News & Articles

Over the last two weeks in sessions, one theme kept rising to the surface again and again: Difficulty is data. Not identity. One of the things I’ve learned in my coaching work is that when the same dynamic shows up across different clients — different ages, different schools, different workplaces — it isn’t random. It’s a pattern. And when I detect patterns across sessions, I pay attention. Those patterns often become the very topics we

Article by Jalen Hines Do you remember those New Year’s resolutions you swore you would follow through with—but haven’t thought about since early January? As a result, the pressure of avoidance can quietly build and end up weighing you down while internal shame creeps in. It’s a lot. For those with ADHD, please listen carefully: after weeks of disrupted routine or rest, January shows up uninvited to demand focus, commitment, and fresh starts. The beginning

By Jalen Hines, Mental Health Freelance Writer After a few weeks free from responsibilities like homework and boring lectures, January comes around—and all of a sudden, winter vacation feels like a bad case of the Sunday scaries. You wonder how you’ll readjust to school life. You worry about how stressed you’ll be, and the advice you receive always feels the same. They tell you to try harder, to be more disciplined, and to push through.

This Labor Day weekend, my family celebrated our 74th family reunion. Yes, seventy-four years of food, laughter, storytelling, and enough cousins to fill a football stadium. We’ve got five chapters: Pennsylvania, DC Metro, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina (our origin city).And because it was here in the DC area, I was in host mode. And if you know anything about the DC Metro chapter… we’re a “go big or go home” crew. Cookouts. Banquets.

August 12th All of my blog posts are born from the pulse of my clients’ weekly sessions — the moments when something they say lands so deeply that I can still hear it days later. A few weeks ago, during one of those sessions, a client casually said something that’s been ringing in my ears ever since: “I’ve learned to treat my downtime as protected time.” She said it without fanfare, as if she were stating

Just like medication isn’t a one-and-done solution, coaching requires time, practice, and persistence. And yes—there’s brain science behind that. For ADHDers, change doesn’t come from simply knowing what to do. It comes from repeating strategies enough times for the brain to actually believe they work. 🔁 Repetition is the rewiring.ADHD brains often struggle with something called inconsistent recall—we might know a strategy on Monday, but by Friday it feels brand new again. That’s not laziness.

For many LGBTQIA+ folks with ADHD, survival has often come before thriving. You’ve learned to navigate a world that misunderstands both your brain and your identity. You’ve been called too much, too sensitive, too disorganized, too loud, too quiet, too queer, too distracted. Over time, you may have become an expert in masking—adapting and filtering yourself just to make it through. But what if your brain, your queerness, and your creativity were never the problem?

Summer is supposed to be fun, right? Cookouts, rooftop hangs, music festivals, spontaneous road trips… But if you’re anything like me—and have ADHD—summer can also feel like a nonstop sprint through a sensory obstacle course. The days are longer. The invites pile up. And suddenly you’re triple-booked on a Saturday wondering why you agreed to brunch, a baby shower, and your cousin’s BBQ when all you really wanted was to lie in front of a

By Shayne Swift | SwiftLyfe Coaching & Consulting Picture this: you’re the “model minority.” You’re expected to be quiet, high-achieving, emotionally controlled, and endlessly resilient. But inside, your thoughts race, your focus wavers, and self-doubt hums beneath every perfect grade or polished façade. ADHD? That’s not even on the radar. The Model Minority Myth: A Double-Edged Sword The model minority myth has long been used to stereotype Asian communities in the U.S. as naturally successful,

By Shayne Swift | Swift Lyfe Coaching & Consulting ADHD is hard—and it’s even harder when you don’t understand what it’s like to live with it day after day. One of my clients, who I lovingly refer to as ADHD+, recently asked me to meet with his partner. Like many ADHDers, his neurodivergence doesn’t ride solo; it’s braided with layers of emotional dysregulation, executive dysfunction, and late-diagnosis self-doubt. His goal? Improve communication.Her feeling? Burned out.