Ollie Eats Socks

My family went to our son’s college graduation and were away from our home and animals for about five days. A family friend stayed with and cared for our two easy-going dogs and one cat. Two days before we returned, the two-year old dog Ollie, began to vomit and stopped eating so I took him to the vet right away; something was very wrong.

After spending $1000 for surgery and tests and care, etc., we discovered he had eaten one of the men’s tube socks. This caused an intestinal blockage that could have killed him. We were all scared and happy and then I became angry: hadn’t I recently said that he would swallow a sock if it wasn’t put away? Honest, I really did. And then, this became the thousand dollar sock. We could have used that money many other places.

What did we learn? That if the sock fits in Ollie’s mouth, he won’t let it go. He’ll just keep chewing until he swallows it. The easy solution was to put socks away.

Several years later, there are no more men in this house to leave socks around. That might seem like a severe management system, but it’s just the way life has worked out. There are no more white tube socks for him, just my underwear which he doesn’t swallow. Yet. But we still had a sock incident a few months ago with one of my finer socks. As he walked away from me down the hallway I saw something besides his tail, hanging out his er, rectum. I wiped my eyes to clear them up, and shaking my head headed toward him. Yup, it was a sock that had moved through the digestive system and thankfully was leaving the body, kind of like a worm, you know? Only really long.

My home is up for sale now, and neat enough to keep Ollie safe. All my socks, thin and thick are in their drawer. He still finds my lingerie when I don’t hang it up, but it’s too big to swallow. I think. What do you do around your home that is dangerous to your animals health and your pocket book? What is worth doing a little more work around the house than a $1000 sock?

ADHD Coach Maureen Nolan, ACC talks Tips on Overwhelm

First Comes the Fear (with ADHD)

My family of origin lived fear-based and many decisions were based on fear of something happening. I raised my own children that way. Don’t do that, you might get hurt, lost, hurt, never come home again, attacked by bears, fall down, burned…and on and on. I didn’t go to college in a new city because of fear. I didn’t finish my masters in architecture because of fear of the lifestyle. I didn’t marry Kevin because of fear of change. I didn’t travel when my children were small for fear of death by airplane crash.

Living with Undiagnosed ADHD May be Like Voodoo

Voodoo in Benin, Africa

This altar has a fearsome look to it

Taken from an article about the country of Benin (link above):

COTONOU, Benin (AP) — With pounding drums and pulsating rhythms, Benin…celebrated the rebirth of voodoo as an officially recognized religion…Voodoo has its origins in West Africa, and followers worship spirits, or fetishes, to guide them in their lives. The religion started about 400 years ago and was brought to the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, during the slave trade.

Whoa! What does this have to do with Fear or Happiness? Read on.

I often travel on the travel channel and this week I went to Benin. A modern day explorer went there to experience voodoo in its rawest form after a lifelong interest in it. To say the least he’s in another world. After proving himself to a tribal king (through humiliation, physical prowess tests and fear-based initiation scenes) he’s experienced enough darkness of a fear-based religion and is happy to get out of town alive and accepted by the tribe (in that order).

…Then Comes Happiness with ADHD (keeping reading)

Happiness

Life After Diagnosis is More Buddhist

My life made sense when I was diagnosed with ADHD and I rejoiced at the happiness I felt to understand my brain. Since that time my happiness quotient has been steadily growing and growing and growing. I became a better mother, friend, daughter. I make decisions based more on my joy and personal happiness index than on fear of…anything.

Gross National Happiness in Bhutan

Taken from an article about the country of Bhutan (link above):

“Bhutan’s story today is, in one word, survival,” Mr. Dorji said. “Gross national happiness (GNH) is survival…Specifically, the government has determined that the four pillars of a happy society involve:

• the economy
• culture
• the environment and
• good governance.

It breaks these into nine domains:

• psychological well-being
• ecology, health
• education
• culture
• living standards
• time use
• community vitality and
• good governance, each with its own weighted and unweighted G.N.H. index…

The goal is not happiness itself, the prime minister explained, (but) a concept that each person must define for himself. Rather, the government aims to create the conditions for what he called, in an updated version of the American Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of gross national happiness.”

Buddhism vs. Voodoo

These two governments, widely separated by geography and motivated by divergent faith systems, embrace two radically different survival techniques. Voodoo is a fear-based religion credited with saving the Benin people from capture during the heyday of slave trading. Primal instinct is stoked in voodoo to ultimately end in convulsive altered states of consciousness through frenzied drumming, circular dancing, alcohol enhancement and blood sacrifice. Slave traders were afraid of curses and rituals that might endanger their lives and therefore stayed away from enslaving most voodoo-practicing tribes even though they were easily accessible by land.

On the other hand there is Bhutan, land-locked between mountain ranges, isolated and culturally safe for centuries from conquest and war. Their Buddhist religion is a peaceful religion based on the quest for happiness of a wealthy man from Nepal who realised that wealth and luxury did not guarantee happiness. The name comes from ‘bhudi’ or awaken. Buddhism is a practice of choosing the middle road to happiness through the study of the human mind and the practices of meditation in order to awaken happiness.

Which Gets Your Attention? Fear or Happiness?

Well, voodoo gets my attention but not for long. I want to run away from that culture’s use of fear tactics to control the people as well as to protect them. They are culturally intact because of voodoo and TV and Hollywood have not infiltrated their consciousness.  Whereas Bhutan gets my attention and my respect and admiration. Their culture is presently intact while they keep TV and Hollywood at bay and they use a happiness index to make governmental decisions. That feels sane to me.

ADHD Coaching is Happiness Based

Survival becomes Thrival with ADHD Diagnosis and ADHD Coaching to re-teach clients how to find their happines quotient.

What are you waiting for? Get diagnosed and call Maureen Nolan, ACC for ADHD Coaching at 404-713-0488.

Excuses, excuses. They are the bane of life with ADHD. How often are excuses used and how much creative energy goes into making them believable? How close to lieing do they come? Are they lies and deceptions? Is there an edge of excitement that goes along with an excuse? Is it believable? What is its value? Can you keep track of the excuse and how often is the same one used?

I first remember thinking about excuses when an aunt told me she thought my mom had made too many excuses for me and my sisters when we were young. The comment felt like a double insult – one to me and then one to my mother. I still have a physical reaction when I remember her comment. Then years passed and excuses were made and used to get me into and out of trouble – too many commitments, too many appointments missed, too many friends miffed at me. Something began to dawn on me – a routine use of excuses was unhealthy. It was not mindful living.

Change behavior and change your life.

Once I got it and it took a really long time to get it – then I began to see that excuses weren’t necessary. It’s a simple thing to say no in the first place; it’s important for me to gauge my time because no-one else will do it! I realized I made excuses for my children, just like my mom with the same unknown dimension: the ADHD factor. Learning about ADHD I have learned about excuses.

My clients learn that in our coaching the ‘homework’ is done or not done. The excuses have no meaning unless we backtrack to the core event, emotion, feeling or challenge that puts the excuse mobile into motion. I struggle with disruptive behavior of my own, inattentiveness and distractions all day every day. I’m a pretty classic case study of standard ADHD so I know what’s going on for my clients.

I believe that a twelve step approach to changing your excuse use will get it under control while simultaneously learning about your brand of ADHD will lead to more time living in success and less time living in fear of being ‘found out’.

What was your most creative excuse and what is your new understanding of the inherent value of excuse recovery?

Call Maureen Nolan, ADHD Coach for ADHD Coaching at 404-713-0488

High Drama at Home?

Do your family and friends pay an enormous amount of attention to your emotions or little at all? Does either reaction stimulate more or less emotion from you? What is the value of paying attention to emotions in your world? Do you have a choice?

Growing up, my family weighed heavily in the direction of emotional overload at all times, but I come from an addictive family environment. High drama was the rule of the day. My addicted parent appeared to be in control at all times, and we created the myth that it was true. The other parent was sick a lot. We walked on eggshells in the house (read Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Paul T. Mason & Randi Kreger). We had fun too, but it was played out against the backdrop of this emotional dynamic. Oh, and we all live with ADHD.

Well, darned if I didn’t go and look for the same dynamic in some of my relationships outside the family. I was high drama depending on the situation – it’s like it was a cloak I took off and on. And like that cloak, now I can take on a full experience with my emotions or I can choose to spend less time with them. What I mean is that if I’m happy I can really get in to it or I can use the energy to move forward. The same is true with sadness or anger. I can stay stuck in the sorrow or I can use the information in a healing fashion and again move quickly forward.

This knowledge comes from my life long search for what’s normal with an attention challenge, but you don’t have to wait so long. When that right person, a friend or a partner pays healthy attention to you and your emotions are on green, don’t get stuck waiting. Cross over and start a new life of healthy attention habits. You can choose to leave the high drama behind. Cultivate your healthy emotions that serve a purpose by choosing to spend more time in the situations in which they will occur. What you pay attention to will grow.

How do you cultivate healthy emotional friends, partners and situations?

Link to the following article for an excellent review of emotional sobriety  http://www.bhcjournal.com/default.aspx?articleId=28362&tabid=255