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.
For many years, as I traveled across the country, talking about lawyer well-being and mindfulness, lawyers would come up to me and ask about writing. I offer the advice that’s often repeated — just write. Of course, it’s never that simple but that’s truly the only way to write. As Anne Lamott says, write the “shitty first draft.”
Each Wednesday, I grab my journal and drive to Oakland, CA, where I sit around the table with six or seven other women. We are invited to radical self-expression, free from judgment. It’s free-form writing, meaning the only “goal” of the session is to keep the pen on the page and keep writing. Sometimes, I write long-winded complaints about life’s injustices or irritations. Other times, a memory, long abandoned.
Pursuing The Pro Bono Story: A Conversation With Alicia Aiken
This Pro Bono Week, get inspired to give back with PLI’s Pursuing Justice: The Pro Bono Files, a one-of-a-kind podcast hosted by Alicia Aiken.
As lawyers, we are perfectionists so doing anything “shitty” is terrifying. However, it’s through this experience of getting the words down on paper — good, bad, or simply passable, that we’ll be able to polish and slowly make our way to the final draft.