Ice Cream Please!

Heaven is only, ever, one breath away...

What is heaven to you? Ice cream on the tongue? A lakeside church, swallows nesting in its porch? How about we eat ice cream as we walk down to the church?

Have it all!

What keeps you from having it all, right here, right now? What stops this moment from being your heaven on Earth?

You might point at reality and say - ‘Well, there’s no ice cream, no church, no lake here, for a start.
‘There’s a ‘to do’ list to die by - people want more from me than I can ever give…’

It’s true. Reality is huge in our experience. So huge it seems to deny the power of our dreams. The power to take ourselves off to our own private heaven may seem lost to us in the face of daily demands.

But daily demands don’t have to dominate.
Reality is not the whole of our world.
Far from it.

Come with me for a moment to a slope of coarse grass, held by hills bathed in sunshine. A local folk group plays in the shade of a tent. People perch on straw bales, sprawl on matting; acoustic guitars stroke the air.

In front of the makeshift stage a small child crouches; blond ringlets tumble down her back. She sits, mesmerised by the drums and the strumming. Riveted, delighted, she remains. Her focus is absolute.

Then, suddenly, that focus ends. She stands and twirls towards her mother. Her tee shirt shouts - in huge letters -

ICE CREAM PLEASE!

She runs to her base camp - a blanket on the matting - and consumes twice her body weight in pizza (a happy substitute for ice cream) before taking herself off to play in giant grasses beside the tent.

What happens as we imagine the scene? What does the picturing do - to our breathing, our heartbeat, our pulse?

We know the answers. Heaven is not so very far away. Children live there much of the time. Young children live in a world of make believe as much of the time as they can.

Why don’t we?

‘Lest ye become as little children, ye will never enter the kingdom of heaven…’ Matthew 18:3

Children in ‘make believe’ mode surely seem to be in heaven. I bet you can remember being lost in your imagining, maybe long, long ago…

Or maybe it was just this morning as you found yourself gazing at a face in the clouds or a chewing gum heart on the pavement… Pareidolia (seeing meaning in abstract visuals) triggers imagining for some…

Imagining is our portal. Our portal to Paradise. Available 24/7.

Why don’t we use it more often?

Why don’t we stop, often in the day, to visit that lakeside church, or taste ice cream on the tongue, or feel the sand between our toes as we listen to the ocean’s reassurance?

We know the answer to that too.

Momentum. Thought. Emotion.

We are swept into our day by an express train of thought, driven - whether we acknowledge it or not - by emotion.

When our thought train is driven by worry, frustration, overwhelm, doubt, it gathers speed quickly. It’s hard to jump off. It’s hard to choose a different train to take us through the day.

But it’s easier to jump off before the train gathers momentum.
It’s easier to choose, if we start early in the day.
It’s easier to pick our thought trains if we practise because we want to… because it always brings soothing, come what may.

What if we could imagine ourselves into a heaven on Earth often, each and every day?

After a while, you don’t have to imagine it any more. You discover that the feeling of ice cream on the tongue, the stillness of the lakeside church is at right here inside you as you breathe…

Breathing in… we open and receive…

Breathing out and out and out… we let go… feel the fullness of relief.

Heaven is right here, inside us.

Each day,
heaven is only,
ever
one breath away,
no matter what,
come what may.

I wish you many, many moments of heaven on Earth today.

My coaching, writing, and life are founded on many wonderful teachings, particularly those of Abraham-Hicks.