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.

ADHD Coach Maureen Nolan, ACC talks Tips on Overwhelm

I’m giving it all away – bit by bit and blog by blog I’m disclosing everything I know about how to coach people with ADHD. It’s not a sale, or a gimmick but a change of life attitude about what people want and what I can do about it.

I became an ADHD Coach in Atlanta because I heard parents and family members and individuals talk about mis-managing lives, living in chaos, living in fear, living on the edge, living with addictions, panic, anxiety and being generally unhappy and confused. Not only that, but I was living in chaos and discovered that along the way to become an ADHD coach my life began to make sense.

My passion is coaching. I feel alive, happy, inspired, peaceful, invigorated and fulfilled when I coach. It’s is how I live God’s plan for me to be in service to humanity. This is no small thing to claim the energy of my life in alignment with the energy of creativity and the universe.

What?

It’s simple but it’s not easy to disclose professional information because I’m talking in general terms. Be aware that your personal version of ADHD may not be similar so take away what you can use and leave the rest!

Stop! and Start Here

Have you been diagnosed? What is the value of diagnosis?

I talked with a parent yesterday who believes he has ADHD and is actually taking medication but is not diagnosed with ADHD. It’s a very ADHD thing to approach solutions like this. Sometimes it’s even part of the diagnostic process…if the medication makes a difference, you might have ADHD.

What was the value of your ADHD diagnosis?

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.

Experience and Passion for ADHD Coaching

Positive Thinking and ADHD Coaching

Napping for Business Attention

Remember when George Costanza in ‘Seinfeld’ had a bed built under his desk at work? It seems he wasn’t off the mark at all! Reported by Behavioral Health Care Journal this week, napping is now encouraged at the office for an increase in sociability. Finally, I can nap and quote a study that shows it’s not only good for people in the South American countries, but for everyone. Today on Oprah, Dr. Oz supported the need for 7-9 hours of sleep per night – it’s even supposed to help reduce weight! Now that’s something to pay attention to.

At the SLEEP 2009 conference in Seattle last week, researchers from the University of California – Berkeley revealed results of a study that ‘showed naps with rapid eye movement sleep refresh the brain’s perception of positive emotions.’ It seems study participants taking a 60 to 90 minute nap mid-day with REM sleep were much more receptive to happy facial expressions than those who didn’t. In fact, participants without a nap had an increased reaction to negative emotions. Have you ever been called cranky because you reacted to the way someone looked at you after 3 p.m.?

Once again we learn that we knew all we needed to know in kindergarten – a nap a day keeps you alert to pay attention.

BHC Journal interviewed two of the principal investigators of the study who were at the conference: Dr. Matt Walker, Professor of Psychology and Director of the University of California – Berkeley Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory, and senior research scientist Ninad Gujar.

http://www.bhcjournal.com/default.aspx?articleId=29692&tabid=252

The following is a direct quote from a newsletter by Jodi Sleeper-Triplett of JST Coaching. She is one of my teachers.

Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. A professional coach helps people improve their performance and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe, and to customize their approach to each individual client’s needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client. They believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.

AD/HD coaching embraces the ideals and core competencies of both life coaching (www.coachfederation.org) and AD/HD coaching (www.adhdcoachinstitute.org). This approach provides the structure and strategies needed to create success for clients with AD/HD, while honoring the clients as creative and resourceful individuals. In AD/HD coaching, we hold our clients more accountable and usually have a tighter plan with more frequent contact than in general life coaching. Meeting with AD/HD clients occurs at least once a week, which is more often than in many life coaching or executive coaching programs.

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

Did I intend to get fired?

It wasn’t my intention not to pay attention on the job…or was it?

The ghastly job seemed to have all my attention. I worried about it; thought about it; dreamed about it; talked about it; stayed late; arrived early and in the end I was fired from it. But what was my intention during that time?

This job was a dead end when I said yes. The first day of work the ‘boss’, the woman who asked me to apply for and then to take the job; who was the mother of my son’s friend, told me we wouldn’t become friends. That we would be working at the same place every day and then some, but we wouldn’t become friends. That was her intention.

My intention in taking the work was to provide income for my family while my husband began a professional transition. My intention was to support his desire to change his life. I had no intention to change my life or the world. My intention was not related to friendship, but it would have been an OK perk on the job to be friendly at least.

So, serendipity found me fired and quickly hired to work at a school for students with ADHD and LD where my intention again was to support my family. This time, however, I found a calling and a life’s work. In the end, I was completely changed and passionate about working in the world of ADHD. My strengths were used to create my job and my weaknesses were otherwise managed. I grew in confidence and stature knowing that in that environment I made a difference.

I’m a born coach, maybe even born again. I was the student and young adult who asked the questions no-one else thought about. That’s what I love – asking the questions whose answers will change your life.

What do you want in a job?
What are your intentions in taking the work?
How will you make a difference in this field?
Is there a future for you with this company?

My story is the story of many job seekers and office workers. If you can’t pay attention it may be because it’s not worth your health and the health of your attention to remain.

What is your attention-to-intention-on-the-job story?

Forgive me, Donald. 

And that’s my distracted childhood environment in a nutshell. It was all delivered day after day with a kiss and a smile and a badge of being a good child to my mom. It was different with Daddy. ‘Can’t you see what’s in front of your face?’ he would say coming up behind me when I couldn’t see what was in front of my face that he had sent me to retrieve. It was either momentary blindness or paralytic fear of his anger that completely blocked from my view whatever it was he wanted. I was trained in both physical and emotional distraction.

I remember asking one of my kids to get something for me that we all knew I was capable of retrieving on my own. I didn’t get anywhere with them. My Irish grandmother would tell us cousins to get something for her because our feet were younger and healthier than hers. But my kids knew my feet and legs were quite healthy, thank you very much. Have I trained them to be distracted, too? 

I believe we were born distracted and then endlessly drilled to develop it more fully, helplessly/naively hoping that someone in the world around us had a better handle on attention than we did. (Excuse me while I pick up the letter to take to the mailbox. I’ll just take that cup to the sink while I’m on my way out and maybe stop and pet the dogs which reminds me I have to buy more food and what’s that collar doing under the bureau? It sure is dirty – I better take it to the laundryroom…

Will I ever make it to the mailbox – oh, well there goes the mailman and my neighbor Jeannie is outside so we can talk about our flowers and…

What was the name of this blog? 

What’s your intention today to stay attentive and feel good about it?

Maureen