My name is Maureen Nolan. Please look around my site for general information on ADHD. As Your Attention Coach, I am devoted to your growth and personal development through providing information and ADHD Coaching. My professional education includes specific training around the issues of living with ADHD in a way that is compassionate and satisfying – let me help you find your way to self fulfillment. I can coach you in person or by phone.

Are you looking for change in your life?

What issue brings you to Your Attention Coach? Having children with ADHD forced me to learn ADHD skills. I became a better parent and a more grounded person. It lead me to become a coach so I can help others, both students and adults.  It’s been a fantastic journey of self-growth giving me real life experience as well as my professional training for sharing with my clients.

Are you ready to do something really different that you’ve always wanted to do? Coaching will change your life if you are willing to be coached.

Are we a good fit to work together?

It’s really important that we are the right fit to work together. Who you are matters. An adventure begins with one first step…

Take your first step to change by contacting me at 404-713-0488 or email  me today and let’s see if we are right to work together and begin your journey.

I travel on PBS. Occasionally, by car. But usually through the nature and travel channels. Recently I ventured on U-tube to the Sierra Nevada mountains in Colombia, South America. Here, a flourishing First Nation group, the Kogi, live as an uninterrupted lineage of survivors of the Spaniard Conquistadors for over 400 years. They recently allowed a modern woman to visit and take a video of their life while they shared some of their spirituality.

During their visit, the Kogi men were noted to have a small mortar and pestle with them at all times. Their tradition requires that the men keep stoking the mortar with spit throughout the day in order to build up layers of shell calcium. There is an intrinsic value, probably spiritually motivated that keeps the tradition alive. In addition, the women cultivate cocoa leaves to give the men before they sleep at night. This routine is used with the admonition for the men to reflect on what they’ve accomplished during the day and to plan what they will accomplish the next day.

My children say I see ADHD everywhere. I say, I respond to attention in all its manifestations.

My short interpretation of their cultural tradition is that the men are sedated at night by the cocoa leaves and are kept busy with the mortar and pestle throughout the day in order to focus their attention. This is a cultural and spiritual adaptation to the challenges of attention. They have survived to remember the beginning of time using these traditions. It’s brilliant.

Is this a compulsion that I see attention management everywhere? Do you?

The 16th-22nd of October, 2011 is

ADHD Awareness Week.

My personal, ADHD Coach campaign to raise ADHD Awareness this year includes two new offerings:

New Facebook Page

www.facebook.com/faceofadhd, a new FB page for you to say to the world, I Am the Face of ADHD. All you need to join is life with ADHD or have someone in your life with ADHD. I plan to compile the photos of members in a universal collage of faces! Please join and say it proudly, ‘I Am the Face of ADHD.’

America’s Web Radio

I also have a recording of my recent radio interview on America’s Web Radio with Dr. Joan Teach about the 7 Myths of ADHD. Please share it with family and friends, listening to it to find a way to take immediate action to change your life.

Take Coaching Action

One way to take action is to hire an ADHD Coach. I coach in Atlanta, Georgia with equal benefits both in person and on the  phone with my ADHD clients, reaching clients across the country. Life Coaching with an ADHD twist makes a difference through strategic ADHD education, creating focused time management skills, decision-making strategies and my personal coach intervention all tailored to your specific needs.

For more information about Life Coaching with ADHD twist, contact Maureen Nolan, ACC, ADHD Coach at maureen@yourattentioncoach.com.

Call Now for a 15% discount on your first coaching session. 404-713-0488

Well, are you?

Before we go any further, let’s look up the meaning of lazy… here it is:

(from this link: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lazy)

But what if the definition read like this:

Now, that describes the usual kind of lazy that I’ve experienced or have been confronted with in another person. Or how about:

• Bewildered, belittled or otherwise berated and in a state of protection.

or

• State of being that infuriates someone who wants something from you. This is one of my favorites.

What is your favorite definition of Lazy?

Maureen Nolan, Your Attention Coach, ADD Coach, Atlanta, Ga.

The supper table was Daddy’s pulpit. This is where we had his attention if only for an hour a day and we fought like cats and dogs to keep him engaged in our stories. And unlike a dog fighting trainer he sicced us on each other in a playful way. Daddy held court while Mama served dinner and the daughters ran back and forth to the kitchen to help her. In the meantime, the day’s stories would line up in our mouths like shoppers lined up at the store on the day after Thanksgiving – jockeying to get there first. And as we would spew out the first lines of the story he’d interrupt saying ‘come on, come on, spit it out or someone else will take your turn’. And someone else would start their story and…you get the picture?

So what comes first, being impulsive by nature or being trained to be impulsive? Daddy’s little game may have taught us to be rude, too because I haven’t yet met someone who likes interruption. A lifetime goes by and the three sisters all interrupt just as trained. What are the reasons to keep up the game? By now the origins are almost lost in the mist but the behavior stays the same. At any point in time, one of them interrupts to shut the others up, one to change their opinions and one to communicate something, desperately attempting the impossible.

And in the end, there is silence and no one is listening.

How to be Heard

Why do you interrupt? Are you afraid you’ll forget whatever is on the tip of your tongue while you have to wait your turn? So you want to control the show? Shall we say you’re impulsive? Is that enough of a reason to forget your manners? What did your daddy teach you?

Settle your mind while engaged in conversation. Start to trust that you will be heard especially if you’re silent until they’re through (and some people take a really long time to finish). Whatever you have to say will be heard by the people who should hear you, though not necessarily the ones you want to listen. This distinction requires reflection on your part. Who really needs to hear you? Who do you need to be heard by?

Recently a friend caught up with me after many years of raising our families. We had a grand time sharing funny, sad and uplifting stories since the last time we lived in the same town. Our children were all within a few years of each other and a couple of our boys had particularly engaging teen aged years. One of her twins she shared, ‘skipped high school’.

She and her husband had divorced by the time the twins were in high school and each parent had one twin. Their agreement was to individually parent each son and ‘may the best son win’ or something like that. Can you guess what happened? Mom was the disciplinarian and her twin made it to school, made A’s and had a manageable high school experience.

The dad took the other son who spent most of high school somewhere else and made his living selling illegal substances. He passed wrestling and got out of high school by the skin of his teeth. Both sons joined the service and now the less successful son is 25 and in college. He has seen the hard side of life in the military. Before his military term was up he contacted a local state college with a plea: I don’t have anything to show you how much I want a degree – my high school years were fun but non-productive. However, I’ve learned how to work and I want you to give me a chance to succeed. If I don’t have a 4.0 by the end of the first term, I’ll leave. But I know I can do the work and hope you’ll give me the opportunity of a lifetime to get my education.

He was accepted and has been a stellar student.

Yes, he skipped high school not on achievement but lack of achievement. But through the wisdom of a military experience he was transformed.

It if can happen to this fine young man, do you know of others who have had similar experiences? Share them with me.

Company stayed with me last weekend – and arrived EARLY! I planned on the last two hours for the final sweep of dishes, papers, vacuuming, bathrooms etc but my guest arrived early. So he helped clean up a little and noted that this is really the way I live and was glad to have seen it. I didn’t like being caught and I reflected on other similar situations.

My son was just out of high school and we had moved to a smaller home where our belongings didn’t fit. They overflowed everywhere while we sorted and piled to give away, keep and throw out. The back porch became littered and it was time for company. We went in to a massive clean up cycle. Matt felt like we had betrayed the family by living with the mess until we wanted to ‘look good’ for the world. Well, yes and no. I didn’t anticipate the full force of his hurt and anger until he had piled the back porch with furniture up against the Great Room sliding glass doors blocking the arboreal view with a mess. It was an act of controlled rage that had to be remediated immediately. But his feelings were the most important focus of my attention. How could we clean up for strangers/friends and not for us/him?

I was recently reminded of this when I assisted a family with an intervention with a father who was a questionable hoarder. All the children were/had been unhappy with Dad for a dozen years, ever since the divorce and the beginning of the piles in the hallway, the piles on all the surfaces, the piles of paper, clothes and his collectibles. And with piles came debris and mold and a dirty home. The adult children had had it and suspected Dad was a hoarder so called in a local specialist. Unknown to the children Dad hired a few people to come in to the home to hide the debris and clean up the house. By the time D-Day arrived, the house appeared clean and organized as long as you didn’t open a closet door.

Now, the home had flowers and pot-pouri. The daughters were furious at the attempt to deceive a stranger and that Dad had cleaned up for a stranger but not them.

Have you ever done this? What motivates you to keep your home clean for the enjoyment of your family?

My Attention Coaching Helps People to be Empowered in

Does That Sound Like Something You Want? Read on…

Attention Coaching helps people find solutions to challenges from their ADHD who:

• are always late

and hurt the people they say they love

• are disorganized

and lose bills, keys, phones and business appointments

• do not return phone calls

and miss meetings, important messages and confuse their family and friends

• forgets about people and projects not right under their nose

and lose jobs, friends, family, opportunities and self esteem

• are unhappy with inattention, distractions and disruptions

and become depressed

• may be hyperactive

and think there is no help

• are married to linear people who are confused

and the marriage is on the rocks…for the last time

• know people who are angry with them for unknown reasons

but are willing to take another look at their behavior

• do not organize

and depend on everyone else to make things happen – are sucking the life out of their social group

• are in pain

and noone wants to hear about it anymore

• needs hope

and has the willingness to find coaching solutions

• need solutions

and are willing to become more of who they really are

• live in fear

but will make an appointment to start a new life of success.

Contact ADHD Coach Maureen Nolan at 404-713-0488 or by email. Together we’ll discover how coaching will work for you.

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 – It’s a Calling

by ADHD Coach, Maureen Nolan, ACC, Your Attention Coach

I became what I always needed – an ADHD Coach.

I needed a coach during all my academic years, especially when in architectural graduate school I heard myself say, ‘I need a wife’.

I needed a coach when I transitioned from full time editor to full time mom. It was a hard transition.

I needed a coach anytime I was told – just do it; try harder; you’re not paying attention; that was stupid; you’re doing that on purpose; why can’t you do what I want you to do; you don’t follow directions; don’t put words in my mouth; I can’t take it anymore; why are you so sensitive; why can’t you do anything right; that’s wrong; you’re wrong and on and on.

Each time I heard negativity I took it to heart and believed it must be so because someone said it.

I’ve since learned I don’t have to believe anything anyone says about me and sometimes I don’t have to believe what I think about myself! This is a healthy result of excellent ADHD Coaching I’ve received and it’s my gift to you. My job is to find what you’re good at and remind you that is the essence of your self-esteem. You Are; You Be; You Rock; You Thrive with an ADHD Coach.

Be transformed through coaching. It happened to me and it can happen to you, too.

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