#24: Wisdom in Whiskers: Unearthing Life Lessons through Animal Companionship with Helen Kosinski

Have you ever wondered how intuition can guide your life and career? Meet Helen Kosinski, a business coach, animal communicator and former financial services professional. Helen and I delve into the courageous choice she made to break the chains of the corporate world to pursue a fulfilling career based on her love for animals and desire to help others. We discuss the concept of golden handcuffs and the importance of listening to your inner voice to discover your authentic purpose.

Our conversation then turns to the incredible bond we share with our animal companions. Helen, as a certified equine guided educator, shares some remarkable insights about the intuitive abilities of horses and how they can be influential coaching partners. We also share a touching story about a horse helping a woman make a life-altering decision. Further, we discuss the enriching influence of pets in our lives, their critical role in our storytelling, and the essentiality of preserving their tales for future generations.

In this episode, we dig deeper into our connection with animals - how they inspire our creativity, provide comfort in our grief, and teach us valuable life lessons. We provide you with prompts to help you write about your relationship with your pets and share the wisdom they have imparted. We reflect on the significance of pet loss and the necessity to process this grief. By the end of our chat, you’ll be contemplating the profound impact your furry friends have on your life, their legacy, and how they shape your personal narratives. Brace yourself for a heartwarming journey that celebrates the extraordinary power and wisdom of our animal companions.

For more information on Helen and all she has to offer go to https://helenkosinski.com/!

This group is for people who are in the process of writing their own personal stories to preserve their past for their future. It’s a place to come for story writing inspiration, weekly writing-related events and memes, and continued support from me and the other members.

Join like-minded people and get your stories down on paper for your future generations!

Transcript

Melissa: 0:01

Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations. I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchen, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy Well. Welcome everybody back again to the Preserve your Past podcast. I am excited, as always, but especially excited, to introduce to you my dear friend and coach and mentor so many things and fellow Cape Codder, helen Kacinski. Helen, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Helen: 1:24

Oh, thank you, Melissa. I'm really excited to go through this process with you and I appreciate you inviting me.

Melissa: 1:32

Thank you. So for everyone on our call or I shouldn't say a call everyone on listening to our podcast or viewing this on YouTube, because, just to make it clear, I've been sharing this, so for the interviews I've been recording on Zoom and I love having our faces on for our interview podcast, so this recording will also be available on my YouTube channel and so in the podcast notes we'll share where that is and then, when I share out the details of the podcast, the YouTube channel and everything about this episode will be like there. So, just for everyone joining us today, helen is a business coach and animal communicator. She loves to partner with ever-evolving, intuitive business people who are on a mission. These people are passionate, lifelong learners committed to making a difference in our world, but they also love animals. So prior to starting her business in 2005, helen worked in technology within the financial services industry for 25 years. She now lives on beautiful Cape Cod with her husband, rich, and her two kitties, mickey and Minnie. So welcome again, helen that bio leads us into.

Melissa: 2:53

I always love to do a little transition of how I knew you and why I thought this would be an amazing call, but it's obvious to everyone that's listening that there's a big transition that happened from you being in the financial industry to now working coaching people but also adding in that animal communicating part. So, for everyone here, I have known Helen since we had both done some professional development through our coaching training and both had a dear mentor that we shared as our coach. Grace and I actually will yes, we'll do a shout out to Grace right now. She was amazing, beautiful person and she is. She will link her info on this because we're chatting here. But we also sat and did some amazing trainings that I just really, from the very first moment I met you, felt a connection.

Melissa: 3:48

I've also done some of your walks through nature on the Cape that were in some of my like talk about ancestral home. I've had places that I had been camping as a two year old, walking those paths. So just doing those experiences with you really was. Yeah, I feel like we're soul sisters and every evolution we have, which we're going to let you speak to your family, has somehow come back and spiraled where we connect again and there's something that just pulls us back together and you also have been a very important part of me coming back into being visible and working through my this mission for stories and preserving my stories, and you really did help me get back into that process, so welcome, thank you, and I invite you to let's dive right into that transition for you from being in the financial services and now we're talking about using animals and in our intuition and that transition.

Helen: 4:54

Thank you, and thank you for that lovely intro and I agree, have connected with you. I remember sitting in with you at ICF New England table and thus connecting, and it was beautiful and love the fact that the Cape, the women's walking retreats, mean so much to you. They're great, great offering and lots of fun to do. So, as you mentioned, I spent 25 years in financial services, but one piece that you didn't mention is that it was in technology, so it was coding, it was auditing, it was all kinds of that, you know analytical stuff, and all the while almost at the time I should say, I felt I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. And I remember being home sick one day and watching Cheryl Richardson, who is one of the pioneers in coaching, on Oprah and thinking, wow, I'd love to do that. That sounds like such a great job. Well, six years later, I finally hired Grace, my first coach, to help me figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and after a very short period of time, I figured out I wanted to be a coach. So I took that opportunity to start my company but do what I call a straddle year, part time in the coaching and business realm for myself, and then still in that technology world Part time. As I did that, I really felt that that technology piece was draining my opportunity to grow and expand my business. So exactly one year later, in 2006., I said buy to corporate and I thought I was going to be working with people that were miserable and corporate because there are, I think, still and back then were, so many people that were miserable. What I quickly discovered was people in corporate had created a lifestyle based on their finances and the rewards of working in corporate and so those golden handcuffs. They had to make a big decision and most of those people that I connected with decided to stay with the golden handcuffs. So I morphed my business into working with small business owners and people in business, so even corporate employees in general, to create better lives for themselves, and I'm still doing that work.

Helen: 7:42

Fast forward to 2018. My beautiful boy, kitty Kona, passed away and both my husband and I were devastated and I remember talking to my coach at that time and she was saying, hey, have you ever thought about animal communication? And I said I'd love to, but you need special powers. And I remember actually laughing at her because it was like, no, no, I can't do that work. Well, she nudged me and I did some research and I found a woman, danielle McKinnon, who did a different type of animal communication. The difference is that she also teaches her students how to get the lesson that the animal is working on with you. And I thought, okay, so I can weave this really nicely with the coaching work that I do.

Helen: 8:47

And so I went through her program. I'm a certified sole level animal communicator and you don't need special powers Yay to do new communication. And I witnessed that and it really is cool to be able to see people and I've been part of her TA team and grooming the students up. So it is really, really cool. And so now I offer animal communication and coaching as separate entities, if you will. But I also am doing something very innovative and unique and I am combining the animal communication with the coaching because of that lesson component, and the lesson really focuses on helping the person become a better version of themselves and moving. The animals want us to move towards unconditional love, because they already know that they're so much wiser than we are as far as that goes, and so being able to bring the lesson in and do the coaching is really, really cool and do check-ins during our calls. It's just a lot of fun, and so all of these different offerings really make up a good portion of my business.

Melissa: 10:08

I love that. And that brings me to our topic today, which I didn't really define yet, which is when we're talking about the topic of stories and writing our stories and preserving our past. There is this idea again that our animals are an integral part of our life. They're how we often help us with a lens through our life the lessons that you're talking about and it just really hit me when you talked about you don't need superpowers. Anyone who's snuggled up with their dog or cat and goes through life talking to their animals and creating their day around with them there knows that there's communication.

Melissa: 10:52

It's just we're not always honoring that piece of it or noticing it right. So I thought this topic for us today to talk about how there's so many ways, so many ways that animals could fit into the topic of storytelling and preserving our past. So one of the first things that came to mind is I've had several friends that went through recently the loss of an animal. We went through the loss of our original Boston Terrier, pebbles, and it happened at home and I was there with her and witnessing it. Not everybody goes through that experience, but the different experiences. But so talking about how we can preserve their stories, I guess, would be part of this theme. I think that animals, not just the loss of animals, but we can talk about different ways you see them fitting into our life and how we could integrate them into our stories. I'd love to hear your thoughts on ways we could do that or how you see them.

Helen: 12:00

Yeah, the animals do play. It's so funny because they are such and I love the word integral part of our lives and often until they are ill or starting to go to the end of their life or at their puppy, they don't consume our lives and so they sometimes get missed, right? But it's interesting. I know that losing a pet from me and this may sound not politically correct, but the animals that I've lost have been so much part of my core family that it's even harder than when I've lost, say, another relative, and some people don't understand that, but they are a day-to-day part of our lives. When I did my masters in counseling.

Melissa: 13:07

My research was on adolescent grief and bereavement and part of my research was on complicated grief and times that were made it maybe more challenging to process. And one of those items was lost loss of a pet and I started really thinking about why is that? And when I send thoughts and condolences to people who lose their pet, it's that honoring of that, because, first, I think they are such a big piece of our day-to-day life so you notice their whole, that whole meaning H-O-L-E. There's a whole missing because you're literally when you have a pet and, like you said, we don't know it day-to-day, we're looking for them, we're thinking of them, we're feeding them.

Melissa: 13:54

Even when we lost our cat, I remember waking up in the middle of the night and just bawling because she used to sleep between my legs and if I wanted to roll over I had to think about it. So when she wasn't there I was like I don't have to think about it. So there's that missing day-to-day whole piece of it. But it's also until I think it's grown more presently, grown more presently as people have more embraced pets as family members in a greater way in the past, however many years.

Helen: 14:29

It's starting more and more.

Melissa: 14:31

It's starting more so where I think then before that when you didn't get the support for your grief, like people would be like get over it, it's just a diet. Now you don't see that as much, especially if you have surrounded yourself with other pet lovers. But I think that makes it more complicated because it's not like we have the main processes. When we're going through our people loss and, like you said, a family member, I don't know for me sometimes if they're not living with me, I can kind of step out of that feeling like I'm missing them for a little bit of time before it comes back, unless of course it's an immediate member. But no, I agree.

Helen: 15:12

Yeah, and you're so right. The pet is. They are there and they are responding and providing you with feedback and different things. They may paw at you, they may meow at you at a certain time, they may ring a bell to go outside and all these things no longer happen. And it is. It's a huge hole for many, many people and because animals are just beautiful in that unconditional love, they know when you're hurting and often will come to you and try to comfort you when you're hurting. And now that animal is no longer there. One of the things that I hope brings comfort to some of the people that may be listening to this is many of the animals have told me that when they pass, they need to leave. They've accomplished what they've set out to do in their physical body and they plan the way that they pass, so that can hopefully bring some comfort to some people, and others are like why, why did they do it that way?

Helen: 16:46

I had one person contact me. It was a lovely woman. Her dog was sick and she had to take it to the vet, but the dog was really a husband's dog and so when she took the dog to the vet, the vet said this dog really is ill. You need to make a decision now. And she decided that it was his time. And she came to me because she had so much guilt because the gentleman wasn't there. And so I asked the dog why he planned it this way. And he said because the gentleman went to, let me go. And this brought so much comfort to this woman because she just was completely guilt-ridden that she had taken this opportunity away from her husband. But the dog knew that the husband would be like we have to try something else. What else can we do? And there really wasn't anything left to do.

Melissa: 17:57

Yeah. So even just hearing that specific story, I think there's so many pieces that we could while we're documenting our daily stories, Because I talk a lot about starting with ourselves, right. So when we're talking about preserving your past and writing the story, some of it could be our family stories of things that happened before us. But also I always encourage people to begin writing their stories before, because they have the closest connection to the feelings, the thoughts, the accuracy, and so including the animals into those stories is I can see it in so many levels being so useful, and I have to admit I have not played with that a lot in writing the stories of the opportunities, except for my son is now overseas and we are taken care of. His big greyhound is behind me, Kind of see there's two of them, Matt.

Melissa: 19:01

But in honoring and sharing that was his. They were roommates, they were buddy. That was his first dog, lived with him for two years before he's now going to be away for two years. But the idea of giving him daily updates of stories through his perspective of like I was like, oh my gosh, this would be a really neat way to kind of keep them connected and so that when he does come home it's like, and we chat a lot, we'll update him and send him pictures, but from even a more formal like writing the story, whether it be from the dog's perspective, which goes into what you were saying, like even though we say you need magic powers to do that, when you look into their eyes and like get to know them, you know that there's things. It's it's crazy to see the transition also from when we first got him to now and knowing him, because now just his look in his eyes, I know what he's thinking.

Helen: 20:02

And he knows I know, Of course he does, and I'm going to just speculate that he's thrilled that you've made this wonderful connection, that you can connect just by the look.

Melissa: 20:15

That's really cool, so that's been really neat. So yeah, so talking about the idea of honoring our lost pets through story, or the ones we have now by documenting almost like their own journaling for your, for both of us, right for the lessons we learned because that's another piece that you really brought up was how many lessons and how animals can help us. Can you speak to that a little bit more? In some of the ways you've seen animals really help their people with their life lessons that they're currently going through, Well it's.

Helen: 20:54

It's fun to think about that because my girl, kitty that passed away last September at almost 21 was Kona's sister and as I was doing this work it became very clear to me that one of the lessons that she was working on with me was having more fun, and she would. She would come into my office and kind of sit there and look at me and I stop and get up, go see her, and then she would lead me into her tower and she used to sit on her tower ledge the first level and we would play bat the mouse, and so I tossed the mouse to her, she batted around, I'd be laughing and she seemed like she was having a good time and it really gave me a great opportunity for a break. But it also was part of fun. And just to carry it forward even more, we have our new kitties that we got in December. They just turned a year old Mickey and Minnie, and Mickey for some reason has followed her train.

Helen: 22:16

So I guess I still need to have more work on fun. And every day right after lunch he wants to play with a wantoi and he will sit by the pantry door until I play with him, and it's a short period of time five to 10 minutes but it's fun for both of us, and so it's really cool that, and I believe the animals who are past are talking to our current animals and helping them figure out how to work on their lessons better. So this is just another wonderful opportunity for me to bond and have fun.

Melissa: 24:54

That's wonderful, yes, and I think that is something that any pet owner knows, that they will bring us to parts of ourselves that when we're without. So the timing between my passing of our other Boston when we got the new Boston was really hard for me because it was so empty and lonely and just the energy just in the house felt very different. But I think that there's probably a lot of pets that have those that add that sense of clay of not just putting your nose to the grindstone, of not leaving ourselves to get the stuff done, like abandoning ourselves. That's what I feel. From now I'm thinking about what my dog is doing right now. I love it Because that idea of abandoning yourself to get the stuff done, I think was for me.

Melissa: 25:54

I thought, oh, I've got an opening here and I can just be me and be independent of this responsibility, how you look at it. And then I realized, wait, a second, I'm missing a whole bunch. It's not really how I'm feeling. It is a responsibility but it's not something that having the lack of the animal wasn't moving me forwarded creatively or emotionally or anything. So it's interesting to kind of look at those lessons from fun which I think all of us nowadays could definitely that sense of play as adults forget about, absolutely. Yeah, I love that. So, in addition to the lost pets and our pets that are with us, that are in the process of teaching us lessons I know you also have worked with some horses and some equestrian coaching, so you had some training in this. I believe you have a person that's local to you that you do some work with also. Can you tell us about that piece of the horses, like going from our pets that are in our house to now this wisdom of horses and your equestrian coaching? I was calling it that.

Helen: 27:15

Yeah, and it is. I'm a certified equine guided educator and I'm also a path certified equine excuse me, equine specialist in mental health and learning. And horses are amazing and they are just incredible teachers. They they their intuition and their energy fields. Their energy fields are so huge and they're so sensitive and it's really because they need to stay alive and that's. You know, they've worked together in herds and if you look at herds, they will position themselves in different roles and it's all about keeping them safe and so they've developed this really keen intuitive energy sonar. You know, it's really, it's really cool.

Helen: 28:19

And so, working with the horses, I have done group programs and individual work with some people with the coat with the horses, and this was even before I started the animal communication work and so going into a round pen with a horse and going through coaching questions, which helps the person really pick apart whatever it is they want to work on and help pull it out of them and have it be up to them as to what they want to do, how they want to approach something. And what's great about having the course as partner is they are responding to the way that the person is responding to the questions, and I did a demonstration once with a woman who was trying to figure out what she should go on to grad school for because she'd just gotten her undergraduate. So we did a round pen session and Cody, my favorite horse of mine and I worked with this woman and this woman was talking about how she didn't know if she should follow the money or follow her heart, and so we went through different questions and every time that she talked about following the money, cody was off looking, he was off doing everything else, paying no attention to this woman, and every time that she would talk about following her heart, he locked on to her like it was just incredible. And so through the coaching and through this process of being with the horse, checking in with her and saying, hey, have you noticed what Cody's doing? And each time this happened she's like wow.

Helen: 30:15

And so at the end of the coaching with Cody and me, it was like okay, do you have your answer? And she goes, yeah, absolutely. And it was just it, just amazing to partner with the horse and have him respond. And I've been in situations where the horse will help the person come to some conclusion and find out that they've been told this, told this, told this, told this, but now they're actually going to move forward with it, because this beautiful, gigantic horse helped them come to this decision.

Melissa: 30:56

Amazing. That's beautiful. I love that and I could actually feel the energy when I think about horses coming out of them that it emanates, like their chest, their being. That energy kind of goes out. And it's even interesting to me thinking about it, between my little compact Boston Terrier and then this 95 pound greyhound and his awareness and even thinking about the greyhound life and a horse's life being very similar. So it's interesting because I do feel differences between the two of them, not that she's got a lot going on for her little compact, but like how the energy feels, which you know. I just I can relate to that and I've always loved horses since growing up we had friends that had horses in Orleads, actually that so from a young age being around them and just being an odd them and fan.

Helen: 31:52

They really are. They're just amazing. They really really are.

Melissa: 31:59

How else do you do you see? Is there anything else that you see from the storytelling perspective when you think of our work with our animals and our lives with our animals? Is there anything else from a storytelling perspective that that pops out at you?

Helen: 32:19

You touched on it. I think it's developing an awareness of the little things you know, things that we take for granted until it's not there, and so really being creating that awareness of I'm going to just, you know, sit and watch your animal, sometimes that and there's a meditative quality, there's a restorative quality of just watching. I mean watching my two kittens. We have a screened in porch so they get to spend some time on the screened in porch and watching them watch nature. It's fascinating what draws their attention. So it's really these little things can be fun to kind of be aware of and maybe document just as you go, because it's awareness just creates more awareness and creates more awareness. So it might be fun to see what comes up for you.

Melissa: 33:36

I love that and I love when you said the little things, because that is one of the pieces that I always talk about.

Melissa: 33:43

When people are documenting their stories, that it's not going to necessarily be those big stories.

Melissa: 33:49

That are the ones that we're going to treasure later.

Melissa: 33:51

It is the little moments and the little things and I think, not just thinking about and this just reminded me not just thinking about what we can write about, about our pets and our animals as far as you know what's happening in their day, like I was talking about with with Ben, or not just about how those lessons are being taught to us, but also just the little, using those little moments.

Melissa: 34:17

You said like it's almost a meditative time where we can kind of get out of control of, like having to think, think, think and go into that kind of not even kind of very relaxed meditative state that helps with creativity in itself, even if the animal is not the topic of our stories, but just even if it's animals in nature and we're looking at the birds or the squirrels or so animals in general. To be able to look at that and I think again it comes back to what you spoke about is their wisdom of survival, their wisdom of even when they are thinking of survival, they're always I would say they're usually very good leads in what's important in life.

Melissa: 35:03

Absolutely and balancing survival, like you talked about, where's the money versus where's the my creativity and happiness? They're survivors, but they're usually going for like what's that, what's, where's the love?

Helen: 35:17

Where's the love, where's the joy? You know, one of the things is I watch and I love the fact that you brought in outside nature, because I love walking on the beach and see the seagulls and the you know blue jays and the carmariens and just all kinds of different nature things, and there's joy in that. And you know, as you mentioned creativity well, it's hard to create when you're all stopped up and frustrated, and you know so, being able to find a way to create joy. And if you have pets, even just spending a few minutes playing with them or snuggling with them or giving them their treat or training them, even you know there's, there's joy around that connection, and that's what the animals are all about is this connection and they're connected with you, whether they are physically here or not, and that's another thing about animals that have passed. You can ask them for support and if you're needing to create joy or get grounded so that you can write or have some ideas, you can ask them for your support and then just sit quietly.

Melissa: 36:50

Love that. Yeah, when we were home with Pebbles when she passed I was following her in the yard to be with her. She had congestive heart failure so she had a lot of fluid on her lungs that last day and she couldn't lie down so she was walking and we were making sure she had her sunny spot to go to and we were kind of bringing closure with the boys video talking through where she was at. And I remember the last few moments of like who looking her, like I see you, I'm with you and I know you're going to be with me in the future. And I did. I looked at her little face and said what's our, what's our signal going to be? How am I going to know you're here? Because I know you're here, because I just knew she knew she was.

Melissa: 37:32

Yeah, and it's funny because I remember even thinking when we got the first new dog and I was just kind of alluding to this, that I didn't feel that connection and I was like oh, it's not the same. But then it takes you getting to know them and being when diamond and they're, and I really felt it with him just in this last, probably last week, that it was like he's in now the sync of everything and, like I said, I can see that with my, with Daisy, our new Boston. I remember when that happened where I was like, oh, she does understand me now and I understand her, and that with him too. But I can remember, yes, definitely, looking at pebbles being like I know you're going to be with me, so let's just pick out what it's got.

Helen: 38:17

I love it and the animals will also help Usually help bring the new animals in, so they're kind of behind the scenes, work in their magic to. So Daisy, I imagine, had a hand in bringing I. Pebbles had a hand in bringing in Daisy. Very interesting. And even this situation where you have your sunstalk they may have had some input into that too.

Melissa: 38:50

And that's really neat. I'm talking about to like them being with you through the thick and thin to after my fall. And this was how pebbles my previous dog was through my treatment In 2016,. She never left my lap. Well, this time, daisy, who's this puppy? And a little more rambunctious.

Melissa: 39:12

I had my head reconstructive surgery on my elbow. That was just three months home on the couch, but she was so and it was interesting because it was her arm. It's the side of the couch where I usually have her under that arm and I couldn't do anything. The shoulder, everything I had the tricep had been detached and everything had been rebuilt and she knew to be gentle and sat on my lap and would just look at me. So all my pictures of like me, you know, sitting up, was she still was able to grow and like, be okay with that, even though she was still the puppy when you know, before that, and she was so gentle and knowing and that was just really cool. So, even thinking about the stories of of, you know, when we've gone through the trials or we're going through a challenge, how are our pets grow with that? Or help us to, you know, comfort us, support.

Helen: 40:09

Yeah, there, and their whole, one of their whole things is to support us, just like we support them. It's very mutual.

Melissa: 40:18

I love it. So what I would like to do now is to go into. We had talked about this a little bit and I think this is a wonderful idea. So in this episode we've talked about animals being part of our stories or how they can help us be more creative with our stories. But I know that you had some wonderful prompts to share that as people were writing. I loved these questions and I would love if you could share with our listeners and our viewers Some of the questions so that and and we'll link this in as also prompts I'll pull them out and do some Canva prompts so that we can put that out on social media too, so that, or in the newsletter so that I know people.

Melissa: 41:07

There's several steps that I help people through. So part of it is like how can I feel more creative so I can write about my stories, or how can I be a better writer because I'm not confident about putting my stories. But there's also the what am I going to write about? And needing that inspiration, and so these questions are beautiful that piece of it, in addition to what we talked about, of the sport support from our animals while we're doing it.

Helen: 41:33

Great. Thank you, I appreciate that. So three questions that I thought would be great for prompts. The first one is how did an animal help to shape your life and what's important for others to know about that? The second is what stories can you share about your pets that influenced the course of your life? And the last one is what lessons did your pet help you learn and these could be love, support, caring, boundaries and how did they do this? So maybe there was a particular behavior or an experience that you had that you knew that this was what they were trying to do.

Melissa: 42:20

Beautiful and I think even our discussion totally shows many of those that you shared, with other people sharing, and then I shared a few myself that I can totally think of. Thank you so much. So, before we get to our final conclusion, because our time is getting a little, getting a little on the late side, because we'll talk to you forever, absolutely For all of our guests we have two questions that I love to ask based on my why. So one of the questions that I ask is is there a story that you have from your past that was either a story you know from someone in its previous generation, or it could even be from an animal a story or something you wondered, that you wish you had, but you don't know it, and so, yeah, that you still seek that or wish that you had.

Helen: 43:16

That was. That's a really great question and right now I don't have one that focuses on animals. But both of my parents have passed and I really would have liked to have known more about their younger years, really didn't know how they met or how they got engaged. My father was in World War II when he did not want to talk about that, which I get. I would have liked a little information about that or even what was it like for them when he came back, things like that. So it really my parents' early years I really would have liked to have had information about that?

Melissa: 44:02

Yeah, that's a common one. Can I ask you how old you were when they passed?

Helen: 44:08

Let's see, I was in my late 20s.

Melissa: 44:13

Yeah, see, so I can relate to that. I was in my early late teens, early 20s, but I think there's a time in life that if you've had your parents a little longer, you get a little bit more time to ask the adult questions.

Helen: 44:30

Exactly.

Melissa: 44:30

And there may be things with World War II and with that experience that they would not have. You know, your father probably may not have shared everything anyways, but I feel like that is for me too, that interest, and those grown-up discussions of like, oh, we're going through it now too, how was it for you? Yeah, it's interesting. And the second question I'd love to ask you is is there a story that you have that you want to make sure you preserve and pass along for future generations?

Helen: 45:07

And that's an easy one. It's really the path that I took, going out of that corporate analytical world and woven into now this combination of analytical woo-woo stuff that seems like they don't go together, but they really go together super well, beautiful.

Melissa: 45:30

Yes, I love it, and that's an important one. I think we're transitioning and showing and, for anyone who's listening and watching now, my last guest interview was with Walter Unger, who was a research physicist turned alchemist, baker. It's amazing, very similar from that analytical, scientific I would say masculine a bit too to now, the more like you had mentioned woo, you could say feminine. We could say lots of things, but yeah, that transition of embracing both sides, I love it. Thank you so much. Can you tell us, helen, where people can find you?

Helen: 46:12

People can find me really easily on my website, wwwHelenKozinskicom. And Helen with 1L.

Melissa: 46:25

Excellent, thank you, and I will put Helen's information on the show notes for the podcast and also in the show notes for our YouTube channel. Helen, thank you so much for doing this. This was a pleasure. We could go on and on and maybe we'll have more topics Great. I love thinking of others that you and I have in common, that we could just work through, but I think this one was just near and dear to my heart. I know I have a few, like I said, friends that have been kind of processing through whether it is a new pet or pet loss and I think this is an important reminder of how they could be so integrated into our stories in our lives.

Helen: 47:11

Absolutely, and I really, really appreciate you inviting me to do this podcast, melissa. It's been a lot of fun and we could talk for hours.

Melissa: 47:22

Thank you everybody. Wasn't that a fun episode. I enjoyed our conversation so much and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helped share the mission of preserving the past with stories. Want more tips, tools and inspiration? Head over to Melissa and kitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.