Eleventh Circuit Embraces Mindfulness to Help Manage COVID-Stress
Studies on mindfulness have consistently found that, even during relatively quiet, uneventful periods in our lives, we need to make time to slow down, relax, breathe deep, and clear and cleanse our minds. However, we need no reminding that the period in which we are now living is particularly eventful: the global pandemic continues to rage, and we are largely isolated in our homes, with no one but our COVID-pod humans and maybe an animal companion or two; we are in the midst of the holiday season, whose joys are often muddled by the usual holiday headaches and stresses; and with the shorter days, our sunlight hours are reduced, meaning we can spend less time outside, engaged in healthy, alfresco activities. Taken together, these ingredients have the power to utterly upend any sense of serene well-being.
With all the stressors currently marbling our days, there is no better time to make wellness a priority. But as Judge Michaelle Gonzalez-Paulson and Judge Luise Krieger-Martin, Eleventh Circuit, would say, well-being needs to have primacy every day, not just during profoundly trying days or seasons. And, for them, the path to a state of calm well-being is yoga—a practice these certified yoga instructors are very happy to share with others. Seeing the effects of COVID-related stress on their fellow circuit members, in mid-November, Judge Gonzalez-Paulson and Judge Krieger-Martin began offering free lunchtime yoga classes, via Zoom, twice a week for the judges and court staff in their circuit.
Judge Michaelle Gonzalez-Paulson
Judge Gonzalez-Paulson, who fell in love with yoga at her very first class, took the 200-hour yoga teacher training course, driven by a desire “to learn everything I could about yoga and to answer all my questions about the practice,” she remarked. After getting her certification (plus additional certifications in chair yoga, restorative yoga, and yoga for children), she began to teach, which she discovered she loves as well. When her judicial work was done for the day, she’d move the conference table in her chambers and invite court people to join her; most evenings, eight to 10 colleagues would crowd in, mats in hand, eager to practice with her.
Although Judge Krieger-Martin had taken a yoga class here and there before, it was in Judge Gonzalez-Paulson’s chambers that she experienced an epiphany: “Judge Gonzalez-Paulson taught a class in her chambers one evening a few years ago. I am so grateful to her because that class changed my life. Something clicked that night. That was the class that inspired me to begin a daily practice,” she shared. She too took the 200-hour yoga teacher training course (earning additional certifications in restorative yoga and chair yoga), doing it “without any intention to ever actually teach; I just realized that I was spending a lot of time googling things related to yoga and that the teacher training would likely satisfy some of my curiosity more efficiently. But I soon learned that I really love to teach and to share the practice,” she noted.
Both judges try to gear their classes, including their Zoom yoga, to the room, hoping to give each participant “a chance to reach their full expression,” they stated. At this point, though, the Zoom classes they’re doing for their colleagues are fairly basic. But that’s a good thing! For basic yoga is a lot like county court, Judge Gonzalez-Paulson explained: “Like the people’s court, basic yoga brings people in for the first time and is a really good introduction.”
Judge Luise Krieger-Martin
The biggest downside of teaching yoga via Zoom, they mentioned, is that they can’t see what participants are doing in enough detail to check everyone’s form; they give the best verbal cues they can, and watch the screen carefully, but they miss being able to do the hands-on adjustments that let participants instantaneously know what it feels like to get the form right. Inescapable technical issues are the other downside of Zoom yoga. But the yogis are philosophical about that: as Judge Krieger-Martin pointed out, “Like with so much else right now, we make do with what we can, we learn, and we adapt....” In the end, “Even though Zoom yoga is not the ideal way to teach or to learn, it is still better than no yoga at all,” they emphasized.
When asked why they decided to begin offering yoga to their colleagues, Judge Krieger-Martin said, “Practicing yoga has taught me to shake off a lot the stress which I believe we all internalize in some way or another. As judges, we deal with a lot of unhappy people and unpleasant situations every single day, and we need to be able to let all that go so that we can be our best selves on and off the bench. Because I know what that single class did for me, teaching these classes for coworkers is important to me.” And Judge Gonzalez-Paulson added,
“People must find time for themselves, especially during the stresses and isolations wrought by COVID. Getting to the mat is finding that time (we always have an excuse not to start a practice). Yoga is mindful time; yoga and mindfulness go hand in hand. Also, as judges, we have very stressful lives and see ugly things daily. We take them home with us. Yoga gives us time to sit down and take care of ourselves. We’re important, we matter, and taking time for ourselves is critical. It’s important for our work as well. Yoga invites us to take that deep breath and let it out, relaxing mentally, physically, and spiritually.” Now, they are inviting their Eleventh Circuit colleagues to “take that deep breath” with them. (To read more about mindfulness, see Justice Lawson Shares Insights into Well-Being.)