Mindfulness and Design Your Life Program

Speaker: Samara D. Anderson, Esq., Legal and Policy Advisor for the State of Vermont, Agency of Human Services, Registered Yoga MedicineTM Yoga Teacher

5:45-7:30 pm, Mindfulness for Lawyers (1.5 credits in Law Practice Management)

Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment. It is also a set of techniques and methods for systematically developing this awareness. The practice of mindful awareness has a variety of well-documented impacts for legal professionals, including a reduction in toxic stress hormones, an increase in emotion regulation, and an improvement in sustained attention, focus and executive functioning. Thus, the practice of being more mindful improves your overall experience as an attorney, you are happier at your job AND you are more productive and effective. The central objective of the course is for participants to learn the tools necessary to continue their mindfulness practice after the course is completed. Handouts will be provided after the course. This is an experiential course, so you will be both learning the techniques and applying them. There will be some movement as well, so please wear comfortable clothing.

Samara Anderson is a 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher becoming a 500 hour Certified Yoga Medicine Instructor, Agency of Human Services legal and policy advisor, and an entrepreneur teaching mindfulness to stressed professionals and creating a non-profit community farm in Vermont to use farm animals, nature and mindfulness to heal people. She discovered yoga in 2003 when she graduated from Vermont Law School and was in a stressful and busy commercial litigation law firm at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP.

Her legal work has evolved from litigation to public service with the State of Vermont, initially as an Assistant Attorney General and now as an in-house legal and policy advisor. Her yoga practice has deepened over the past eleven years, culminating in completing her first yoga teacher training in 2013. Samara has combined her mindfulness practices with the practice of law in her Mindful Practices workshops to reduce stress and increase productivity and happiness. Attorneys and non-attorneys alike exclaim that they have never felt so relaxed and focused at the same time: two qualities that make for highly effective humans and attorneys.

7:30 – 9:00 pm, Design Your Life Workshop

Are you ready to take on something really important this year––YOU? Whether you want to take on your career, your love life, your health, your body and/or your family, join Senior Coach Angie Robertson for this no-holds barred, narrative-changing, Design Your Life workshop. In this 90 minute session, Angie will teach you how to dream in every area of your life that matters to you, show you what’s in the way of your dreams, and get you into the right actions to realize every last one of them. If you’re ready to do the work, the Design Your Life workshop will help shatter the glass ceiling you possibly didn’t even know existed between you and your highest vision for yourself.

Speaker: Angie Robertson, Esq.

Angie Robertson Bio: Originally from Louisiana, Angie has a Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Civil Laws from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. She is a senior coach at Handel Group Life Coaching where she works one-on-one with clients and presents the Handel Method at local events. She loves being a part of spreading the reach of the method and has been learning from and using it since becoming a client in 2008.

Angie is passionate about helping people close the gap between their dreams and their current realities. As a Handel Group client, she herself discovered her dream of using her law degree to help nonprofits, something she still does in her spare time. She also found her dream of helping people fulfill their career and life dreams, and loves doing that as part of the Handel Group.

Angie is happily married and lives in Dallas, TX with her husband, two daughters and Dachshund.