Yesterday’s trip home from Boston was a big for me.
First, it was during the drive that I committed to sharing my thoughts on the Taco Bell petition. Fewer than 24 hours after going live, the post is already one of the more well-received in the history of Ethical Grounds.
Second, on the way back, I stopped in Montpelier to present a wellness seminar for the Washington County Bar Association. The discussion reinvigorated me and left me convinced that our work on wellness is both work well done and work worth continuing to do.
Until meeting with the members of the WCBA, I’d been in a bit of a wellness rut. In May and June, I presented several CLEs on the topic as lawyers hustled to satisfy their reporting obligation. I noticed a distinct wellness fatigue. It manifested in remarks like:
- “I’ll do wellness on my own, don’t force me to do it.“
- ‘Talking about how unwell the profession is makes me worse, not better.”
- “We listen to you tell us that wellness is so important, so how come we don’t get CLE credit for the things we do to take care of ourselves?”
Trust me, I get it. And I will do whatever anyone asks of me to amplify their concerns with the Court and MCLE Board.
What I won’t do is stop presenting on wellness & well-being.
I arrived at Café Noa (a great spot for a CLE) nervous that it’d be another vent session. It wasn’t. Rather, it was an uplifting conversation that showed me that our work on wellness & well-being has resulted in a healthier bar.
Examples:
- The lawyer who observed that connecting wellness & well-being to the duty of competence has provided a platform that allows supervisors to remind staff and younger lawyers of the importance of self-care.
- The lawyers who shared their strategies to combat work addiction – that is, strategies they’ve adopted to allow themselves truly to be present in whatever they’re doing when they’re away from work.
- The many lawyers who, when I asked the group to identify the 5 pillars of our overall well-being, instantly responded “physical well-being.” And, from there, the many more who shared the steps they’ve taken to incorporate physical well-being into their routines.
- When I asked what another of the pillars might be, the lawyer who immediately replied, “emotional well-being.” It’s my favorite of the pillars to discuss and we had a lively give & take on the importance of (1) recognizing that we will experience negative emotions; (2) identifying those emotions & accepting that it’s okay to experience them; and (3) realizing that while we cannot necessarily control what caused the negative emotion, we can always control our response thereto.
Those are but a smattering of the many inspiring comments that WCBA members shared.
Here’s how the discussion left me feeling.
Maybe some of the wellness fatigue has been my fault. It’s not uncommon for me to harp on the sobering statistics and to share the saddest of stories. I’d grow tired of me too.
Instead, what I should be doing is what the WCBA did yesterday. We focused on the positive and shared thoughts on keeping ourselves well. And “keeping ourselves well” is exactly what all this is supposed to be about.
On that, kudos to Sidney Collier. When Sidney invited me to speak, she asked me to present the “positive side” of wellness. That’s not typical – usually offices and groups ask me to stress why wellness is so important. So, as requested, I do, using the startling statistics that reflect the extent to which behavioral health issues pervade the profession.
The positive approach was better. Sid – thank you! It’s the approach I plan to employ going forward.
Also, many thanks to Heather Devine. Heather introduced me to the group yesterday and has long-supported not only my wellness work as bar counsel, but my own personal wellness efforts. Heather is one of two lawyers whose encouragement resulted in the video chronicle of me teaching myself to make bread. And here’s the follow-up video in which I begged not to be disbarred from the ranks of the bread makers for violations that were completely of my own doing and for which Heather is entirely blameless.
And, last but not least, thank you to the members of the WCBA who attended. As of 12:29PM yesterday, I’d let doubt start to creep in. It’s gone. To learn about so many lawyers & legal professionals taking steps to improve their own health as well as the health of their colleagues & co-workers was inspiring. Especially given that it wasn’t that long ago that yesterday’s discussion was one that we avoided — and one that by avoiding, we created too many statistics.
We’ve come a long way. We’re healthier for it. And there’s no reason that we should stop now.
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