Hi everyone, it's Rosie. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Thursday. So I was talking to one

of my meditation students the other day and she was telling me about taking up the hobby

of drawing a mandala. These geometric symbols can be found in Buddhism, Hinduism and various

religions. But then my student said something that was a little discouraging. She said

that she wasn't creative. I told her that creativity is a skill and a process and that

everyone has creativity inside of them. She said she'd never thought about it in that

way and seemed excited about continuing with her drawings. Sometimes we need to give

ourselves the opportunity for creativity to blossom. We're so used to rules and what we're

supposed to do that we end up limiting ourselves and never even try something creative. So today,

let's explore why it's important to tap into our creative side, how to find it and why

letting go of the rules can help us be more creative. Creativity is so important in our lives

because it gives us an opportunity to explore our own unique gifts. It's what I like to call

our secret sauce. It's your way of seeing the world interacting with the world and we

use creativity every day. We're using creativity as we draft an email. We use creativity when

we're trying to problem solve. We use creativity when we're making food. It's really important

for us to really acknowledge that side of us. In fact, I can think of a specific time in

my life where I was told that I wasn't creative. So when I was a sixth grader, I had a teacher

that gave us this assignment to write an alternate ending to the story of the Nutcracker. I had

completely misunderstood the assignment and I simply repeated the ending that we had

all heard. When I got my paper back, in Brightred Pen, there were the three words that no child,

no teenager, no person ever wants to see. Come see me. When I did, she essentially explained to me

that I just wasn't a creative person, that I was unable to think of a different ending for the

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