I need fear to motivate me.
Is that true?
No.
How do I react when I believe the thought ‘I need fear to motivate me’?
I torture myself with an imagined future involving the consequences of doing or not doing whatever it is I’m trying to motivate myself to do or avoid. For example, I think of myself as enormously fat, ugly and ill, both now and in the future. I torture myself with images of not being good at my chosen profession, and failing my subjects at uni, in order to try and force myself to study. Of course I rebel against this. I eat a whole lot of junk food, or I don’t study for a few days, and then I feel very guilty, and angry with myself, and afraid. I believe I am not good enough, lazy, and unacceptable. I hold on to a lot of fearful thoughts because I’m afraid that, without them, I won’t get the life I want. And, in the meantime, I never get the life I want because I’m always afraid and never happy.
Who am I without the thought ‘I need fear to motivate me’?
I am at peace. Nothing matters. I do things because I want to, and I don’t do them when I don’t want to. Life is exactly as I want it to be, and I haven’t even achieved the things I think I want to achieve. I’m so relaxed and happy. It doesn’t even matter if I achieve whatever it is, or not.
Is there a peaceful reason to believe the thought ‘I need fear to motivate me’?
No.
Turn it around.
– I need love to motivate me.
I will have more lasting success and a steady stream of happiness if what I do I do out of love. For example, if I don’t eat junk food because I feel heavy and horrid afterwards, and I love myself enough to spare myself that pain. Or, I study progressively throughout semester because I love myself too much to want to stress myself out by making myself do entire assignments in a day. Or I do The Work because I love myself and the people around me enough to help myself reach peace.
The Work of G 