Being Appreciated & Supported

The weekend workshop I organised completed today quite smoothly and I was told that the participants were happy with the workshop. I was feeling quite happy and when TL related to me about the workshop and what happened there, I was rejoicing. He told me that I must appreciate the work I put into organising the workshop and to reward myself with a higher program manager fee.

When he said that, I was feeling a bit sheepish about rewarding myself but I noticed an interesting feeling popped up... I was enjoying the fact that someone appreciated me.... That feeling... no money could buy. I also reflected that I felt really good and motivated these few days with TL & LF supporting me verbally and physically on my journey of rice fasting. This feeling seemed to buoyed me and motivated me further to continue.

I guess this is human nature and countless studies have been made to proof that when a person is appreciated and supported, they shine, they grow, they do things beyond expectation etc. I raised a question to the mind on " What would happen if there was no appreciation for things that you do?". The answer that I got was that I am not at the level where I'm not affected by appreciation or criticism. I still have a journey of learning to be equanimous and accepting things as it is. There is no sadness in it when the answer came to me because this is where I am now. I admit that there is still a liking for appreciation and support and a dislike for criticism and things that do not go my way.

Because of the awareness of this liking and disliking, it sort of makes the emotional swing of feeling good/high and feeling negative/low not so wider. In a way, there is a sense of goundedness and not be too carried away to each end of the continuum. Maybe if the swing of emotion get smaller and smaller, the closer to the middle path a person would be.