get to know me
i'm laurel (she/her). ADHD coach, facilitator, creative, gardener, writer.
I come from a background of marketing and communications, with 10+ years in progressively senior positions within creative industries and corporate environments.
After a wallop of burnout (or, series of wallops, if we’re being honest), i took a leave from work to unpack a new diagnosis of ADHD and what that meant for me. Diving into how my brain works has completely changed where and how i focus my days, my time and my energy.
I’ve learned how to embrace the beauty of how my creative brain works, while developing strategies to accommodate the bits that, well, kinda piss me off sometimes. I believe that it’s possible to live a life that is just a little bit easier each day, through practical problem-solving and radical self-acceptance.
One of my big joys is gardening, and I love the process of getting my hands into the dirt and learning as I go. I’m working on a small community garden project, and i’m so fortunate to have access to a small yard for learning to grow vegetables and lots of pollinator-friendly flowers. I also love to cook, watch wayyyyy too much gardening television and love video games (currently tending my farm in Stardew Valley and blasting intrusive thoughts in Psychonauts2).
what i do
I work with clients as a Professional ADHD Coach, using an integrated and whole-person approach to support. I want to help my clients find more ease and joy in their lives, using techniques in mindfulness, holistic health support, personalized accommodations and executive functioning support. Together, we’ll celebrate your strengths, build strategies around your challenges and stock your ADHD toolkit.
Whether your goals are big (starting a business) or small (eating your damn breakfast), I’m here to support you and your brain to reach them.
what to expect
We are all different, and our needs are as varied as our fingerprints. What works for me might not work for you. By unpacking where ADHD comes to life for you, we can identify ways to support you reaching your goals, organizing your life and feeling a little bit better in the day to day.
Coaching isn’t about me giving you advice; though you can expect lots of fun tidbits, learnings and silly jokes from me. Our work together will be tailored and personalized to you, and with your big and small goals in mind. I won’t dump a bunch of homework on you (unless you’re into that), and Iwon’t tell you to stop drinking coffee (unless you want to).
Over the course of our partnership, we'll experiment with strategies to support your goals, do a bit of learning and unpacking, have a few laughs, and shift our mindsets around neurodivergence and self-care & community support.
services
discovery call - free
fill out the contact form below, and I'll be in touch to schedule a free 'vibes check' call. this will be about 20-30 min, and we'll say hello, chat about your goals, and decide if we want to move forward with a coaching partnership.
1-1 coaching -
- available virtually via video or phone call, or IRL for those in or near Hamilton, Ontario.
✿ 1 month partnership - $400
- meet weekly, 4 sessions, 50 min each
✿ 3 Month partnership - $1200
- 12 sessions - 50 min each
✿ 6 Month partnership - $2200
- 24 sessions - 50 min each
something else? let's chat!
I'm available to provide my expertise, skills & knowledge about neurodivergence, neuro-affirming workspaces/group culture and marketing/branding communications strategy. I'm open to working with small organizations, non-profits and mutual aid groups.
values & considerations
I don’t believe in operating from a deficit or pathologizing model of understanding ADHD. I'm not here to fix your brain, or my own, because we don’t need fixing. We’re not broken. But many of the expectations that we place on ourselves, and that society places on us, are simply not supportive to our nervous systems. They’re designed with neurotypical brains in mind, and with productivity and capitalism as the highest goals. What parts of these expectations can we bend/soften/restructure to better support our well-being? How can we live in ways that are more neuro-affirming and easier on ourselves?
I also recognize that many of these systems are functioning as designed, through histories of, and present day, white supremacy and colonialism. It’s impossible for me to support clients without recognizing and holding space for different lived experiences, and especially for the different realities for Black, Brown & Indigenous peoples. My unpacking of my own presence and existence within white supremacist structures is a life-long journey, and I hope to hold space in a way that is trauma and lived-experience informed, and culturally educated and embracing.
I am happy to work with clients who are either medically or self-diagnosed, or questioning ADHD / their own executive functioning. I am not a medical professional licensed to diagnose ADHD, but I am a trained and certified Health & Life Coach (CHC, CLC) and a certified Professional ADHD Coach with the ACO.
get in touch
ADHD is not a deficit of attention, but rather a surplus of it, with difficulty directing it where it needs to go. 
- Dr Ed Hallowell
resources
want to learn more about ADHD and/or neurodivergence? I've provided links to folks who have influenced my learning journey in different directions. And whewph, what a learning journey it has BEEN! Here's some good places to start:
Neurodivergence-specific:
- 'AuDHD Flourishing' - 
Podcast - Mattia Mauree
Podcast - Mattia Mauree- 'The Anti-Ableist Manifesto' - Book - Tiffany Yu
Book - Tiffany Yu- 'ADHD 2.0' - Book - John Ratey M.D. & Ed Hallowell M.D.
Book - John Ratey M.D. & Ed Hallowell M.D.Other media influencing my worldviews/media I've loved recently:
- adrienne maree brown - Book - Emergent Strategy - And, check out their podcast: How to Survive the End of the World (with Autumn Brown).
- Kelly Hayes - Organizing My Thoughts (podcast & newsletter)
- Hwang Bo-Reum - Book - 'Welcome to the Hyunam Dong Bookshop'
Book - 'Welcome to the Hyunam Dong Bookshop' - Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass
Braiding Sweetgrass- Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower
- Angela Y. Davis - Except for Palestine
- Jenny Odell - Book - How to Do Nothing'
Book - How to Do Nothing'- The Monty Don Gardening channel on Tubi is my constant cozy viewing.
I am writing to you and living in the 'Head of the Lake' in what is now known as Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This place, on Turtle Island, is the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. The land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant; a commitment to shared and reciprocal relationships with the land and with each other. To this goal, i am personally committed, and I am striving to live with goals of collective liberation and decolonization at the forefront of what i do. I absolutely love the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book, "Braiding Sweetgrass" in which she speaks about the Dish With One Spoon, and about our vital connections to each other and to the earth. Check her work out: https://share.libbyapp.com/title/1322149.
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