If you haven’t voted already, I hope that you have a plan to do so. I was lucky to early vote yesterday few challenges and only a short wait. The only bad thing about this is that now all I can do is wait for the election results.
Waiting is not something I enjoy in normal circumstances. Most of us, regardless of political persuasion, would probably agree that this election cycle is anything but normal. It’s likely that you may be feeling stress, anxiety, or even significant fear about the election results.
Meditation Is Not a Magic Pill but It Can Be a Refuge
I take great pains as a lawyer and mindfulness teacher to avoid treating mindfulness practice like a magic pill. Meditation isn’t something you can do to make all the problems of life go away. To the contrary, when done right, meditation may help you get clearer about life. It’s one reason why the practice is hard.
Paradoxically, though, at the same time meditation can also be a refuge. It can be a safe space to find calm when the world is turbulent. Meditation can offer an opportunity for self-acceptance to deal with difficult emotions. At the most basic level, it can offer us at least a few minutes where we aren’t ruminating or doom scrolling about the state of the world.
Meditation Can Help Us Reorient to Goodness
The purpose meditation most often serves for me as a lawyer, mom, and community leader is that it reorients me to goodness. I’m a busy lady, I frequently deal with conflict, I’m often lost in my thoughts, and I tend to be intense and competitive. Meditation helps me rebalance the scales.
When I meditate, I let go of controlling things for a while. I let go of thinking and instead reactivate my faculties to perceive and sense. I stop judging and instead let holding and allowing to take the lead. And instead of closing off my heart, I work on opening it to myself, my community, and even the people who challenge me. This is how meditation can be a refuge that enables us to find stability so we can engage more deeply with life.
MILS Practices for Election Day
It is this idea that motivated me to volunteer to lead a meditation practice for the Mindfulness in Law Society on Election Day. First, I knew that offering a practice would be the most compassionate things I could do for myself. It would keep me busy and allow me to do something good and that I loved on a hard day.
Second, I knew that other lawyers out there were probably worried like me. Meditation can be a challenge when times are hard, so doing the practice in community can really help. Frankly, just remembering that you have a community can really help. That’s why MILS is offering a special practice on Election Day and the day after to offer the support of community to all in the legal profession.
Details of the MILS Election Day Support Practices
The Mindfulness in Law Society is offering 2 special practices on Election Day and the day after, Wednesday November 6th. Here are the details:
Election Day Sit
Event Details: I will offer a self-compassion meditation practice at 12 PM PST / 3 PM EST on Election Day, November 5th, on Zoom. This will be open to any law student or professor, lawyer, or anyone who works for a law firm or in the legal profession. The practice will focus on finding refuge in one’s community to support oneself.
How to Join: As a special event, you will need to register on Zoom to join the sit. The event is free of charge but you must register here for the link.
Special Wakeful Wednesday Sit
Event Details: I was set to guide the Wakeful Wednesday Sit this week, but my friend and highly experienced teacher, Judi Cohen, agreed to fill in for me. Knowing that none of us can predict what will happen this week, Judi will offer a special practice about welcoming whatever emotions may arise.
How to Join: This is a recurring event for MILS so simply click this link to the Virtual Sits page and hit “Wakeful Wednesday” to join on Zoom at 12 PM PST / 3 PM PST on November 6th.
Feel Free to Join Us in Community
I hope that you are making your voice heard at the polls this week. After you do that, please join us to practice meditation in community. Both practices are open to law students, law professors, lawyers regardless of practice status, paralegals, and anyone who works in the legal profession.
Even if you cannot join us for the sits, I will be wishing that all of you are safe, healthy, happy, and at peace.
Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.
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