Small Law Firms, Suicide

Entering The Arena -- Living Wholeheartedly

Key life advice: “Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”

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One of my favorite parts of writing for ATL is getting to read the emails I receive from readers. I recently received an email from a young attorney and she asked the following questions:

  • What do you think is ultimately the secret to finding out what the gift you are meant to bring into the world is?
  • How can you predict what you will be best at, especially in your very early twenties?

With the caveat that I’m still feeling my way into answering these questions and also that I believe continually asking these questions is really the key to finding your answers, here are my thoughts.

1. Practice Wholehearted Living

I’m a huge fan of Brené Brown. She’s written two New York Time’s Best Sellers — The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly (affiliate links). Her new book is Rising Strong (affiliate link). Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 21 million times. I absolutely adore her. (By the way, check out her recent interview with Tim Ferris. It’s excellent.)

For those not familiar with her work, Brené researches shame, vulnerability and what she calls wholehearted living, which she defines as:

Engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that dosn’t change the truth that I am brave and worthy of love and belonging.

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The biggest thing I’d tell my twenty-something-year-old (as well as ninety-something-year-old self) is to live wholeheartedly. To not be afraid to live with courage, to be compassionate towards myself and others, and to be vulnerable. It would be to cultivate a deeper sense of knowing that I am enough without as Brené puts it “hustling for our self-worth.” By the way, when I use the word “vulnerability,” I am borrowing Brené’s definition: vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

You do not need to achieve, create, do anything in life to feel worthy of love and belonging. My sense of self-worth must come from within, rather than from external validation. This is one of the cornerstones of mindfulness practice — accepting each moment, as is, without preference or judgment. This includes yourself.

2. Be Choosy About Who You Listen To and Find Worthy Causes

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

I first came across this quote in two different books in the same week, Brené’s book, Daring Greatly as well as Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking (affiliate link). The quote is absolutely perfect advice. We all have the tendency to give way too much airtime to the critics — those who sit on the sideline and find fault with what we do.

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To borrow a quote from Mrs. Roosevelt, remember:

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

Be choosy about which arena you enter. You should “spend yourself” on a “worthy cause.” Only you get to decide whether you’ll enter the arena. Just because someone is picking a fight with you does not mean you have to get into the arena.

3. Expect Failure and Celebrate It

If you do find your worthy cause, remember, there is no effort without error and shortcoming. Knowing that you will fall, again and again, you’ll be disappointed, your face will get marred by dust and sweat and blood. That’s the price of admission for living a wholehearted life.

To show up as you are, to risk being seen, to say “I am enough and worthy.” That is incredibly difficult to do. It’s in that moment when you find yourself, face down, in the arena, when everyone is booing you, throwing rotten fruit on your fallen body, the courage to get back up, because you believe in yourself, your own ability, your own worthiness, in your cause – I believe this is the journey to finding your gift to the world.

Your gift may not come neatly wrapped in a box. Oftentimes, it’s messy and difficult.

My own arena at the moment is bringing mindfulness and meditation to the legal community, to facilitate a dialogue about building a more resilient lawyer and system. To me, it is unacceptable that so many lawyers are neglecting themselves to a point where we’re engaging in self-destructive behaviors. My deepest desire is to see more lawyers practicing self-care and wellness.

I would like to start a national dialogue about bringing more empathy, compassion, mutual understanding into our legal system — for everyone involved, the lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, defendants, and the victims.

4. Learning The Art of Devotion

I regularly get emails from lawyers letting me know the impact my work has on their lives. I always feel embarrassed to think that I have any such power. One message a friend passed along right before I went on, what seemed at the time like a crazy 7-week road trip, when I was surrounded by fear and doubt was this:

Please let Jeena know that her presentation in Chicago helped save my life. I was sitting in the parking lot of Walmart that Tuesday after the seminar ended and it was a coin flip as to whether or not I was going in to purchase a gun and kill myself. That presentation spurned me to think about a lot of things that convinced me not to do it and to reach out for help.

Everytime I read that, I think to myself — this is why you do this work.

I devote the efforts of my work to those who are in such darkness and despair that they cannot see the light. I started my ATL journey by sharing a story of a friend who committed suicide. I’ll often ask at my talks “please raise your hand if you’ve been touched by suicide.” In general, over half of the room will raise their hand.

If I can make a difference in the lives of others, to help just one person choose themselves instead of death, to help just one lawyer find tools to be able to manage their stress and anxiety better, to help just one person learn to be more compassionate towards herself and others, to help just one lawyer find their purpose in life — this gives meaning to why I choose to enter the arena.

So, my deepest wish for you, my dear readers, is this: to live, daring greatly, devote yourself to a worthy cause so that you shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. In other words, find your purpose, find the gifts you’re meant to bring into the world and offer them.

P.S. You might also be interested in my Huffington Post articles where I write about Trusting in Grace and other related topics.

Jeena Cho is co-founder of JC Law Group PC, a bankruptcy law firm in San Francisco, CA. She is also the author of the upcoming American Bar Association book, The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Happier, Saner Law Practice Using Meditation (affiliate link), as well as How to Manage Your Law Office with LexisNexis. She offers training programs on using mindfulness and meditation to reduce stress while increasing focus and productivity. She’s the co-host of the Resilient Lawyer podcast. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @jeena_cho.

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