[Applause]
lawyers are trained to break the law now
I'm a lawyer I'm also qualified yoga
instructor now I might take you down a
few little different paths through some
dark bits twists and turns but I promise
you'll end up in a happy place now
you're probably wondering how I got to
where a label of a lawyer and the label
of a yoga instructor and they coexist
happily on one human well it wasn't
always that easy back in 2012 there I
was walking down the Main Street of
Mornington with my lawyer label on
dressed in suit and leopard print heels
when those leopard print heels betrayed
me
and down I went with a third dignity and
all there I was in the middle of the
crossing on my hands and knees hoping
those stripes would open up and swallow
me whole
but alas they didn't so off I went to my
chiropractor he prescribed yoga for my
bruised ego and need yoga I thought that
would be like watching paint dry I was
more of a Zumba girl but there'd be no
more shaking that thing for me for a
while
so dutifully I go after my first yoga
class and what I found really surprised
me so as any good lawyer would I wanted
evidence why did a few breaths and
stretches make me feel so good so what
was I to do that sign up for a 12-month
Diploma in yoga teaching I had nothing
much else to do
now as during that course my view of the
world changed radically the way I saw
life was completely different so down
the rabbit hole of research I went to a
place where philosophy and science
intersected to discover that at a
fundamental level we humans are all
connected now I found that really
difficult to bring back to my legal
practice because there I'm trained in
win-lose I'm trained in separation in
divide-and-conquer so in trying to
reconcile these two disciplines that I
was loving I came across a quote from
Gandhi who said the true function of a
lawyer is to unite parties within a
sunder seems Gandhi had this idea of
unity law before I did who'd have
thought so that led me to pose the
question our lawyers trained to break
the law the fundamental law of human
connection of unity so I had to go and
revisit law school now that hasn't
changed for eons we are trying to find
the law and apply it to the facts now
there's nothing untoward about that per
se so then I had to look at how we are
applying the law to the facts and in a
lawyer toolkit we have certain skills
like critical thinking rational analysis
absent from the toolkit is emotional
intelligence compassion creativity
intuition now I wonder why the latter
skillset was missing so I thought for a
moment I imagined well people want their
lawyer to stand up in court for them
these towers are strengths but already
armor-plated they certainly don't want
their lawyer looking like a puddle of
tears on the courtroom floor but that's
not what emotional intelligence is about
now law governs relationship
relationship with your spouse your
neighbor the dog and in every
relationship is emotion you can't
separate it out so what we're training
effectively is a person dealing with
left brain thinking to deal with
problems devoid of emotion now what does
that look like well effectively we've
got half a human dealing with half a
problem so you'll have a client in that
case come into your office hand over her
problem on a plate and say here you take
it I can't handle it win for me so now
the lawyer will take the problem take on
the case find her winning hand the other
party's lawyer will find their clients
winning hand how can you have two
winning hands in a win-lose model recall
I introduced myself as a lawyer did you
think that was a good thing of a bad
thing
did your opinion of me change when I
said I was a yoga instructor
Shakespeare's Hamlet says nothing is
either good or bad but thinking makes it
so
everything is neutral I like to upset
some people by saying life has no
meaning but then I qualify that by
saying except for the meaning that you
attribute to it this is all about
perception the way we see the world as
individuals and our perception is right
for each of us when I was about 10 years
old I was the first responder at a pony
club event and I was there to help patch
up these little girls as though being
thrown off their ponies and some of them
really sustained some pretty serious
injuries and I thought well these little
ponies are scary they're scary little
creatures but these girls despite their
injuries thought they were adorable
so here I am I've developed this
perception ponies are scary they've got
this perception ponies are adorable so
we've got two very valid perceptions
about the one fact the pony now these
are conscious perceptions these are the
ones you know you have what I want to
talk about are the ones you don't know
you have the unconscious perceptions and
you all have them you just don't know
they're there so how are they formed
well we're all born into tribes families
cultures and they'll have rules rules we
must obey to to be fed closed accepted
loved to survive ultimately it's about
survival children obey rules to survive
so a classic example of how an
unconscious perception could be formed
as for instance imagine we've got a
choice where you're a little boy and
he's being silly as to us where you ants
do he's barreling down the hallway of
his house into the lounge room he goes
he trips he falls he hits his head on
the coffee table and he starts wailing
his well-meaning parent works
and says always don't cry well that
little guy thinks he doesn't think
actually until he's about seven or eight
or nine years old he cannot rationalize
that hitting your head on a coffee table
will cause you some sadness instead what
he's just been told is his response is
not valid
his response isn't okay and so that
forms within him an internal conflict
the tribe said it wasn't okay he thinks
it's the natural response and it is okay
internal conflict I'd like you to
remember that so what does he do he
starts stuffing down the emotion of
sadness and every time he wants to feel
sadness every time that comes up for
some air time he'll feel guilt and shame
because he's just broken breaking the
tribes rules so he says no stuff that
down until ultimately he disconnects he
disconnects from sadness and as he
disconnects from sadness he's forming
his internal conflict so that internal
sadness is now what we call an
unconscious perception and it's formed
and it's real but he doesn't know it
exists Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung
called that the human shadow it's in the
dark and it's scary like ponies
so how do we find them if we don't know
though that they're there well we get
out of a metaphorical torch and we start
looking where one we know we have an
internal conflict we know that our
response that we thought was valid is
invalid and two we are unable to respond
effectively our response was we were
told our emotion was invalid we were
told our response was invalid so we
can't respond effectively we don't trust
our ability to respond anymore
we can't take responsibility for that
emotion now what does that look like
well this little guy grows up leaves the
tribe goes out into the big wide world
forms relationships within those
relationships he's going to encounter
sadness and he says well that's
unacceptable but he doesn't know why two
things have happened one his internal
conflict is now reflecting externally
into an external conflict his internal
inability to accept his own sadness has
now reflected as an external inability
to accept sadness to because he can't
trust his responses he can't respond
effectively he can't take responsibility
for how he responds so he reacts
sometimes in anger and guess what
that'll lead him back into a lawyer's
office and he'll say here you take it I
can't handle it win for me
so now if that lawyer takes the problem
and wins for him that lawyer has
disconnected him from a solution yes
that clients felt validated from him
he's been able to blame somebody else he
didn't take responsibility awesome but
guess what he walks out of the lawyer's
office
with his internal conflict intact and
he'll Gotham do that again somewhere
else that'll his internal conflict will
reflect back at him in other
relationships and he'll repeat the
pattern and he'll be back to his unhappy
place before tea run so effectively he
didn't win
he didn't ring and that's really a big
deal
he didn't win so what can we do to turn
that frown upside down lawyers could be
first responders to your internal
emotional crisis how we can take back
your conflict hand it back to you and
say look in there as a solution in there
is the key to finding your happy place
many people said to me well isn't that
the job for a mental health professional
and I say yes yes it is but people come
into a lawyer's office wanting to blame
somebody else so it's not my fault
nothing to do with me it's them so when
we're handing up a problem back to a
client we can do two things one show
them that their external conflict
reflects their internal conflict show
them that their reaction was merely a
reflection of the perception they formed
in childhood and in this case the
perception that sadness wasn't okay and
what have we done we've got out our
torch and we shone a light on the dark
it can't exist the shadow can't exist
the unconscious has now become conscious
you know you have that problem now issue
not a problem it's just a shadow it's
become conscious you can now deal with
it the second thing is you self validate
you don't need to get anyone else to say
you're okay or that you're worthy your
self validating because you can go back
now in child to childhood and say well
my emotional response was was a valid
one it was
natural the tribe said it wasn't but it
actually was so as you're able to take
back your own responsibility you're
you're you're feeling better you can
trust in your responses and you're also
owning your own emotions again so as
you're owning your sadness you're
bringing back the full suite of emotions
you're becoming more whole your internal
harmony also reflects externally you are
feeling better permanently the takeaway
from all this is nobody's happy it was a
legal profession the present win-lose
model of separation should really be
called the lose-lose model nobody wins
if your lawyer was trained not only as
your legal counsel but also your
emotional counsel we could take your
conflict and light up the path back to
your happy place
law could be a healing modality now
that's a win-win thank you
[Applause]