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The Wellness Docket is a podcast for lawyers and legal professionals ready to prioritize their mental health. Through honest conversations with guests from inside and outside the legal world, we explore burnout, balance, and the pressures of practice—creating space for reflection, recovery, and resilience in the profession. This is a space where your wellness is always on the docket.
Tim: [00:00:06] I'm here with Maneesha Gupta, also known as Eesha Gupta, and I'll give a quick bio here. Maneesha Gupta is a Toronto based lawyer, focusing on intellectual property technology. She's the founder of Mindful Lawyer Canada, a mindfulness community tailored for legal professionals. She's practiced with large law firms in Toronto specializing in IP privacy, cyber security. Maneesha is also a speaker, facilitator, and advocate for mental health, diversity and wellness in the legal profession. Her work combines lived experience with practical tools to foster sustainable legal careers. So thank you for joining me on The Wellness Docket. I appreciate your time today.
Maneesha Gupta: [00:00:54] Thank you for having me, Tim. It's such a pleasure to be a part of this podcast. This is an amazing platform that you're offering that gives a diversity of perspectives from the profession, and I'm really honored to be here and join you.
Tim: [00:01:07] Oh, thank you very much. I know when we first had a conversation, when we were talking about maybe you being a guest on the podcast, originally we had such a good conversation that I wanted to say like, we should stop this now, not because I'm not engaged, but because I wanted to save some of the good information for our discussion. So I'm glad that I finally got you to have the discussion. So I guess my first question that I would have for you is how did first of all, what is your background in the law? And then how did that transition into starting Mindful Lawyer Canada and becoming more of a mental health advocate?
Maneesha Gupta: [00:01:51] I've been practicing for eight years as an intellectual property and technology lawyer. I started my career on Bay Street. I worked at Norton Rose, Fulbright, TD and Constellation Software as a group counsel for banking. I really enjoyed my experiences. It was really when I was transitioning in between roles that it was within a couple of hours that I had founded Mindful Lawyer. I had been meditating and doing yoga in various spaces and platforms, and I was really interested in finding this community that I truly needed. And so throughout my career, I always sought out resources, whether it was the member assistance program from the Law Society of Ontario, reaching out to teachers at my local yoga studio, counseling. What I deeply craved was a sense of community and belonging, and something that felt instant in terms of being able to connect with my peers over topics that I really enjoyed, such as wellness, joy seeking activities and just connecting over alignment of how our body can be a healer as well, rather than just seeking that externally. And so this was a community Mindful Lawyer Canada that did just that. And it was a community that I was looking to join. And so I created it.
Tim: [00:03:17] And were you a little bit scared at first when you made that endeavor to create this new platform? What people might think or what was the response when you first started this?
Maneesha Gupta: [00:03:31] Yeah. Absolutely not. I started at first and did my thinking after and it worked out. I really just followed my gut instinct and my calling. And I remember, this is years ago. I was looking on Monster or Indeed, and I was looking for my next legal role and different law career websites and reaching out to recruiters. And I just opened up a tab and I started thinking about what was that community that I was looking for. And because I could not find it, I decided to create it. So that process was something that worked out for me. When I started Mindful Lawyer, I started to share it with my network and with my friends and colleagues. And I received instant validation that this was an idea that worked when people were intrigued. Two people had not heard of a community created by a lawyer for lawyers, where you connect with other lawyers over wellness and learning meditation and these mindfulness techniques. And then within a couple of weeks, I had booked my first gig. And so this was around Covid, and the only real planning I had done around mindful lawyer was to open a brick and mortar meditation studio. So a physical space for meditation. When it was Covid, that was not possible, and necessity is the mother of all invention. And so I had my first client event booked, which was virtual. It was a community of thousands of lawyers and law students who were in transition in their career. And so I had offered this mindfulness event and it was very well received. And so that was the first point in time where I had this really positive momentum. People attended the session and they felt relaxed. They felt encouraged. They were able to set aside time from the continuous technology stimulation that is at our fingertips and really just relax and connect with others. So it had a quick and positive start.
Tim: [00:05:45] And I think from our discussions before, you designed your website yourself, is that correct?
Maneesha Gupta: [00:05:52] That is correct.
Tim: [00:05:54] And if anybody's seen it, it is like I looked at it and I was like, wow, this is really beautiful. Like somebody put some thought in time. Little did we know that it developed like an almost overnight kind of thing.
Maneesha Gupta: [00:06:07] And kudos to you as well. The Lawyer Depression project is something that I had seen online and the materials and all of the research that supports it is something that I'm really inspired by as well. I started to see patterns in terms of my discovery calls and what different clients and people in the legal community were looking for. So I started off with one service on my website, which was I offer weekly meditations and wellness events, and that grew to over 14 different workshops, meeting different client needs, and then seeing the pattern over time that certain programing and certain workshop types were popular or more of a plug and play that were requested by clients time and time again.
Tim: [06:57] Right. And what are some of the things that people have told you that they really appreciated by like what you're doing? Like, what are some of the comments you've received since starting Mindful Lawyer Canada?
Maneesha Gupta: [07:11] Absolutely. For many people, they received their first introduction into meditation. Meditation seemed like this elusive mystical concept, and then a lot of stereotypes around meditation that it's going to be boring, or you're just going to hear your voices in your head and feel easily distracted. Some of the immediate reactions that I received were 'I got to learn new breathing techniques that I can do at my desk.' 'I felt truly and deeply restored and rested for the first time in my day'. 'I thought I would not have much energy or feel sleepy after the meditation. I now feel energized'. So different strokes for different folks. And in terms of the folks or the decision makers or co-hosts that have engaged me, they've come back and said, "we loved how integrated wellness into our conference or into our team building exercise or into our board retreat, because this is something that we're really putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to mental health, wellness, and really supporting our employees and our teams."
Tim: [08:26] Right. And was there any kind of an age gap for people who seemed more amenable to mindfulness and meditation? Or were you surprised by some of maybe older members of the bar that were approaching it with quite an open mind?
Maneesha Gupta: [08:46] That's a really great question, Tim. When I started Mindful Lawyer, I was a junior lawyer myself, and I had the vantage point of seeing the struggle of a lot of junior lawyers who are looking for their first break at their first law firm job or on Bay Street. And so I had assumed that there were so many people in this large pool, such as myself, who were looking to find that breakthrough in their career transition or were struggling with their mental health. And I assume that Mindful Lawyer would be this community of all these law students and junior lawyers who were in the same boat as me, essentially. And I was surprised to see across a lot of my events, it was the practitioners who were 20, 25, 30 years out, judges who were very interested in not only the event but continuing to attend it. And so whether it's a public facing event or private event, I find that Mindful Lawyer has resonated with folks of different backgrounds, different vintages and seniority in law, and different practice areas. There are people in the room who are very well versed in meditation and yoga. And then there are people who are learning about it for the first time. So I guess wellness and supporting your mental health is a universal concept and it appeals to all, and it applies with Mindful Lawyer as well.
Tim: [10:20] Oh, that's amazing that you're seeing that progress with people from all age groups, all different parts of the career because I don't know about you, but there's a couple of things here. It is a stressful profession, and it's not wrong to acknowledge that. And then number two, there's a lot of ways that we have to do better. Like the old way of operating just cannot continue. And I think the studies that have come out bear that out, that we've got to find ways to make things better on each other, or else people are just leaving the profession.
Maneesha Gupta: [10:55] Absolutely. And I don't know about you, but I feel like we've come a long way as well, especially in the last five years. I'm seeing a proliferation of more lawyers or lawyer-adjacent roles where people were lawyers turned therapists, or they're lawyers who are coming together to write about the right to not remain silent and speak about their mental health. And I believe when I started out, there were research studies and stats that were available to us about the state of our profession. And now I feel like there's this community, and as a community, we're not exactly connected. There isn't a quarterly call where all the business owners in mental health, in the legal profession or folks who are doing things or getting together and necessarily collaborating. I know that you are an excellent solution to that. I know I've seen this growth and it's been a beautiful evolution. And for me, it's been a nod to see across my spaces and through my circles, seeing people doing various things to really advance and support our profession. I believe that we have a profession that is collegial and supportive. But on this very topic, to your point, people are really stepping up and the awareness and the conversation around it is so important. I've been engaged by some law associations that want to have these conversations for their members and engage their members on mental health topics and show them that they're supported through the association as well, so I would actually like to ask you, in terms of your endeavor, have you noticed the similar trend and what are your thoughts on it?
Tim: [12:45] Yeah. I appreciate you turning the table on me here. It's really fascinating because I don't know about you, but when I started this podcast project and started taking more of a leadership role on things, there's always that imposter syndrome where you go, well, why me? What am I? I have some special talents, but I'm not trained as a psychologist. I mean, I've had lived experience with mental health challenges, as many lawyers have. And what's so fascinating and really rewarding is that the more you put yourself out there and talk about these things, the more open other people seem to be. And so I've had people reach out to me, "hey, I really appreciated that episode. This one part resonated with me." This part, I talked to somebody else who spoke to you or something like that, and I connected with that person. I think I've seen the same thing. And it's fascinating. It's almost like people are waiting for permission to say like, it's okay now. I get that maybe it's interesting for the public at large outside of the legal profession to go, all the lawyers have it so hard or whatever. But no, it is legitimately a really stressful profession. And most people go into it for all the right reasons. And so we want to respect that. But yeah, I would say that my experience has been very similar to yours, that it's been incredibly rewarding. And I'm just glad to be a small piece of whatever puzzle that is. I contribute in whatever way. I have no idea how it's resonating. I just know what I hear back and it's really great that we're all part of that, that challenge and journey together.
Maneesha Gupta: [14:39] No, absolutely. And I'm very happy to have an outlet such as yours and a platform where people are speaking up, because how many of us have started our career silently suffering and have had no one to talk to? But it's really when we speak up to your point where we give people that permission to do that as well, right? I really love that about your podcast. Also, just thinking about being authentic, it also gives people that permission to arrive authentically, rather than suppress their identity. And that's so important, even for me, in terms of mental health, we all have such different baselines. And so when we experience different failures or stressful situations in our profession, we really come to it with all of that load and those invisible issues on our shoulders as well that we're navigating in the back burners of our mind and also showing up for our clients and being professional and competent in the workplace. So there are all these variables in our life that we're balancing and conflicts as well. And I know that in terms of my own mental health struggles and my own issues, they were things that I was aware of, but they were put under the rug.
Maneesha Gupta: [15:59] And it wasn't until I started my articling journey that I had to really face my own demons while also performing at the law firm and come to terms with all the things I was dealing with, especially the sense of anxiety that a lot of people coming into the profession face. There's this delta when you're articling as well, you're looking to land the role, you're looking to be seen as a high performer. It's your first impression in the profession and that can still continue to this day. But I'm really happy that we have outlets such as yours, where people feel empowered to speak and share their journey, and it allows people to really speak up and support one another and feel supported when you're listening on the other side and say, wow, that really resonated with me. Or if that person can do that, I can too. Or I'm struggling through something similar and they had this resource available to them. Maybe I should go out and connect with that person or that organization as well.
Tim: [17:04] Yeah. And I think that to me, a big lesson in doing this is that I never want to take for granted what little piece of information or what little piece of advice that somebody is going to give that might really help somebody and change their lives. It might be very obvious to me, but then somebody talks to me like I didn't realize that that was a resource that was out there. That was something. So I think in doing that, it just expands people's knowledge. And it's been a really interesting process. I wanted to ask you, first of all, what kinds of things before you started this mindfulness journey, did you find really troubling about the legal profession? And then what kind of things have you seen get better as you've gone down this process?
Maneesha Gupta: [17:53] Absolutely. Prior to starting Mindful Lawyer, I felt a sense of isolation and posturing. And so because I was showing up to my environments, both personally and professionally, as someone who was living a suppressed identity, an inauthentic life, I had no support system, so I didn't really have a supportive, positive community, any positive reinforcement around me. It was really just me and my voice that was beating me up, and the sense of perceived failure or not adding up. And so there were various things at play at that time, not having the right support, feeling isolated, not feeling like I had someone to really talk to when there's mentorship in a workplace context, when you're on the other side of that power delta. So you are far more junior and you're really banking on getting a role, or staying employed, there's that fear or stigma about speaking about your issues in the workplace and getting advice or feedback or help. So we do seek that out. And so I didn't really have a sounding board, so Mindful Lawyer really helped me with that in terms of finding people in the legal community that were supportive, who wanted to speak openly, voluntarily, speak openly about their issues. We could support one another and speak to one another, and it took people out of that space of being in a corporate environment and into a space that felt like a safe space and a place where you could speak confidentially and be amongst a small group of trusted peers. So that was the big game changer for me in my career.
Tim: [19:45] Oh, amazing. And do you think that the legal community, I guess I call that at large, but do you feel like we're getting better at these issues? Since you started doing Mindful Lawyer and certainly since the Sherbrooke Report several years ago, have you seen some positive signs?
Maneesha Gupta: [20:07] Absolutely. I've seen it in two ways. So first, the legal community at large here in Ontario, we have the Law Society of Ontario, our governing regulatory body. They conduct or carry out a mental health summit on a yearly basis. They bring together practitioners, licensees with various resources in the community. I've been privileged to be a part of that community as well and offer my meditations. Same with other law societies. The Law Society of British Columbia, the Law Society of New Brunswick, where we have our governing regulator really addressing this issue and trying to create awareness around these resources. In terms of my practice and running Mindful Lawyer, it's more popular than ever. There's a surge of inquiries, and it's so encouraging to see different organizations who want to take up different workshops and incorporate them into their summit, their conference, their team building, their retreats. I hear different general counsels and partners that come to me and say, I want to know how I can support my team, but do it in the right way in terms of checking in, in terms of mental health support and what are the right supports that I can direct them to, and how can I integrate mindfulness into the workspace? It is so refreshing to hear people having those conversations because I did not hear them five years ago. We have this topic being more front of mind for decision makers. Those are some of the positive encouragements and the positive momentum that I've seen, both in terms of a systemic awareness as well as one amongst the profession and those who are people managers and bosses who really, we spend a lot of time in the workspace with our bosses, our people managers and our teams, and it's encouraging to know that some of them have oriented towards having these conversations and creating a positive work environment.
Tim: [22:23] Right. And I think it's kind of twofold. It's altruistic. It's good in and of itself. But also, it just makes good business sense if you've got your staff burning out and struggling and you're not on top of it. I mean, the example that I would use is, years ago, I was aware that in a corporate setting, somebody just hands you a pamphlet and said, here's our EAP program, make sure you call, let's not talk about it anymore. It's kind of like it's a whisper, right? Like, let's not acknowledge that, nobody wants to know that. But I think that's really encouraging that people are basically saying, how do I do this in a respectful way? I think most people would appreciate that to kind of say, hey, guess what, Tim? I noticed that you seem to be struggling a little bit. Am I missing something? Is there something I can do to support you? I think oftentimes there's no special answer. It's just as my wife likes to say, saving space, holding space for somebody and just showing that you acknowledge it and like, hey, what can I do to help you out in this endeavor?
Maneesha Gupta: [23:38] Absolutely. And by the same coin, our profession has a long way to go. A lot of things have not changed. And the other side of Mindful Lawyer is meeting attendees and meeting people from different parts of this large legal community across North America, and continuing to hear stories of how they've been abused by their employer, how their struggles with mental health have negatively impacted them in the workplace, and then the resounding popularity of I feel short changed. I came to this firm or to this workplace, thinking that there would be more of a supportive environment or my job would look like this. And now that I'm in the belly of the beast, it looks completely different. And those DDEI and all of those buzzwords on the website were taken at face value rather than truly integrated in the culture of the workplace. So we do have a long way to go. What I will say, Tim, is I'm very encouraged by technology and social media. It feels like a necessary evil on one side. Personally, I find social media quite overwhelming and polarizing, and then on the other side of it, it expedites and accelerates change. And so organizations that are turning a blind eye or a blindfold towards mental health and support and truly making their employees feel supported are going to fall behind because social media and the awareness around all these topics we're exploring today means that people are ready to speak. They have access to information and resources. They're connected by algorithms to where those resources exist in their immediate proximity. And so people are going to be looking for and looking at their firm with more of a sense of ownership and entitlement of the type of experience they want in exchange for their services to that workplace.
Tim: [25:48] Yeah. And I think I hope some day, not only will the firms recognize that, but clients sometimes I explain it to clients this way. Listen, I work really hard. I spend a lot of hours working hard and making sure that I do things right. But you also want me rested. You also want me at my best because when I've taken care of myself and I've done those things, I'm ensuring that I'm better for the people that rely on me. Right? And so you can't just think of it as one way, like you just grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, put the hours in, and then there's no breaking point. It's like any other production line, any machine that you run to like so much full capacity that it just can't take it anymore and you don't do any maintenance on it. Well, it's going to break down and you're not going to have it for a long time. So, I think that those are all really amazing things. And I think you're right, it is a double edged sword that you can't get away with things anymore. With the type of social media I've seen, colleagues, not that I'm going to suggest that this is what people should do. I've seen colleagues who feel that they were bullied in their employment and it's plastered all over social media. So it's not a good look for people. If that's true and you're not making changes to try to do better.
Maneesha Gupta: [27:15] I have experienced something in terms of the production line analogy. So deeply and personally, I run two businesses. Mindful Lawyer is one of them. The second is my law firm Counsel Pro, and I've really struggled in terms of straddling these two roles, which essentially are two full time jobs and really carrying them on my shoulders, where my practice is very busy and demanding. It is a stressful profession and client. Their client demands client pressures and sometimes a volume that is beyond my capacity. And on the other side, with Mindful Lawyer, I'm doing corporate events and weekly meditations, and the schedule stacked on top of each other can sometimes feel unreasonable and overwhelming. So much so that something's got to give, right? We have so many hours in our day. So I'm fairly busy between both the businesses, but there are times when I do decline events and I do take a step back and it feels very misaligned because there's the old self and then there's the evolution into the new self. And then in terms of the old self, I want to say yes to everything. I don't want to lose out on an opportunity. And then there's the evolution of someone who really wants to protect me and honor how I'm feeling and say that doing nothing is okay, and I'm still going to be great and okay if I'm not doing it all.
Maneesha Gupta: [28:50] So I think a lot of us have that struggle where we're so accustomed to pumping out work and measuring our performance, and it's tied to our sense of self-worth and our sense of self-esteem, progress and satisfaction with how who we are and how much we accomplish that day. And then the void and the feeling of just really honoring who we are. What I've found in this journey of mine is the more I've learned to honor myself and take care of myself, I've become more aligned. And now there's a beautiful sense of empowerment and saying, no, I can't do that today, or I can prioritize this for you next week, or I'm just not available. Period. And it's been something that for me, that's been the longest journey that I've been on and it's the one that brings me the most satisfaction, just learning to value myself and my sense of worth. And I'm so grateful for these two businesses and being an entrepreneur for finally teaching me that.
Tim: [30:01] Being an entrepreneur will teach you that really quickly, won't it? Like it's a constant, it's kind of sad. Like there are times like when I get sick, for example, I almost have to say to myself, okay, it's okay not to do anything today. Because if you try and you're not feeling well, you're just going to make this worse, right? So it's a constant struggle mentally to say, okay, slow down. Like it's a, what do they call it? It's a race, not a sprint. Like you've got more time to get to that. But no, I think that it's neat when you say that because I feel more aligned when I do those things as well, right? Like you have to live with integrity. Both your external and internal self are the same. What you're presenting to everybody is the same. You're not one person behind closed doors that you are in front of people. And I think for a while, lawyers have been acting that way, like they've been when you talked about the articling experience and things like that, like people are probably really just scared to be themselves, right? Like it's an intimidating thing to go out there and try for those jobs and to compete with all these other people and the high stress and high pressure environment. So, that all really resonates with me. And I appreciate your perspective on that.
Maneesha Gupta: [31:20] It's to help your audience on any given day. I'm not 100% perfect and we need to acknowledge that we can wake up feeling super happy, super excited, ready to crush our day, and then two hours into our inbox or into our workday, we just were not that productive and didn't get that much done. And then we have a very productive hour and then something else happens and there's a dip in your energy. So there's various aspects to that. And they're not just necessarily your emotional health. They might have to do with your sleep cycle. They might have to do with your hormonal cycle with what stage and age you are at in your life. So our body continues to evolve, both in terms of its restrictions and its evolution. So it's really important to be micro attuned with ourselves. And I really feel that meditation is one of those avenues. Every person's meditation can look different. It can be a walk outside, it could be listening to a podcast, and just reminders of checking in with how we're feeling and being very careful about how we judge our own feelings and letting us feel our feelings as well.
Tim: [32:37] I think that's really important. When you say that for me, like when there are times if I'm feeling a little bit down, you learn to say to yourself, it's almost like a meta thing. You look, you look from above and you say, okay, I acknowledge that I'm not feeling my best right now. That's okay. Like 80% is showing up and following a process and it'll get better, right? Like it just learned to work through those things. And it makes a huge difference in the overall success. It's definitely not linear. You're going to have mornings when your computer crashes or your kid's sick and you have to go pick them up from school, or you run over time by half an hour for each appointment. So every single appointment for the day is half an hour. You're just like, and I just kind of say to myself, okay don't let one of these little things blow it all up to be a bigger issue than it is. It's just one foot in front of the other.
Maneesha Gupta: [33:36] Yeah, absolutely. And something I've always struggled with alongside the profession is my relationship with food and getting it right. And I'm now finally, as a result of being micro attuned with how I'm feeling and living amongst and also unlearning toxic conditioning and society. Like there's so many options and diets and just keep hearing about a new diet or a food that I or a drink that I can no longer have, you know, coffee as an example. So I'm finally learning as a result of listening to my body, what's best for me and what works for me as well and keeps my energy levels up. And so a lot of us have a personal struggle in addition to navigating a demanding career. And for anyone listening, if you can find a way to really get attuned with how you're feeling because a lot of it can be drowned out by our obligations that we have to our clients, to our family, to the broader community. We're usually on a go, go, go schedule that we've learned to turn off that voice and to our discussion today that really can add up and create that sense of feeling burnt out or not having that maintenance done in the production line for sure.
Tim: [35:02] So I guess my final question here is if there was one thing that you could change in the legal profession regarding mental health, what would that be?
Maneesha Gupta: [35:14] That's a great question. If I could change one thing around mental health, it would be having a centralized source of truth when it comes to our resources and mental health, which I believe you are here to help solve. From my vantage point and my experience running Mindful Lawyer and having that unique lens of meeting both licensees and organizations that are looking to host and address mental health and wellness in the workspace. A lot of us are doing really great work and we are not fully aware of the services that others have to offer. And wouldn't it be so great if there was that one space or that one platform that helped list and triage your needs by the different profiles of practitioners and or services that are offered to our profession, and they could be by lawyers, not by lawyers, but anything that really helps people access what they truly need in real time. So I think that there's a lot of great work, as we've discussed today, that is being done across Canada. And it would be so wonderful if we had that platform here. I believe that's what's truly needed. And at this point in time in the profession, we discussed how there was no real community for that conversation and that dialog. We now have a proliferation and people speaking about mental health through different platforms and mediums. It would be so great if we all could tap in and support one another and collaborate. And I believe those opportunities will come. You don't know what you don't know. So it's going to come when we have that centralized repository for that information.
Tim: [37:15] Okay. I hear that bar associations, that might be a big solution. I think you're right. It is siloed, isn't it?
Maneesha Gupta: [37:21] Absolutely. And from my board work across the past decade within the law associations, I know that's something that would be tapped on, in terms of them looking for speakers or CPD programming to offer to their members. They can now pick from this list of really great people doing great work.
Tim: [37:43] Right? Okay. Well, do you have any other questions for me as we close out our interview today?
Maneesha Gupta: [37:50] I would love to ask you, how have you been in terms of the Lawyers with Depression Project? What are your immediate next term priorities, and where do you see the Lawyers with Depression Project going a year from now?
Tim: [38:07] So I want to differentiate one thing there is so I started the not for profit that owns The Wellness Docket podcast called Lawyers with Depression Canada Inc. That company I started as a not for profit. And it's kind of based on Dan Lucas in Buffalo, New York, his experiences with what's called the Lawyers with Depression website. And so there is also another Lawyers with Depression project that was like a Facebook page at one point in time, but it just disappeared. And it was really an amazing initiative that brought lawyers together to have discussions. But then all of a sudden it's gone. So I just want to provide a distinction to that. But so for what I see originally when I started this project, the podcast was just kind of one arm of the overall kind of Lawyers with Depression Canada project, which also looked at like combining people and advocacy and research on best practices and putting in place programs and marketing and things like that to promote more of these things. So I see that that's a place where in addition to the podcast that there's building more of that community out. And that's something that I'd really be interested in. I guess the hard part of it, to be quite honest, is that, as you said, this is kind of a side hustle for me. It isn't run by a non-profit. So I don't make any income on it.
Tim: [39:46] And it's finding the time to do it with a very shoestring budget. So I'm always looking at expanding and finding other ideas and building that community with people. So I think that would, that would be maybe the next step for a Lawyers with Depression Canada project is to really build that community and stories beyond to bring together some of the silos maybe that you've discussed, you've got your project and then we've got the right not to remain silent book and we've got people doing calls over here in different provinces, but to combine it all into one resource where somebody could go look and say, okay, like if you're like me, if I'm driving to court an hour away or I'm going to visit somebody. Nothing better for me to find something to fill the time than to listen to a podcast and learn. So that's great for me, but that might not resonate with everyone. And so someone else might be more comfortable going on the website and clicking on, and visiting lawyers assistance programs or something. So I think combining that community in the future is really where I see the next steps for us. And I like what you're doing. I like what I'm doing. And I just keep meeting so many incredible people that are chipping away at this and providing whatever talents and resources they have to fix them.
Maneesha Gupta: [41:13] That's really amazing. And that sounds like the organic next step in this process. I'm sure people listening to this podcast will be encouraged and will be able to provide those resources and are going to be looking to contribute as well, especially after starting Mindful Lawyer there. It's been really amazing to see former law school classmates, former colleagues step up and say, what can I do to help? How can I, I'd love to be a part of Mindful Lawyer in some way. And I believe that they're going to be so many people as well, especially with your project that want to step up and help, so we'll have a conversation offline.
Tim: [41:55] I appreciate that, and I hope that people will do that. And we'll follow up on that. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time. Fingers crossed that we keep moving forward with what I call the kind of mental health bar in Canada.
Maneesha Gupta: [42:14] Thank you so much, Tim. It's been such a pleasure connecting and laughing and speaking to one another. And I'm so grateful to be here. And thank you for all the wonderful and incredible work that you're doing in our legal community.
Tim: [42:30] Yeah. My pleasure. Thank you.