Our emotional map is laid down mainly in relationship with our earliest caregiver in the first couple of years of life.

In order to stretch ourselves we do need to experience the vulnerability of not knowing the outcome.

Beginning a new habit, or ending an old one can feel like letting go of a rope that swings a mile above the ground. So we feel reluctant to let go, after all, we've survived so far doing what we've done, why risk it.

If you start from a position of I'm a no-hoper, in a paradoxical kind of way you are not risking being vulnerable.

If we think of our brains as a map, those early roads are like grooves, tram tracks, easy to fall into.

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills.

Our brains do not have to be fixed, they can be plastic.