Self-Love - brilliantlegalmind.com

Learning to Love Myself: A Lawyer’s Story of Healing

Founder’s Note: I had the honor and privilege of moderating a panel on attorney mental health with Jennifer Kleier, the author of this article. She wrote this article in preparation for the panel and it was originally published in the Louisville Bar Association’s May 2024 issue of it’s Bar Briefs magazine. I republish it here to offer wider access to this story of courage, resilience, and humanity in the legal profession.

I was eight years old the first time I remember binging. It was the early 90s, before the internet and smartphones. I had never heard of eating disorders and couldn’t ask Google what I was doing or why. My body understood though. It quickly learned that when I ate a large quantity of specific foods (high sugar/high carb foods) that I felt better. I wasn’t happy per se but I felt less sad and empty. Time and again, I chased these feelings and quickly learned to hide what I was doing.

How the Healing Journey Started

I learned to associate food with the highs of a binge and the lows that came after – the shame, judgment, and guilt. I instinctively knew to protect my secret because others wouldn’t understand and might even make me stop. The binging increased in frequency and, as I got older, became a normal part of my life. When I was fifteen, my dad moved out and the binging escalated to binging and purging.

I didn’t know how to deal with the big emotions I was experiencing and food was my shield, the only way I knew to protect myself. I was slowly dying inside but did my best to pretend like I was normal. During these years I maintained good grades and played competitive junior tennis well enough to earn a college scholarship.

My junior year of college my coach intervened and told me to get help with my eating issues. She was worried I was going to kill myself and refused to sit by and do nothing. She made me an appointment with an on-campus therapist who then referred me to a doctor about starting medication.

Mental Health Treatment

Though therapy and medication offered some minor relief, my eating issues continued. I was binging and purging daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I didn’t know how to handle my feelings and believed that at my core I was worthless and unlovable. I attributed any success I had to luck while taking full blame for all my failures.

In my mind I failed because I was stupid, ugly, fat, lazy – the list goes on. Every set-back and hurdle seemed like the end of the world and only proved my worthlessness. I was always on edge, in survival mode, reacting out of fear and disrespect for myself, my life.

Sometimes my depression and anxiety would overwhelm me and I would stay in bed for days, unable to get up except to find food for binging and purging. I would isolate myself from friends and family, ashamed and too exhausted to put on a happy face.

Change Can Be Hard for a Lawyer

Over the years, I shared some of what was happening. I saw therapists who focused solely on my past traumas and nutritionists who talked to me about the importance of eating a balanced meal. Still my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness grew, and I convinced myself these constant ups and downs and the ever-present issues with food were always going to be part of my life.

When I got my pregnant with my second child I again fell into a serious depression. After sharing with the nurse during a pregnancy check-up that I was having thoughts of running my car off a bridge, medical staff forced me to get a psych examination at the hospital emergency department.

Image with quote: Lawyers face hard problems and try to show compassion for those who need it. By accepting that sometimes we need compassion too, we are in a better position to face and change the world.

How Did I End Up Here?

I remember sitting in the examination room, waiting for the doctor to come in, and thinking of the irony as I had spent a year of my career at the public defender’s office representing individuals held on MIW’s. They had gone through the same process that I was currently enduring.

I sat on the bed, in my hospital gown and socks with the rubber pads on the feet, and just felt numb. Luckily, the kind and experienced doctor recommended a medication adjustment and finding a good therapist. Although this offered some relief, the depression, anxiety, and self-medicating with food never stopped.

Finally, in February of 2021 my body rebelled. I developed a horrible, uncontrollable itching which, upon scratching, produced hives. I got them all over my body and could only find relief with rest induced by multiple Benadryl. I saw numerous doctors and got prescriptions to control the hives, but they made me so tired that I often struggled to perform basic daily functions. As a final indignity, I gained almost thirty pounds in a year which increased my issues with food.

Finally a Mental Health Breakthrough

Then two things happened which changed my life. I was diagnosed with ADHD and started working with a life coach by the name of Leah Brown Waterman. My incredible loving and supportive husband encouraged me to seek out this support by reminding me that I deserved it. I started taking medication for ADHD and learned more about how my brain works. I learned that I am not stupid, I just think differently. Now I embrace the way my brain works as a strength.

I met weekly with Leah and she helped me recognize that I have value, deserve good things, and am strong enough to endure hardships in life, even without using food as a coping mechanism. Over time, I learned to understand my thoughts and feelings better. While it now sounds obvious, I had been using food as a coping strategy since I was eight years old. The realization that my thoughts controlled my feelings and not vice versa was life-altering. This realization has helped me claim control over my life in a way I have never been able to before.

How a Lawyer Changed Her Thoughts on Self-Worth

Changing my thoughts about my own worth was difficult, but a turning point came when my oldest daughter turned eight. I would look at her sweet face, the same age I had been when I started binging, and I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone saying the horrible things to her that I had said to myself. Leah suggested I carry a picture of eight-year-old me and look at it whenever I have negative thoughts about myself and try to say the horrible words while looking at the picture.

I went further and carried a picture of myself at eight and my daughter at eight. When my thoughts turned negative, I looked at the pictures but I could never make myself say the words. Instead, I found compassion, empathy, grace, and mostly love. Through this process I have learned to love myself. And, in turn, loving myself has allowed me to be more compassionate, empathetic, and loving with others.

Image with quote about the importance of self-love and self-compassion for attorney mental health

Healing Day by Day

This is not a perfect process and I am nowhere near perfect in it. I work hard at it every day, some more than others. I mess up quite a bit – with myself and with others. When I do mess up I try hard to make amends to both myself and the others that I hurt. Without food as my shield, I often feel raw and exposed, like I am just now learning to adult at forty years old. But I look at those little girls’ faces and know that they are worth it, no matter how hard it gets.

We are all deserving of love and respect. We are more than our jobs, more than this adversarial, often cut-throat profession. For the sake of ourselves, our clients, and our profession we have to find ways to be better to each other. Not to have unrealistic expectations of each other but to find ways to communicate better, allow ourselves and others to show vulnerability without punishment, and to give each other grace. This is true not just among lawyers, but also between judges and lawyers. We should all remember that most of us are still carrying around that little kid inside of us, looking for acceptance and love.

Why This Lawyer Shared Her Story

I wrote this because I imagine there are other lawyers out there who could benefit from reading it. The idea of putting my personal experiences out there for others to read has made me sick to my stomach the past few days. I have had to fight my instincts to curl into a ball and self-medicate with food. I procrastinated and concocted reasons to avoid writing. But my husband reminded me that I am strong enough to deal with any negative response that might come from it and that if it helps one person it is worth it.

So, I am trusting you to look on my story with kindness and ask that you show the same kindness to yourself. I know this is not an easy thing to ask because it took me decades to do myself. But this is the work we do every day. We face hard problems and try to show compassion for those who need it. By accepting that sometimes I need compassion too, I am in a better position to face and change the world.

Author Bio: Jennifer Kleier practices in Louisville, Kentucky at Karem & Kleier Law. She served for five years as a public defender and has spent the last nine years building an extensive practice in family law, criminal defense, estate planning, and guardianship. Jennifer is active in the community, including the Louisville Bar Association. She is the founding Chair of both the Gender Equity Committee and Health & Wellness Committees and currently serves on the Board as Secretary. She believes transparency about our struggles is key to creating safe, supportive environments for others who are struggling to seek help and shares her struggles in the hopes of helping someone else.

This post is the first of an ongoing series. If you are in the legal profession and are interested in sharing your story, please submit a query here. If you are not sure about sharing your story, there is no shame in taking your time. For a bit of inspiration about the benefits it might offer, however, check out my post here.

To learn more about suicide prevention and resources that can help, check out the following posts:

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

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Tortured No More: How Drinking Less Alcohol Helped Me Write My First Book

Our culture has this trope of the long-suffering tortured artist. There’s this idea that creativity comes from strife and is fueled by addiction and misery. I don’t say things like this often, but I want that idea to die.

First, it’s not true. Sure, there are many wonderful artists who struggled with or even lost their lives or careers to addiction, but there are also many, such as Anne Lamott, Stephen King, or the musician, Riopy, who went into recovery and thrived professionally after. Second, the idea is dangerous because it suggests that creative living is off limits to people who want to have a happy life.

I get upset about both issues because I experienced the opposite of what the trope claims. I experienced an extreme uptick in my creativity after limiting alcohol. In addition, the expansion of my creative efforts has resulted in more happiness, not more suffering.

This year I hit a major life milestone: I wrote and published my first book. I didn’t quite sell as many copies as Stephen King (yet) and I admit that I didn’t say anything nearly so perfect as Anne Lamott did in Bird by Bird. But, by god, I wrote a damn book. I wrote a book while practicing law, raising kids, managing a blog, and surviving two job changes in my household at the same time. I wrote a book even though I could have easily continued to think about it, as I had done for many years before.

Like the trope, this book had its origins in some suffering. It came from my own struggles with mental health and it was inspired by some of the darkest moments in my life. In addition, so many steps that led to me writing the book came out of the angst, grief, and upheaval of the pandemic. Oddly, one of those steps was the realization that I had relied too much on alcohol during the initial months of social distancing.

This is where the trope of the suffering and addicted artist explodes. Other than my initial bout with shame and denial, I didn’t have a torturous experience addressing my alcohol usage. Instead, I implemented some reasonable limits and supports, noticed an improvement, felt good, so kept going. At no point in the decision-making process did I consider limiting drinking because I wanted to be “more productive.”

That’s exactly what happened though. No, I didn’t get more productive in the breakneck way. I didn’t sacrifice sleep, or fun, or time away from my computer. Instead, I found a few extra hours here and there at night and on weekends where I felt like writing.

Think about it. When do most of us drink? Nights and weekends. When do most lawyers have free time to write and pursue personal hobbies or goals? You got it. Nights and weekends. When I started limiting how frequently I drank, I created more pockets of time in which I felt energetic and clear-minded enough to write. And, when things calmed down a bit and I had longer stretches, I could reliably bank a few thousand words at a time until I had a book.

Perhaps this story isn’t as interesting as the long-suffering artist, but it’s a whole lot more hopeful and in more ways than one. It suggests that steps to major life goals might, for any of us, be just around the corner. It suggests that doing the everyday basics to take care of oneself may be one way to reach the highest heights.

And here’s the best thing. Maybe I was a bit of a suffering artist in the early days of the pandemic. Maybe I used alcohol somewhat to avoid the suffering I believed I couldn’t handle. When I decided to make a change, the suffering didn’t swallow me up. Instead, it forced me to grow and make space for something new. It’s easy to get caught up in our habits or the tropes of identity, but it’s possible to break out of them. Even better, it feels really good when you do.

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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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