“If beating ourselves up worked, we’d all be thin, rich and happy by now.”—Cheryl Richardson
My friend, Anita Moorjani, wrote an amazing book called Dying to Be Me. It’s about her four-year bout with cancer and the NDE (near death experience) that completely revolutionized her ideas about life and death.
I can’t remember if this part is in the book or not, but after she returned from the other side and quickly began healing from the stage four lymphoma that had ravaged her body, she got out of bed (she’d been unable to walk for months before), shuffled into the bathroom and nearly fell over in shock when she saw her withered frame staring at her from the mirror. She looked herself straight in the eye and made this solemn vow: “I will NEVER do this to you again.”
Until she got cancer, Anita says she was afraid of everything. Like so many of us, she was a people pleaser. She worked hard to be liked, to be a “good person,” to be spiritual, to be a good employee. She tried to eat right. In fact, she says she worried constantly about microwaves, plastic containers, red meat, getting, you guessed it, cancer.
In other words, she was the poster child for Lesson 22 of ACIM: What I see is a form of vengeance.
At first read, this sounds pretty harsh, but when you hear stories like Anita’s or the story of Evy McDonald (which I shared last month and you can access here), you realize how vengeful we often are…especially in our judgments of ourselves. I know I would never dream of speaking to anyone the way I so often speak to myself.
Later in this lesson, we celebrate the joyous news that our countless fears and critical thoughts are not real. We learn that we can escape.
Anita had to die and go to what we call heaven to realize this precious truth. We get to do it today by simply asking help in seeing life differently.
And in case you’re wondering, here are a couple rules that Anita lives by today:
1. Don’t take life seriously.
2. Eat chocolate.
3. Realize YOUR OWN MAGNIFICENCE!!
4. Eat more chocolate.
5. Enjoy life and do what brings you joy.
6. Laugh at yourself every single day.
7. Start each day listening to “Dancing Queen” and singing along with it
And with that I’m signing off from Lincoln Street.
Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.
14 Responses
Thankyou Pam. Just fabulous as always. I totally love Anita’s “rules” and I am absolutely loving a course in miracles in Pam Grout speak. Joyfully awesome and refreshingly inspiring. Bless you! 😁⭐️🌺
Pam- I’ve been following along your posts on lessons in ACIM- thank you for sharing your insights and related life lessons that support the idea for the day. It’s been very helpful!
I’ve much work to do in opening up, especially to joy.
I’m on lesson 140 and have been pretty diligent with the workbook ( this time)
I notice more peace and hopefully joy will follow.
I’m grateful for your daily presence in my life on this path.
much love, Sally
Thank for opening my mind to always look at life from positive space. I just purchased ACIM. Looking forward to learning!
Your accompaniment to today’s lesson is very timely!
Yesterday in my exercises my anger towards self became obvious, and I did some exercises on forgiveness… and clarity hit a very old habit I’ve been trying to shift for years – staying busy in the evenings sand getting to bed late. I can see now what it is in relation to these lessons- YeeHaa- no more no more no more! I’m glad to read the post today because you address the solution with Anita and her story.
Big cuddles to me!!
Thank you again, Pam. (I don’t know you well enough to send big cuddles but big sparkles from me to you!)
Have a Glorious day 😊
So, what I see is the result of how badly I speak to myself? I haven’t been very nice. ;( I have actually bought 3 copies of Anita’s book on CD and my sister and I gave them to people who wanted a different perspective I also have it on Audible and the one she wrote after. I won’t tell you how many copies of your books I have bought and given away. I want everyone to get the message. I’ll buy this one if you turn these lessons into one. My favorite happy sons are Elbow’s “One Day Like This” and The Piano guys “It’s gonna be ok” along with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds made a happy tunes tape to walk with. Wore out the headphones. :/
Thanks for that I really needed a dose of Dancing Queen.
Sorry, I had to pop back over after seeing the Piano Guys 4 cellos on You Tube. Happy happy tune.
Pam, Thanks so much for doing the daily Course in Miracles. I sure hope you continue them! I love your books and blog. Thanks for being such a wonderful inspiration for me.
Hi Pam, I’m probably 100 lbs over weight. I’m trying something pretty different since I’ve been ‘working’ on this since childhood. I decided to un-vilify food. I’m letting myself eat whatever I want whenever I want, but not from a place of binging/self hatred, but from a place of fun letting myself off of the hook and detaching myself from so many of the f cking stories I’ve let into my cells about my relationship with food. It’s getting old, and I’m wanting to go back to my vegan ways, but it’s nice to not be shaming myself. It feels simple but so radical in a world where it seems EVERYONE shames themselves for everything they do/eat/whatever.
Thanks for sharing! Stephanie
This is beautiful, Stephanie, and ultimately the only solution. In one of my books (maybe even E-Squared) I tell the story of a friend who lost 30 pounds simply by un-vilifying, as you called it, food. It’s so nice to know that it actually can be easy. Thanks so much for sharing.
I’ve listened to Anita Moorjani Hay House interview over 200 times and read her book a few times. I recognized being the people pleaser and putting myself last. This morning I got up at 1:00 AM to drive my husband to a doctor’s appointment which is several hours away. I didn’t feel well on the trip home and as soon as I walked in the door, I wanted to read your blog. Just reading the words and then listening to the song brought the laughter and I’m feeling great again. Yes, those thoughts that had me feeling not well are gone. Thank you, Pam, for these daily blogs.
Thank you, Delaine, for your daily comments. And so glad to hear you’re feeling GREAT!!!!
Thanks for the video! I needed this lift today! Thanks, thanks, thanks!
My pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure. It’s one of my favs!