From "The Edgar Cayce Handbook" by Mark Thurston, Ph.D. and Christopher Fazel :

"Your mind is like a tree, and the thoughts are like birds. It's not so important which birds land on a branch of your tree for a moment and then fly on. What matters is which birds you allow to build a nest in your tree and make a home there."

I love this quote. Particularly because lately I have really been conscious of the "mind chatter" that goes on in the back of my mind lately.

By "mind chatter", I'm referring to the stuff we think about under the surface of our conscious thoughts. Does that make sense? Surely not all of it is negative, but some of the constant mental messages we tell ourselves such as "I am too fat" or "There is no way I can do this, what was I thinking?", etc. are really the ultimate form of self-sabotage. So I am consciously working now to create some better, more positive mind messages to replace the old, counter-productive negative ones that repeat over and over like a dusty old cassette tape in my mind. I am a true believer in the Law of Attraction, which states that we are responsible for creating our own reality, through the power of our own thoughts and intentions. It's tough, because we tend to be our own toughest critics, but very possible to turn our thoughts to positive and useful messages. To me, the quote basically says that though we all have fleeting moments of negativity or self-doubt, the messages that keep repeating are the ones that can be most detrimental - or helpful - to our desired outcome.

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."
                                                                            ~Henry David Thoreau



Surely we've all encountered a "negative Ned" or a "negative Nelly" at some point.  These are the folks who always see the glass as half empty...the eternal pessimists who identify primarily with others through their own unconscious motto: "misery loves company".

We all have bad days, but I'd like to invite you all to STOP today, for just a moment, and consider the messages that you repeat to yourselves each day.  You may find that you are sabotaging yourself with your own thoughts! 

Because thoughts are energy, there is great power behind them.  The images that we paint are the ones that we become; this is the Law of Attraction in action.  Our thoughts draw energy our way; therefore if we think positive thoughts, we attract positive energy into our lives.  Unfortunately the same holds true for negative thoughts, and the surest way to get exactly what you don't want is to put a lot of thought toward it.  Acknowledge your fears, but don't allow them to dominate your thoughts. 

Consider where you hope to be in life, 5 or 10 years from now.  Visualize what you will look like, how you will dress, what you'll feel like, what work you'll be doing, where you will live, what kind of car you'll drive, what types of friends you'll have and people you'll associate with.  Do this often and in great detail...you will be painting an image for yourself to become, and actively creating your own reality!