The Mindfulness Blog

Paul Buchanan and The Blue Nile were consummate musicians, and their music is incredibly evocative-- the emotion they conveyed through song demands both reflection and retelling-- so here goes.

For some, Paul Buchanan's voice was the next Sinatra-- a crooner's delight. Early on, that may have been accurate, but the voice of the Mid Air album (a late solo effort) was pure emotion. Expressing that emotion is certainly one important way of acknowledging it. Managing emotion, is another.

As Jon Kabat-Zinn is credited with having said: "We can't stop the waves, but we can learn to surf". Speaking by way of analogy, the waves can be understood to represent emotion, and the practice of meditation can be understood to understood to be a tool for managing that emotion-- which is a challenge that confronts lawyers every day, if not every hour.

We all understand that emotion can sometimes elevate an argument, but we also know that emotion can just as easily undermine a point that we wish to make. That's a conundrum that we all-- especially lawyers-- have to grapple with, in fashioning an argument and expressing it. It's a high wire that we all walk!

The trick is in managing our emotion, so as not to distract from reason and logic-- not to mention, common sense. That's the art of persuasion, and it is often a, "real time" decision that needs to be articulated in a manner that conveys the weight and authority of a response, not a reaction-- which is where meditation can be such as useful tool.

By practicing regularly and continually flexing what I refer to as the "let it go muscle", we can build a kind of muscle memory that allows us to create a bit of space between ourselves and our emotions. And it's in that space-- which mindfulness and meditation can expand-- that we learn to respond, rather than react. Through meditation, we train ourselves to allow emotion to resolve itself and pass, in a way that opens up access to reason.

The old saying is, stay close to your enemies. I say, stay close to your emotions, but don't let them rule you-- let's train ourselves to respond, rather than react!