Self-Care for Lawyers: The Benefits of Building One Self-Care Habit at a Time

By Rick Waite

The big changes started about 10 years ago, when I started surfing every day at 6 a.m. instead of getting on the freeway to go to work. Soon I started journaling every day, a practice I started at Harvard my freshman year and engaged in sporadically over the years, usually during times of crisis. Next, I began meditating again. I had learned how to meditate at the Cambridge Transcendental Meditation Center my freshman year and then promptly stopped. A few days after renewing my meditation practice, I quit drinking. Cold turkey. No cravings. No 12-step program. I just stopped.

Shortly after my decision to stop drinking I had an epiphany. My life’s purpose is to help as many people as profoundly as possible. This has been my path ever since. It is why I am writing this article on self-care for lawyers. Self-care for you.

Surfing, being in the water, in nature, paddling, riding the wave, sitting quietly waiting for the next wave — all these things nurture my body and my soul. A few times, very rarely, I have had transcendent moments surfing when I was one with the wave, the ocean and everything in it.

Journaling feeds my mind and my soul. It helps me process conversations, events, thoughts and feelings. It gives me a fresh perspective. It is reflective. I have frequent “aha” moments. Writing is often inspiring and enlightening. A welcome side effect is that journaling every day inspires me to live a life worth writing about.

Meditation also feeds my mind and my soul. It has been the most transformative of my daily self-care practices. I have regular transcendent experiences meditating. I often have creative downloads from God, the Source, the Divine, the collective unconscious, my own subconscious, whatever you want to call it. The inspiration to write this article came to me in a meditation. The idea of sharing the gift of meditation with lawyers through the San Diego County Bar Association on Wellness Wednesdays came to me in a meditation. The idea to have a post-surf Saturday morning meditation circle with my surfing tribe came to me in a meditation.

It is well-known that meditation can offer quick relief from the stress and anxiety that we lawyers face every day. With a daily meditation practice, the benefits are much greater. For many people, establishing a daily meditation practice brings them to a fairly constant state of equanimity, an evenness of mind, calmness and composure that cannot be shaken by events of the day, no matter how stressful.

These are my self-care practices. For you, it might be music, swimming, dance, painting, yoga, tai chi, knitting, prayer, cycling, running or rowing. The important thing is to choose something that works for you, that nurtures your body, mind or soul, and that you do every day or almost daily.

If you do not yet have a daily self-care practice, experiment until you find the activity that you like to perform that puts you into that altered state called flow. Whatever you choose, it should be easy, rewarding and something that you can and will do every day.

When you have found that self-care practice, make it a habit. To make it habitual, follow these four simple steps that were articulated by William James, the great 19th-century father of American psychology.

1. Start immediately. Seize the first opportunity to act on the goal or resolution.
2. Launch yourself with zeal. In other words, give it your best.
3. Practice the new habit daily until it is engrained in you.
4. Never permit an exception to occur. If you do slip, don’t beat yourself up. Start again.

It takes 21 days to begin to form a new habit and 90 days to confirm it. In 120 days the new habit is who you are.

If you follow these steps with a self-care practice that you enjoy and make the practice a part of your daily routine, it will change your life for the better.

It is probably best not to try to establish more than one self-care practice at a time. Start with one. After you have firmly established that daily practice, add another if you wish. And then another. I chose a crash course in self-care and it took me about three years to firmly establish all three daily practices of journaling, surfing and meditation.

I urge you to give it a try. If something doesn’t work, try something else until you have found something that is healthy and that nurtures you every day. You will be far better for it. Good luck.

Rick Waite is an attorney with Keeney Waite & Stevens.

Join a mindful meditation workshop led by Rick Waite at the Bar Center on the second Wednesday of every month. Go to www.sdcba.org/meditation to register.

This article was originally published in the July/August 2018 issue of San Diego Lawyer.