Remember who YOU are, and go do your thing!

 

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IFS – Internal Family Systems – is a SELF Leadership tool I use in my coaching practice.   Here Six reasons I have IFS found helpful for me and my coaching clients:

• The IFS framework & lens align with ethical and non-violent coaching in that, the client is seen as resourceful, creative, & whole.
• All the wisdom the client needs can be found within the internal system.
• And generally, we humans haven’t been taught to relate to ourselves in a way that accesses that information. We’ve been taught to shame, bypass, suppress, and ignore parts deemed as “negative.”
• IFS is non-pathologizing, inclusive, compassionate, spiritual, and profoundly respectful, providing us with inner authority.
• All parts have benevolent intent, no matter how problematic the behavior, so we say “All Parts are Welcome” and use SELF-energy and the 8C’s to get to know the parts.
• We remember that parts are all just trying to do what they think is best for us; they are only using coping strategies that made sense at one time and are simply out of date now that we are adults.

I’ll be sharing more this month, specifically about the IFS model and how I use it in coaching professionals and entrepreneurs.

💛, Allison

PS: this model can also be used in a personal contemplative practice – no coach needed. 

• 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

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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.

 

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.”

 

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.

 

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?

 

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Just changing our thinking is a gross oversimplification. It leaves millions frustrated and fleeced. 

One (of many) significant determiners of our lives is not just our thinking or our emotions but actually our habitual and subconscious attempts NOT to feel disconnection, shame, rejection, fear, sadness, and other uncomfortable and painful emotions.  

These attempts show up as coping mechanisms that serve as armored protection from these feelings.  

Hi.  My name is Allison, and I’m a recovering, over-armored woman. 

Let me go way back for a moment so we can move forward: It is a natural subconscious desire to connect and repair connection if the body senses a disconnect. We are wired for it. We learn early on to manipulate the maintaining of that connection with our caregivers. As children, when the connection with our caregivers conflicts with authenticity – we innately choose connection every time. We choose the coping mechanism over living in our true selves.  

Here’s the burn for high-achievers:  The coping mechanisms that worked for us are socially acceptable and highly admirable. They are often praised and rewarded by society.

We give and overgive. We perform, we people please, we over-function, and we caretake others, often at the expense of our true selves. If you are neurodivergent (like I am), then we mask along with our armor. It feels good until it begins not to feel good, and then what?

We look up and see all the perceived excellence around us but can feel empty or like something is missing – yet we gaslight ourselves into gratitude.  That is not compassion; that is comparison. 

My clients with longevity in the personal development space do this the most. You’ve been taught to shame your way into appreciation instead of taught how to cultivate it from within.  

Side note: From my “I’m still learning understandings” of ADHD brains – executive function fails in the presence of shame and pain as motivation – we, instead, pursue the feel-good rewards. 

Where does that leave us when these coping skills actually begin to perpetuate our struggle?

This is the place many of my experienced business owner clients are in, at the crossroads of should and self-trust.   

The Crossroads of SHOULD and SELF-TRUST

The shoulds are familiar and known; they are reliable even if they come with a side of suffering.  

The uncomfortable known will always be more appealing to the unknown.  

The road to self-trust requires both learning new skills and unlearning old ways of habitual coping.  It also requires seeing all the systems that taught you ON PURPOSE not to trust – and that can be downright depressing and bring up grief.    

• The Skill of Noticing
• The Skill of Being With and Presence (instead of fixing or solving)
• The Skill of Sensing Cravings (in self and others)
• The Skill of Building Inner Relationships

These are just 4 (certainly not all) of the Self Leadership skills I help my clients develop in their lives and work.  These skills can present as great insights in conversation -yippey yay-yay-woo-hoo; but if it ends there, it’s just entertainment. 

We must build a muscle memory for these skills in the body and behavior, and ultimately in the nervous system if we want lasting change. . . If we want to learn to be in the world from a place of true SELF Trust.   

Cheers to you on your journey of SELF-Trust.  

And #icanhelpwiththat – if you are ready to build your self-trust skills, 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 

Listen to the Podcast episode on this here. 

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Last fall, I had the opportunity to take my CliftonStrengths assessment again.

While I had my previous results, I KNEW things would show up differently because I AM DIFFERENT.

I am different from the young, eager woman striving for success and approval in 2010. I’m more grounded and clear. I’ve done some pretty intense releasing and healing of my oldest traumas and fears, and I had a dang heart attack. I’m DIFFERENT. Even my body is different.

My old results overlap with my new results, but I can see how my old results, especially MY FUTURISTIC & IDEATION, were parts-led; parts of me that were anxious and inexperienced and were parts that wore the masks of society’s expectations & approval. If you have these strengths in your results, please know that this is MY self-assessment – not a reflection on these strengths as a whole.

My old results were my adaptive strengths. My current results are less protective…they are my UNARMORED results. I’ve built internal trust and #emotionalagility through IFS business coaching.

I can see the external changes bringing IFS into my business world has made. I’ve been able to accumulate a list of “results” in my life and in my client’s life and work.

A sweet client on a group call, visibly far from the screen, for comfort possibly, had a slight quiver in her lip as she checked out of our session, “This work is hard,” she said.

“Yes, it is. It’s tender, it can leave bruises, and comes with lots of tears. And you don’t have to do it, ” I said with the most sincere compassion.

It IS hard to lay down our protective devices and to build trust within when the world never wanted us to have it.

I, personally, no longer need it to be easy, 
I just need it to be real. 
💛 Allison

I use #ifs in my business and life coaching – both in my membership and in private coaching. I can help you strengthen your authentic strengths and #selftrust.

#businesscoaching #ifsforbusinessowners #internalfamilysystemscoaching #confidenceatwork #emotionsatwork #nobadparts

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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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I have nurturing practices -that I KNOW bring me to clarity, confidence, and action.
I have internal processes that I KNOW work for my business.

And yet, because I’m human and live in society – I, at times, can get hooked into the “what’s normal” current. I call this FORGETTING.

Wouldn’t it be so fun if we all had the clarity and plan we wanted to have on Jan 1 – according to and along with the “New Year” date?

When I REMEMBER, I stand in the knowing and sovereignty of my own proven practices and processes.

When I REMEMBER, I fully trust my processes and practices and my own internal rhythms (and they RARELY fit with man-made seasons or dates).

This is your reminder that your own process is trustworthy – even if it doesn’t seem to “fit” what the world says.

Peace to you and to me and to us all as we practice what works for us.

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Yes, I have invested in myself and my business – things that cost money: It’s almost obscene how much I spend on personal and professional and personal development and have for years:

 

• Coaching, reading, classes, learning, therapy, art supplies, black writing pens and journals, and more coaching – business coaching, money coaching, book coaching, profit first coaching, money coaching, creative coaching, IFS coaching, sales coaching – that’s what I can think of off-hand.

 

What I really invest in is Time on task:

Time spent doing my nourishing habits (reading, writing, moving my body, journaling, parts work, drinking water, etc.).

Time spent sharing my heart and showing my work – thinking and doing things that hopefully serve my audience and clients.

Time Practicing my skills in real-time – not waiting until things are perfect. (The hours – and I mean HOURS I spent coaching my ass off and doing IFS as a coach, client and student have been more effective than any class or training).

Time resting and recovering and NOT working.

Time learning how to allocate and track my money. This year I’m taking my books back from my bookkeeper to master the daily nuances of my finances- more Time spent ahead).

Time serving clients, Time making offers.

Time doing the learning and then DOING what I learn.

Time writing – every single day. Making it just what I do.

Time healing my nervous system

Time doing boring stuff – no one sees over and over and over and over.

and, yes, time-wasting (playing dumb video games, watching tv, trolling on Twitter, to name a few). Time to recover from all the time I invest doing Time on task stuff.

 

Love, Allison

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And have a week full of calm confidence and self-trust. That is my wish for you.

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