A few thoughts on needing rewards: and whether you can feel good without them:
Rewards are always nice. It’s great to get a monetary reward in exchange for doing a job, or to experience someone rewarding you with a compliment when you do a good deed, or do something well.
It’s also fun to consume rewards that uplift and make us feel good, be it a chocolate treat, or indulging in watching your favourite tv show, movie or youtube video that feels feel-good while you’re watching it and feeds the reward centres of your brain. All of these rewards are external stimuli that feel good. Fleetingly and conditionally, but they do feel good.
But with external rewards such as these comes the other side: if you don’t get the reward, the external validation, the external appreciation, the positive vibes of the thing you’re consuming – then you don’t feel good. You miss it. It’s also quite addicting – you want MORE of that external thing that makes you feel good, because without it, you’re left with this empty feeling; a nothingness that doesn’t feel good, that you don’t know how to fill.
So external reward feels good when you get it (while you’re consuming the reward), but when it’s not there, you’re always left back in square 1. The question is, can square one feel more fulfilled and a happier place even when all the external rewards are not there to fill the void?
Could there be a way to feel good, in a deeper way than from getting rewards like a chocolate or watching a youtube video or winning a competition?
Could there be a different kind of reward that’s deeper, more sustainable and less reliant on external things.. a reward that comes more from within?
Abraham quotes on this:
“It is more rewarding in the moment to radiate the pure essence of who you are than to stand in the void of it and try to suck it from every place.”
“When you came here you intended to create a pure passageway to let that pure essence flow in.”
“You can gather stuff to try and fill that void but there is never any satisfaction from it.”
Maybe you don’t need to choose between either external or internal – mabe it’s ok to consume external rewards, as long as it’s balanced and not the only way you rech for feeling good. There has to be that internal sense of self-satisfaction there as a foundation too to keep you balanced and feeling good in a more stable, sustainable way.
How do you reach that internal sense of self-satisfaction?
- Make friends with the “empty void”: (/ with the present moment)
- practicing presence without judgement: allowing yourself to “just be” with that stillness; that nothingness; that void, without judgement and seeing that it’s not so bad – or in time, maybe finding somethign to like and appreciate about that quiet stillness. Find the peace and calm that is there rather than resisting it or criticizing it for being too still or boring. Find the good in it. I think that’s what Eckhart Tolle might say. - Make friends with yourself:
- Be Nice to yourself: This includes getting good sleep, playing more, allowing yourself to be playful, treating yourself well, looking for positive aspects, reaching for better-feeling thoughts, soothing yourself
- reach for better-feeling thoughts until you get into a higher vibration which is the receptive mode from where you are more in tune with Source and with Source’s knowing of all that is feel-good and self-satisfying.
- - practice tuning into self-love, self-appreciation. You don’t need the external validation that you are of value or worthy of being loved – practice knowing that you are worthy. How do you practice this? appreciating things in yourself often, (your talents, your good points & qualities) and reinforcing/ strengthening that – eg via list of positive aspects
- - allowing yourself to express yourself and create stuff, and then appreciate the things you’ve made without judgement – just practice appreciating the things you make.
- Make space to hear Source:
- stop talking about the negative stuff so that you can listen to your source and hear the positivity it has to share – you gotta stop broadcasting so that you can receive
- practice getting into the receptive mode (meditation etc) to help you receive inspired inspiration for things to do that come from a deeper place than “just wanting a reward” - - Reach for rewards that aren’t external – like the reward of enjoying to learn something new, the reward of exploring something new, the reward of understanding something in a new way, the reward of feeling like you’re adding to the expansion of the world & to source (regardless of whether results are positive or negative – it all leads to expansion)