Mindfulness is not just about the mind. Body awareness is an important aspect of the present moment awareness we all crave. It is also a critical piece of overall well-being. In these posts, you’ll find ways to incorporate mindfulness with movement or learn about how movement, through practices like yoga, can encourage mindfulness.
The Power of Small Joys for Busy Lawyers
Lawyers often face stress, difficulty, and conflict at work. That’s why it is important to savor small joys. This post teaches you how.
Mindfulness and Your Top 5 Mental Patterns Revealed
What if we got a list of our top 5 mental patterns each year? This post explains that mindfulness practice can provide that.
Five Tips for Mindful Walking to Enhance Well-Being
Mindful walking is a great way to practice mindfulness while you move. Here are five steps to help you get started.
Four Easy Ways to Add Movement to Meditation
Mindfulness doesn’t require sitting still. This post explains ways to add movement to your meditation practice.
Managing Sleepiness in Your Meditation Practice
Most people who meditate long enough will eventually face the problem of sleepiness. For those new to practice, it can actually be a good a sign. Sleepiness can signify that the body and mind are relaxing, which is a good thing. Severe or persistent drowsiness, though, can create some problems. You can’t cultivate mindfulness or…
Enhance Your Workout: Syncing Breath and Movement
Syncing breath and movement is a great way to cultivate mindfulness and enhance your workout. This post explains why and how to do it.
What Is Body Scan Meditation and Why Should Lawyers Try It?
Meditation is more than just focusing on the breath. This post explores body scan, a practice that is great for lawyers and other busy people.
4 Key Traits of Effective Anchoring Practices
Anchoring practices can support lawyers and professionals who live busy lives. This post explores how to identify and establish them in your life.
10 Gift Ideas to Encourage a Loved One’s Mindfulness Habit
When I teach mindfulness, I always stress that you don’t need to buy anything when you start a meditation practice. With that said, some accessories can support a practice. Beyond that, around the holidays we always need some gift ideas for those in our lives. If you have someone in your life looking to create…
Understanding Anger: Mindfulness Strategies for Lawyers
Anger is a problem for lawyers and many people these days. Can mindfulness really help? This post explains why and offers tips for better anger management.
Need Motivation to Meditate? Try This Hack
If you need a simple way to meditate when energy is low, read this post for a simple hack that could save your meditation habit.
New Free Download: Coping Strategies Ebook
When I teach mindfulness, I try to remind people that it is more than coping strategies. For one thing, mindfulness is not a practice or a strategy at all. Mindfulness is a faculty of mind that most human beings have. In addition, mindfulness is not merely about coping. A big part of it is, instead,…
Playfulness Is the Best Attitude for Meditation
Why would lawyers want to have a playful attitude in meditation practice? This blog post explains why. It makes practice more fun, engaging, and productive.
How to Train Your Mind While Training Your Heart
A blog post exploring some informal practices to incorporate mindfulness and compassion into your physical exercise routine.
A Few Breaths Really Can Make a Big Difference
A post explaining why a few deep breaths can matter in tense circumstances or to build a foundation for a more robust mindfulness practice.
Supported Fish Pose with Self-Kindness Guided Meditation
A post explaining and sharing a new guided meditation which incorporates the restorative yoga pose, supported fish, with a self-kindness practice.
A Message from Your Future Self: Reflecting on Ten Years of Meditation Practice
A blog post with a reflection on ten years of meditation practice in the form of a letter to oneself.
What Is the Difference Between Pranayama and Meditation?
A blog post discussing the similarities and differences between pranayama and meditation
Four Situations in Which Meditation May Not Be the Answer
On a blog about mindfulness, the title for this post may be surprising. I have touted the benefits of meditation for more than two years now and explained myriad meditation practices. Nevertheless, I seem to be admitting here that meditation is not a solution for all problems. To be perfectly clear, I am not merely…
Five Things to Know about Meditation with Trauma
Mindfulness and meditation can offer support and healing to those with trauma but it can present challenges too. This post identifies ways to make meditation safer and more accessible to those who have experienced trauma.
What Is Walking Meditation?
A blog post explaining what walking meditation is and how to use it to cultivate mindfulness.
What Does Compassion Feel Like?
An explanation of what compassion is and the many ways it can manifest physically in the body.
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…
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…
Book Review: Zen Golf by Dr. Joseph Parent
A blog post with a review of Zen Golf by Joseph Parent which explains what mindfulness offers to athletes and lawyers or professionals.
Brilliant Attorney Profile: Hale Stewart Insurance Lawyer and Moving Meditator
One of the most common complaints I hear from new meditators is that they “can’t sit still.” My common refrain is that “you don’t have to sit still; you don’t even have to sit!” I’ve written about this before, but I am not sure I am the best emissary of this message. Stillness has never…
Four Ways Mindfulness Can Help You Recover When You Struggle with Goals
If you struggle with goals, read this post to learn four ways that mindfulness can help you bounce back.
Cooking Is My Antidote to Languishing
I did not know that “languishing” had a clinical meaning until I listened to Adam Grant’s interview on the Ten Percent Happier podcast the other day. According to Grant, it’s the state between wellness and depression. As a busy lawyer and mom, I immediately recognized this description. As Grant put it, it’s a state where…
Can Mindfulness Help You Eat More Intuitively?
I spoke on a panel a few weeks ago about wellness for professionals with Kathryn Riner, a nutritionist and intuitive eating coach. I thought Kathryn sounded pretty down-to-earth and human as she spoke, and a lot of what she said rang true from my own experience with mindfulness. The timing was also too perfect to…
Is Meditation a Spiritual Practice?
Many people think meditation is a spiritual practice. This blog post explores why it is that and more. Read more to learn about the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of meditation.
Is the Hobby that Feeds Your Spirit the Same as Meditation?
When I talk about mindfulness or meditation, people frequently tell me that they don’t/can’t/won’t meditate but that their favorite hobby or pastime is “their meditation.” Some say “running” is their meditation. Some say “fishing”. Some say that they do “walking meditations.” I understand what all of these people mean. If I didn’t have a seated…
Yoga Has Been There the Whole Time
When Brilliant Legal Mind’s founder Claire Parsons told me September’s theme was yoga my immediate response was “I don’t really have a yoga practice anymore. I don’t really have anything to write about.” But then I read Claire’s post Confessions of a Reluctant Yogi and Aman Costigan’s post Yoga is More Than Just Stretching. Both…
Confessions of a Reluctant Yogi
As a mindfulness and compassion teacher, I’m not supposed to say this, but I didn’t like yoga at first. In fact, the first class I ever tried felt so awkward and terrible that I didn’t try it again for several years. The impediments for me were manifold. I was not used to “being” in my…
Calm Down Lawyers: Meditation Will Make You More Effective, Not Soft
Mental wellness is a top concern for many attorneys, bar associations, and firms. Meditation practices are often recommended to attorneys as simple, cheap, effective and research-based ways to ease and manage stress. Yet, one of the concerns I commonly hear lawyers, especially litigators, express is that they are worried that meditation will cause them to…