Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about creativity and insight. So in many interviews, Einstein spoke about how his greatest creative insights and breakthrough moments would come when he stopped straining his thinking mind to solve a problem and took time to rest in inner stillness, in mindfulness. He summed up these interviews beautifully when he said, "I think 99 times, and I find nothing. I stopped thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me." Now I'm sure in some way, in our own personal experience, we can relate to this.

How many times have you come up with a solution to a problem when you're in the shower or you're on a walk, feeling really relaxed and at ease? Or had that experience perhaps of coming up with a kind of creative idea in the middle of the night, or perhaps when you're resting on the beach or in a park. Now, usually this happens in those moments because we've relaxed the thinking mind, and we've created an inner space where fresh insights and breakthroughs have room to emerge. Creativity and wisdom lie beyond the noise of the thinking mind. So creative insight often involves just letting go of thinking for a while. And this is something that I think is really important to remember in those times when we might find ourselves really struggling to solve a problem or really fixating on something we're looking to solve in our lives, or when we're feeling a little creatively stiffled.

Maybe having writer's block or something like that, you know. In those times, we can let go of this tendency to overthink things and, and just relax a little and let go of that constriction in the mind. Then we can step back into that still, quiet space within and start to tap into the place from which creativity arises. As Einstein said, "The most beautiful experience that we can have is dwelling in the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science." So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.

And inviting you now to settle in for today's meditation.