Hello Human Podcast Listeners!

Today I want to share a little behind the scenes ADHD update.

This is kind of personal.

It’s a behind the scenes episodes of being a small business owner,
being a coaching practice owner who is also navigating the Wild Edges of Being Human.

Many of you know the diagnosis of my ADHD over 18 months ago
and the acclimation to that both education, identity, meds, the support I need has been way different journey then I would have ever imagined.

The diagnosis label is one thing and the aftermath is interesting. 

This morning I woke up feeling more ME then I have in a long time. 

Love,

Allison

Other ADHD Episodes and Posts:

• EMOTIONS, ADHD & MOTIVATION – A CONVERGENCE OF IDEAS

• ADHD JOURNAL UPDATE – MED CHANGES AND INSIGHTS

• BEHIND THE SCENES OF ADHD

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 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

The post An ADHD Update appeared first on Allison Crow.

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Today’s episode is about the practice of tending.

I wanna tell you a story of how I went from depression to the most creative productivity in a very holy way, not a way of scarcity.

Though I might feel a bit rusty and stiff,
tending with love to the practices that invoke blessing outside and inside are what create the experiences that I actually want to live.

Life’s success isn’t about big moments, it’s about regular tending.

What wants to be tended in your inner world, especially in your heart?
What wants to be tended to in your body?
What wants to be tended to in your relationships?
What wants to be tended to in your business?

Tending is the act that invokes the blessing you are waiting for. 

Love,

Allison

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Resources:

Camp Cultivate link

Soulies Coaching Membership Application and Information page 

The post The Practice of Tending appeared first on Allison Crow.

I opened a prayer book to a random page – and it landed on a prayer for “emotional distress.”

And the line that pissed me off was this:

“I know that to be disturbed by about one’s life and affairs, even for an instant, is not to trust the Divine Love that is gifted to me daily by God Source.”
.

Instant shame and using trust as a manipulation tool. Another subtle message of, “You are doing it wrong.”
.

To leave no room for discomfort or suffering is NOT LOVE.

💛 Let’s rewrite this:

I know that to be disturbed about one’s life and affairs – is so human. There truly are difficult experiences and seasons, and I know, Divine Love, that you hold me gently, tenderly, softly, even in difficult times. I know that you hold the pains I experience as lovingly as you hold my radiant joy. Thank you, God Source, for your presence in my life exactly as I am.

Shame induces performance and contrived behavior.  Nothing pure – only manipulated and untrue.  Compassion allows for rest and nervous system regulation, allowing the defeated spirit within to regenerate and eventually make space for genuine creativity. 

The post I tossed an entire prayer book into the trash appeared first on Allison Crow.

Sensitivity and Overthinking. These two qualities are deep in the cells in my body and way of being. They are not only my biggest struggles. They are also my truly greatest strengths.  

 

They do not always fit nicely in a “contained & performative culture.” 

If I wanted to stop feeling or stop over-and-expansively-and-excessively thinking, I could not. No more than I could change the color of my eyes.

Life certainly would be easier and “happier” if I weren’t so sensitive. And I’m sensitive because my mind and senses see sooooo much. You have heard the saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” 

 

Seeing and caring, and feeling come with some burdens. Some days those feel heavy, and on my worst days, I admit to entertaining hopelessness.

Perhaps I don’t run around with a shit-eating grin, kind of bliss in life. But I do live in a different kind of bliss.

I live in the bliss of welcoming (as much as I can) all parts of me. I live in the bliss of living to the wild edges of being human.

 

Less and less self-shame and self-judgment every day. Only my judgment of myself or others makes me miserable. I’m building the skills and mental muscle memory of seeing myself and the world with compassion.

Instead of trying to fix my sensitivities and the burdens I take on feeling the heaviness of the world, instead of hardening my heart and deciding not to care (I’ve considered this a lot lately), I’m choosing compassion. Again and again.

I choose compassion for my sensitive and overthinking being. I choose calm presence with these parts of me.

I am no longer trying to “be enlightened” as a means of escaping my humanness. Instead, I’m turning toward my humanness with compassion.

 

If you think and feel deeply, if you sometimes feel you ”care too much,” and if sometimes wish you didn’t give a shit because you’d “be happier and lighter,” I see you. I feel you.

 

You’ve done nothing wrong. Your concerns are valid. And you are not alone.

The post For my fellow leaders who are highly sensitive and overthink often. appeared first on Allison Crow.

Hello, Smart and Soulful Business Owners

I’ve been learning some stuff and I’m going to share it with you because I want you to learn it too and I don’t want it to have to take you 50 years to learn.

What I want to tell you is about these fucking fire ants. 

I’ve tried to use my brain to solve the problems of my heart and thus depression, thus anxiety, thus overthinking.

A couple of months ago, I hit some really deep pockets in my own personal work and there were parts of me that did not like that I was going down into my body to feel some shit I really needed to feel.  

I went over to my friend Laura’s house for a girl’s night and parked in her driveway. The next day I had ants all over my car, my truck was covered in ants, fire ants. It took me about a week to fully get rid of ants.

Then a few weeks later, I was really angry and my husband was struggling with some stuff too. I said, you know what I need to get some of this anger out so we go out to the lake by my house, we park the truck and we get out.

He’s angry and I’m angry. We’re not angry at each other and I said, “Hey, yell at the sky and the lake.”

He just looks at me like I’m fucking nuts and I’m yelling and I’m like, “Fuck so-and-so fuck and fuck so-and-so and this inner work is hard.”

All of a sudden I looked down and my tennis shoes and socks were covered in fire ants that were stinging me.

What is your instinct to get the fire ants off?nbsp;

Immediately, my whole body starts moving. I’m flapping, hitting my clothes to make them shake off, shaking my foot and also taking my hands to brush them off as fast as I can. 

My fire ant bites are still healing and I posted something like, “Trying to get rid of my rage and then I got bit from all these ants.” One of my clients was like, wow, you’ve got a lot of fire ant animal medicine. I wonder what the fire ants were trying to teach you.

I was like, “Nothing! My life is garbage! I just stand in fucking fire ants!

The other day I’m working my processes and I’m actually really listening to my emotions. I’m in partnership and in dialogue with them and I asked my depression, what information do you have for me?

And she says, “We are clogged with emotion and feeling. There are some things you actually need to feel and you need to stomp into the ground, you need to move this out of your body.” 

So I go for a walk. I’m walking and stomping and the more I’m complaining, the more the emotions well up and the more my brain sees the places my heart needs me to witness and discharge some of my grief.

Discharge it through tears, awareness isn’t enough. 

Yesterday I’m going back and debriefing my own experience of how did I clear that up so fast Wouldn’t it be nice if I could move emotions through me more quickly, because after I moved these emotions, I’ve experienced a lot of vitality and flow and clarity that I’ve been really missing for awhile.

When you unclog the your pipes, the water can flow and my body then reminds me of the fire ants.

Love,

Allison

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Resources:

Become a member of Soulies Self-Leadership Society:
https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/

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For 49 years I’ve been too smart for my own good.

I’m a lifelong student and always will be. My intellectual prowess has always given me a sense of safety and security. For most of my life, this was unconscious and now I see.

I see this was the anchor I hitched my being to in a chaotic life. I see how my intellect helped me solve problems and thrive after divorce, and create a thriving coaching practice. It served me until there were glitches that my intelligence couldn’t solve. I see places where my nervous and psychological systems would still wig out because they didn’t feel safe or certain.

In 2015/16 Jeffrey Rutstein asked me if I had childhood trauma.

My first response was, “No.”

I had very loving and involved parents. I went to private school and we had a boat and a pool. And my parents attended every basketball game I played in. So because it wasn’t like the way trauma was depicted on tv- my brain made up that there was no trauma.

Um, YES there was trauma at home and school and church. I had a physically traumatic bike injury in 4th grade. There was alcoholism, verbal abuse, emotional uncertainty, neglect, financial chaos, food insecurity, emotional manipulation (my school showed us the “Left Behind” movies when I was in 3rd grade), and religious trauma. My sweet mom had a debilitating disability- and 4 kids in 5 years… had a lot of adult responsibilities way to soon. I’m Gen X! Of course there was trauma. I also had traumatic experiences with each set of grandparents- one wealthy and one poor.

Obviously, my parents were doing the best they could with the tools they had- they both had traumatic childhoods….. and frankly, ALL of us have.

Some of my obvious expressions of this chaos have been:
Perpetual Hyper-vigilance.
People pleasing.
Loose boundaries.
Verbal abuse.
Emotional eruption and rage.
Over functioning.
Over debting.
Codependency.
Conflict avoidance.
Cutting people out of my life completely and quickly when it hurt.
Clinical depression and anxiety.
Excruciating fear of rejection and excessive need for validation.

Slowly and gently I began to see the places where trauma still lived in my cells, my bones, my and psychology. I began to notice and recollect stories- not as a victim but just as an aware being. OH…. Of course, that had an impact on you, and here’s where and how it shows up as an adult.

I’m so grateful for gentle teachers, Like Jeffrey, and Chris Zydel, and Rebecca Ching and countless authors and teachers I’ve never actually met in person – they have led me in a compassionate discovery of ALL of me. And I am in love. (Compassion and relationship were key here- no “ass-kicking” -as for me that would just have been more trauma).

These teachers have taught me not to just “know thyself” but to relate to myself, connect and BE with all the parts of me. They have also taught me that my nervous system and body are a major part of the process and healing.

This is why from an intellectual standpoint these wouldn’t, and could not be healed.

Almost everyone I know has joined me at some point in saying, “I know it in my head…. But I just can’t seem to XYZ…”. This is why. It can’t be healed with a mindset shift.

I love coaching. And coaching without embodiment – nervous system knowledge, and trauma-informed care- is just a bandaid on a festering wound. And that’s ok until it isn’t.

You’ll know. You will KNOW in your being and body when it’s time to really go full body and deeper emotionally into your system.

As I approach 50- I can see it all coming together. I can connect the dots of the past so clearly. It’s all so perfect. Even the trauma. It’s made me this tapestry of a human that I do sweetly and tenderly love and am connected to…. As well as intellectually  understand.

While I’m excited about the future and my coaching practice and the new modalities I’m immersed in personally, and I’m practicing professionally, what is BEST…. Is in this moment, on my back porch, I am here NOW, with me, with my story, and with this moment (and two panting boxer dogs). I am safe being me. I am safe opening my heart. I am safe here and now.

I wish this peace for anyone who desires to have it.

And so it is.

The post Being Smart, and where traditional coaching failed, and what helped. appeared first on Allison Crow.

Hey smart people… this one is for YOU. For the first 42 years of my life- KNOWING shit and managing my mind protected and propelled me.

The post One Thing Smart People Forget to Do appeared first on Allison Crow.

Pool is open. Covid 19-free. ?

Honestly: I don’t have a lot of words and yet I feel like expressing. If you see a post from me that has inspiring brilliance it is because I hire help to produce my brain for when my brain isn’t creative.
I am not Covid creative. I am Covid doing the best I can with a range of responsibilities, a heap of grief, and lots of emotion between coaching clients (the part of life that keeps me sane right now) and managing my restless heart, toxic judgment of our government and extreme anything but especially right wing.

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