Expressive Arts Archives - Allison Crow

Step into the Making to Get Out of Your Head

allisoncrow — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 16:16:42 +0000

It’s post-book launch. I still show up for my writing practice group most days.

My favorite dog has died, the year has ended, and my nervous system is slowly recuperating from a year of challenge after challenge.

My writing coach asks each of us, “What are you working on today?”

Inside, a part of me feels lost and ashamed – I don’t know what I am working on today. That heady part looks for an endpoint, a goal, a result – something to give her certainty.

I have a list of ideas – each simmering in its own mental crockpot – yet none of them feel ready to put on the page. I find myself longing for the direction I had when I had the end result of a book on the horizon. Before that longing is even finished crossing my mind, I giggle at where I find myself standing once again.

I’m simply in the creative process. The squirrels and whirls, dead spaces, frustrations, deaths, and emptiness ARE a part of the process. My Gawd, how we hate and dismiss the mulching and fallow seasons. But they are the precursor to new life.

They are a part not only of our art but also of our humanness. They are also the nutrients our souls need. (This awareness comes at the exact moment I sip a slightly nasty but nutrient-filled green drink with the texture of dirty water – again, I laugh at how life shows me exactly what I need if I will just drop into the noticing instead of arguing).

Lately, I am passionate and frustrated and righteous that no one has taught us these aspects of being human. In the same way – can one even really “teach us” how to write, paint, or make art Nope. They can tell us the steps and give us the materials. But we must step into the physical process of the making to make sense of it all in our bones. And there is no linear path there.

Without the stepping in and making – I am only in my head, and my body gets left behind. When I do this, life starts spinning, and I start suffering. I lived there most of my life – in an analytical, head-led life.

The old residue of an incomplete belief, “change your thinking, change your life,” shows up. I’ve been so busy managing my mind -when stepping into the making is what makes everything make sense again. Bring my body to the practice begins to soothe my mind. It certainly slows her down. I remember that I am a maker, not so much a manager.

My head and my body make peace…and then we step into the process of making our art.

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Pick Your Creative Practice Back Up

allisoncrow — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 15:08:04 +0000

For some reason, I had a block in my head that made me believe my “intuitive painting” and “expressive arts” were only done with acrylic or tempura paints.

I don’t know what fucking planet I was on, but – this glorious practice can be done in ANY medium. If I wanted to do expressive arts and intuitive painting, I could do it with cedar mulch and nuts and bolts if that’s what I had available.

Special thanks to Donna Fromm whose art in my feed planted a seed that helped me rememBEr.

This is your invitation to pick back up your creative practice- whatever it is, no matter how long it has been.

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The Heartbreak of Losing Your Hobbies

allisoncrow — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 14:30:02 +0000

You can’t remember the last time you painted, or went dancing, or threw some clay. Your crocheting yarns are in a basket in the back of the closet. Your oil paints are in storage…. (Most of these are stores my clients have told me….). Losing your hobbies is – the slow and subtle kind.

Long ago the business of everyday life took over. Your own hobbies seemed excessively indulgent- there were more important matters to attend to.

But what if I told you that making time for your hobbies could bring your zing back That sparkle in your eye?

You take care of everyone else… but your joy is left till the last moment… and those moments never seem to make it before you crash at the end of the day.

This is a reminder and a permission slip to do something creative and fun JUST for the sake of doing something creative and fun because you LOVE it!

What creative and joyful outlet would you love to either get back to or start?

Allison

Ps. Today I drew cheeseburger macarons.

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Being Smart, and where traditional coaching failed, and what helped.

allisoncrow — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 17:25:05 +0000

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.

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How To Actually BE YOU

Elyse Rich — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 04:51:26 +0000

Be Yourself

How do you be you Everybody is saying, “Be You.”

We are doing this inner work of meeting ourselves so that we learn how to manage our emotions, so that we learn how to manage our thoughts, so that we learn how to have self compassion and so that we meet the parts of us.

We take on a lot of shit in this thing called ordinary everyday life.
It’s natural, it’s human, there is nothing wrong with you.
You deserve more love and compassion not less.

So how do you actually get to be yourself?
To be yourself, we have to trust ourselves.

No matter how experienced my clients are, the self doubt is relentless.
The self doubt and comparison and the compromising and people pleasing is relentless … it never let’s up.

How do we begin to trust ourselves?

Out there in the world we are trying to be ourselves but we don’t really know ourselves.
We are waiting on something outside of us and have forgotten how beautiful and resourceful and resilient and creative we are.

We are all artists. We are artists of life.
Over the last 7 years I have been meeting myself.
I no longer struggle with depression.
The reason I don’t struggle with depression anymore is because I don’t press anything down anymore.

Pause.. meet myself

What are the consequences of your shit What are the outcomes of your shit?
It is much easier to see someone else’s shit then love and meet my own shit.

Trust takes time. Trusting yourself is not an innate experience.
Trusting myself has helped me to Be Myself. That’s what Be You Means.

Self trust is not about material things.. it’s about who I be.

The natural evolution of trusting yourself is being yourself
But you have to meet yourself to trust yourself
So what’s possible if you trusted yourself?

Ask yourself:

What would I do if I trusted myself?
Is there a part of me that I really need to spend time with?

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If you feel an aligned pull to join our Soul-full Success Membership Community go to CoachWithAllison.Com

Expressive Arts Painting Retreat:
You Do Not Need To Be An Artist
Expressive arts is a combination of creating to touch your own heart, to get to know yourself
It is not about the performance of art. It is not about creating art for an outcome.
Message me to grab one of the last 5 spots.

Camp StarHeart Next Year May 1st – 4th:
Luxury, Hill Country, Texas Vibe

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Pick your Creative Play Back Up

allisoncrow — Mon, 31 May 2021 15:49:30 +0000

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A post shared by Allison Crow 💛 Humaning (@allison_crow)

Something clicked back on in me this morning. Early March…. I knew I was tired. I knew I needed a break from work creation. I kept serving my clients. I delivered my event and a retreat… I even enrolled for my deep coaching circle – all heart tasks at hand…

But I had no vision. No juice. My soul felt dehydrated- I just needed the space of nothingness and I have slept obscene amounts over the last 3 months.

I knew just to let the ebb be (especially work creation wise). I’ve been doing some pretty deep inner work with my own coach/therapist …. I’ve been meeting parts of myself I’ve pushed away or dismissed for years.

A few weeks ago I started craving painting again, somewhat sad that in 2017 I essentially put all paintbrushes down. Looking back I can see where I stripped down to bare bones to survive some deep emotional stuff.

It’s a challenge to go slow in the ebb. It’s a challenge to trust the need for rest. And it always pays off.

Today at my desk…. listening to music and looking at Pinterest of all things….. something pierced through a wall in my heart… the tears flowed and I could breathe again. I remembered:

I AM a CREATIVE SOUL!

Creativity through art is my juice- through personal creative play – I REMEMBER who I AM.

So much of my creativity has been mental business building creativity- and it has served me, BUT left me dry and tired.

Today, I felt like ALL of me… when I got dressed. When I put on an old denim shit and a white tank…. when I sat down, not to plan for work… but to just creatively explore.

I Remember.

What do you need to remember ???

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One Thing Smart People Forget to Do

allisoncrow — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 15:23:53 +0000

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.

Critical thinking, research, learning everything I could about whatever I was interested in brought me success, power, position.

Just like many of my high-achieving clients- our intellect and performance masked and hurried an ability to meet and manage emotions. We used force of productivity to shove down intense and uncomfortable feelings. And certainly, we weren’t taught these skills in our families or education.

Honestly, I was 7 years into a coaching career before I realized I had zero capacity for difficult emotions- I’d been bypassing them with “mindset and change your thinking.”

If you are like me and my clients, these buried emotions could often erupt instantly and unexpectedly- as rage, verbal violence, name-calling, cutting people off and out of our lives with no warning and other emotionally harmful behaviors. I particularly had a verbally violent rage that covered my deepest abandonment fears and pain.

Interestingly it was never coaching that led me to meeting my emotion. It was art, and expressive arts (therapeutic intuitive Painting).

This experience and training – in the context of a culture of polarized politics and some personal family stuff- gave me the opportunity to meet my own most tender parts.

My lifelong depression lifted and the anxiety intensified- as my thinking self wanted to continue to stop me from feeling.

Actually feeling and being with emotion and sensation has become a practice in my life and in my work w clients.

Thank you to the mentors like @wildheartqueen and @richlitvin @rebeccachingmft who make space for me to make space for my most tender parts. I am grateful to myself for being willing to dive into what felt like the darkest spaces of my heart.

I am almost 50. If you are reading this- whatever age- I invite you to begin meeting your emotions and feeling with space and compassion. It is the gift I want the whole world to have.

This is peace. This is wholeness. This is love.

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Coming Undone – From 2016

allisoncrow — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:29:37 +0000

Is it possible to be thankful for coming undone For the unraveling and losing my shit over and over in the past year?

I’m a leader. A small, but still public figure. My life’s work is supported by being online, outspoken, and having a tribe.

I’ve been complimented a thousand times for my light and positivity. And in the last 14 months, I’ve lost my shit daily. I have felt more shadow than light. And I’ve certainly not behaved like the leader my early mentors taught me to be.

But I am not leading from a pulpit. I am leading by living my life- feeling it all and choosing to look for love in all of it. I am being me.

Coming undone is the scariest and most vulnerable experience I’ve had as a human. I’ve lost loved ones, and clients, and at times felt like I lost myself.

But really, in the loss of my shit, I’m finding more of myself.

I had both a beautiful and frankly awful childhood. Trauma, chaos, raging, abuse and neglect set me up to be either a complete mess or a complete over achieving control freak…. to be a lover or a fighter.

I don’t know if it was choice- or my psyche- I was just so fearful of the pain I chose the rainbows and unicorns. I chose to fix things, to solve problems, to make peace. I chose to overcome vs succumb. I chose lemonade.

At 24 I was clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

At 44 I finally know why. I’ve pressed all these shadow emotions down. I believed that if I let them out…..

– I would die from the pain

– people would leave me

– I would drag others down if I allowed those feelings to surface.

– I was crazy, or would be seen as crazy and this rejected

– it’s not ok to be a mess

– I had to be positive and choose love

And so much more.

I actually enjoy JOY. I enjoy seeing the glass half full. I enjoy feeling good. In well over 50k coaching calls, every client has ultimately wanted one thing- to feel good. Every goal, achievement, desire, healing– ultimately was for the purpose of feeling good.

Outside of coaching, in ordinary life, drinking, shopping, spending, small talk, diversions, and a list of a million more things…. were all for the subtle, and perfectly human desire to FEEL Good.

And then in September if 2015 the feeling bad started. Death of close loved ones, loss of stamina and physical health, deeper depression, tax burden, failures in business, parents aging and ailing physically and financially….. and me trying to FIX it all.

And clearly, from the moment it all began to show up in the tsunami that can be life is, I saw that no coaching or spiritual bypass would work here.

The only way out would be through.

The ONLY way to healing and JOY would actually be the allowing of the feeling bad… the coming undone.

They said I risked it all when I took off my clothes on stage last year in a talk about stripping down to my authentic self. But none of us knew that after getting naked, I’d have to turn inside out.

And here I am. Undone.

Not ready to make nice or smoke unicorn and rainbow crack. It feels riskier than getting naked because I could topple my business (which I put entirely too much of my self worth in). I could have another husband leave me, I could lose more friends for being “too much.”

And this season, feeling the shadow is the work I can’t not do. And I can’t not do it in private. It does none of us justice.

I always share behind the curtain. And so why stop now. HA!

The political and global climate of the last year, the election and in the current aftermath – has been my particular UNcorking. My Kracken is unleashed.

I have been without grace, overbearing and downright nasty and mean. Ive had intentions of being curious and compassionate, fierce but loving…. and instead I’ve yelled and accused and raged. I’ve sobbed and screamed and wept and been incapable or unwilling to listen. I’ve been overbearing and ugly. I’ve been terrified by the rage and fear and grief that clearly are alive INSIDE of me.

I haven’t, and I’ll bet most of you haven’t either, been taught to feel these feelings in a healthy and appropriate way.

I. Am. Still. Learning.

I don’t have answers. And today, despite the shame and guilt I feel, I also feel thankful. I am grateful that the ugliness in me has demanded to be seen.

It has not been pretty. And there is no quick making nice of it.

And as my beloved Thich Nhat Hanh says,

“There, there Anger, I see you. I will not leave you. I am here for you.”

“There, there, Terror and Fear, I see you. I will not leave you. I am here for you.”

“There, there, Pain I Think Will Kill Me, I see you. I will not leave you. I am here for you.”

Finally, after 20 years of personal and spiritual seeking and practice, I finally see you. I will not leave you. I am here for you.

And I am grateful to you. And somehow I know that I will be put back together again. And I will have many more undoings as long as I am human. And I will keep going.

This is an entirely new version of love. This is an entirely new making and BEing of me.

Allison

Ps. I have not gotten here alone. The sacred space I’ve chosen to feel these feeling has been the Expressive arts with

Chris Zydel

. And I couldn’t not have done this deep work if I hadn’t had the loving leadership of

Rich Litvin

who always supported and honored me being wholly and vulnerably me.

I have had the loving and allowing support of friends and colleagues in sacred containers and circles. 4pc, animal medicine sisters, my own clients, and my Expressive Arts training sisters.

And of course my husband who is my rock. Heaven when he doesn’t understand or agree- he never leaves. He stays. And loves.

The story is not over… it is just beginning.

References:

Stripping down video:https://youtu.be/y8jEEfdqdBk

Not ready to Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks: https://youtu.be/pojL_35QlSI

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Expressive arts…. diving in to the Underworld

allisoncrow — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 00:22:46 +0000

I certainly have posted #toomuch today. And I’m a too much woman.

I am learning every day to love- deeply. Not just the good stuff – but also the deep shadow stuff. As I own my shadow- it frees me from deep pain… and releases me to love you without manipulation- but from a giving place instead of getting.

As I lean into discomfort- and listen to my body- and my inner wisdom- and feel all there is to feel- I set myself free.

I see my hate.
I see my fear.
I see my judgment.
I see my avoidance.
I see my insecurities.
I see my delusion.
I see my rage.
I see my unfaithfulness.
I see my disregard for my neighbor.
I see my intolerance of your shit. I see my intolerance of my own shit.
I see my massive projection on to all of you and especially to my most beloved.
I see my lack of compassion.
I see my pride and ego and excruciating need to feel valid and right and liked.

There, there, shadow self. I see you. I will not leave you. I am here for you.

Ps. This is a messy as fuck and painful process

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