July 17, 2026

“The best trial attorneys make time for themselves first. They charge their own batteries so they can show up as the best version of themselves for their clients. Putting your oxygen mask on first isn’t selfish—it’s essential.” —Coach K

Resources

If you’d like to explore some of the tools I use in my own daily spiritual practice, I’ve included links to a few of my favorites below.

• Calm the Chaos Cards – A deck of simple prompts and practices designed to reduce stress, calm your nervous system, and bring more mindfulness into your day.
• AWAKE: Inner Wisdom Cards – A reflection deck that encourages self-awareness, journaling, and deeper personal insight through daily prompts.
• Crystal Singing Sound Bowl – One of my favorite tools for slowing down, regulating my nervous system, and creating a moment of calm before the day begins or ends.

Podcast Transcript

Kevin de la Motte:

Okay. If you exercise, that’s great. Well, this is something that you can incorporate into that. It’s what I do, but exercise is not enough. You need a certain level of spiritual growth. You need something that helps your soul.

Sari de la Motte:

You’re listening to Sari Swear on the Sari Swears podcast.

Kevin de la Motte:

All right. Welcome to Sari Swears. Hey everybody, Kevin de la Motte here. And I’m going to talk today about something that I hold really near and dear. It’s very important to me, but I was a real skeptic about it at first. But I’m going to start with this serious problem that you all have. The fact that you do so much for others. I mean, it’s basically a large part of your job. It’s what you got into this to help people. And as years go by, it just builds and builds to the point where you don’t have much left for yourself. I mean, trial attorneys as a culture basically work their asses off and they’re helping others all the time and they don’t make a lot of time for themselves. I mean, I’ve heard countless clients tell me this, “Well, how do I make time for myself? I don’t have any time and I don’t know why I’m so overwhelmed.”

And I ask them, “Okay, well, what are you doing to take care of yourself? What are you doing to give to yourself first so that you’ll have your batteries charged for your clients and to do all these things for other people?” And usually the answer is just crickets, nothing. Well, I’ll tell you, the best trial attorneys make time for themselves to really… I mean, I’m going to get into the woo-woo and the self-love stuff, but to really love themselves first, to give to themselves first, to charge their batteries first so that they can show up and be the best versions of themselves and the best version of themselves for their clients. So putting your oxygen mask on first is key. And I’m going to get into something that basically helped me put my oxygen mask on first. When Sari was going through cancer and I had the biggest roster of clients I’ve ever had, I had the most things going on I could think of ever.

I was so busy and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and I just kept pushing through, pushing through. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” And then come to find out I wasn’t fine. I was completely burned out. And I got a therapist, a trauma therapist, and it turns out that I was getting this thing called secondary trauma, which we’ve talked about before. And I’ve talked about it at CTC, but we’ve talked about it in episodes before. It’s basically, it’s this vicarious version of trauma where you take on all this stuff, you guys take on all this stuff from your clients and all these cases and how heavy this work is that you do and it weighs on you and it can come out in all kinds of crazy ways. I’ve had clients who have to pull off the side of the road because they’re next to a semi because they’re trucking trial attorneys.

There are so many different versions of this, but really what it boils down to is that being aware of that and then doing the things that you need to do to take care of yourself so that you don’t get burned out. Well, I got burned out and I got my trauma therapist. And one of the first things that she said to me or she asked me, do I have any kind of a spiritual practice? And I was like, “Oh, here we go.” I mean, at the time, and still I don’t have a very good track record or history with say, organized religion. And I basically thought of spirituality as that. I’m like, “I’m not going to get in some ritual or some spiritual practice of giving it all over to God.” Or this version of whatever religious version I had in my head. And I’m not going to get into my issues around organized religion, but I am going to get into this spiritual practice that I have.

And for all the skeptics out there, I know, I know. You might think this is a bunch of hooey. Well, I did too. I mean, I know the mentality is, “Come on, suck it up, buttercup. Just get it together, do your job. It’s what you signed up for. Get this shit done.” Well, your body’s going to take you out anyway. So if you are going to get burned out, if you’re going to be overwhelmed, if you’re going to never give to yourself, charge your batteries, take care of yourself, love yourself, your body’s going to just take you out anyway in all kinds of ways. Heart attacks, strokes. I don’t want to get dark here, but yeah, there’s a lot of things that can happen to you physically when you don’t take care of yourself. And it’s not just this thing of, “Well, I exercise.”

Yeah, okay. If you exercise, that’s great. Well, this is something that you can incorporate into that. That’s what I do. But exercise is not enough. You need a certain level of spiritual growth. You need something that helps your soul, something that can really help with longevity in your life because you’re not always going to have the stamina that you have now. And some of you don’t maybe have the stamina and you’re really looking for something so you’ve come to the right place. So before I start getting into the nuts and bolts of a spiritual practice, I’m going to define it first. Sari likes to do this. I just asked AI, “What’s a spiritual practice?”

And what it told me was a spiritual practice or spiritual practices are intentional regular activities designed to foster personal growth, deepen connection with the divine or inner self, which I call it the universe. It’s helped me make peace with it. And align your life with your core values. They offer a pathway to pause, reflect, and cultivate presence whether through structured religious traditions or secular mindfulness. I go the secular mindfulness route, but if you want to do the structured religious way, that’s fine too. I have plenty of clients where we do inner wisdom work and they swap out the words inner wisdom with God. And that’s fine. Whatever it is in there that you believe in and that helps you, go with that.

But this practice can be incorporated in that is basically what I’m saying. So I gave you a simple explanation that AI gave me. Thank you, AI. I don’t know about you, but I’m a generation Xer and AI is scary. I’m learning how to use it and I really see the value of it. But I saw movies like Terminator and shit like that growing up and I’m worried that it’s going to take over the world and the machines are going to tear us to pieces, but that’s just my weird paranoia from pop culture. Anyway, I digress. So really what I came to, what a spiritual practice was for me is very similar to what I described in that it is something that was a way for me to come back to me, was a way for me to get in touch with what was going on inside me and taking care of that first.

And then it led to all these different things that made for a much more fulfilling life. I was more grounded. I was able to process things like trauma easier. Granted, I had a therapist that helped me and I’m a huge proponent of therapy. If you’ve never had therapy before, I recommend it. It works pretty fucking good. So I had all kinds of different things that I read. My therapist recommended things. So I thought to myself, “Okay, well, I want to do this in a way where I can build this as a habit and do this every day.” Because she had said to me, “You’re at a point where if you don’t do something like this soon, you are going to basically…” I mean, she didn’t say, “You’re going to die.” But stroke, heart attack. My blood pressure was through the roof. I was not doing well.

And she said that this is where it starts. I mean, she would get into this whole thing with, “Take your shoes and socks off and put your toes and wiggle them in the grass or put them right into the earth.” I guess that wasn’t my thing so I didn’t do it. But supposedly it’s something where you’re supposed to get really close and grounded with the earth at first. I got outside. So that’s part of my practice and I’ll get into what that looks like. But I decided to go hiking in the morning. I mean, it was healthy. It was in nature. And I had a big dog that we just got that was 65 pounds that needed to be walked. So I’m like, okay, well, I like getting out in nature. So I started with that. And then I started bringing in other things.

I was learning about box breathing, which is the four square breathing. And I’ve talked about it before. It’s where you breathe in all the way and you hold it for four seconds and then you breathe out all the way and you hold it for four seconds and you do that four times. And it really calms your nervous system, neutralizes things, gets you that homeostasis place, that neutral calms state. I would start with that. Well, I would do my hike. I’d get to a certain point and there’s this water’s edge that’s pretty that’s by our house. And I stand there with the dog and the dog’s actually well-behaved. She sits and I do my box breathing. And once I’ve done that, then I set my intention for the day. And I’m sure you’ve probably heard things like this before. Basically, it’s just how I want to be, how I’m going to be today and speaking in present tense.

This is connected to manifestation and you have to speak in present tense or at least it’s akin to it the way you approach it. So everything is how I am going to be today or how I am or I am when it comes to the affirmation piece because then I would say affirmations or I do say affirmations and then gratitude. So I start with, let me give you an example. And actually my intention, now that I’m thinking about it, is actually affirmation as well. So these two can go together. You can separate them and just say to me, “This is how I’m going to be today. This is what I’m going to do today.” I think of things like if I have a two day training that we just had last week, I think about how I want to show up and how things are going to go in that training when I show up this way.

But how I do this intention and affirmation is I just say out to the universe, out to the water, “I am calm. I am patient. I am curious. I am integrous. I am honest. I am present.” And part of this intention and affirmation is also connected to my recovery journey. I’m a recovering alcoholic drug addict. And I bring in integrity and honesty, because I’ll be honest with you, when I was or when I was grappling with addiction like I was. I was not a very honest person and I did a lot of things that weren’t in me acting in integrity. So I remind myself every day that I am an integrous person. I am whole. I am honest. And that is one of my affirmations and intentions that I set out for the day. I also play through in my mind, in another episode I’ve talked about manifestation, play through in my mind how that’s going to show up in the day.

If I’m training with people, I visualize interacting with them in this patient, calm way. And another one that I like to bring into my affirmation is I am playful. I am joyous. These are the kinds of things to remind yourself throughout your day because you are these things. We just get off kilter because of the saboteur or whatever shit is getting in our way mentally during the day. And this is to remind you of that. And at the end of this portion of my spiritual practice, I say gratitude. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for my wife. I’m grateful for my daughter. I’m grateful that my wife is healthy. Five years past her cancer and she’s on the other side of that. She’s out of the woods. I’m grateful for my home. I’m grateful for so many things. I speak through all the things that I’m grateful for.

And I say thank you. And I say that out to the universe. I say, “Thank you. I am grateful.” And then I finish that up and walk up the hill and finish out my hike with my dog. And then I come home. I exercise more. I lift some weights. I do all that stuff. And once I’m done and I’m stretching, I lay down on the floor and I continue my box breathing and my affirmations, intention, and gratitude. That stuff that I just told you, I say that. And then I end with the box breathing. And I always say I am grateful at the end. I do this every day. Now the full hike and the workout and everything else, it’s more abbreviated on the weekends, but I never forget to do my breathing and to do my affirmation, intention, gratitude work. And I do this in a way where it reminds me throughout my day and I remind myself of these things if I start to get sideways.

And I have gotten into such a practice here that when I start to feel like I’m getting sideways, things aren’t feeling right. I immediately go into box breathing and I immediately tell myself these affirming things to bring me back. This is a practice that you do for yourself. It’s for you. It’s just for you first thing. You’re putting your oxygen mask on first. And it is of the utmost importance for people that do so much every day like yourselves for other people.

Sari de la Motte:

If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve probably heard me say practice makes progress. And what better way to practice than with a fellow group of trial attorneys in person and with me? Our two day Command the Courtroom masterclass sessions put the H2H method into action and I’m there every step of the way with live coaching and feedback and Finnish mama fierceness. And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what PI attorney Sean had to say about our two-day masterclass.

Sean:

My biggest takeaway is that I now have a new approach as to how I’m going to enter the courtroom. It’s a new energy, a new spirit, and it really gets me excited because that’s actually the more fun part of what we do. And I’m looking forward to taking advantage of everything that I learned here.

Sari de la Motte:

Now seats are limited. These are small group, high impact courtroom sessions, not an auditorium full of bored attorneys and dull lectures. If you want to change the way you go to trial and turn your practice into progress, visit sariswears.com/masterclass to register for a 2026 class today. That’s sariswears.com/masterclass.

Kevin de la Motte:

And notice what I’m doing here, notice how this goes. I’m building this habit and I’m keeping this habit. The three things that are very obvious here, at least I’ll tell you, are I am doing something for myself that’s just for me. I am speaking in the present tense and it’s repetitive. I do this in a repetitive nature and I do this every day. It’s how you build this habit. If you do this every day, it’ll become something that’s just rote. It’ll become something that’s just a part of you. It’s this habit that you have, but you have to do it every day. And I recommend you keep it simple at first to try to work your way through this. If you just want to have a breathing practice with affirmation and gratitude, that’s fine, but something that you can do every single day that’s for you that charges your batteries.

I know a lot of you exercise and I do too and you can fold this into your exercise practice. And that works great for me. Another thing that you can do is journal. And I don’t journal at the beginning of my day. Sari does, she does that where she just brain drains. And I recommend if that’s something where you wake up where you’re just flooded with all these thoughts, to drain out all those thoughts on the page and that can be part of a spiritual practice. But I like to end my day with journaling. So after I have gone through my day, I did my spiritual practice, I went through the day. I want to reflect on how that day went. And I journal. I write out what my experience was like. And what that does is it builds your awareness around this practice that you’re doing.

And it reinforces learning. It does all kinds of things for the brain to tell your brain that this is something that’s good for me and also this is something that I’m doing every day. This is something that I’m putting first and you’re writing it down. Writing it down is key, doing that at the end. So if you do abbreviated version of what I’m saying or you create your own, make sure that you fold in journaling into it because journaling is something when you put pen to paper that really activates the part of the brain that starts learning about this and building this habit in a very particular kind of way. And I’m going to say journaling is what ties this all together. This spiritual practice is an act of self-love. It’s an act of self-care. And that may be hard for some of you.

Self-love, putting yourself first. But this is putting your oxygen mask on first. This is important if you want to continue with what you’re doing. It’s a longevity thing. It’s a long game here. Continuing doing this practice so that you can show up the best version of yourself and love yourself. I love you. I care about you. Do the same for yourself. And I wanted to bring up some other tools that I used and actually I still use here and there, but they really helped me start with this practice because they made it a tactile, kind of a fun, enjoyable experience. If you go back to, I had talked about Atomic Habits in other episodes and Sari’s talked about it too, but there’s a concept in there called habit stacking. And really what it boils down to is that if you could stack something that’s fun on top of a thing that, let’s say you have to do or you want to get that thing done, you want to build a habit, you do something fun with it.

Like me, I wanted to do the nighttime ritual and I wanted to do that every night. So I made sure that I played a record when I did it. And I would start by listening to a little bit of music, write out my ritual and do my practice and then I would end with some music. And I enjoyed it. It made it more of a pleasurable experience than something I just have to do. It’s something that I get to do. So that’s why I’m showing you these things. So there’s these cards. Sari’s brought these up before, I’ve brought them up before, but different kinds of cards. You can just pull a card at the beginning of your day. I have this one here to calm the chaos. And this is great for people with anxiety or people that are in stressful jobs. I wonder if there’s any attorneys that have that.

Trial attorneys specifically. I think so. Most of my clients have this deck and if they don’t, probably if you listen to this episode and you say you don’t, I’ll get it to you because this is something that is a great deck of cards. What it does is immediately… Let me give you an example. I’ll pull one out. It immediately helps you calm your nervous system. I mean, it’s simple. There’s more description on the back, but just reading this, I pulled this card. It’s okay to let go.

Actually, let’s read the details on the back. “Holding onto items that no longer serve you creates unnecessary stress, discomfort and chaos. Many of us hold onto objects we don’t need, filling our lives with clutter. Look around your home today and take stock of things you may be holding onto. Find one thing you can get rid of. It could be a magazine, a piece of clothing or memento from a trip. Spend a moment honoring the object, then remove it from your home. Releasing things that are not directly supporting your health and happiness opens up more space for the things that do.” Look at that. The first fucking card I pulled out of the deck. That helps me. Maybe it helps you too. I hope it does. But see, this is a way to prompt you into some kind of a practice and this actually gives you something to do.

So you could make it as simple as once a day you grab from a deck like this, to calm the chaos. I got another one here. This one is Inner Wisdom Cards, AWAKE: Inner Wisdom Cards. I love this one. And this one’s pretty woo because you open it up and if you’ve got the video podcast going on, you can see what I’m doing here. I pulled out a crystal that’s out of this box. So yeah, I usually just give it a kiss, but this one’s great too. I mean, look at this card, bliss. And then you look into the, there’s a booklet in here that tells you about it and what that means. And there’s some of these cards that are connected to archetypes, which are really interesting. Archetypes that are these ancient folklore and different characters that are connected to storytelling that a lot of people know, like the truth sayer, the seer, these different archetypes, even the mother, the father.

You could pull the card and it can say what it’s about and how it relates to your day. And that’s a journal prompt. You can sit down and write in a journal. You can design this however you like and I just want to give you some tools to play with. The cards are great. Another thing, something that just helps you get in tune to a certain vibration, well, it is a sound bowl. We love them here. We use them a lot in our different things that we do. And I’m bringing it out right now. If you’re not on the video podcast, you won’t see me doing it, but you can hear it. I’m going to do it right now. You just take this tube, this, what do you call this? Not a mallet. Sound bowl thingy. And you just go around the bowl and it creates a vibration that’s in a certain key. And this is designed from, what is the stone that this was cut into?

Angel gold. Oh, jade. Yeah, white light jade. So this was cut out of jade. Let me do it again. Sound. I mean, listen to that. And you can even hum to it. I’m getting woo on you people, but this is something that you can do to calm your nervous system. Actually, vibration is something that activates the vagal nerve, the vagus nerve in your body that will release all kinds of soothing chemicals. So when we hum, you wonder why when we hum, it makes us feel kind of relaxed and calm? It’s because that vibration hits that nerve that runs through your stomach. It runs all the way through your body and it releases chemicals when you… And this vibration here, when you hum along with it, it’s releasing those soothing, calming chemicals, oxytocin, and those ones that just make you feel all relaxed. You can do that just by humming along to a bowl and that can be part of your practice.

Get creative with this. I’m always recommending that you do creative things because you’re fucking creative people. You might forget about it, but you are. And get creative with something like this that’s just for you, that fills your cup every single day. I can’t tell you all the benefits of this because there’s just so many, but one of the major ones are, like I said, it replenishes. It charges your batteries. It lowers stress. It calms your nervous system. I’ll tell you what, when you’re able to do something like this for yourself on a regular basis, you get less resentful. And I know you’re out there. I see you. I know you’re there. I know you’re resentful. I know you’ve got things that you’re resentful about. If you’re doing so much for so many people and you’re exhausted, resentment just creeps in. And this helps with resentment because you’re taking care of yourself first.

You’re not in this place of, “Goddammit, I got to do this again.” Or, “I’m always doing this. I don’t have any time for myself.” No, you make time for you. You’re the architect here. You can create your spiritual practice and bring it into your calendar and do it every day. You’ve got the power here. You know that. I’ve used this to help me with recovery and addiction. There are so many different ones out there that actually have this problem too, are struggling with it or maybe haven’t come to it yet. But if you do, this can help. This can help you with coming back to you and giving yourself what you need and not numbing yourself out with drugs and alcohol or like a lot of you do with just scrolling social media. These are the kinds of things that you can give yourself what you need right now and how you want to feel right now. You have the power here.

This practice is a practice of putting your oxygen mask on first. This is something that is essential. I recommend it to you all and I’m not a doctor, but I’m going to prescribe it. Start doing something like this. It will make all the difference in your life. Trust me. And I’m here for you. I do these episodes because I want to help you and I want you all to continue being the fantastic trial attorneys that you are. I get misty and weepy. I’m that guy. I am absolutely blessed and totally fucking grateful to work with y’all. You are amazing people and I don’t want you to burn out and fade away. I want you to be able to keep doing this great stuff that you do because you’re changing the fucking world. If these kinds of things interest you, which I’m sure they do, I mean, feeling better interests you, I would think, I’m a coach and I have a coaching program called Momentum Coaching.

And if you want to access it and get a sample session with me, it’s a free session to just try this stuff out. I’ve got a lot of these different tools that you can work with and we can work together and you’ve got somebody to point out your blind spots and help you along this journey of yours. Well, go to sariswears.com/coaching and you can click on that sample session button and you can get a session with me. I love you all and I love doing these episodes with you and I look forward to the next one. Talk to you soon.