Grief Archives - Allison Crow

On Grief – From The Archives

allisoncrow — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 16:23:04 +0000

This was in my Facebook memories today – and I thought it would be nice here on my own home turf.

From June 18, 2021

Good morning.

Yesterday was heavy. And full of grief. Grief is the one I really want to avoid…. I found myself edging around the deep pit. You know, the painful, sharp black hole of grief- when it hits the center of your heart and swallows it up.

I feel so different from the woman I was when I was younger—not just a child but a young woman…. Quietly, I’ve been asking myself, “When did I change When did I shut off that part of me?”

Last night, as I wept quietly in bed, cuddled up with Rocky Potato and Bill—neither of whom knew I was crying…. I remembered a few moments and people. Those visual and visceral memories…

People who hurt me so profoundly for leaving. One was my ex-husband. He left at 4 pm on a random Wednesday. He said he didn’t want to be married anymore. No reason, no lover…. Just unchoosing me. The ‘almost’ ultimate rejection.

Honestly, it broke me. It broke all of the dreams of a family, children, and lifelong love I’d had for myself as a young woman. The grief I felt that day with my back slumped next to the door he left through…. The physical pain of grief. Ugh. I feel glimpses of it, and I want to sleep forever just to not feel it. Loss triggers it, and it all comes rushing back.

All the losses. The leavers. And the LOVES….losses that never unchose me- they just died. Hank. Lulu. Rafa.

After my ex left- I began clumsily choosing myself. The ultimate rejection is me rejecting me… and I began to find a way to choose me…

That rejection, just like all the others, made way for miracles. But that nuance fucks with me. Yes. I feel better and love the life that I created and the path that has unfolded- completely. And I keep choosing to open when it hurts. To explore the places where I push away intimacy and connection because that fear is so embedded in my system.

I keep opening. And it doesn’t erase the pain of grief.

Both/and again.

Rocky is certainly dying. He’ll tell us when it’s time to let him go—- and for now, the loss hits that deep part, and it just hurts. It hurts because I love him so much. And it hurts because it reminds me that I have soooo much loss ahead of me.

Time ticks forward and loss paves much of the path ahead. Bill and I have discussed how he lost his dad unexpectedly- before we met. Someday, we will hold each other in grief- his mom, my parents, our siblings. The anticipatory grief.

Strangely- at 21, the anticipatory grief of my parents dying someday- put me in my first therapist’s office… and led me to the books that were early seeds of my glorious soul path of doing and providing space for deep inner work with my clients.

ALWAYS – the pain is only so much because the love is even greater. The deep goodness is richer than even the searing, breath-stealing pain.

And so I breathe… and put down the device on which I’m typing. It’s time to walk the dogs I love so much.

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Struggling with the Social Media Marketing Machine

allisoncrow — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 17:16:25 +0000

An insight about my creative process that may point you to insights about your own creative process:

When I openly acknowledge the hard and I can compassionately witness myself and even the tiniest of suffering, the hard often lifts within a few days.

It is a part of accepting the both/and – of living in the Wild Edges of Being Human.

PS TL/DR people move on. I’m not here for your dopamine hit; my writing is here to help me and then you think differently and change your life.

Current Hard:

In my current facebook memories – are the promos and images for the course I used to teach called Share Your Heart: Show Your Work – a delightful and helpful course about authentic marketing on social media. The course was reverse-engineered from what delightfully worked for me in the first 7 years of moving my business online after leaving corporate.

I LOVED and enjoyed my relationship with social media.

And currently -I don’t feel that love. I am aware that my lenses are cloudy and the “lens cleaner” is in my own hand, not outside of me.

Since 2008 I have created and shared prolifically online. Since even before that, if you count my blogspot blog.

I do love to write and to process and share with words.

I did thousands of live videos and have recorded almost 200 Podcast episodes. For the last four years, I have written and then published a book from my heart.

For most of that time, it was effortless – truly 98% spontaneous overflow of my precious yellow heart .

And that Sharing My Heart and Showing My Work allowed you all to get to know me – and many of you – hundreds – stepped forward to work with me in some way. It never felt like selling.

Recently, I have inner parts that are overwhelmed and irritated, and deeply sad about the extreme parts of crappy capitalism. My brain can’t unsee the patterns of greed. I, like many of you, often feel the burnout of crappy capitalism and the burnout of shitty social media. And yet, here I am, a capitalist, selling a high-fee service – a luxury. And my revenue has become reliant on me “Sharing My Heart and Showing My Work.”

“Content creation” in order to….. SELL has been repulsive to me. I feel like I’m standing in a house of mirrors and can’t escape it. Go viral, get followers, convert in your DMs, do this reel, do that tiktok, get famous on booktok…….

Be in the world, not of the world, became a mandate instead of an opportunity.

Of course, instead of letting it rest, I wrestle and inquire with that repulsion; I judge myself and become hard on myself – not mean, but certainly, I put pressure to come to a conclusion.

My discernment has gotten foggy, and I’ve slipped into full-on waiting for people to ASK to hire me. It’s been easier to judge others for not choosing my credibility and value than it has been to stand in it and make offers.

In writing this and speaking with my friend Jeanine – things are already starting to clear up. It makes perfect sense that those muscles would atrophy after the year I had last year. Grief and a heart attack will do that to you.

The questions I’m tenderly pondering in this content creation marketing kerfuffle:

What do I truly desire?

What would feel fun?

What obligations could I release?

What if I didn’t give SO much..what if I let less be more.

What’s possible in business and networking relationships away from social media?

What in the garden of my business is ready to be uprooted and released, what just needs some pruning, and what needs to be planted, anew?

And for now, I’ll end right there and just BE.

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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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The Stress of Caregiving

allisoncrow — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 17:27:20 +0000

The stress of caregiving.

So much caregiving this year. My parents and dogs required way extra-extra caregiving this year. From January until Leroy’s death last week. I chose this hard.

There is also relief in grief. The relief that we no longer have the physical and emotional, or financial burden of that intense caregiving. We have no regrets – but it was intense.

I can feel my nervous system softening out of the “on alert” mode. We are able to sleep through the night, and the daily mental load is sooooo much lighter.

Wooooo sah! Of course, we miss our Big Boy…, and he’s no longer sick and at peace. And we have a new layer of peace.

I can feel my brain starting to enjoy and create in space it simply didn’t have most of this year.

For anyone caregiving- not just emergency or acute illnesses, but even raising kids- that mental load takes up SO much capacity in your mind and body. I acknowledge the challenge of holding it all.

This is not complaining or victimhood. It is simple validation.

All year long, my writing coach would say- “of course, you feel XYZ or are in this fuzzy mental space- you are in the threat response.”

I was familiar with the threat response in the context of a visible outer threat or emergency- but this year, I got it in the context of a more subtle and extended pressure and responsibility. It still activates the threat response.

Stress is the number one contributor to illness and death. It’s a significant contributor to a heart attack- which I had in August.

This year has been hard AF …

AND already the gifts are showing.

I see myself internally and how I am interwoven with my climate. I see my clients and their context and the unique ways one’s individual mix of inner world and outer context – with that, I see shifts that can be considered for helpful & effective coaching.

I see more nuance.

I am committed to compassion. Self-compassion and compassion for others (I’m still working on this- I can get reactive and judge mental as a defense mechanism).

There is no ONE solution or fix-all for the stressors and challenges we have. Comparing our ”NOWS” to how it used to be is futile. There is only the unique you that is here in this unique climate and circumstances of life at the unique age and health you are in.

Be so tender with yourself. Be self-curious and listen within. Work with compassion-focused practitioners. Tend to your nervous system. Tend to your mind, to your heart, to your rest.

Sending so much love-

From a woman in a state of relief.

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