Is your law practice a form of imprisonment?

Maybe you’re being punished for imagining you wanted to be sitting alone in your office at 5 pm on a Saturday evening trying to write a pleading – that remains frozen on your computer screen.

The half empty fast food box in front of you is proof that you did eat, but you can’t remember.

When was the last time you exercised? Saw your kids? Spoke to your parents? Had dinner with your spouse?

When was the last time you felt alive?

You open your calendar and look at what is coming up, what needs to be done, what hasn’t been done – tomorrow, next week, next month, forever.

You hope the kids are in bed when you get home, so you won’t have to deal with them.

Your spouse is just a billboard with the word SPOUSE on it. She asks how you are, and you shut her down, because you don’t have the energy to say.

You just… want… to be… left… alone.

But no, people keep bugging you.

You struggle with constant exhaustion, unable to get a night’s sleep. Your cynicism level is at an all-time high; your sense of humor turns dark.

There seems nothing you can say or do to make things better – you just numbly soldier on.

Waiting for rock-bottom?

If you recognize yourself at all in the above paragraphs, I don’t need to tell you that you are in the throes of burnout.

You are setting the stage for serious depression or other mental health issues…

…if not medical ones.

Fortunately, things don’t have to remain this way.

A combination of coaching (the application of specific activities and new behaviors) and therapy (open-ended exploration of thoughts and feelings) can provide relief.

I can help you rediscover what it was about law practice that called to you in the first place. This might also include rethinking the profession entirely and going a different direction with your career.

All options are open for investigation, which is freeing from the bone-deep sense of helplessness so characteristic of burnout.

Burnout can lead to depression. This is where a mental health professional comes in, and it is why I’ve chosen to provide this service.

If you’ve read this far, you know you need help.

Law practices must acknowledge the special mental health needs of its workers.

Please don’t ‘think about it’ anymore.