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Healing and Hope after Hard Journies with Colette Nies Von Hanna

Navigating Life’s Challenges: A Conversation with Colette Nies Von Hanna

Join me for a conversation with long-time family friend Colette Nies Von Hanna, who shares her journey and insights on being human. Colette, an organic gardener, socio-ecological feminist theologian, and energy researcher from New Braunfels, Texas, discusses the interconnection of ecological trauma and personal experiences. She reflects on her career shifts, including a political run, her academic pursuits, and community gardening efforts involving personal, professional, and spiritual growth. Colette shares her struggle with cancel culture, dealing with political and personal attacks, and the importance of self-awareness in activism and community involvement. She emphasizes the importance of resilience, authenticity, and vision despite facing extreme adversity and the challenges of social expectations.

Colette Nies Von Hanna, MSSW, MDIV

Activist, Socio-Ecological Feminist Theologian, Energy Researcher, Social Worker, Chaplain, 3rd Gen Organic Gardener, Aspiring Urban Farmer, Adoptive Mom, River-Goer, Rabble-Rouser, Bleeding Heart, who loves strong coffee and long naps.

The quote mentioned from my friend Justin’s LinkedIn page:  

“To the people who are emotionally sensitive, who care so much about everything no matter how hard they try not to, who notice even the smallest things and take everything to the heart, the struggle is valid. I hope you get surrounded with people who are kind enough to understand you and even if you can’t expect everyone to adjust for you, I hope you get extra patience from this world.”

— Kylie Yzobelle

Key Topics and Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction

01:08 Colette’s Background and Work

03:48 Personal and Professional Challenges

07:02 Running for Office and Facing Adversity

09:27 Navigating Political, Academic, and Spiritual Struggles

13:01 Reflections on Pain, Privilege, and Growth

25:14 Systemic Issues and Personal Resilience

29:46 The Weight of Awareness

30:38 Embracing Sadness and Hope

32:14 Understanding Bypassing

33:25 Facing Trauma and Healing

36:21 The Journey from Head to Heart

37:35 Learning to Feel and Express Emotions

48:13 Building a SELF-Centered Legacy

* Visit: Website: /

* Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison /coachingwallison/

* Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview /ifs/

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

/unarmoredthebook/

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The post Healing & Finding Hope After the Hard: Colette Nies Von Hanna, Socio-Ecological Feminist Theologian appeared first on Allison Crow.

“When I realized my pain came from wanting to be liked, I began to love myself. When I realised my pain came from wanting to be acknowledged, I started to see who I really was…”

This poem by Tanya Markul is a beautiful expression of the work we do in IFS and IFS coaching. We learn to self-lead, to self-regulate, and what it means to truly self-love.

Big love for you and all parts of you.

 

Your favorite life coach,

Allison

(pink flower or pink heart on any of my posts represents – be soft with the hard).

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Dreaming in Spanish with Sara Alvarado (and writing your story).

Live, it’s Allison Crow and Sara Alvarado!

We are going to be talking about telling your story and Sara’s new book,
Dreaming In Spanish: An Unexpected Love Story in Puerto Vallarta.

I adored this book! And I really did start thinking in Spanish after reading it.  It’s a story of healing, of unexpected and profound love. It’s a story of combining cultures and families, and so much more.  I hope you will enjoy this conversation and I know you will love Sara’s book. 

Love,

Allison

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

Dreaming In Spanish: An Unexpected Love Story in Puerto Vallarta

The post Dreaming in Spanish & Writing Your Story With Sara Alvarado appeared first on Allison Crow.

Scripture, in the traditional sense, only ever oppressed me, but writing every single day, exploring the words in my own being and putting them on paper is what set me free.

The post My Words are a Lamp and a Light appeared first on Allison Crow.

 

From an IFS lens:

all parts have benevolent intent managers are trying to control life so we don’t feel pain

they run daily life and give us the illusion of safety and control.

 

Many of my thinking parts are managers scrambling for certainty in an uncertain world. It’s been said that “all thinking is parts.” We must remember that the goal is not to eliminate parts but lead them with attuned love.

 

The post How To Handle Your Inner Critic appeared first on Allison Crow.

In conversation with my coach (and my therapist) – when I tap into the clarity of where I’m pulled to BECOME, the light shows up in my eyes in one instant, and then in the next, I hit the gaping space between where I am and where I want to go…

And I wobble.  

My voice begins to shake, and my stomach gurgles – my brain amps up her stories and excuses.  The doubt fires up and conspires with all the reasons not to grow. 

And my coach, Tony, lifts his hand and vibrates it horizontally where I can see it – to remind me of the wobble that happens when we are attuning to something new.  It’s a visual anchor to remind me to slow down and be with what I call the wobble. While he shakes his hand – he often says, “I’ve got you.” 

The Wobble is a Part of the Human Experience.

This week, I also saw the wobble:

• In a few of my clients, as they saw the responsibility they were pushing away instead of rising in their leadership
• In one of my writing colleagues as she hit a grand new awareness about who she is becoming through writing her story
• In a high school friend who was sharing some of her tender therapy realizations with me over a salad and a bowl of mac and cheese at Panera.  
• In a few of my clients as they bravely navigate becoming their more authentic selves even when the world asks for them to “fit in.”
• In a precious friend who held a hospice vigil with her dying mother. 

The Wobble is Not a Weakness

• It is a sign you are building strength and new muscle memory. 
• It is a sign you are attuning to new experiences.
• It is a sign you are attuning your nervous system to a new state of capacity and calm in the face of doubt and fear.
• It is a sign you are stretching.
• It is a sign of the becoming you are in the middle of. (yes, I ended that with a preposition). 
• If you are a goal person – it is proof you are making progress toward that outcome. 

The wobble, the soreness, and sometimes even big trembles are what live in the space between your atrophy and comfort — and the being or doing you are growing into.  

• How will you hold the wobble In your mind with your thoughts In your body?
• I offer to you to slow down, and hold the discomfort with compassion and strength.
• I plant the seed of remembering, “YES – this is growth, and it’s working,” when the discomfort rises up and starts to freak you up. 
• And finally, I invite you to be the one that says to all parts of you, “I’ve got you.”

“Where have you atrophied#8221; is a question I’ve been considering for myself and offering to my clients.

My wise inner self shows me were it’s time for me to build strength and courage to be with the wobble. Yours can show you too.

And if you are looking for a coach to help support you – one who can say, “I’ve got you,” as you lean in, I can help with that.

Here are a few ways I can support you.

This is the work I am helping my business owner clients do.  These are the conversations in my book Unarmored: Finding Home in The Wild Edges of Being Human. This is some of the focus of my live event Camp Cultivate in May, and this is the foundation from which we do group life and business coaching in my small membership program, Soulies: Self Leadership Society.  

Love, Allison 

The post What to Know About the Place Between Where You are and Where You Want to Go appeared first on Allison Crow.

Photos: The ACA Bill of Rights. The photos are of my handwritten version, and you can find the pdf version on the ACA website. The second photo is my visual reminder to be clear on what is mine and what is not.

The problem with BE LOVE for recovering people pleasers.
Asking a recovering people pleaser and recovering over -functioner- to BE LOVE for other people is like asking an alcoholic to drink. An alcoholic uses alcohol to cope, but the people pleaser uses fawning, over-functioning, high achievement, and being pleasing to cope. We do this subconsciously to manipulate our experience of the world…and are rewarded for it in many ways. Many of us have lost out authentic selves in service of BE LOVE.

When a beloved recently shared with me the ACA Bill of Rights – It was all there so clearly – it struck me deeply as rights I would like to internalize and embody. Most of these rights I never gave myself – because people-pleasing worked for me from a very young age. Being the “good girl” worked for me. These were my unconscious coping skills.

These coping skills worked until they didn’t. The unbecoming and unlearning is a process. Becoming the sovereign and boundaried me is a process. I share because many of my clients and many of you are in the unbecoming of old patterns and finding your sovereignty and authentic SELF.

And the TRUEST way for recovering people pleasers to contribute love to the world, is to turn the LOVE inward – to all of our parts. This is a skill we need to develop and practice – insight is not enough.

I call this SELF-CENTERED (the exact thing many of us were told not to be). When I am centered in the love and SELF-leadership of all my parts, then my being contributes love to everyone in my orbit.

I hope this helps.
I know seeing it clearly spelled out helps me.

💛 Allison

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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.

 

AC

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Wild Edge Of Being Human: Musings on Grief. appeared first on Allison Crow.

I disagree.

When I really self-connect with the feeling parts of me, I get the BEST and TRUEST wisdom… I get information about what’s UNDER the feeling and emotion. Emotions are the means of getting my attention so that I might slow down to get curious and go deeper.

Even the deep pangs of loss and grief are my teachers and give me hope I wouldn’t have without the loss. Being willing to feel all the way to the edges of this human condition is giving me life!

Here’s what I sense for me for the coming year:

Yet, ANOTHER deeper layer of truly being ME – without the masks. Embracing my quirks of using so many words instead of being concise as a speaker and teacher. Living in my unfilteredness MORE instead of less because I feel shame put on my by the world’s SHOULDS.

Yesterday I was hit with a wave of business grief when listening to a podcast with Brene Brown, Adam Grant, and Simon Sinek. A younger part of me has longed for “notoriety” and success like they have for years. But wanting and having are two different things. And my reasons for wanting that have been healed more and more. I wanted that to feel significant. But now that I FEEL significant from within, I sense no need or desire for that and I certainly don’t want the effort and complexity of that much BIGNESS.

On that podcast, I was struck by two terms – and I’m stealing them and putting them in my own context.
Maker and Manager.

Having that much bigness requires a large portion of “managerness” just for function. And my system doesn’t function well at all with that much “managerness.” Even with leveraged help, my brain stalls with so much mental load.

I am a MAKER! Not a manager. I am a creator and a creative. I am sensitive and tender. I require excessive space to really thrive. I do love ideas, and coaching, and teaching, and writing, and making art. I crave connection and belonging more than scale.

Even though for years I have been living in my authentic self – there is another layer that has yet to surrender to who I AM instead of the pressure I take on to be.

Here’s a really private thought: Do you know how subconsciously I feel so much shame about my coaching income That I haven’t doubled or grown beyond what I make.

There are so many big swinging dicks blasting their million dollar + revenue in my professional world, and there is always the lure and pressure of scaling. Many of my own client’s incomes surpass my own.

What’s funny is – I’ve sustained a solid 175-210k a year gross for all but 2 of my years in this industry (the first year and the first year I went out on my own were both below 100k). Even this year, when I didn’t sell shit for the last 7 months of the year because I had to take care of personal things more than business – I thought my business would suffer – the money still came in. I usually net about 50% of that. This year my business will net less due to book and event expenses. My living expenses are deliciously low, and somehow my savings helped cover hospital and vet bills out the wazoo this year.

And my brain has been conditioned that that is NOT ENOUGH. Can you imagine being ashamed of that?
The fact that I have had a sustainable coaching practice for almost 20 years is an INCREDIBLE accomplishment. And I am done with the not-enoughness. I’m am done with MORE MORE MORE….

I wanna MAKE MAKE MAKE, Create Create Create, Play Play Play, and Connect, Connect Connect.
I wanna cultivate connection and be in my humanness – not drive drive drive. I wanna trust myself more than I ever have – 2023 has shown me that I CAN.
I wanna be in the PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE of living and creating to the wild edges of being human. I’d love to start speaking on stages again – as long as I am free to be me- no filters. I’d love to get paid for writing, and I’d love delicious coaching partnerships. I’ll keep getting paid for lots of the work I create and the help I offer. It’s just what I do. The significance and abundance I thought I didn’t have – has been in me all along.

As my husband once said so wisely, “Allison, I love that you are into growth and change- it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you. But you try so hard to grow, I don’t try to grow at all and I still do.”

It’s been here on my wall all along on this poster. And as my system does, it starts in my cognitive brain, and slowly through space and practice it becomes REAL in my whole body and nervous system.

AND SO IT IS.

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