First Pond in Blue Hill, Maine. Aislinn Sarnacki took the photo, she's an outdoor writer for the Bangor Daily News.
It's hot outside in the daytime, I'm going out with daughter Hollie early today, and we'll be in out homes before it gets too hot.
To reward something indicates that we value it. The payoff represents our hope that the same thing will happen again. Rewards are encouragements for repeat performances.
Unaware, we can very easily reward our own illness. We do it by simply acting out our old, destructive habits and patterns—by keeping them with us, by practicing them. The more we act them out, the less aware we become.
We reward illness when we feel afraid and then let that feeling halt our action. When we allow our shame to get the upper hand by getting into unrealistic expectations, we reward illness. When our low self-esteem nudges us into relationships that can only end in heartbreak, or when we allow unacceptable behavior to go unchallenged, we are rewarding illness.
We don’t need to pay the high cost of feeding the disease by repeating these self-defeating patterns. We’ve paid enough for defeat; it’s time to invest in success.
From: Days of Healing, Days of Joy
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes
