Pam Grout

A little shot of dopamine for your inbox

June 5, 2026 14 Comments

“My interest had grown thin in what the world had to offer.”—Bob Roth

Azul and I at a baseball game last summer.

Happiest of Fridays, my fine-feathered friends.

While I may be the last .05 percent that still takes the local newspaper (mostly because I dig doing the puzzles), I happened to notice today’s “Speed Bump” cartoon.

In it, a little chicken was looking at his fellow chicken who was huge with rage. The angry chicken was literally emanating steam. In the cartoon bubble, the little chicken looks over and says, “I told you not to look at the news.”

The “news” I like writing about tells a different story. In fact, I’ve been visualizing a world where all newspapers and national broadcasts cover nothing but kindness, connection and miracles. In other words, the real facts about the world, the still-present love happening underneath the contradictions our fear and jacked-up-nervous systems have introduced into the field.

Can you imagine the resulting peace and possibilities from such a feed?

According to the Course, we have wasted many, many years on these senseless whims and quaint absurdities.

So here are a couple news items that speak to me:

The U.S. World Cup soccer coach runs every team he’s ever led according to “energia universal,” a higher form of energy that he believes people can connect with and harness. Mauricio Pochettino always keeps a box of lemons in his office and in his teams’ locker rooms.

“I believe 100 percent that lemons pull out negative energy,” he says.

He religiously changes out the lemons every 10 days. He has also been known to insist players walk on hot coals, an exercise that demonstrates the power of the mind over the body and he often chooses his roster according to players’ auras, not their skills.

News item #2 happened to moi last night. Ever since Taz worked with the Spanish-speaking families of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, I’ve been a Big to my Little, Azul.

Last night, I volunteered at a BBBS fundraiser that pitted 10 chefs, who each brought their best dish and a specially-crafted cocktail, to be judged and chosen as winners by the audience.

Called Plates and Pours, this fun event also featured a video where a dozen or so Littles who are now grown up were interviewed about their relationship with their Bigs. I was casually watching when I was startled to see a picture of my mom on the screen who was posing with her Little, Courtney who, of course, I’ve known since she was small.

Courtney in the video mentioned that when she met Shirley, my mom, her mom was addicted to drugs and her dad, an alcoholic, had abandoned her.

She raved about the difference my mom made in her life. I’m used to getting fun little signs from Taz, but this was special because it came from my mom who died the same year.

In the video, most of the Bigs were sitting next to their grownup Littles and, in the end, they each hugged. My mom, who is no longer here in the physical, couldn’t hug Courtney, but the long-term effects (she’s now a successful wife and mom herself) are still very much present.

Have a fab weekend, 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.

Possibilities you might never have imagined

May 29, 2026 22 Comments

“It is urgent to live enchanted.”—Valter hugo mae

This incredible Luna Moth showed up the other night while I was enjoying dinner al fresco in my back yard.

Every day, the Course in Miracles asks me to forgive.

Sometimes that’s easy.

Other times, I prefer gripping tightly to my stories. There’s a certain perverse satisfaction in believing something needs to change, thinking someone did me dirty.

It’s intoxicating at times to be a victim, to dislike certain events, to believe those people out there are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Either way, I know that when I don’t forgive, my life energy becomes stuck in destructive loops.

And when I do choose to surrender my stories of good and evil, right and wrong, my energy gets a bright and shiny chance to flow in new vibrant and nourishing directions.

I know I don’t need to remind you, but because it’s my custom, I hereby urge you to go out and have the very best weekend of your life.

#222 Forever!

From whence dost thou input hail?

May 22, 2026 35 Comments

“There’s a lot more consciousness out there than what we’re seeing.”—Michael Pollan

Happy Friday, folks! Just wanted to drop in with a question I’ve been pondering of late.

In simpler English (had to show off my Olde English skills in the headline), I’m asking myself, what is the source of my information? Where am I getting the “facts” I’m using to make decisions?

I notice when I use my phone or FB or any type of input that comes from a marketing point of view, subtle though it may be, it creates unwanted ripples in the field of light and love to which I’ve committed. It suggests something is missing.

The biggest disturbance is a false belief that there is something outside of me that knows more about what I need than I do. Outside inputs, I notice, always come with strings, with a different presumption than the one offered by my Source. My Source knows only love, infinite possibility, expansion, beauty.

Outside inputs always poo-poo those truths. There’s something wrong, those outside inputs say. There’s something else you need. You better worry.

My Source, the one I prefer conferring with each morning, delivers a more-pleasing narrative. It tells me that anything that’s not love is not true. Anything that smacks of limitation is being used to manipulate me, to take me away from this field of light in which I live and move and have my being.

So here are a couple inputs that defy what outside sources deliver:

The first is personal. As y’all know, I don’t believe in physical death or separation. All inputs I trust keep me connected to my daughter. The most recent example comes from PBS Kids that recently introduced a new muppett that just happens to be a hedgehog, happens to be from Kansas and happens to have the goal of seeking joy, adventure and fun. Go Taz!
The second is from a new reader of E-Squared whose elderly dachshund recently passed. She was doing one of the experiments in the book and decided she’d manifest a rose quartz. She had just printed out a photo of her dear Al (the beloved dachshund) when no sooner did a friend show up with a rose quartz with, get this, a slice in it to hold a photograph.

Stories like this are the only inputs I desire. How about you?

#222 Forever!

In good we trust

April 28, 2026 22 Comments

“Give yourself permission to howl even when there’s no moon.”—cartoon I noticed in the funny pages

Once you calibrate to a particular frequency, you start to notice a different set of “facts.” You start to recognize a continuous steam of what some call miracles.

Ever since E-Squared hit the airwaves, my inbox has been jammed with stories that begin with some version of “You are never going to believe this.” And, of course, I expect these sorts of gee-whiz tales at my possibility posses.

But this morning, at my Spanish class—yes, my Spanish class—I heard two tales that defy the accepted, material-bound paradigm in which most humans invest their energy. Thought I’d share:

#1: Carol’s husband, Bo, died of cancer 13 years ago. Not surprisingly, she received many signs from him in the early years including a specific message about some lights she’d installed from a guy at the hardware store she barely knew.

Recently, a FB friend posted about a sign she’d received from her deceased son which inspired Carol to ask Bo if he still, 13 years later, checked in on her and their two sons.

When Bo was alive, he and Carol had a joint checking account with both their names on their checks. After his death, Bo’s name was removed and their checks came with her name only. It had been that way for 13 years.

Soon after she specifically asked whether or not he was still checking on them, the bank sent new checks that had both their names.

#2: The other story came from Karen, our espanol maestra (teacher) who also happens to be a speech pathologist. She mentioned to one of her clients that she really wanted to go to Italy. The client, who happened to be a practicing Buddhist told her to forget the last part of the sentence that included, “but I can’t afford it.”

Instead, the client advised, to ask sincerely for the trip to Italy while chanting “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.”

Within a few days, an unexpected check from some continuing education fund Karen knew nothing about landed in her mailbox. It was for $2500, the exact amount she needed for a trip to Italy.

So, yes, we may have been practicing Spanish, but we were also calibrating to a frequency of gratitude and truth and the recognition, Horatio, “that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

#222 Forever

It’s just so easy!

April 24, 2026 15 Comments

“If you’re not in awe every moment of your life, you’re just not paying attention.”–Cortland Dahl

Happy best-Friday of your life!

I got a kick out of this coffee sleeve I spotted in Abilene.

So I’m off on another girlfriend’s getaway, but, before I go, I wanted to say howdy to all my besties here on the blog.

And to rave once again about my long-standing love affair with ServiceSpace.

I’ve written about this all-volunteer, concensus-defying organization before. I went with them to Gandhi’s ashram a couple years ago. The 222 Foundation chose them as its recipient in 2022. And I’ve participated in several of their amazing, life-changing pods.

Most recently, I tuned into their Born to Flourish pod. And because I’m a gusher and LOVE to ”share my toys,” as I like to say, here are just a couple quick things I picked up:

The pod was built around the scientific work of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin. Since I’m often described as “woo-woo through and through,” it’s rewarding to discover research the proves what I like to gush about.

For example, joy is our natural state. In an experiment with babies, neuroscientist Richie Davidson, director of the Center for Healthy Minds, found that 100 percent of little humans who had yet to master “the ways of the world” chose love. Every single one.

Other experiments proved that one person can change an energy field, that mindfulness doesn’t take years of living in an ashram and because love, connection and kindness IS our natural state, it only requires a tiny space for something truer to come through.

First step is recognizing that thoughts are interpretations, not objective truth. Thanks to a lifetime of training our minds to scan for what’s going wrong, we tend to believe what our eyes show us. But it’s always interpretation. And there’s always something greater going on.

Have a great weekend, friends! I love you to the moon and back.

#222 Forever!

First, nail the frequency

April 14, 2026 30 Comments

“It’s so close we don’t see it, so easy we don’t believe it.”—Cortland Dahl

Four of us from the possibility posse attended an Abraham-Hicks workshop in Kansas City last weekend. We made a whole weekend of it. We got an Airbnb, tromped around the Country Club Plaza and dined at fabulous restaurants.

And while Esther said a lot of inspiring things during this two-day event, the best part for me was relishing in the frequency, the joy, the possibility.

That’s really the trick to everything. Esther called it calibrating, finding that sweet spot where you’re open, available, where life can show up and show off.

And life does show off—when you’re not marinating in grievances.

As the quote I led off with suggests, “The Divine Buzz is always, always, always (now I sound like Esther) here. And the reason this sounds far-fetched is only because we don’t believe it. We secretly believe other bumper sticker slogans like “life sucks.”

Or this recent meme that caused me to chuckle: “I was told there would be a handbasket.”

So, yes, we can certainly mute the signal. Or as Esther said, “hit the brakes by staring at ‘what is.’”

But we can also place our attention on the limitless frequency of Truth and let life figure out the details, the timing, the how.

Have a joyous Tuesday! #222 Forever!

Catching joy as it flies by

April 3, 2026 21 Comments

“The world of reason must be a lonely place.”—Luis Alberto Urrea

I walked with a fox this morning. Wasn’t even 8 a.m. before the first of today’s gifts presented itself to me.

The fox kept its distance, of course, but we traversed the same path for at least three blocks.

This magical experience brought to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s observation that we owe it to our fellow humanoids to say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is?”

How often do I fail to notice all the nice things that cross my path in a day, let alone bring them to the attention of someone I love.

Rather than point out problems, I plan to spend this day, this weekend, this life pointing out all the things that are going right.

I notice when I focus on things I don’t love, it hurts. It literally hurts me–my attitude, my energy field, even my body. It turns me into a caricature of my true self.

Love is our natural state, the realest of real.

And any other seeming reality can’t, in the end, last. Because, well, it isn’t real. It isn’t true.

So once again, my precious friends and readers and lovers, I urge you to claim today’s many gifts. And, of course, to enjoy the most stupendous, the most astonishing weekend of your life.

#222 Forever!

An avalanche of astonishment

March 28, 2026 45 Comments

“The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic disenchantment that seems to surround everything these days.”—Nick Cave

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the reason the experiments in E-Squared worked so beautifully is because well, they can’t NOT work.

Gifts, winks, nods from the beneficent universe show up every single day. What the E-Squared experiments did was encourage readers to pay attention. The 48-hour experiments tricked us into temporarily shifting our focus from “oh-no” to “wow.”

Luis Alberto Urrea, the prolific Mexican-American writer and poet, was here in Lawrence this week. I loved him and his wife, Cinderella (yes, that’s her real name), SO MUCH.

A story he told about the medicine women he met while researching his amazing novel, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, brought everything into focus for me.

Every day, the shamans told him, is your birthday. Yes, you typically celebrate it once a year. However, all day, every day you’re being sent gifts.

We’re mostly blind to this avalanche of astonishment because we’re busy wanting something else—say, more followers, a skinnier body, a higher-paying job.

The world, the medicine women pointed out, never stops talking to us, never stops sending messages. We don’t always get them because, well, we’ve built a lot of walls.

The gifts aren’t always huge—maybe a ladybug or making authentic eye contact with a stranger or the majestic sky ballet of a pair of hawks overhead.

But whether you’re paying attention or not, the gifts are always there. As Urrea said, “We live in paradise and we forgot.”

Yes, I still take umbrage at things happening out there in the world. And you better believe I’m heading to a–let’s just call it a “No Kings” party– later today. But in the meantime, I plan to celebrate today’s birthday, to bring back love notes about my endless gifts.

#222 Forever!

Why I broke up with Dr. Google

March 14, 2026 14 Comments

“My faith is held together by wonder—by every defiant commitment to presence and paying attention.”—Cole Arthur Riley

Today, at our local bike/coffee shop, we were discussing the back story of coffee, speculating on what impelled the first imbiber to suddenly take interest in the bright red berries.

It so happens that back when I was a budding journalist, writing a monthly food column, I investigated this very question, learning that in 850 CE an Ethiopian goat herder noticed his herd, after chomping on the berries of a certain wild shrub, displayed an unusual degree of energy and vigor.

Today, of course, the goat herder would never have noticed. He’d be too busy checking his TikTok.

Or consider aspirin, developed from an ingredient in willow bark. Who first recognized the bark’s analgesic properties?

I bring up stories like this to illustrate the point that we are always being sourced, consistently being guided. To believe we’re stranded here on this big ball of rock without resources, to think the natural world isn’t constantly working on our behalf is just plain reckless.

The world’s provisions, in fact, exceed our wildest imaginings. Our only task is to notice, to pay attention, to break away from the digital colonization that subdues most humans.

I included an experiment in my book, E-Cubed called Nature vs. News. The supposition readers tested was that all information they really need to know is happening right outside their window, right there in their neighborhood, right in their own hearts. It postulated that what they pick up from the news media (and social media) is mostly pointless, often not true and has no real relevance on their life. Except for the blocks it erects between them and the field of infinite potentiality.

Ignoring and discounting things like the stars, the plants, and the sliver of a waxing moon, whose cycles affect everything from tides to fiddler crabs to our sleep habits, blinds us to a major force of energy that we could and should be using in our favor. Being disconnected from the natural world wreaks havoc on our bodies. Ignoring things that affect us deeply and slavishly following things that have little or no impact causes stress, depression, and anxiety.

If we want to create more energy and therefore more “bandwidth” for a joyful life, we must begin to pay attention to things that matter. And let go of all the things that don’t.

Here’s to the Ethiopian goat herder, coffee and all of us that trust that the only thing that really matters is the indestructible joy and pulse of life being broadcast from every tree, every star, every bird on the planet, those that know real life is created from being in tune with the universal broadcast, the sacred buzz.

#222 Forever!

The light and love that sets us free

March 3, 2026 31 Comments

“Worry and love are different frequencies.”-Michael Beckwith

I tried. I really tried.

I so wanted to see the full blood red moon last night. I’ve still got a posse that dances to the full moon (from wherever we hail) each month and well, it’s just cool to celebrate a rare skyscape, especially one that’s ushering in a new era of growth and possibility.

But in Kansas, where I’m currently situated, the moon was completely covered with dense clouds.

Still, I love knowing that it was there, doing its celestial dance even though my eyeballs couldn’t see it. Which is often the case with truth and other such things of the spirit.

I continue to believe that my vision for a more beautiful, free future for all beings on earth is arising even though it’s currently covered with the thick cloud of a patriarchal, consumer-mad paradigm.

Yes, I sometimes doubt. I believe what I see instead of what I know. I fear. I worry. I’m tempted to curl up into a tight little ball.

And that’s when I beg the Holy Spirit, the Divine Buzz, the thing that cannot be named to help me see things differently. To see beyond the cloud. Otherwise, I’m no good to anyone. Without spiritual practice, I’m pretty much hopeless.

Many people don’t know this, but Gandhi, before he changed history forever, devoted many years to feeding and growing his spiritual mojo. True spiritual mojo, a love force that Gandhi called ahimsa, is a force that changes things, not because it fights and resists, but because it’s the truth. Anything that’s not real, anything built on a lie, (domination, separation, limitation) can never be successful in the end. It just can’t.

I didn’t point this out in my last post, the one about the wild boars who for 22 years have been fertilizing the farmer’s tea plantation, but the reason that they continue today, two decades later is because the farmer didn’t put up his dukes. He didn’t fight. He didn’t erect a fence. He appealed to truth. He asked, he apologized and he agreed to work hand-in-hand with nature for the greater good of all.

That’s my goal, too.

Lastly, I want to share this lovely video about the Earth Elders that the Taz Grout 222 Foundation is supporting this year.

Have a beautiful, truthful, real week.

#222 Forever