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.