Being under pressure is one of those contradictions for those of us with ADHD brains. Thinking under pressure leaves us overwhelmed and often paralyzed, yet when faced with acting under pressure we tend to thrive and it becomes a superpower! 

In this episode, you will hear some lyrics from the song, "surface pressure" that is featured in the movie "Encanto!" The words to this song speak right into what many of us face when it comes to that thinking that drives feeling pressure...the struggle is real and the song is relatable! Next I share three steps to practice taking when faced with that emotional internal pressure...

1. Express to a trusted adult the internal pressure, overwhelm, stress, anxiety felt... Release it! 
2. Explain to your trusted adult how you freeze, feel frantic or freak out inside when faced with that mental and emptional pressure!
3. Explore different tools and/or strategies to take action on to help eleviate that mental and emotional feeling of pressure. Also explore how you can use your superpower of taking action when faced with urgency! This is where you can start practicing healthy urgency habits...I am not saying stay up till late hours or always wait until the last minute! Use your creative brain to create it in the moments you choose to make momentum to get stuff done! 

Thank you for being here! I love each of you and please know I am here if you'd ever like to reach out and share a episode topic idea, be a guest on an episode, or just ask me questions about your own ADHD journey! You can visit my website, www.katelynmabry.com to hop on my mailing list, check out my book, or schedule a FREE ADHD coaching consultation to discover if that would be the next best step for you and your family! Have a great day!

Transitioning  back to school can come with a rollercoaster of thoughts, feelings, and big emotions! The first step we need to take in transitioning is to lean into those big feelings and figure out where your mindset is at, so you can own it and move it if needed into this new school year! 

In this episode, you will meet my friend and fellow ADHD Coach Will. He lives in Fort Collins Colorado with his dog, Dash, who is his best friend. He was a D1 athlete in track and cross country, where is was able to release just a portion of his superpowers!  Will is a rockstar as he specializes and is #1 in coaching teens around the world to build confidence, grow their mindset, and overall thrive on their ADHD journey! His passion is to coach tweens and teens how to be "unstoppable!"

Will just scratches the surface with us today as he talks about owning and accepting emotions that come and focusing emotions and efforts on what we CAN control (attidude, effort, how we treat others, etc.) He also explains the difference between having "conditional confidence" vs. "unconditional confidence" as we move through the day. Are you banking your confidence on the "if's" of the day or are you standing firm in your confidence of moving what you can control in your day!? Such brilliant insight and helpful takeaways to try!! Practice asking yourself continually, "what can I control" about this situation, interaction, negative thought, feeling of rejection!? This question practiced daily will be a game changer for your unconditional confidence to grow! 

You can find fabulous Coach Will at https://www.coachingwithwill.com/. Follow him on social media if possible as he puts out some awesome, valuable content on a daily basis!

Check out my website, www.katelynmabry.com to check out my book, send me episode ideas, get your child on this show, or to look into the resources I have available too! I look forward to hearing from you! Love you all! 

Do you find yourself at the boiling point and having a hard time controlling those burst of anger!! If so, you are not alone! Those big intense emotions are no joke when you live with ADHD and I wanted to speak directly to the topic of anger so you can capture those thoughts behind the anger and take steps to pull yourself into finding calm and growing in your response to that intense emotion!

In this episode, you will do some visualizing!!

1. Stop sign
2. Smoke Detector
3. Money
4. Prayer/Mindful practices

Each symbol has a purpose to help you practice recognizing that smoke inside, pausing, and become aware that angry words and actions can cost you to lose relationships, etc., and finally you need to customize the last step...I choose to pray and turn to God's word/truth...you may choose to practice mindset shifts and exercise zipping your lip and moving your feet, etc...where can you go to use soothers and find your calm!? 

So happy you are here! Visit my website www.katelynmabry.com for more resources, check out my book, get on my email list, or book a free consultation to see if ADHD life coaching would be a helpful next step for you and your family! Can't wait to be with you next week when we jumpstart a series of back to school episodes!! Love you all!!! 

"There's so much about me that you don't know!" This is a quote from the song that my daughter shares with you in this episode and it was a very fitting line to what I want to talk about! There is so much under the surface when it comes to living with an ADHD brain! Too often we are stuck feeling like, "they just don't get me!" This also leaves others reacting to the surface behaviors or tendancies seen with misunderstanding and often hurtful words, just because they aren't seeing under the surface! 

In this episode, I will ask you to visualize an iceburg and customize it to see what's on and under your own surface! I then ask you to practice three things in response to this visualization and helping others understand you better...

1. Shed the shame
2. Share feeling statements (this takes some digging to identify what these truly are)
3. Show up just as you are and educate others along the way! 

Visit my website at www.katelynmabry.com to book a free coaching consultation (or clickhttps://calendly.com/kmabry-1/consultation ) You can also check out my book and get the latest episode with other valuable resources when you join my email list! I look forward to hearing from you! Love you all! Have a great week! 

I think we all crave a more pleasant home evironment, don't we!? Well sometimes those of us with ADHD have emotions and behaviors that are triggered and cause an environment to become more unpleasant. This holds true for siblings and even trusted adults too!! 

In this episode, you will hear two of my kiddos give a very realistic example of the unpleasant bickering we often were hearing in our home. Recently, we began to impliment the incentive of "pleasantness points" to work toward a common family goal in order to become more self-aware and create a more pleasant environment while home and even when out and about! \

Pleasantness points are given without being asked for them and when the trusted adult catches the child making a pleasant choice like, giving a compliment, using the power of apology, helping around the house without being asked, taking a breath and walking away from a dysregulated sibling, using feeling statements when upset, etc... reach out and let me know if you impliment this and it's helpful for your family too! 

If you like this episode and want to recieve weekly episode right to your inbox, go to my website www.katelynmabry.com to hop on my email list. You can also check out my book and set up a free consultation to see if ADHD coaching would be a helpful next step for your family! Love you all and look forward to hearing from you! 

We enter into Summer with so much excitement and wonder of what it will bring! But sometimes, those of us with ADHD find ourselves feeling off or funky because of the unknown and lack of structure. I feel you on this and my 3 daughters diagnosed with ADHD feel this too! That's why I want to take this episode to talk about 3 things we can do to smooth out the remainder of the Summer so that fun can be had, calm can be found, and chaos feels more manageable! 

1. Set a semi-structured morning routine (there can still be flexibility): This will set you up for more successful, fulfilling days. Remember that our brains CRAVE structure, but we have a hard time creating it! Summer can be tricky with different schedules, but preparing a predictable plan the night before for the next day will allow for smoother transitions each day.
2. Stay well rested and hydrated! Two things that tend to slip in the Summer days! Lack of sleep and dehydration can completely heighted those emotions and other ADHD challenges. This is why setting a sleep plan and even setting reminders to hydrate can really make a difference.
3. Practice making your body move! It's super easy to stay in your jammies all day and even get sucked into too much technology...but that bandaide of pleasure leaves us feeling icky if too much technology time is spent! Get in the habit of putting down devices and making your body move in some way...go for a hike, jump on the trampoline, play a sport, take the dog for a walk, have a dance party in the living room, etc. 

Next week we will dive even deeper into some things we can do as a family to make our homes more pleasant as we curb conflict with compliments and set family goals to work together on achieving through the choices we make! I look forward to being with you next week! Love you all! 

Check out my website, www.katelynmabry.com for more resources. You can also go to www.focusforwardadhd.com to set a FREE consultation with me to see if you'd like to work with me as your family's ADHD coach. I would love to come alongside you. 

WHY IN THE WORLD DID I WALK IN HERE!? This is something that both kids and parents alike can relate to and a great example of a connection we can make with each other as we navigate this whole idea of the struggle our ADHD brain has in the skill area of "working memory!?" 

The answer is, YES! Your working memory is working and it is not broken, even though it feels that way sometimes! The bottom line is that often times we are faced with a "weaker working memory" that needs to be stretched and strengthened! This is especially important to be intentional with because our weak working memory can be a huge trigger for emotional dysregulation! If we want to continue practicing the regulation of our emotions, then we need to really think about how we can strengthen that working memory!! 

In this episode, I will talk about what a working memory, how it tends to be weaker in our ADHD brains, and the steps we can take to work on strengthening it!! 

1. Exercise- Train your working memory to get stronger through finding memory apps that you can play during tech time, doodle, journal memories, internal repetition, play card games and other fun memory building activities as a family.
2. Encourage- Be encourgaged to chunk things up into bit size memory successful pieces, practice encouraging yourself with positive self talk, etc.
3. Educate- Continue to educate yourself and others about the challenge you face with working memory and the tools that can be used to help accommodate and grow this area of struggle. Get reminders in your face through visual charts, timers, whiteboard, post-it's and come up with a memory system during the school year that will help with assignement recall and completion!

If you liked this episode and would love to recieve weekly reminders of upcoming episodes, go to my website www.katelynmabry.com and get on my email list. You can also check out my coaching options to see if it would be a good fit for your family! I would love the opportunity to come alongside your family as you continue on this ADHD journey!! Love you all! 

It sounds so simple, but it can be the most powerful tool for our ADHD brains that we have right at outside our door! Simply stepping outside in the fresh air, sunlight, with any sort of greenery and the bonus of nature sounds like bird or breeze has a profound effect on your stress level, mood, concentration, intelligence, productivity and overall health! 

In this episode, you will join me outdoors to hear all about the benefits of using nature as a tool for your ADHD brain! I encourage you to listen to this episode outside too so you can brainstorm ways to use nature on a daily basis to help your mind, body, and emotions too! Nature can be a tool for regulation and a way to find that calm you so desire in the midst of choas. You can couple nature with that intentional mindset practice as you close your eyes and use breaths, prayer, or meditating on what you are grateful for to reset your mind, body and emotions too! 

Go to my website www.katelynmabry.com to hop on my email list, check out my Summer Coaching Program https://focusforwardadhd.com/journey or look ahead at hiring me as a 1:1 coach for your child this next new school year! We can work together to advocate and get the year started on the right foot, setting your child up for a successful school year! I look forward to hearing from you! Love you all!! 

TRANSITIONS can be super duper tricky for our ADHD brains for many reasons! For starters, it required the executive function skill of "task switching" and like other multi-step processes, transitions have different types and steps to consider as you learn to navigate through them! 

Transition Types: Physical, mental (internal) and emotional (also internal)...those last two are ones we often forget to consider when looking at transitions throughout the day! 

Steps in trasitioning:

1. Moving away from a task (this is especially hard when it's a high interest activity)

2. Navigating in between two tasks, activities, or environments

3. Starting a new task/activity (this is especially hard when it is non-preferred)

The first step is to see through the lens of difficulty from the perspective of the ADHD brain and become self aware as an ADHD brain of the transition types and steps that are tricky for you!

Let's talk take-away..."nuggets of knowledge"

• Raise self-awareness of why and when transitions are tricky
• Establish routines and systems that work best for your brain by pulling out the tools that work...
• Tools to try...Visual timers (you want it in your face), visual reminders for the same reason and allows for anticipation of what's expected and coming next. This also always for time to be chunked and check-ins to be made.
• Movement through transitions can add an element of fun and gamify going from one thing to the next! 
• Music is always magical and makes transitioning fun too! 
• Continue collaboratively problem solving alongside child and let them lead transitions when possible!

I hope this information and these take-aways were helpful to you! If you are looking for a great group coaching session to join this summer check out the group I am launching "Journey to Becoming Mom Again!"https://focusforwardadhd.com/journey You can also get the link on my website www.katelynmabry.com and make sure to join my email list to recieve weekly emails with up to date podcast episodes and more resources! We are on this journey together remember! Love you all! 

Hey Everyone!! 

I have missed talking with you guys these last few weeks! I was on vacation in Mexico and brought back a validated nugget of knowledge that is helpful for our ADHD brains and I wanted to speak on how it can feel tricky to transition back into the swing of things when you've been away, your schedule is changed, or you just need to go from one task to another! I felt this a lot when I was trying to get back into my routine after returning from Mexico!

In this episode, you will hear me talk about all of the benefits of WATER! It's amazing calming tool right at our fingertips! Being by the ocean all week when I was away really gave me a sense of how truly calming that simple sound of water is! It was the most relaxed I have felt in years! That got me thinking...water is such a great tool for our ADHD brains in so many ways! Making sure you are well hydrated with water will reduce brain fog and even help with working memory and energy levels for productivity. If you live by any body of water and you feel dysregulated, you can make it a habit to take trips to physically feel the calming mind and body effects of simply being near water. If you don't live by a body of water, you can simply use the water in your home to splash your face when those emotions run high, or hop in the shower as a regulation technique and as an added bonus, showers can spark your brilliantly creative mind too. I get some of my best ideas in the shower! LOL! 

You'll also hear me talk about transitions in this episode, but we just scratch the surfact as next week we will dive deeper into this struggle! The first step is always to simply practice self-awareness of the struggle! This is a great conversation starter to investigate different areas of life, different environments, or even day to day task switching that feels extra hard sometimes. We need to identify before any growth can be made! 

Don't forget to check out the great program I will be running this summer! "Journey to Becoming Mom Again" is a program designed for mama's of kids with ADHD. I am on a mission to create a connected community of moms, where you can become more educated, empowered, and encouraged to understand your child's brain better, respond more appropriately and effectively to behaviors, and become their best advocate both at home and at school! Go to www.focusforwardadhd.com/journey to book a free consultation and see if this program would be right for you!

You can also visit my website www.katelynmabry.com to get on my email list (only one email each week;) check out my book, or reach out to me with a podcast episode request! I would love to hear from your kiddos too!! We are on this journey together!! Love you all!