habits - brilliantlegalmind.com

Cultivating Equanimity: A Lawyer’s Guide to Feedback

I have had a few encounters with feedback recently. Most lawyers (and most people for that matter) have a love-hate relationship with feedback. We know we need it to learn and grow, but actually hearing it can be a double-edge sword.

When an appraisal is positive, we may feel proud and feel validated. But when the assessment is middling to negative, we can feel deflated, defeated, and hurt.

Can mindfulness help lawyers navigate receiving feedback? You bet. This post will explain how and offer some steps to help you implement it for yourself.

Feedback and The Eight Worldly Winds

Feedback seems like a fact of modern life. Even if you aren’t looking for a rating of yourself, you may find it by doing the most basic things. Most lawyers have LinkedIn profiles that allow others to recommend them. If you avoid LinkedIn, you probably still use some social media that allows people to rate how they like your posts or comments.

This constant evaluation can be troubling for sure, but it isn’t new. In fact, humans have always rated, judged, and reacted to each other. If you doubt me, you might consider the Buddhist teachings on the eight worldly winds.

These include:

Praise and blame
Gain and loss
Pleasure and pain
Success and failure

Of course, these are the manifestations of impermanence in everyday life. Good things come and go and so do bad things. Nothing lasts forever, they each blow around us, much like the wind.

Cultivating Equanimity Helps

To say that these things are “like the wind” is not to suggest that we can simply ignore them. Sure, we may not notice when a gentle breeze rolls by, but any of us can get knocked or slowed down by a storm or hefty gust.

And that’s the point of the teaching of the eight worldly winds: we can’t control them but we can learn how to live with them. The way to live with these worldly winds of life is equanimity. For more on this as applied to giving and receiving feedback, check out the book Confidence by Ethan Nichtern.

Equanimity is a trait that implies relative stability and calm amidst changing circumstances. It does not mean apathy or numbness. Instead, it means acceptance and skillful navigation through pleasant, neutral, and difficult situations.

Part of the skill here, though, can be hard but essential to learn. That part is clinging or resistance. Most people, including us lawyers, usually cling to the pleasant things but resist the bad things.

Image listing 4 mindful steps
to help lawyers accept feedback with equanimity as shared in the blog post

Why Feedback Is Hard for Lawyers

This is where feedback can be challenging. Even though many of us claim to be above such things, most lawyers care deeply about our reputations and social status. There is good reason for this too. Our reputations matter to the success of our law practices and can even affect our ability to serve our clients.

As a result, it is only natural that lawyers would crave, cling to and strive for positive ratings of our performance or character. On the other hand, we will also dislike, actively avoid, and resist negative evaluations. Or we may try to block all these feelings and live with a buried sense of imposter syndrome.

Given this, it may sound unattainable that any lawyer could ever bring a sense of equanimity to getting feedback. But the truth is that we can build this trait, just like we can build the traits of mindfulness and compassion.

Steps for Responding to Feedback with Equanimity

As I have written before, meditation practice goes a long way in cultivating the trait of equanimity. Every time you bring your wandering mind back to the breath or pause before scratching an itch, you are building patience. In each tiny moment like this, you are creating equanimity by choosing to not react in a huge way to every issue that comes along.

Even so, some types of feedback may require a bit more attention and skill. After years of meditation, I am the first to say that feedback still can get to me. All of us may need a framework to help us navigate reviews, ratings and assessments of ourselves with kindness and skill. Here are the steps that help me.

1. Don’t Argue or Gush

Because feedback is so likely to activate our egos, one of the easiest ways to get stuck with it is by arguing with or wallowing in it. Negative ratings may push us to argue the facts underlying it or challenge the intent or credibility of the reviewer. Positive ratings may have the opposite effect, causing us to obsess and puff up the meaning or importance of the assessment.

This is why one of the best ways to promote equanimity and your own sanity is to just receive the feedback for exactly what it is. Don’t add on to it or try to diminish it unfairly. As much as you can, just hear it or see it for what it is.

2. Allow Your Feelings

Of course, receiving feedback is bound to produce feelings. Equanimity does not mean blocking or resisting your feelings. Far from it. True equanimity means accepting your feelings for what they are. That means giving yourself the time and space you need to allow your feelings without doing violence to yourself or others.

That means you can feel hurt or angry or defensive when you receive a negative rating. It also means you are allowed to feel happy, grateful, and proud when someone praises you or your performance.

The important thing to understand, though, is that these feelings, like all feelings, are temporary. Let them come and let them go and recognize that no amount of good or bad feedback will make any feelings last forever.

Image with quote from blog post that says "Mindfulness is not a magic pill that can make the worldly winds of life go away. But with time and practice, it may help you cultivate equanimity an essential trait for navigating ups and downs in life and work."

3. Keep Perspective

Another thing that makes feedback challenging is that we don’t always request or consent to it. To make things worse, much of the feedback we receive may be offered thoughtlessly or unskillfully.

As I mentioned, lawyers may be subject to many kinds of feedback that are brief, perfunctory, and casual. Even when an evaluation is more thorough and well thought out, it still remains a singular data point rather than a final referendum on our character. One of the ways that we can help ourselves not get hooked with every rating or review is to keep them in perspective.

Primarily, I do this by putting it in a context by considering the following factors:

Was the feedback relevant, timely, and offered with good intent?
Did I explicitly or implicitly request the assessment?
Did the review provide useful and practical information or did it appear to rate me as a person?
Was the assessment consistent with other assessments I have received or was it an outlier?
Would I provide feedback like the rating I received to someone whose growth and development mattered to me?

This is a rough outline of questions that help me put feedback in perspective. More “yes” answers to these questions suggest feedback that deserves more of my attention. If I answer most or all of the questions in the negative, that is a strong sign I just need to move on and let go.

4. Learn What You Can and Move On

Even though they can challenge us, evaluations from others really can help us learn and grow. In truth, not everyone will tell you what they really think. This is why, most of the time, feedback can be valuable even if we have to take it with a large grain of salt.

For this reason, the last step before moving on is take whatever lessons you can from the evaluation. With skillfully offered feedback that you have requested, this may be easy. You may get practical ideas about how to adjust or improve.

For ratings that are more generic or less skillful, the lesson may be as simple as slow down, choose your words carefully, or you can’t please everyone. In short, if there is a message in the feedback that you need to hear, take it, reflect on it, and then move on.

Conclusion

In the end, there is no secret recipe for being unbothered and unaffected when lawyers get feedback. That’s because mindfulness practice is not about checking out on life, but being more present in it. All of us are wired to crave praise and resist and reject blame. We want people to like us and think well of us and we don’t want them to tell us negative information about ourselves or our performance.

Mindfulness is not a magic pill that can make the worldly winds of life go away. But with time and practice, it may help you cultivate equanimity an essential trait for navigating ups and downs in life and work. By using the steps offered in this post, I hope you can bring equanimity to your next encounter with feedback.

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:

How to Accept a Lack of Control: Mindfulness for Lawyers

Acceptance is one of the hardest aspects of mindfulness training for lawyers to learn. Or at least this has been the hardest part for me. Many lawyers, myself included, are control freaks and for good reason.

Attorneys have immense power to shape the destiny for clients. You can solve a problem with a phone call. You can craft a strategy that may protect your client’s life, family, or business. You have specialized training and experience that positions you to see subtle things that others miss.

Inevitably, though, situations arise in which your control is limited. This can be shocking, frustrating, and painful for lawyers. The good news is that mindfulness practice is directed at helping us accept things in life we cannot control. This post explains how.

Breathe and pause

When lawyers face a situation beyond our control, it can trigger a variety of emotional responses. We may feel frustration, imposter syndrome, overwhelm, helplessness, or anxiety. We may worry what our clients or firm will think and feel like we are letting everyone down.

These experiences are challenging in themselves, but more significantly can derail our legal strategy if they are left unchecked. Ever seen a fellow lawyer react emotionally and make unforced errors as a result? As a litigator, I have seen this too many times.

The first step for dealing with a lack of control as a lawyer is to take a pause. When you notice the emotions rising, in the form of body tension, heat in your face and neck, or rapid spiraling thoughts, stop what you are doing.

Take a few moments to sit. If you have a mindfulness practice, using a mindfulness practice, such as breath focus, may also help. Notice that you are escalated and take some time to soothe yourself and calm down. If you are very escalated, a walk or mindful movement practice may help too.

Allow your feelings

Once you have calmed down sufficiently, the next step is to allow your feelings. When lawyers confront a lack of control in our cases, it can sometimes raise an inconvenient secondary problem: a lack of control over our emotions.

The thing is, though, that emotions aren’t really things we are supposed to control. From the perspective of mindfulness, we can’t force ourselves to feel any certain way or to stay calm and never feel at all.

Instead, the better approach is to honor our emotions so we can understand the wisdom they have to offer. The key is to do this without letting them force us into harmful actions.

Practices to Help Lawyers Allow Emotions

To that end, when emotions arise for lawyers, it is important to learn to allow them in a safe and kind way. One approach that works for me is to simply feel them in the body. Usually when I can do this, I can recognize the emotion better and keep my mind from spiraling too much.

Another great approach is to use a practice like RAIN that can help you allow and investigate emotions calmly. If I am struggling with self-judgment about my emotions, I invoke the self-compassion step common humanity to remind myself that all lawyers experience difficulties in cases from time to time.

For complex emotions, you may need some additional time to reflect, seek help from friends, or even write to understand how you feel. Though this step can be hard to do, it is one that can help lawyers care for themselves while maintaining stability in a challenging situation.

Image that shares the four mindfulness steps to help lawyers accept a lack of control that were shared in the article

Reflect on past experiences

When lawyers face a lack of control in our cases, our own emotions are only half of the problem. Even once we have returned to calm, we still have to craft a strategy for continuing to serve our clients in the midst of a complex situation.

One problem that can arise when you approach the limits on your control as a lawyer is that your mind may begin spinning false stories. It may tell you that the situation is hopeless. It may shame you or attempt to blame others. It can get stuck in outrage and scheming about revenge.

The antidote to this that works for me is to remember my past experiences. As a seasoned lawyer, I am fortunate (or unfortunate?) to have a collection of memories where my own control was limited in past cases. And you know what? My clients and I got through those situations just fine.

In many ways, law practice is about being flexible enough to navigate situations with clients in rapidly changing circumstances. Reflecting on past times where I did this successfully helps me remember how creative, resourceful, and resilient I am when needed. It inspires hope, determination, and calm.

For newer lawyers who don’t have a ready bank of memories like this, it may help instead to seek counsel and support from more experienced lawyers. Another option that I sometimes use is to look to stories from other inspirational lawyers from contemporary times or history.

Shift Attention to What You Can Control

Lawyers sometimes misunderstand what “acceptance” means in the context of mindfulness practice. People misinterpret it frequently to mean resignation, apathy, or giving up. While in some ways, surrender is a part of acceptance that does not mean succumbing to helplessness.

Wisdom and discernment are also part of acceptance. Sure, acceptance in law practice means truly acknowledging that there are some aspects of our client matters that we cannot control.

Lawyers can’t control what a judge, hearing officer, or other party does. In some situations, we can’t even control our clients. The best we can do is counsel and advise, but clients ultimately make their own choices.

But the fact of limits on our control does not mean that we have no control. When we accept a lack of control in one area, the good news is that it allows us to direct our attention more specifically to what we can control.

Image with definition of "acceptance" shared in the article which is "A mindfulness concept lawyers often misunderstand to mean resignation, apathy, or giving up. It includes wise and discerning surrender to present facts with the aim of identifying and refocusing attention and effort on things within one’s control."

How to Shift Attention to What You Can Control

This for lawyers is the gold buried underneath all the angst that a lack of control creates. When we can wade through the frustration, anxiety, and anger, we can see more clearly that we still have some power.

Shifting attention to what we can control as a lawyers is how we reclaim that power. In my opinion, this is the space where we can offer the most value to clients. Though there are roadblocks, we may recall the things still within our power to move through or around those roadblocks.

Some ways to do this include answering questions like this:

What is the best strategy I can create to navigate the setback in this case?
What things are still within my power to help and guide my client?
What resources, including other staff, are within my power to help and guide my client?
Assuming I could still achieve a great result for my client despite the difficulty so far, how might I achieve it?
What unique skills, traits, or assets do I have as a lawyer to help my client in this situation?

A Lack of Control Is Not Easy to Accept but It Is Essential to Learn

Let’s face it. Lawyers will never enjoy it when they encounter a lack of control in their cases. Mindfulness practices, however, can help us find acceptance and peace in navigating such situations for our clients. By learning take a pause, honor our emotions, reflect on our values and experience, lawyers can return their focus to the things within their control. This can help us find stability and the courage to offer value to our clients in the times when it is needed most.

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

Mindfulness Insights for Lawyers from the Latest Podcast

Lawyers can learn a lot about mindfulness from reading. I wouldn’t have started this blog if that weren’t true. But there really is no substitute for good conversations when it comes to learning how mindfulness really works. That’s why I am thrilled this week to share the latest podcast interview I did.

Odette Ansell is a lawyer in Canada and she started the Non-Billable Hours Podcast to share wisdom about how lawyers can craft thriving lives. I sat down with her recently to talk about my mindfulness practice and how it has supported my law practice over the years.

I really like the episode and not just because Odette made it fun and let me talk about my next book. What I liked most was that her questions really helped me explain how mindfulness practice works for lawyers. Here are a few of the highlights.

Lawyers Can Start a Mindfulness Practice at One Minute a Day

Most podcast interviews asked me how I got into mindfulness. Because the interviewer for this podcast was another lawyer, she asked me about the details of my practice. In the interview, I shared that I started meditating at one minute a day.

This is absolutely true because it was all I could tolerate at the time. This is also the way I teach mindfulness to other lawyers now. I stress the importance of starting small. In addition, I teach the one-minute method in my first book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer.

The biggest impediment to regular meditation practice for most lawyers, myself included, is lack of time. But in the midst of such business we often assume that small amounts of time don’t make a difference.

As I explain in the podcast, starting small has many advantages. And the reality is that even small practices done over time can change our lives. When it comes to meditation, it definitely changed mine.

Image of Claire E. Parsons with quote from the podcast interview about mindfulness for lawyers that says "You can't solve anxiety by thinking."

How Mindfulness Helps with Anxiety

One of my favorite parts of the interview was when Odette and I talked about mindfulness and anxiety. It took me years to face my own anxiety because I believed for too long in the power of my own thinking.

Many lawyers find themselves in this same problem. We are smart people and thinking solves many problems for us. So, when we get scared about something, it is only logical to use the skill we know so well, right?

Though it was painful for me to see this, I ultimately learned the truth. As I shared on the podcast, anxiety is not something you can really solve with thinking. In fact, sometimes the thinking makes it worse. As I experienced, trying to solve anxiety with thinking just led to unhealthy overthinking.

Instead, what has helped me more is letting myself feel the fear behind the anxiety. Truly this means feeling the physical sensations because emotions often register in the body. Then I can care for the emotions and employ self-compassion. It’s only then that my thinking becomes clearer and more helpful.

Mindfulness and Facing “What If” Questions

Another favorite part of the interview was when Odette asked me about the dreaded “what if” questions that arise for lawyers. She shared a worry about appearing before a strict judge and most lawyers can resonate with that.

The strategy I shared in the interview was to answer the “what if” question instead of fearing it. As I wrote here when I faced anxiety with public speaking, it can help to get super practical about these questions.

Sometimes we ask ourselves these “what if” questions as if it’s game over if one thing goes wrong. That’s almost never true. In truth, we sometimes can entertain these worrisome thoughts and forget that lawyers are trained problem solvers.

As I have written before, it can sometimes help to “quantify the suck.” If I am calm enough to think practically, this means I answer the “what if” questions and think through what I would actually do if the worst happened. When I am practical, this reminds me that I have skills, resilience, and people who can help me if I need it.

Image that says "Anxiety Tip: if you are calm enough to be practical, just answer the 'what if' question. This can help you remember that you are creative, resilient, and have people who can help you."

Simple Ways for Lawyers to Start Meditation

To end the interview, Odette asked me how lawyers can get started with mindfulness. I shared in the interview that lawyers should not feel like they have to be “true believers” to get started. In fact, skepticism about meditation can sometimes be a blessing when it is held in moderation.

Even so, lawyers have to practice meditation to get benefits from it. To that end, I recommended that lawyers do what they can to make the practice pleasant. As I shared in the interview, difficulty in meditation practice is how we build skills and grow. This is good because it means we shouldn’t stress about making our practice perfect.

On the other hand, though, if you enjoy meditation practice it is much more likely that you will want to do it consistently. For those lawyers new to meditation practice, it really helps to be easy and gentle with oneself. This can include some time sitting outside on a nice day or even a movement practice like walking meditation.

How to Listen to the Podcast Episode

If you want to listen to the podcast episode, you have several options. You can listen to it here on:

Or you can you can listen to it on YouTube here.

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

Five Smart Ways Lawyers Can Rest Effectively

After a slow February, the first two weeks of March have been intense at work. This is a common situation for lawyers. Things escalate quickly and we can struggle to keep up. This happened to me this week, which ended with two consecutive twelve-hour days. By Friday, I desperately needed rest.

Luckily for me, I shifted into recovery mode immediately. Years of mindfulness practice and law practice have taught me how to do this. For many lawyers, though, it can be hard. We can struggle to turn off our minds and leave our cases behind.

In this post, I’ll explain why taking advantage of down time is essential and offer some ways to truly rest your body and mind.

Why Lawyers Need to Learn to Rest When We Can

Most people recognize that humans need rest to live happy and healthy lives. At the same time, most lawyers are also experts at setting their personal needs aside to address client needs first. For many lawyers, this can become a never-ending cycle that leaves little room for rest.

In reality, though, if you learn to rest efficiently, you may see that quality rest is not entirely dependent on gobs of free time. While our bodies certainly require a minimum number of hours of sleep, other forms of rest during our waking hours may be more flexible.

This means that we can learn to use found time or small windows of time for rest activities. Now, if my use of the word “rest activity” here sounds odd, I will explain why an activity done to aid rest makes sense below. Because lawyers often don’t have much free time or control our schedules, it makes sense for us to learn to rest when we can.

Lawyers May Need to Be Intentional about Rest

Here’s the problem though: lawyers are not always the best at going with the flow. Our cases and work matter to us. It can be hard for most of us to drop their thoughts about a tricky issue just because they have an hour to spare and could use a recharge.

It’s also true that other things may distract us from our need for recovery. Of course, I am talking here about our phones. But in some situations things like alcohol or shopping or even TV might serve the same function.

Even though these tendencies may be very human, they can do us a disservice because they can keep us from learning to truly rest. In this way, lawyers may have to be intentional about shifting into rest mode. We also may have to be intentional about identifying the activities that help us rest.

Image with quote that says "Lawyers can't just demand that our minds stop on a dime. Instead, the mind calms down a lot quicker if you relax the body first."

Lawyers May Do Best with Options for Rest

On this blog, I share a lot about meditation. For those with some experience with the practice, meditation absolutely can be a wonderful way to rest. Even better, meditation offers us the chance to rest their nervous system while cultivating mindfulness. This trait is essential for modulating and identifying the need to recharge.

But as I mentioned, many lawyers are not in the position where they can easily rest just by stopping everything. Instead, their minds may chatter on or replay scenes from their day or weak. This can be frustrating and escalate stress rather than reduce it.

After a decade of meditation practice, I have learned that you can’t just demand that your mind stop on a dime. Instead, for me, the mind calms down a lot quicker if I help my body relax. Here are the five most common activities, besides meditation, that can help you rest.

Option 1: Physical Activity

I know that physical activity may not be the first thing to come to mind when you think of rest. But it’s really a good choice when you think about it. Though rest often means a lack of activity, for lawyers physical movement may help us refresh ourselves.

Many lawyers sit in an office in front of a screen or on the phone much of the day. As a result, by the end of the day, our bodies may be screaming for movement rather than sleep. Physical activity is good for our bodies and minds. It also does not always have to be vigorous to be beneficial.

At the end of a long day or work week, some yoga or a light walk outside may be enough to regulate ourselves. In many situations, I find that some physical activity restores my energy rather than depleting it. In addition, it returns focus and attention to the body rather than to purely mental activity.

For all of these reasons, physical activity is a great option for lawyers who need to recover some energy.

Option 2: Get Outside

In the same way, getting outside is another important rest activity for lawyers. When the weather permits, this option can be paired with physical activity. But even without movement, just sitting outside is healing to us.

Even in small doses, nature regulates our nervous system and reduces the signs of stress. I also will say from experience that nature puts things in perspective. Sure, our worries about cases can feel really big and pervasive at times.

When we get outside, though, we instantly see that there is a much wider world outside of our minds. I often find that just being outside helps me create some space around my thoughts so they don’t feel so big. This helps me let go a little bit and find some rest and solace.

Image sharing the five restful activities for busy lawyers shared in this blog post

Option 3: Make Something

I know when you are low on energy, creativity may be the last thing on your mind. Even so, I often turn to it as a means of restoring my energy. Simple crafts, cooking, writing, and even a little bit of housework are restorative for me.

Sure, if I am really tired, I let myself rest up first. But what I love about creativity is that it demands my full attention. When I cook, for example, I am forced to pay attention to my sensory experience to ensure quality and safety. The same is true when I write, craft, or even trim the hedges.

Although this is a type of labor, it also means that I have no attention left to think about work. In this way, I get to rest my strategic mind for a little while and let the playful and creative side of my brain take the reins.

This is why making something, whether it is a craft or a meal, is an important rest activity.

Option 4: Social Connection

One thing about law practice that not enough people talk about: it can be lonely. Yes, lawyers deal with people all day but loneliness is possible in the midst of in person contact.

In fact, loneliness is prevalent in our culture and is higher among lawyers than most other professions. When you think about it, this actually makes sense. Law practice is rife with risk and stress. Lawyers often find themselves in pressure situations and may often feel compelled to hide their feelings.

In this way, social connection is an important rest activity for lawyers. Having some time to be with other people where you feel like the armor and mask can come off is essential when you carry so much at work.

Option 5: Do Something Light and Fun

Assuming this doesn’t come up in options 1 to 4 or those options are not available, you can always just rest by doing something easy, light, and fun. Turn on a stupid movie. Dance to silly music. Blow bubbles. Play with your dog. You can even scroll for a bit if you stick to cute animal videos or their intellectual equivalent.

Clearly this kind of activity is frivolous and it does not serve any useful purpose. That’s the point. I’m not telling you to devote large amounts of time to these kinds of activities. But sometimes short bursts of silliness can help us relax and let go of our troubles for a bit.

Lawyers often deal with serious matters and we usually at risk for taking ourselves too seriously. Sometimes we need to remember that everyone needs a little bit of time to play and joke around. This is one reason that fun is an important thing to remember when you need a rest.

Conclusion: Rest Means More Than Just Doing Nothing

Many lawyers are told that they need to take time for themselves and make time for rest. But not all of us really know what that means. Even though I am a meditation teacher, I think rest can mean more than just doing nothing. instead, lawyers with active minds may have to get intentional about the activities that truly help them recharge. In this post, I shared some activities that renew my energy and I hope they help you renew yours.

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

Five Ways Mindfulness Helped Me Write My First Novel

Image of typewriter generating letters on desk with notebook, pen, and glasses and title of blog post "Five Ways Mindfulness Helped Me Write My First Novel"

A funny thing happened over the last few years: I wrote a novel. This was never something I had intended to do. As a blogger, of course, I love writing. But as a lawyer, my focus is usually on the facts. I generally didn’t spend my time dreaming up stories.

But then one day, I noticed that I had dreamt up a story. I have a special place in my heart for A Christmas Carol. And I have attended a meditation retreat around the New Year several times. At some point, the two things merged a story about a lawyer who goes on retreat came to mind.

I didn’t quite know what to do with this idea at first or if I would do anything with it at all. Eventually, though, I sat down and let myself write. Then I decided that I liked what I had written well enough to keep working on it. Now, my plan is to publish this little novel by the holidays.

How did I go from nebulous idea to official project? As you may have guessed, mindfulness sure helped. Here are the five ways that mindfulness helped me write my first novel.

1. Mindfulness Helped Me Recognize the Idea.

It’s really hard to recognize a good idea or even be aware that you are having an idea in a crowded mind. Many lawyers try mindfulness with the notion that they will get a clear mind – one with few or at least fewer thoughts. After more than a decade of meditation practice, that hasn’t exactly been my experience.

My thoughts haven’t stopped coming. Far from it, they have continued on much like they did before. It’s just that, with a lot of meditation practice, my mind is much better at knowing which thoughts deserve my time and attention.

I don’t feed all the thoughts and give them energy now. This means that I have a lot more mental space. I can see individual thoughts more clearly. This leaves room for wisdom about which ones are significant.

When it comes to ideas, this really matters. New ideas don’t often yell at us and demand our attention. Instead, they often whisper. When the novel started coming to me, it was very subtle. I would get a flash of a scene that might last only a few minutes. After a few weeks, I realized that this was a pattern and I started to take note.

Without clear, nonjudgmental awareness, I would have easily missed these tiny moments of inspiration. Because my mindfulness practice had honed this trait, though, I was able to see it and let the idea emerge.

2. Mindfulness Practice Gave Me the Patience to Let the Novel Emerge.

As you may have noticed by now, this book has taken a long time to unfold. It began coming to me late in 2022 but I didn’t recognize it until the next year. I started writing it early in 2023, but then didn’t finish until the very end of 2024. In 2025, I thought about publishing but then got sidetracked by my hectic law practice and copious speaking engagements. Only now in 2026 did I decide once and for all that I was going to publish the novel.

My point should be obvious by now: writing takes time. You can’t force an idea to emerge. Creativity doesn’t flow when you exert too much control. After years of writing, I have learned that I have to let inspiration guide me. As a practicing lawyer and mom too, I have also learned that I have to pick my battles in terms of creative ventures.

If there is one thing that breath focus meditation will teach you, it is patience. There have been countless times when I wanted to quit meditating when I was tired or bored or just over it. I won’t lie. Sometimes I did quit. But many times, maybe most, I continued on. In the moment I didn’t always know why.

Now, I know why not quitting matters. All those times, I was practicing patience. I was practicing keeping an open heart and a calm mind when things took longer than I preferred. In the moment, I wasn’t sure my effort was worth it, but I am sure now. Patience is an essential trait for a writer and I am glad mindfulness practice helped me cultivate it.

Image listing the five ways that mindfulness helps with writing a novel as shared in the blog post

3. Meditation Gave Me Plenty of Experience Dealing with Doubt and Resistance.

If you are anything like me, the odds are that you will have an initial wave of pride after completing a new project. Soon enough, though, it may be followed by a wave of self-doubt and resistance. When I finished writing the novel, I had both.

Doubt definitely came up because I had never written fiction before. This was not unexpected. As I have written before, doubt is often strong for me. Any time I try something new, I have grown accustomed to looking for doubt to show up.

Normally, I can breeze right through it. But this doubt enlisted a friend: resistance. Do you ever have times when you just put things off? Or stubbornly refuse to do things you know you should? That’s resistance.

It can be a huge impediment to creative pursuits, like writing, and also moving forward in life. My resistance lied to me. It told me that I was too busy to focus on a novel. It worked with my doubt to convince me that nobody would read it anyway and continued effort would be a waste of time.

So, what did I do? Like in my meditation practice, I just kept paying attention. For a while, the doubt and resistance worked and the novel faded into the background. But when things calmed down in my life and law practice again, the novel came back to my mind. I realized that I cared about it enough to face the doubt and deal with the resistance. Because of my mindfulness practice, I knew that I could.

4. Mindfulness Taught Me Trust Myself, an Essential Trait for Writing a Novel.

I have written a few times before that mindfulness practice builds confidence. This isn’t in the brazen or brash kind of way. Instead, I think it comes from really knowing yourself. When you study yourself closely, you learn what works better for you and that helps you face life on your terms.

Writing is a deeply personal thing, even when the story you share is a made up one. Years of writing has helped me slowly build the courage to share my own story in this blog and elsewhere. It’s allowed me to see that I can be okay if nobody reads my writing or if people don’t react as I had hoped.

In part, this is because I often feel pride and joy in the act of writing and sharing itself. And, as a bonus, some people have read my writing and it has helped me make friends and build community.

Make no mistake. When you write, it is intimate and vulnerable. Because mindfulness helped me know myself so well, I developed good instincts about sharing. I learned I could trust myself and trust others too. That trust helped me see the book in terms of possibilities rather than fears.

5. Self-Compassion Helped Me Craft a Plan to Finish and Publish the Novel.

Did I mention that I have never written fiction before? So that means I was writing a novel without knowing how to write a novel. I was an English major in college but I have never so much as taken a creative writing course.

How did I let myself write a novel with no road map? Well, in a word, I used self-compassion, which may be the very best trait derived from my mindfulness practice. Years of writing has taught me that the first draft does not have to be good. Instead, it just needs to be out. I have to allow the messy mind dump so I can see what I have.

When I first read the draft, I needed self-compassion again. Rather than looking at it with an eagle eye, I paid attention to how I felt. I wasn’t looking for plot holes or typos. I was looking to see if I laughed or cried. Fortunately, I did both.

Finally, after languishing for more than a year, my last act of self-compassion was to enlist some help. I asked some friends to beta read the draft. I got some editing help. And I made a plan to get this project done this year. After all, haven’t I written before that success on long-term goals requires adequate support?

Now that I have some support, I have a real plan for publishing the novel in time for the holidays this year.

Image of an open book with the words "novel coming soon" and "stay tuned" and "Holidays 2026"

Mindfulness Helped Me Write My Book. What Could It Help You Do?

Mindfulness practice offers many wonderful benefits, including reduced stress, less rumination, improved health, and better relationships. I experienced all of those things. But when you hear about those benefits, you don’t always understand what it means in terms of a real life. As I shared in this post, all those wonderful traits from my mindfulness practice helped me pursue something I love: writing.

Most recently, it even helped me keep writing when a project I didn’t anticipate or ask for came up. My mindfulness practice helped me write my first novel. Now, I’d love to know, hear about, or see what mindfulness practice helps you do.

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

How to Recover When Your Meditation Habit Gets Sloppy

Image of a post it note with the phrase "habit is persistence in practice" and the title of the blog post that says "How to Recover When Your Mediation Habit Gets Sloppy"

In January, my habit tracker showed nice long streaks for meditation. I was laser focused on starting the year strong and practiced mindfulness each day. Now, it’s halfway through February and my meditation practice is a bit of a mess. What is a lawyer to do?

Well, this lawyer is a mindfulness teacher who has been meditating for over a decade. This is not my first rodeo when it comes to a less than perfect meditation practice.

In case you are wondering, here are the three proven steps I will take to get my meditation practice back on track. I also offer three supports you can consider if you need a little bit more help getting your own habit back in order.

1. Lawyers Are Busy, So Don’t Panic or Beat Yourself Up.

The first thing that many people do when they notice a habit slipping is to beat themselves up. I encourage you to avoid this trap. Yes, meditation is an important practice. Yes, it offers many benefits.

These truths can easily cause high achievers like lawyers take their practices very seriously. And that seriousness can lead to self-criticism and even spiraling when the habit is not easily maintained.

Don’t take the bait. Instead, be practical and realistic. For most lawyers and professionals, it is not realistic to expect perfection with any healthy habit. Instead, it makes more sense to think about what we do most days.

If you criticize yourself every time you miss, that won’t motivate you to get back to practice any more quickly. Instead, it will induce hopelessness and shame. This is why the best thing you can do when you notice your meditation habit slipping is to avoid panic and self-judgment.

2. Identify the Impediment to Meditation Practice

When you can bring some neutrality to the situation, it is possible to next review the situation practically. Looking at things from a place of self-compassion, it is easier to see that most of us don’t skip on healthy habits because we are undisciplined or don’t care.

Instead, for lawyers and professionals, the culprit is more likely to be a practical impediment. This is why the next step in the process is to review the things that are getting in the way of meditation.

This might include schedule changes or a hectic period at work. It could also include events in your personal life that create a resistance to practice. Even though meditation can be a great way to process complex emotions or care for yourself, doing so during tough times can be a challenge. Acknowledging this kind of resistance as a human reality may help you work through it.

Other potential impediments could be even easier to address. You may consider, for example, if there is anything you don’t like about the experience of meditation. Then you can consider how you can make the practice a bit more pleasant to get yourself to the cushion.

Ultimately, most people don’t skip meditation because they don’t care about the benefits. Instead, problem-solving the issue from the habit formation level may help you figure get your practice back on track.

Image listing the three steps to Get Your Meditation Habit Back on Track shared in the post, including don't judge yourself or panic, identify the impediment to practice, and just get back to practice.

3. Come Back to Meditation Practice

In truth, you don’t need the first two steps every time you miss a meditation session or get off track with practice for a few days. Instead, the more efficient route may be to just come back to meditation practice.

This may be the most essential lesson from basic breath practice: you can always begin again. Just like there is always another breath to note, there is always another day to come back to meditation.

You don’t have to apologize or make amends. You just start practicing again the same way you did the very first time. That’s the beauty of meditation. It’s always there for you when you need it even if you have been away from practice for a while.

If you have missed practice for a long time, it may be best to ease back into it. I suggest starting small to give yourself time to rebuild the habit. But you may find that you can increase your time more quickly than you could when you were new to practice. Either way, there is no need to rush because meditation is a practice for life.

In the end, the way to maintain a consistent habit is to not give up on the habit when you miss a day, a week, or longer. The best way to get back on track is to just come back to meditation practice.

But What If The Steps Above Aren’t Enough?

After more than a decade of meditation, I can tell you that sometimes getting back to practice is easy and sometimes it is hard. In the easy cases, the three steps above or just step three alone are enough.

For hard cases, you may need some more support. Sometimes we stop meditating due to massive schedule or life changes, personal loss or difficulty, or even health-related conditions that make practice a challenge.

If you are really struggling to get back to regular meditation despite a desire to do so, you may consider the following three steps to support yourself.

1. If Needed, Reflect on What Meditation Offers to Your Life.

When I need motivation to get my habits back on track, I instinctively look to my intention. If your meditation practice is struggling, one way to help yourself recover is to consider if your intention has changed.

This happens with meditation from time and time and it may not be a bad sign. When I first started meditating, my fundamental aim was dealing with stress. I just wanted to rest and find some relief from all my copious thoughts.

After a few years, though, meditation helped me and the thoughts gradually slowed down. I had to rethink why the practice mattered to me. When I did, I realized that my new focus was to create a refuge for myself to deal with the challenges of everyday life.

The reality is that most lawyers don’t meditate to get really good at meditation or because we think we will become enlightened. Instead, we do it because we want benefits in our lives outside of meditation.

For this reason, it can help to reflect every so often on the ways that meditation supports your life. Once you are clear about your reasons for practice, it may be easier to bring yourself back to regular practice.

Image defining a habit as "a pastime that becomes a regular part of your life because you don’t give up on even though you repeatedly fail to do it perfectly or as much as you want"

2. If Needed, Get Support from a Meditation Teacher or Community.

As I have written many times before, a teacher or community support a meditation practice more than anything else. I know that for many lawyers and professionals, it may be a practical necessity to meditate alone most of the time.

It definitely takes more time to meet up with others at a course or retreat to meditate and it may take some work to find a teacher. Even so, that investment of time is worth even for the busiest lawyers.

If you are struggling with your meditation practice, a great way to refresh it is to get some support. Taking a course, doing a retreat, or finding a meditation group can help you get needed direction. It can also make the practice feel less lonely and more fun.

So, if you practice is struggling, a great way to bring it back it get help from a teacher or a community.

3. If Needed, Here’s a Worksheet to Help You Rework Your Meditation Habit.

For major life or schedule changes, you may also need to rethink how meditation fits into your life. That is something that most lawyers and professionals can expect to do from time to time.

Even subtle schedule changes cause by shifts in family or work obligations can throw wrenches into our normal systems. Instead of thinking of yourself as an undisciplined failure as noted above, it makes more sense to think practically about how the system works.

If you need help restructuring your daily meditation practice, you might check out the guide I wrote here. You can also download the meditation habit worksheet to find ways to make the practice more obvious, satisfying, and easy to do.

Conclusion: Meditation Is a Practice for Life, So Lawyers Can Expect Times of Ebb and Flow.

If you meditate for long enough, you are bound to face disruptions with your normal habits. This is a reality that most lawyers and professionals will face as they navigate life and work changes and busy lives. If you meditation practices gets off track, you can use the steps and supports identified in this post to recover.

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

New Podcast: The Benefits of Mindfulness Practice for Lawyers

As I have written before, the best way to learn about mindfulness is with friends. In a recent podcast, I got to talk about mindfulness with a fellow lawyer and good friend, Jamie Jones. Jamie is the President of the Arkansas Bar Association and I got to know her through a professional association.

In the podcast, Jamie asked me about several common issues that lawyers face when they start mindfulness practice. I’m sharing the podcast here because it’s a great resource and may help other lawyers get over some of the myths about mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness Topics Discussed in the Podcast

As in many interview, Jamie first asked me to trace my history with mindfulness. I explained that I stumbled upon the practice in a time of need after dealing with years of anxiety, overthinking, and depression.

Despite starting very small, at 1 minute a day, mindfulness practice quickly helped me. It not only helped me develop tools for managing stress. It also helped me cultivate self-compassion and ultimately confidence. All of these things helped me move forward in my work and life.

Fortunately, though, Jamie didn’t just focus on success stories. Instead, she asked me real questions about the challenges of practice. We covered things like the myth that you can “clear your mind” in meditation. We also talked about the challenges of finding time to practice each day.

One of my favorite parts was when I explained how mindfulness practice can help lawyers cultivate the skill of dealing with thoughts. So many lawyers focus on the idea that their mind must be clear in meditation.

The real gold of the practice, though, happens when you develop skills for navigating thoughts. During the podcast interview, I explained how this works in practice.

The Most Important Pieces for Lawyers

The reason that this matters for lawyers, of course, is that we don’t want to waste our time. Lawyers have so much on our plates that it can feel really overwhelming or even foolish to try something that might not work.

What I tried more than anything to convey in the interview was that a consistent mindfulness practice is attainable for lawyers. Sure, we are busy but we can gain benefits with small periods of practice.

Sure, mindfulness practice may feel confusing and lonely at first. There are resources and groups to help.

Sure, mindfulness practice can feel sometimes like we aren’t any good at it. I discuss in the interview, though, that being good at meditation is really not the issue. In fact, I explain how even an imperfect meditation practice can do a lot of good.

Image showing new podcast episode on ArkBaro on Air with body scan mindfulness practice for lawyers

Try Mindfulness with the Bonus Podcast Episode

Another great thing about the podcast is that I also recorded a bonus meditation. Jamie did not just want to share information about mindfulness with members of the Arkansas Bar, she also wanted them to try it.

When I teach people new to mindfulness practice, I often recommend body scan practice as a great place to start. I do this for several reasons.

As I have written before, body scan is often relaxing and engaging. It is also a great skill for lawyers to cultivate because it can help us avoid being stuck in our minds and thoughts.

In addition, developing familiarity with the body offers many practical benefits. This can include a better awareness of the physical signs of stress, which in turn can engender wisdom about self-care.

In addition, emotions often register in our bodies. In this way, learning about bodily sensations can build stability and intelligence around emotions.

For all of these reasons, body scan is a foundational practice and a great place to start for lawyers exploring mindfulness.

Where and How Lawyers Can Listen to the Podcast

To listen to the podcast, you can find it on the ArkBar on Air Podcast website here. You can also find it on your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Goodpods.

The interview is found in Episode 8: Mindfulness for Lawyers. This is where you will learn about how to start a mindfulness practice and keep it going. You will also learn about the benefits of mindfulness practice.

The meditation is found under Bonus Content: Body Scan Meditation for Lawyers. This is where you will get a chance to try meditation in the comfort of your own home or office.

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

Mindfulness in Crisis: How Titration Helps Lawyers Manage News Stress

I didn’t get a new post written last week. This time, my schedule is not to blame. I was home due to the massive snowstorm that plowed through my community and much of the United States. Instead, my only excuse was that I struggled to write because I was troubled by the news.

I try to avoid taking positions on the news in this blog. I don’t want to give people the wrong idea that mindfulness practice is restricted to a single political persuasion. It isn’t. But as a mindfulness teacher and a lawyer it does not feel right for me to pretend like political and social events don’t affect us. They do.

My point here is not to take a position on the events in the news. I do that via appropriate means in other ways. It is important to address the reality that the news cycle recently has been hard on almost all of us. In this post, I will share a mindfulness strategy that has helps me deal with the news: titration.

Two common solutions for lawyers trying to deal with the news.

There are two common forms of mental health advice when it comes to the news cycle. One camp suggests avoidance and self-preservation. The appeal of this school of thought is obvious. The news cycle recently and often in general is filled with violent images and stories of conflict.

Though these stories stir our emotions, they often relate to things outside of our control. This is a recipe for empathic overwhelm. Based on this, some people argue that we should turn off the news, stay off our phones, and focus on self-care.

Others take the opposite view. They tell us that we are scared and concerned for a reason. They urge us to find ways to act, to call our senators, raise our voices, make donations, or even attend meetings or protests.

This path does not offer the respite of the first, but it promises a greater sense of agency in the world. It also offers a use for all of the energy we are bound to feel watching conflict play out on the news. It could even help us feel less alone and more engaged in our community, especially it leads us to in-person experiences.

Can mindfulness offer lawyers a middle path?

As indicated above, there is wisdom in both of the approaches stated above, but there are also downsides. For lawyers, the downside of the self-care route may be that it could inspire guilt. It could also be really hard to actually relax and rest for too long, knowing that turbulence is happening in the world.

The downside of the engagement approach, of course, is that many lawyers may not feel safe to do so. Client opinion or law firm policies may prevent us from engaging with social or political issues as much as lawyers might like. Some lawyers may not have the energy or mental space to even face the news, let alone engage civically or politically in response to it.

Given the pros and cons for each approach, the mindfulness teacher in me reflexively looks for a middle way. After some struggle this weekend, I think I finally found my answer. The issue is not a true dichotomy between self-care and engaging with the world in turbulent times. Instead, it is possible to do both. A practice called “titration” provides a useful model.

The Mindfulness Practice of Titration

Titration is a mindfulness practice that allows us to approach difficult experiences slowly, gradually, and in manageable doses. A very common way of using this strategy in meditation practice is in response to powerful emotions or difficult bodily sensations.

The classical mindfulness directive is to allow the difficult experience to arise and be fully present with it. But for truly powerful emotions or painful sensations, though, this advice can leave us overwhelmed. For people with trauma or other conditions, this advice may be impractical.

Out of self-compassion and wisdom, then, we can instead learn to titrate by noticing small bits of the experience over time. To do this, you might notice the challenging emotion or sensation for a few moments. Instead of simply staying with that difficult experience, though, you would then shift attention to something pleasant or neutral as a means of rest and recovery.

When you feel ready again, you can return attention to the area of difficulty. This strategy is called pendulation, a specific variety of titration, because it helps you take small doses of a difficult experience instead of taking it in all at once.

Image with question asking what titration is and answer which says "Titration is a mindfulness practice that allows us to approach difficult experiences slowly, gradually, and in manageable doses. To do this, you might notice the challenging emotion or sensation for a few moments, then shift attention to something pleasant or neutral as a means of rest and recovery."

Why titration helps.

Titration is a great skill for lawyers for work and life in general. Many of us face times of high conflict and stress. Lawyers must often deal with people who present us with difficult circumstances and issues.

Titration offers us the ability to face the difficulties of life on our terms. It marries courage with self-kindness. It balances stability with flexibility. It gives us a real strategy for caring for our minds, hearts, and bodies as we engage with a sometimes challenging world.

As someone who has had anxiety most of my life, I have found that mindfulness practices like titration build a lot of confidence. Even though they don’t mean that I will never be afraid, they give me a road map to follow when fear arises.

This means I am allowed to be afraid because I have faith that I can manage it when it arises. If I can be afraid, that means I can do the things in life and work that I need to do. This translates to faith in myself and great confidence for managing my life.

How to apply the concept of titration to a challenging news cycle.

I know it sounds weird to say this, but you can apply titration to the news and world events too. With this practice, you can take the wisdom of the people advocating rest and self-care and combine it with the necessity of engaged citizenship.

With this approach, you do not have to shield yourself entirely from the news during difficult times. You can scroll social media, listen to or watch the news for the purpose of obtaining information. As you do, though, it is best to monitor yourself for how the news is affecting you.

If it is affecting your mood, behavior, or leading to compulsive doomscrolling, it may be time for a break. You also might consider caring for yourself with restorative practices, including exercise, calming strategies, or talking with a trusted friend.

Another strategy that I like is to take some small but productive action in response to what I see on the news. I may make a donation, research ways to offer help, or find ways to support a worthy cause. Then after I have done my part, I let go of the issue and turn my attention elsewhere.

Given how engrossing TV news and social media can be, it may be wise to schedule breaks or plan activities to avoid overwhelming yourself. This may mean scheduling time with other people, getting outside, or just leaving your phone out of arm’s reach.

Conclusion

There is never a lack of challenging information waiting for us on the news and social media. When times are particularly difficult, it can be tempting for lawyers and other professionals to take an all or nothing approach. We can either be sucked in by the neverending news cycle, which may lead to overwhelm. Or we can be tempted to check out in the pursuit of self-preservation.

This post is not intended to tell you how you should respond to the social and political issues you see on the news. Instead, it explains one strategy, titration, that may provide a way to balance self-care and engaged citizenship as we face turbulent times.

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

Tips for Starting a Meditation Practice in the New Year

It’s the beginning of a new year, so lawyers may be thinking about new years goals and resolutions. For many people, this might include the goal of exploring mindfulness or starting a meditation practice.

If this is your intention for the year, I think it’s a great one. But all of us know that noble intentions in January sometimes fade by February. How can you start a meditation practice in January that has the hope of lasting the year and beyond?

That’s why I wrote this piece. In this post, I will share some tips intended to help you explore meditation and turn it into a real practice.

Establish Meditation as a Habit

My first advice for lawyers exploring meditation is to start small. That isn’t only because it’s kinder to yourself. It’s also much easier to do something repeatedly if it takes less time.

The biggest problem many lawyers and professional have with meditation is finding the time to practice. Given this, it is essential to not overwhelm yourself at the beginning.

I started my meditation practice over a decade ago at 1 minute per day because that is all I could handle. Though I was quickly able to add minutes on as the days went by, this small increment of time meant I had very few excuses to skip practice.

This meant that I quickly established a habit of meditating every day. If you want the benefits of meditation, making the practice regular is important. To do this, start with short sessions but aim for regular, ideally daily, practice. If you need any more help on brainstorming meditation as a habit, download this free worksheet.

Focus on Building Skills Instead of Being “Perfect” at Meditation

Now, you may be worried that even if you make meditation a habit, you still don’t know what you are doing. So you may be worried about doing the practice wrong or wasting your time.

I have shared basic meditation instructions on this blog and posts about a variety of different meditation practices, including breath practice, body scan, joy, and loving-kindness. At the beginning, though, I would not worry so much about being right in meditation.

Of course, no lawyer wants to waste their time. But the mistakes in meditation are often the best teachers. Meditation is not a thought exercise. It is an experiential practice. You learn how to do the practice by meditating.

At the beginning, then, the object is not to be perfect but instead to cultivate some basic skills. These include the following:

Patience with yourself;
Focus (including which focal point works for you);
Learning what calms and soothes you;
Connecting with bodily sensations;
Noticing when you are thinking;
Redirecting attention; and
Self-kindness.

Image of author Claire E. Parsons with quote from post "Of course, no lawyer wants to waste their time. But the mistakes in meditation are often the best teachers. Meditation is not a thought exercise. It is an experiential practice. You learn how to do the practice by meditating."

Don’t Expect to See Quick Progress in Meditation

Many lawyers start a meditation practice because they want the benefits they have read about in research studies. They want to feel less stress, they want to be able to focus on demand, and they want more happiness and kindness.

Then they sit down in meditation and they feel stressed because they can’t focus. They feel tired and bored. Their feet fall asleep, their knees and back hurt. All of this is bound to make any reasonable lawyer think the practice doesn’t work.

But here’s the thing: the benefits of meditation often don’t show up in the practice itself, at least not right away. After a while, practice should come to feel a bit more enjoyable and soothing in itself. At first, though, you are still building skills. Expecting to see mastery in your practice is like expecting not to struggle at all when you start a new exercise routine.

This means that you should give yourself some time (four to eight weeks) before you look for any benefits to emerge. And if those benefits emerge, they probably will show up outside of meditation first. These might include things like rushing less, a reduction in the physical signs of stress, or less reactivity.

Though benefits very likely will emerge with consistent meditation practice, be cautious about your expectations. Don’t expect immediate results and look for the benefits in life first before they show up in meditation practice.

Keep Your Practice Simple

One of the problems that knowledge seekers like lawyers may encounter at first is that they can’t decide which mindfulness practice to explore. The list of skills mentioned above may suggest that you must master all forms of meditation in order to gain benefits. Allow me to set the record straight.

While it is great to explore a variety of practices, ultimately simplicity is ideal. Keeping your practice simple will reduce decision fatigue. This means that there is less chance that your actual practice time will be delayed or derailed by too many planning questions.

Over the years, I have done a variety of practices with and without guiding. Eventually, though, I settled into a simple routine that consists mostly of breath focus practice, open awareness, and loving-kindness. I generally don’t do formal body scan practices, but I enjoy them on occasion if I have a special need to relax or calm my body.

Based on this, it is great to explore and shop around with practices at first. After a few days or weeks, though, it is best to settle on the practice that allows you to relax and focus the most. This will allow you time to build proficiency with the practice, so that you can experience benefits and build confidence.

As the months and years go on, you can always adjust your practice. In fact, you may need to do so to address specific issues like increased stress, sleepiness or spacing out, or just to refresh your practice.

Image sharing five tips for lawyers starting a meditation practice as shared in the blog post

Don’t Go It Alone

I offer my last bit of advice with a strong sense of humility. When I started meditating, I practiced totally on my own. I had no teacher or community and at first hid my practice from my family.

It was not until years later that I realized the error in this approach. When I attended my first retreat, I was amazed at how supportive it was to meditate with other people. I couldn’t believe how helpful a few minutes of chatting with a teacher was.

Though many lawyers pride ourselves for our independence, we do best when we remember that humans are social animals. When we humans want to make real habit change, social support is the way to go. If you want to make meditation a lasting part of your life, finding a teacher or community should be a priority.

Now, as I said above, time is often a challenge for lawyers. I am no stranger to this. To be sure, meditation can be learned and practiced on your own and you should not feel ashamed at all about that. If, however, you have any options to meditate in a group, learned from a trained mindfulness teacher, or go on retreat, it will support your practice.

For anyone in the legal profession looking for such a community, the Mindfulness in Law Society provides a highly accessible option.

Conclusion

These are my tips for starting a meditation practice in the new year. They are offered to help busy people like lawyers be kind to themselves while forming a habit that can last. Regardless of the goals you set, I wish you luck in the new year and hope you find whatever practices support you and your community best.

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

The Power of Small Joys for Busy Lawyers

My habits and routines have suffered a bit as the holidays approach. By Friday last week, I felt the prickly tingle on my skin that I have come to recognize as a physical sign of stress. I knew that I needed to prioritize rest over the weekend.

Fortunately, Saturday morning brought sunshine and higher temperatures. It was a lovely respite from the extreme cold and snow that had been common in recent weeks. You better believe that I took advantage of the situation by taking a long walk outside.

That’s why this post is about making small joys like these priorities in a busy life.

Small Joys Can Be Significant

I write a lot about dealing with negative thoughts, situations, and emotions on this blog. That’s not because I enjoy being negative. Instead, it’s because a huge piece of mindfulness practice is cultivating skill in the face of difficulty.

But if you focus your entire mindfulness practice on difficulty, it’s likely that you won’t want to practice very long. As I have written before, mindfulness practice can be enjoyable. In fact, it’s better when we enjoy practice because it helps us feel safe and relaxed. That’s when the mind and heart can open.

This is why I recommend orienting to joy and other positive emotions as much as possible. This is true in meditation practice, but it is even more important in life. Our brains are wired to be negative by nature, but we can train ourselves to reorient towards the joyful moments that happen every day.

We can learn to look for the ordinary and small joys that arise in life and notice how good they feel. If this seems too small, remember that life is a collection of moments. Our brains naturally notice and remember the dark moments. We can create balance and equanimity in life by intentionally noticing and savoring the small joys that arise too.

Small Joys Are Important for Lawyers

Now, busy lawyers are bound to object, saying that they don’t have time for things like this. One of the best things about prioritizing small joys is that it doesn’t have to take any extra time. In the example above, the walk outside did not cost me any extra time. I was already going to exercise. I just made the decision to increase my enjoyment by exercising outside in the sunshine.

These small shifts have big consequences for lawyers. Yes, we are often busy and our minds are often devoted to very important things. But this is an argument in favor of prioritizing small joys instead of against it.

If you are often busy and dealing with stressful things, as lawyers often are, doesn’t it make sense to have some small moments for lighter things? We lawyers often defer gratification for our own needs to support others. It is just common sense that, some of the time, we can please ourselves.

And for busy people like lawyers, it makes even more sense to start with small joys that arise in everyday life. We may not always have time for a vacation or the money to treat ourselves with a gift. In most cases, we can afford a few minutes for a small pastime or indulgence we really like.

Image sharing the 3 steps to lawyers can use to savor small joys as shared in the blog post.

How Lawyers Can Stop and Smell the Roses

If you are anything like me, you may be worrying that you don’t know how to recognize joy, let alone prioritize it. Many of us lawyers get out of the habit of checking in with our own needs and wants. This may happen for a variety of reasons, so if possible avoid judging yourself.

If this sounds like you, a simple way to make joy a priority in your life is to start to notice the things you really like. An easy way to do this is to slow down and pay extra attention to daily routines. What foods do you like the most? What counts as an ideal shower or bath for you? How exactly do you like your bedroom to be at night for sleep? What makes a conversation with someone else really good?

These are just a few examples, but the common theme for them is that they are focused on how you care for your body. As I have written before, emotions are often bodily experiences. So if we want to know what small things bring us joy, it helps to pay attention to our bodies and what helps us care for and soothe them.

How to Make the Most of Small Joys

Once you have started to identify and look for small joys, the next step of course is to prioritize them. In my view, lawyers can prioritize small joys by learning to savor. The word “savoring” is often used with regard to food and our sense of taste, but it can be broader.

In fact, positive psychologist, Rick Hanson, says that we can savor an experience by bringing full attention to it in our minds and bodies. Hanson’s process for savoring joys is one I now use frequently. It includes the following three steps:

Notice and define the thing that is bringing you joy. Using the example from above, I really loved the walk outside because the sunshine was energizing. My body felt light and free being outside and I felt how warming and invigorating the sunshine was during my walk.
Savor it and allow it to last 20 to 30 seconds. Again, using the example from above, every time on my walk I noticed something pleasant, such as the feeling of the sunshine, I let it be there. I kept my attention with it for as long as it remained.
Allow the positive feelings to expand or permeate your body and soak them in. Continuing with the example from above, as I walked I let the relaxation and the new energy spread through my body as I walked. Perhaps I felt the sun on my face, but I let the warmth and energy spread all the way down to my toes during the walk.

Conclusion

Life for most lawyers is not all about joy. It also includes difficulty, stress, and conflict. This is why making the most of small joys is not trivial or frivolous for lawyers. Instead, it is an important practice that can support mental health and lead to a richer, more vibrant life.

Even if savoring small joys is not a current habit, this post offers some small practices to help you make it a regular part of life. Hopefully that means you will take advantage the next time you are presented with a chance to take a walk outside on a nice day.

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