The Ice Cream Melted: What Happened to Our Childhood Confidence?
When I was little, summer had a soundtrack.
It was the hum of a fan in the window, the click of a sprinkler in the yard, and the sing-song shout we knew by heart:
“ICE CREAM, ICE CREAM, we all scream for ICE CREAM!”
We didn’t whisper it.
We didn’t overthink it.
We didn’t ask quietly or shamefully.
We yelled it. Loud. Joyfully. Without apology.
We wanted ice cream…and the whole neighborhood knew it.
And often, it worked.
That glorious swirl of vanilla and chocolate.
The sticky fingers. The drippy cone. The full-bodied joy.
We desired, we asked, and we received.
We celebrated the sweetness the moment it arrived.
We licked the reward before it could melt.
But something happens between childhood and adulthood, doesn’t it?
Somewhere along the way, we stop proclaiming what we want.
We stop shouting our desires into the sky like sacred declarations.
We start playing small.
We quietly pin our dreams to vision boards, as if the Universe might reject us if we’re too loud, too specific, or too much.
We tell ourselves we’re being spiritual…
But beneath that calm exterior, there’s often a whisper of fear:
“What if I ask and don’t receive?”
“What if I want too much?”
“What if I look greedy, foolish, unrealistic?”
And just like that…
We let our dreams melt.
Not because they weren’t possible, but because we weren’t willing to hold them in our hands, let them drip, and savor them in the moment.
We’ve replaced bold joy with hesitant hoping.
We’ve traded loud declarations for silent scripting.
We don’t scream for ice cream anymore.
We whisper for abundance.
We tiptoe toward love.
We apologize for wanting more.
But here’s the deeper truth:
We’re always manifesting.
Even when we aren’t saying it out loud.
Even when our mouths are shut and our journals are tucked away.
Even when we think we’re being “low-key” about our desires, the energy we hold is still placing orders with the Universe.
Because manifestation isn’t just what you say.
It’s what you believe, what you expect, what you feel at a core level.
It’s what you habitually anticipate in the background noise of your life.
I remember one day sitting at a café, watching a couple laughing together at the table beside me. Their joy was effortless. Magnetic.
It was the kind of love that seemed to live in the cells of their bodies.
And without thinking, I heard a whisper in my mind:
“That kind of happiness isn’t for me.”
It was so quiet.
Barely there.
But that whisper was a manifestation.
It wasn’t written on any vision board, but it was encoded in my frequency.
And the Universe? It hears energy before it hears words.
I could write “LOVE” a thousand times.
I could script my ideal relationship down to the detail.
But if the quiet thought beneath it says “Not for me,”
that’s the signal that gets transmitted.
And that was a massive realization for me:
We are always manifesting, not just with our affirmations, but with our assumptions.
We’re not manifesting what we say we want.
We’re manifesting what we actually expect.
So if you’ve been watching your dreams melt before they reach your hands, maybe it’s not that you’re asking wrong.
Maybe it’s that you’ve stopped asking with the belief that it’s actually coming.
Maybe part of you decided it was safer to pretend you didn’t want the ice cream at all.
But that little you? The one who shouted it, claimed it, giggled when it arrived—
She’s still in there.
And she remembers how it felt to receive without guilt.
To enjoy without apology.
To want without resistance.
So maybe today’s the day we go back.
Back to the porch.
Back to the hot summer air.
Back to bare feet and big hearts.
Back to screaming for our dreams…loud, proud, and ready to receive.
Because life is too short to let the sweetness melt while we debate if we’re worthy.
And the Universe?
It’s not judging your volume.
It’s listening to your energy.
So go ahead.
Say it out loud.
“Ice cream, ice cream, I scream for my dreams!”
And this time, let them drip down your fingers as you savor every bite.
Reflection Questions:
When was the last time I boldly and unapologetically declared what I truly wanted…without guilt, shame, or filtering it through “realism”?
What quiet beliefs or inner whispers might be unconsciously canceling out the very desires I’m trying to manifest?
If I treated my desires like childhood ice cream, joyful, exciting, and meant to be savored, how would that shift the way I show up for them today?
