It’s not uncommon to feel a loss of confidence, especially during times of transition, change, or stress.

What we call “confidence” in the past was often rooted in external validation or 💛a sense of control over familiar circumstances. When life shifts—whether through age, relationships, career changes, or personal growth—it can feel like that foundation crumbles, leaving us questioning ourselves.

Here’s why this might be happening and some steps to start reconnecting with your confidence:

What Happened?

• External Confidence Was Shaken: Confidence often stems from skills, roles, or identities that feel secure. If those shift—like your job changing, kids leaving home, or your body aging—it’s natural to feel unsteady.
• Internal Growth Can Be Unsettling: Personal growth often brings self-awareness. You might notice patterns, like people-pleasing or perfectionism, that kept you going but were never sustainable. Letting go of those coping mechanisms can feel like losing your “edge.”
• Midlife Health or Neurodivergence May Amplify Self-Doubt: Shifts in hormones, energy, or brain patterns (like ADHD or Autism traits) can make you feel disconnected from the way you used to operate.
• Societal Pressure: There’s often pressure to “have it all figured out” at this stage of life. Feeling unsure can lead to self-doubt, especially if you compare yourself to others.

Here are some of the ways to rebuild self-confidence from the inside out in midlife:

• 💛True confidence comes from self-trust, not performing or pleasing. Begin to ask: What do I value What feels right for me now?
• 💛Practice honoring small inner nudges—this builds trust in yourself.
• 💛Lean Into Curiosity, Not Perfection: You don’t have to “get it all back.” Instead, ask: What feels intriguing, energizing, or joyful Confidence grows when you allow yourself to experiment and learn without harsh judgment.
• 💛Build Body Confidence Through Regulation: Confidence often starts in the body. Try grounding practices like walking, dancing, or slow breathing to bring calm and connection back into your physical self.
• 💛Tend to Self-Compassion: Talk to yourself the way you would a friend who’s lost their footing. Remind yourself that feeling uncertain is part of being human, not a sign of failure.
• 💛 Reconnect With Purpose: Ask: What feels meaningful What small actions can I take today to move toward that Confidence grows when we align our actions with what matters most.
• 💛 Limit Comparisons: Your path is unique. Comparing yourself to others is like comparing apples to oranges. Focus on your growth and values instead.

This stage of life isn’t about “getting back” to who you used to be—it’s about embracing the opportunity to become someone even more grounded, wise, and authentic. Confidence will come naturally as you build self-trust and honor your evolving self.

The post Midlife Can Cause Your Confidence to Wobble: Here’s Why and What to Do About It appeared first on Allison Crow.

Welcome back! In today’s episode, I delve into lessons I’ve learned from one of my favorite teachers and approaches ~ Gabor Maté and Compassionate Inquiry. 

I explore his method as a facilitator, the importance of gaining consent, his views on addiction as attempts to solve suffering, and authenticity versus attachment. Reflecting on his teachings, I discuss the impact of the “still-face experiment” and how connection to self is crucial in our healing journeys. I’ll also share insights on over-functioning as a coping mechanism and Gabor’s perspective on thriving in a sick world. Join me as we reconnect with ourselves and each other.

00:00 Introduction to Gabor Maté and Compassionate Inquiry

00:45 Facilitation Techniques and Interruptions

02:37 The Role of Consent in Facilitation

03:07 Understanding Addiction and Suffering

06:56 The Still Face Experiment

10:23 Authenticity vs. Attachment

18:01 Overfunctioning and Coping Mechanisms

20:46 The Impact of a Sick World on Emotional Health

22:45 Present Moment Awareness and Self-Connection

The Still Face Experiment: https://youtu.be/YTTSXc6sARg?si=9a1-oDJfE69BESL-

Gabor Maté Website: https://drgabormate.com/

The Myth Of Normal: https://amzn.to/3zoVdmc

Compassionate Inquiry: https://compassionateinquiry.com/

* 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/

https://www.tiktok.com/@allison_crow

https://www.instagram.com/allison_crow/

https://www.facebook.com/wildesgesofbeinghuman

The post Lessons Learned from Gabor Mate & Compassionate Inquiry appeared first on Allison Crow.

Hello Hello Humans!

I feel like a little kid getting back on a bicycle,
It’s been a couple of months since I podcasted. 

Bug Soup is the time during chrysalis when the caterpillar disintegrates and devolves 
and physically, materially turns into an gooey mess before it regenerates into the butterflies that bless us all. 

It’s a metaphor for a stage of creation and a stage of life.  

Who else is in and has been in Bug Soup?

I have been for quite some time. 

It feels like whack a mole and it is just life. 

I just want to acknowledge the humanity of seasons of Bug Soup no matter what causes them. 

Love, 

Allison

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

• Visit: Website: www.allisoncrow.com
• Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison
• Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview
• Get your copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

The post Bug Soup & Updates appeared first on Allison Crow.

“All Parts Welcome”

Have you ever had the experience of making a decision, and in your thinking, you have a part that has one strong opinion about your decision, and then from another side of your brain, or maybe your body, a second part comes in totally doubting?

In all 2o years of my coaching practice, I’ve heard clients say, “A part of me this. . . and a part of me that . . .”
Bonnie J Weiss, LCSW, in her book
𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘺 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘈𝘯 𝘌𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘍𝘚 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴, says,

“IFS is. . . compassionate, inclusive, spiritual, powerfully healing, and deeply respectful of our inner life. IFS recognized that our psyches are made up of different parts…you can think of them as little people inside of us. Each part has its own perspective, feelings, memories, goals, and motivations.”

We are naturally of miraculous multiple minds. You may more commonly know these parts of you as things like:

• The Inner Critic
• Your Inner Child
• The Ego
• The Monkey Mind

All parts have had reasons for everything they do, they are motivated by “benevolent intent” at their core, but their strategies are protective devices that, at some point in your life, made sense but now are out of date. These strategies can often be uncomfortable, mean, and even destructive.

Recently the founder of IFS, Dr. Richard C Schwartz, Ph.D. published his IFS book 𝘕𝘰 𝘉𝘢𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴. Check it out if you want to learn more about this model I’ll be sharing with you over the next month.

Here is a painting I did – when I was very first introduced to this framework – My core SELF-energy and some of my parts. Add a whole lot of language/words, some visual images, and sensory waves, and that’s a good front porch image of my internal psyche.

💛 Allison Crow

• Visit: Website: www.allisoncrow.com
• Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison
• Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview
• Get your copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

The post A Part of Me this & A Part of Me that appeared first on Allison Crow.

Our internal worlds, our psyche -and our mind-body system can be complicated and overwhelming at times! Think of the things that seem to derail you and your current ways of “dealing with them.”

Maybe you are like me – super self-aware and read all the books, take lots of classes, do the meditations, and even after years of pursuing personal growth, you get exhausted, and in some deeper layers, there is still a painful internal tension that has never been relieved. I feel you; this was me…until I found Internal Family Systems.

The goal of IFS is to give you the tools to cultivate and embody SELF-energy and to relate lovingly from that place to all the parts within you. IFS can help build your #emotionalagility and help you release negative beliefs that hold you back in life.

IFS is not just information – it’s a practice and a way of BEING WITH all parts of yourself in both mind and body that most of us have not been taught. It is mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual and helps you lead your inner and outer worlds from a place of grounded confidence, compassion, & creativity.

Follow and share this month as I give some #internalfamilysystems mojo every day this month.

💛, Allison Crow

#ifscoaching

• Find out more about 1:1 coaching with Allison
• Internal Family Systems Coaching and a brief IFS Model Overview
• Get your copy of UNARMORED: Finding Home in the Wild Edge of Being Human

The post The Goals Of Internal Family Systems Coaching appeared first on Allison Crow.

“Going to writing practice.”

This had been my answer to his morning question every day for the previous few years – and had become an affectionate ritual for us.

“But you just published your book#8221; he said with perplexed eyes.

“It’s what I do; I write. I go to writing practice.”

It’s been almost a year since I didn’t have a BIG goal to light the way in writing practice. Some mornings my body wants an objective. My peers check in to the question “What are you working on today#8221; with things like:

 “My manuscript”
 “Chapter 7”
 “An email to my client.”
 “My dissertation”
 “My prompt today is….”

. . .and there I am with my wandering writing. My answer is often, “I’m not sure; we’ll see where we end up.”

In a world that demands direction, I am wandering these days. I am unwinding my body and mind from the mandates of a specific way of being in life and (especially) business that no longer fits.

There are moments when the wandering delivers pure enchantment, and there are moments when panic sets in my body because I’m not forcing her in a goal-driven direction, even though I still have financial obligations to meet. I may be wandering, but I am in no way retired.

I have only an abrupt ending here because. . . I am wandering. The journey isn’t complete, so there is no summation or conclusion.

Here is a photo of me wandering Colorado in December 1995

The post Unwinding Direction into Wandering for a Season 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).

The post Tanya Markul Poem That Says So Much appeared first on Allison Crow.

 

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 

The post The Practice of Connection over Control appeared first on Allison Crow.

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).

Love, Your Favorite Life Coach.

 

Allison

 

I hope you remember.

The post You Forget. It’s Not Your Fault & Here is What to do About it. appeared first on Allison Crow.

You are brilliant, accomplished, able, and driven with a caring heart.  And sometimes your brain runs faster than your body. (Mine is doing that this morning).   Overthinking and anxiety happen when we are going so fast that the body gets left behind. I know you have tons on your plate, families to take care of, work to get done, clients to create, a dog to walk, and so much more. Slowing down doesn’t logically make sense to your thinking parts. AND IT IS WHAT WORKS. Give yourself the SELF Connection that opens the channel of flow – you know that flow; I’ve seen you in it. That space where you remember who you BE, and everything works from there. It’s as if magic starts to happen. Your thinking parts forget this. So we have to choose to create connection and attunement to our own core SELF. Do this first.

Listen to the Latest Podcast Episodes:  197: Reinvention:  Tools for the Pivot & Success 198: Checking in and Updates – What to Expect  194: Beautiful & Miserable – Life is Not the Container Store     PS: Thanks for helping me make my new book Unarmored: Finding Home in the Wild Edges of Being Human a best seller in 5 categories! I LOVE seeing the actual book in your hands and being tagged on Socials! Thank you!

The post Flow Missing Do this First – It Works Every Time appeared first on Allison Crow.