If we are not using our brains' capacity for challenge it feels to me as though it atrophies like an unused muscle.

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.

It seems whether we have a tendency towards being flexible or structured affects how we create, how we parent, how we work.

If we are not using our brains' capacity for challenge it feels to me as though it atrophies like an unused muscle.

It used to be thought that you stopped making new neural connections in your youth and from then on your brain was fixed and it was downhill all the way. But in fact as we know from our own experience we can keep on learning and learning means changing our brain on a physical level.

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

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