Justine Fanarof, PLLC

04/29/2024

Happy Monday amigos—do you know we are in the 18th week of the year? I’m streamlining my Pages and closing this one.

Please Find & Follow me here:

https://www.facebook.com/mindfullawfirm?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Thank you! Gracias! Grazie! תודה

We focus on helping people and organizations with general counsel services, mindfulness and diversity training, ADR including mediation, non-profit/philanthropic awareness and advocacy, coaching, strategic planning, and governmental relations.

07/31/2023

🌕 Join the Series or Pop-In when you can!

🌖Luna Practices Smörgåsbord
Tuesday Evenings in August
6PM Pacific/8PM Central
75 minutes
On Zoom

🌗Think about it as moonlit play & adult summer camp — gifting yourself and/or someone you care about opportunities to learn & explore yoga, meditation & spirituality in a safe, intimate, compassionate & knowledgeable virtual environment.

🌘Let’s cool down together under the vast sky of practice.

🌑If you miss a session the Vimeo link/recording will be emailed to you.
Ongoing teacher support, sangha (practice community), playlist & class notes.

🌒Purchase Pop-In or Practice Series

$280 for the Series
$60 per class to Pop-In

03/15/2020

Waking up, I offer this prayer of loving kindness meditation to all beings everywhere, to our earth, our relationships, our children, ourselves.
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As you read the words you can say them out loud or quietly inside your heart:
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May I be well.
May I be at peace.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
May we be well.
May we be at peace.
May we be at ease.
May we be free from suffering.
Shanti Shanti Shanti. Peace Peace Peace. Paz. Paz. Paz.
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03/13/2020

Hi friends--As a practicing attorney with a Masters in Public Health who also teaches yoga & meditation, I wrote a piece on mindfully managing coronavirus anxiety. In the link is an audio meditation on balancing heart and mind energy. Y'all may find this practice very nourishing and supportive now. Slowing down and recognizing the anxiety is there is the first step, sitting with uncertainty is the practice. If I can be of support to you, please know I'm here. Sending all y'all peace and care:

***How to Mindfully Manage Coronavirus Anxiety***

My public health oriented & mindfulness practiced brain has been activated with news about the coronavirus.

Here are eight practices to understand and be with the uncertainty of the coronavirus.

1. Be aware that our individual and collective nervous systems' fight or flight system is likely agitated by the uncertainty and thus y/our fuse may be shorter than usual. Meditation practices including Yoga Nidra Meditation can support calming the nervous systems, promoting healing, relaxation, and internal balance;

2. Strengthen and nurture your self care regimen and boost your immune system consciously—now is the time to take that long walk on the bayou, ride your bike, stop and admire the wildflowers, eat the local honey from your farmers' market to manage seasonal allergies, gently stretch and breathe in the morning and evening, roll the soul of your foot out with a ball, and to do ankle rolls as you put on and take off your shoes;

3. Set a boundary on how many times a day you check the news and your various feeds;

4. Watch Trevor Noah to get your laughs in and to feel his joy, intellect, and perspective. I don't have cable and watch it on my computer via the Comedy Central website. Comic relief helps to ease stress and anxiety;

5. Practice cultivating joy—allow yourself to laugh and then feel where the joy resides in your body. Feel that joy expand out to your fingers and toes, then send that joy energetically out to your partner, BFF, anyone who is suffering, our planet, and to yourself. This is the primary practice that I'm currently enjoying and teaching. In the words of The Grateful Dead, nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile;

6. A foundational and historically transformative basic public health practice: wash hand with soap and warm water mindfully breathing in and out five times;

7. Take a bath. Our bodies are temples.
In the spirit of squeaky clean hands, take some time to linger in an Epsom Salt Bath. A wonder for aches and pains, the magnesium in an epsom salt bath promotes sleep and stress reduction. Whole Foods currently has two blends I'm enjoying, Himalayan Rose and Muscle Soak Mint with Activated Charcoal. It's important, so I'll say it again, our bodies are temples, and the collective fear about the virus does not need to be brought into your cells, skin, and subconscious. A good, old fashioned bath can restore balance like nothing else; and

8. Care is a continuum—social distance as appropriate based on your and others' well-being.

MAY WE BE WELL

https://mailchi.mp/justineyoga/unexpect-everything

07/06/2018

Howdy friends! There is so much going on in the immigration legal space now that you may have missed a decision that came down this week out of the DC District Court that reminded DHS/ICE (i.e. the Executive Branch) of their own policy and process to automatically and individually assess asylum seekers for "parole" so they are not arbitrarily detained.

I spoke with Maggie Martin of Houston Matters about the case, arbitrary detention, how asylum law holds a special place in the US and in international human rights law and how we must all make sure that the watchers are being watched. If you want to listen to the clip it's the first segment on the SoundCloud linked here:
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/houston-matters/2018/07/03/293830/full-show-how-politicians-use-scripture-and-houstons-best-hot-dogs-july-3-2018/

More of the More We Know: Parole is an administrative measure used by DHS to temporarily authorize the release of an individual, but may not grant any other immigration benefits such as the ability to work legally in the US. Basically, parole gets a person out of immigration detention so they don't have to sit in jail during the pendency of their asylum process, which can take years...

Under the current administration this policy is not being followed and the process and procedure has STOPPED leaving asylum seekers in the US who have passed credible fear of persecution or torture interviews detained (i.e. jailed) for months and years. These are people like Ansly Damus — an ethics teacher from Haiti who has been locked up in Ohio for more than a year-and-a-half. Damus committed no crime. Rather, he had spoken out against a government official and was then forced to flee violent, political persecution. When he arrived in the U.S., he presented himself to immigration authorities and requested asylum. He passed his credible fear interview and was granted asylum by a judge — not once, but twice. Despite that, he has remained behind bars while the government appealed his grants of asylum. ICE has not allowed him outside even once in over a year.

“I have not breathed fresh air or felt the sun on my face, and I never know if it is cold or hot outside, if the sun is out, and if the seasons are changing,” Damus said when the lawsuit was filed.

And so, from the decision, "While DHS may believe that such figures overcount the actual parole-denial rate, their speculation is not sufficient to rebut Plaintiffs’ assertion that the current release rate at the five ICE Field Offices is approaching zero...To be clear, in finding that injunctive relief is warranted in this case, this Court is simply ordering that Defendants do what they already admit is required – follow the ICE Directive when adjudicating asylum-seekers’ detention. The Directive provides a framework of minimum protections for those claiming refugee status, and, as Defendants acknowledge, it is binding on the Government. To mandate that ICE provide these baseline procedures to those entering our country – individuals who have often fled violence and persecution to seek safety on our shores – is no great judicial leap. Rather, the issuance of injunctive relief in this case serves only to hold Defendants accountable to their own governing policies and to ensure that Plaintiffs receive the protections they are due under the Parole Directive."

A helpful summary of the policy can be found here:
https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/credible-fear

If you really want to nerd out the ICE policy is here:
https://www.ice.gov/doclib/dro/pdf/11002.1-hd-parole_of_arriving_aliens_found_credible_fear.pdf

And the Memorandum Opinion is here:
https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/memorandum_opinion.pdf

Additional shout outs to my friends at Human Rights First and ACLU of Texas for their ongoing litigation work on behalf of asylees.

On Tuesday's Houston Matters: We learn about a court ruling affecting certain asylum seekers. We examine how politicians use scripture to their benefit. Food writers discuss their favorite hot dog and hamburger joints. And we preview the Houston Symphony's annual Star-Spangled Salute concerts.