Remember 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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Life is Suffering – And Hummingbirds

allisoncrow — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 15:06:14 +0000

Life is suffering – AND.

Yup – both and again.

You know those plastic shit hummingbird feeders The ones that need to be cleaned every week because they can get moldy and kill the birds The ones that make a big sugary mess in your kitchen and all the way back out to the yard when changing over the water The ones that get brittle in the 100-degree plus temps and ultimately crack?

Here’s what works better.
Scorched wildflowers. Death in the garden.

This spring, the wildflower garden was all a/bloom – epic in her color and textures. And now, the heat has made a mess of tall-reaching-for-water-sticks with dead heads begging to be trimmed into something not so ugly……

And just like life – dead flower heads present an offering. We’re so prone to hate the suffering and the ugly, but the ugly brings seeds.

While you run with that metaphor, I will tell you literally who is thriving in the scorched earth of my dead wildflowers- the hummingbirds.

A few dozen every day, at all times of the day, are finding sustenance in something I regard as done, dead, and an eyesore.

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Tanya Markul Poem That Says So Much

allisoncrow — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 14:07:43 +0000

“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.

Many of us spend most of our lives attempting to regulate others. When our protectors are leading, we are masking and maneuvering to be liked and to belong – and there is NOTHING wrong with you – that’s actually innate biology. See how babies – with no vocabulary or logic are learning and responding at the attunement level to stay connected.

We learn to disconnect from ourselves and then live in those patterns subconsciously until we can learn and practice being the primary support and care we’ve always needed; PRACTICE IS KEY, and time on task so that our body’s muscle memory and the cells in our being get it.

We also can’t get rid of these protective parts, but that’s what we’re taught to do – control it away. What works and seems counter-intuitive is connection and the very attunement we were seeking as babies and children.

It is time to learn to SELF-regulate, to SELF-lead.

This is the awkward work my clients and I are doing. In the context of whatever life is handing them )biz, family, relationship, children) we are learning new ways of BEING WITH and leading these activated (an no longer working) parts.

If you would like to do this messy, awkward, both awesome, and hard as fuck work to really get to know and meet and trust all parts of you, I have 4 more spots on my roster. I’m primarily working with people in year-long agreements right now- to be on the journey long enough to build new practices through time on task.

What I’m noticing in me and in my clients is a greater sense of calm grounding, especially in formerly triggering situations. Less grasping out there and more confidence within, less tolerance for manipulations and bullshit, and more connectedness in general.

A client once asked, what does this do to be generative to my business (We’re often so used to torturous productivity and sales stuff being fed to us). My business clients KNOW what works to generate tactically. What’s getting in the way isn’t business and marketing skills – it’s the “inner management team and their distractions, doubts, and procrastinations that block creativity and courage. I can help with that.

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).

This poem is by Tanya Markul from The She Book.

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You Forget. It’s Not Your Fault & Here is What to do About it.

allisoncrow — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 14:53:02 +0000

Because you are human, because you live in a society whose systems are set up to make you forget – remembering can be your most vital practice.

Seriously, you aren’t broken; you’ve done nothing wrong – our systems literally are built on you out-sourcing your self-trust and remembering. When you forget, you give away power and buy stuff you don’t need without thinking. (I love buying stuff I don’t need – with clear intention).

Because you are engaged in life and work and smart as fuck, your mind and mental managers like to move fast through your ideas. Sometimes they get congested and confused. That’s normal.

If you knew that you would regularly – as in super often – FORGET who you BE What ritual could you set up so that you REMEMBER who you are?

. . .Because from that place, everything works with more lube. Flow has space to flow from the remembering.

And remembering doesn’t just happen. That’s why you suffer. We have to cultivate it.

You are not alone, dear human. Even though happy, and excited, and clear, I could feel a sense of forgetting when I sat down at the desk today – and my pre-planned ritual of journaling and writing with a SELF-ENERGY focus – brought me back to remembering. I won’t share the top half of that page quite yet (maybe someday -as you know, I’m pretty unfiltered)…but where I ended up, because of the daily practice, was in the remembering, and now I am able, from my heart to be here for you, and to gently take the next steps of my day.

Love, Your Favorite Life Coach.

Allison

I hope you remember.

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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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Fuck the Coaching Industry

allisoncrow — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:52:53 +0000

My mind was so full of inspiration this morning. She wanted to go in about 17 different directions, listen to two different podcasts and one audiobook, and write 27 things for you.

Happy Mind, full of intention, running a bit fast.

Slow down, Allison. Connect first.

And I listened within and spent the first 30 minutes of my writing practice looking through my 2022 journal.

There’s some GOLD in that journal. My own wisdom is the best medicine (and sometimes funny as fuck) when I’m on an insight bender trying to source outside and over-do.

More to come – but remember this truth as you consider who you are going to partner with in 2023.

I got had in 2022. Hook, line, and sinker fell for it and paid big for it. The best lesson is, remember allison, remember who the fuck you are.

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Your Leaders are Mortal

allisoncrow — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:45:19 +0000

Your leaders, whether they show it or not, are human.

After my heart attack – one of my former clients sent me a message saying, “I love you, and your heart attack scared the shit out of me because I relate to you & can’t stand the thought of you being scared….and MORTAL.”

I spent the first 46 years of my life escaping my mortality and humanness, and boy, did it please other people. The “positivity.”

The full of hot air promises to manifest with thought alone. A pretty pollyanna package with tons of mental information, but also hiding disassociation from my own body. I was wearing the masks society conditioned me to wear in exchange for validation and acceptance.

I note the people who, the moment I let any humanness slip – even with humility and an attempt to repair – REJECTED me and LEFT. They only wanted to plastic and polished version of my leadership. But their ability to hold my humanness was never their responsibility; it was always, only ever mine.

I know that when I don’t have the capacity for the messy and uncomfortable parts of being human in others – it is only ever a reflection of the lack of love and compassion I have for myself.

I would rather be rejected for showing pieces of the wild edges of my humanness than be adored for being a masked and performative me.

This may not make for popular or feel-good leadership. Last night the thought “Leadership is a LIE” crossed my mind. It only serves to create an above or below status, and traditionally it requires one to present their masked and plastic performing selves in service of shareholders to the front-facing world, thus leaving an impossible standard of measurement that followers will no doubt, consciously or subconsciously, hold themselves to.

For me, Leadership is horizontal and circularish – I am the other you – I just might be willing to go first. Let’s go together – I’ll be there right by your side.

Yes, dear J, I am mortal, and you can relate to me because I will tell you the truth, and I will tell you the truth is OK – even if it doesn’t feel comfortable.

You are mortal too. It’s not a failure to be mortal. It’s not a moral failure to have a heart attack, or to experience anxiety, or overthinking, or be out of alignment, or to be in the whiplash of grief. Enlightenment isn’t escaping our humanness; it’s loving it fiercely. Stop fighting and harshly judging something that doesn’t need to be FIXED.

What if we put the energy we spend into bypassing, disassociating, shaming, judging, and ignoring our humanity ~into holding it with compassion This requires entirely new “programming” and muscle memory. It takes practice. It takes repetition. It requires choice, over and over and over – as we are undoing the “you’re doing it wrong” that has become a part of every cell in our bodies and bones.

Most days (I’m still practicing), I no longer need it to be easy; I just need it to be real.

I notice that when I can LET myself be REAL with myself – which means breathing self-compassion and self-acknowledgment for the most uncomfortable states, I experience – when I can gently welcome all parts of me (without the intent to fix or heal or change those parts) – THAT is when my heart softens, and I remember that I am ok.

Another benefit is I don’t buy as much shit I don’t need.

Another benefit is that I want to punch other people in the face WAY less.

Some will see my willingness to meet my own suffering as indulging complaints – that I am in a victim mindset.

Who are the victims, really Is it the ones willing to belong to their own sweet selves with compassion and enoughness, even and especially when it is a tad messy & extremely uncomfortable Or those jumping through plastic masked hoops to pretend they aren’t exactly what they are?

Make no mistake, this path of self-compassion and choosing the holiness of humanness is NOT EASY. But this is the hard I choose.

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Drop Below Your Head to Inner Authority

allisoncrow — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:21:33 +0000

Inner Authority: hello fellow recovering people pleasers.

Hello, over-functioning and over-empathic leaders.

All these things work until they don’t… and now here you are realizing so much of what made you successful was behavioral patterns born out of childhood trauma, emotional neglect…. And the entire effing world and systems and media and religion and school and everything that conditioned you to give your authority away!!!

Did I mention religion You know, the kind that, in 3rd grade, threatened to leave you behind if you didn’t fall in line….

And so even though you are successful, maybe you find yourself doing the next course, or high-end mastermind, or upgrading your branding or whatever the thing is you think will get you to that nebulous “there.”

Even after all the success and stability- you still get flooded with doubt, overbook your calendar out of obligation, neglect the things that nourish you even though you thrive better if you do them…. And then you spiral into shame because you “aren’t doing it right.”

well, here we’re are. And you are totally doing it right.

But don’t take it on my authority….

Slow down and check deep down in your own body, your own heart, in the place deeper and truer than all the voices….

What does that part of you say Remember who you BE. And that you are the decider. You CAN trust yourself to BE YOU, do things your way, slow down…. Build certainty in your own authority.

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Down on Social Media – An Insight that Helped Me Get My Groove Back

Elyse Rich — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 14:17:02 +0000

Who else has felt really down and burnt out and exhausted and annoyed or discouraged with Social Media I know I have and that was a very strange feeling for me because I love and have loved Social Media.

If you’re up for reclaiming your love for social media, I want to share a few things with you.

Being Self Led – Self is our core highest energy

What if I were Self Led on Social Media, What if my marketing was Self Led on Social Media , What if I used Calm , Curious, Compassionate, Connected, Confident, Creativity, Courage & Clarity with leading the marking team, time & content on Social Media:

How you can support yourself in being Self Led:

Clean Up Your Feed – If I see something that comes through my feed and my initial reaction is to feel bad about myself then I mute it/hide it
When ads come up that trigger me, I hit the hide ad and hit “irrelevant
I follow my hobbies
My Facebook feed is full of backyard birdwatching and nature
My Instagram is full of Art and Funny Stuff

If it’s taking me out of Self, I don’t want to spend my time on it or have it subconsciously in my feed

My Divine Facebook Manager is in charge of Social Media

In your system, Which part of you is scrolling, Which part of you is creating
Are you creating from scarcity, obligation, “I should be doing this,”
Or Calm Creativity Contribution Curiosity or Courage

If I’m leading from Self, I can do this My Way! You Do You!!

When I lead from Self I feel energized to create and energized to use the tools that I love! I am doing it from the place of sacred self remembering who I am, owning my credibility, owning my contribution, owning my gratitude..

Letting Self lead all of parts of my system has not only been helpful to managing stress and relationships
but also social media. I’m having a blast letting Self Energy be the leader!

I want you to Allow and get curious with yourself about what would it look like if you let your highest self lead in Social Media.

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

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This is 49, a Reflection of 17 years in Business for Myself

allisoncrow — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:51:17 +0000

One of the benefits of age is being able to connect the dots looking back.

This post is part journal to show up in my memories, year after year FOR ME…and part public for you – as a gift -that you might see we are all one.

I am clearly a woman of range. This has been a THEME in my life in the last few years, becoming, both/and, mystic & logistic, soul-full and strategic. This range is both a gift and a pain in my ass – because I can’t set it and forget it. Integration and attention are constant. There is no arrival. As you probably know, the work is never done.

I’ve built an ever-evolving business over the last 17 years from both the masculine and feminine. Sometimes independent of one another, and other times exquisitely integrated and working together. At this point, I am deeply proud of my intuition, coaching skills, and my strategy and structure both for myself and my clients. I am living my dharma, my soul’s calling as a woman of range — Soul-Full and Strategic as a life and business coach (both what you see online, and what you don’t see behind the scenes in my life and work).

At one point my Spirituality was so visibly integrated into my work…and eventually, “White Spiritual Women Coaches” became so cliche online, and in some places, many in the “spiritual coaching space” were being harmful – and I was terrified… OF DOING IT WRONG. I so wanted to be “good” so I pulled it back not just online by in my own personal practices.

*my need to do it RIGHT and GOOD was stronger than my personal faith and spiritual practices/connection. That need was also exacerbated by personal, political stress, and overstimulation in the last 4 years…and then covid climate. And so my nervous system has gripped what it thinks it can rely on. LOGIC, INTELLECT, and STRUCTURE. These things provided me physical and financial, and emotional safety.

What’s funny – actually perfect is this: I DID need to strengthen my logic, my structures, and my physical and financial, and emotional safety.

My soul needed to learn how to not numb difficult emotions and truths with toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing. I remember asking God one time, why someone close to me had such miraculous and OBVIOUS spiritual gifts and mine were so invisible. God said to me, “because you have so much faith you don’t need miracles.”

What I find so fascinating as I look back and connect dots, that have also been waves, is that it has been a MIRACLE to let my faith rest (i never lost it – I just stashed it in a closet for a while) and to be fully HUMAN and to build these structures in my life.

I’ve been saying, the last few years, that allowing myself to be fully HUMAN is the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had. Not just structure (chopping wood and carrying water) but also the deep emotional shadow work of meeting difficult (and often labeled negative) emotions.

As I lift my head to the light, this morning, from my “WORK” over the last 5 years…. I can see the form of what I have created and know that it is good, and what I have created can support me. I can see that I am learning to meet myself and others with compassion. I am also able to CARE DEEPLY and let that hurt, for myself and for humanity. I am able to take my desire and pain and move toward change, for myself and for humanity. I also see that I have created financial systems, and legal systems, and spending/saving habits that support me. I am still learning to ask for help – and I have built a personal and professional team of support, releasing daily, my need to control and over-functioning as a trauma response.

Today, my “house” is more in order than it has EVER been in my lifetime.

Wild and colorful Allison, with all the spiritual faith in the world, was really not congruent if I didn’t embody my responsibility as a human in this life, to build physical structures of support, and to FEEL more than the good shit.

My mess is my masterpiece. Thank you to all of you who have stood by and with me in the messy seasons. Most of all I thank ME for being willing to be in my mess, perfectly. This is not an easy, nor always pretty path…and it is the one I will take over and over.

I can feel the next season of Spirit INTEGRATED with the STRUCTURES – both FAITH AND FORM working in partnership. I’m pulling my spiritual practices, faith, and quantum thinking back out of the closet for full participation.

Ooooohhhhh, this is gonna be sweet! Who is coming with me

Thank you to my coaches and mentors and therapists (Rich Litvin, John P Morgan, Tara Newman, Chris Zydel, Rebecca Ching, Heather Doyle Fraser). Thank you to my husband (Bill Flanigin) and my powerful and amazing clients (so many of you), and to my staff (Stacey, Cali, Elyse, and Amber) and financial advisors (Blake & Lisa Westerterp, Jessica Salzman, and Sandy Eichel).

Holy Shit, y’all help me get good!

More is not better, better is better.

This is 49…watch out 50….I’m coming for ya!

Love, A

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