Are you looking for your next good read, great teachers, or other resources to jumpstart or refine your mindfulness practice? The posts below contain reviews and recommendations for our favorite mindfulness teachers, tools, and resources.
Author and Zen Teacher Ruth Ozeki Helps Readers Explore What We’d Rather Ignore
A post about Zen teacher and author, Ruth Ozeki, with a brief review of her latest novel.
How to Be a Badass Lawyer Included on Lawyers Depression Project Book List
Last week, I was tagged on LinkedIn by a group with a similar aim to my own: the Lawyers Depression Project. They had compiled a list of mental health and well-being books by lawyers and for lawyers. I was glad to see that my own book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, was on it.…
Book Review: The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda V. Magee
Anyone interested in mindfulness is likely to understand the deep connection between thoughts and actions. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and our own lives often dictate, sometimes without our conscious awareness, the actions we take or don’t take. Given this, many people would intuitively agree that inner work, including reflection and healing,…
Valentine’s Goodreads Book Giveaway
It is perhaps the most commercialized and made up of all that holidays, but I have a special place in my heart for Valentine’s Day nonetheless. As a February baby, I always loved taking in pink cupcakes to share as my birthday treat for the class. In addition, February in my home state of Kentucky…
Review of Peloton’s Intro to Meditation Program
If you’ve followed the blog, you probably know by now that I am a fan of Peloton. Historically, however, I haven’t really used the Peloton platform to support my meditation practice because I prefer unguided meditation. Late last year, however, one of my favorite yoga instructors Aditi Shah announced the new intro to meditation program.…
Tranquility by Tuesday Can Change How You Feel about Your Time
How many times have you read a book and thought or proclaimed to a friend that it “changed your life”? While it can be exciting at first to see new possibilities open up in your mind after reading a book, the true test is whether it helped you change your life in meaningful ways. Time…
How to Be a Badass Lawyer
Our founder released a new book today on mindfulness and compassion for lawyers. This post offers a brief overview to tell you about it.
Surgeon General’s Mental Health Framework Explores What Work Could Be
A summary and analysis of the US Surgeon General’s Framework on Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being.
Not Every Meditation Teacher Is for Everyone; An Interview about Eckhart Tolle.
In this interview, our founder, Claire Parsons, talks with her friend, Talar Heculian Coursey about influential teacher, Eckhart Tolle. Claire isn’t a superfan but Talar is. Check it out to learn more about Tolle’s teachings and style and to consider how teaching style can affect the way you’ve learned mindfulness.
Book Review: The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal
This month I am focusing on debunking myths relating to mindfulness, compassion, and mental health. After all my years of meditation, I still find myself holding onto a few myths every now and then. One of those myths is that stress is bad for you. As a lawyer, I have been informally trained to know…
Neurodiversity in Law Advocate, Haley Moss, Shares Her Thoughts on Extraordinary Attorney Woo
This blog usually encourages you to meditate, but in this post I’m going to make a recommendation that you may not expect: watch some Korean TV. You may have heard or watched Squid Game, but if that’s your only frame of reference you are missing out. Kingdom was a great political period drama but also…
What Is Restorative Yoga and Why Should Lawyers Try It?
Lots of people tell me that they can’t meditate because they can’t sit still. I usually tell them that they don’t have to sit still to meditate. Strangely, people also tell me with a similar frequency that they can’t do yoga because they can’t do the poses. Sometimes they say that they can’t balance. Sometimes…
PSA: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Is Now Available
Today is an important day in the United States, we now have a national, dedicated hotline for individuals to call for mental health emergencies. In the case of fire, severe physical injury, or crime, most of us wouldn’t hesitate to say “call 911.” Mental health situations may be different, however, and may require a response…
Book Review: The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris
What is confidence? That question lies at the heart of Russ Harris’ book, The Confidence Gap. Most of us view confidence as a feeling and, in fact, that is how most dictionaries define the term. Oxford defines “confidence” as “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.” What this…
Book Review: Zen Golf by Dr. Joseph Parent
I am not really a golfer, but I owe a lot to the game. Despite being a lawyer, I have only played at the occasional outing during my practice and even then have not been serious about it. In high school, however, I took up the game because my basketball teammate was an excellent player…
Book Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Anyone interested in mindfulness is almost by default interested in habits too. Even if you start a meditation practice with the aim of finding just a little bit more peace and quiet in your life, you inevitably will end up reviewing in detail your daily activities, the patterns of your mind, and the impact of…
Review of Happiness by Thich Nhat Hanh
Editor’s Note: We originally published this review last June. As a tribute to Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed yesterday, we publish it again in gratitude for Hanh’s teachings and work. You don’t really need to read all of Thich Nhat Hanh’s many books to understand his central teachings. This may be a good thing, since…
Book Review: The Craving Mind by Judson Brewer
If I were to tell you that you have a mind like a sea slug, you’d probably be offended. That’s the first thing Dr. Judson Brewer does in The Craving Mind and I liked the book so much that I read it twice. Brewer is a doctor, psychologist and addiction researcher, so when he says…
Riopy Crafts Music for Meditation and the Spirit
I have already written that I prefer to meditate in silence, so it had not really occurred to me to ever seek out music to support my meditation practice. Indeed, before hearing Riopy, I would have assumed that music would impede meditation, since it could churn up emotions or thoughts and make it harder for…
Book Review: Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley
I have this bad habit of buying books so that I don’t forget about them. Then I flip through them once, decide I don’t have time to read them right now, and set them on my bookshelf only to forget about them. I did this with Every Body Yoga years ago. I had heard the…
Knight School: What New Lawyers Can Learn from The Green Knight
Author’s Note: Spoiler alert. There is some detail in this post about what happens in the movie and how it ends. The symbolism in The Green Knight is heavy and I personally benefited from some excellent analysis about the movie that I read online. In addition, though the movie is new, the story is not.…
Which Compassion Cultivation Course Is Best for Lawyers?
Though the studies demonstrating the benefit of compassion practices are no less compelling than those relating to mindfulness, I find that lawyers and professionals are far less familiar with compassion than mindfulness. Perhaps this is because, for cultural reasons, lawyers are more comfortable with the idea of mental focus than they are anything to do…
Why Lawyers Need the Big Magic of Creative Living
“You should read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.” This was advice from another lawyer, Jeremy Richter, after I appeared on his podcast The Lawyerpreneur where we talked about how we liked to write and make things and didn’t care if other lawyers thought we were “weird.” I like and respect Jeremy quite a lot, but…
Book Review: Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker
I honestly don’t remember when or how I started following Quit Like A Woman (often shortened to “QLAW”) author Holly Whitaker on social media. It’s at least in part due to the fact that I’ve been giving a lot of thought in recent years about how much our work and social lives revolve around happy…
Brilliant Book Recommendation: Together by Vivek H Murthy, M.D.
Book review of Together by Vivek Murthy, MD a book about loneliness and its impact on public health
Brilliant Teacher Recommendation: Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts
The theme for this month was love and emotions, but February is also Black History Month. Our recommendation for this month is someone who brings both of those things together with mindfulness in such a beautiful way: Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts. Dr. Roberts, or Chelsea as she is known on her social media platforms, is…
Brilliant Teacher Recommendation: Tara Brach
Since the blog is just getting started, I decided to start at the beginning for my first teacher recommendation post. I owe a lot to Tara Brach, who is not only a meditation teacher but also an experienced psychologist. I am very cheap and when I first started meditating, I didn’t want to spend a…