Creative Practice Archives - Allison Crow

Do your Leaders Invite You to Self Trust Like Rick Rubin (And Me)

allisoncrow — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 14:35:00 +0000

SELF- Trust:

As a coach- my clients often hear me say:

You can accept, modify, or reject

I’ll lay this idea/suggestion on the table, and you can pick it up or leave it there.

I am not the boss of you. I believe in you. I have some really good ideas and connection and protection strategies to share – but you are the ultimate authority on you.

My friend Justin mentioned this book by Rick Rubin recently- and I’ve been mainly listening – but this morning, I opened the hardback- and loved this invocation for the reader to use what is helpful and let go of the rest.

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A Two Fridas Reading from Art is About Being Whole: A Memoir By Cindy Ingram

Elyse Rich — Sun, 05 Nov 2023 16:48:46 +0000

Hello Humans!

Thank you for your grace while I took some time and space.

For the last four years I have been in writing practice with my publisher and write as a group

One of my former clients and now friend and fellow author colleague has released her book
with Compassionate Mind Collaborative Publishing.

I want you to get her book and let it touch your heart.

Art is About Being Whole: A Memoir By Cindy Ingram

It is a visual and word soulful treat.

Love,

Allison

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

Visit: Website: www.allisoncrow.com
Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison
Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview
Get your copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

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Scribble Days are More Than Good Enough

allisoncrow — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 15:07:27 +0000

Despite what the gurus and social feeds suggest, it can be pretty scribbly to do the nurturing practices that support us. Some days it IS easy – and just know that if some days, it feels more like this photo – you are not alone.

It is normal to NOT want to move your body, or do your creative things, or take the extra steps of genuine

ly compassionate care when you are down. And down is not a moral failure.
Down is not a moral failure.
Down is not a moral failure.
Down is not a moral failure.

Sometimes is biological, or chemical, or circumstantial, or just time to rest more than your brain thinks is necessary.

I MADE myself walk today. More often than not, I’ve dragged myself to my creative practice a la War of Art.
Cheers and love to any of my fellow humans in a scribble season.

#nurturingpractices #walkeveryday #createdaily #restoften #warofart #humaning #selfcompassionjourney

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A Part of Me this & A Part of Me that

allisoncrow — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 16:28:35 +0000

𝗔 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 & 𝗔 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁

“All Parts Welcome”

Have you ever had the experience of making a decision, and in your thinking, you have a part that has one strong opinion about your decision, and then from another side of your brain, or maybe your body, a second part comes in totally doubting?

In all 2o years of my coaching practice, I’ve heard clients say, “A part of me this. . . and a part of me that . . .”
Bonnie J Weiss, LCSW, in her book
𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘺 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘈𝘯 𝘌𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘍𝘚 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴, says,

“IFS is. . . compassionate, inclusive, spiritual, powerfully healing, and deeply respectful of our inner life. IFS recognized that our psyches are made up of different parts…you can think of them as little people inside of us. Each part has its own perspective, feelings, memories, goals, and motivations.”

We are naturally of miraculous multiple minds. You may more commonly know these parts of you as things like:

The Inner Critic
Your Inner Child
The Ego
The Monkey Mind

All parts have had reasons for everything they do, they are motivated by “benevolent intent” at their core, but their strategies are protective devices that, at some point in your life, made sense but now are out of date. These strategies can often be uncomfortable, mean, and even destructive.

Recently the founder of IFS, Dr. Richard C Schwartz, Ph.D. published his IFS book 𝘕𝘰 𝘉𝘢𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴. Check it out if you want to learn more about this model I’ll be sharing with you over the next month.

Here is a painting I did – when I was very first introduced to this framework – My core SELF-energy and some of my parts. Add a whole lot of language/words, some visual images, and sensory waves, and that’s a good front porch image of my internal psyche.

💛 Allison Crow

Visit: Website: www.allisoncrow.com
Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison
Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview
Get your copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

The post A Part of Me this & A Part of Me that appeared first on Allison Crow.

Heather Doyle Frasier: The Practice of Compassionate Writing

Elyse Rich — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:46:25 +0000

Episode 204 Heather Doyle Frasier: The Practice of Compassionate Writing

Writer, Coach, Renaissance Woman, Lover of Books
Publisher of Compassionate Mind Collaborative and a singer.

After having worked in the traditional publishing industry as a development editor,
Heather saw the humanity missing from the industry.

Meet my book coach, publisher, and friend.

Writing is such a vulnerable raw experience.
Even when you feel like you have this covered something is going to come up during the process that is difficult and challenging.

Merging her industry experience with coaching based in Compassionate Mind Training,
Heather creates a space and a loving mandate in her own publishing company.

Love,

Allison

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

Heather’s Info:

Website Home: https://www.cmcollab.com/

Offerings for writing and publishing https://www.cmcollab.com/writing-your-book

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/compassionatewriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cmcollaborative

Get a copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

The post Heather Doyle Frasier: The Practice of Compassionate Writing appeared first on Allison Crow.

In a Romantic Relationship with My Desk Why Yes

allisoncrow — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 14:56:06 +0000

She’s lived in every home I’ve owned and briefly been loaned to each of my husbands as I experimented with other working spaces (does anyone remember my haunted antique lawyer d

esk?). She is back in my space, my studio, my office, and deeply in my heart at this moment.

Fall in love – like real love, be in a relationship with a block of wood and two clunky iron thingys that hold the wood for a desk?

Completely and utterly.

This morning she is strewn with remnants of my pencil case carried to the Elizabeth Gilbert Rob Bell thing in the woods of the Hudson Valley in NY. Three lip glosses claim their parallel space between the pens and paint brushes – all beloved and daily used tools of my creativity.

How do I know I’ve fallen in love with this inanimate – but is she really an inanimate object EVERY time I sit here, my whole body feels an openness and clear-like-fresh-spring-water LOVE. We’ve built this over time. My trust, once given freely from immaturity, now takes time to build, and this desk and I have some serious time on task BECOMING together. Tears well up and let me know I am alive and I feel. Maybe it’s the menopause, but I’m pretty sure it is the love and life and work and creation this desk, and I have shared.

Today she holds my book stacks and a freshly lit “Ancient Tome” candle made by my former client, Michelle.

Yesterday, she held me as I went super deep on 3 different coaching calls that I truly felt helped my clients. New rosemary mint hair oil to soothe my menopausal itchy scalp, 4 different eyeglass cleaners, and all the computers and technologies that

allow me to share my heart, show my work, and connect with you from the calm safety of my own home. How could I not be in love This desk and I have stories to tell.

And so we will.

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You Forget. It’s Not Your Fault & Here is What to do About it.

allisoncrow — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 14:53:02 +0000

Because you are human, because you live in a society whose systems are set up to make you forget – remembering can be your most vital practice.

Seriously, you aren’t broken; you’ve done nothing wrong – our systems literally are built on you out-sourcing your self-trust and remembering. When you forget, you give away power and buy stuff you don’t need without thinking. (I love buying stuff I don’t need – with clear intention).

Because you are engaged in life and work and smart as fuck, your mind and mental managers like to move fast through your ideas. Sometimes they get congested and confused. That’s normal.

If you knew that you would regularly – as in super often – FORGET who you BE What ritual could you set up so that you REMEMBER who you are?

. . .Because from that place, everything works with more lube. Flow has space to flow from the remembering.

And remembering doesn’t just happen. That’s why you suffer. We have to cultivate it.

You are not alone, dear human. Even though happy, and excited, and clear, I could feel a sense of forgetting when I sat down at the desk today – and my pre-planned ritual of journaling and writing with a SELF-ENERGY focus – brought me back to remembering. I won’t share the top half of that page quite yet (maybe someday -as you know, I’m pretty unfiltered)…but where I ended up, because of the daily practice, was in the remembering, and now I am able, from my heart to be here for you, and to gently take the next steps of my day.

Love, Your Favorite Life Coach.

Allison

I hope you remember.

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Allowing the Space for Heart Coherence

allisoncrow — Tue, 30 May 2023 14:14:06 +0000

Tone: deep contentment, mostly.

There’s an extra space this morning.

After the Soulies closing ceremony (my primary coaching work container over the last 7 years), and after deleting almost ALL of my old fb groups (one for every group program I’ve done since 2011),

I feel the void. Is that the right word?

Void = completely empty, so it’s not quite that, but I do feel the extra space. I sense my brain’s subtle compulsion to NEXT.

I am also in a space where I am able to see my “body of work” over the last 20 years – and longer. It’s a bit overwhelming, some of it embarrassing (to parts of me), and it’s exhaustive. Creating and earning have been so intertwined. My barking brain has the urge to solve the problem (that doesn’t exist).

I solve. Therefore I am?

Ah, the capitalism energy and systemic pressure of NEXTING.

I feel the extra space.

Next door, the 7 dogs are barking like crazy – a funny metaphor for my brain. Unlike my neighbors, I won’t keep my dogs cooped in the garage, but I do know how to engage and soothe my barking parts.

Amy Callahan sent me a lovely post about how horses, and just being near them help us to have a coherent heart.

“A coherent heart pattern is indicative of a system that can recover and adapt to stressful situations very efficiently. Many times, we just need to be in the presence of horses to feel a sense of well-being and peace.” –Superior Therapy LLC on Facebook.

This is my gentle direction.

Coherence. Congruence.

Clearing Completion.

Coherence. Congruence.

Space makes way for the Creativity. Practice makes way for the Creativity.

There are no big moves to make. Nothing to fill.

Heart Coherence.

So that I have a coherent heart and so that I spread that energy to those I come in contact with in any way (except my too many & neglected dogs neighbor – I’m not there yet).

, Allison

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Personal development and coaching can be so fuckeryish.

allisoncrow — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 14:45:12 +0000

Personal development and coaching can be so fuckeryish. Here’s my example this morning:

I start to journal… “what if XYZ was possible… “

and then I get smacked in the head with,

“but love what is.”

Well, which is it Love what is or have the courage to change what is?

Our thinking parts and shoulds and try so hard to get it right parts battling it out.

That’s always a good sign to drop deeper into your belly and heart and listen.

Call for your true SELF to come forward and whisper inner truth to you – instead of taking on the mandate of the gurus and leaders and coachy-coachy and anything outside of you.

Those tools and rules aren’t bad – in fact, you have a Mary Poppins bag of resources, but in any giv

en moment, seek your inner wisdom for guidance on what tools, if any to use.

Today, my inner knowing says, “Toss the intellect – education, podcasts, and learning and be with the flowers and birds, make art and poetry, and practice smiling.”

What does your inner knowing whisper to you?

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Trust Your Practices and Process over the Man Made Dates

allisoncrow — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 20:19:54 +0000

I can trust practices and processes. When I try to shove them into a calendar or deadline – the processes and practices get detoured by “I’m doing it wrong.”

I have nurturing practices -that I KNOW bring me to clarity, confidence, and action.
I have internal processes that I KNOW work for my business.

And yet, because I’m human and live in society – I, at times, can get hooked into the “what’s normal” current. I call this FORGETTING.

Wouldn’t it be so fun if we all had the clarity and plan we wanted to have on Jan 1 – according to and along with the “New Year” date?

When I REMEMBER, I stand in the knowing and sovereignty of my own proven practices and processes.

When I REMEMBER, I fully trust my processes and practices and my own internal rhythms (and they RARELY fit with man-made seasons or dates).

This is your reminder that your own process is trustworthy – even if it doesn’t seem to “fit” what the world says.

Peace to you and to me and to us all as we practice what works for us.

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