How To Manage Anxiety Before A Hearing

There’s an unstated attitude in our profession that if you experience anxiety, depression, or other stress-related challenges, it’s a character flaw.

Ed. note: This post is by Jeena Cho, a Legal Mindfulness Strategist. She is the co-author of The Anxious Lawyer (affiliate link), a book written by lawyers for lawyers that makes mindfulness and meditation accessible and approachable. She is the creator of Mindful Pause, a self-paced online program for creating a more sustainable, peaceful, and productive law practice in just six minutes a day. Jeena offers actionable change strategies for reducing stress and anxiety while increasing productivity, joy, and satisfaction through mindfulness.

“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 from a hearing she had several months ago where she misread the judge and made a decision on the spot not to call a witness. It turned out to be the wrong move and now she was caught in an endless thought loop. She would recall that moment, standing at the podium, panicked, trying to think of the right move as time came to a crawl. She could feel herself turning bright red, her palms getting sweaty, her stomach getting tight, and her heart rate increasing.

She’s remembering everything said and unsaid in the courtroom, and examining every word.

“I can’t stop thinking about that moment. I should’ve put the witness on the stand.” There was no indication that had she put on the witness, that the outcome would be any different, and yet, she kept referring to her decision as a “huge mistake.”

She was getting ready for another hearing in front of the same judge and she found it impossible to focus on the current case. She kept replaying the last hearing. “It’s like a broken record that I cannot stop playing!”

Anxiety is such a common condition for lawyers, yet rarely is there room to talk about the difficulties and challenges of being a lawyer. What’s worse, there’s an insidious, unstated attitude in our profession that if you experience anxiety, depression, or other stress-related challenges, it’s a character flaw.

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Continue reading over at Jeena’s website…

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