Seminar Descriptions
1. "Climate Reality" Presentations (to be announced)
2."Using the Science of Character for a Strengths-Based Perspective that Optimizes Relational Capacities"
Learn your top strengths and the mental and emotional well-being benefits of using those strengths. Additionally, learn how to develop head strengths (like prudence, bravery, persistence, and self control) and heart strengths (like kindness, gratitude, and social intelligence) in better balance. Further, learn to spot strengths in others. Using strengths in these ways leads to positive communication and relationships, allows for engagement of differences in a more positive way, and helps foster compassion and empathy, all of which provide a feeling of connectedness with others and humanity, and a foundation for better relational capabilities when negotiating and addressing conflict. Based on the Science of Character, developed by Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Chris Peterson, this program offers a perspective that focuses on what is best about human beings, and what we can do to be at our best.
3. "Mind-Body Well Being"
The body and mind share a powerful connection. When one is out of balance, it often affects the other. This program will explore whole-person well-being, with an emphasis on practicing mindfulness through mind-body techniques. In addition to providing positive effects such as re-setting the nervous system, mindfulness can combat negative emotions, and help prevent ‘secondary trauma’ that attorneys often experience in their daily interactions with clients.
4. "Well-Being in the Practice of Law"
The seminar includes neuroscience-supported mindfulness techniques and interactive exercises for reducing stress. Additionally the seminar includes mind-body trial preparation strategies attorneys can teach their clients and witnesses to help them be more anxiety-resistant. The seminar also includes discussion on Positive Psychology for well-being and some exercises proven to increase resilience and optimism, meaning and purpose, and overall life satisfaction.
5. "Mindfulness, Resilience, and Lawyer Well Being"
Feeling overwhelmed? Indecisive? Just plain exhausted? Would you rather be more focused and productive, dial down worry and stress, and have more energy?
This seminar teaches skills for lawyer well-being, resilience, and better professionalism while earning 3.5 Ethics CLEs. Part I of the seminar will focus on interactive exercises using a synthesis of leading-edge neuroscience and mindfulness techniques, and will also include a mind-body trial preparation strategy attorneys can teach their clients and witnesses to help them be anxiety-resistant. Part II will include interactive Positive Psychology exercises to build overall well-being proven to increase resilience and optimism, meaning and purpose, better work-life balance, and overall life satisfaction.
6. "Understanding Mindfulness for Better Professionalism - The Path to Lawyer Well Being"
Introduction to the August 2017 ABA Report on Lawyer Well-Being.
7. “Work Smarter – The Power of Recharge”
Modern science has helped us understand what it takes for people to be more productive at work even under conditions of high stress. The work smarter approach is based in research from several sciences: the science of attention, positive psychology, sleep science, health science, and the mind-body sciences. Based on what these sciences have to offer us, this program covers techniques to make the kind of work habits that allow for higher levels of motivation, energy, and productivity which translate into getting more done in less time and being “in the zone” which is a state of mind that automatically adds positive emotions to the day. The work smarter approach also provides techniques to be done in short bursts of time (just a couple of minutes) at strategic times during the day in order to recharge. When you are recharged you feel better, you perform better, and you prevent job burnout. Working this way helps us increase our overall well-being for a more fulfilling and sustainable career.
8. “Positive Psychology for Lawyers – Lawyers are at Risk for Secondary Traumatic Stress”
Legal work is replete with stress. That’s a given, but what’s not as well understood is that secondary traumatic stress, also known as vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue, is a high occupational risk for lawyers. This program examines what secondary trauma is and how positive psychology and body-based therapies are effective prevention and treatment approaches.
9. “RX Mind-Body Techniques for Better Professionalism”
In this program, based in part on the ABA book "Yoga for Lawyers - Mind-Body Techniques to Feel Better All the Time,” participants will learn about and practice certain mind-body techniques that are useful during the day in order to be exceptionally alert and highly focused for challenging and important tasks, and in the evening for relaxing and improving sleep even after some very stressful days. The techniques also improve professionalism as they train the nervous system for skillful responsive action rather than reactivity in dealing with the daily challenges of practice.
10. “Positive Psychology for Lawyers – Tools for Quality of Life and Superior Professionalism”
The new science of positive psychology provides a proactive approach for lawyers to decrease stress and prevent depression, anxiety, burnout and other mental health concerns. Learn the practical neuroscience behind positive psychology and mindfulness. Learn about empirically supported positive psychology exercises that increase positive emotions while turning off stress chemistry and practice mind-body techniques that calm the nervous system, rejuvenate the practitioner, and create mindfulness for better emotional intelligence and professionalism. The exercises and techniques help lawyers attain greater quality of life, overall well-being, and improved emotional resilience for better practice management and client relationships. Incorporate these exercises and in just minutes a day you will feel more energized, notice enhanced concentration and experience better sleep.
Upcoming and Past Speaking Engagements:
2020
Upcoming Climate Reality Presentations (to be announced shortly.)
Featured Speaker on Zoom, "Work Smarter - The Power of Recharge," Houston Area Law Librarians, Sept.
2018 and 2019
Speaker, "Well-Being in the Practice of Law," Inn of Court, Santa Fe, NM.
Presenter, "Using the Science of Character for a Strengths-Based Perspective that Optimizes Relational Capacities," American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution Summit, September.
Presenter, "Mind-Body Well Being," NM Bar Annual Conference at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa, August 10.
Featured Speaker, "Well-Being in the Practice of Law," Colorado Defense Attorneys Association Conference in Telluride, July.
Seminar entitled "Mindfulness, Resilience, and Lawyer Well Being," First Judicial District Bar Association 3.5 hour CLE seminar, July.
Featured Speaker, "Start the Year Off Right - The Path to Lawyer Well Being," First Judicial District Bar Association, January.
2017
Keynote Speaker, "Work Smarter - The Power of Recharge," and Featured Speaker "Positive Psychology for Lawyers," Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Conference in the Wisconsin Dells, October.
Keynote Speaker, "Positive Psychology for Lawyers - Tools for Quality of Life and Superior Professionalism," "Lawyers are at Risk for Secondary Traumatic Stress," "RX Mind-Body Techniques for Better Professionalism," and "Work Smarter - The Power of Recharge," Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference, June.
2016
Featured Speaker, "Positive Psychology for Lawyers," and "Work Smarter - The Power of Recharge," Oklahoma Bar Association Solo and Small Firm Conference, June.
Keynote Speaker, "Regulator Wellness," National Organization of Bar Counsel, August in San Francisco.
Speaker, "Positive Psychology for Lawyers - An Introduction," Oklahoma Bar Association, April.
2015
Featured Speaker, "Positive Psychology for Lawyers - An Effective Intervention for Professionalism, Substance Abuse, and Relapse Prevention," ABA Commission on Lawyers' Assistance Programs National Conference, Oct.
2013 and 2014
CLE seminar, "Neuroscience, the Brain, and the Benefits of Positive Emotions," NM State Bar, Sept.
Multi-week class in iRest® Meditation for Lawyers," NM State Bar Lawyer Assistance Program, Fall.
Week-long train-the-trainers in Tokyo Japan, "Positive Psychology and Mind-Body Techniques for Stress Relief," May and Nov.
CLE seminar, "Work Smarter," NM Defense Attorneys, Fall.
CLE seminar, "Well-Being for PNM (Public Service Company of NM) Attorneys."
CLE seminar, "Neuroscience and the Lawyer's Brain."
Resilience Training and a Train-the-Trainer Course
Resilience Training is for groups and organizations (such as State Bars offering CLE credits for wellness courses, Lawyer Assistance Programs, Lawyers Helping Lawyers, Family Justice Centers, and others) who work with attorneys, advocates, counselors, law enforcement, nurses and any other professionals who in turn work with clients or traumatized populations. This course focuses on: firstly, training the members of the organization in optimal well being, resilience and how to prevent secondary traumatic stress personally, and secondly, in a Train-the-Trainer course the learning goes further to teach those individuals in the organization how to teach others.
Overview
In response to the need for neuroscience-informed methods to prevent or mitigate depression, anxiety, secondary traumatic stress, and trauma, Hallie teaches resilience training programs. The programs incorporate a 3-prong approach: practical neuroscience along with evidence-based positive psychology and mind-body interventions proven to help build a resilient brain, a resilient nervous system, and a resilient mindset.
Background
The 2015 ABA and Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation study of more than 12,000 lawyers showed 28, 19, and 23 percnt experienced depression, anxiety and chronic stress, respectively.
Further, secondary traumatic stress (hereinafter “STS”) is a high occupational risk among lawyers, judges and other service providing professionals who listen to traumatized people's stories of fear, pain, and suffering and then unconsciously absorb some of the trauma are at risk for STS. Even the most seasoned professionals are vulnerable to this mirroring or contagion effect because it is nearly unavoidable to not take in some emotional pain. Whether professionals working with traumatized populations develop symptoms of STS or not may depend on how resilient they are. Some people are more naturally resilient and they bounce back sooner or later. Others can get stuck in a debilitating neurochemical deluge of fight, flight, or shutdown physiology. Those who chronically endure STS without fortifying against the effects may experience debilitating symptoms.
Why is Resilience Training Important?
Lawyers generally rank low on the resiliency scale according to Dr. Larry Richard, expert on the psychology of lawyer behavior. Resilience can prevent or reduce depression, anxiety and stress.
Additionally, symptoms of STS are often rapid in onset. Sufferers can exhibit a host of physical symptoms among which are headaches and nausea, and several mental and emotional symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, sleeplessness or nightmares, and a pervasive negative attitude. Symptoms may also include, feeling scared, images of the event popping into your mind, avoiding things that remind you of the event, and many more PTSD-like symptoms. Repeated exposure to graphic evidence and clients’ stories of violence can disrupt the service-providers' sense of safety, trust, self-esteem, sense of control, relationships with others, and can result in a decrease in productivity and the inability to focus or provide effective client services.
What is Positive Resilience Training?
Positive resilience training includes a number of recommended measures. Prevention of depression, anxiety, chronic stress and STS lies in personal self-care, social self-care, and neuroscience-informed methods for developing mental resources and inner strengths that provide overall well-being. Inner resources, hardwired into the brain and nervous system, are the main focus of Positive Resilience Training. They include: healthy GRIT, optimism, self regulation, and increasing positive emotions, among others. Additionally mind-body interventions that lower amygdala activation and exercises that create a balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activation create well-being where we tend to feel calm, focused, healthy and good.
What is the Positive Resilience Train-the-Trainer Program?
After completing an initial training for personal resilience, members of the organization may further their knowledge with train-the-trainer modules where they will learn how to teach the exercises that promote greater well being and help to prevent STS.
More about the Positive Resilience Training content components:
The 3-prong approach (resilient brain, resilient nervous system, and resilient mindset) provides a proactive approach to decrease stress and prevent STS, depression, anxiety, burnout, and other health concerns. Here are some of the key concepts, content, and exercises:
- stress reduction and anxiety reduction practices, some of which are proven to grow gray matter in key areas of the brain having to do with self-awareness and shrink gray matter in areas associated with stress
- evidence-based positive psychology exercises that promote stress hardiness, more positive emotions, optimism, less negativity, life meaning and purpose, and connection and support, all of which improve resilience
- how to abide more of the time in the responsive mode of the body and brain, which provides equilibrium, as opposed to the reactive mode which results in deficit and disturbance where the body takes on stress and internal systems are agitated
- how to reduce the negativity bias of the brain including how to turn off the worrying, ruminating and self-critical default mode network of the brain, and how to set a new default mode where you’re focused on what’s happening now and being “in the zone”
- how to tune into the deepest relaxation that lowers amygdala activation, turns off stress chemistry, and fully brings online the parasympathetic (calming) wing of the nervous system - this does more than just decrease stress; it decreases stress arousal where the body’s response to stress changes.
Positive Resilience Training content focuses on comprehensive keep-it-simple modules of “why to” and “how to” develop improved resilience using the most compelling tailored content from neuroscience, positive psychology, the science of character, mindfulness training, and mind-body interventions for a whole person integrated approach tailored specifically for attorneys and other professionals. The training presents such content in micro-learning components that are simple to learn, as well as time-sensitive self practice which is designed to take very little time, and which, with routine practice, is proven to create lasting change. Resilience training is a full day workshop. Train-the-Trainer is an additional training beyond the initial Resilience training workshop.
What are the potential benefits?
Participants may benefit in the following ways: the lectures and the experiential exercises and techniques are designed to fortify individuals with mental resources and inner strengths proven to improve resilience. By incorporating the material learned into daily life, participants can expect to feel better with more energy, motivation, better sleep, and greater overall well-being for a more fulfilling and sustainable career. There may also be greater ease in dealing with clients, as well as more personal ease in the aftermath of having dealt with difficult situations. The Train-the-Trainer course will provide an in-house, self-sustaining, well being program for the organization.
Hallie's workshops focus on ways to prevent secondary traumatic stress and burnout, how to most effectively cope with stress, and how to improve concentration, productivity, clarity of thinking, ethical and professional behavior, patience, sleep, and overall health (including fewer sick days.) The skills learned in these workshops help lawyers feel energized, mentally and physically fit, and balanced and centered.
Neuroscience and the Lawyer's Brain
This course focuses on key principles from the diverse sciences of optimal human functioning including practical neurosciece, neurobiology, positive psychology, and the social and behavioral sciences. It also includes mind-body interventions from Hallie's ABA book Yoga for Lawyers - Mind-Body Techniques to Feel Better All the Time to learn proven methods for stress reduction, more positive emotions, high work productivity, and greater well-being.
IQ, PQ, and EQ for Lawyers
This course focuses on optimal Cognitive Capacity, Positive Intelligence, and Emotional Intelligence for Lawyers. Awareness gained from this course affords better memory and retention, more positive emotions, greater control of emotions and less reactivity for better professionalism.
Resilience for Lawyers
This course focuses on positive psychology exercises and mind-body interventions that work as buffers against secondary traumatic stress, negative emotions, and burnout. Included here are ways to develop a resilient brain, a resilient nervous system, and healthy GRIT and stress hardiness for a resilient mindset. In 2018 - learn how to teach others in Hallie's Positive Resilience Training and Train-the-Trainer courses.
iRest® for Lawyers
Testimonial by Bruce Smith P.H.D. Hallie's CDs are available for self practice, and can be purchased in the "shop" on this website.
Extensive science and brain research has demonstrated that iRest®:
- Increases energy, a sense of control, and confidence.
- Increases quality sleep and well-being.
- Decreases stress, anxiety, chronic pain, depression, anger, and reactivity.
- Improves focus, concentration and attention.
- Provides deep relaxation.
Richard Miller, Ph.D. worked with the military to bring iRest® to Walter Reed Medical Center and other U.S. military settings to help soldiers and veterans heal from post traumatic stress, depression, insomnia, chronic pain and other stress-related issues. The iRest® protocol is currently being used across a wide array of settings including military, VA, chemical dependency centers, hospitals, colleges, and many others.
In iRest®, your brain waves slow, your body is fully and deeply relaxed and your mind is in a conscious state of restful alertness where thoughts cease and you experience the effects of three to four hours of sleep in twenty minutes. You wake up clear headed and ready to resume your workday with marked improvements in energy levels, focus and concentration, listening skills, clarity of thinking, creativity, problem solving and patience. The effects also produce a continued state of well-being and quality sleep at night.
In this course atttorneys learn the iRest® protocol; benefits of iRest®; overview of iRest® programs; research on brain, nervous system, sleep and neuroscience. Teaching includes lecture, interactive dialog, demonstration, and first-hand experiential guided practices. Lawyers develop a working knowledge of iRest® affording them the ability to easily use it in their daily lives. The course also zeros in on Professionalism issues and how regular iRest® practice can put attorneys in a better position to recognize and resolve their ethical and professional dilemmas as well as helping them to better respond to the pressures and stresses of the legal profession.
What lawyers and paralegals are saying about iRest® for Lawyers:
“The legal profession is challenging and stressful. To be a "well attorney" requires more than average stress management. iRest is a power tool for attorneys.”
“I felt refreshed physically, mentally and emotionally after practicing iRest. I really liked the chance to experience something that can bring about such powerful change.”
“I felt very rested and optimistic. I liked knowing that self care is a company value.”
“I felt relaxed and calm after the practice. I think many lawyers would benefit from this course. A more balanced and present attorney is a more effective attorney.”
“I learned it’s possible to shut off the mind and re-charge. I really enjoyed understanding that stress solving methods can be integrated into business.”
“Prior meditation classes have felt like failures. This practice worked for me, and I felt alert and invigorated afterwards.”
Ms. Love's articles on Positive Psychology for Lawyers are published and disseminated nationally.
