Part 2 of our Self Care Series
0:00:00.9 S1: Welcome to the Legal Learning Podcast. I’m Jolene, your host, and with the Legal Learning Center, I help pre-law students and law students with their legal journey. Today, we will chat with Ariella Coleman, The Wellness Esquire as part two of our self-care series. After I’ll give you my top takeaways from this chat, but first, a quick word from our sponsor, Financially Free Aspiring Attorneys is a course with over $300,000 in money-saving tips. If you wanna go to law school, but you don’t wanna pay for it, visit legallearningcenter.com/financially-free for more information on how you can avoid law loans.
S2: Thank you so much Jolene. I am Ariella Coleman. I am a FDA regulatory attorney and the found of the Wellness Esquire.
S1: What is The Wellness Esquire.
S2: The vision is to shift the legal culture to recognize and value the connection between wellbeing and success. We live in a world overall and beyond our legal universe that really doesn’t prioritize taking care of ourselves and understanding that there is an important connection between how we treat ourselves how we self compassion, food, sleep, water, movement, just kinda the way we prioritize our time and our energy we don’t really give that a lot of value and consideration and connect that with how we are actually going to show up in the world. I think it’s especially bad or troubling in the legal industry where a lot of us are perfectionist type-A and go go go, hard core people and we often have a lot of trouble putting ourselves first and recognizing that taking care of ourselves isn’t selfish it’s actually the best way to help us develop sustainable and successful careers and life just having a life we will be happy with. Part of what I am looking to do is let people share their stories about what works for them how bringing some sort of wellness practice into their life benefits them personally and professionally and also to give people a chance to learn from others. Because wellness only works if it’s authentic to you. What works for me is not going to be the same thing that works for you. And that’s totally fine, it’s more than fine, it’s great.
We are different It’s important to recognize that wellness is not a one size fits all type of thing. There are many ways you can do it. Once we can start to understand what wellness can look like and take that time to kinda step back and think about what our priorities are what we want our lives to look like what we want our careers to look like how we can package that all together and really find some practices that help us get there. And if we can bond together as a community and say hey, we all want to be successful we can do it together but let’s make sure we sleep. It’s not about working until we drop dead. These are the practices that will get us where we want to go.
S1: That is something I noticed and love about your website. I feel like people are always trying to tell us what we have to do. That you must do this thing to be healthy or be fit but your website isn’t doing that. It’s saying look here’s what works for this person, here’s what works for this other person. Read it, absorb it. See if it works for you. Try what you want to try, leave what you want to leave. I love that.
S2: Exactly and when you and I spoke, months ago you shared that one of your top wellness practices that you do is soccer. Which is a thing I never would have thought about. I’m not a sports person. One of the things that’s been really fun for me doing The Wellness Esquire and connecting with so many attorneys across the globe is discovering different ways that people bring in wellness and things that I never would have thought of, things that maybe I can incorporate in my own little way into my own practices, and we learn from each other, and for someone else out there, they might not resonate with my approach of movement and hydration and whatever other practices I find really helpful for me, but they might hear your story and think, Oh, soccer, okay, I need to make sure that I get soccer in at least once a week or whatever it is, and that can be my wellness practice, that’s a thing that keeps him centered and helps me find clarity or whatever it is that you need, but having this opportunity to learn from each other, and also just to speak openly about our journeys, a lot of people feel like they’re not ready to talk about their wellness practices because they are still on their journey, and my response is always, we’re all on our journey, that’s the whole part of the…
0:05:28.7 S2: What I wanna get across with this whole wellness idea is, it’s not about perfection, it’s about the journey, it’s about progress, every day, it doesn’t have to be identical, but it’s really important to recognize that we are all in a journey, it’s not about perfection. And every day you get to tweak what you need and find out little things that work for you or it didn’t work for you, and just adjust along the way, and again, part of that is learning from each other and also getting support so that we realize that this is supposed to be about an evolution, and it’s not supposed to be the static thing that can’t change, it’s the New Year. So I bring up new year’s resolutions, I don’t like to think of them as news resolutions, because that’s sort of a decision, that’s like a thing that you’re deciding, I wanna do this, I’m gonna not do this, and you can feel like a failure or success, and that’s how you know you’re successful with your year, you failed with your attempt, but rather I like to think about in terms of habits, and that’s part of the wellness practice for their wellness journey as well, and you’re developing habits for yourself, it’s these little things that just…
0:06:43.9 S2: They might be come to micro or baby steps, but add them all together and they make a huge difference in thinking of it that way, when you get to the end of the year and you can look back and realize all these tiny little things that you incorporated into your daily or weekly practices helps you get somewhere farther along a new journey that you might otherwise have, if you were so focused on this needs to be perfect, it’s a yes or no thing, and that it’s not about just that evolution.
S1: Yeah, I love what you just said because it’s very true that our journeys change, so it is a journey, it’s not a one and done, it’s not, Okay, I’m a student, so this is my schedule, or this is… I’m working… So this is my schedule. I’ve had lots of different jobs with lots of different hours, lots of different travel requirements, and my wellness has changed what I do, how often I can juice or drink water changes, and I have my goals, but they aren’t as easily reached sometimes, and so… I do obviously get down on myself about that and I try to not do that, but it happens, but I also realize, Okay, this is new, and I have to adjust whatever I’m doing, maybe I don’t drink just in my office now and now I need to buy maybe a larger water bottle for the road or whatever it is, to accommodate the new lifestyle or the change, and again, that’s why your blog so great because it’s not just an opinion, it’s, Here’s everyone’s thoughts and here’s their different lifestyles and how they have incorporated wellness like you said with me, soccer, which I know a lot of people that just would not work, but for me, that was physical, that was mental, it was a mind release, it just really helped all aspects.
0:08:32.4 S2: But again, for some people, that would be torture, it’s so important to know what works for you. And I think we live in this really fast-paced world, and it’s hard to take the time and just realize that you should… Or could take the time to just kind of reflect and think about where you are on your journey. And when I say journey in that way, again, that’s something that can evolve to you, and I’ve certainly had the experience of taking some time in the last couple of years of really thinking about… Am I the same person who I was when I decided to go to law school? Am I still looking to do the same things that I wanted to do when I went to law school? Who am I compared to who I was five years ago? Or who I was one year ago. And allowing yourself to let yourself grow and evolve is really important, and with that, of course, your wellness practices and needs, they also change and your ability to get some things to fit into your day may change, and so when you can take the time to really just be kind of self-compassionate and allow yourself that freedom to reflect and re-evaluate and tweak as necessary.
0:09:51.7 S2: I think it leads to a much healthier and happier and more fulfilling and successful life because you’re making sure that you’re living for yourself and not for the old you, or the you that someone else thinks that you should be, or the you that you think someone else thinks that you should be… It’s really a lot of just figuring out who you are, what you need, what you want, and figuring out how you can go after that, and again, I think bringing wellness into your life is one of the best ways to make sure that you do that. One reason being, again, with that fast pace of life that we’re always just speeding through, if you don’t learn to pause Whether it’s sitting in some discomfort and learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, learning to not pick your phone up every second that you have, maybe a second of boredom, just allowing yourself to actually have that kind of empty space in your mind, allows you to have moments of clarity and sort of automatic moments of mindfulness and reflection, just because you’re not focusing all of your attention on the screen in front of you, or the game or the social media thing.
0:11:04.1 S2: And it really allows you to have a little bit of time to make sure that you’re staying true to who you are.
0:11:11.3 S1: When you go to law school, again, everybody’s experience is different, and I know some students have more free time even in their 1L year than others, everyone works at a different piece and it has different control issues or whatever, but it is a very intense year for everyone, and it is very hard to fit in anything extra besides studying, so is there anything that you’ve noticed in the tips that you’ve received from the other attorneys that might be more easily incorporated in that 1L year to create that overall wellness?
S2: Sure, I think my number one tip for everybody, whether you’re a college student, a successful lawyer, a parent, not working, just… Whoever you are living in this day and age. Learn to put your phone away. It’s not easy. I don’t say that that’s the easiest thing to do, I think that’s one of the most important things to do, and a lot of the other health and wellness benefits will flow from that. A lot of the things that we kind of look at on our phone, whether it’s social media or a game or something else, a lot of it’s designed the way, notifications pop up, it’s designed to suck us in, and so we really are creating in ourselves in addiction, and so I can’t blame others, and I’ve been here myself, it’s really a struggle to put the phone down, and even when you’re telling yourself, Okay, I should go do something else, but it’s really a struggle to learn to put it away and focus, and part of the challenge too, with having your phone kind of attached to your hip, and even just right next to you is multi-tasking, our brains are not designed to multi-task, we are…
0:13:03.2 S2: Some people may be better multi-testers than others, people may think they’re better multitask-ers or think that they can do it, they’re just magical in that way, guess what? It’s just not true. Maybe you’ve figured out how to maybe have a little bit of a super power over others, that you have a handle on it, a little better than you used to or somebody else might, but we’re not designed to think that way, and that context switching and splitting the attention, it’s really detrimental to whatever project we’re actually trying to focus on, and so if you’re sitting there and you’re trying to read a case and try to understand, and this, especially for law students in particular in your 1L year where it’s kind of a new language and a new way of thinking and reading and writing, and just using your brain, and that’s really hard, and then you’ve got your phone next to you and you’re distracted by your whatever is going on in social media or getting all these texts, you cannot process all the information interaction, I can tell you when I was a law student, I had my phone next to me all the time.
0:14:12.6 S2: I can also tell you, I wish that someone had said this to me when I was a law student, and so I could have gone through and set up some boundaries and parameters for myself so that I could tell myself… Okay, right now I am going to put my phone in a drawer, I’m gonna put a timer on for 45 minutes… In the time between now and 45 minutes from now, I’m gonna sit and I’m gonna read whatever it is that I need to read or do, and then when the timer goes off, I’ll go and get my phone and turn it off, but that will also be my reminder to just get up and move. And so, yeah, my number one tip is just like wing yourself off the phone attachment, and part of that too, is when we allow ourselves to have a moment of that empty space that I mentioned earlier in our minds… Again, that’s where we get a lot of clarity and you find some creativity, and by the way, you don’t always talk about this, certainly not in law school, as far as I can remember, lawyers are better from being creative, we’re also very logical and oriented, but we also really benefit from having a lot of creativity and boredom leads to creative thought, and so if we can just kind of cultivate a lifestyle that allows us to have some kind of empty spaces in our minds and time where we’re not just always focused on something…
0:15:35.9 S2: Our approach to thinking and creativity and logic and finding clarity, it’s gonna just boost… So yeah, number one, to get rid of that phone. Put some boundaries on it, put it in a drawer.
Not leave it next to your bed when you’re trying to go to sleep.
S1: That’s a great recommendation. I know someone who moved back to a flip phone, and so there really are no notifications. Everything is just kind of waiting for you until you’re ready to receive it, I mean, especially if you put it on silent or turn it off, whatever, but it’s… The only thing you’re really getting is your phone calls and people don’t call that often anymore.
0:16:17.1 S2: It’s so true.
0:16:18.1 S1: Yeah, so you know they might because they know you’re not gonna respond otherwise, but all her social media is on her computer, and so she checks it, I guess, whatever designated at times, but that it’s very limited and she’s much happier that way, she actually went back to a smartphone and then went back to a flip phone again, so I think that for 1Ls, that would be a really good phone for a year, I don’t know, see if you could handle it. I thought about doing that.
0:16:51.5 S2: Yeah, yeah, interesting. I’ve thought about it myself.
S1: I actually have left my cell phone, I stared leaving it at home when I was running quick errands like the grocery store, just so I wouldn’t be interrupted and things like that, but then I realized if I was in a car accident, I would want to be able to call 911 or take photos. So I take it with me now, but I have… It’s in the back of my brain to maybe come up with a back up for cell phones, we used to just use a disposable camera for any evidence.
0:17:22.8 S2: It’s not like you have to have that phone with you all the time and yeah, I’ve been looking for ways to leave it behind so that I don’t feel obligated to pick it up every time it rings. Yeah, and you know, another part of that is… You just hit on it, is the obligation piece, and we live in a society that we just have… We have needs for instant gratification and we expect instantaneous replies to everything, and so that again, it’s also part of that challenge with multi-tasking, but it’s a separate thing too, it’s that we’re often dropping our own needs for others because someone needs us, and so I have to respond immediately, otherwise, you’re gonna think I’m rude or absent or lazy, or whatever it is, and I think it’s also really important to start to set boundaries with people and let people know what to expect from you, that you’re not necessarily a person who’s always going to respond to the text as soon as it arrives in your phone, maybe you’re in a meeting, maybe you’re taking an app, maybe you’re having some quality time with your family.
0:18:35.6 S1: That’s all Okay, and so I think part of the phone thing too is just because we always have it, and we also, as you said, often have it just in case of emergencies, but therefore, everyone thinks that we’re always reachable, and it’s hard to make sure that you’re getting all of your sleep in, then you’re getting not just enough hours, but good quality sleep, and part of that is setting your phone down a couple of hours before bed, because the blue light actually affects your melatonin production. And it’s a hard problem to solve because many of us really have become addicted to the technology, but there are also ways around it and setting those boundaries, just to say, start with telling your family or your closest friends, listen, I put my phone on airplane mode at X o’clock at night, unless there’s an emergency, you can text me, but I won’t see it and I won’t respond and just… If they love you, they’ll respect that.
0:19:38.6 S2: And if they don’t respect that, maybe find some new friends. Learning to set those boundaries and respecting your own time and your own energy, and making sure that you can really develop the kind of lifestyle and career that you’re looking for, because that’s showing… That’s one way of showing up for yourself.
0:20:01.7 S1: I think it’s important to set that practice early with the boundaries because it does trickle into your career. I started setting boundaries a few years ago, where I read the book Boundaries, it was helpful to just get some guidelines on where to draw lines, and a lot of companies have instant messenger, and I had a client instant message me one time, and I just finished the book, and I love him, I was always happy to talk to him, but he was like, Hey, can I chat with you real quick? And I was in the middle of something, and so normally I say Yes, and I would just drop everything to talk to him and then go back to what I was doing, I decided to test the whole book thing and I said, I’m a little busy. Can we chat tomorrow? And he said, it’ll be real quick. Just pick up the phone. I’m calling you now. I was like… that didn’t go well. Okay, I’ll try it tomorrow.
0:20:58.1 S1: But it was just… And it was just funny, I like, I completely failed that one, but
S2: I wouldn’t say that you failed, it’s a process, it’s… Again, one of those things about… That this is not about perfection. When you try out setting boundaries, maybe some people won’t respect what you’re saying and you have to try again, and that’s why one of the things that I also like to think about and share with people is how important it is to show other people that you respect their boundaries, and I think a lot of the conversations that I’ve been having with people recently are about saying no, which is really hard for a lot of us who are kind of… I consider myself a recovering perfectionist and recovering people pleaser, and so it’s really hard for me to say no to people, I’m learning how to do it, and it’s extra hard for me to do that when people don’t seem to care, but it’s a lot easier, of course, when I’m talking to people who are really open to that, and then I can explain, these are my parameters, these are my boundaries, these are my needs, whatever, and they’re respectful of that and they show kind of compassion and see you as a human being that they are not the most important thing in your life.
0:22:08.5 S2: And it’s extra hard when people forget that you have a whole world happening and that they may not be your top priority and that… That’s fine, by the way. And so I always do my best to show other people that you can say no to me, you can say, Hey, I love what you’re doing, but not now, or just… No, period or whatever it is. I try to make that a comfortable… If I ever haven’t asked for someone, I try to make it comfortable and easy for them to say, This is not good for me right now. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s a skill that most of us don’t really have or think about because for whatever reason, we often just feel like we need to say yes to everything, and learning to say no, part of that is letting other people say no to you and developing just kind of a community of people who say, Okay, what’s best for you? What’s best for me? Let’s help each other get there and sometimes… No, it was gonna be part of that.
S1: Yeah, great. Yeah, I definitely felt… I wasn’t totally disappointed myself when I, again, failed at that boundary, but I just kind of laughed it off, I rolled my eyes, and again, I love that client, so it was not a core to speak with him or drop everything for him necessarily, but it’s part of that fast-paced business I was doing. But yeah, it is so hard. It definitely takes practice. And I was super proud. I did say no. But again, as you said, it takes practice and it takes…
S2: Every time, it’s not gonna go exactly as you want it, but it’s kind of just like learning to flex that muscle, maybe it doesn’t work as you’d like it to every single time, but it’s just getting in the practice of even just identifying what your needs are.
0:23:57.6 S2: A lot of us don’t even take the time to identify what our needs are, what our wants are, and even just how to communicate that, so you actually… I would say you succeeded, ’cause you identified your need, you communicated it, he didn’t respond quite right, and you felt like, Okay, you know what, this is actually… Okay, but you kind of got… If you think about it that way, like the first two out of three steps, that’s great. Yeah, and it’s a process. And especially starting as someone who doesn’t say no, and then flexing that muscle a little… It’s actually a big deal. So good j ob.
0:24:30.3 S1: Yes, I was happy. At least it someone who I was comfortable, again, losing to… It’s hard to use that vocabulary, I’m not sure what other words to use, but yeah, I use those terms very lightly, so… Yes, but yes, it’s always good practice and I practice those boundaries, I think that is something so important, I think also for 1L students is to practice as they start that first year, I don’t wanna be part of your study group, I think I’ll do better solo or depending on the school, I don’t wanna share this outline because X, Y, and Z reason, whatever it is. It’s only for our group or whatever it is. So yeah, it… But do learning to do it diplomatically in a somewhat comfortable way that’s hard, but I think that’s also… Yeah, a very good lesson no one else is you, you need to set your study time, you need to maximize that study time, and boundaries is another important thing, which flows around that a cellphone… The cell phone has no boundaries. It’s rough. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so I know your blog also has a huge reading list on there with all kinds of sub-categories, what are some of those sub-categories for the books on your blog? So I’ve been putting together this just collection of resources, and a lot of them are books, and so I’ve got them broken down, hopefully in a kind of easy-to-find way, and so we’ve got books on mindfulness and meditation and nutrition and healthy movement and things about books about productivity and grit and resilience and whatever kind of habit development, whatever other kinds of practices and lifestyle habits or changes, those sorts of things, mindset practices that are all really important part of the whole journey toward that end goal of success and fulfillment and happiness and living a healthy life, no one really teaches us how to learn, for example, but it’s a skill, there are practices that we can incorporate and that can guide us to be more efficient or effective learners, and how to move around our days more productively, and there are a lot of the kinds of books like Atomic Habits is one of my favorite books, he talks all about essentially just kind of habit building and kind of having your habits identify with who you are, and that that helps you to establish habits that will actually help you achieve the kind of goals you’re looking to achieve because you’re a person who does those things anyway, there are so many things that we often don’t think about that actually come together to help us build the kind of life that we want.
I think a lot of us that goes went back to this whole idea of just a lot of us are moving at such a fast pace, fast pace, and we end up just surviving rather than thriving. And that’s not as much fun. At the end of the day, we all wanna thrive, and so these are, for me, at least, a lot of the ways that help me feel like I’m really living intentionally, and I’m gonna be excited to look back on my life and think about what I’ve done and not just feel like, Oh God, each day just led into the next… And I didn’t really do anything on purpose. And life just happened. And now it’s done.
S1: Yeah, no, I saw the reading list and I just… It’s an overwhelming list. Just a warning. If you haven’t been on. There is a book for everything as she was saying, but yes, it’s just… Yeah, it’s so elaborate. It’s so great. It really is. Okay, I wanna learn how to meditate better and then, Okay, yes, I want to learn how to make my life more intentional and all this, it’s all the stuff and how to eat better and all of the stuff. I just love it. It’s like, Where do I start first? Buy one of everything, I don’t know.
0:28:26.5 S2: One of the things that we, I think, need to learn more about is how we react to food… food helps us actually, that helps with our cognitive function and helps us feel good, it helps with having a healthy digestive system, it helps when you have a healthy gut, you have a better brain, we don’t always think about how connected everything in our body is, and it starts a lot of the time with what we’re taking into our bodies, whether it’s hydrating enough or just eating real food.
0:29:02.1 S2: It’s a huge part of… For me, at least, I take a lot of care with the water that I drink and the food that I eat, I’m very intentional about it because I know I don’t feel well when I eat processed foods, I don’t really eat anything that comes in a box, I eat things that come from the ground. And I certainly haven’t always been that way, but I have taken the time to really identify how I can feel my best, as good as possible, and how can I feel as sharp as possible, and So making tweaks to be able to live more comfortably and feel good in my body, also helps me be more productive throughout my day and helps me accomplish my goals…
S2: Yeah, it’s exponential what that food element does for your body, so… Yeah, I agree. I have done a lot of research on the food element as well, so I definitely did not feed myself well in law school, but since that time as a busy lawyer, I’ve realized I need to get all of that and it makes a huge difference. All of these things do, but yes, it’s… You need some movement, you need some water, you need some good food, so…
S2: Yeah, and I think something else for law students, especially just because they’re closer to the beginning of journey is just figure out for you, not anybody else, figure out for you how to manage stress. It’s gonna be different for everybody, but the stress is not gonna go anywhere. We’ve gone into a career direction that just has stress embedded in it, like that’s just the case, but there are things that you can do to make sure that you don’t kind of just get eaten up by it.
0:30:53.4 S2: For me, I like meditation, mindfulness, I really benefit from exercising daily and moving, and again, eating well, food is something that can exacerbate anxiety, for example, not drinking water can exacerbate anxiety, learning breath work is something that I really wish that I had known about when I was in law school, the things that I’m now in hindsight, wish that I could go back to my law school self and just know about is I wish that I knew how to do breath work and meditation in particular, so I could do those practices right before exams or when I was working on a big paper or things like that, or going in for an interview, these are things that can be two minutes of a breath work and it makes a huge difference, and just finding practices and finding people who can help you with those practices so that when the inevitable stress comes up, you know what to do and your go-to isn’t just stuff your face with ice cream or just drink too much, or whatever your go to sort of bad habit or unhealthy habit is, find things that actually make you feel good and help you get out of that stressful experience in a healthier way.
0:32:05.7 S1: It’s really important and I don’t think students take enough care… I feel like the students now are more aware than I was, but I still think a lot of them don’t take enough care, they just rely on, like you said, the release of maybe alcohol or the weekend type thing, and as lawyers, we have very high statistics for depression and anxiety and addiction, so we have to be very careful and aware even before we become lawyers. Yeah, alright, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing all your knowledge and all your resources with us, if people wanna find you and ask you any questions… Where can they reach you?
S2: I am so delighted to have had the opportunity to chat with you and to chat with all the law students and lawyers who will listen to this wonderful podcast, so I have a website, thewellnessesquire.com, and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn my personal page is Ariella Coleman, and I also have a business page, The Wellness Esquire, and I would love to connect with anybody who’s interested, I really enjoy… I’m a super extrovert, so it’s really fun for me to connect with others, and a lot of the things that I now know about, and a lot of what led me to launch The Wellness Esquire was in thinking about what would I have benefited from knowing when I was a law student or when I was early on in my career, and so I’m not gonna go back and do law school again, so I can do it in a way it would be a better or healthier way for me. But since I have all this knowledge, I like to share it with others. So anyone who’s interested in connecting, please feel free to do so, and I look forward to chatting.
S1: Thanks so much. Before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor, Juno, if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno first. Juno can often offer law students 1-2% less in interest rates below the Federal government, and with not only no cost to the student, but often times cash back as well. Visit joinjuno.com/p/legalLearningCenter for more information. Now, my top takeaways from this chat with Ariella, life and wellness are a journey, explore what works for you, step away from negative feelings that you’re not following someone else’s wellness journey, experiment and adjust to what you enjoy and what you need. As everyone’s interest and needs are different, that’s exactly what her website does, it doesn’t present one point of view, it presents stories from many attorneys who share what they do to make themselves feel well, and you can use that information to find new ways to make yourself well, alright, that’s it for this episode. All the tips, links and so forth will be in the show notes. A full transcript is available at legallearningcenter.com/thewellnessEsquire, and be sure to check in next week for our interview with the author of Why do this not that on LinkedIn. And she’ll share her legal journey with us as well. And if you learned something today, please like share, subscribe, so that this show is more visible to others and can help those who may need it. Thanks.
If you want to hear more on self care, check out our interview with Angela Han of Fit To Practice.
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