Books, Health / Wellness

The Many Reasons Why This Law Professor Thinks You Should Read 'The Anxious Lawyer'

Read on to see a law professor's thoughts on this guide to ridding yourself of anxiety to become a better lawyer.

By  
on

The Anxious Lawyer 3D CoverI do not like Jeena Cho. Okay, that’s not true, but I really don’t want to like her.  Someone writing a book called The Anxious Lawyer (affiliate link) about how I can meditate is like someone telling me how I can enjoy faculty meetings.  It seems impossible.  I have tried meditation before.  It usually ends up with me a) falling asleep or b) falling asleep.  In rare instances, my mind starts to wander and when I snap out of it, I somehow ended up back in kindergarten wanting cookies and milk.

Cho and Gifford’s response to me: Hey, that’s okay.  Keep trying!  It is this positive tone throughout the book that is perhaps its most impressive aspect.  Often tone is difficult to communicate in writing, but Cho and Gifford make the entire book consistently encouraging.

Cho and Gifford are encouraging throughout by retelling how the practices they advocate have helped them in different situations.  You can tell they have been there, not only in terms of dealing with difficult people, but also in terms of struggling with meditation itself.  It doesn’t come easily.  Cho still uses a meditation timer to track herself.

But meditation is just the beginning of the book, the goal of which is to make lawyers less anxious through meditation, mindfulness, and a host of other practices.

For Cho and Gifford, meditation is the safe spot of your day, revitalizing you with positive energy for dealing with energy vampires and drama llamas.  Mindfulness is the next step.  Mindfulness, according to Cho and Gifford, is “bringing our attention to what is happening in the moment, often by focusing on some type of physical sensation, like the movement of the breath, or the sounds around us.”  What this means is that serenity begins by focusing on the present.  Those who suffer anxiety often focus outside of themselves, on an (entirely fictional) catastrophe-filled future.  What if the client hates me?  What if I get fired?  Mindfulness is a method of locking those anxiety-filled moments down.  It is a method of being in control, by focusing on the present.  All those songs that say things like “Just Breathe” understand mindfulness.  Breathing is the touchstone of the present.

Cho and Gifford next speak of clarity.  Clarity is the separation of thought from emotions.  You are able to look at that which is occurring to you as an outside observer, free from the intense emotions and panic such events may cause.  This is something I for sure need to practice in anticipation of faculty meetings.  It is also why it is never wise to fire off e-mails to clients when you are outraged at them.

The next chapters discuss compassion towards others and compassion towards self.  I thought at first that these two should be reversed: You can’t really be compassionate towards others unless you are compassionate towards yourself.  That is great in theory, but I think Gifford and Cho are right in that it doesn’t work that way, especially for lawyers.  Compassion has had a bad rap.  As Cho and Gifford point out, it doesn’t mean being a doormat.  It means understanding that suffering is part of the human condition, and that, whenever possible, we should take steps to alleviate that suffering.  To me, it also means recognizing that someone who seems to be being a jerk is probably doing so for reasons we can’t see.

Sponsored

The same is true for us.  We are reacting or acting in ways because of something we have not understood or observed.  If someone triggers us, there is a reason.  Self-compassion means not only cutting ourselves a little slack, but also treating ourselves as we would (hopefully) treat others.  If a best friend lost a motion, you probably would not say the things like “you’re an idiot” or 100 other things you might say in beating yourself up. You wouldn’t say and probably wouldn’t even think those things about your friend.  Cho and Gifford suggest being your own friend.

Cho and Gifford cover mantra in the next chapter.  They correctly point out that mantra is a way to harness energy and increase focus.  It isn’t just a quaint slogan as the colloquial usage of term suggests.  However, repeating something does have the advantage of helping you manifest what you are stating.  This is why people who repeatedly engage in self-doubt experience some self-fulfilling prophecies.

The last two steps are heartfulness and thankfulness. Heartfulness is a tricky term to grasp.  We always tell people they have heart, or that they speak from the heart, and it is usually dismissed as something less than speaking from the brain.  But in reality the two are connected, and Cho and Gifford speak of heartfulness as “courage, strength, compassion, kindness, gratitude, and generosity.”  Using one’s brains alone doesn’t mean using it for the aid of others.  If heartfulness is present as defined by Cho and Gifford, then that old expression “let your heart guide your head” has greater meaning.

Gratitude is thankfulness.  The clinch point for Cho and Gifford: Be thankful for the people in your life, for the animals in your life, for your environment, for the world around you.  There is lots of evidence that practicing gratitude can actually improve your outlook on life.  There are apps dedicated solely for that purpose.

None of these steps are easy.  Cho and Gifford do a great job reminding us of that throughout the book.  I used the book as a guide.  When I failed, I went back and reread.  I tried again.  I’m still not great at sitting still, but I’m getting better.  So, Cho and Gifford, thanks for that.

Sponsored

I’m still working on being mindful during faculty meetings, but more often than not I still a) sleep or b) sleep.  It’s a work in progress.  Cho and Gifford would tell me not to give up.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here and on Twitter. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

Topics

, , , , , , ,