The rewards that we give ourselves are not real rewards. They're passing pleasures, momentary possessions, and fleeting feelings born out of an attempt to reduce or release oneself from a certain amount of tension. Because of this, the very act of rewarding ourselves is always incomplete and actually ties us to a certain unseen pattern of avoiding situations when they get "too hard." When you allow the Divine to show you that what you think you "can't take" doesn't belong to you, you're given something of a completely different nature.