Mindfulness as a Force Multiplier
Mindfulness practices come in a variety of forms. Two of the most popular goes by the names Focused Attention and Open Monitoring (and related monikers). While they overlap in many ways as mental training exercises, they zero in on different core capacities. To help explain this, mindfulness can be viewed as a quality of mind that effectively balances attention and awareness to meet the needs of the moment and these two practices home in on each in different ways.
For example, there are times when the faculty of attention is primary, as when focusing on what a client is telling you or reviewing a complex set of facts. At such times, awareness of the ambient environment, while still crucial (what if someone knocks on your door), can be dialed down. At other times, as when in court where a more open and receptive state of awareness is helpful to navigate a complex terrain involving a judge, jury, opposing counsel, a witness and your own client, a laser-beam focus on a single object is less adaptive.
As discussed in previous columns, the popular Focused Attention practice tends to favor the training of attention while the Open Monitoring practice is one that favors the cultivation of awareness. Notwithstanding this somewhat overly simplistic analysis, both practices develop and reinforce both capacities. This is because they are always working together, with a shift in one impacts the other.
Mindfulness as a Force Multiplier
Because attention and awareness are capacities central to pretty much everything we do, you can think of practicing mindfulness as a force multiplier that can benefit numerous areas in your life personally and professionally. This is to say that you receive a big bang for your buck when you practice mindfulness. Or, as attorney and mindfulness teacher, Paul S. Singerman writes in the 2016 special mindfulness addition of The Florida Bar Journal, it can offer you a large return on investment for the time you put into practice.
Science findings on the benefits of the practice of mindfulness support this in the variety of effects that are found to flow from a fairly straightforward and simple practice that, on the surface, has little to do with areas impacted. These beneficial effects range from improved immune function to reduced inflammation to reductions in anxiety and depression to enhanced creativity, improved decision making, and reductions in cravings. Importantly, none of this is intended to suggest that mindfulness practice is a panacea. The key takeaway is that so many of the maladies that we experience physically, emotionally, and cognitively, may be meaningfully addressed by bolstering attention and awareness.
So, if you’ve previously been introduced to mindfulness practices but they have fallen off your radar and you can use a little inspiration for jump starting your practice, or you know very little about mindfulness, but the prospect of it serving as a force multiplier that can benefit you across seemingly unrelated domains, is tantalizing, I hope that the above offers some food for thought.
Scott Rogers
Scott Rogers, M.S., J.D., is a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness in law and founded and directs the University of Miami School of Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program where he teaches mindful ethics, mindful leadership, mindfulness and negotiation, and mindfulness in law. He is the creator of Jurisight, one of the first CLE programs in the country to integrate mindfulness and neuroscience and conducts workshops and presentations on the role of mindfulness in legal education and across the legal profession. He is author of the recently released, “The Mindful Law Student: A Mindfulness in Law Practice Guide,” written for all audiences.
