Ready for all the love and all the feelings? SaraEllen Hutchison, one of our many talented national trial lawyers in The Forum, writes about Women Lawyers: No, We Aren’t Too Smart To Be Loved - I healed my lawyer burnout when I finally understood what it means to be a feminine energy lawyer. Read the entire article on Thrive Global here.
SaraEllen writes:
It’s 1997. I’m a college sophomore. Ally McBeal is the lawyer character on TV stirring up the most controversy: is she too thin? Too neurotic? Are all of her problems because her job is too stressful? Or is it really because she can’t keep a good man in her life?
I watch the episode where Ally is prescribed antidepressants, then panics and flushes them down the toilet. And something in me feels seen and heard in a sad, but very real way.
As depicted in the show, becoming a lawyer did not look like it was a recipe for a happy life, but I found her character very relatable. I, too, was a girl who told myself repeatedly that I was too smart to find a good boyfriend, and wondered if it all meant something was seriously wrong with me.
I grew up in Eastern Washington where, back in the day, many people married their high school and college sweethearts and never left. Partly jealous and partly disdainful, my 19-year-old self concluded that law school was where the smart girls like me were supposed to go. I believed — but wouldn’t dare admit — that if I could maximize what seemed to always come easily (academics) I could patch up my great big emotional pothole of not-enoughness and have an admirable feminist life where I championed important causes and stood for something more intellectually significant than what colors to use at one’s wedding.Fast forward to the first year of my law career. I had a new job and a new boyfriend. I finally had achieved all the indicia of successful young adulthood. Quarter-life crisis? That was not going to be me.
But within six months, the pressure to be perfect to keep the approval of both the job and the boyfriend caused me to burn out. I was under tremendous stress, both external and internal, and developed a slew of stress-related health problems: wicked PMS, acne, and fatigue that no conventional or alternative medicine seemed to be able to remedy. In a very clear sign from the Universe, both the boyfriend and the job told me to take a hike in the same week.That was fifteen years ago. Today, I’m healthy and in a great relationship with a nice man. What I know today is that the work stress and the loneliness many women lawyers feel are not separate issues. And thankfully, the law turned out to be the ideal career for me, because I do get to champion important missions.
And one of those missions is this: to lift up the feminine-energy woman lawyers everywhere. I’m one, and if you’re reading this and nodding your head in understanding, you’re probably one too.
Understanding the Feminine Energy Lawyer
First, a quick word on masculine and feminine energy. Here, we are talking about a person’s vibe and the way they relate to themselves and the world. We are not talking strictly about sex or gender. Regardless of your sex or gender, you have a mixture of masculine and feminine energies within you. There is no right or wrong here.
