Why Self-Care is Critical for Lawyers
For attorneys, focusing on self-care and wellness isn't being selfish. It's necessary.
For attorneys, focusing on self-care and wellness isn't being selfish. It's necessary.
Let’s face it, lawyering is difficult. We all have days where it feels as though the ground beneath us is about to give and we’re spiraling out of control. When you feel this way, what coping mechanism do you use to feel grounded again? Practicing mindfulness allows us to pause, reflect, and respond from a place of calm rather than reacting.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that practicing mindfulness is good for you. It helps to decrease the impact of stress on your body, allows you to manage anxiety better, and lowers blood pressure and a host of stress-related psychosomatic symptoms. The list of what mindfulness can do seems to be growing daily.
Here are some answers to common questions and concerns lawyers have about meditation.
Ready to give meditation a try? Here are some instructions.
One reason meditation can have such a powerful effect on people’s lives is that our mind is one of the very few things we have the ability to control.
"I am constantly on edge. It feels like I'm walking around with an open wound," says the lawyer who I've been coaching. This is a familiar feeling to me. I've been there. I've lived through it. The lawyer is reeling [...]
When I work with lawyers, often, they get stuck and feel overwhelmed because they are trying to do too much, change too quickly and force their way through their struggles rather than take a gentler, smarter approach.
Anxiety is part of the mental landscape for many lawyers. I used to be an anxious lawyer (hence, the title of our book, The Anxious Lawyer). At some point, the anxiety went from mild to acute. The recovery from an [...]