Author Archives: Claire E. Parsons

Claire E. Parsons is a partner at Wood + Lamping LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has practiced for the last fifteen years in the areas of litigation, employment, local government law. Claire lives in Kentucky with her husband, Brian, their two daughters, and dog. Claire is an active leader in her community and in the legal profession. She has led innovative charitable programs in her community, statewide legal organizations, committees relating to the promotion of women professionals. Claire is also a frequent writer and speaker for these and other organizations. She has published and spoken about numerous topics, ranging from complex legal issues, to law practice, networking and marketing, as well as mindfulness and wellness for lawyers and other professionals. She writes regularly on LinkedIn and even co-authored a book this year with 19 other women lawyers about how they used the platform to network and pursue career goals during the pandemic. In 2013, Claire began a mindfulness practice early in her law career and as she was learning to be a new mom to her eldest daughter, Sophie. When Claire began the practice, she saw it gradually transform her life for the better by helping her to reduce overthinking, manage stress, and infuse compassion practices into her daily life. Over the next few years, she continued to study mindfulness practices and attend retreats. In 2018, Claire began speaking and writing on these topics and she quickly became regarded as a resource for professionals as someone who can explain meditation practices in an approachable and practical way. In 2020, she completed the online meditation teacher certification program with The Mindfulness Center founded by Deborah Norris, Ph.D., to refine her understanding of the science of mindfulness and its practical applications. In 2021, Claire also completed the 500-hour yoga teacher training from My Vinyasa Practice as well as numerous courses relating to compassion practices, including Mindful Self-Compassion and Compassion Cultivation Training. Claire enjoys sharing her experience with mindfulness in her practical, and often humorous voice, to help humanize the legal profession and to make life a little easier for her community.

A Few Breaths Really Can Make a Big Difference

“Take a breath” they say. The world is crashing down. You are filled with anxiety/rage/existential dread/fatigue or a combination of them all. And they have the audacity to tell you to take a breath. Really? Are they–those unspecified hobgoblins who clearly don’t get it–even in touch with reality?

Look, I get it. I have been on the receiving end of the “take a breath!” comment in the midst of high emotions. It was far more likely to induce me to take a swing at the person who uttered it than to help me calm down. Nonetheless, it is good advice. (Though I must also add that not giving advice to someone experiencing the throes of high emotions is also good advice.)

Sorry to be annoying in this way, but a few breaths really can make a big difference. Here are a few reasons why.

1. 5 Deep Breaths = A Minute

Have you ever paid attention to how long a deep breath takes? By a deep breath, I mean a breath where you fill up the lungs, pause for a beat, empty the lungs, and pause again? Try it and time yourself. It probably takes somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds.

You don’t have to be a math whiz to realize that this means 5 breaths is equivalent to about a minute. When it comes to calming down, easing back, or taking a break, a minute can be a game changer. If you bring the breath tally up to 10, you are in the 2 to 3 minute range. In my book, that’s a full blown meditation.

The point here is that 5 breaths is not nothing. It’s a meaningful chunk of time when used strategically in critical situations.

2. The Breath Is the Link Between Body and Mind

How can a few breaths have an impact so quickly? As I have written before, the breath is the link between body and mind. Our breath is literally linked to our nervous system. It is the only non-chemical way our brains can consciously modulate our nervous systems.

Thus, if time is short or quick stability is needed, noticing the breath is the most direct route to managing emotions. We can’t always have perfect control over this in difficult times but with practice we can learn to slow down or disrupt an emotional chain reaction. This can give us more agency to care for ourselves and maintain stability in difficult circumstances.

3. Emotions Don’t Last Long

Now you might be thinking, “there’s nothing magical about the 1-3 minute range.” If so, that’s understandable but it is overlooking something.

Did you know that emotions, at least the physical experience of them, only last about 90 seconds in the body? One reason why meditation can be so impactful is that it helps us watch this play out.

Not only can pausing and sitting with emotions help us see that they quickly shift from one emotion to another. But also watching emotions helps us see that they are often short-lived when we don’t let them mix too much with protracting thoughts.

What on earth are we to do while waiting for this 90-second bout of physical intensity to subside? Ahem, allow me to suggest 5 to 10 deep breaths. Now do you get my drift?

4. Just Pausing Can Help with Overwhelm

So what about the times when you are so overwhelmed that you can’t even identify emotions in your body? This, I know, is one of the worst experiences to have.

Overwhelm happens when you encounter something difficult and you feel like you don’t have the support, resources, or personal fortitude to survive it. Obviously, calming down, reassessing, and reconnecting with sources of strength is essential. But before you can do that you have to get your bearings.

In my experience, overwhelm usually calls for an initial pause. When things are tough, taking a moment to come back to your body and reestablish some calm can help. Complicated practices are a challenge here because you may not have the presence of mind to use them.

This is why so many people swear by box breathing or other pranayama strategies. They are simple and effective and can be a link back to reality and yourself. In the same way, remembering to take just a few breaths can help you deal with overwhelm.

5. A Few Breaths Can Grow Into More

And the final reason that a few breaths really matters? You don’t have to stick to just a few breaths. Ten years ago, I started meditating at 1 to 2 minutes a day. Over time, I gradually increased the time I could spend sitting.

A few breaths can make a world of difference in tense times, but as you get more comfortable those few breaths can serve as a foundation for further practice and exploration. You can learn to sit for longer periods, you can try other transformative practices, or you can incorporate breathwork into your physical fitness routine. In themselves, a few breaths can make an impact but honing the skill of connecting with the breath can support you in myriad other ways beyond momentarily calming down.

I’m sorry if this post was annoying or kind of basic. If there’s anything meditation can teach us, though, it’s that basic things are often true and can be impactful. The breath is one of those things and a few breaths really can make a big difference.

If you want to test this theory, check out our 5 and 10 breath meditations here or on Insight Timer:

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.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Andre 3000 Is My Fav New Spiritual Teacher

I was in college in the early 2000’s. Outkast was such a big deal at that time that it was almost impossible to walk into any campus community space without seeing their videos on TV. I’m not a visual person but the image of the iconic video from “Hey Ya!” playing on the TV in the student gym is burned in my mind.

Outkast was a rap group, but that video and song made it abundantly clear that the group’s constituents, Big Boi and Andre 3000, weren’t overly concerned with genre. Given this, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by Andre 3000’s latest album but I admit that I absolutely have been.

If we had to put Outkast and Andre 3000 in a genre category, the best categorization would probably be rap, right? Well, what kind of album did Andre just release? A new age flute album entitled New Blue Sun.

This is not a joke, but when I first read about this I swear that I grinned from ear to ear. I wasn’t laughing at Andre. Far from it, I was elated for him. It appears that he became somewhat obsessed with the flute, started doing pop up concerts, and let himself play enough to generate an entire album.

New age is not my normal genre, but I decided to give New Blue Sun a listen during my meditation sessions. The titles alone made the experience worthwhile. The first track is called “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time .”

I’m not a musician. At best, I am an avid car/shower singer and a failed pianist. As a writer, though, that title spoke to me so deeply. How many times had I sat down to write one thing only to see some other totally different thing emerge? And how many times had I come up with something great just because I let myself play and have fun?

I am here to say that New Blue Sun is one of those great things that comes from having fun. Unlike some of Andre’s prior work with Outkast, I would say it fits squarely within the new age genre. It’s all instrumental and the vibes are similar to what you’d get from artists like Enigma, Enya, or Deuter.

But what I like best is that you can hear Andre playing with sound. Flute is present on most tracks, but it is used in so many ways you may not always realize it is the sound from a flute. You can also hear other sounds blended in throughout, such as shells rattling.

Though the tracks have a feeling of being random, Andre’s skill with sound is apparent. The tracks come together in the end to create a cohesive whole and convey an emotion. The changing quality of the tracks, however, is what I like best.

Because so many varieties of sound, rhythm, tone, and mood are used in each track, the album is perfect for meditation. The music in general is calm and introspective, but the shifts and changes help keep your attention.

In fact, my favorite track for starting a meditation session is “Ninety Three ‘Til Infinity And Beyonce.” That track starts with beats perfectly synced up to box breathing and enables deep relaxation in less than 3 minutes.

Does New Blue Sun signify that Andre 3000 may defy expectations entirely by venturing beyond the bounds of music into the world of spiritual teaching? I don’t know. Rumors are that a new Outkast album may happen first and I personally can’t wait to see what might come from that.

In truth, I don’t expect Andre 3000 to start a profile on Insight Timer any time soon or to become the next Oprah. But his album teaches a spiritual lesson for many lawyers out there and anyone who wants to live a creative life.

The lesson is that sometimes you can’t predict where the wind will blow you. You can’t control what comes out when you start to make things. This can be scary and frustrating, but it can also be worthwhile. New Blue Sun shows us it is possible to see beyond the expectations set by others and ourselves. And when we do something totally unexpected but also good can emerge.

As I start my new year in a new law firm, I for one am thrilled to have Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun as an example of the beauty can emerge when you learn to just play with life.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Why Do We Focus on the Breath?

Nearly every guided meditation and meditation teacher out there tells you to focus on the breath. It’s something so basic that you may have never asked why. The breath calms us down, right? Doesn’t that make it the obvious focal point for meditation.

Though a common assumption, that’s not entirely true. The reason we focus on the breath in meditation may surprise you.

The Breath Is a Link to Your Nervous System

The breath is a way to regulate our nervous systems. In fact, it is the only non-chemical way to do so. Our breath is directly linked to our autonomic nervous systems. And when I say linked, I mean it literally.

As you are reading. put your hand on your diaphragm in your mid to lower abdomen and pay attention to its position. Your diaphragm is below the lungs and heart and they all rest against your spinal column. The diaphragm is controlled by the phrenic nerve and, in turn, it can activate the vagus nerve.

This connection means that your breath sends signals to the your body and mind constantly. Any change in breath can create a domino affect that can affect your behavior, mood, emotions, and thoughts.

The Breath Does More Than Calm Us Down

When I said above that it’s not “entirely true” that the breath calms you down, I wasn’t lying. In most daily experiences, we focus on the breath to calm down. That usually means we try to “catch our breath” by slowing down our rate of breathing and breathing more deeply.

Whether we notice this or not, in situations like this we may be focusing on the exhale in our breath. Focusing on the exhale and slowing down our rate of breath will calm us down. The exhale is linked to our parasympathetic nervous system. When our exhale becomes slower and longer than our inhale, it sends a signal to our body and brain that we are safe and can enter “rest and digest” mode.

The inhale, though, can do the opposite. If we try deeper and faster inhales, we may notice our heart rate start to increase and other bodily systems activating. While many lawyers try meditation and breathwork to calm down, there are some styles of practice intended to rev the body and mind back up.

Why Understanding the Breath Matters

So why is this important to know? It is useful for several reasons. First, remembering the breath’s role as a bodily function may help you see it more functionally in your meditation practice. If your breath is not smooth or slow or even, it can be very easy in meditation practice to get upset about that or feel like you are doing something wrong. Remembering the role of the breath from a functional anatomical perspective may help reduce judgment.

Another reason that understanding the purpose of breath focus helps is that it can help us give ourselves what we need. If you experience difficult feelings or thoughts during meditation, you can learn to use the breath like the break pedal in your car. Not only will focusing on the breath disrupt the thoughts and emotions; it can help you slow down and ease back in your body.

In the same way, you could use breathwork to re-energize yourself when you are in a slump. Instead of a coffee, you could try some breathwork with more intense inhales and see how it affects you. If pranayama is not your thing, try some physical movement or exercise to achieve the same thing. Even a walk around the block is likely to automatically trigger bigger and deeper inhales which will energize the body and mind.

You Have Options for Breath Focus

As I have written before, the particular location of your focus is not essential to notice these things. You can focus on your breath at your nose, sinuses and throat, chest or shoulders, or belly. To bring attention to the energetic impacts of your breath though, pay particular attention to your inhale v. exhale, the lengths of each, and any pauses in between.

With this background, hopefully it is clearer now why meditations and teachers so frequently direct you to focus on your breath. Of course, it is always with you and that makes it a great focal point for formal and informal practice.

Practicing breath focus or breathwork, though, gives you a tool for self-regulation that can serve you well in formal practice and in life. If you can learn to notice your breath, you can also learn to manage it. That can give you greater agency for handling the stresses and energy slumps of life. And if you can do that, it opens doors for facing many other challenges with a little more skill and ease.

To try some breath focus practices, check out our meditations on Insight Timer or here:

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Reading for Reflection on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today, you are going to see a lot of quotes shared on social media from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. You may see a few people urging you to read his prior “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” I urge you to go and read both of them in full.

In all the discussion of dreams and ideals today, it’s important to remember that real work, effort, risk, and hardship is necessary to make real change. One of the biggest criticisms leveled against mindfulness practices (and maybe the mindfulness community) is that it advocates “doing nothing” when so much work needs to be done.

In truth, though, meditation and other mindfulness practices aren’t just about doing nothing. Sure, formal practice calls on you to do nothing for a period of time, but that inactivity is (or should be) serving a purpose. In my life, I have seen how meditation has made me more courageous, more circumspect and ethical in dealing with others, and more engaged with my life and community.

Over the last three years, I have shared several posts from others in the mindfulness community that tell me I am not alone in this. In case you need any help reflecting today about how mindfulness can lead to change and brave action in the world, these posts may help.

I read and reviewed The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda V. Magee last year. It is ideal for those interested in exploring racial justice or curious about how mindfulness and compassion practices can help us build a better world.

If you aren’t sure how mindfulness and social change are connected, check out this interview with Chris Punangbayan yoga teacher and the Executive Director of California Changelawyers.

Happiness may not be the first thing that comes to mind today, but the author, famed meditation teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, had a direct link to Martin Luther King Jr. He educated him about the realities of the Vietnam War and is attributed with helping King change his advocacy on that topic. You can read about Hanh’s simple, elegant, and wise book, Happiness, here.

Meditation teachers, Sharon Salzberg, (pictured to the left) and Tara Brach have each authored books about mindfulness, courage, and social change. Check out the posts for each to learn more.

Joseline Jean-Louise Hardrick offered a guest post for us last year. Outside of writing about wellness, Hardrick also works to encourage diversity in the legal profession. She shows how our own wellness is related to our work to improve the world.

We have shared posts from two teachers who aim to make yoga more open and inclusive to all. Peloton instructor Chelsea Jackson Roberts has worked for years to make yoga accessible to black communities. Teacher and social media icon, Jessamyn Stanley, has focused on making yoga accessible to all body types.

If you want a meditation to motivate continued work even amidst difficulty, check out our Look for the Helpers Guided Meditation inspired by Mr. Rogers. It’s a self-compassion practice to help you recognize the common humanity of facing adversity.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

How Mindfulness Helped Me Discover My Word of the Year

Last week, I wrote about how much I enjoy reflection around the turn of the year. This year, I am especially reflective because I am also about to start a role at a new firm. When identity is shifting, it is normal to consider the past and reevaluate goals for the future.

Many of my friends have been sharing their “words of the year” or “in and out lists” on social media. Though I enjoyed seeing my friends’ thoughts , I felt a bit at a loss about what to make of this for myself. How do I pick a word or theme of the year when I am heading into something new and have no idea what the future would hold?

Step 1: Start Where You Are.

As I do in many other things, I decided to start exactly where I was. Over the last few weeks, I have been struggling a bit. Though I am ecstatic about the new opportunity, I was struggling to feel excited. Of course, any new role is bound to inspire nerves, but that wasn’t my problem.

My struggle was letting go of the past. I kept thinking of the past year, the ways in which it was hard, and the mistakes I had made. As a perfectionist overthinker, it occurred to me that this struggle often resulted from my patterned thinking.

I attended an event this week where I finally gave voice to this feeling. The group was sharing our word or theme of the year and I announced during my turn that I needed help selecting a word. I said “what’s the word for getting rid of the good girl voice in your head? That’s my word.”

Step 2: Look for Clues about What You Need.

Condolences and commiseration was offered and ideas where shared, but a single word did not reveal itself to me. I then posed the same question in a post on LinkedIn. Some people offered funny comments that made me smile. A few offered words like “liberation”, “fearless” and “empowerment.”

Those are good words but they felt too heavy and could lead back into the striving and perfectionism with which I had been struggling. But a few people suggested that being a good girl isn’t a bad thing and wondered about a less aggressive way of approaching the problem.

That is a fair point. Sure, I get frustrated with my “good girl” voice a lot because she judges and pushes me hard. But she has led me to some good things, like founding this blog and writing two books for instance. Moreover, I have learned that sitting with some “undesirable” tendencies, like anger, is actually the best way to prevent them from causing harm.

Asking for Help Is Good but Stay Focused on What You Need

Is there a middle way when it comes to the “good girl” voice that causes me so much suffering? To answer this question, I put on my “mom” hat. I am the mom of two little girls. I know for a fact that they want to be good but they sometimes get ornery, fight, argue, and get mean and nasty. As a mom, I have learned that this often happens because they have a need that’s not being met.

What if I applied this idea to my “good girl” voice who had been very ornery as of late? What could it be that my “good girl” in my head needs but isn’t getting?

Another thing I have seen some of my friends do around the New Year is go to vision board classes. They clip out pictures from magazines and arrange the ones that speak to them on a big board to reveal their longings and aspirations.

I have done these with friends but the exercise didn’t mean a lot to me. Why? Well, I am not a visual thinker. Images don’t do it for me in general. I am, however, a very auditory thinker. Applying the vision board concept to sound, I considered the “Year in Review” playlist on my music app.

Step 3: Nonjudgmentally Evaluate Your Clues

It included songs like “Float” by Janelle Monae, “Chvrch Girl” and “Cuff It” by Beyonce, “Bejeweled” by Taylor Swift, “Trustfall” by Pink, and all of the Barbie soundtrack. Does this sound like the playlist of a “good girl”? Or does it sound like the playlist of a girl who wants to have fun?

Bingo. And there we have it. The word of the year for 2024 is “fun.” I don’t need to get rid of the “good girl” at all. Instead, I need to let her have some fun.

Why did it take me so long to get there? It seems obvious in retrospect. Lawyers, including me, don’t always trust fun. We trust hard work, clarity, and discipline a lot more. For this reason, proclaiming “fun” the word of the year is like announcing you are taking an indefinite vacation.

Keep Things in Perspective

But let’s remember the context here. Picking a word of the year doesn’t mean you’ll only get the word you picked. Life is not that simple. Instead, I see it more as a guidepost. I know life will not only be fun in 2024. Even so, I can be on the lookout for life getting too tense and I can be creative about bringing in more fun.

In addition, recall that the thing that prompted me to think about this was the “good girl voice” who is so hardworking, highly motivated, and relentless that she drives me nuts. Given that she has taken up residence inside my brain, will a little bit of fun really cause me to shirk all effort and discipline?

Doubtful. What it might do, however, is help me remember the ways in which discipline, work, and pursuing goals can also be fun. It might also remind me how to look for fun even when things seem bleak and how to bring more fun into my community.

That’s how I figured out my word of the year. First, I took stock of where I was. Then I looked for clues about what I needed, including from my community. Finally, I nonjudgmentally evaluated to identify the single word that could help me rebalance in the new year.

Do you pick a word of the year or do any other kind of new year’s reflection? If you want to think about this more, check out the video from our past event “A Vision for the New Year and Guided Meditation”. Whether you do or not, I hope that you have a “good” and “fun” year in 2024.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

I’m Skeptical of Resolutions but Love New Year’s Reflections

This is the time of year when lots of people start New Year’s resolutions. At the same time, you are also bound to see a plethora of folks taking to social media to proclaim that resolutions are a scam.

I’m not big on resolutions, so I can understand the skepticism. You can’t just decide one day to be different. Instead, as we all know, it takes consistent action over time to make real change. But this realism, accurate though it may be, isn’t entirely complete.

As I have written about several times, Dry January is a part of my annual traditions. In years past, I have also successfully started or refreshed habits relating to nutrition, meditation, fitness, and personal hobbies in January.

January Is Arbitrary but Not Capricious.

Of course, January is an arbitrary time to start a habit. Anyone who watched their January resolve fade to oblivion by February knows this. Even so, other arbitrary deadlines have helped to motivate me too. As I shared last year, I set a goal to write my first book before my 40th birthday. I knew there was no reason that this had to happen but I got it done.

So I have to ask: is the impetus to set a resolution in January really so arbitrary? I don’t believe it is. Obviously, I’m aware that time is a construct and the calendar is a human creation. Though the month January and the concept of the new year may be somewhat made up, they signify something that is 100% real: the passage of time.

Resolutions are popular in January because the start of a new year is bound to prompt reflection on the past one. In that reflection, you may notice patterns in your behavior and consider ways of doing things better. And you may think about how quickly time passes and habits form, sometimes without our awareness, if we don’t take action to disrupt them.

Reflections and Resolutions Aren’t the Same.

This is what has always been so motivating to me. As a lawyer who wears too many hats, it is certainly good advice to “pick your battles” in life and to consider your energy and appetite for change. At the same time, though, the question “if not now, when?” can be a hard to answer to yourself year after year about something that matters to you.

Over time, some of the healthy habits I started in new years past have lapsed, so I don’t claim to be a magician. But the fact that January helped me find motivation to return to good practices in the past gives me greater confidence that I can do it again.

So what does all of this mean for you? Am I telling you that resolutions are good or bad? Am I speaking out of both sides of my mouth?

New Year’s Reflections Can Help Us See Our Patterns.

My point here is that resolutions don’t work for many people for the simple reason that habit change can’t come from willpower and momentary motivation alone. New Year’s reflections, though, can help us see our habits and patterns and consider whether those patterns is helping us create the life we want.

As I have written before, I don’t believe in resolutions. Instead, I believe in small changes, gradual growth, consistent effort, and ample supports and self-compassion. With this approach, you don’t rely on early energy to carry you through to a goal. Instead, you count on that energy lapsing and create a plan for supporting yourself when that time comes.

While I appreciate the anti-perfectionist spirit inspiring many to castigate the pull to resolutions at the New Year, I think much of the rhetoric goes too far. Sure, as I have experienced, putting pressure on yourself in January to “improve” can be incredibly damaging, misguided, and ineffective.

Seeing Your Patterns Is Empowering.

On the other hand, reflecting on your past experience and seeing insights about how you can take better care of yourself in the new year is different. Reflecting is merely seeing the truth. When it comes to habits and personal patterns, the truth can be hard to see. The new year offers an opportunity to consider those habits and patterns over time and therefore provides a chance to think about where we are heading in the future.

When we get a glimpse of the truth about our patterns, we get a chance to choose something different. This can allow us greater agency in life and, in my experience, more happiness and peace.

For all of these reasons, I’m skeptical of New Year’s resolutions as much as anyone else. But I proudly say that I love New Year’s reflections. They have served me well in the past and have helped me create a better future for myself. Whether you are resolving, reflecting, or just being this January, I hope you have a wonderful 2024.

Want Some Help for Your Reflections?

If you are interested in doing some New Year’s reflection, check out our Resources page. The Meditation Habit Worksheet and the Pause and Begin Again e-book may help you start or refresh your meditation practice. The Personal Well-Being Worksheet is designed to help you consider personal practices to support your well-being. If you need some community to support yourself in 2024, check out our Events page with new (and free) guided meditation events.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

If You Are Thinking about Dry January, You’ll Love This

I know New Years Even hasn’t happened yet and you may still be enjoying the holidays. If so, don’t let this post stop you. Here’s the thing, though, the hits on the blog tell me that many people out there are thinking about Dry January.

As I have done in years past, I am doing a retreat this year for New Years and so I won’t have the ability to post this closer to the big day. If you read the blog, you may know that Dry January is now an annual tradition for me. I have done it since January 2021. It has made a big difference for me.

Here is a collection of posts I and other contributors have written about Dry January and related topics to help you consider or prepare for the challenge.

1. Ditch the shame.

Feeling shame about alcohol? Yeah, I’ve been there. In this post, I share how shame kept me from examining my alcohol habits for months. Trying Dry January helped me experiment and see that I wasn’t hopelessly out of control. Instead, I just needed a reason to say no.

As I have come to realize, there was nothing to be ashamed about at all. In fact, writing about my struggles, including with alcohol, is now a source of pride. Funny how life works sometimes.

2. The More You Know.

One way to motivate yourself during Dry January is to understand the impact of alcohol on the body. You can learn about this in the book Quit Like a Woman which my friend Loren reviewed here.

Some of our other past posts which are not directly related to alcohol may also be helpful too. To understand how cravings work and why mindfulness can help manage them, check out our review of The Craving Mind by Judson Brewer.

Similarly, you may see that Dry January is a new way to disrupt habits. To learn more about habit formation, check out our review of Atomic Habits by James Clear.

3. Hacks and Tricks.

So what if you decide to try Dry January? Are there any tips or strategies that can help you cope or make the experience easier? Yes there are. Here is my original post sharing those tips and here is a revised version just for lawyers I recently published for the Ohio State Bar Association Wellness Advisory Board.

For some more general ideas relating to this, check out my friend’s discussion of the value of patience when it comes to habit change. And I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you to consider self-compassion as the most powerful tool you can use during Dry January.

4. Beyond Dry January.

Can Dry January turn into a more long-term lifestyle change? Absolutely. As my friend and fellow lawyer, Christina, shared in this post last year, it can turn into a sober lifestyle. Christina is now well over 1000 days sober and still going strong.

I have not gone for full sobriety but Dry January and its counterpart 300/65 has helped me significantly reduce alcohol intake overall. Even better, it also helped me significantly increase creative output. To learn more about that, check out my post here.

5. If You Need Some Guidance.

Reading is great, but a blog post may not help you with a craving. Good news. I have a brand new guided meditation just for that. This meditation is broad enough to cover any kind of craving, including one for a drink during Dry January. Check it out on Insight Timer or here:

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Don’t Let a Crappy Year Ruin Your Happy Holidays

Now is the time of year when I, a mindfulness teacher, am supposed to write a poetical and heartwarming post about the power of mindfulness. I’m supposed to tell you it can calm holiday stress and help you complete all work in a timely manner, leaving extra energy for creating holiday magic.

Sorry to disappoint you but that is not happening this year. You want to know why? Well, my 2023 was not the best. I am grateful to say no true calamities happened in my family or work life, but the year was not at all what I expected it to be. As a result, I haven’t been thinking about holiday magic. Instead, I’ve been pondering how to bring in some warm holiday spirit when the rest of the year left me cold.

I figure I am not alone in pondering this topic. Here are the things that have helped me avoid being too Grinchy this year, even though I can’t promise that they will turn you into Cindy Lou Who.

1. Redefine happiness.

I bet you have said “happy holidays” or something like it approximately 15 million times in the last few weeks. When have you ever asked yourself what that phrase means?

If you are a normal person, you probably never have. We all have visions and ideas and assumptions about what this means. “Happy holidays” is shorthand for that concept. It’s a vague wish of well-being to people we don’t really know.

The truth is, though, that happiness is not one-size-fits-all. There are certain essential ingredients for a base level of happiness, but that leaves a lot of control for you to decide what really matters to you. As you consider how to make happy holidays out of a less than ideal year, part of your control may be letting go of expectations about happiness that aren’t true for you.

2. Accentuate the positive.

One reason mindfulness helps us is that it can balance out our experience. The default setting in most of our minds is negative, so we may have to consciously remember positivity. If you want to move past negativity in the last year, a way to start is to consciously refocus on the positive.

One important way to do this in year end reflection is to stop focusing on what you didn’t do, what you failed at, and what you got wrong. Instead, you can intentionally shift to what you did, what you learned, what successes you had, and the resilience you showed in the process.

This may feel like faking it at first, but I’m not telling you to pretend the bad things aren’t there. I am saying that perspective can shift how we view our lives. Taking a chance to shift perspective may be one way to open your mind up to the good that may still be there for you even after a hard year.

3. Show gratitude for those who helped.

Giving gifts is a big part of the holidays. You know what makes gift-giving feel the best? In my experience, giving a gift means the most when there’s real emotion behind it.

In a hard year, it may be tough to get into the spirit of giving, so I usually have to first consider the gifts that I have received. I may not feel super bountiful so I usually have to lean into my negative mood. Sometimes I ask how things might have been worse or harder without the help or support of someone specific.

My mind is really good at coming with ways that things could get worse, so this is an easy task. This reflection helps me remember that even if my year was not ideal, it was not one I faced alone. When I have identified the people who made a difference for me, I show it with my holiday gift giving and make an effort to tell the person what their actions meant to me.

4. Notice your capacity to feel more than one thing at a time.

As you may have noticed, the strategies so far have been about adding context and balance to your negative moods. You can’t truly wish away personal pain or negative reactions about a hard year and I don’t encourage you to try.

At the same time, though, you may find that happiness may just show up when you least expect it. Perhaps you are in a terrible mood about your own life and then you see something kind or decent or joyful and you may feel something warm, light, and good creeping into your heart.

Does this sound like the closing lines of a Hallmark Christmas movie? Maybe so but people love those movies for a reason. And one reason is that our feelings don’t make sense. They are not logical. You can be in a negative state and still have positive feelings. It happens all the time.

After a hard year, this can be a godsend. When it happens, don’t block it; allow it. Let the kindness, warmth, and happiness float there right along with your negativity, resentment, anger, or hurt. Your brain may try to tell you this doesn’t make sense but learning to hold both at once is how we can make sense out of life.

5. Celebrate the year ending.

If all of these strategies fail, there is still one more thing that may help. This one is the most fundamental and essential of all lessons you may learn from mindfulness practice: change. Things are temporary. Time marches on.

After a hard year, the best thing about the holiday season may be that it is at the end of the year. A new year is coming. There’s a new day. You can let go of 2023 and may even forget some of it soon.

Change is a hard fact of life when things are sweet. When they are not so great, it can be a relief. If you are celebrating the end of 2023 this holiday season, at least you have something to celebrate. And you aren’t alone because I, for one, am right there with you.

If 2023 was a struggle for you, I hope these tips will help you feel at least a little bit merry and bright. If they don’t, here’s one final closing thought. I have had a few occasions in life where my worst years were followed promptly by some of my best. This is not a promise but it is a wish that I have for all of you. Happy holidays to all and well wishes for a wonderful 2024.

If you are looking for a meditation to get you more into the holiday spirit, check out our Holiday Stories Guided Meditation here:

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Why Innovators Need to Manage Stress

I’m invited to appear on podcasts frequently. Most commonly, I am asked to explain the fundamentals of meditation or other mindfulness practices and how professionals can use them in their life and work. I love doing this. Podcasts are really fun and I always learn so much by answering the questions of thoughtful podcast hosts.

Sometimes, though, when I talk about meditation its impact on my life I feel like the answer is incomplete. In truth, starting a meditation practice is one of the best things I have done for my life as an adult. It is hugely important to me because it helped me get out of thought tangles, care for my anxiety, and move forward in life.

As I have shared several times on the blog, though, meditation did not help me so much because it calmed me down. Instead, it helped me because it gave the skills to follow what made me excited. When I started practicing meditation, I was lost in thought, overly rational, and had no self-compassion. I was nearly exclusively focused on what I “should” do and so didn’t spend much of the time I had doing what I wanted.

Meditation helped me change that by giving me mental space to see thoughts swirling around. It helped me not judge and discard every idea that came up. And then it helped me allow myself to not be perfect at every activity the first time I tried it.

This is how meditation led to an explosion of innovation and creativity for me. After I got my bearings, healed from depression, and learned to curb my anxiety, I saw that I was hungry to write and create and let myself do it. Importantly, I let myself invest time and money into writing even though my writing was not squarely related to my law practice.

In his podcast and book, Matt Mueller often talks about a very different type of innovation. Most commonly, he’s talking about business innovation, including new products, processes, or service models. Though my story is more personal, it has affected how I practice law too and how I network and market my law practice. The reality is that our personal stories often shape our business strategies.

If you want to learn how mindfulness can do more than help you manage stress, check out the episode on Matt’s website or your podcast streaming service. If innovation is an interest to you, Matt’s podcast and book are excellent places to start.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

How a Holiday Gift Pulled Me Out of Burnout

Founder’s Note: Writers on the internet have a way of finding each other. Jim is a labor and employment lawyer in Illinois with Big Law and corporate experience, blogger, and many other things. He found me when I interviewed his best friend, Joel Stern, about his experience with cancer and his new book. We chatted via email for a while and then Jim sent me a guest post. It wasn’t until I read it that I learned we had another thing in common: Peloton. Checkout his story of how a holiday gift helped him end burnout and start a new life.

In 2017, I became the Global Lead of Employment and Immigration for a large Indian IT company (a competitor of Accenture). I had a team of 20 lawyers based in London and Bangalore, India. I would travel to London and spend about one week there and then a week in India. I did this several times. At first, it was exciting and fun. After a couple of years though, it was no longer fun- – it was just grueling. And the job was really 24/7, I would be doing conference calls in the middle of the night because that’s daytime in India or checking emails in the middle of the night.

I am not saying my employer expected this; it is how I am wired. Lawyers handle the toughest issues businesses and society face. And while there is a lot of satisfaction to be gained by the practice of law, the legal profession is a stressful one. Lawyers are expected to work long hours, practice at a 24/7, “always on” pace, and provide immediate answers to the most complex issues, all while maintaining a high degree of client service and professionalism.

In December 2018, I traveled to London and India for almost 3 weeks. I returned home just before Christmas. I was physically and mentally exhausted. As I left India, I thought to myself “I really never want to come back here.” When I got home, we had friends over to sing Christmas carols and I literally fell asleep while singing them.

One of my favorite things about Christmas was singing in the midnight Christmas Eve service with the choir I sang with for over 20 years. Singing “Silent Night” with only candles to illuminate the church is one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had. But I couldn’t even stay awake until 8 p.m., so I missed the service that year.

2019 rolled around and a polar vortex hit Chicago and the temperatures were way below 0. That matched my mood – – cold and dark. I was supposed to return to India in February. I just couldn’t do it. My General Counsel was very understanding. But I just couldn’t get of my funk. I struggled to get through the workday, and it was a slog.

By 2020, I realized that I wasn’t doing myself, my family, my friends, or my work team any favors and it was time for me to go. I took an “early” retirement in March 2020. What else happened in March 2020? The pandemic hit. A double whammy. I plunged into further darkness. I would sleep until noon and basically get up and just read a book or something. I had no interest in playing golf even though we had moved to a beautiful new community with a golf course and our house overlooks the 16^th hole.

In December 2020, my wife and I bought a Peloton bike. I made a pledge to myself that I was going to get on this damn bike and ride almost every day. And I did! I started to feel better and eventually experienced weight loss that further contributed to my well-being. At the same time, I rediscovered meditation. I had meditated off and on over the years, but I found a meditation program called Ten Percent Happier. I am not getting paid to endorse this, I just really like the program.

Dan Harris is a fidgety, skeptical journalist who had a panic attack on live national television, which led him to try something he otherwise never would have considered: meditation. He went on to write the bestselling book, 10% Happier. Dan talks with eminent meditation teachers, top scientists, and even the odd celebrity. Dan sometimes ventures into the deep end of the pool, covering subjects such as enlightenment and psychedelics. Or it can be science-based techniques for issues such as anxiety, productivity, and relationships.

Dan’s approach is seemingly modest, but secretly radical: happiness is a skill you can train, just like working your bicep in the gym. Your progress may be incremental at first, but like any good investment, it compounds over time. I liked that. Meditation became part of my daily practice. Between biking and meditation, I rediscovered myself. Don’t get me wrong-many days I still struggle with meditation because I have a very active monkey-mind. But I stick to it.

I love my life now. I love my family. I love my friends. I love my work and I love to sing (I found a local junior college choir to sing with where it’s me and about twenty 18–19-year-olds who put up with an old fart like me), play sports like golf, pickleball, platform tennis, kayaking, swimming, etc.

I love to travel and I cannot wait to travel more with my amazing wife of 37 years who put up with me during my darkest days. I write my own blog called “A Year of Grateful Music” where I highlight an artist and a song that I like. They say writing things we are grateful for everyday drastically improves your life. If you’re interested, email and I’ll send you the link and password.

Will this approach work for you? I don’t know, but I’d sure encourage you to try it and become a badass lawyer too!

Author Bio: Jim Beyer is a management labor and employment Lawyer with 25+ years of experience with major corporations (Accenture, General Electric, IBM and Infosys) and with Seyfarth Shaw, an AmLaw 100 firm. Jim is currently employed by Axiom. Axiom is the global leader in high-caliber, on-demand legal talent. Axiom employs over 13,000 lawyers globally. Over 60% of Fortune 100 companies are Axiom clients. Over 4000 Axiom lawyers have been with Fortune 500 companies and over 1700 Axiom lawyers have been with AmLaw 100 firms . Jim was elected as a Fellow in The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers in 2006 and he is an Adjunct Law Professor teaching employment law.

Outside of work, Jim is an avid singer looking to perform on Broadway (but happy to be a soloist on a local junior college choir, along with about 20 18–20-year-old young adults). He is a wannabe legal fiction novelist, he has been for married 37 years to a woman who should be sainted for putting up with him, father of 3 great adult sons (they call him Fred McMurray), Dad to a precocious 11-year-old English Springer Spaniel, lousy but avid golfer, Peloton bike nut and Jim also enjoys pickleball, platform tennis and kayaking. He writes a blog called “Musings of an Employment Lawyer.”

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media: