Writing Life 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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You’re Doing it Wrong – From the Archives

allisoncrow — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 15:02:20 +0000

Originally written June25, 2022

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚!

Does anyone else have an old trauma-based sensitivity to this phrase?

I have been a puppet to these strings.

And I’m certain I’ve expressed “You are doing it wrong” here and in person more times than I wish.

This is one of my great paradoxes. Both losing who the world told me I should be (and still does) and discovering my o

wn authentic way. Uncentering from them to center to me and my centering is still wrong because it is not enough for yet another them.

At the micro, I’m fucking it all up, to be sure.

At the macro, it is today, this moment of now, and I am a speck of fleshy dust on a rock, floating through infinite space. I am a tiny 5’9 coagulation of matter with thumbs typing on a device with a screen that publishes to the inter and outer of webs.

None of it is ever good enough. In me or out of me. What you do or don’t do and what I do or don’t do.

I’ll never be a good enough white, cis colonized, Un-racist, un-indoctrinated, un-Christianized, lib-t#@^, socialist commie woman, and you’ll never be a good enough whatever you failed at in the world’s eyes you.

None of us are doing it right and we are all doing it better than everyone around us in our eyes.

It’s exhausting.

I see your mess and I see your perfection. I see you doing it wrong and I see you doing it the best you are capable of. I see me doing the same.

I spent most of my 50 years trying to be better. Do right and good and care in the right ways.

And it has NEVER been enough. Not on one side of history or the aisle or the other.

And at the end of the day, here I am with ME. Just me.

My right is only ever good enough for me. It has NEVER lived up to YOUR (whoever you are) expectation. I’m working on letting your right be good enough for you. Do our rights /our correctness EVER meet in the same place Maybe for a moment and then another moment happens and showed us our separateness, and wrongness.

Only the SHOULDS rip us each in two and we both lose. We both end up wrong.

It’s exhausting.

If it isn’t June 25th, if there was no Saturday, no horrible history, and no dreaded future to worry about- there is only right now and right now and right NOW.

No matter what I preach – it is only right now and it only has to be enough for me because it will nev

er be enough for whoever them is. And it won’t ever be right for you.

What a complicated world we live in with always the threat of UN belonging.

This is the hook—it freezes us, fights us, or fawns us due to the threat of disconnection and belonging.

And that is the one thing we all have in common- the innate need to belong.

I’m tired of trying to belong in a way that makes you happy while I lose me. I’m tired of trying to belong in a way that works for you but not me.

I’m allowed to center me. You are allowed to center you. You are the center of your universe and I am the center of mine.

And the cycle goes in and on- we each try to rip another from their center for our own security.

It is exhausting.

And so for today.

I will just be here – with one dog, and this phone, and my words and expression, and the air touching the bottom of my feet and my bra feeling too tight and my throat itchy.

And is just IS.

And so today, here now. Belonging to only my own sweet soul and SELF of me, has to be enough.

I breathe and check in…..

and it is.

Ps. I can smell that Leroy is dying. It’s in his breath. Because that is what life is. It is living and loving and then death.

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Unwinding Direction into Wandering for a Season

allisoncrow — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:44:08 +0000

December 6th, Last year, my book was published. And that early morning, as I sat down at my desk, my husband asked, “What are you doing#8221;

“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

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Heather Doyle Frasier: The Practice of Compassionate Writing

Elyse Rich — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:46:25 +0000

Episode 204 Heather Doyle Frasier: The Practice of Compassionate Writing

Writer, Coach, Renaissance Woman, Lover of Books
Publisher of Compassionate Mind Collaborative and a singer.

After having worked in the traditional publishing industry as a development editor,
Heather saw the humanity missing from the industry.

Meet my book coach, publisher, and friend.

Writing is such a vulnerable raw experience.
Even when you feel like you have this covered something is going to come up during the process that is difficult and challenging.

Merging her industry experience with coaching based in Compassionate Mind Training,
Heather creates a space and a loving mandate in her own publishing company.

Love,

Allison

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Resources:

Heather’s Info:

Website Home: https://www.cmcollab.com/

Offerings for writing and publishing https://www.cmcollab.com/writing-your-book

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/compassionatewriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cmcollaborative

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

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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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Cindy Ingram: Reinventing Your Business

Elyse Rich — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 14:58:18 +0000

Hello Humans, today we are jamming with fellow reinventor Cindy Ingram.

Cindy has a book coming out later in the year and today we are going to talk a little bit more about reinvention.

Reinvention shows up on the outside but it’s usually because things happen on the inside.

Originally choosing her work based on how it felt,
Cindy shows a certain level of self trust to choose those kind of things when we might think we need to do something different.

“It has to feel right whatever I’m doing” – Cindy Ingram

And it takes a big leap to move careers with full on structural reinvention.

Love,

Allison

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Dreaming in Spanish & Writing Your Story With Sara Alvarado

Elyse Rich — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:51:09 +0000

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

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In a Romantic Relationship with My Desk Why Yes

allisoncrow — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 14:56:06 +0000

She’s lived in every home I’ve owned and briefly been loaned to each of my husbands as I experimented with other working spaces (does anyone remember my haunted antique lawyer d

esk?). She is back in my space, my studio, my office, and deeply in my heart at this moment.

Fall in love – like real love, be in a relationship with a block of wood and two clunky iron thingys that hold the wood for a desk?

Completely and utterly.

This morning she is strewn with remnants of my pencil case carried to the Elizabeth Gilbert Rob Bell thing in the woods of the Hudson Valley in NY. Three lip glosses claim their parallel space between the pens and paint brushes – all beloved and daily used tools of my creativity.

How do I know I’ve fallen in love with this inanimate – but is she really an inanimate object EVERY time I sit here, my whole body feels an openness and clear-like-fresh-spring-water LOVE. We’ve built this over time. My trust, once given freely from immaturity, now takes time to build, and this desk and I have some serious time on task BECOMING together. Tears well up and let me know I am alive and I feel. Maybe it’s the menopause, but I’m pretty sure it is the love and life and work and creation this desk, and I have shared.

Today she holds my book stacks and a freshly lit “Ancient Tome” candle made by my former client, Michelle.

Yesterday, she held me as I went super deep on 3 different coaching calls that I truly felt helped my clients. New rosemary mint hair oil to soothe my menopausal itchy scalp, 4 different eyeglass cleaners, and all the computers and technologies that

allow me to share my heart, show my work, and connect with you from the calm safety of my own home. How could I not be in love This desk and I have stories to tell.

And so we will.

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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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