Why Yoga for Lawyers?

So why yoga for lawyers? Well to be clear yoga is for everyone, not just lawyers, but as a lawyer I’m intimately familiar with the specific stresses of being a lawyer—client calls at all hours, getting an all hands on deck email at 6 pm on a Friday, and the unattainable pursuit of perfection (while still billing the lowest amount of time possible).

Now that I’m in my 5th year of practice (as a lawyer—I’ve been practicing yoga for over 20 years!) I’ve realized that I need some balance in my life. During my first year as a lawyer, I just stopped exercising, even though I love exercising! And I’m not just saying that—I really do love it. I feel more like myself after moving, less anxious, and happier. But as a first year, I didn’t think I could have my career and also things I enjoyed in life. I had one goal—bill the most hours. So obviously, this was a recipe for burnout.

Then the pandemic hit, and as a litigator a lot of my work just stopped—trials were pushed until 2022, depositions were cancelled, motions put on hold. At first, my reaction to the pandemic was panic—how could I bill the most hours if there was no work to do? But then I started to enjoy sleeping in my bed every night, instead of pulling all-nighters and sleeping on my office floor. (Yes, I did sleep on my office floor more than once.)

In short, I realized there is more to life than just work. Many people already know this, but as a baby lawyer I did not. I thought the only way to be successful was to give everything I had to the job and leave nothing for all those other aspects of my life. Then, like so many people during the pandemic, I suddenly had all this time to fill, and I had no idea what to do with it. My singular goal since graduating law school had been work, so I felt completely lost when work did not fill all of my waking hours.

Now I didn’t discover yoga in 2020. I’ve been practicing yoga since I was a teenager. I started practicing yoga to gain flexibility for ballet (fun fact-I was a dance major in college!), but after I stopped dancing yoga became essential to my life in its own right. During those early years in my career, my time in the yoga studio was the only time I could completely disconnect from work. In the studio, I couldn’t obsessively check my email, and I was forced to actually be in the moment.

Then I noticed that the more I practiced yoga the better I performed at work. I was less anxious, and I stopped second and third guessing myself. I was actually a better lawyer when I stopped trying to spend every waking moment billing.

Maybe this seems like commonsense, but it wasn’t to me and still may not be to many lawyers. Throughout law school and my early career, I internalized the messages that I should always be working, that I should always be telling everyone just how much I was working, that I should feel superior if I was working the most, and that I should DEFINITELY feel guilty every time I was not working.

With the help of the pandemic, I realized this was no way to live. I do love my work, but I am also more than my work. For me, yoga was a way to discover just who I am beyond my job title. Now maybe you aren’t an ex-ballet dancer like me, but the great thing about yoga is you don’t have to be good at it. It doesn’t matter! I am certainly not the strongest, most flexible yogi. It’s the showing up that counts—intentionally taking time and space for yourself. And the amazing thing is that when you take care of yourself, you are actually a better lawyer. I wish I had known this so much earlier in my career.