Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay

Our Candy Rose

Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay is a podcast born from love, loss, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her daughter, Candace Rose Olson (2007–2025). Through personal storytelling, soulful reflection, and honest conversation, host Dena Olson invites listeners to walk alongside her journey of grief, healing, and transformation. This podcast is dedicated to all who carry loss and are searching for connection, hope, and meaning. 🌹 For those who stay, we remember. Your life will not be in vain — everything we do will be in your name.

  1. Mar 15 ·  Bonus

    You Are Not a Machine

    In this episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena reflects on a quiet but powerful truth: we are not machines and our worth is not measured by productivity. In a culture that glorifies output, hustle, and constant improvement, it’s easy to confuse doing with being. Many of us learned to equate rest with laziness, stillness with falling behind, and healing with visible progress. But what happens when we pause long enough to truly look up at the sunset? Through personal reflection, grief integration, and gentle affirmation, Dena explores: • How productivity can become a survival strategy • The exhaustion achievement can’t fix • Why presence matters more than performance • Reclaiming rest as sacred • Remembering our worth without earning it This episode is an invitation to slow down, soften, and reconnect with the simple, ordinary moments that make life feel alive again. You are not a machine. You are a living, breathing soul. For those who stay, we remember.

    10 min

  2. Mar 8 ·  Bonus

    The Strange Space Between

    In loving memory of my dad, Darrell Ore (1937-2017).There is a quiet season that comes after everything changes; when the old chapter is done, but the next one has not yet arrived.In this episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena reflects on the long cycles of her life (service, motherhood, loss, identity) and the strange, sacred space that follows when the tide goes still.Not sadness.Not fear.Not even peace.Just the in-between.For anyone standing in liminal space, between who you were and who you’re becoming, this conversation is an invitation to honor the pause rather than rush through it.For those who stay, we remember.

    8 min

  3. Mar 1 ·  Bonus

    Emotional Regulation Is Not A Soft Skill

    Emotional regulation isn’t a personality trait, it’s survival.In this episode, Dena explores how unregulated pain fuels addiction, violence, disconnection, and generational trauma and how emotional education may be one of the most powerful forms of prevention.What if the key to a better world isn’t louder opinions… but steadier nervous systems?For those navigating grief, trauma, healing, and accountability; this conversation invites you to respond instead of react, to feel without imploding or exploding, and to build strength rooted in softness.

    7 min

  4. Feb 22 ·  Bonus

    The Version of Me That Learned to Survive

    In this episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena reflects on the version of herself that learned to survive.Healing is often described as soft, gentle, and peaceful. But sometimes healing is confronting. Sometimes it’s realizing that the calm, competence, independence, and strength you were praised for… were actually adaptations. Trauma responses. Survival strategies.This episode explores:-Grieving the version of yourself who held everything together-Anger as clarity, not chaos-The loneliness of nervous system regulation after long-term bracing-How peace can feel unfamiliar when you’ve lived in survival mode-And what it means to arrive without armorThrough personal reflection, grief, and growth after the loss of her daughter Candace Rose (2007–2025), Dena shares what it looks like to move from survival to integration without abandoning the strength that got her here.If healing feels confronting instead of comforting…If peace feels disorienting…If anger feels informative…You are not broken.You are arriving without armor.For those who stay, we remember.

    14 min

  5. Feb 17 ·  Bonus

    When Change Doesn't Feel Chosen

    In this episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena unpacks a dream that lingered, a haircut gone wrong. Short, uneven bangs. No mirror. No consent. Dismissal when she spoke up. What begins as a simple dream becomes a layered reflection on identity, autonomy, grief, visibility, and the fear of being changed without permission. Hair in dreams often represents agency and self-image, how we frame ourselves to the world. A forced haircut can mirror deeper emotional themes: • Loss of control during major life transitions • Identity shifts after grief • Fear of irreversible change • Stepping into greater visibility and evaluation • Advocating for yourself and still feeling dismissed Through personal reflection, woven with professional growth, relocation, leadership visibility, and motherhood after loss, Dena explores what it means to feel altered without consent… and how the nervous system rehearses advocacy even in dreams. This episode is about: Choice vs. no choice Empowerment vs. vulnerability Intentional release vs. accidental loss And trusting that identity can evolve without being erased If you’ve ever had a dream where you didn’t recognize yourself… If you’ve ever feared becoming someone you didn’t choose… If you’ve ever spoken up and worried you wouldn’t be heard… This one is for you.

    12 min

  6. Feb 8 ·  Bonus

    When Grief Meets Logic and Heart

    In this episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena is joined by her friend Jen for a thoughtful conversation about how grief shows up differently for each of us. Together, they explore grief through two lenses, one grounded in logic, acceptance, and steadiness, and another that lives deeply in the heart. Through shared reflection, they discuss how loss can be processed through understanding, emotion, or a weaving of both, and why no one way is more correct than another. Dena reflects on her experience as a nurse and as a mother navigating the loss of her daughter, Candace Rose. Jen shares how logic and meaning helped guide her through the loss of her grandfather. This episode is not about comparing grief or ranking pain. It is an invitation to listen, to others and to yourself, and to make space for the many ways we carry love forward. For those who stay, we remember.

    56 min

  7. Feb 1 ·  Bonus

    A Soft Landing Place: When Healing Doesn’t Need to Be Loud

    This episode is a quiet one.After making a vision board at a community event, I realized something unexpected: what I created wasn’t a plan for the future , it was a place to land.In this reflective episode, I talk to myself and gently to you about space, boundaries, and healing that doesn’t perform. About honoring truth without over-explaining. About letting a year unfold without forcing clarity.This is an episode for anyone who feels behind.For anyone carrying grief quietly.For anyone learning that softness can be strength.You don’t need everything figured out.You’re allowed to leave space.Sometimes the bravest thing we do is create a place gentle enough to return to.For those who stay, this is your soft landing place too.

    11 min

  8. Jan 25 ·  Bonus

    Crossing the New Year Without Leaving Her Behind

    As the year ends, grief often hits in a way no one prepares us for. It’s not just the calendar turning, it feels like being pulled farther away from the last place our child existed. December becomes a quiet choke-point: the final month their name was spoken in the present tense, the last calendar where they were still “here,” the closing of shared seasons we never wanted to end. In this deeply personal episode of Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay, Dena speaks directly to the fear many grieving parents carry silently, the fear of leaving the last year our child was alive. This episode is a spoken reflection and gentle letter to Candace Rose (2007–2025), offering reassurance that love does not expire with time, that January is not a betrayal, and that our children cross into new years with us — differently, but fully. Included is a simple New Year’s ritual designed not to “move on,” but to carry love forward. If the end of the year feels unbearable, this episode is for you. You are not leaving them behind.This is not an ending.It’s a carrying.

    10 min
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Our Candy Rose: For Those Who Stay is a podcast born from love, loss, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her daughter, Candace Rose Olson (2007–2025). Through personal storytelling, soulful reflection, and honest conversation, host Dena Olson invites listeners to walk alongside her journey of grief, healing, and transformation. This podcast is dedicated to all who carry loss and are searching for connection, hope, and meaning. 🌹 For those who stay, we remember. Your life will not be in vain — everything we do will be in your name.

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