psgrout

Calling in the expert, relying on the pro

January 30, 2026 23 Comments

“Maybe dead tomorrow but alive, gloriously alive, today.”—Robert Jordan

Loved this motto from one of the cafes I enjoyed in Longboat Key last week. And indeed, I do–hail THIS feisty village.

I would never dream of offering acting advice to Meryl Streep. Or giving Yo-Yo Ma tips on playing cello.

Yet, I often think it’s my job to instruct the universe how to show up for me. As if I could possibly know more from my teeny, tiny vantage point than life, glorious life itself.

Why would I try to manipulate or block life’s exquisite expertise? Why would I doubt the pro? I don’t have to set up a schedule for my heart—it beats just fine. Or keep tabs on my lungs.

As the Course says, my purpose stands far beyond my little range.

My little range, as far as I can tell, means opening my aperture to take in all the beauty, the joy, the love in which I swim.

I recently heard this joke:

The shark says to the fish, “Man, the water is cold today.”

And the fish replies, “What is water?”

That’s me so much of the time—swimming in beneficence, yet failing to recognize it, failing to appreciate it, thinking it’s my duty to boss life around.

As many of you know, I wrote a whole book about gratitude. The practice of looking on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness seems even more valuable today.

I surrender all judgment and fear to the pro, to the expert.

It’s almost February which means the Taz Grout 222 Foundation is happily designing our annual February 22 (2/22) gift.

So blessed I get to honor my magnanimous daughter who lives with me every day, in my heart, in the ocean of love in which I swim.

Have the best weekend of your life, friends!

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 22 books including E-Squared, Thank & Grow Rich , The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)and her latest, The Ego’s Playbook.

Staying outside the loop

January 18, 2026 16 Comments

“The revolution isn’t out there. It’s in the 100,000 heartbeats you’ll have today, each one an opportunity to broadcast coherence or chaos into the shared field we all inhabit.”–Nipun Mehta

A question that was posed after last Friday’s post has stuck with me.

Lisa wanted to know how to use the “T’aint so” mindset while witnessing the current violence. I mentioned a couple thoughts in the comment section, but decided this very poignant question deserved a better answer.

I consciously choose to see beyond the violence. My focus is my unshakable belief that every single person has goodness inside them and that things always work out.

To question that unshakeable belief only causes decision fatigue. It causes me to doubt, to worry, to forget to be grateful.

So for me, it’s just a lot easier to focus on the ultimate truth. I don’t need multiple choice. I don’t need decision fatigue.

It might seem like a good use of time—it has certainly become a popular spectator sport—to keep tabs on what’s going on in the outside world. But for me, it only stokes the problem. Never once I have noticed my angst solving any problems.

To be totally transparent, I definitely have moments where I become obsessed, where I watch in sheer horror, but filling my noggin full of poison doesn’t get me where I want to go, doesn’t put me in a space of being the most effective person I can be.

So for me, focusing on just that one thing—gratitude that I live in a loving, perfect universe filled with loving, perfect friends—preserves my energy, my equanimity and keeps the channels open for guidance from the Dude.

Plus as today’s Course lesson points out, “I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.” So maybe today’s 100,000 heartbeats will resonant and add possibility to the shared field we all inhabit.

Have a great week, friends. I’ll be on the beach in Florida.

#222 Forever!

The call is coming from inside the house

January 16, 2026 33 Comments

“Everyone gets an A+ in the end.”—Elizabeth Gilbert

Last weekend, one of my possibility posses threw a retreat. There wasn’t a leader, an agenda or really any kind of planning except someone offering to bring food.

We spent Saturday and Sunday together dancing, playing games, star-gazing, hot tubbing and letting Spirit take the lead.

It was pure magic.

And the real beauty is we didn’t orchestrate any of it.

Which makes me wonder what would happen if humans could just yank the cord, abandon the rules, give up the programming, forsake all the planning.

If we truly trust that the universe has our back, if we really KNOW how deeply, deeply cherished and loved we are, couldn’t we just relax. Laugh. Dance.

The lessons from Course in Miracles the past few days have encouraged us to recognize that we’re the ones creating the world.

Our thoughts — the ones that encourage fealty to the old story, to the fear, to the limitations — make images that replace true vision.

But like the headline of this post points out, “It’s all coming from inside us.”

What we see out there are images we concocted. And they’re not real. They block us from seeing that the world we live in is actually alive, intelligent and forever supportive.

At the retreat, someone mentioned a woman she knew who spoke great spiritual wisdom. And she did it with two simple words.

T’aint so.

Whenever anyone began discussing a problem –no matter what it was—she’d listen, shake her head and say, “T’aint so.”

Or as another friend said quoting, I think it was Abraham-Hicks, “If you could believe and trust that everything is so very all right, it would immediately and instantly become very all right.”

Glorious Friday. May it be the best weekend yet.

#222 Forever!

Oh, you, who are nobly born

January 9, 2026 11 Comments

“Our way of being brings about either more suffering and fear or more surrender into love.”– Gail Brenner

An illustration from my new book, showing, hopefully, how we’ve trapped ourselves when right next door, we could walk out free.

So my creative project today was drawing an octopus. I’d show you a photo, but you’d likely laugh.

But since you can never express too much creativity, I also decided to write a little blog post, partly so I can wish you the best weekend of your life and also because I mentioned earlier this week a second book worth gushing over.

Turns out, it’s not exactly a book (it WAS recommended at my book group and indeed I did access it through the library), but it’s actually a Sounds True offering called Creating a Culture of Tenderness.

Basically, it’s an interview between Pema Chodron and Father Gregory Boyle who started Homeboy Industries, an inspiring program for former gang members.

Although they disagree about the language (Father Boyle, naturally, calls it God and that word makes Pema, a Buddhist monk, squirm), they’re talking about ultimate truth. The unshakeable truth that each of us (no exceptions) is valuable, decent and whole.

And God or the Infinite Field of Potentiality or Cosmo K, as I’ve been known to call it, is that which returns us to ourselves—the kindness of ourselves, the worthiness of ourselves, the ultimate truth of ourselves.

The ego, of course, has dished up a bunch of crap, telling us there’s something wrong with us or wrong with other people or wrong with the world in general.

As one of the homies says in the discussion, “Your early experiences shape a certain way that you see yourself and that shapes a certain way you see the world.”

Luckily, none of it is true.

And that’s what the Course does—trains us to see ourselves in a different way. Father Doyle joking called it “The Discovery Channel.”

I’ll end with this Buddhist text that Father Boyle often repeats, “Oh nobly born, oh you who are the eternal children of God, of Life Eternal, of the Divine, do not forget who you really are, do not forget your true nature.”

And that, my friends, is what I’ve been repeating to myself all week. I am nobly born.

Hope you recognize this truth, too, as you enjoy the very best weekend of your life.

#222 Forever!

Gusher alert: books, creativity and fun!

January 7, 2026 11 Comments

“We make each other. The interconnectivity between all of us is obvious and unimpeachable.”—Ethan Hawke

I’m in the mood to gush today. I’m reading a couple AMAZING books, I just hung out with friends from the possibility posse and well, as you’ve probably noticed, I often have trouble containing my excitement.

The first book you may have already read. It’s Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets.

It’s a 650-page thriller that, get this, centers around my favorite topic—human consciousness. Like all Brown’s books, it’s a page turner. In fact, were in not for my resolution to create something new every day, I’d probably be on my couch right now finishing it.

None of the concepts about consciousness are new to me (I’ve covered many of the same studies here on the blog), but it thrills me that these once-revolutionary ideas are hitting the mainstream. Netflix has already bought the rights to turn the book into a movie.

Brown said in a recent interview that after eight years of gathering data for the book from philosophers, physicists and noetic scientists, he’s come out with a totally different mindset.

“It sounds crazy,” he says, “but I no longer fear death and I believe consciousness is nonlocal.”

I also learned he wasn’t a stranger to manifesting reality. He told Rick Rubin that 20 years ago, he printed out a New York Times bestseller list, photoshopped The Secret of Secrets onto that list on a certain date.

And guess what? That very book, which hadn’t even been written or conceived of in 2005, was #1 on that exact date 20 years later. Reminds me a little of writing my E-Squared affirmation on the beach in Georgia.

A couple other cool things I learned about Dan Brown is that, like me, he plays the piano and he meditates.

Most importantly, he mentioned that the first publisher to whom he pitched his uber-popular Da Vinci Code practically laughed him out of the office.

Moral of this story? Just because one person fails to recognize the beauty and potential of your idea has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Or with the idea’s worth.

In fact, to go back to Ethan Hawke, whose quote from a recent awards ceremony I started this post with, also said this:

“It’s not about the size of the audience. It’s the size of the idea. Ambition includes failure—it’s right next door to success. There are no numbers on the door. You knock, it’s going to open, and you’ll either find a supermodel of your dreams or your mom in curlers.”

But it’s important to keep knocking on those doors.

“Human creativity,” Hawke goes on to say, “is nature manifest in us and our expressions represent our collective mental health. All of us have a charge to do our best, to do the good that we have the power to do.”

So rather than gush about the other book I’m reading (maybe later this week), I’ll close here.

Love you all. SO VERY MUCH!

#222 Forever!

The enchanted yes of imagination

January 4, 2026 22 Comments

“We are born with a mind, open to everything, no fear, no known boundaries, but with each new rule, restriction the mind divides.” – Patti Smith

Buenos dias! Feliz Ano Nuevo! As you can guess, I started Course in Miracles (Lesson #1) again on January 1. My intention, like every year, is true perception.

True perception, according to the Course, has NO LIMITS and is the opposite of how I often perceive the world now.

What could be a better curriculum than that? Seeing without limits, without boundaries, without fear.

I also made a wee side goal of creating something new every day. It doesn’t have to be big or earth-shattering. In fact, rarely will it be. My daily creation can be anything from a quick poem to a doodle on the side of an envelope.

The post you’re reading now is today’s creation.

The germination for this idea started on Christmas.

Rather than purchase a bunch of junk that nobody really wants, we — in my family — decided to handmake all our gifts. Nothing store bought allowed. (See video below)

Kris made ornaments for each person’s pets. Chloe made lip balm from marigolds in her garden. Jim and I painted mini-canvases and made more than 100 tiny gingerbread men.

It was stupendous. The gift was actually making the creations themselves. Demonstrating to ourselves our innate imagination and ability to create.

Everybody needs to know this.

Because if you don’t, you tend to fret and feel that you’re at the mercy of outside forces.

Outside forces insist you need to consume, to watch other people’s creations, to enjoy corporations’ endless offerings in the world.

But that’s not why we’re here. And if we feel beholden to that story, we don’t recognize how powerful we are, how easy it is to imagine something completely different.

I believe it’s the most important thing we could ever learn.

I started 2026 in Bentonville, Arkansas at the amazing Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. I first visited Crystal Bridges in 2014 on a writing assignment. I was sent by an art magazine to cover the museum’s State of the Art exhibit. For a year, museum curators crisscrossed the country, visiting every state searching for working artists that had yet to get the recognition they deserved.

The 100,000-mile journey uncovered 102 artists ranging from Justin Favela and his Lowrider Pinata, a life-size lowrider car made from paper and cardboard, to Andy DuCett’s Mom Booth that featured real moms giving advice.

I’ve returned to Bentonville many times since. And while it wasn’t quite the same start to the year as 2025 where I celebrated on the South African savannah, it provided an amazing high-vibe kickoff to 2026.

Because you can’t NOT think of art in Bentonville, I spontaneously decided to launch this new project right there and then.

Needless to say, I had to manifest all the tools I needed. Paper and pencil were pretty easy to secure. So I now have four pencil sketches (I did two on January 1 for good measure) to my name.

They’re not professional. Very unlikely I’d show them to anyone. But they proved to me that a) I can create whatever I want), b) that whatever I need is always available and c) there’s no reason to succumb to anyone else’s story of what to buy, consume, watch or do.

Here’s to a glorious, blessed New Year filled with love and peace for all.

As John Lennon reminded us, we can have it now if only we want it now.

#222 Forever!!

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Pam Grout is the author of 21 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank and Grow Rich and her latest book, The Ego’s Playbook.

Which version of life do you rehearse and support?

December 29, 2025 26 Comments

“The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence.”—Pema Chodron

I’m not a big resolutions gal. It seems to me that the more I strive to change or seek for something, the more elusive it becomes.

In fact, the very act of seeking starts with the assumption you don’t already have the thing you’re seeking.

And that is never true.

Or to say it another way, you already have the very thing you seek. You wouldn’t know to seek it if it didn’t already exist.

As someone mentioned in last Saturday’s Awakin’ Call, humanity still resides in Eden. It’s just that we’ve lost the eyes to see it. We’ve temporarily misplaced the ability to recognize all the beauty and peace and love that is still very much here.

Instead, we focus on and feed the erroneous stories fed to us by our egos.

If all of us could just realize this, the world situation in which we collectively find ourselves would dissolve. Poof!

Together, we have been feeding a mass delusion and the world is calling for more and more of us to upgrade our consciousness.

Right now (that it takes time is part of the delusion) we have the power to dematerialize the whole thing. Simply by rehearsing and supporting a truer, more beautiful possibility.

Hint-hint! We only call things magical or miraculous because we’ve trained ourselves to believe the mass hypnosis is the truth. We’ve rendered our natural inheritance–ongoing blessings and non-stop assistance and signs–invisible. But guess what? They’re still very much here.

My only intention for the upcoming year is to release every false belief and return my eyes to Eden.

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 21 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank and Grow Rich and her latest book, The Ego’s Playbook.

Todos bien!

December 17, 2025 24 Comments

“Every moment you spend on an idea is a commitment to be stuck with that idea and with aspects of that level of thinking. Spending just 10 seconds focusing on a topic that does not serve your interests is to invest your energy along a path that will continue to draw from you and define you.”—Kevin Michel

One of my favorite lines from Louis Armstrong’s brilliant anthem, “What a Wonderful World” is the bit about people shaking hands, saying “How do you do?” when what they’re really saying is “I love you!”

For me right now, the whole world is beaming a frequency of “I love you.” It’s so palpable.

Everything—from hugs on the street to strolling troubadours to giggling children chasing dogs—appears to me as a jubilant chorus of love. I literally see nothing else right now.

Although I rarely understand the language of the men laughing down by the lake or the smiling shopkeeper or the abuelos fussing over their steaming pots of tamales, I recognize the light. I see it in the giant eucalyptus trees, I feel it as I’m hiking down from the mountains. I feel intensely blessed.

Sure, that little voice in my head (the one who had the floor in my most recent book) sometimes chimes in, tries to tell me I should be more responsible, more realistic. And most of the time, I just chuckle at its persistent whining. I notice it, shine a little light on it and, like the kids chasing dogs down the street, I giggle.

As I often say, being suspicious of the persistent voice in my head is my highest spiritual practice. I’ve discovered that it never tells the truth, that it has but one mission—to block light, to keep me from seeing that everyone and everything is saying “I love you.”

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank and Grow Rich and her latest book, The Ego’s Playbook.

Is your catcher’s mitt outstretched?

December 9, 2025 10 Comments

”Our consciousness is the unseen orchestrator of our lives.”—Aaron Abke

Perhaps the best part about being in Mexico and hanging out with all these mighty companions is I get to nod my head vigorously and say, “me, too.”

It’s like having a full-time possibility posse.

Yesterday, for example, my friend Anne said once you know you’re entitled to good, once you fully “get it” that that’s the one and only option, you live your life with an outstretched catcher’s mitt.

You fully expect things to work out, you trust that, despite occasional appearances, life is on your side, dishing up increasing abundance.

It also prevents decision fatigue.

Why pay attention to anything else?

To put it in quantum physics speak, the observer (me) determines what is observed. I decide what I’m going to experience.

Yes, my pesky ego can sometimes be a blabbermouth, so I like to ask it, “Do you really need to go over this again?“

I’m so glad I know better than to take its taunts seriously.

As a recent Course lesson proclaimed, “There is no room for anything but joy and thanks today.”

As always, I get to choose where to place my attention.

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World) and her latest book, The Ego’s Playbook.

Let’s get together and we’ll feel alright

December 4, 2025 16 Comments

“Who you really are is way too glorious to be defined by any thought.”—Gail Brenner

Several members of my possibility posses back home are speakers, fabulous speakers, who like me, spread the good news of infinite abundance.

They often joke that, once they assign a topic for a talk or a workshop, the universe promptly sends them a message like, “Oh yeah, you wanna talk about forgiveness? Well, prove it.”

While I don’t really believe the universe tests us, I do know my own faulty programming can sometimes throw wrenches into the gears.

Which is exactly what happened to me yesterday. Here I finally publish the book I’ve been trying to write for several years. In it, I proclaim the recklessness of living in our heads, basically encouraging us to ignore the ego’s voice that always insists something is wrong.

I flew to Mexico late Tuesday and spent Wednesday exactly where I don’t want to be–immersed in the thoughts in my head. I couldn’t get pesos out of the ATM, couldn’t get on the internet, yada, yada.

In other words, I completely missed a full 24 hours of loving one of my favorite places in the whole world. I overlooked the fact that the day was a perfect sunny 72 degrees, that many mighty companions (what we Course aficionados call each other) were offering all kinds of help. I failed to appreciate the mountains where I love to hike and the gorgeous ruby poinsettias that are showing off, not in pots, but on actual trees along with all the other beautiful flora here in Ajijic.

Once again, I fell for the ego’s tricks. So today, at morning satsang, I happened to notice the Course in Miracles lesson that’s always chalked on a blackboard at Namaste Village.

“I am affected only by my thoughts.”

Okay, universe, can you get any more clear?

The lesson went on to assure me that I can exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love.

And if that whack on the head wasn’t enough, I got lots of healing hugs from my mighty companions and sat for an hour with my favorite 200-year-old eucalyptus tree while watching white pelicans and ibis dive into Lake Chapala.

I am so grateful that I only missed one day of this beautiful paradise. And so grateful that closely observing my thoughts — not to judge them or make them wrong (which I admit to doing yesterday) — gives me clear intelligence on where I’m directing my energetic frequency.

And boy, did I get ample proof yesterday that placing attention on the thoughts in my noggin is a surefire recipe for unhappiness.

But I’m here now, back to noticing the spectacular blessings that lie before me in every direction.

Thanks, folks, for your kind comments about the new book. May it bless us all.

#222 Forever!