Heath & Wellness

Integration not disintegration.

February 9, 2007

Waterfall Much of the stress so many attorneys feel in the day-to-day practice comes from what Steven Keeva, author of Transforming Practices, refers to as disintegration. The key to creating a law practice that serves your life – instead of a life that serves your law practice – is to integrate the two. According to Keeva, signs of disintegration include:- Feeling like you don’t know yourself- Feeling like your life is living you, rather than vice versa- You don’t really feel aware of what’s going on around you- You feel out of control of your life- You rarely, if ever, take time to reflect on the big questions- You exhibit some type of obsessive behavior. If you recognize any of these signs, you may want to begin to find ways to create a new way of practicing law and running your law practice. By creating a meaningful inner life, you will nourish your professional life, “so that what you do becomes more of an expression of who you are.”

While such thinking may seem very “new age” to many attorneys, it is not. Oliver Wendell Holmes gave similar advice many years ago in a letter to a young man just starting his legal career: “For your sake I hope that when your work seems to present only mean details, you may realize that every detail has the mystery of the universe behind it and may keep your heart with an undying faith.”

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