I believe the brain can be a work of art and this costume represents our mind as a filtering system, linked to the network of neurons in the brain stem to mediate behavior, known as the Reticular Activating System or RAS. The RAS takes what you focus on and creates a filter for it from what you receive from your visceral, somatic, and sensory systems . It then sifts through the data and presents only the pieces that are important to you. It is a process you don’t have to do anything for it to work, but it might need gentle tweaking when you're not noticing the things you want to.

So, to go with this hat, I’ve chosen 55 images I’m particularly drawn to, to be sifted and find it links nicely with my interest in the world of work and neurodiversity and supportive environments, because it reminds me, and those I share this work with, e.g. with my talk series Advice From my Future Self... that we can choose the environment/s we occupy and we can shape them.

Last night I finished devouring The Gardening Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith I’d picked up at The Garden Museum and on the last pages Il fait cultivar notre Jardin |We must cultivate our garden from Voltaire really struck me and the neuroscientist Kelly Lamberts thinking that a belief in our ability to shape our lives originates through shaping our surroundings.

This is all basic stuff, obvious and yet a beautiful place to begin my next chapter.