Her Next Chapters
This podcast is for moms with an empty nest on the horizon who are reclaiming & redefining their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show we’ll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms, hear from women who restarted their careers, and share tactical tips for a successful job search after a career break.
Her Next Chapters
39. The Life Lessons I Learned From My Dog
As we conclude this week's heartfelt journey, I invite you to reflect on your own new beginnings and the importance of cherishing each moment. Connect with me on LinkedIn for a more personal interaction, and let's embrace the next chapters of our lives with gratitude and optimism. Whether you're reconnecting with loved ones or discovering new passions, Ryder's legacy reminds us to make every day count. Tune in for an episode filled with warmth, inspiration, and a reminder that life is too short not to live it well.
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Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters. I'm Christina.
Christina Kohl:In case we haven't met and if you have listened earlier to an earlier podcast, I recently lost my longtime loyal companion, my dog Ryder, the night that he passed. It was a very restless evening and I promise this episode is going to have a positive bent to it, so stay with me. The night that he passed, I kept waking up throughout the night, tossing and turning, and it was like a loudspeaker in my ear saying honor him, honor him just over and over, just in my grief, I just kept hearing the words honor him. And when I did some posts, like on LinkedIn and social media, letting people know when it happened, someone had asked me, as I talked about the lesson of we have to go through it, which is from the children's book we're going on a bear hunt. They have all these obstacles in front of them, but they have to go through them. Can't go under, can't go over, we have to go through it. And so I talked about that life lesson and someone had asked me what other lessons have you learned from your dog rider? And I thought about it and I came up with a list of seven at least, and I wanted to kind of talk about those just again to honor him and just to help me personally in my grief, and also I hope that there's some insights that you find relevant as well. And so I have a list of seven things and I'm going to kind of talk about both rider and how I'm applying these things in my own life. So the first thing is to have fun, rider, and our dogs in general. They just want to have fun, right, they're happy, they want to play. Let's go play fetch. Let's go on a walk, let's go on a hike, throw me the ball, pet me, play with me, and they just kind of have that outlook around having fun, and that's something that I want to instill in my own life a little bit more of, and whether that's kayaking or getting together with friends or just going on vacation I haven't gone on a vacation for well, not at all in 2024. So hopefully that'll change soon. And just having that outlook, that mentality of always looking to have fun.
Christina Kohl:The next thing Ryder would always greet people warmly. He was a very social, very friendly dog and just everyone's his best friend and he was just always so happy to see us and to see anyone that came to visit and just wiggling his whole body and just you knew that he was just so excited to see you. Now, for me as a person, I'm not necessarily going to be wagging my tail and you know all of that jumping up on somebody Well, he didn't really jump, but still that concept of greeting people warmly and just knowing that you're glad to see them and making eye contact and saying hello and a smile and just really genuinely being happy to see them and making eye contact and saying hello and a smile and just really genuinely being happy to see them. So our dogs set great examples for that. And then Ryder also set a great example for assuming good intentions. So whenever he met somebody new, he was happy to see them and and he just assumed that they were good people and that they would want to pet him and play with them and that they had good intentions.
Christina Kohl:Our other dog we do have another dog and she's younger she assumes worst intentions. She assumes that anybody she doesn't know is out to kill her and she is on the defense right away. So Ryder sets really good example that assume people that you meet have good intentions. And this is true for us as humans as well. As we meet new people as we go about our day, interacting with others, whether that's in our jobs or with our families or just going to the grocery store, you know as we pass, you know other people, just to assume that other people have good intentions toward us, rather than now we. My other dog, her assumption that oh, you're going to, you know you're going to do me harm, so I got to be the bully first. You know, we don't want to live our lives like that Just assume good intentions.
Christina Kohl:And then the next thing that I had come up with, that I've learned from Ryder is to stay close to the people you love, and the way he demonstrated this and maybe you can relate if you have a dog, if you're a dog owner, a dog lover no matter where I was in the house, if I got up to go to another room, he got up and followed me, even when he wasn't feeling well, even when he didn't have good mobility in his hindquarters which is kind of like what was going on with him at the end there. And even if it was hard to get up and I'd be telling him stay, I'll be right back, he just wanted to be close to me and he would follow me from room to room. And If he was a person that might get a little annoying, like, just stay on the couch, just sit there. You don't have to follow me around everywhere, person. So that's not what I mean when staying close to the people you love in the context of the human world.
Christina Kohl:What I take from that is that there's people that I care about and that I love, who I just get busy, and maybe you can relate to this too. I don't think I'm unique in this, but we just get busy with our day-to-day lives and we forget to reach out and make those connections. And then maybe a week goes by or a month, or maybe even a year and we haven't talked to the people that we love. And it is just so important to maintain those relationships and invest in the relationships with the people that we love, whether that's phone calls, a text, just sending a picture, just keeping in touch and staying in touch and knowing what's going on in their lives. It's just so important. And, like I said, ryder just demonstrated that all the time, even when he wasn't feeling well, even when it was a lot of effort for him to follow me from room to room, even when I'm telling him to stay where he was, he just that bond was so strong that he just wanted and needed to be with his person and not just me, it's the whole family.
Christina Kohl:But and then the other one, that that I came up with is to use your voice to encourage others and the way that Ryder did this the last few months he just hasn't been very mobile, like out in the yard he can get around, but when our younger dog would like have something to bark at, whether it was the deer in the yard maybe a lot of deer that tend to visit deer or bunnies or other people walking their dogs by. Again, the little dog, our younger dog, has the mentality of danger, danger, stranger danger, right. And so she's barking at things, and he couldn't necessarily engage in the chase but he would bark along with her and encourage her. Oh, she's barking at something, well, I'm going to bark too and I'm going to let her know that I'm here backing her up, even though I can't run and play and chase. And so I just said that was something that was, as I recently, only because I was reflecting on what have I learned from Ryder is how he would encourage her. Like, if she's barking, well I better bark too, and just supported her.
Christina Kohl:And I think that's something in our again, in our human world or human lives that we can use our voice to encourage others as well. If someone else has an idea that we want to support them, let them know. If it's in your workplace or with your family. I think it's just really important to be encouraging others around us and to speak up so many times, like just even this example just came to my mind when I see someone who, like you know, maybe they got a haircut or they look different or they are doing something amazing, and I don't always think to like tell them, and I think it's just so important, like even today, it's just a silly thing Somebody told me like wow, your hair looks really nice, and it just made me feel good. And that's using your voice to encourage others. You might be thinking something like that, but go ahead and say it out loud and just help strengthen your connection with other people and build them up. And so that's something that Ryder was really good at with his sister dog, of using his voice to encourage her. And he encouraged us too, just like I'm excited to see you type of voice right With his bark and his playfulness.
Christina Kohl:And then number six, and I've got seven altogether. Number six is to use your voice to stand up for yourself. So in the dog world if a rider, anyway that would be you know what I assumed good intentions, but I'm not so sure about you. So he's going to bark to protect and stand up for himself and others. And then again I'm talking about our younger dog. If Ryder had a treat they both got treats she would always finish hers first, but if he's still chewing on a bone or a rawhide or something, she would circle him and just wait for an opportunity to steal it, would like circle him and just wait for an opportunity to steal it. And there were times when he would finally use his voice and snap at her and to say like, nope, that is mine. So he needed to use his voice to stand up for himself, otherwise she would just take his dream and that's something again thinking of the human world using our voice to stand up for ourselves, using our voice to stand up for ourselves. And it can be hard and it can be scary and you might get pushed a bit to finally use your voice. I know he did because his treats were stolen so many times and finally, enough, stop taking my treats.
Christina Kohl:Using your voice to stand up for yourself, like in the workplace, if that's asking for a raise, if that's defending your proposal, or maybe not defending but explaining or putting forth an idea. I had to stand up for myself with oh, this could be a whole nother podcast, but with a car dealership that was trying to double charge me for something that I didn't think they should be charging me for at all, and so I used my voice in a male dominated workplace. I didn't work there, I was a customer, but I used my voice to say no, no, no, you're not going to charge me for that, I need to speak to your manager. So that's kind of in a way of me barking If we're doing the dog analogy to say no, I'm going to stand up for myself in this moment, and I'll save the details of that for another episode, because there's a whole story behind it that I think might be interesting. But, yeah, use your voice to stand up for yourself. That's something that our dogs teach us. Up for yourself, that's something that our dogs teach us.
Christina Kohl:And then, finally, number seven as I mentioned, ryder did pass away this week. We said goodbye to him and oh so, such a hard thing I'm not crying right now. It's been, you know, touch and go, but this last lesson and I guess helping as far as the emotional piece of it, just to pause for a moment, honoring him, is healing for me and this episode is a way for me to honor him. And this last lesson, last thing that I've learned from Ryder and I'm sure there's way more if I can think about it, but this is the seventh one that I thought of for today is that life is short, so live it well. We don't know when our last day is going to be and all of us have an end date right, all of us. Our days are numbered and that could be tomorrow, it could be another 20, 30 years, but life is short and we need to be living it well.
Christina Kohl:And for Ryder he did. He lived it well. He loved his people, he loved his sister dog, he loved all the people and he had fun and he was just the sweetest, most loyal, fun loving companion for us. And his life was long for a dog. It was 12 years. And he did live it well.
Christina Kohl:And his last day I made a point of, you know, we went on a walk. And his last day I made a point of we went on a walk. It was his last walk and even though it was challenging for him, he was so excited to leave the yard and smell things that weren't in our yard and he didn't want to come back, even though he was popcorn. So I cooked a batch of popcorn for him. When we toss it up in the air and he catches the popcorn and he loves watermelon my husband was chopping up watermelon. I know dogs eating watermelon. It's not a typical thing, but Ryder loves watermelon and so we gave him some watermelon and then, of course, a marrow bone. He just loves marrow bone. So he had a marrow bone every day for like three days and we just tried to like glove on him extra and just make it a really good day for him, and that's something that I think we should be doing for ourselves every day. What is something, even one thing, that we can do in this day to make it a good day? And even in my grief, I'm still trying to hold on to gratitude and gratitude for the opportunity to give him a last good day and to be with him when he took his last breaths. And again, I'm not trying to make this um all about sadness. I'm trying to really make it positive, and it's challenging for sure.
Christina Kohl:So our lives are short too, in the scheme of things, and we should not be wasting it in a job that we don't like, and it's not so much like or dislike. Think about your energy. Life is too short to be in a career or be living in a way that drains your energy. You should be seeking opportunities to energize you, whether that is through work or elsewhere. I'm energized being around people that I care about, being with my animals, doing activities, kayaking, being out in nature, connecting with people, connecting with my animals, riding a horse, whatever it is. Do that, find things that give you energy, the things that use up your energy and leave you depleted. Life is too short for that. That is a really big reason that I left my corporate job last year is because there were parts of it that I loved, but a lot of it was just draining my energy and I really wanted to be energized in my work, which is what I do now coaching and helping people find jobs that they love, particularly those that have had a career gap. That is so energizing and rewarding to me. That's why I made this change in my career and I feel so much more fulfilled and more energized doing this work.
Christina Kohl:So that's lesson number seven that I've learned from Ryder. Life is short. We need to live it well. I would love to hear from you what life lessons have you learned from the animals in your life that you love? I'd be really curious to hear other things. Again, these are the seven things that I thought of when I think of Ryder and his legacy. So I'm going to run through the list again real quick. Thank you, ryder, for these life lessons and the example that you have set to have fun, to greet people warmly. Number three assume good intentions. Number four stay close to the people you love. Number five use your voice to encourage others. Number six use your voice to stand up for yourself. And finally, number seven life is short, live it well.
Christina Kohl:I hope this was helpful for you or insightful, meaningful in some way. Like I said, it is my way to honor him and, yeah, it's part of the legacy that I'm leaving for him, or I guess the legacy he's left for me yes, this is my way to honor Ryder is to talk about the lessons that I've learned from him and I'm so grateful for the 12 years in that he was a part of our family and just really love and miss that dog. All right, thank you for listening in. If this resonated with you at all, it would mean so much to me if you could leave a review or rate the show or, even more importantly, would be passing it on to a friend who you think might enjoy the messaging here.
Christina Kohl:All right, well, that is all for this week. My friends. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own and your next chapters are ready to begin.