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engage your senses like eating, washing,
talking, or listening.” They point out that
these may be helpful techniques even when
you are driving, standing in line, or walking.
Sitting can be great, but mindfulness in
many daily activities can yield larger benefits.
RECHARGE BODY + SOUL
After reading Juliet Peters’ “Mindfulness, Meaning, Meditation” (book review, Jan. 2017), I have to agree that sitting
down in a quiet room meditating helps one focus on what the
issues truly are. I have been doing this several times a week
for years, adding a bit of soft music in the background. But
where I differ from Ms. Peters and the authors of The Anxious
Lawyer is that I believe in the importance of balancing meditation with cardiovascular exercise. We lawyers often sit at
our desks for hours on end, and if we just go meditate, that is
another period of sitting. Personally, I have found alternating
evenings of meditation with running or swimming to be very
helpful in keeping me grounded, focused, relaxed, and rejuvenated for the next day. As always, each lawyer should experiment and find the right mix of activities to help maintain his
or her psychological and physical well-being.
—Jade Wu, Washington, D.C.
Editor’s Note: We appreciate this insight and wager that the
reviewer and the book authors would agree. As they point out,
meditation is one part of a larger mindfulness conversation, including being mindful of your body’s physical need for activity. And
beyond cardiovascular work and sitting meditation, the authors of
The Anxious Lawyer advocate for “off-the-cushion” practices that
bring specific meditation techniques to “everyday activities that
www.azbar.org/AZAttorney 30 ARIZONA A T TORNE Y JANUARY2017
Meditation. Authors Jeena Cho and Karen
Gifford, (no w recovering) attorneys, struggled at different points in their careers with
anxiety while juggling demanding practices
and life. (Cho still practices and is a partner
at JC Law Group PC, a San Francisco bankruptcy law firm.)
Cho says lawyers often assume medita-
tion isn’t for them because it will make them
lose their edge or invite weakness—an un-
derstandable but misplaced fear: “You can
use meditation to help you increase your fo-
When I told my circle of crusty
lawyer friends (you know, the ones raised by
wolves) that I was reading and reviewing a
book about meditation for lawyers, they ini-
tially corrected me. “You mean mediation,
right?” “No,” I repeated slowly, “Medi-TA-
tion.” At which point the eye-rolling and
fake “ohm-ing” began.
Because this reaction is not uncommon,
it is addressed very directly in the book titled
The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a
Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through
BY JULIET PETERS
JULIET PETERS is a 1998 cum laude
graduate of the Sandra Day O’Connor
College of Law. Duringher career she
has been a litigator, worked in-house for a
Phoenix-based franchisor, and led the child
welfare division of the Arizona AG’s office.
She is the founding principal of Framework
Legal, PLLC, which provides alternative fee-based corporate legal services to in-house
counsel and businesses of all sizes.
BOOK REVIE W
The Anxious Lawyer
An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful
and Satisfying Law Practice Through
Mindfulness and Meditation
By Jeena Cho & Karen Gifford
Cloth, 251 pages
Ankerwycke Books
ISBN-13: 978-1627226240
2016, $29
cus and concentration. The Navy Seals use
it for mental agility. I don’t think anyone
would accuse them of going soft, holding
hands and singing kumbaya,” she told me
when we spoke about the book.
Mindfulness,
Meaning,
Meditation
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