Self-Care & Community-Care for Legal Professionals: 3 Reasons to Attend Flourishing Club in February

You should attend one of the February meetings of Flourishing Club to learn how you can Show Up For Yourself So We Can Show Up For Each Other.

Here are three reasons why:

1. You'll learn about the both/and of "showing up" for self-care and community-care.

As anyone who's ever been on a commercial flight knows, the "what to do in case of an emergency" instructions include "put on your oxygen mask before helping others." Why? Because if the air pressure drops in the cabin, you may only have 30-60 seconds before suffering from hypoxia, which causes confusion, dizziness, and fainting. If you're confused, dizzy, or have fainted, you can't help yourself or someone else so you've got to attend to yourself first.

In the well-being world, there's a lot of focus on self-care -- the stuff that individuals can do to take care of themselves. What better place to start than right here with yourself?

And, if we want lasting and sustainable change, we've got to collectively bring well-being to the systems in which we live and work. That includes figuring out how to take care of each other, too.

I think of it as showing up for appointments I make with myself in the same way that I show up for appointments I make with others. I wouldn't no show you, so I won't no show me, same as I wouldn't no show me, so I won't no show you. I notice when I get out of balance on the self-care/community-care continuum because resentment shows up in the form of anger and frustration when I show up for you more often than I show up for myself. All choices I've made, but I resent you. It's a yucky place for both of us.

At the February meetings of Flourishing Club, we're going to talk about how we can prioritize both self-care and community-care because we need to do both.

2. You'll learn there's a difference between activity and action.

The original Path to Well-Being Report, which outlined a plan for improving well-being in the legal sector, was published in late summer 2017. The report included data from a study of lawyers, a study of law students, and called for a study of judicial officers. Since then, there's been a judicial officer study and a follow-up law student study. There have also been various studies of lawyers that focused on different indicia of well-being and more are in progress. [Notably, there have been no (or few) studies about other legal professionals that are integral to the legal sector, such as paralegals, court staff, legal assistants, and others. How about we put some time, attention, and energy into studying these legal professionals, too?]

What I've noticed, as Loretta did in her LinkedIn post below, is that the legal sector has been thinking about and studying the well-being of lawyers, law students, and judicial officers, which provides the dopamine hit of "doing something" in response to the data from every study that says we're more anxious, depressed, addicted, and suicidal, as a cohort, than the general population.

At this point, thinking about and studying is activity, just like meetings, creating and reviewing documents, and answering emails are activities. Activity is necessary because it's the stuff we have to do to keep it moving. Action is intentionally doing something to address what we've learned from the studies.

Action can look like committing 25 minutes and $7 to attend a Zoom on February 5 or 17, where you'll connect with other legal professionals and get a menu of action steps you can take to care for both yourself and others. Another action is inviting a friend or colleague to come with you.

Activity and action are the both/and of how you spend your time, attention, and energy each day. Too much or too little of either will run you into trouble.

3. You'll get in a rep.

The third reason you should attend a meeting of the Flourishing Club on February 5 or 17 is because you can get a rep in of taking an action that supports your well-being and the well-being of those around you.

Deciding to move from activity to action in your self-care can feel really scary. It can feel indulgent. It can easily move to the "I'll do this when I have time next month" list. All thoughts and feelings I had as I began the journey of taking care of myself so I could take care of others.

What helped me was having an accountability partner and an appointment on my calendar. I'm your accountability partner, so you're not doing this alone. You have agency to decide what you take away from the meeting and what you do with it.

Start by making an appointment for yourself on Thursday, February 5, or Tuesday, February 17 below.

I'm glad you're here and are taking action!