Choosing our Heaven

"You carry heaven and hell with you."

~Sri Ramana Maharshi~


"You don't have to be miserable. Every second of your
life, you can choose between heaven and hell.

...be still for a moment and breathe.

Then choose heaven.

It's there for you.

Every second of your life."

~Chet Day~

Choosing heaven. How often do we consciously do that?

The past few days have been days in which it feels as if I am choosing hell/or misery is choosing me.

Bad news, bad things seem to happen in bunches.

Each one taken separately, not so bad.

Pile one on top of the other...and soon my brain can only embrace hell.

Even good news, a piece of heaven knocking at my brain, can't seem to get through when I fall into the embrace of hell.

My entire being falters, I feel as if I lack substance. There is nothing to me...my brain seems to shut down. I cannot absorb anything, no information, no matter how fascinating I know I would usually find it, stays with me. I may read something, but only seconds later, I will have no idea what I have just read. Hell has come to live inside me. I cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or taste heaven. I am lost.

Unable to function as a whole me. It is as if the synapses in my brain are blocked, there is no communication between neurons.

Through much of my adult life, I have always been able to feel that connection between the insubstantial make-up of me, and my physical body...the substantial me. The past few weeks...the ephemeral me has been and is, curled up in the fetal position, seeking protection.

What am I protecting myself from?

I am in pain, my heart is broken...I know this...I have been living with that knowledge for years. I have made many abortive attempts to heal my heart...but these attempts were just that...attempts.

In recent months, I made the one decision that had needed made for years, in a final attempt to achieve healing.

Intermittently in the past few months, there have been days when it has truly felt as if I had chose heaven. I felt peace, a sense of contentment, warm, more open, my smiles were real all the time. I had moments when I knew happy, we were friends.

The thing I find most disheartening ...what I find most confounding...is that my body, my brain, my being...just can't seem to find that ultimate synchronization.

I love, I mean I truly love that feeling when my emotions are fully there, when my body, my skin, is aware of every nuance of movement, the slightest wisp of a breeze enlivens me. When thoughts flash so quickly through my brain, the words cannot flow out fast enough. I love it, because it means I am intrigued, I am fascinated, I am enthused, I am enthralled. I feel truly alive.

I miss it. I want it back. I can't seem to find it. (that word can't, I hate that word, it is a hell word when I apply it to myself)

The wall around me needs breached once again, only, this week, I find I am unable to.

I spent many years of my life building an impermeable wall of self-protection. Spent so many years hiding inside those walls...that I now fear them...maybe right now I need to accept that there is something going on inside me that needs that protection, and once I have gathered enough inner strength, I will have the energy to batter them down again. I really hate that wall though.



I reach out, I reach around, I think I am grasping heaven...it is there, I can sense the aura of it, I can almost see it, but no matter how much I stretch...my fingers just don't quite reach it.


So, how do we choose heaven? How do we choose it, and keep choosing it?


Is learning from our mistakes, moving on, accepting ourselves, loving ourselves...choosing heaven?

Maybe, just maybe it is. But today it is all eluding me. I feel dull-witted, dull-hearted, lost.