Show notes
In this episode, I am excited to have Jane Springer on to talk about physical and mental health for the modern woman lawyer. Jane is a Certified Life, Wellness and Style Coach who works primarily with women lawyers who are struggling with their weight due to stress eating. She helps them manage the stress and the eating by teaching them tools that change the way they think so that they can have more energy, lose weight, and have a calmer mind. Jane also serves on the Florida Bar Mental Health and Wellness Committee. Topics Covered The main stressors for a woman lawyer, the coping mechanisms they use to deal with them (like stress eating), and what the results are. How she helps her clients address the underlying feeling that can trigger their coping mechanisms, and how they can change the way they think and feel so that they get different results. What kind of fuel they need to be feeding their bodies so they get the maximum body and brainpower to handle the stressors. She also talks on which kind of movement will serve them best with a busy law practice. Learn more about Jane at: JaneSpringer.com E-mail - jane@janespringer.com Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! hello@jeenacho.com. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho For more information, visit: jeenacho.com Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers I’m creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus 31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/ Transcript Jane Springer: [00:00:00] All the actions that you do come from a thought about it; you may not realize that it was a thought, but that thought generates a feeling inside you. And that feeling drives an action, which might be to grab some candy, or whatever you might go to. And that always creates the result, and the result will point right back to the original thought that you had. Intro: [00:00:26] Welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life. And now your host, Jeena Cho. Jeena Cho: [00:00:48] Hello my friends, thanks for being with me today. In this episode, I am really happy to have Jane Springer. She is a certified life wellness and style coach who works primarily with women lawyers who are struggling with their weight due to stress eating. She helps them manage their stress and the eating by teaching them tools that change the way they think so they can have more energy, lose weight, and have a calmer mind. Jane serves on the Florida Bar Mental Health and Wellness Committee. [00:01:15] Before we get into the interview, if you haven't listened to my last bonus episode go back and check it out. I shared a 6 minute guided meditation practice to help you let go of stress and anxiety. It's a preview for my new course, Mindful Pause. So often I hear lawyers say that they know they should practice mindfulness, but they just don't have the time. And I always tell lawyers, just start with six minutes or .1 hour. Of all the hours that you dedicate to your clients, work, and others, don't you deserve to have at least .1 hour to yourself? Mindful Pause is designed for lawyers like you, to fit into your hectic schedule. Think of it like taking your daily vitamins to boost your well-being. Head on over to JeenaCho.com to learn more, or check it out in the show notes. [00:01:58] And with that, here's Jane. Jane, welcome to the show. Jane Springer: [00:02:01] Thank you Jeena, it's a pleasure to be here. Jeena Cho: [00:02:03] So let's start by having you give us a 30-second introduction of who you are and what you do. Jane Springer: [00:02:09] Well my name is Jane Springer, and I am a certified life and wellness coach. I also do style coaching for busy professionals like lawyers, who want to feel put together and confident. So I sort of roll it all into one. My husband is an attorney, so this area of helping women lawyers was really a topic that is of personal interest to me. I have three nieces who are lawyers, so de-stressing and helping women lawyers lose weight is really a sweet spot for me. Jeena Cho: [00:02:48] Great. So when we talk about wellness, what does wellness mean to you? I think so often we think about it in terms of exercise, but to me it means so much more than that. So I'm curious how you would think about wellness, and what that means. Jane Springer : [00:03:03] To me, wellness is an overall, overarching, broad feeling that you are handling your life well, that you're eating well, that you have energy, you have enthusiasm for what you're doing, you're taking care of your body, mind, and spirit. It's a large, overarching viewpoint. Jeena Cho: [00:03:34] And in your work with women lawyers, what are the main stressors that you see them struggling with? And how do they typically deal with it? Jane Springer: [00:03:46] Well I've interviewed many women lawyers (in addition to my own family members), and what I have found is that their main stressors are worrying about deadlines; there's a brief due, there's an order due, there's research due. So deadlines, demanding clients, and demanding partners. And now that you're available 24/7 it's even more so, because they can reach you at any time. Work and family life balance, trying to leave work in time to pick up your children, trying to have time to spend with your spouse, that's another stressor. And then money. If you are an associate, you may not be making the kind of money that you would really like to make, so you may be worrying about money and your family. But also if you're a solo or duo practitioner, you're concerned about the money coming in and the money going out, and how to pay all the bills and pay your employees. There's a lot of stressors going on. Jeena Cho: [00:04:56] And what are the default tools that lawyers use, or what are some of the coping mechanisms that they use to deal with all the stressors? Jane Springer: [00:05:07] What I have found is: stress eating. In the demanding world that they are in, they may reach for something to eat, something sugary, or a carb or processed food that's fast so they can get back to work. So something to give them a little boost of energy. Stress drinking; that when they get home all they want to do is sit down and have their wine, and they may not eat the way they should. They may have very little time for exercise, or make no time for exercise because there's so much going on. And there's anxiety, depression, you may have weight gain because of all that you're doing and trying to cope with. And it may end up in burn out, or even leaving the profession because of all the stresses involved. Jeena Cho: [00:06:07] So these are self-soothing behaviors that they're engaging in that are not helpful, and that are probably actually exacerbating the situation? Jane Springer: [00:06:19] Yes. Jeena Cho: [00:06:19] So when you start to work with a client, what are some of the first steps that you have them take? How can they change the way they think and feel, so that they stop doing the behaviors that they know are not working for them? Jane Springer: [00:06:36] Back to your point that you just made, what they're getting from those ways of coping (like in the eating and the drinking) is a dopamine hit. And yeah, that will give you energy and lift you up for a little while, and then you crash after that. So it is a habit that you develop. So what I like to do when I work with my clients first is have them explain to me what their main issue is; do they want to lose weight, do they want to de-stress? I find out what their needs are. [00:07:14] I also almost right away will teach them a tool that they can use in looking and examining (because lawyers can be very analytical and critical thinkers, so I like to give them something that they can work with right away) that all the actions you do come from a thought about it; you may not realize that it was a thought, but that thought generates a feeling inside you. And that feeling drives an action, which might be to grab some candy, or whatever you go to. And that always creates the result, and the result will point right back up to the original thought that you have. So I like to teach them that first, so that they understand the consequences and the results that they get from the thoughts and the feelings that they have. That's the first thing I do. Jeena Cho: [00:08:10] Okay, so if we can actually drill down a little bit and use a specific example. Let's say it's Friday at 4 pm, I'm getting ready to run out the door and I have weekend plans, and the partner comes up to my desk and says, "Hey, I actually need you to work on this motion to dismiss this weekend." What would be an example of a thought that would trigger this cycle? Jane Springer: [00:08:35] I'll never finish that by 5 pm, or by 6 pm that I have to pick up my child by. Jeena Cho: [00:08:42] Right, and now my weekend is ruined; I'm not going to be able to go away with my girlfriends, or whatever it is that I had planned for the weekend. And then what is the behavior that follows that thought? Jane Springer: [00:08:54] Well the first thing that happens after the thought is a feeling that you get inside. So the feeling would be either anxiety, because you've got this work assignment that you weren't planning on having. But whatever the feeling is, disappointment that you can't do what you were going to do with your family or your girlfriends, but you identify the feeling.. Jeena Cho: [00:09:16] So anger, frustration, outrage. Jane Springer: [00:09:22] Exactly, all those things. And from there, what is the action that you take? You realize you've got to do this work, so you undertake doing the work; you either stay late, or you're tied up over the weekend. But when you're doing it, you are feeling very resentful and under more pressure because your family or friends are disappointed as well, it's affected your whole weekend. So your feeling at that point is resentment, maybe still anger, it could be anything. And then your action is you're doing the work that needs to be done, but you may not do it to the best of your ability or focus, because of the feelings that you have involved. And the result is, you may have a work product that's not your best work; there may be errors in it, and it may not be your best product. Jeena Cho: [00:10:28] And the action could also be, you know what I just don't have the capacity to deal with this right now. I'm going to go home, open up a bottle of wine, and I'm going to treat myself for a few glasses, and then we'll see how I feel in the morning about this whole work situation. Jane Springer: [00:10:44] Exactly, that's exactly what can happen as well. And then the result is your resolve to eat healthy for dinner may go out the window, your interaction with your family may be affected because you're still angry and frustrated. So the results are less than ideal, for sure. Jeena Cho: [00:11:15] So when you're working with your client.. I mean, I understand that obviously going home and drinking to excess, or sitting down with a bag of potato chips or a pint of ice cream or whatever may not be the best way to soothe those feelings. Then I also get that you're then saying try eating some pistachios or cashews, instead of eating that gallon of ice cream. But how do you help the clients actually address that underlying feeling? Jane Springer: [00:11:47] The first thing I do is help them identify the process that they just went through, by using the tool. What I tell them is, let's be curious about this; not with a spirit of condemnation, but with curiosity about how this process happens. And also, be compassionate. Because it always is better for yourself when you're being compassionate than when you're in a negative state of mind about yourself. First of all, we're curious about what drove this action and all that, but then I help them to turn it around. And then we use that tool again, but in a way that has a more positive action end result. [00:12:44] So let's say this happened, your partner came to the door and said I need you to have this done by 8 am on Monday. Instead of immediately reacting, I recommend that they stop; take a pause, as you were talking about you're Mindful Pause, stop and take five deep breaths. Take an inhale, hold it for a little bit, and just let it out so that you can decompress that moment right when that happens. Then think about what drove the thought, but then we're going to think about what might be a better action? And you can attack it from the result-action feeling or thought. Or you can attack at the other direction, what thought would you need to come up with that would be better? Because what you're doing is creating new neuropathways; you're going to really develop and use your brain. [00:13:59] And lawyers are smart, so they're going to be able to identify with this. But you want to develop new neuropathways, and then the more you repeat that thought, that action, that feeling, the old thought is going to recede. So instead of reacting like, he's so he's so thoughtless to do this at the last minute to me, your new thought might be, "Okay I can handle this. I've done it before, I can do it again. Perhaps I can work out a way to finish this and still have some family time." But come up with a thought that turns around your brain, so that you can handle it better. And then from that thought, I can figure this out (that's a good one, I use that one a lot) and maybe still have some time with my family or my friends. And then the feeling from that is definitely calmer, you're not going to have that frustration to that level. And then the action you take is, okay well I'm going to work on this from this to this time, and then from this to this time, I'm the set aside for my friends or my family. And the result is, you get the paper done, but you also got at least some time with your family. So I'm helping them work a model that turns around the negative. Jeena Cho: [00:15:29] Does that also involve sometimes helping the clients to set boundaries? Because I think so often that happens with women lawyers, they let everyone pile work on them, without any consideration as to how much work they can realistically do, and do well. Jane Springer: [00:15:48] Yeah, I totally agree with that. One option, and I know that it's intimidating if you're an associate and it's the partner that comes to your door. But you can say I'm sorry, I need to do this right now, or I have plans for the weekend but I will come in early on Monday morning and do whatever it is that they assigned you to do. So yes, I definitely agree on setting reasonable boundaries for sure. Otherwise, they'll just keep dumping that stuff on you. Jeena Cho: [00:16:21] Right. So let's shift gears a little bit, and talk about actually feeling the body. What are some of the suggestions that you have for feeding the body, so that lawyers can get the maximum body and brain power to handle all of these different stressors? Jane Springer: [00:16:40] Well it probably won…
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