am already flooded, I am already completely drained, so tired, totally maxed out. I just need you to show up. I just need you to say I am here, I love you, I'm sending you hugs, I support you. I don't need you to say keep me updated, let me know what I can do, etc. I need you to show up. I need you to show up with food. I need you to make some of those decisions for me.
Speaker 1:This is something that I've noticed. My book club, my Ladies of Literacy Eat, pray, love book club here in Durango, our women in our book club, do this so well. When any one of us is in the hospital, or our kids are in the hospital or we have a divorce which was mine or other things going on, we show up for each other, and one of the times one of the ladies in the book club, her son, had surgery and someone in the book club just gathered money from all of us and then went and stocked her fridge with healthy food and bone broths and soups for when they got home from the hospital. And those are the types of things people in deep grief need. We need people to hold that space and simply show up.
Speaker 1:I read a beautiful poem by Ernest Hemingway this week and he said in our darkest moments, we don't need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection, a quiet presence, a gentle touch. And it's just so true. He said in these darkest moments, we don't need solutions or advice. We yearn for a simple human connection, a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.
Speaker 1:Please don't try to fix me, don't take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as they work through my inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach to for as long as I find my way. My pain is mine to carry, my battle is mine to face. But your presence reminds me I'm not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It's a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken. So in those hours when I lose my way, will you just be here, not as a rescuer, but as a companion. Hold my hand until the dawn arrives, helping me remember my strength. Your silent support is the most precious gift you can give. It's a love that helps me remember who I am, even when I forget.
Speaker 1:And again, that's something that Ernest Hemingway wrote and it's just so powerful to me in these moments, and I wanted to record this podcast, sort of as a reminder to each of you that when others are in distress or pain and you don't know what to do, just show up, just do something, but don't put it on the other person to tell you what to do. They're already struggling. You just need to show up, you just need to hold space sometimes and say I'm sending you love. You know, when Dom was in the hospital several, you know, we were in Albuquerque, so not many people were there, but people kept checking in and one person in particular said if I were there, I would give you the biggest hug and this is the person in my life that gives the best hugs and I said, well, I would probably lose it and break down. That individual said and I would hold you closer, you closer. And so I think we just need to give the people in our world permission to grieve and to feel and permission to fall apart into us, and not this dance of how can I fix it for you right? Fix it for you right.
Speaker 1:Another example I have of this is, a little over two years ago, a man who was a really profound father figure in my life passed away. He had five kids and I just reached out to them and said let me show up, let me come while you're preparing for the funeral and let me do whatever you need to have done. I said please make a list. I'll do laundry, I'll go to the grocery store, I'll pick up snacks, I'll do the errands that you don't need to do, that you can have someone else do. Just start making a list. I'm driving there now and I'll be there soon. I didn't say I'm staying with them. I made other arrangements right, but I showed up. I cleaned the house, I went to the grocery store, I ran the errands, I bought food, I went and got more Kleenex and mostly I just was there, quietly, giving them space to fall apart and laugh and grieve, because grief, it needs room. It's not about fixing, it's just about presence. With Dom's recent hospitalizations, my friends so many of them did this for me, and it wasn't always about physically showing up. Sometimes it was just that emotional support, a text that simply says I see you, I hold you, and that's what has held me Right. And so that's why the Ernest Hemingway quote has stuck with me so deeply.
Speaker 1:Again, in our darkest moments, we don't need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection, a quiet presence and a gentle touch. That's the Ernest Hemingway quote. And it is so true Because when we're hurting, we don't need people to take away the pain or distract us from it. We just need people to let us be. And also, we don't need people to understand or hear all about what we're going through. We don't need to ask others what it is they're going through. But if it's important to them, if it's heavy for them, it should be important to you, not to solve, but to be there as they feel through it. Just be a steady hand, just be a quiet presence and be the one who shows up without needing a map. Let love be low pressure but high presence.
Speaker 1:And I just want to say, if you're the one struggling today, grieving, exhausted, in the thick of something hard, I want you to hear this you're not alone and you are worthy of being held and you don't have to tell people how to hold you. There's nothing wrong with needing someone to just sit beside you in the dark while you find your way out. There is nothing wrong with saying just hug me, just hold my hand. There is nothing wrong with asking for them to door dash you food. People want to show up for you and you have to let them. It's hard for me, too, to let people show up for me, but that's our work and the reality is our pain is our own, it's very real and we're healing on our own. But the presence of someone who simply loves us through it, if we let them do that, it can change everything. So just remember, take a breath with me here, inhale, exhale and remember. The most powerful thing you can do is show up for others or let people show up for you, not as rescuers, but as companions. Be someone who holds space and someone who says I can walk with you as long as it takes, because that, my friends, is the power of Oxygen. First, if we take care of ourselves, we can be there and really be there for others and really let others be there for us. So I hope you all hang in there until the next episode. Thank you for being here with me today. If this episode touched something in you, please share it with someone you think might hear it, and if you need someone to hold space for you right now, send this episode to them. It might be the nudge they need to show up for you in a little bit more appropriate way. Until next time, be gentle with yourselves, breathe deeply and just remember you are not alone.
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 and to the art of receiving support. And so what this little tool does that you can just go and download from my webpage, dotbrockconsultingcom. 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.
