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

Cover image for blog post about new year's resolutions v. reflections

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

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

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

January Is Arbitrary but Not Capricious.

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

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

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

A quote about the significance of the new year and why reflections are important

Reflections and Resolutions Aren’t the Same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An image with a quote about resolutions and reflections at the new year

Seeing Your Patterns Is Empowering.

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

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

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

Want Some Help for Your Reflections?

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

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, A New Year’s Present, to learn about mindfulness from a heartwarming story. For a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days, try How to Be a Badass Lawyer. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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Meditation Teacher Sharon Salzberg Helps Us Bring Mindfulness Into Real Life

I have read a lot of books on mindfulness and followed many meditation teachers over the years. Some help me understand the practice of meditation better. Some help me understand myself better. But Sharon Salzberg has helped me understand life better.

Sharon Salzberg is one of the most well-known teachers of mindfulness in the world. She has been teaching for more than four decades, is a founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, the author of numerous books (which I’ll mention below), and the host of the wildly popular Metta Hour podcast. This is a fantastic resume to be sure, but it’s not what I like most about Salzberg.

Salzberg Makes Mindfulness Accessible

What I like most is that, despite this resume, Salzberg’s teachings don’t come across as esoteric, ethereal, or even professorial. They are down-to-earth, practical, and human. If you read her books or listen to her podcast, it’s immediately clear that Salzberg knows her stuff but she always talks to you and never at you.

In fact, though I certainly have experienced a mind and heart expansion from reading Salzberg’s works, reading them didn’t feel like being taught. Instead, reading Salzberg’s books felt more like talking about life with a wise friend or good neighbor.

Salzberg on Loving-Kindness Meditation

If you are reading this blog, the odds are that you have heard of Sharon Salzberg and you may have already encountered some of her works. What you may not realize and what I didn’t appreciate until I sat down to write this post is how extensive and broadly applicable her work was.

Salzberg is perhaps most well-known for her teachings on my favorite meditation practice, loving-kindness. But what I hope you get from this post is that her work can help you learn how to live loving-kindness too.

Meditation Books from Sharon Salzberg

To more clearly illustrate what I am talking about here, I provide a few summaries of the books from Sharon Salzberg that I have enjoyed the most:

Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

This is a book that explains the practice of loving-kindness in depth. It discusses each aspect of the practice to support the process of opening the heart more broadly. As I explain in my own book, loving-kindness is a dynamic practice that includes both body awareness, mental imagery, and emotional understanding. This book breaks the practice down in a simple way to help support you in your practice.

Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves & the World

This book is for anyone seeking stability and inspiration to keep working to make the world a better place. I read this book years ago as I was reeling from the bruising 2020 election and I can’t tell you the healing it brought me. It explains how mindfulness can be a stabilizing force in the work towards change and how compassion can inspire action even amid fear. She also offers more resources relating to political action and election stress on her website which is bound to be helpful to many as we head into a new election cycle.

Books Applying Mindfulness to Real Life

In addition to her books teaching meditation practices, Sharon Salzberg also has books applying mindfulness to life.

Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement & Peace

The goal of this blog is to help lawyers and professionals not just learn about meditation but bring mindfulness into their lives and work. That’s the goal of this book from Salzberg too. It embeds mindfulness concepts and practices into the life of work. What I like best are the micro practices sprinkled into every chapter to help you incorporate mindfulness into your work regardless of your experience (or lack thereof) with meditation practice.

Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness & Freedom

This is Salzberg’s latest book. There are many teachers who talk about the process of contracting or tightening during difficulty, including Tara Brach. This book, though, explains how easy it is to do that habitually throughout our lives. It offers teachings about how to open back up again to get what we actually want out of life: meaning, connection, and peace. In a time when the world seems intent on making us afraid and isolated, this book will help you rebalance again towards hope and calm.

Looking for More Meditation Instruction?

If you are interested in learning more, Salzberg frequently offers special events and courses where students can learn more. Fortunately, we can expect to see more from Salzberg. In her latest book, Real Life, Salzberg discussed the fact that she is going to be devoting more of her time to writing. This has already proven to be fruitful, with the recent release of a 10^th anniversary edition of her book, Love Your Enemies, which I discuss here.

Salzberg is a teacher who has made mindfulness practices accessible and approachable to thousands of people around the world. Whether you do a few of her guided meditations or do a deep dive into all of her books, you are bound to learn not just about mindfulness, but also some skills for life.

Founder’s Note: The links to the books discussed here are paid through the Amazon affiliates program. The reviews and recommendations to all books and the author are unpaid and are genuine and sincere.

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Five Things to Know about Meditation with Trauma

Though I am trained to teach mindfulness, yoga, and compassion and have undergone trauma-sensitive training, I am not a trauma healer. As a meditation teacher, however, I have had questions arise about whether meditation is right for a person who has been diagnosed with trauma or had a traumatic experience.

To be sure, meditation is something that can help people who have experienced trauma because it can increase mental focus, body awareness, and self-compassion.

Concerns about Meditation for People who Have Experienced Trauma

Even so, meditation could include some risks for those who have experienced trauma. The experience of meditation can allow traumatic experiences to resurface, whether in the body or mind, and this can result in adverse symptoms.

Moreover, trauma is exceedingly common and researchers now understand that it can be caused by a broad range of experiences. Thus, the reality is that past trauma may be a concern for a large portion of people who explore meditation.

With this background in mind, my perspective as a mindfulness teacher and someone is that meditation practice can be beneficial for those who have experienced trauma. With that said, individuals who are experiencing symptoms associated with trauma may need additional supports to ensure that their practices help them heal. Here are my recommendations for those supports.

1. Take Your Time.

I recommend a gradual approach to building a meditation practice for all people. It makes sense to give yourself time to acclimate to the experience of mindfulness and it is much easier to find a few minutes of free time in your schedule.

When it comes to trauma, though, this is even more essential. Trauma is more common than you’d think. Though less than 10% of people are diagnosed with PTSD, it is estimated that as many as 70% of people worldwide have experienced a traumatic event.

Traumatic experiences can occur for incidents that may fall outside of the incidents that give rise to a PTSD diagnosis, including medical procedures, auto collisions, work-related incidents, or interpersonal experiences especially when they intersect with issues of race, class, religion, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

This can even be true if we don’t have a clear memory of the traumatic event. Thus, the reality is that many of us may not know how a practice will affect us or what might surface in practice. Taking a gradual approach can allow you to monitor this more carefully and adjust or seek support if you need it.

2. Get Support.

Technology has enabled us to learn meditation on our own but this doesn’t mean it is necessarily ideal. Social support is helpful when it comes to meditation and can be essential for dealing with trauma. If you are working with a care provider to treat symptoms associated with trauma, consult them first and keep them updated about your progress.

Likewise, skilled meditation teachers or meditation groups may offer social or technical support for your practice. Trusted relatives and friends may also be able to help you process your experience if you feel comfortable sharing your experience.

Even if you meditate on your own, you do not have to face whatever arises during meditation alone. Moreover, there is no reason for you to strive to use meditation alone to support your healing.

Meditation is a powerful tool but it is most effective as part of an overall self-care regimen that may include therapy, medication, coaching, exercise, and robust social support. Getting support with your practice may help you find or learn the strategies that will work best for you and accelerate the healing process.

3. Protect and Use Your Own Agency.

Many people start meditation thinking that they must do exactly as they are told. This isn’t necessarily true and when it comes to trauma it is certainly not true. Trauma can create a variety of different symptoms for different people.

a. Notice the Struggles You May Have in Practice

Some have difficulty with mental images or scenes. Some struggle with intense physical sensations or sensory experiences. Some may not be able to relax because they don’t feel safe. And some people may not be immediately aware how an experience has affected them due to unclear or missing memories.

b. Consider and Try Modifications

The good news is that you can modify most meditation practices just like you could any physical exercise. Some helpful modifications might include:

Opening your eyes or change the length of your sessions.
Incorporating movement into your practice, with light yoga, walking meditation, or practices like tai chi or qigong.
Trying interval training for your mind by, for example, meditating for intervals with periods of rest.
Using touch or smell or sound to offer support to your practice as long as you avoid the sensory items that may be triggering or problematic for you.

Since trauma can affect the agency of the people it affects, modifying your meditation practice to suit your needs is a way to build skills and personal efficacy. For more ways to modify and support a mindfulness practice in a trauma-sensitive way, I highly recommend the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David A. Treleaven (paid link).

4. Find Your Window – Not Your Edge.

Some yoga teachers and internet gurus encourage people to find there “edge.” The use of this term has rarely been defined but I generally understand it to mean that one should toe the line of their personal limits. This may sound cool and there may be times when it is empowering to see what you can do. But when it comes to meditation, I strongly prefer windows to edges.

a. Defining the Window of Tolerance

By this, I mean the window of tolerance, a term coined by Dr. Dan Siegel. It refers to the optimal zone of arousal, where you aren’t bored and listless but not dysregulated.

Segal wasn’t necessarily referring to meditation practice when he coined this term, but it applies. When it comes to trauma or any deep-seated emotional issue, going for the edge too fast runs the risk of overwhelm, repeating trauma, and demoralization.

b. The Benefits of Finding Your Window of Tolerance

Focusing instead on finding your window of tolerance, however, is about building skills over time. You focus on facing what you can handle from a mental, emotional, and physical standpoint and you allow that window to gradually open.

For difficulty in life, most of us want the suffering to go away immediately. We want to feel like we can just push a bit harder and get over the mountaintop. Though mindfulness can help us get there, it rarely happens so quickly.

While discipline is a part of the process, so is developing wisdom about what you can’t control. Identifying and staying within your window of tolerance in meditation paradoxically may help you learn to honor your limits and expand them over time.

5. Start with Kindness.

Many people who start meditating want focus and calm, but in the pursuit of that we find something much more important: self-compassion. People who are experiencing trauma may benefit from this because shame and self-judgment are common symptoms following a traumatic experience. Even though self-compassion isn’t automatic for many people, you don’t have to wait weeks and months to learn this lesson.

a. Why Kindness Is Essential Even if It Is Challenging

If you have past trauma or challenging life experiences, kindness should be a cornerstone of your practice. It may take some time to internalize this, but any meditation practice should reinforce the ideas that you are worthy, loved, and deserve to be respected, feel good, and have your wishes honored.

Thus, in starting or structuring a practice, self-kindness should be a focal point. As one of my teachers aptly noted, meditation is a healing art instead of a material art. We shouldn’t be battling through every session, but instead learning how to take better care of ourselves.

b. Self-Kindness Can Balance the Urge to Push Too Hard

Sometimes meditation gets tangled up with self-improvement because the practices can help you behave better out in the world. But one of the big reasons that is true is because the practices can help you understand and care for yourself better. The practices don’t fix you; they help you see without judgment. The way to achieve this is through self-kindness. As you proceed with your practice, kindness should be the focal point and the guide.

Conclusion

These are a few ideas to raise awareness about trauma in the context of mindfulness from the perspective of a meditation teacher and fellow practitioner who has used mindfulness as one aspect of personal healing. In the end, you and your care providers know best whether meditation can support a healthy lifestyle for you.

Meditation can support healing for people who have experienced trauma but supports, including help from trained professionals may be needed. Whether you meditate or not for personal healing, know that your efforts to care for yourself are so important and will contribute to a better world.

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Mindfulness, Compassion, and Meaning: Guest Appearance on The Mindful Fire Podcast

I really love appearing on podcasts and it’s not just because I’ve got some books to sell. I love answering questions. This sounds kind of weird but I love the way they put me on the spot. It’s almost like a jungle gym for the mind. If you give it an obstacle, you will be amazed to see the connections and insights it offers.

Many times when I am invited on podcasts, the hosts present me as an expert. Even so, I find that I learn so much from thinking about things in a new way and getting the perspective from the host. When I appeared on The Mindful Fire podcast with Adam Coelho, I was not disappointed.

Most frequently, I have appeared on podcasts with lawyers or for lawyers. Adam however, is not a lawyer and he’s somebody I never would have met but for LinkedIn. Adam works at Google and he teaches mindfulness there as part of the Search Inside Yourself program.

Like me, Adam has a side hustle and a goal to help other professionals use mindfulness to achieve financial independence and build the life they want. Because of this background, Adam knew the questions to ask to fully explore mindfulness and compassion practices to professionals of all kinds.

As such, we talked about various topics during the interview, including:

How struggling with anxiety, depression, and overthinking led me to explore mindfulness and compassion.
Why a gradual approach and self-compassion are essential for mindfulness practice.
How mindfulness and compassion work together and should be equally emphasized.
What compassion is, why it matters, and how it is distinct from empathy.
How the practice of loving-kindness can help people get comfortable with physical sensations in the body and understand that everyone wants to be safe, healthy, happy, and at peace.
Why mindfulness and compassion offer particular benefits to lawyers and working professionals.

My favorite insight from the interview, though, was when Adam asked me what I would tell other people who were starting to build “a life they loved.” This is a great question for many reasons because it forces us to focus on two things: what we want in life and how we feel in our lives. It also assumes we can and deserve to be excited about our lives.

Though I didn’t feel any hesitation as I started to respond, my answer surprised me. The key, I explained, was meaning. Mindfulness and compassion helped me because the practices helped me manage stress, build inner resources, and connect with who I was. But mindfulness and compassion changed my life because all of those things allowed me to connect with my deepest values, build a community, and create meaning in my life.

If you want to dive into these topics more, you can listen to the episode here or on your normal podcast platform.

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Book Review: The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda V. Magee

Anyone interested in mindfulness is likely to understand the deep connection between thoughts and actions. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and our own lives often dictate, sometimes without our conscious awareness, the actions we take or don’t take. Given this, many people would intuitively agree that inner work, including reflection and healing, can lead to transformation on the personal and ultimately societal level.

This is the theory which underlies The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness by Rhonda V. Magee, a law professor and world-renowned mindfulness teacher. In the book, Magee posits that the history of white supremacy in the United States and across the world requires personal and interpersonal healing. Building on her own personal experience of healing through mindfulness and compassion, Magee’s book shares stories, reflections, and practices to help all of us do the inner work needed to build a more just society.

Undoubtedly some of you reading this may be frustrated by this idea. You might see the state of the world and think that we don’t have time for inner work; we need action instead. I won’t argue with that perspective, and I think that is Magee’s ultimate objective. But Magee, like many thinkers and leaders before her, understands that wise action often requires self-reflection.

As Magee explores in her book, some of us may not see or fully understand the need for action due to privilege. Some of us may not feel the need for courage because we may have ignored the impact of race in our own lives or overlooked how it has impacted people in our own community. It is in this space that Magee’s book tries to create an opening, a space for reflection, and ultimately a bridge outside of ourselves.

If we think about it, most of us can understand how doing inner work can lead to a lasting and meaningful change in conduct. I’ve seen how examining my own inner stories and embracing the pain, hurt, and confusion there has helped me lead a more courageous life. But even though our news feeds are filled with stories of the lasting effects of racism many of us have not had the opportunity to look inside to see how these stories have affected us or identify what we can do about them.

Even if mindfulness and compassion may seem like a strange fit for this undertaking, since Western mindfulness remains predominantly white, this idea has deep roots in Buddhist philosophy. The path of the Bodhisattva instructs us to work to end suffering for all beings once we have attained peace for ourselves. Likewise, the Buddhist concepts that may help individuals address personal suffering—rooting out greed, hate, and delusion, wariness of judgment, and embracing common humanity—have obvious connections to the work of building a racially just society.

Given my prior understanding of these concepts and experience with them, I enjoyed reading Magee’s book. Like the best law professors (and teachers of mindfulness) do, she combined scholarly analysis, deep thought, and steady coaching to help the reader not just learn but also hear and internalize what she had to say.

She offered stories, both personal and from her teaching experience, to explain concepts and practices (journal prompts and guided meditations) to help the reader apply the concepts to their own lives. As a result, reading the book didn’t feel like a law school lecture. It felt more like talking over hard truths, but doing so in a circle with friends.

Even those new to mindfulness and compassion practices, however, may learn a lot from the book. One thing many new meditators struggle with is the notion that thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations are somehow bad or off limits when it comes to mindfulness. In the book, Magee shares how mindfulness helped her allow her emotions and heal as a result. She also shared several stories and practices about making space for the feelings and experiences of others which can lead to transformation in groups.

With that said, Magee’s book may be a frustrating read for some. For one thing, it is not a book that should be read straight through. A chapter or two at a time, allowing for pauses and reflection, is ideal. In addition, Magee’s emphasis on nonjudgment (though consistent with mindfulness practice and supported by research) may alienate readers currently experiencing anger and frustration about issues of race and inequity. Though Magee’s book is clearly intended to ultimately encourage conduct change, the book emphasizes inner reflection far more than direct action.

Overall, however, The Inner Work of Racial Justice is a worthwhile read and especially important for lawyers. It is ideal for those interested in exploring how they can support racial justice or curious about the ways that mindfulness and compassion practices can help us build a better world. Though the book does not offer many strategies for direct action, it offers instruction, reflections, and practices that may empower readers to see more clearly and act more courageously to make a more just world.

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Real Talk About the Study Finding Meditation as Effective as Medication to Treat Anxiety

In the last 2 weeks, several contacts have reached out when they read news reports about a study which suggests meditation could be as effective to treat anxiety as medication. Due to my own life experience, I was not surprised when I read the report. Actually, my reaction was closer to relief. After all, I was also aware of the recent research suggesting that medication may not be as effective as once thought to treat depression.

I have used medication to treat depression in the past so I don’t suggest that other people shouldn’t. I have also used therapy several times in my life and benefited each time. The reason I felt relief when I read about the new study, though, is that more information may provide us with more options for treating mental health conditions.

Even so, I have to admit that I was also a little concerned about how the study might be spun or construed. With that in mind, here are a few things to consider when thinking or sharing news about the study.

1. The Good News

We have known for decades that regular meditation can have physical and mental health benefits, but it is not until much more recently that meditation has been embraced as a treatment for mental health conditions. The fact that researchers thought it worthwhile to consider the impacts of meditation practice v. medication shows how much of a mindset shift has occurred.

It is also good that researchers are exploring various treatment modalities because mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, are often contextual and individualized. My own life experience has shown me that mental health needs may require a menu of tools, instead of just one or two. The more we learn about how meditation can affect or promote mental health, the more we hopefully can discover about how it can be part of a mental health regimen.

Overall then, the new study signals continued growth of research into the impacts of mindfulness and greater acceptance of meditation by the medical and scientific community.

2. The Potential Downside

Despite the positive indications from the new study, I also had some concerns . The first one that sprang to mind was that, perhaps well-meaning, but uninformed people may tell others to “just meditate” to address their mental health needs. Over the years, I have heard many friends confide in me that a loved one told them this. I have also had friends or contacts beat themselves up about not being able to manage their mental health needs with meditation.

When I speak and write on the topic of mindfulness, I regularly warn people that they shouldn’t feel compelled to rush in with the practice. And I don’t instruct people to attempt meditation to avoid other mental health treatment options. Indeed, I attempted meditation when I was deeply depressed and it only resulted in me crying alone in a dark room feeling even more like a failure. Now, once I stabilized and learned gradually to tolerate the practice, meditation has helped me tame my long-standing anxiety and avoid depression.

So, while it may be accurate advice to tell a person with mental health needs that meditation can help, I don’t think it is good advice. Individuals struggling with anxiety or depression may hear it as an instruction to manage their situation on their own. Instead, the better route is to offer support or encourage someone struggling with mental health to reach out for help.

Moreover, before you share information about the study, you should be aware of what it really says. The study didn’t compare 5 minutes of meditation a day with medication. Instead, it compared an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (“MBSR”) course with medication.

I have taken the MBSR course and it includes weekly classes, a recommendation to meditate 45 minutes a day outside of class (a huge amount for new meditators), and a half-day retreat. In other words, it is an intense and immersive commitment that is at least as time-consuming as therapy. So, be careful when you talk about the study that you understand that context.

3. What I Hope Happens Next

As we know, scientific progress is continually unfolding. Thus, this new study clearly does not represent the final limits of what we can know about the impact of mindfulness practices on mental health. Given the limitations of the MBSR program, I hope researchers continue to study the impact of mindfulness practices at shorter intervals but over longer terms on mental health conditions. I didn’t start at anything even close to the amounts recommended in the MBSR program but experienced significant relief after a few weeks and more pronounced benefits after several months.

I hope researchers also continue to develop studies that show us how meditation may work with medication, or therapy, or exercise, or time in nature, etc. And, of course, I hope we see more studies showing the effects of various meditation practices. Again, MBSR primarily relies on body work and breath practice, but other practices such as loving-kindness can have profound impacts on how we relate to the world and thus our mental health.

In short, I see the new study as an overall positive sign, but care should be taken with how its findings are discussed. Having personally experienced how much meditation helped me manage my own anxiety, I am glad the study shows that meditation may be a promising treatment option. I hope further research will help us understand more to ensure that all people have an array of potential tools to meet their mental health needs.

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Severance: A Thought Provoking Show about Controlling Thoughts

How would it feel to be fully present at home, without a thought or worry about any work-related issue?

How would you feel if you could experience that same presence while at work?

If that sounds appealing, would you ever consider a procedure that could create complete work/life separation?

That’s the premise of Severance, a sci-fi series set in a fictional town in which employees undergo a surgical procedure to separate their thoughts about work and home. Employees who are “severed” can’t think about work once they leave the office and they can’t carry their home stressors into the workplace.

I binge watched the series this summer and I can’t stop thinking about it, both because of its stellar cast and the thought-provoking questions it presents.

The first season focused on Mark, an office worker who undergoes the severance procedure as a way to deal with the loss of his wife. The procedure enables him to shed his grief each day as he rides the elevator to his office. Once the elevator doors open, Mark has no awareness of his life outside the office, which enables him and his colleagues to focus solely on their work.

At least that’s the intention. The reality is that the severed employees spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about their “outies,” their selves outside the workplace. They wonder if they have families, whether they are good people and if they are happy. And when they need support, the severed employees are treated to stories about their “outies,” which suggests that the company understands how important it is for the workers to understand all aspects of their lives.

Although the show provides an extreme example of corporate culture and the quest for work/life balance, it presents some fascinating questions like:

What does it mean to be fully present? Is it necessary to clear our mind from distracting thoughts in order to focus on the present moment? If you’ve studied or practiced mindfulness, you know how unrealistic that is. And even in the fictional world of Severance, the goal of having a singular focus is not achieved, despite surgical intervention.
Is there an expectation that we can (or should) be able to compartmentalize our lives? In the show, the severance procedure is touted as a way to be more productive at work and to be more present at home. But is separating these parts of our lives a good thing? Do we want coworkers who can’t draw on life lessons, ambitions and beliefs formed outside the workplace? Is it good for them to be severed from the connections that ground them and the commitments that provide the motivation to tackle hard things? Conversely, don’t we want people to apply lessons learned on the job in their lives outside the workplace? And don’t we want coworkers to build connections and support networks outside the office?
Do we sometimes use work as an escape? Mark’s choice to undergo the severance procedure to escape his grief is not unlike the choices many people make to keep themselves busy and avoid feeling difficult emotions. [Spoiler alert] In the show, as in real life, that doesn’t really work.
What happens when we can’t find meaning, purpose or a reasonable amount of autonomy in our work? Mark and his team work in the Department of Macrodata Refinement sorting numbers. Aside from being told that their jobs are “mysterious and important,” they don’t understand the purpose of their work or how it fits into the larger picture. Instead, they are given rigid instructions, kept under constant surveillance and given meager incentives like company branded finger traps and team photos. Not surprisingly, this creates discontent, makes them less invested in their work and [another spoiler alert] sets them on a journey to change things. It is not that hard to see how this part of the series is an example of the disconnect that often exists between what employers think will lead to job satisfaction and what employees need or want.

My takeaway from Severance is that a complete separation of thoughts about your work and home life is neither achievable nor desirable. Although you may view the person you are at work as different than the person you are to your family and friends, the reality is that we bring our whole selves to the workplace – our experiences, our biases, our feelings, our thoughts, our hopes – all of it. And when we leave the job at the end of
the day, a piece of that work self comes home with us.

The story of Mark and his severed coworkers also shows what can happen when we are stuck in a life that exists solely for work. It demonstrates how connection is a powerful motivator and that even surgically induced-work life separation or carefully curated employee incentives are no match for the human need for community and purpose.

Laura Anthony is a lawyer who is fascinated by the intersection of law and human behavior. She is an education lawyer as well as a mediator, investigator and hearing officer and often draws upon her background and interest in psychology in her practice. She is also a not-so-regular practitioner of yoga and meditation and brings her real-world struggles making healthy choices to her role as the chair of her firm’s Wellness Committee. Laura can be found posting about her practice and her love of chocolate and libraries on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out the new book from our founder, Claire E. Parsons, called How to Be a Badass Lawyer which is now available.

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PSA: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Is Now Available

Today is an important day in the United States, we now have a national, dedicated hotline for individuals to call for mental health emergencies. In the case of fire, severe physical injury, or crime, most of us wouldn’t hesitate to say “call 911.” Mental health situations may be different, however, and may require a response from trained professionals other than traditional first responders. Starting today, we can now call 988 for such situations.

What happens when you call 988? The program connects you immediately with a trained mental health professional. This is significant because anyone who has experienced any kind of mental health situation knows that there is almost always a waiting period to begin care. Moreover, like any other professional, counselors, therapists, and other mental health providers usually work during normal business hours. Though we have existing emergency services, like fire, EMTs, and police, those officials are not always trained to provide care for mental health needs.

With the new 988 lifeline, anyone who is experiencing a mental health emergency can now receive immediate help. There is also a chat function available at 988lifeline.org that will allow individuals another means of connecting to help. In addition, the website offers resources to help those of us who may be supporting a loved one experiencing a mental health emergency. It even offers a resource for helping someone you may know less well from social media.

In addition to providing a support for people in need during a mental health emergency, another aspect of the lifeline is normalizing seeking help. The 988 lifeline has media kits and logos for public use and a hashtag #Bethe1To to spread the word about suicide prevention. It also has a collection of stories of hope and recovery from those who have experienced suicidal thoughts or mental health challenges in the past and tools to help those who wish to share their own story. As someone who has written about my own mental health challenges, these are powerful tools for individual healing, building community, reducing shame and stigma, and spreading awareness.

Having experienced mental health challenges myself, I have experienced how hard it can be to recognize symptoms in yourself and to seek out help. For this reason, it is essential to have a lifeline, supports, and education available to empower communities to promote and protect mental health. I am glad that this new tool exists to support lawyers, professionals, and the entire community in the United States with mental health emergencies. Please help spread the word about it.

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Yoga Has Been There the Whole Time

When Brilliant Legal Mind’s founder Claire Parsons told me September’s theme was yoga my immediate response was “I don’t really have a yoga practice anymore. I don’t really have anything to write about.” But then I read Claire’s post Confessions of a Reluctant Yogi and Aman Costigan’s post Yoga is More Than Just Stretching. Both posts made think about how much I use yoga daily and the role my yoga practice had in setting a foundation for my meditation practice.

I first discovered a regular yoga practice the summer after I finished law school. My husband and I moved from Chicago to Northern Kentucky, I was studying for the bar, we were rehabbing a 150 year old house, and starting our own law practice. I was trying to exercise occasionally mostly just to keep myself sane. One day I tried a yoga class at the gym and let’s just say I was hooked. I had tried yoga sporadically over the years but looking back I’d just never found the right teacher. The teacher I found that summer was perfect for me.

She was an athlete and busy professional so the classes were mostly vinyasa and ashtanga style yoga which are considered more athletic forms of yoga. But they are also flow styles of yoga that connect the breath to movement so my teacher focused heavily on moving through each pose with your breath. Because the yoga teacher was a busy professional and mom she also focused on the mental aspect of the practice. We’d set an intention for each practice, focus on that intention throughout the class, and then end with a meditation. Looking back, these yoga classes were part of the beginning of my regular meditation practice. I got stronger, more flexible, I had less aches and pains, and I started to notice my busy mind felt a little calmer too.

That teacher moved out of state and since then I’ve taken yoga classes on and off at various studios, but looking back I can see now that I developed a foundation that’s helped not only helped me physically but was an important step in building my meditation practice. A few years back, when I suffered from two herniated discs in my back I discovered restorative yoga. While I craved doing the more rigorous styles of yoga, the restorative helped me work through the pain. Restorative yoga can be deeply meditative which helped me mentally deal with the pain and discomfort.

Right now I’m training for a half-marathon and after reading Claire and Aman’s blog posts I noticed that my stretching routine is almost a yoga flow series. I also noticed that I use my stretching time at night and after a workout not only to just stretch my body to help my aches and pains, I use it as a meditation time as well. Like my meditation practice, without even realizing it, yoga has been with me all along.

Want to explore restorative yoga further? Check out this guided meditation from founder @claireeparsons to pair with the legs up the wall pose. Even if you don’t have any props at home, you can try this by positioning your legs up a wall or over a chair. This meditation offers a variety of breath instruction tools so you can explore meditation and restorative yoga practice t at the same time.

Loren VanDyke Wolff is an attorney, mom, community leader, and long-time meditator and yogi who lives and practices law in Covington, Kentucky. She has contributed several pieces to the blog and has a passion for improving the legal profession. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out the new book from our founder, Claire E. Parsons, called How to Be a Badass Lawyer which is now available.

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Book Review: Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley

I have this bad habit of buying books so that I don’t forget about them. Then I flip through them once, decide I don’t have time to read them right now, and set them on my bookshelf only to forget about them. I did this with Every Body Yoga years ago. I had heard the author, Jessamyn Stanley, on an episode of Call Your Girlfriend and thought she sounded so personable, down-to-earth, and cool that I couldn’t resist.

But life and law practice intervened and I didn’t get around to reading it until I enrolled in yoga teacher training and heard multiple classmates and teachers mention it with affection. When I dusted off the book and finally read it, I wished I had done so sooner. Then, I shared it with a friend who told me she was interested in trying out yoga to balance out her fitness routine. As I wrote previously, my own yoga practice got off to a rocky start because I was saddled with judgments about my body’s appearance and perceived limitations. I found in Stanley’s book an experience that, though it was undoubtedly unique, reminded me a bit of my own.

Stanley came to prominence when she began posting pictures of herself learning and mastering yoga poses on Instagram. At the time, Stanley wasn’t anyone famous or even a yoga teacher. She was just a person seeking community and support as she did her practice, largely on her own. Indeed, Stanley recounts in the book how she learned the basics of yoga with studio classes, but practiced on her own in her apartment for a time due to a lack of funds. It wasn’t until she gained a following and built her own confidence that she became a yoga teacher. Now, she’s got nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram, her own online studio, and a second recently released book.

Though this story certainly showcases the power of courage and following one’s passions, it also demonstrates how yoga as a practice can help yogis of all kinds learn to love and care for themselves. In Every Body Yoga, Stanley relates how yoga helped her care for herself through the difficulties of her own life, including making decisions about education and work, challenges in her intimate relationships, and even losing loved ones. While yoga was a powerful force for her, Stanley explains that practical impediments to yoga practice still exist for many people. She offers examples throughout her story of the emotions elicited for her as she walked into a class with only thin white women and the expense of maintaining a yoga habit with studio classes. It is for this reason that Stanley felt compelled to start documenting her own practice for others.

To make yoga truly accessible to everybody, Stanley also offers a thorough but concise summary of yoga philosophy and the varieties of asana practice. This may help those new to yoga determine what classes might best suit their bodies. In addition, about one half of the book is devoted to explanations and demonstrative pictures of commonly used poses and props, and sequences paired for specific purposes. Thus, any new yogi could pick up Stanley’s book, a yoga mat, and some blocks, and start a home practice for the same price of attending two or three yoga classes in a studio.

In short, Every Body Yoga is a how-to guide intended and best suited for those new to yoga, but it offers inspiration, heart, and a great story of self-love that even experienced yogis might enjoy. If you are curious about yoga but aren’t sure it’s for you, I recommend that you pick up a copy of Everybody Yoga. But don’t let it sit on your shelf gathering dust. Give it a read, give Stanley a follow on Instagram, and get on the mat.

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