By Leila Chalk
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27 Sep, 2021
Earlier last month, over at Forty Four Degrees , we got all the lawyers together on Teams over a number of afternoons to just chat and create different LEGO masterpieces. It started, like anything in life, from a little inspiration and a little desperation. Talk of mindfulness is everywhere, the benefits are debated strongly, but it is one of those things that we can see working for ourselves - and it is never as obvious as right now, during lockdown. Melbourne lockdown feels like it is never ending. Everyone is tired, and that tiredness snowballs, so that each interaction in each day means that we are endlessly collecting little bit of sadness from each other. From our clients, and from the lawyers on the other side, and from our families and from the media. It multiplies and snowballs. One sleepless night, I thought it would be important to start the conversation about how mindfulness and positivity can also snowball. (I'm not talking about all the toxic positivity bullshit, but simply the attempt to connect and talk about the things that are working in keeping us sane). The next morning, I reached out to my team at work, I spoke to my friends, and I asked people to share one thing that had recently inspired them. My inspiration had come from my daughter, who would busily sit under my desk with her buckets of LEGO, finding calm in the daily task. That day, I also ordered boxes and boxes of LEGO to be delivered to each of my staff, and that is how our Brick mindfulness has begun. We hope all to see each other sooner rather than later, but at the latest, we are looking forward to our LEGO themed Christmas Party. If you have kids or adults in your life who are struggling, maybe journaling isn't their thing. Maybe yoga isn't their thing. But we keep trying, just in case little tiny bricks are their thing. The most exciting Harry Potter sets can be found here . Leila Chalk is a lawyer and founder of Forty Four Degrees , a boutique Melbourne law firm. She is the author of the Isolation Journal. *This blog post contains affiliate links.