Small Law Firms

What To Do When You Feel Worthless And Broken

What practices have you found to be useful when you're feeling as though you're broken, unworthy, or like a failure?

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Dear Readers,

I’m writing this post on a return flight from New York City to San Francisco. I spent eight amazing days connecting with some amazing people, including ATL readers (shout out to Steve, Heather, Edgar, and Jesselyn), everyone who came out to the APP event, and the Better Lawyering Through Mindfulness workshop at the NYWBA!

Tomorrow, I am headed to a Meditation Retreat for Lawyers at Spirit Rock, Effective Lawyering: The Meditative Perspective, for five days.

When I tell people, particularly lawyers, that I’m going on a silent meditation retreat, I often get a look of complete befuddlement. “What do you mean — silent? As in, you can’t talk?” Yes, I’ll respond. “Can you pass notes?” Nope.

For me, retreats are a way to do just what the name suggests — retreat — from the world, refuel my tank, find clarity, and get to know my inner world a little better. As we continually get busier, more connected, with seemingly endless demands made of our time, energy, and space, I crave these retreats more and more.

My husband and I attended a five-day New Year’s retreat at Esalen in the beginning of this year. Esalen is truly an amazingly beautiful and special place. The Esalen Indians believed the land was sacred because it’s where three bodies of water converge: sulfur, spring, and ocean water.

There’s a bathhouse that sits on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and I can think of few experiences more joyful than sitting in a tub at night, hearing the ocean crash below, and seeing stars on the horizon, sitting under a dome of stars. (By the way, in February, 2016, I’ll be leading a workshop From Stress and Anxiety to Mindfulness: Wellness Retreat for Lawyers at Esalen, and you’re invited!)

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I’ve found that at each retreat, I tend to work through some internal struggle. On the second day of the retreat, during one of the meditation sessions, a familiar thought pops into my head: you’re broken, you’re flawed, you’re awful, and therefore not deserving of love.

This thought in many ways has been a motivating force in my life. My coping mechanism against this belief was to double down and strive to be perfect. I believed if I was only good enough, excelled enough, was the “model minority,” one day, I would be deserving of love. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I could never escape this belief that fundamentally, I was broken.

So, here I was, at Esalen, surrounded by Monarch butterflies, as whales migrated and dolphins played, yet, my mind was in hell as it kept repeating the thought: You’re broken! Broken! Broken!

On the fourth day, my body ached from the pain of my mind. Then I tried something I’ve never done before. I surrendered. I stopped fighting against the thought. I allowed it to simply be. I opened my eyes to the beauty that was surrounding me. During one walking meditation, I took off my shoes and carefully took one step after the next, feeling the grass on the bottom of my feet, noticing the slight stickiness and the cool temperature.

I practiced what Tara Brach, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, author, and meditation teacher describes as the “sacred pause.” In her book, Radical Acceptance, she writes:

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“A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement where we are no longer moving toward any goal.

When we pause, we don’t know what will happen next. But by disrupting our habitual behaviors, we open to the possibility of new and creative ways of responding to our wants and fears.

In this pause we let go of thinking and doing, and we become intimate with what is happening in our body, heart and mind.”

Instead of engaging with the unproductive, unhelpful thoughts, I practiced simply pausing and being. I looked at the thousands of Monarch butterflies. And I thought these butterflies were once caterpillars. They went through metamorphosis and became these beautiful butterflies. A caterpillar doesn’t criticize itself and say, “Gosh, I’m such an ugly animal. I’m imperfect.”

During the next meditation session, I sat on my meditation cushion and I listened to the sounds of waves crashing in the distance. I opened my eyes and looked around the room and really looked at each person. I noticed the “imperfections” of each person yet I also recognized that the “imperfections” were precisely the thing that made each person beautiful — in their own unique way.

Brach describes it so eloquently when she says:

“The more deeply we feel flawed and unlovable, the more desperately we run from the clutches of the shadow. Yet by running from what we fear, we feed the darkness. Whenever we reject a part of our being, we are confirming to ourselves our fundamental unworthiness.”

So, when you too are feeling unworthy, broken, filled with self-doubt, self-hatred, I invite you to practice the “sacred pause.” Stop. Allow your eyes to close and take few intentional, slow, deep breaths. Notice the experience of the moment — as is, without judgment or preference. Invite that part of yourself to sit down for tea and treat it as you would a dear friend.

By practicing approaching yourself — all of yourself — with curiosity and kindness, perhaps we can, as Brach explains “[f]ree ourselves to respond to our circumstances in a way that bring genuine peace and happiness.”

So, my dear readers: What practices have you found to be useful when you’re feeling as though you’re broken, unworthy, or like a failure? Drop me an email and let me know either on Twitter @jeena_cho or via email at [email protected].

P.S. I’m offering a free teleseminar on 5 Practices For Radical Self-Care In The Age Of Chronic Overwhelm on October 14, 2015, from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PST. Feel free to register here.

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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