psgrout

Returning my life to “upper management”

December 1, 2025 61 Comments

“What we’re trying to do is disassemble the ego so the radiance of Self shines through.”–David R. Hawkins

It’s here. It’s here!

In a memorable scene from Steve Martin’s 1979 hit, “The Jerk,” Navin, as Martin’s character is called, runs excitedly up to a delivery truck. He grabs a parcel, rips it open, begins jumping up and down and screaming, “The new phone book is here. The new phone book is here.”

That could well be me today, announcing that, after a five-year-hiatus, “my new book is here. My new book is here.”

After Taz died, I stumbled to get my writing career back in gear. I continued to write blog posts, as you undoubtedly know, but I experienced many false starts in continuing my previous book-a-year run.

So getting this book out feels like a significant victory. It’s different than my previous works, written from the voice of the saboteur inside our heads.

The Course in Miracles calls this disembodied voice “the ego” and says that as long as we mistake its message as truth, we miss the incredible aliveness that is our birthright.

Ego’s Playbook offers a graphic journey (think picture book for grownups) showcasing the ego’s many cons, its non-stop efforts to keep us from experiencing our true nature. It pokes fun at the ego and invites us to break free.

The bottom-line truth is that all of us swim in an ocean of abundance, peace and joy. We often roll our eyes at this suggestion because well, the voice loop in our head has convinced us otherwise.

At all times, we have unlimited access to universal intelligence, an ever-flowing fountain that we completely ignore because we’re stuck in ego structures and unconscious habits of feeling separate and limited and inferior.

Because our thoughts are SO powerful, they create a simulation in our lives that appears to defy Divine Intelligence. The key word here is simulation. It’s not real. It’s an illusion that, thanks to our creative force, appears strikingly true. That’s how much power we have.

Once we understand the ego’s tricks (as this book attempts to do), we can step away from the old story.

Taz came to me in a dream last night, gave me the biggest hug which I took as a sign to say, “mom, I love you and I am so happy you finally got this project out of the chutes. It’s time for you to get back out there and do your thing.”

So friends, I stand before you today with my pants down, as Keith Richards describes how he often feels on stage, announcing the debut of my new book.

#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.

Who are you beneath the mind’s chatter?

November 20, 2025 21 Comments

“You are more than just matter. You are a highly complex, light-controlled consciousness system.”—David Bingham

I have shared this story many times. The one about the five-year-old boy who begs for time alone with his new baby sister.

He’s so adamant in his requests for this solo, sans-parent time that they worry. What could he possibly have to say that he wouldn’t want us to hear?

But he’s persistent. He insists they simply MUST be alone. His parents finally grant his wish as they secretly wait in the hallway outside the door.

He tiptoes quietly into the nursery, bends over the bassinette and whispers to his weeks-old sibling, “Tell me about God. I’m starting to forget.”

That forgetting, my friends, is what my new book is about. How do we humans go from pure infinite love into a state of limited, fearful consciousness? Why is it that we aren’t actively, blissfully soaking up the world’s many wonders?

In my new, about-to-be released book, I share how the voice in our head (I’ve been known to call it an asshat) uses distractions, illusions and misguided beliefs to cover up the fact that humans are divinity in disguise.

It includes more than two dozen confessions, game plans and strategies devised by the pernicious voice that now dominates most of humanity’s thinking.

The Ego’s Playbook, as I call it, comes at spiritual liberation through the back door. When you “know thy enemy,” as Sun Tzu recommended, you’re better able to recognize the bugs in the system, to more quickly identify your own destructive patterns and habits and, without fighting them, clearly see how to let them go.

The Ego’s Playbook takes readers on a graphic journey through the comically lilliputian thoughts of the mind into the vast expansiveness of the heart.

It’s short, humorous and hopefully, helpful to anyone wanting to break free from old patterns. I call it a “picture book for grownups” and I’m very excited to share it with you. I’ll be sending a link to order in the next couple days.

In the meantime, here’s a cute video my illustrious designer Violet Lemay created for page 144.

#222 Forever!

To behold perfection

November 12, 2025 17 Comments

“This day will be of my making, either perfect or imperfect, good or bad. I have the power to build the day or rend the day.”—Walter Russell

Don’t you just love it when the universe sends gifts and signs, gives guidance that is so clear you can’t miss it?

Or rather I should say, I love it when my antenna is up, my channels are clear and I’m able to notice gifts and signs and miracles, because I believe they are always there, always available.

The question is “Am I paying attention?”

I’ve been closely observing my energy field, my frequency. I’m noticing how certain thoughts can contaminate my consciousness.

Resistance of any kind, even believing that certain tasks are distasteful, clogs up the universal electrical current.

As Walter Russell says, anything you don’t do with love promotes destructive toxins within your body and your energy field.

I mention Walter Russell because a friend, who I recently met at a weekend satsang in the Ozarks, sent me a book about Russell’s life. Let’s just say he was a spiritual genius.

For starters, he was an accomplished painter, sculptor, architect, composer and author. He knew Mark Twain, both Roosevelts, European heads of state and, unbeknownst to me, I’ve seen buildings he designed and sculptures he created, especially impressive since he didn’t take up sculpting until he was in his 50’s. And he never made it past the 6th grade.

But the real reason I’m singing his praises is because he knew that his talent was available to every single person. He accomplished great feats, not because he was so special, but because he was plugged into what he called the universal supply. He also often called it God.

As I’ve said, it doesn’t matter what we call it. It only matters that we call it forth.

All it takes, he claimed, was desire and the willingness to listen to “Nature’s mighty whisperings.”

It completely takes the onus off of us trying to be perfect. Instead, our only responsibility is to trust in the always-available energy of the universal Creative Force. And to make sure we’re paying attention.

I will close this post with another gift from my friend at the Satsang Garage—this song that obliterates all resistance.

#222 Forever!

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

Building a different energetic imprint

November 3, 2025 32 Comments

“Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds.” –Jack Kerouac

Interviewers often ask me, “What changed?” Why did my book, God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days, clumsily nosedive into the remainders bin when E-Squared, essentially the same book, hit #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list.

I can name several reasons. I changed the title. I had a different publisher.

But mostly, I attribute it to my energetic imprint, the frequency at which I was vibrating. That sounds pretty woo-woo, but in essence I changed how I saw myself, how I saw the world.

I began saying thank you for everything. For the sky, for the garbage collector who picks up the trash each week, for friends, for the cream puffs my friend’s husband made for our book group, for the chair I’m sitting on. I might have even gone so far as to bow to the chair before gracing it with my backside.

There was no longer a giant wall of resistance.

Oh, and yeah there was this tiny fact that Jack Canfield was kind enough to write a killer endorsement. Which certainly didn’t hurt.

I listened to an interview with Jack the other day. He said something that really hit me. It explained why one book, really the same book, flopped and the other got translated into 40 languages.

People, he said, often set an intention for something, but immediately focus on its opposite. It’s like calling Domino’s Pizza and then calling 5 minutes later to cancel the order and then 30 minutes later wondering why your peperoni pie hasn’t arrived.

There’s static in the frequency. Conflicting wishes erect big orange traffic cones to all the good that wants to come our way.

Or, as I started to notice when I began giving thanks like a crazy woman, that GOOD was already here. So many things I took for granted sprang to life. Including my intention to write bestselling books.

So thank you, Jack. Thank you, readers. Thank you, chair (I know, I already said that) and thank you universe for being such a consistent ally in showing me exactly what to do, where to go and what to say.

#222 Forever!

Surrounded by a world of loveliness

October 30, 2025 15 Comments

“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence and the truth comes to me.”– Albert Einstein

A Course in Miracles constantly reminds us that darkness can only come from our own imagining, from our own thoughts, our own misguided beliefs.

All the while we’re grumbling about some circumstance or person, we’re surrounded– literally swimming in love and light.

The Course says we exist in a conceptual prison created by our own minds.

When we drop below the crazy antics of obsessive, egoic thinking, we discover an intelligence and a realm of beauty far beyond our normal imaginings.

With the World Series in full swing (My partner watches. I half-listen while doing Sudokus), I thought I’d share a baseball story that speaks to this truth.

On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburg Pirates, completely forgot he was slated to take the mound against the San Diego Padres. Before the game, before he realized the manager was going to call him in, he dropped an elephant-sized hit of acid.

While that might sound like a recipe for disaster, it actually accomplished the opposite. Being in, shall we say, a different state, Ellis’ normal self-consciousness and acute fear of failure completely disappeared.

Without those dark imaginings, those debilitating thoughts that make up the baseline operating consciousness for most of us, he played with a rare meditative calm. He pitched with a fliduity that looked more like dance than sport. He went on to pitch a no-hitter, the best game of his entire 11-year professional career.

It was an unusual outing, to be sure. The serenity on his face was visible clear up to the stands. He later reported a dissolution of any sense of time and was convinced he could bend the ball’s path with his mind, with the sheer force of his will.

I’m not suggesting LSD as a go-to spiritual gateway. Far from it. Simply pointing out that without our pre-set thoughts and concepts, something a whole lot greater is going on.

#222 Forever!

What are you defining into existence?

October 21, 2025 23 Comments

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” –Albert Camus

One of my favorite things about the Taz Grout 222 Foundation is meeting our recipients in person. Yesterday, I had lunch with Fatou Doumbia who started Agile International that supports women in rural Mali.

I’m a physics geek. At the same time, I have no idea (nor does anyone) exactly how and why the equations of quantum mechanics work.

The freaky weird thing is that what we call “reality” is simply a probability cloud. And it’s one of a gazillion probability clouds. This just happens to be the one we have currently solidified and defined into existence.

It’s why the Course in Miracles says the world we see is an illusion. This world (and we each have our own) is conceptually generated. Lucky for us, there’s a truer, more loving and joyful world beneath our concepts.

Once our world is “measured,” so to speak, by our sensory organs, electrical impulses are transmitted to the brain which then constructs what looks like coherent reality.

But the brain, far from being a passive recipient, actively gets to work filling in gaps, filtering what’s allowed in and generating a perception that meshes with what we previously decided is reality. Perception is the operative word.

Once “observed,” reality locks into place. Or seems to. Especially if we keep staring at it. However, it’s all too alive to be pinned down.

Which is why I actively avoid much of what my mind tries to tells me. I have to ask: Is that disgruntlement really true? Is that person really a jerk? Is it really true that life is scary and I must work really, really hard to control it?

Thank goodness for the freedom of attention. For the freedom to choose where I invest my energy. I can place my awareness into any one of a ginormous list of probabilities. And heaven knows, there are a lot of less-than-optimal choices out there.

But why would I want to do that to myself?

I am forever grateful that I understand just enough about quantum physics to know that I am not stuck with any one reality. And that, as the Course says, “the world is singing hymns of gratitude underneath the sounds of fear.”

For those who are wondering, my new book comes out end of the year. And here’s the link for anyone wanting to get in on this weekend’s free Wealth Codes Summit.

#222 Forever!

Life in the slow lane

October 14, 2025 20 Comments

“At the core of our being we are love, and we are wired for deep inner peace.” –Jill Boelte Taylor

Last week, I scoured through old file cabinets looking for the ISBN numbers I bought 30 years ago when I self-published Jumpstart Your Metabolism. This was before Simon & Schuster eventually bought it.

Not only did I find novels and screenplays I’d forgotten I’d written, but I found rubber slugs, kazoos, whoopie cushions, clever gifts from Taz and reminders of the gazillion places I once wrote travel articles about.

And wow! Did I ever manifest a thrilling life! Sleeping in castles and ice hotels, hot air ballooning over the Masai Mara, private Russian ballet performances in St. Petersburg.

But even more thrilling to me is the recent discovery that true happiness doesn’t come from WHAT I’m doing. It comes from how much of ME is doing whatever it is I’m doing.

When my awareness is knotted up in the past or the future, I’m not fully doing anything. Whenever I’m resisting something (and that can be anything from wishing Taz was still here to shaking my head at political divisions), I’m opposing the natural flow of life.

Resistance wastes a tremendous amount of energy and, I’m noticing, it’s actually the cause of most (maybe all?) problems. When I invest my attention in changing or fixing things or not liking something (instead of letting life perform its beautiful, intoxicating dance) the experience of resistance becomes my reality.

The things I most desire (equanimity, guidance, daily delight) are not something to be achieved. They’re right here, ready to be revealed beneath my mind’s resistive thoughts.

I also want to let you know that I’m one of the speakers at an upcoming Wealth Codes Summit. Although my definition of wealth might be different from some of the other speakers—Joe Vitale, Lisa Nichols, John Assaraf and other well-known abundance coaches — I’m honored that I was invited to share my perspective at this FREE, four-day event. You can check it out at this link.

It’s all about manifesting a life of prosperity and abundance.

Which I’m happy to report I enjoy every single moment when I’m fully here, living in my natural state of gratitude and joy.

#222 Forever!

Notes from a Possibility Posse

October 1, 2025 26 Comments

‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’”—C.S. Lewis

This photo came up in FB memories this morning. It’s the amazing team that hosted me in Japan 10 years ago today. Notice they’re wearing my face on their heads!

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I was thinking about that quote while walking to this morning’s possibility posse.

And I decided to amend it just slightly:

Even if something IS broke (or appears to be), don’t fix it. Here’s why:

Trying to fix something churns up energy of brokenness. Of things not being “okay.”

And I rarely (maybe never?) have enough perspective to truly judge that something is “not okay.”

When I completely surrender to life, when I trust implicitly that life loves me and wants nothing but my greatest good, I have to bow to every experience as a gift. Why would I choose to return it or attempt to amend it?

I notice when I refuse to churn up resistance, which is exactly what happens every time I judge something as needing to be worked on, life has a way of “fixing,” if you want to call it that, all that’s amiss. It works like magic.

Allowing, in my world, is a gazillion times more powerful than attracting or fixing or trying to change anything.

One of the themes of my new book is “Just stop!” Stop getting so involved. Stop thinking you need yet another course or teacher or book (touche!). Putting your attention on things that need to be improved, fixed or changed simply solidifies the mess.

I shared a story that I may have shared before (forgive me if that’s the case, although I notice I need continual reminders) about a friend who had quit trying to fix her relationship status.

Or rather she gave up looking for a relationship. She knew quite clearly the qualities she wanted, but nope, she vowed, never gonna seek again.

She joked that if she was ever going to be in a relationship, her perfect partner would have to knock on her door.

Instead, she started paying attention to all the things she loved. She put her attention on all the beautiful things in her life.

Within a month or two, the guy she was married to for 44 years (he shuffled off the mortal coil last year) literally knocked on her apartment door in New York City.

Speaking of possibility posses, I’m issuing this invitation to anyone who lives in the Kansas City area (or anyone who might want to fly in). Next Tuesday, October 7, my dear friend, Martha Creek, and the fabulous organization the Affiliated New Thought Network is hosting a Raise the Roof event at Unity Village.

Rickie Byars is going to be singing, there’s a Sound Bath and a Candle Light Labyrinth Walk and well, it’s completely free. The idea is to put so much energy into possibility and peace and joy that planetary consciousness will noticeably shift. Did I mention it’s free???

I’ll be there, not presenting, but working the booth with Robin Goff and her remarkable LoveLights organization. You may remember the Taz Grout 222 Foundation contributed to their mission earlier this year. It was such a great honor to be in South Africa at the Ubuntu Camps in January.

So if you’re anywhere near, please come, say hi and let me give you a big, sloppy hug!

It is going to be epic.

In closing, let me just say, as they do in Unity, ‘I love you, I appreciate you and I behold the Christ within you.”

#222 Forever!

Celebrating the sweet spot

September 25, 2025 20 Comments

“There is a simplicity to life if we let ourselves see it…it’s beautiful…and perfect. We become aware of it when we don’t listen to the mental noise in our minds.”—Gail Brenner

Got a kick out of this cartoon from the New Yorker.

Right now, the only time there really is, I am flying high. I feel free, curious and eager to discover what the field of infinite potentiality will dish up for me next.

I love living in “the now,”’ noticing where my attention is flowing. When my awareness is focused on my stories, my thoughts and other concepts I’ve inadvertently swallowed as absolute fact, it creates a lot of noise, a lot of resistance.

Every concept is like a Lego block building higher, thicker, more solid walls that separate me from my true nature — which, I’m starting to notice, loves everything, everyone, no exceptions.

In fact, it’s becoming clear to me that any thought that’s not of love (my true nature) prevents the light from flowing and, yes, it hurts.

Concepts, generated through a life-time investment in certain thoughts and beliefs, prevent the natural beauty and simplicity of life from showing up. It’s always there (thankfully, it’s indestructible), but we can’t see it because of the ever-growing Lego wall.

When I center my awareness on the light (which could also be called pure Divine Intelligence and Infinite Creativity) I notice beauty in everything. There’s SO MUCH FRICKIN’ BEAUTY.

I’m off to get my hair cut, friends, but thought I’d share this quickie update on the butt-kickin’ power of “the now.”

Have an extraordinarily epic Thursday!

#222 Forever!

Seeing creation’s gentleness

September 22, 2025 27 Comments

“We are not holding our breaths waiting for the bad to become good somehow. We are making living pathways for everything to return to Love.”—Ameeta Kaul

Happy Monday, friends! I’m sitting in the backyard, communing with my tree besties, celebrating the fact that I just turned in my manuscript to the amazing book designer, Violet Lemay.

Not only is she a NY Times bestselling children’s book author (her latest, “A Maker of Dresses” was released this week on the heels of NY Fashion week), but she taught illustration at Savannah College of Art and Design. Am I a lucky gal or what?

I’ve dubbed this new book, “a picture book for grownups” because it is meant to show, not tell the story of two very different fields of intelligence.

We humans have access to both.

The field we’re most familiar with is generated within our minds. It has become human’s predominant means for accessing guidance and direction. Unfortunately, it’s extremely limited and, because its chief reason to exist is to keep us safe, it makes a huge racket and has become the P.T. Barnum of “Woe is me.” Let’s just say this field of intelligence has gotten way out of whack!

The other field of intelligence, which is inherent and indestructible, has a much broader viewpoint. It offers a kinder, softer, easier way of approaching life. Today’s Course in Miracles lesson called it “the celestial gentleness with which creation shines.”

Oh and P.S., it contains no fear.

Every moment we spend in one field or the other is an investment in a path that will continue to draw from us and define us.

I’m finding myself relying more and more on the broader, vaster field of intelligence. It’s a heck of a lot more fun, a hundred times less stressful and, I believe, it’s creating a living pathway for everything to return to Love.

#222 Forever!