Tag Archives: creativity

New Writing Event with the Mindfulness in Law Society

The Mindfulness in Law Society reached out and asked if I wanted to do a community event for the larger group. I have been guiding the virtual sits for about a year now and taught at the virtual retreat last fall. For this event, though, they didn’t want me to guide a meditation. They wanted me to teach.

When we did the meeting to plan this session, I expected they would have something in mind. To my delight and surprise, they didn’t have preconceived notions. Instead, the organizer and I discussed some of my recent speaking engagements and I told her about a Ted-style talk I had done on thought leadership for the FDCC. She saw my face light up and suggested that the topic relate to the intersection of writing and mindfulness.

I very happily agreed. My writing and mindfulness practice grew up together. They reinforce each other. Writing helps me let go of thoughts and mindfulness helps me see which ones are worth exploring further. In the span of about six years, I went from being the occasional author to articles in trade magazines, to a daily poster on LinkedIn, then to a weekly blogger and book author.

I don’t claim to be an expert, but this experience and my mindfulness training has helped me develop some tips and best practices for creativity. On April 24th at 12 PM EST, I hope you will join me and the Mindfulness in Law Society online for a session where I’ll discuss this. I will share the top 5 ways that my mindfulness practice helped spur my creativity and I expect some other authors will join and share their tips as well.

This event is open to anyone in the legal profession, which includes lawyers (including those in law adjacent fields), law students, law professors, and support staff. Please join us or reach out if you have any questions. You can register here.

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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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.

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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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.

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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Turning Someday Into Now: My Guest Post about Writing a Book on Above the Law

As I’ve written here before, writing is one of my favorite pastimes. At this point, I consider it a mental health practice. Quite literally, it helps me clean out my mind, process life, and connect more deeply with my world and community.

Even so, I had a lot of doubts when I started writing about things that weren’t related to my law practice. I had ideas that I should devote most of my mental energy to building my law practices and serving clients and than anything leftover should go to my kids.

I’m no math genius, but anyone can immediately puzzle out the problem with this theory: it didn’t leave much for me. Now, you may not consider writing a very restful but for me it was. It let my brain and heart gradually stretch like you stretch your legs after a long trip. Though I read and write a lot for my law practice, I don’t do it the same way I write in a blog or social media post.

It didn’t take long until this little hobby of mine turned into something more. After a few years, I let the idea emerge that I wanted to write a book. Early on, I was confronted with many doubts, such as:

  1. I didn’t have time.
  2. I wouldn’t stick with it.
  3. Nobody will care.
  4. I had more important things to do.
  5. It is too much work.

What did experience teach me? That these doubts were all wrong. If you want to learn what I discovered, check out this new guest post I wrote for the partnership between MothersEsquire and Above the Law.

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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Don’t Do the Hustle: Interview with Authority Magazine on Hustle Culture

What do you think when you hear the word “hustle culture”?

Would it ever occur to you that a side hustle might be an answer to this?

I recently did an interview with Authority Magazine where I shared how adding creativity into my life helped me avoid hustle culture at work.

In this interview, I talk about the human realities and workplace practices that lead to hustle culture and she offers some insights about how to get out of the trap.

Her five steps include:

  1. Cultivate self-awareness.
  2. Cultivate self-compassion.
  3. Honor all your needs and respect the needs of others.
  4. Move and create.
  5. Grow and expand outside of yourself.

To read more, find the full interview here.

What is your definition of hustle culture? What are the strategies that you have used to avoid it?

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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Can You Be Enough and Still Want More? Celebrating 100 Posts and 2 Years

I have been watching the clock today because I know I am supposed to write a blog post to be published tomorrow. It’s my 100th blog post and tomorrow (December 27th) is the second anniversary of the founding of the blog. You’d think the words would flow like the bubbles from a bottle of champagne, but they haven’t. After publishing my first book this November, I think I am a bit celebrated out. And, I have a work-related project that is occupying my mind.

As I was praying for an idea to come to me, one of my LinkedIn contacts did a post reminding the world in this season of goal setting and resolutions that we are all “enough.” It was a beautiful post with a message I endorse but I immediately thought “Rude! Not helpful.”

As I have written before, I am a self-doubter. On a normal day, I would have liked the post and said something encouraging. But on this day, when things were not going as I had planned, the post made my mind start to churn. “Wait,” it posited, “am I letting myself be enough by struggling to get this post written just because of some arbitrary numbers?” When I couldn’t answer the question immediately, it sensed weakness and roared “Were you letting yourself be enough when you started this blog?”

I bet you’re hoping that I refuted the voice with a bold assertion of my self-worth, but I didn’t. Instead, I did what I’ve learned to do when my mind is noodling away on a problem that seems unsolvable: I did nothing. That is to say, of course, that I meditated.

Over the years, I have learned that it is the best way to take care of myself because it lets the thoughts have space and bounce around until they settle down on their own. This may sound painful; at first it was. But experience has shown that it works. Have you ever had to get a knot out of a necklace? You don’t do it by pulling tighter on the knot. You do it gradually and gently by opening the knot up.

And when I sat with my mind in a jumble, it opened right up. Yes, the uncomfortable thoughts bounced around. Yes, my doubts danced before my eyes. But eventually they drifted away, and I was left with a few moments of clarity. In this lull, came the commonsense notion that being enough and pursuing goals aren’t antithetical at all. In my case, I didn’t start pursuing the goals that mattered just to me until I had realized after years of struggle that I was enough.

Though it takes effort and sometimes causes frustration, this blog isn’t an albatross of work for me. As I have written before, it’s fun, it lets me explore some silly and hilarious ideas, serves as self-care, and has helped me develop a community I never would have had without it. In addition, I didn’t start the blog to prove some point. Instead, I did it to celebrate getting certified to teach meditation and because I know my struggles with anxiety, overthinking and depression aren’t unique.

Beyond this, I don’t think there is anything that declares “I am enough” more than creating work of your own. Like a magician, you get to wave your wand and make something appear in the universe that wasn’t there before. Like a brazen, unruly woman, you get to boldly take up space on the internet and declare your truths to the world. And, like any parent who fiercely loves the beautiful, imperfect child they made, you beam with pride even as you share your story full of missteps, screw ups, fears, and misgivings.  

Of course, I have had to remind myself that “I am enough” by occasionally slowing down. I have republished or repurposed old content for weeks when I felt uninspired. I have learned tricks to create content quickly to just get the job done. I have learned to have faith that an idea would appear when I needed it. I looked to pop culture for inspiration to keep things lively. And, I even took a two-month hiatus from writing new posts when life changes and the creation of my book left no space for extra writing.

To my surprise, getting through those hard weeks didn’t make me feel less than. They inspired confidence and helped me reflect on the vast difference between progress and perfection. They reminded me that I am enough, not because everything comes easy to me, but instead because I don’t give up as soon as things get hard.

As we head into 2023, I hope that you are reflecting on the fact that you are enough. I hope you know that you don’t need to accomplish huge goals or amazing resolutions in the new year to be enough. But when you’ve got being enough down, I hope you celebrate it and share it with the world. I hope you let yourself thrive and take the weird paths your soul asks you to take. That’s what I have done these past two years. I’m so grateful I had enough faith in myself to do it and to all of you for celebrating it with me.

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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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 I confess that I had assumptions about Elizabeth Gilbert because of Eat, Pray, Love (in truth the movie version of that book) and I ignored his advice. Months later, I wrote a LinkedIn post about the paradoxes of writing which said, essentially, that it takes time but makes energy, it is frustrating but somehow still offers happiness, and it is often lonely but provides a path to belonging. Another lawyer messaged me, asking if I had read Big Magic because my post sounded just like it.

This was enough to make me see the writing on the wall. I immediately checked Audible, found a remaining monthly credit, and started listening. Halfway through the 6-minute opening chapter, I saw even more writing on the wall: I was totally wrong about Gilbert. At this point, I am not even sure what my problem with Gilbert was, but in retrospect I think I just discounted her work because it was popular. After reading Big Magic, however, I wish more people, and in particular, more lawyers knew about it.

Big Magic is a series of mini essays on living a creative life. Some of the essays contain stories about Gilbert’s writing career, but many others offer examples of creative people from across the millennia, reaching all the way to those early humans who drew pictures on cave walls. While the stories are not chronological or even directly related, they come together at the end like random bits of fabric collected over the years to create the cohesive pattern in a quilt. This analogy is perfect for the book because Gilbert’s central thesis is this: creativity is an essential part of being human because it is the part of our humanity that gives us access to divinity.

By this, Gilbert does not deny that living a creative life is hard—even gut-wrenching at times. She devotes several of the essays, often comically, to discussing rejection, the pain that comes when the muse visits but then leaves too soon, jealousy, competition, and dealing with the worst critic of all: the one inside your own head. But she argues that it is still worthwhile, regardless of whether your particular creative pursuit brings you fame or fortune and even if it drives you nuts on occasion.

Why do I love this book so much? Well, because I have lived it. While I have not yet written a smash hit novel or lived the life of a professional writer, I have experienced firsthand the benefits that living a creative life can offer. It took me a long time to accept my own creativity and allow it to flourish. Like a lot of lawyers, I thought for too long that I should focus solely on my law practice. Then, I had to get over the idea that I was “wasting my time” if I put effort into projects that wouldn’t lead to any benefits. As it turns out, the benefits of my writing were pronounced for both my life and law practice, though the path that those benefits took to find me were often indirect. Ultimately, though, it was when I finally accepted the truth that my creativity exploded: I was going to write because writing made me happy and lack of attention and praise was not going to stop me.

There is a lot written these days about mental well-being for lawyers and professionals and for good reason. Many resources, and even those on this blog, attempt to help by offering to fit wellness practices into the nooks and crannies of our overpacked lawyer calendars. I don’t criticize this approach because it was how I started my own journey and because studies show us that a few minutes a day can make a huge difference for our minds, bodies, and even relationships. But, for my lawyer and professional friends, I hope that the quest for greater happiness does not stop once a daily habit of a few minutes of mindfulness or another self-care practice is established. Then next step, if you can afford it and brave it, offers rewards of a much greater magnitude.

Mindfulness practices can help lawyers and professionals find stability and even heal themselves in the midst of our stressful and busy lives. If we let them, however, they can also help us notice what we need to do next to grow and to create. As Gilbert posits, this is the birthright of all humans and it is essential for a happy life.  I know your schedule is busy. I know we are (still) living in a global pandemic. I know that nothing is certain right now or ever. But those realities don’t make happiness and creativity luxuries; they make them both essential. If this weren’t the case, those early humans would not have had the urge to paint on cave wells even as they faced the daily task of survival.

So, if you have a project in the back of your mind, maybe you want to write an article, maybe you want to refinish that piece of antique furniture, maybe you want to finally make one of those crafts you’ve been saving on Pinterest, I hope you will do it. If you need encouragement, to get over all the voices in your head that tell you it’s a waste of time, or permission to connect with your own spirit, go read Big Magic. Then go make stuff.

Are you a creative lawyer? By this, I mean do you make or want to make anything, including fiction, nonfiction, or even a podcast? You aren’t alone. Join the CLAW (Creatives. Lawyers. Artists. Writers.) Alliance to find a community of other creative lawyers. For more inspiration on this, check out the Instagram Live I did with CLAW member, Becki C. Lee, an IP lawyer and children’s book author.

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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