Wellness for me is the delicate balance between physical and mental wellbeing and one cannot be achieved in the absence of the other. Attempting to achieve some sense of wellness, which at times does not play out as intended, I often find myself leaning towards having a quiet wind downtime for myself when I feel too anxious, exercise even when I don’t feel like it, and trying to enjoy the joy of small things.
These practices or efforts to incorporate wellness practices into my life did not come by chance. The realization that this is an extremely important aspect that is ignored way too often, came with my own “unwellness”. For years, my anxiety and the pressure I felt were so common, that they became a normal part of my life and I made myself believe that it comes with the package of life. Losing my dad at an early age; various family issues that ensued; pressure to do well in law school after completely changing my education trajectory; and financial insecurities. Everything kept piling up inside of me. Things only got worse when I joined a toxic and unappreciative work environment, which essentially shattered my confidence and self-worth.
All these high-pressure situations caused all the classic attributes of panic attacks and anxiety. In the depths of a particularly bad panic attack in the middle of the day, while I was in my office, finally led me to understand that I need to do something to fix this.
For me, as for many others, meditation has helped me ground myself, clear my head and shift perspective. Sometimes just doing nothing or watching a show or movie that does not even make any sense to me, helps me to calm my mind and let overwhelming feelings subside. Things like meditation, working out journaling, doodling, and cooking are some things that I try to incorporate into my daily life. Even though sometimes it becomes very hard to find the time to do so. At the end of the day, it all depends on prioritizing yourself. It is alright to overlook wellness practices, especially when life is weighing you down with a million other issues. But the thing we have to realize is that getting anxious or overthinking or being sad about those things will not change the circumstances. On the other hand, you only have control over yourself and these practices help you plan, execute, and deal with situations much better.
I have learned the hard way that, all things said and done, we are all that we are left with. That includes our body and mind. Having an imbalanced life where we don’t feel well, physically or mentally, affects every other aspect of our lives, our relationships and our work. I try to prioritize myself by understanding when I need to stop and take a step back to re-align. Our bodies have a way of conveying that to us, all we have to do is listen. When I feel less anxious or taken care of, I work much better because I have a clearer head and more focus. Something as simple as a five-minute breathing exercise before handling a big assignment makes a whole lot of difference.
Coming back to the root cause of my anxieties, overwhelming feelings of imposter syndrome, and chips in confidence, it is important to understand the rather unreasonable levels of expectations we often place on ourselves. Sometimes, our society, media, and education system simply feed into it. In the initial stages of legal education and legal career, it is normal to feel the pressure. Especially since there is a general feeling that lawyers have to work immaculately and must conduct themselves in a manner that shows the profession in its best light. Sometimes, in trying to achieve this, law students and young lawyers develop this absolute fright of failing. But what we miss is that we are humans and by design, we are prone to make mistakes, but our amazing in-built mechanism also means that we learn from those mistakes and implement the lessons in the future.
This is why I genuinely believe that the legal industry which already operates in a high-stake environment, should not lose sight of the human side of lawyers and use that instead to design and implement better work practices. It is also very important to remove the connotations of weakness that are so readily attributed to someone when they are overwhelmed or burnt out. Removing such notions would mean more people feeling at ease when asking for a much-needed time off or allocating some personal reflection or wellness routine time. This will build better lawyers who don’t give up on their careers because of feelings of burn out. In the end, the goal should be to create an environment where people thrive in the long run, not achieve high goals in the short term and give up after losing a lot of their personal life and wellbeing.
Another very important step is women taking steps to help other women in the legal industry. This is something that I had not experienced in my six years of work. However, moving to Canada and finding myself in a pandemic with literally no contacts or network, groups created to help and support women lawyers have been a lifesaver for me. Participating in many discussions and following the activities have made me realize how important it is for women to support women simply because of the similar experiences and hurdles we all have experienced as women, despite our backgrounds, culture, or race.
My realization of wellness came at a much later stage in life. Maybe it came with experience or the self-love that does not so easily manifest itself in our teenage and early 20s. Perhaps I would have worked on not losing my confidence over the rudeness and toxicity of others or maybe I would not have been so hard on myself. But I believe in change and I believe that experiences, good and bad, shape us and make us better. This is why I appreciate all the people who are working so hard to spread the message of wellness and helping lawyers realize the importance of it. I am hopeful and confident that the necessity of taking care of our wellness will be so normalized that law students and lawyers at every stage of their career will adopt these practices and create a safe and compassionate environment.
Farhana Hossain is an internationally trained lawyer working towards getting licensed in Ontario. She loves spending time with herself and is passionate about women’s rights and the unique challenges women face. Please feel free to connect with Farhana on LinkedIn or email her if you have any questions about her journey or experiences or just for a chat!