July 24, 2026

“Anxiety isn’t something you eliminate. It’s something you learn to be with. And when you stop letting it drive the bus, it can become one of your greatest strengths.” —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.
• Anxiety: A philosophical guide by Samir Chopra – A refreshing perspective on anxiety that encourages you to step outside your thoughts instead of being consumed by them.
• Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle – A modern classic on mindfulness and presence. Tolle teaches practical ways to quiet the constant mental chatter, observe your thoughts without judgment, and stay grounded in the present moment.

Podcast Transcript

Kevin de la Motte:

Hey everybody. Kevin de la Motte here and another episode of Sari Swears. Today, I’m going to be talking about anxiety and anxiety is a thing that we all struggle with, but especially, you trial attorneys, it can be debilitating. For a lot of you trial attorneys, it’s just the way. It’s how you operate. So many of my clients come to me with anxiety-related topics or being just in the grips of anxiety. So today, I will share with you some of the tools and strategies that I’ve developed over the years, working with trial attorneys and working with my own anxiety and learning how to be with it and be with it in a healthy way and even use it to my advantage and you using it to your advantage and my clients using it to their advantage.

I have a couple resources that I’m going to be taking these things from. One of them, it’s a really interesting book that I just got recently called Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide and it’s by Samir Chopra. And the approach is that you come just from that, from a philosophical approach with your anxiety. And they use imagery of archetypes and different kinds of old Greek mythology, those characters to try to line it up in a way where it’s part of the Jungian science or Jungian psychology and also Sigmund Freud because they started with the same kinds of things using archetypes, using Greek mythology with their work.

Well, in this philosophical approach, it’s using those kinds of characters to start taking the anxiety itself, looking at it and going, “What is this like? What character is this like? What action is this like?” and then you’re able to take your anxiety and put it outside of you and take a philosophical approach to it and look at it from the outside looking in rather than it being inside overtaking you. It’s similar to saboteur work where we want to be aware of it and we want to be able to put it outside of us and not have it on us all the time. And that’s why I thought this book was fascinating to be able to approach anxiety in this way.

Another book was, of course it’s a classic, but Power of Now, which is by Eckhart Tolle. It’s been around for close to 30 years. It’s a great book and it’s really helpful in helping you to understand what mindfulness is and getting into a practice with it. It’s a brilliant book. I highly recommend both of these books, Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide, and then of course, Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle. So I’m going to get into some of the tools that you can use and I don’t want to say that I can cure anxiety or anxiety isn’t something that is a very tough affliction to work with, but what I do want to do is show you and help you find ways to be with it in a healthy way.

And I found this with my clients and found that using mindfulness and awareness practices, breathing practices, these kinds of things can really help reduce anxiety. And I have some case studies that we’ll go through, so that you can hear about actual situations that have happened and how the people have surmounted anxiety and learned to be with it. Because being a trial attorney, it is anxiety inducing … It’s anxiety inducing by nature. It’s this process that you’re in where you’re up against it and you have the other side has all these resources and it’s just you most times. And you have limited resources and you’re constantly having the other side attacking you and throwing things at you and you have to pivot and adjust and not be overtaken by your anxiety.

You’re working through this all day long every day. You’re in a job where you go into trial and it’s all on you and you’ve put out all the money and you’re standing there just basically speaking for your client and it’s a lot of pressure. Anxiety can overtake you in so many different situations. This profession that you’re in, it’s a brilliant, amazing profession and you people, you trial attorneys, are brilliant and amazing and it’s hard and anxiety can be a real tough factor that comes into play. And I just want a disclaimer here, I’m not a therapist, I’m not a doctor, but I am a coach that has worked with many different trial attorneys on these particular approaches to help them with their anxiety.

One of the approaches out of The Power of Now book, Eckhart Tolle, that’s just brilliant is this concept or approach of watching the thinker. And basically what it is you’re letting your thoughts go by and you’re observing them and you’re watching this thinking process that’s going on in your head and it’s an observational approach. And this approach right here is the start of starting to lower your anxiety because that voice that’s attacking you is not the voice that you have to listen to, but to learn how to slow down and be with it, to learn how to watch the thinking process. And that’s what I’m going to get into and help you with here.

And to be honest, currently, most trial attorneys, most of you out there are probably just pushing this stuff down, pushing these thoughts that are racing through your head, these anxiety thoughts. You’re just pushing them down and pushing through or you’re buffering just to get past these anxious thoughts. And what happens is you end up getting motivated by them. You end up doing things that come from those anxious thoughts. And when you’re buffering and pushing down, you’re not being with, you’re just pushing right past it. So it’s going to come up in all kinds of ugly ways like trauma does, but it’s going to be something that gets you in this reactive mode and you’re not having forethought, you’re not having intention for your actions.

And anxiety puts us in that state. Anxiety is almost the exact opposite of mindfulness in that it makes you just click in gear from this very survival instinct, primitive place because you are so overrun with these anxious thoughts. My coach the other day we were talking about, she said to me, “What you focus on grows.” And that’s similar to what Sari talks about and I talk about what we focus on. What you focus on, you create. But when it comes to jurors, if we focus on the other side’s case, we’re making that important rather than focusing on our case and our principles.

So this is similar to that in that what you focus on grows. Well, you can focus on anxiety and it grows like a fungus, this stuff and it’s just insidious and it can work its way into everything. Where if you focus on more wiser thoughts and being intentional and coming from a place that’s more of your higher self, well, that grows like a plant, not like a fungus that anxiety can do. And anxiety will overtake you like a fungus if you let it. If you’re not focusing on the present and you’re just focusing on all of those things that could happen or, “What if this happens?” all of that stuff and not in a powerful way of, “What if,” insert an empowering belief or thought. It’s more, “What if,” insert fear, “I’m on this plane. What if this plane crashes?” these kinds of thoughts that we let.

If we let them run rampant in our brains, they will consume us. There is a concept called metacognition and I bring it up because it’s pretty much what we’re talking about here if you’re coming from a mindfulness approach. I did another AI search and the answer gave me, “Metacognition, knowing your own intellectual strengths, weaknesses, prior knowledge and emotional tendencies.” And this is something that, if you know these things ahead of time, you can spot them. You can see when anxiety’s coming or anxiety could potentially drive the bus in your life and then slow down and give room for these other thoughts, these wiser thoughts. And I’ll get into teaching you how to get into mindfulness practice.

But first, let’s talk about a couple case studies. Let me tell you a story. Now this first one I’m going to talk about, it’s a client of mine and they’ve given me permission to share this story. There’s no specifics in their names or names of other people or anything of that nature, but it is what they struggled with and how they overcame it. So a few years back, I had a client who came in and was talking to me about they were interested in coaching. And they said, “I don’t know if this is something that’s a therapy issue or what it is, but I’m just going to bring it up because it’s something I’m struggling with.”

And they said, “I have this overwhelming anxiety and it’s just debilitating and it runs everything. And I feel like, over the years, I’ve just decided that this is the thing that makes me a better attorney or this is the thing that will make me point out all of the issues in a case. And I let it run that way. And at times, it can be so overwhelming that all I’m thinking about is all of the worst cases, so much so that it makes me not even want to get out of bed sometimes. And I think it’s related to some pain I have.” And we were talking and I said, “Oh really? You think it’s related to chronic pain?”

We talked about different things that have happened and he’d gone through in his life that maybe were part of this pain, but there were also situations in his life where he was less stressed and some of the pain started to relieve. So over months of conversations about his anxiety, awareness practice of being able to slow down and being able to be mindful and check in with his body and see what’s going on there and tension, we really were working through what the things he needed to do that would be a good practice for him. And he came up with a mindfulness practice where he would just sit outside and he would just pay attention to the wind blowing through the trees and smells, different things he could hear, but really getting attuned to nature and things that are right there and being present with those things.

And he would practice this every day and it was helping calm his nervous system and he was feeling more relaxed and he was doing this every day. It was really he was seeing benefits from it, but he could do that for a time and then the thoughts would start racing in and then he would just kick right into gear and go to work or get right back into whatever he was doing and that was the motivation. So there was a point where he was feeling like he was getting a bit stuck. And we really started talking about one of these things that he kept saying that he just doesn’t do and he doesn’t want to do and that was journaling. He really, really just would push back so much on journaling and just didn’t …

At first, he said, “Well, what if somebody gets a hold of it and they can find out things about me? It’s something that could smear my name as an attorney.” There was all that kind of fear that would come in. His anxiety, a saboteur saying, “No, don’t write this stuff down.” And then he just started to realize that, “Wait, okay, maybe that is what’s keeping me from writing this down is my anxiety.” So he finally started writing down his thoughts and just putting it out on the paper and doing his mindfulness practice, started bringing in a breathing practice that was in with that and doing that every day. And when he came to me, I remember he was telling me, I said, “What’s your pain level right now?” And he said, “Ah, I think it’s about a six, but I think that’s just because I’ve gotten used to it.”

And some days, he’d come in and say, “Oh my God, it’s like an eight or a nine. Oh, I’m in so much pain.” And over time, as we were doing this work, he started to say, “Whoa, I’d say it’s about a four or five,” “Oh, It’s about maybe a three or a two,” to, “I don’t have any pain today.” And we worked together for a little over a year and his pain was gone. He was not in pain anymore. His thought processes were a lot more connected to, “What do I really want to think and believe right now?” and his anxiety was lowering. And we decided … He decided, he said, “You know what? I think I’m going to pause our coaching for a while,” and he did.

And then he came back and we coached. We’re actually coaching now. And he still is pain free. He says every once in a while, “I get these aches,” things like that, but he keeps his practice. His practice itself, his legal practice and his trial lawyering has gone off the charts. The man has had these incredible results and he’s pain free. He was doing well before. I’m not saying that coach with me and he became this huge eight-figure verdict guy, which it turned out that way. But I will say that not only are his results better now, his life is more fulfilling. He experiences more joy and he’s pain free.

And this is all through mindfulness, breathing practice and the different things that I described to you that he’s doing every day in the journal. He’s still doing them and it’s still working. This is proof that this works. And like I said before, I’m not saying that I have a silver bullet here or a magic wand, but I am saying that I have some things that can help. And I know that you’re struggling. I know that you’re having issues with anxiety. We all do. And I know some days it’s better than others and some days it’s debilitating, but these are some approaches that can help.

Hey, you trial attorneys. Kevin de la Motte here, lead mindset coach over at Sari DLM and I just want to offer an opportunity for you to get into some coaching. And you don’t even need to do something that’s hugely a commitment right now. All you need to do is click on a sample session button. You can click on that and you can get a session with me and we can dive into some coaching that you want to do. We can work on some concepts around coaching. If you don’t really know much about it, you can learn more about it. You can see what it’s like coaching with me.

We can get you some clarity right out the gate. It’s a 30-minute sample session and you’ll be able to come in and we can work through. We’ll cover some serious ground quickly. It’s sariswears.com/coaching. And once you’ve clicked that link and you get the sample session, you’ll get to be able to coach with me and figure out what this thing’s all about. And I’d love to see you. I’d love to talk to you and I’ll talk to you soon.

Now I’m going to tell you another story and it’s a story about somebody that I know pretty well, me. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life. To say struggle the past few years, it’s been a hell of a lot better. I wouldn’t say it’s much of a struggle anymore, but it flares up at times. But anxiety almost killed me. I am a recovering alcoholic, drug addict. And as a little kid, I was short, awkward, never felt like I fit in anywhere I was. And as I got older, as I got into adolescence and teenage years, my anxiety was so debilitating and I was so fearful of so many things. And then somebody handed me a joint and a bottle of beer and things of that nature and I started feeling less anxious.

I started even feeling good in my own skin. And hey, for a while there, that stuff was working. It was helping me with my anxiety. It was helping me with my confidence. And of course, alcoholism, drug addiction, it’s a progressive disease in that it gets worse and worse and worse and you degenerate if you continue. So fast forward to me a few years ago when I started back on my sobriety journey and I was overrun with anxiety, I didn’t have anything to push it down anymore. And I had to be with it. And I made a commitment that I was going to. And I got into AA and had a sponsor and therapist. I had a therapist for addiction or an addiction counselor. I had an EMDR trauma therapist and I had a coach.

I had a lot of support, but I started to find ways to slow down enough and to deal with my anxiety. See, I knew my saboteur, and my saboteur, I knew what my saboteur did. I knew when it showed up. I did all my saboteur work. But the big problem was I could have it all in this good container at work, but I would come home and then I would be overrun. I was overrun with anxiety. There were no guardrails anymore. I would go outside of work and I didn’t have this structure in place and my anxiety was horrible. It was just absolutely awful. So I really, really started mindfulness practices. I started doing different approaches from my therapist that were the box breathing like I’ve brought to you guys and different intention exercises, spiritual practice.

But really the thing that was helping me with my anxiety was the awareness that I realized, “You know what? I could use this with the saboteur. Well, I can also use it with my anxiety and these thoughts that just flood me.” I just figured all that noise, that was just the noise that was there and you can’t really do anything with it at all, “Don’t even pay attention to it. Just let it swarm around, quiet down a little bit. And then as soon as you get off work, it’s crazy as fuck, but hell, that’s just what life is.” No, I started doing this work. I started doing mindfulness work where I would just slow down and pay attention to it.

I also started on medication. I took Wellbutrin and it helped, but it wasn’t the magic solution either. The medication wasn’t. It helped with my body a bit. It helped regulate some of my chemicals, but the thoughts were still absolutely insane. So that was really when the thought work had to really serve me at that point. Because if I didn’t have that, I would have gone right back to alcoholism, drugs or just being the biggest asshole that nobody would want to be around me and it would bleed into my work and everything else and I wasn’t going to let that happen. So I really made a choice to be intentional with my life and with my anxiety.

Now, before I used to think, “Oh my God, my fucking brain,” and once I found out about ADHD that I had it and I had a really full-blown version of it, I was like, “Oh my God, my brain, my brain sucks. Why is my brain like this?” Now my brain’s amazing. I may have ADHD. I may have anxiety, potentially crippling social anxiety. These two things, anxiety, ADHD, they can work together. They can be a part of that duality thing that I was telling you about before when it comes to that survival instinct in the brain and your amygdala’s firing, your limbic system is going crazy, but you can have one thought that is a very limiting thought and a very anxiety-inducing thought. And you can also be wiser though and they can be together in one space, but then you can say,” I’m going to pick that one.”

That one will still be there. The one that’s not the one that serves you, but the other one’s the one you’re choosing, the one that’s going to serve you. The same thing goes with my ADHD. Now this is more than duality here. You got ADHD going on, you got anxiety, you got all these things, but I’ve learned through having an ADHD coach and different practices I’ve done that I can choose where I want to come from and I can lower this anxiety because of those choices and I can bring that autonomy and that choice into my life. So now instead of my brain, “Goddammit, I hate my brain,” no, my brain’s amazing. I love my brain. Your brains are amazing.

Now your brains can get hijacked. Your brains can be flooded with all kinds of anxious thoughts with your job, being in trial, being in front of a judge and jury and having all that high stakes on you. Anxiety can be crushing and it’s a part of you. It’s a part of your brain. You can be with it and you can take a breath and you can sidestep that anxiety and choose something else that’s going to serve you. And that’s what makes this kind of work pivotal in the moment because you do have amazing brains. Okay, so now let’s talk about some things that can help the rubber meet the road. I’ve waxed poetic here for a bit, but the tools you can bring in, strategies you can bring in that will help with this.

Now I talked about a breathing practice, four-square breathing, and that’s the breathing where you breathe in, hold it for four seconds and breathe out, hold it for seconds and do that four times. Now I’ve brought this up in several episodes. It’s not just because I’m a one-trick pony, it’s because this shit works, especially that one. If you want something that’s going to neutralize your nervous system and bring you right where you need to be quickly, well that’s one of the tools, this four-square breathing. The next one is a mindfulness practice, like I talked about that case study of my client.

You go outside or even sit somewhere in your office and focus on something that you like or brings good thoughts forward to you. It can be even a plaque that’s on your wall or a picture of your daughter or wife or your dog. It can be you just outside focusing on a flower. This is very Buddhist philosophy, but it works. And by focusing on that and breathing and just focusing on that thing, being mindful of that thing and at the same time being mindful of what’s going on in your body, tension and thoughts that run through, but those thoughts can run through and pass by. The two windows exercise, that awareness exercise, the visualization that I’ll have in the show notes for this episode as well, you can click on it and it’s a voice visualization from me.

And what it does is it teaches you how to have thoughts come into your mind and let them pass through. And you just let them pass through. So as you’re paying attention to that tree, the flower, the picture of your dog and breathing, those thoughts are coming through and they just pass by. And that’s part of the practice. The thought comes through, they pass by. It’s the concept that comes from my visualization and you’re just taking that out and using it in this particular place in mindfulness practice. Another way, another approach that’s helpful is called playing the whole thing out. They do it in AA too. It’s like, “What’s the worst-case scenario?” but I’ve gotten it from therapy and also coaching sessions.

I do this when I am working with a client, like say a debrief and we’re talking about saying it wasn’t a great result that happened in trial. And shit, it could have been something as bad as it looks in your brain, your anxiety is telling you malpractice, that, “Wee-wee-wee,” alarm is going off for malpractice. “Okay, malpractice, that’s what’s coming up.” And then we play out, “Okay, say you get slapped with a malpractice suit. What next?” And we play out that worst-case scenario, play it out to the very end. And once you get to that very end, by the end, it’s pretty absurd. It could be something like living under a bridge, which I’m not saying that’s not possible, but I don’t think that’s going to happen for you.

You lose your house, you lose your family. And by the end of it, you’re just realizing how extreme and absurd this is. So then you go, “Okay, now let’s play it the other way,” and you play it through in the best-case scenario. And I’ve done this where we have a trial debrief and we play out the best-case scenario because they had a great trial. But we’ve also done this in a bad outcome in a trial and seeing what’s possible. So playing this all out and visualizing this in your mind instead of letting anxious thoughts just overtake everything. Play out the worst, play out the best, decide, “I’m going to play out the best,” and what that would look like.

And this is very similar to a technique that I do with my clients called what if can go either way. And someone will say in the session, “Well, what if this happened? Shit,” let’s use malpractice again, “What if I get slapped with a malpractice suit?” And I say, “Well, yeah, that’s a what if that’s really crippling, isn’t it? What if it really makes your brain spin. But what about trying another what if? The what if can go either way. It can go a different way. What if that doesn’t happen? And then we can go into a what if of something positive, something that’s empowering and go down that line.”

Because this trains you at any moment when the what if comes in, the anxiety what if comes in, you can pivot. You are the architect, you have control here. You can decide to think something different. So let’s try a different what if. Not, “What if the plane’s going to crash?” “What if I’m going to get to my destination and I’m going to have an amazing trip?” You can choose these thoughts. The next technique or next thing/tool is journaling. And I journal at the end of my day. And you can journal in the beginning, in the morning. You can journal at a certain point in your day. You can journal at different parts of your day because you want to take things down and certain learning or some thought keeps coming up and you want to write it out and like, “What the heck’s that all about?”

But the practice that I say that just start doing right away right now is just the end of day because you can reflect. Reflection’s important. So that’s another tool. Planning, planning ahead. I’ve talked about another podcast, just sitting down on Sunday and planning out your week and doing those kinds of things, forecasting your month, year. But planning, what planning does is you’re in control, you’re deciding your destiny. Having a plan reduces anxiety. That is just a thing. There’s no mystery as to why when you’re working with a therapist around your anxiety and they start working, helping you bring in structures to start planning your life and planning intention into your life because that reduces anxiety. You’re taking control of the situation and it helps with the big picture. You can pull back.

Instead of being so focused on the minutia and so on every little detail that anxiety wants you to be focused on, you can pull back and plan and look at the big picture. Look at the strategy of your case, the strategy of your life, rather than, “All these little, tiny things that are going to get in the way and I’m fucked.” And I’m going to bring up cards again and Calm the Chaos Cards. I brought them up in another episode and they are fantastic cards. I love them and they help with anxiety. They’re designed. It’s called Calm the Chaos. They are designed to help calm your nervous system first thing at the beginning of the day. That deck, I’ll put that link in the show notes for you to grab too because I totally think they’re a great deck of cards and it’s a great way to start your day.

Helps you change your perspective around things. Flip the script a bit right out the gate, have that control and that choice right away. And then like I said, there’s medication. It may not work for you. It may take a while to find the right one, but anxiety medication does help. If you find the right one, what happened for me is it just brought that line down a little bit. That line of anxiousness, that line of tension, that line of anxiety just came down a little bit. And the drug that I take, it helps release the chemicals that I need. And it just brought down that line a little bit so that I had a bit of a head start rather than being flooded right out the gate first thing, beginning of the day.

Therapy, brings that up a lot. Therapy is a huge help to have somebody in your life that can be a referee, that can help you with your past stuff, help you with healing, help point out, “Sounds like this is anxiety,” but having that person as a support in your life is huge. A coach, a coach does similar things, but you’re really working in the present moment and mainly with the things that I’m talking about intention and thought work and how you’re going to approach something and what’s your motivation. Having a person that can have that eye on things for you at all times, help bring that back for you. Say, “Remember this thing that we talk about? Here, this is a thing. This will help you.” Coaching is huge.

And all of these things are just going to help you get back to you because you can learn from these things. Anxiety, you can use this to your advantage. You have a brilliant brain. Yes, anxiety creates all kinds of pitfalls for you. It can make things so much harder for you if that’s your focus. But this is stuff to help so that you can really just get back to that brilliant brain of yours and have that neutral zone, that homeostasis. That’s what we want. You might be thinking to yourself like, “Okay, yeah, that’s great. If I had all kinds of time, I would do that.” Well, you don’t have all kinds of time. No, we all have the same amount of time. But there are things that you can do that are simple, that can help bring this into your life on a regular basis.

And I’ve talked about calendaring, blocking it out. You have a time every day that is none-shall-pass time. It’s your spiritual practice. It’s exercise. It’s things like that that are filling your cup right out the gate. This is another thing. A mindfulness practice, breathing practice, awareness practice, that’s part of your life, of your calendar you do every day. And it’s a none-shall-pass kind of thing. I say that it’s from, I don’t know if any of you watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but the knight that’s stopping the king from going across the bridge and says, “None shall pass,” and then there’s the whole scene where he cuts his arms and legs off. It’s ridiculous. It actually sounds horrible, but it’s funny, but none shall pass.

And that is something that you are creating boundaries around this. And what you are basically saying to yourself and the universe is that, “This is important. I will do this first. I will take care of myself first.” You can set reminders. Now reminders can be very anxiety inducing. So the reminders that I have have a nice, soft, calm tone to them. It’s not this, “Wee-wee-wee,” or some ringtone that’s going to drive me crazy. It’s just the soft tone that goes, “Bum-bum,” and I look and I go, “Oh, okay. Yeah. That reminds me that I need to get mindful right now.” This can help. And if you have reminders on a regular basis, it ingrains this, it makes this a new neural pathway and that’s what we want.

To have this breathing practice like I’m talking about in mindfulness practice, having it so that it’s something that’s written throughout your day is what’s going to really create this new neural pathway that, “When anxiety comes in, I have control. I have a choice.” And this is the neural pathway that you’re going to build, create and sustain by doing these practices, doing them regularly. And not just doing them first thing in the morning, doing them throughout your day and they don’t have to be long. It can be like one or two minutes. Box breathing all the way through is maybe like 90 seconds. Just bring that in. Bring that in throughout your day. Have that little soft reminder and also fold in those mindfulness practices throughout.

Go out to lunch. Don’t just eat your lunch at your desk, crouched over your desk with sauce everywhere. I don’t know. Go outside. Eat your lunch under a tree. Be mindful with your food. Chew your food and taste it and be with it, “Hmm, this tastes good.” Chew slower. That’s a mindfulness practice. There is a thing called mindfulness eating. It’s out there. It’s very popular. This could even help with weight loss or at least the way that you eat your food and the way you consume food. And the real cheat sheet here, the real cut through is that when your mind gets spinning, get curious. When your mind is flooded, get curious. “Oh, hmm, what’s that all about?” Opposing counsel sends an email and even in the fucking subject line, you’re like, “Grrrr. Wait, hold on a second here. What’s going on with me? Hmm? Maybe I need to take a breath. Well, that really messed with me. I need to take a moment.”

And then maybe you’ll come back and respond, maybe you won’t respond, but you’re not going to do it from this reactive anxiety nature, so slow down. Get curious when you get flooded with these thoughts, with these feelings. Get outdoors and breathe. Be intentional about this stuff. Honestly, and getting into the benefits of this stuff, I talked about that case study of my client and how the pain relieves that … I mean, chronic pain is debilitating and it just becomes all consuming, it’s all you can focus on. Pain relief, that is a solution benefit here. And you can have less tension, can help with headaches, and all kinds of pain relief. Lowers your blood pressure. This does. It lowers your blood pressure.

Be more present with your family. Really when you come home and you’re not still thinking about work, these mindfulness practices, these breathing practices can be transitions. Before you get out of the car, you can sit there and breathe and just be mindful of where you’re at right now, where your thoughts are and say to yourself, “Work is over. I am going home now. It’s time to be with my family,” and be intentional about it. These things will help you be more present. And especially in trial, it will help you with that being … You hear people talk about that flow state and maybe you struggle with it in trial.

That flow state where you’re just locked in and you are so present, you’re so there, “And man, all these things were coming up and I didn’t need notes. I didn’t need anything. I was in it. I was there. It was so awesome.” This kind of work will get you there, will keep you present so that you have more opportunity for that. Another good side effect from this is you won’t be a dick. One of the big things that I have to remind myself because I get resentful and crabby and all kinds of stuff and I’m helping people all day and doing for so many people and I come home and I just want time for myself, well, I can carve out time for myself and not be resentful about it. Well, this will help you. Don’t be a dick. It’s a good reminder.

I used to have that for a while. It was a reminder that came up on my phone and said, “Don’t be a dick,” because I did struggle with that for a little bit. And another benefit, you experience more joy. More joy in your life. Being wrapped up in anxiety, you don’t even get a chance to experience that joy, notice that joy. There’s all kinds of opportunities for joy throughout our days that we miss because of anxiety. Well, you’ll experience more joy and you’ll be able to see the bigger picture more. You’ll be able to see the strategy more instead of being so trapped in the minutia. Now, one of the other pieces that I wanted to talk about is that anxiety itself, yes, it has a negative connotation. Yes, it can be really bad, but it can also be part of a superpower or a superpower breeds from it.

Because people that I know that have anxiety and can be with anxiety and this particular person that I talked about that relieved their pain through this mindfulness breathing practice of coaching, they took that anxiety and they use it in so many places in their law practice. They love chess and poker and all kinds of things. And that anxiety is just they turn over every stone. Shit doesn’t get past them. Shit won’t get past you. If you can use your anxiety in that way and know, “Hey, this is actually something that I can get from this,” you won’t miss shit and you don’t. You’re a trial attorney and you’re a damn good trial attorney. You don’t miss shit. But how about not missing and having joy in the process, not being overrun and overwhelmed and burnt out? Just you don’t miss shit and you, “Hey, thank you anxiety.”

And once you start really being able to incorporate this into your life, you’re going to start noticing so many of those wiser thoughts that we just don’t notice and those wiser thoughts that are going to bolster you and going to bring you into all kinds of amazing experiences in your life or shit goes sideways and you’re in a really fuck-up experience and it will help guide you there as well. So recap anxiety is super prevalent in the culture of trial attorneys in the community. Most of you have anxiety, if not all of you. Some of you struggle with it immensely, some not so much, but I’m thinking that, definitely, it has its seasons and its moments.

There’s no real cure for it. Most of it is being with it and using it to your advantage. And you’re not alone. Most of us struggle with this and especially you trial attorneys that are in this practice that throws you into this anxiety cycle on a regular basis. But this mindfulness work, the work from Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now, watching the thinker, watching those thoughts, observing those thoughts, they are going to change your life. You’ll slow down and you won’t miss the good shit. And all the bad shit that’s in there that’s there, well, you’ll just be able to be with it.

And honestly, it’ll help you be a nicer person, not as much of a dick at times. You’ll be more present with your family, more present in trial. You won’t have as much pain or stress. Increase your energy level, lower your blood pressure, experience more joy. These are all things that are these incredible benefits that can come out from you just slowing down, being with your anxiety rather than letting it take you over. The two resources that are the takeaways that don’t forget, you can click on the links in the show notes, are Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide and that’s by Samir Chopra and then I just mentioned The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which is a classic. It’s amazing for mindfulness work.

The work that he does and how much suffering is caused, created and been with humans, what we deal with and how we can have control there and how we can be mindful and we can pivot things, he’s brilliant. He’s absolutely brilliant. So please, if you haven’t read this book, please read it. And also if you need a coach, I’m a coach and I’m a huge proponent of coaching and therapy. Sari and I both are, but I do have some openings in my coaching roster. So if you’d like to get in a sample session with me and see what this coaching thing’s all about or if it’s a good fit with me, we can dive into these kinds of concepts and you can find out more about coaching and it’s free.

You can go to sariswears.com/coaching. And when you get to that page, you click on the sample session, you can get a session with me. Fantastic podcast episode with you. I love talking with you. I love helping you. I’m here and I look forward to talking to you and seeing you the next time.