Lori Mihalich-Levin, JD - It's Working Project

Surround yourself with a village IMMEDIATELY!! My Type-A, I’ve got this, go-it-alone attitude prevented me from tapping into useful communities in the early days of working parenthood, and I really isolated myself as a result. I probably wouldn’t have created Mindful Return had I created this community for myself sooner, but I would have felt less desperate and anxious as a new working parent.

There is a big gap between words and action, Lori Mihalich-Levin, JD understands that. “Ten years ago, law firms were at a loss as to what was wrong, let alone how to address the realities of new parents returning to the workplace.” Mindful Return was there with the answers, tools and supports that changed the landscape for working Mothers. Lori described the idea of family friendly as simply that, a concept, “Law firms seemed not to know why they were losing talent, let alone why a firm’s support of parents was quickly becoming a key concern of candidates in the recruitment process.”

Lori had the answer. Mindful Return was born of Lori’s personal, yet very universal experience of returning to work as a new parent. She shares that while she struggled reentry with her first child, the second child was the breaking point, “I was acting out of sheer desperation”. Lori recognized a glaring unmet need and was there to fill it. Quickly, and fueled by the rise of highly regarded law firms finding the tools they needed (and spreading the word among their peers), Mindful Return became the standard that has led the way to elevated outcomes. Immediate action with an eye on the long game.

Lori’s personal experience combined with her professional savvy changed the working parent landscape in indelible ways. Mindful Return offers solutions that go well beyond words. What began as a side-gig created a bold new standard, new language and new tools. Mindful Return made economic sense and created a newfound perspective that grew into a commitment which would evolve to be a key indicator of women’s ability to thrive in the legal workplace.

Meet the woman who shifted both culture and care, Lori Mihalich-Levin

YOU ARE A POWERFUL AND DEEPLY DEDICATED ADVOCATE FOR WORKING PARENTS. YOU WORK LONG HOURS AND OBVIOUSLY POUR YOUR WHOLE SELF INTO ALL YOU DO. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF RESTED AND WELL?

Such an excellent question! My #1 strategy is that I commit to a hard-stop at 10:30pm every night and am very committed to getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night. Those early days of parenthood and sleep deprivation were brutal for me – physically and emotionally – and I have really learned to prioritize my own wellness. To get a “hard-stop” on working at night to stick, I got an accountability buddy (my husband) and got into a routine of doing something enjoyable after I turn off my computer to help me unwind (10 minutes of meditation on the couch with my husband). During the pandemic, we also started a tradition of swapping 3-hour blocks of “alone time” on weekends, which really helps my sanity.

HOW EASY WAS IT TO PUT A CHILDCARE ARRANGEMENT TOGETHER AND DID IT WORK FOR YOUR FAMILY WITH YOUNG CHILDREN? HOW HAS IT SHIFTED AS YOUR FAMILY HAS GROWN?

“Easy” and “childcare” in the same sentence?! Very funny! I live in Washington, DC, where daycare options are both far-from-sufficient in quantity and incredibly expensive. I learned from a friend that it was important to put our names on waitlists as soon as we found out we were expecting, which of course required paying a whole bunch of deposits. My husband and I then starting touring 1 daycare center per month during my pregnancy. Once we found the one we really wanted our child to go to (because it was near our house, small, and very cozy-feeling), we started a lobbying campaign. Yes, another very DC-thing to do. My husband started calling (we figured they didn’t hear from as many dads), and we even wrote them a handwritten letter and enclosed a photo of our little redhead when he arrived. Our efforts worked and we got off the waitlist. But it was indeed a time- and energy-consuming effort to secure that daycare spot.

Once our children went to elementary school, we started using the after-care program across the street from the school for the 3-6pm timeframe. During COVID, however, that hasn’t been an option. As with many families, we felt very isolated an stranded during the pandemic, and our kids spent 13 months at home with us before returning to a hybrid school model 4 weeks ago. (It’s been a YEAR…) For childcare, we had a college student help out a bit last summer, and one of the kids’ former daycare teachers was a part-time tutor for us during most of this past school year. We are still figuring things out day-to-day.

WAS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE AS A NEW MOTHER WORKING? IF NOT, WHAT?

My oldest son is now 10, so the early days of parenthood are admittedly a bit foggy in my mind! There were two huge challenges that stand out for me from that time, though. First, my oldest son refused to take a bottle, which made me incredibly anxious about going back to work, feeling as though I would starve him if I left him to go to the office. It turned out that I had excess lipase in my breastmilk (which I wrote more about here) which caused it to turn sour after about 4 hours, if I didn’t scald it after pumping). Once I figured out the problem and our daycare helped our son recover from his bottle trauma, things got better. But it was a stressful year of first trying to determine the source of the problem, and then having to scald my milk in a bottle warmer under my desk at work every time I pumped.

Second, I found that the days that presented the biggest challenges to me as a new parent were days when plans went awry (and there were MANY of these days!). When baby got sick and couldn’t go to daycare, or when it snowed and we had to work from home, I truly felt pulled in two directions at the same exact time. Those were the days I felt the most distress as a working parent.

WHAT PRO-TIPS DO YOU HAVE TO SHARE WITH OTHER NEW OR EXPECTANT MOTHERS? FATHERS?

Two top tips:

(1) Weekly planning meetings may sound boring, but they have saved my sanity and my marriage. Around the time I had my second son, my husband and I started a process of meeting on a weekly basis (in our case, Saturday evenings), to map out our upcoming week, identify who is on point each day if something unexpected were to happen with our kids, schedule date nights, determine what we were going eat that week, etc. (Here’s more on how to get your partner on board with a weekly planning meeting, and what we talk about during that session: How to Engage Your Partner in Weekly Planning.) We were so frustrated in those early days by having to pivot in the moment when daycare called to say that our son had spiked a fever or some other unexpected event had occurred. Talking through our upcoming week every Saturday gives us the opportunity to understand one another’s schedules and priorities and also provides us a built-in space and time to talk through any frustrations that arise.

(2) Feel all the feelings, including guilt. I spent a lot of time pushing away feelings I didn’t want to feel in early parenthood. I told myself I “should” be feeling a certain way and then willed myself to feel that way, but often to no avail. Learning how to allow myself to be okay with whatever feeling was coming up for me – whether it was guilt or gratitude, joy or desperation – helped me to move through each of these emotions more quickly. On the guilt front, also remember that “baby firsts don’t exist until YOU see them.” It’s not because you went to work that you missed the first time your baby did something new, after all. You could have been in the next room when she rolled over for the first time, or he could have stood up in his crib by himself when no one was there.

WHO WAS YOUR BIGGEST SOURCE OF SUPPORT IN RETURNING TO WORK AS A NEW MOTHER?

In the early days of parenthood, my biggest sources of support were my husband and my then-manager. My husband was fully engaged from day #1 and was just as big a player in all of the mental and logistical work of my return as I was. And my manager may not have had children of her own, but she had massive amounts of empathy. She basically gave me the green light to do what I needed to schedule-wise to make my return a success. This permission allowed me to phased back in slowly in a way that really empowered me.

WHO ARE YOUR MENTORS? WHOM DO YOU MENTOR?

Oh, so many people! I have always collected teacher and mentors (and refused to let them go!), so I remain in contact with people who have mentored me over the years. Whether that’s my former violin teacher from my youth, a partner who guided me when I was a “baby lawyer,” the women in my Jewish mama Hineni circle, or the amazing women in my FamTech founder small group mastermind, I have been led and guided by the light of so, so many inspiring people.

I truly love mentoring others as well. Right now, my three main mentees are my two sons and one of the associates at my firm who is an amazing #lawmama whom I want to see succeed. I also mentor the mamas in the Mindful Return course and in our broader community of Mindful Return alumni all the time!

WHAT IS ONE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WISH YOU COULD OFFER YOUR FORMER, EXPECTANT SELF?

PRIOR TO HAVING CHILDREN YOU WERE A PARTNER AT A WELL KNOWN LAW FIRM. HOW DID YOU GET FROM THAT ROLE TO RUNNING MINDFUL RETURN AS WELL AS AUTHORING Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return From Maternity Leave?

I had worked at two different firms prior to having children, but I actually wasn’t a Partner yet, pre-kids. When I had my children, I was doing health policy work in an in-house role for a health care trade association, which I loved. Even at this relatively family-friendly organization where I was working, though, no one seemed to be talking about how hard it was to transition back to work after parental leave. Mom after mom would come into my office, burst into tears, and say how hard it was, which motivated me to start a working parent group at my office.

I quickly realized that the lack of support around the transition back to work after parental leave wasn’t just a problem at my office, and as I looked around for resources to help me with the personal and professional identity transition to working parenthood, I came up short. So I set out to create what I wished had existed for me, and I developed the Mindful Return program for new moms.

About a year and a half into launching Mindful Return and working on it exclusively at night and on weekends, I wanted some daylight hours to spend on this passion project. Perhaps ironically, at that point, I decided to return to law firm world – on a reduced hour schedule – so that I could also grow Mindful Return. I joined the firm where I currently work as Partner on a 60% schedule, and I now work there, as a Partner, on a 50% schedule, while devoting the other 50% of my work week to Mindful Return.

As for the book, it came as a bit of a surprise! I started blogging in 2014 (I just published my 300^th blog post this past weekend!), and after a few years of writing regularly for my blog, I realized that I had basically already written a book. It was then a matter of weaving together what I had already written into a paperback.

IS YOUR CURRENT JOB AS FOUNDER OF MINDFUL RETURN SUPPORTS MOTHERS, FATHERS AND EMPLOYEES IN WAYS THAT WERE ONCE WELL OFF THE TABLE AND BARELY CONSIDERED. IS THIS YOU EXPECTED WHEN YOU DREAMED UP YOUR PROFESSIONAL FUTURE?

Hardly! I am a risk-averse lawyer by nature, and the idea of founding a company was quite honestly the furthest thing from my mind for most of my life. I have been a problem-solver and CliftonStrengths “Activator” for as long as I can remember, though. So had I known more about entrepreneurship earlier in my life, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so surprised by where I wound up. I truly love building communities, mentoring, writing, and creating new things, so the role suits me rather well.

YOUR WORK AS A FOUNDER AND ADVOCATE IS INCREDIBLY DIVERSE BOTH IN TERMS OF CONTENT AND STRATEGY. ONE OF YOUR TALENTS IS SPEAKING. WHAT TOPIC IS YOUR FAVORITE TO BRING TO THE WORKPLACE?

It’s funny that you mention speaking, because that is one skill I actually believe working parenthood made me so much better at. Prior to becoming a parent, I was an over-prepared, anxious public speaker. I had to give talks all the time for my job, though, and when my boys were born, I simply had no more time to over-prepare. Having to show up and “just do it” rather than mapping out every word helped me to speak more naturally, develop deeper connections with my audiences, and create conversations that flow better.

My new favorite topic to bring to the workplace is “Maintaining Ambition as a Caregiver.” This is a topic so many of us struggle with – particularly as we come out of the traumas of the pandemic – and I’ve loved helping re-ignite this professional spark for employees. I’m also always fond of speaking to groups of new parents about how to craft mindful returns from parental leave! (More information about my speaking work is here.)

YOUR BOOK (Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return From Maternity Leave) ON SUCCESS STRATEGIES FOR WORKING PARENTS. DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN “SECRET SAUCE” OR HACK TO SHARE?

My own personal secret sauce was, in the early days of working parenthood, “micro-self-care” and now, full-fledged self-care. Building intentional pauses into my days and weeks makes it possible for me to keep going. Whether it’s my morning ritual of setting an intention for my day while I take a shower, or raising my blinds and making my bed as a transition activity to help me clear my head before I sit down in my home office, or my new pandemic practice of taking one day off of work per month, re-setting myself regularly and on purpose makes all of what I do possible.

WITH TWO CHILDREN, I KNOW YOU MUST HAVE A BUSY HOME LIFE. HOW DO YOU MANAGE ALL YOU DO?

About 6 or so years ago, I gave up using the word “busy.” I simply stopped using it and banned it from my vocabulary. As a lawyer, I love words and believe the language we use really matters. When I stopped describing my life as busy and stopped participating in competitive “busy wars” with colleagues and friends, I experienced a mindset shift. In fact, I started feeling less busy. Now, I simply describe my life as “full.” And gratefully so.

How do I manage it all? Organization, regular pauses, optimism, and an incredibly supportive village are what allow me to put one foot in front of the other every day.

FINALLY:

As a working parent, I never expected parenting my children through the learning of their own emotional worlds and landscapes would be so hard and finding other parents who are open and willing to commiserate about our shared challenges would be so much easier.