HEART Archives - Allison Crow

Take Time to Look (& Listen)

allisoncrow — Wed, 21 May 2025 15:32:36 +0000

The last thing I want to do when life feels SLOW is slow down even more. Many months ago, I came across this painting by Sarah Bamford Seidelmann. It landed in my feed, and I instantly purchased a wood print from her. It has been over my left shoulder, helping me remember who I am, since I unpacked it.

“Take time to look,” said Georgia O’Keeffe. My own brain also added, “Take time to listen.”

The impossible standards conditioned into my brain expected insight and direction in a flash. My soul knows better, but that did not stop so many parts of me from being irritated, frustrated, self-blaming & shaming, and even afraid.

The vision, the next, the path… has been right here all along in dozens of tiny puzzle pieces. Thirty years ago, soul seeds were planted when I discovered the work of Thomas Moore in a Boulder, Colorado bookstore.

I KNEW.
I’ve always known, and of course, like many of us do, I’ve been distracted in the living of life, in the unbecoming of my training, and in the gaining of wisdom that only experience can bring. Of course, this had to wait until my 3rd Act.

It’s all here.
No big flash today, just stepping forward into the re-enchantment of everyday life from a grounded, weathered, and strangely confident place.

I’ve always known and now it’s time to harvest what has been reblooming all along.

“The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life” gave me permission to have a diverse portfolio of interests and expertise from my early 20s. A scholar, teacher, counselor, psychologist, spiritual student, poet, artist, writer, another kind of mother, and tender of souls in life and work.
“The Education of the Hear t” and “Elemental Self.” (All by Thomas More and all on my shelf for 25-30 years).

My own company, Soul-Full Living, LLC – although my business has evolved over the years, SOUL-FULL remains the guiding path. SELF connection and trust amidst an enticing and distracting world are still the fuel.

The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope, and my own book Unarmored: Finding Home in the Wild Edges of Being Human.

I could list 132 more puzzle pieces that have come together to undoubtedly show me that my mission is in moments, not in moonshots or impact.

In a world of volatility, uncertainty, and complexity, being connected to self, source, and the present moment matters. Intentional living, community, and expression of creativity, poetry, nature, caring conversations, and everyday enchantment – this is the world I am committed to creating.

Take time to look. Take time to listen. Trust yourself. Let it take time.

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UNLEARNING (In my journal)

allisoncrow — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:11:36 +0000

Today is one of those days when all the dots connect, and I can see how the past has led me to now. My now is ordinary; there is no monumental milestone or achievement. There is nothing to brag about, nothing you will admire as fabulous.

Unlearning isn’t a popular or particularly pleasing journey. It’s often heavy and certainly not inspirational low-hanging fruit to sell in a coaching program. “I can help you make more money.”

If I were really brave, I would share more of my unlearning with you out loud, but I am still sensitive to what you think about me.

Still.

Most of all, if I weren’t afraid of being so “negative.” There’s some programming and “not truth.”

Do you think nature says, “I shouldn’t be so negative#8221; or even God? Buahahahah. Nope.

We can not escape life’s difficulties even if we do everything we can to escape them. But we can learn to access our own SELFSOUL to be with ourselves and others in the difficulties (and the delights).

Unlearning IS a valid path to SELFSOUL trust. I added SOUL because the SELF-TRUST I am teaching in my work, and living in my life is trust in the INFINITE SOUL within you. The GOD inside of you that you are.

It was always calling, even from way back in 3rd grade, when at HP Elementary, I was compelled to say a prayer in chapel because I was tired of hearing the shame, fire, and brimstone messages about avoiding hell. My little 3rd-grade SOUL knew back then that it was CONNECTION and relationship, not control. And here we are at 52—seeing it all led me to this ordinary moment—where it is more than a theory; it just is.

Alli, you asked for a SOUL-full life for many years, and you’ve been living it all along and are living it here in this moment. You found it by not trying to escape your humanity but by exploring it all the way to the wild edges.

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The Practice of Connection over Control

Elyse Rich — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 13:54:57 +0000

Episode 203 – The Practice of Connection over Control

Another road riff episode!

It’s Sunday morning, 8:23 am as I record this and I’m heading out to my therapeutic horseback riding lessons. After a difficult week, I’ve got some insights and lessons settling into my bones. There might be a few tears!

Y’all know everything has an analogy, right?
It’s not even an analogy, life just repeats itself in so many patterns and I see and experience the patterns and love sharing these connections with you – so that we can all SELF-connect a bit more deeply in our lives. (PS…seeing and making connections is an ADHD thing).

Today’s episode topic is control or connection and the lessons the horses and life are teaching me.

The skills of connection over control and protection are new for many of us and they require compassionate practice.

Time on task gives us the experience of moving from controlling a situation to connecting and moving through it.
It takes us from trying to do something to becoming one with doing something. I hope you enjoy the episode – from my tender heart to yours.

Love,

Allison Crow

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

Elizabeth Gilbert: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Website and things to see and read
1:1 Coaching
Book you will love: Unarmored: Finding Home in the Wild Edges of Being Human

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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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Another Kind Of Mother

allisoncrow — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:25:30 +0000

Maiden – Mother – Crone.

Tone: Deep contentment with a grandmother smile.

As I enter the crone years of my life – many past griefs are resurfacing in dreams and intrusive thoughts. I call them pebble dreams – because they are smaller now, not like the avalanche of boulder dreams I had as I entered my 40s.

It’s as if those old wounds, mostly processed and held years ago, come to pop in one more time to remind me of the sum of my story so far. Those stones changed the direction of the life I thought I would have.

This morning, a book I was reading asked me this profound question, “What has life entrusted to me#8221;

I’m going to really marinate on what my answer is – and the first thing that popped into my thoughts was what life didn’t entrust to me that I thought it would.

I am 51. I have never been pregnant. Ever.

For the first 32 years of my life – I thought I wanted 5 kids. A giant gaggle of children all close in age like my mother had.

I thought my career would be wife and mom and maybe mentor to college-age women who wanted to be a wife and mom. It was extreme – and born out of the sheltered religious norms of my childhood communities. I also thought I would marry a man in khaki pants and boots with a business suit and a ranch for us to go to on the weekends.

Peel away the religion – which I do not miss; simply, I never had a child or children of my own. At some point, this became a conscious choice. My ego wanted a child – one that looked like Bill and me – tall with a big forehead and thick hair and probably good at basketball and writing, and a girl, only a girl. That’s how I knew my soul was not here to have a child.

There is both freedom and clarity – and a pang of grief.

Life entrusted me with something entirely different. Something I didn’t know I could or would want when I was a child or young woman. Life entrusted me to be another kind of mother. My love and legacy live in way more family trees than my own. I have mentored thousands of mothers and fathers and born a thousand children and sent them off to live and thrive in the world once they came to maturity, and now I am a grandmother of these.

Now I only wonder who will be at my bedside when I cross over to the other side.

What has life entrusted to you?

Photo: Marmaduke & Allison 1972

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Tool for Remembering Your Head and Heart in Business

allisoncrow — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:59:11 +0000

In this post: Tools to help you remember your professional credibility while being a heart-centered human, or to remember your heart if you can get head-bound.

All those years ago, when I told my boss, “I’m not leaving you; I’m moving toward me,” I left and started an LLC called Soul-Full Living. Systems without heart and soul suffocated me, so I set out to create what I needed.

As early as 2nd grade, I could see Human Hearts that the structures and systems glossed over. Once I’d spent a few years in a business culture that pursued profit at all costs, I knew I had to step out to help others, and myself create a business that didn’t suck the soul out of our being.

In the world, not of the world Isn’t that the saying?
A client called me this morning for some help with enrolling for the last few spots for a program she is offering. Taking a breath to remember that the head could be unbound by connecting to the heart – I helped her with a few strategies for connecting and soulfully marketing her offering.

“You’re so good at copywriting,” she said.

“Actually, I’m not,” I replied, ” What I’m good at doing is dropping beneath the head and structures and SEEING the hearts of my people and talking about that.”

Cultivate a balance of Head and Heart in your business, and you can’t help but thrive. I spent most of 2022 in my heart- holding the heart of my family, my dogs, my clients, and myself. It was what the season called for. I put my professional panties on the shelf for a season to tend to life. As life settles back in, it’s time to bring the balance back. Pro Panties ON!

Useful Tool: Create a Poster for YOURSELF – of the values that beat in your heart on one side, and then inventory your credible professional self on the other. I see head people forgetting the heart, and I see heart people forgetting their credibility.

The head and heart make a powerful partnership if you intentionally cultivate the two.

Here’s my poster.
Now make one for yourself and keep it somewhere VISIBLE to remind you of who you really are and the skills you have.

💛, Allison

#heartcenteredbusiness #humanleadership #soulfulwork #connecttoyourheart #rememberyourcredibility

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Wild Edge Of Being Human: Musings on Grief.

allisoncrow — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 16:22:56 +0000

Grief does not feel like the wisest business strategy lately – Especially as a coach – A small protector part of me -influenced by “perfection only” past mentors, feels this deep obligation to be cheery and “positive.” (Those same mentors always “shoulded” that concise was imperative. Buahahah. This is not concise. NOTHING I do is concise).

I know that is just a part of me – a part that wants to be accepted and not rejected. I also know that humans need human leaders and public people who hold space and compassion for the wild edges of being human. This is the work I came to do in myself and for the world.

It’s a breeze to hold the pretty center – it’s another thing to lead and BE in the wild edges. Grief, my friends, is not in the shiny center; it is the definition of the wildest and most unpredictable of edges.

The grief of losing Leroy is the easiest of grief. I feel more familiar with some versions of this heartbreaking experience. Francis Weller speaks of the 5 Gates of Grief in his book The Wild Edge Of Sorrow(see image).

The Grief that is asking for my presence is the 4th Gate. Three recent moments helped me come to this awareness – gifts through connection with others (not with my head in a book of information but through relationships) have helped me SEE clearly.

The first was my ADHD diagnosis 11 months ago and how the symptoms have impacted me + and that I harshly judged and hated parts of me – incessantly trying to FIX these defaults for 49 years. It is wobbly holding those as ISness and considering a path forward where I create accessibility for myself instead of trying to fix something that isn’t broken, only different.

The 2nd was the ACA Adult Children of Alcoholics Bill of Rights, a beloved shared with me. Already coming into my own awareness of and recovering from people pleasing, over-functioning, over-achieving + boundaries – this document spelled out losses so clearly – in 20 distinct and familiar points. A gut punch…but also a re-set point. And so much grief in my body. My head already gets it, but my body is coming online and integrating, feeling, and releasing. And my thinking parts have a hay day with the discomfort.

The third was in a session with my new coach yesterday: I remembered the 18-year-old me – so full of hope and faith, innocence, and ignorance -and physically strong and athletic. Joyful because she didn’t know. She didn’t know because she was young and privileged, and protected. She had so many dreams and so much belief. She was sourced in religion and brainwashed in privilege and ableism. I felt both sorry for her and jealous. I have been beaten down by what has not happened that I had so much faith would in life and work. I’ve been timid around desire and goals. I’ve been too tired to want as I chopped wood and carried water in this last season of ailing parents, ailing dogs, other private family matters never mentioned here, and caring for my business, marriage, mental health, and heart attack.

As I compassionately sit with this – and allow myself to be held in the presence of this grief and validation- my body acclimates to the discomfort, and I remember that I am safe- struggling but not broken. And that it is just moments of struggle. It is not my I AMness.

And then hope comes back in. There is a way to have hope and faith. I don’t have to go back to being the 18-year-old (or any other version of my joyful-faith-filled selves), but I can cultivate the hope and faith, and strong body of the 51-year-old woman I am. This feels both exciting and crushing to be a beginner all over again.

If you read UNARMORED all the way to the end… you’ll have read the part where the HUMANness reconnects with the spark of Spiritual again, followed by a heart attack; that, for me, was a metaphor for restarting my heart with the electricity of SPIRIT.

That’s where I stand today.

Comfortable in my humanness, holding others in theirs, and now ready to build both my physical strength and my faith and prayer – in my own unique way. And ‘strong ankles”. I’ll share that story another day.

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Allow the Fallow: Your Struggle is Valid.

allisoncrow — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 13:22:24 +0000

2022 has been a year of difficult events and circumstances. A multi-layered shit sandwich for sure. Do you know what I’m most proud of Allowing myself to suffer, feel uncomfortable, and be “a mess.”

I am more alive because I did not contain myself to the narrows of “positivity” or “learning a lesson.” I did not constrict myself into a tiny container store pretty package for presentability.

My Soul is more nourished today because I allowed the fallow season. I wrestled, wined, and spilled over the edges. And it was fucking glorious.

I didn’t need to invalidate it because it wasn’t as bad as another. Stop that gaslighting shit. To yourself and others.

There are simply some seasons where the content and events simply suck. Your suffering is valid.

You are human.

What if you didn’t leave yourself and chose presence and compassion instead?

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Life Hard You’ve done nothing wrong.

allisoncrow — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 22:03:58 +0000

I’m sooo done with the hard. It has been a year of gut punches, grief, and stress. Part of me feels the fresh of fall and a spark of vitality… so ready to be done with the hard.

But the hard is not done with me.

The whiplash is exhausting.

I’m exhausted, and I love me.

I’m literally trying to control death and grief even though I can’t – and I love me.

I’m feeling good one day and nauseated, muscle soreness and angina the next.

It just is. It is ALL the edges of life that live us. There is no escape. There is no leaving.

There is only turning directly to face what IS and surrendering to it. Moment by moment.

And make no mistake. That doesn’t make the hard more peaceful. It’s still hard. It just removes the second sword of making the hard harder with my excessive judgment.

Whatever you are going through… you’re doing it just right. It isn’t easy. And you’re doing it just right. You’ve done nothing wrong.

You aren’t in Gods disgrace of you are struggling or have an onslaught of life punches… you’ve not sinned… your karma isn’t coming for you— you are just human. Simple HUMAN.

No one escapes these seasons.

#wildesgesofbeinghuman

Writing about it helps.

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Deep Inner-Work – Both/AND

allisoncrow — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:13:02 +0000

If you are doing deep inner work, transformational work- I see you and honor you and GET that it’s a scribbly-rollercoaster ride of ups-down-all-around. I get that it can be heavy being with some of these parts. Today I want to remind you that both the messy transformation and your powerful remembering can exist at the same time.

You can process and touch old stored sadness, and touch the power of your light and wholeness in the same breath.

It takes courage to go within… and for that be tender and gentle. And remember that SELF energy also entails bright clarity, powerful courage, confidence, and divine creativity.

Practice being present with the BOTH/AND.

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