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

The extreme of flexibility is chaos and the extreme of being structured is rigid and staying sane, or indeed using your creativity, is about being aware of these extremes and steering yourself to areas where you work best which usually tend to be more in the middle than at either extreme edge.

I am talking about being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.

Neurogenesis continues throughout life and we have the capacity to establish new neural pathways and strengthen existing ones.

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

There are probably times where the creative process is not helped by collaboration.