Mindfulness, Law and Reciprocal Practice

The legal profession is embracing mindfulness—an avenue of personal and professional growth and development. In so doing, lawyers, law students, judges, law faculty, and other members of the legal profession are reporting meaningful changes to their health and wellbeing, the quality of their social relationships, and their effectiveness and productivity at school and work. These reports corroborate the experience of a great many mindfulness practitioners and is consistent with medical and neuro-scientific research exploring the cognitive, physical, and emotional benefits associated with mindfulness practice. While mindfulness is often discussed in the context of feeling less stressed and being better able to focus, the mindfulness practice (and living a mindful life) is not really aimed at these changes—or any change, for that matter. Mindfulness is about much more—it’s about relating more effectively to challenging situations without needing people and circumstances to change in order to be okay—and the practice of mindfulness can help bring about these useful, even transformative shifts. In this article, I offer a brief overview of mindfulness, explore the larger aspiration of the integration of mindfulness into our day by exploring “reciprocal practice,” a term I coined to illuminate this important insight and opportunity, and offer practical examples by which one may engage reciprocal practice