Blog – Page 13 – Pam Grout

Tuning into a higher frequency

March 15, 2024 103 Comments

“The universe is one huge light party.”—Bob Grayson

Meister Eckhart once said that if the only prayer you ever utter is thank you, it will be enough. It’s certainly the predominate prayer on my lips these days.

I’m having big, big fun hanging with my sis in an old growth forest. I’m buzzing with gratitude for all your generous comments.

And most importantly, I’m making space first thing every morning to write and commune with “the something bigger.” It seems as if an important connection has been established, that I’m tapping into something important.

I’m accessing a greater sense of openness and peace. In fact, I warned my sister last night that I’m almost at the point of stopping complete strangers and gushing about how much I love them.

It’s becoming more and more clear that this connection is available to all of us. And it’s available all the time. It’s our inheritance. It’s our natural state. It’s who we really are.

We often don’t recognize this because we’re paying attention to other things. We’re paying attention to problems, to worries about the future, to beliefs that we’re not quite good enough.

The best we can do when we operate from that narrow band of energetic perception is reformulate the past, rearrange what we already know. But there’s SO MUCH MORE available.

Now that I’ve made listening and writing my number one priority, the connection appears to be growing stronger. The guidance is flowing. Things that have never been thought are flooding in.

My friend Jay who regularly “sees dead people” said Taz even showed up recently (on 2/22, of course) to say that something even bigger and more profound than my earlier work is being delivered.

All I know for sure at this point is my purpose and my happiness are synonyms. And my purpose has something to do with changing the trajectory of not just my life, but others, as well. And I feel joyous that the portal has been opened.

Stay tuned as I tune in ever more deeply and ever more joyously to life’s unending beneficence.

#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)

Straightening twisted perceptions

March 12, 2024 68 Comments

“On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.”—Rumi

I figured out how to duplicate my famous hat.

So I’m not clear on whether this is a threat or an exciting promise. But I’m about to step up my blogging game, meaning you will likely be hearing from me more often.

When E-Squared debuted 11 years ago, I blogged a lot. The year I pitched The Course in Miracles Experiment, I blogged near-daily about the Course lessons I follow every year. In fact, it was you guys, my lovely readers, who convinced me to turn those reflections into a book.

Lately, the muses have been tapping me on the shoulder. “Hey, Pam,” they keep bugging me. “It’s time.”

Evidently, they have another book they’d like me to deliver. Like training for a marathon or really anything that requires a bit of time and attention, you have to work your muscles. You have to practice. When I’m writing every day, the words start flowing like lava from Mount Vesuvius.

My belief is that anyone who wants to write just has to show up and start taking notes. The Cosmic Concierge, as I often call it, does the heavy lifting.

At this point, it won’t be daily—especially since I’m heading out of town for a week. But I am making this commitment to the muses and to you. It’s much easier to keep your word when you give it to others. I have this annoying tendency to break some of the resolutions I only mention to myself.

So thank you for being my workout partners. Here’s my thought for the day:

I just read Ellen Langer’s new book, The Mindful Body. I’ve written about this Harvard psychology professor before. She does lots of research that keeps proving thoughts play a starring role in our health. She’s the one who did the study about the hotel maids who lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and reduced their body mass index once they were told their job amounted to a full body workout. They changed nothing EXCEPT their beliefs.

Langer believes most medicine is simply a prod for our minds to heal our bodies. She mentioned that Thomas Jefferson’s doctor, a prominent physician of his time, regularly prescribed placebos and told America’s third president that disease was largely psychological.

This statement, of course, will get you booed out of most Madison Avenue offices today. After all, there is big, big money to be made from dispensing medicine.

But like everything, it pays to notice who benefits from creating perceptions of need, especially those that involve disease, scarcity and fear.

I prefer aligning my beliefs with Aristotle who said “a quiet, happy mind makes the body healthy.” Happy minds also provide about anything else you might need.

Have a marvelous Tuesday, my dears!!

#222 Forever!

Safe in a world that loves and protects me

March 8, 2024 42 Comments

“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”—Leonard Cohen

Albert Einstein is reported to have said that the most important decision anyone can make is whether or not they live in a friendly universe.

One of the gazillion reasons I practice what I call ferocious gratitude is because it allows me to live in a friendly universe. It enables me to see every person as a friend, every situation as happening for my good.

It grants me the privilege of stepping out into the world expecting things to always work out for me. No matter how it might appear.

I’ve been thinking about my early travel days before cell phones provided we wayfarers with non-stop contact, GPS and all sorts of perceived safeguards.

No matter what situation I found myself in, things had a way of always working out. Even the time I landed in Germany without knowing how to reach the friend I was staying with. Or the time I lost my motorcycle key in the Greek ocean. Or the time I was left in the middle of the north island of New Zealand by a boyfriend who decided he didn’t like me anymore.

I’m not suggesting I didn’t panic a time or two. Especially in countries that converse in different languages. But always, 100 percent of the time, it worked out.

What I now know for sure is that there is a life force that always looks out for me. Like today’s Course lesson says, “I am safe in a world which protects me and loves me.”

This force, this guidance, this love will never abandon me. And the only reason some of you might be rolling your eyes and sarcastically thinking, “Right, Pam” is because you don’t yet trust how supremely loved you are.

Fear is the ONLY THING that can ever get in the way of this non-stop loving care. Worry, disbelief and all its mean girl cousins can block the awareness. But it’s never not available.

Once you come to trust this fact your whole life changes. You know that everything you could ever need will be rolled out before you like a gorgeous Persian carpet.

Last summer, when I was in Spain, my sister, my Mister and I lost the keys to our apartment. This is something I’m known to do, but let’s just say my compadres freaked out just a tad little bit. We were at the beach, we had left our phones, our money, our credit cards in the apartment and well, nobody on that beach in southern Spain spoke anything but their native language. And my months of Duolingo hadn’t covered, “Help! I’m currently penniless in your country.”

For a short frantic time, as we pawed through the sand, I was pretty curious how we were going to access our place again. Especially since the phone number of the mighty companions who had so generously offered us their beautiful pad on the beach was dutifully entered in the cell phones back in the apartment. They were in Canada, we knew no one else, and, well, all rational reasonable people would have believed we were screwed.

Except I had a quiet confidence (from years of accessing that friendly universe) that somehow this, too, would work out.

Eventually, of course, like Max from the Where the Wild Things Are, we sailed across years, across days and back into our very own apartment where–maybe not hot dinner–but our phones, our money and our credit cards were waiting for us.

We might think these man-made conveniences provide some sort of safety net. But truly, friends, our real security, our real peace of mind come from the ever-so beneficent universe that waits patiently for us to release our fears and come back home.

Once again, dear mighty companions, have the very best, the most astonishing weekend of your lives!!

#222 Forever!

Celebrating a regenerative new reality

February 22, 2024 27 Comments

“Nature is the antidote to humanity’s wounds.”—Zach Bush

Happy 222!! I’m so excited to announce this year’s Taz Grout 222 Foundation grants. Our mission, as you know, is to create a new normal so, as Buckminster Fuller said, the old normal will become obsolete.

We don’t seek to change things per se (that, my friends, is counterproductive and only creates resistance), but to celebrate a more nourishing way of life, a bigger possibility. We intend that our new vision will be SO compelling, SO alluring that people CAN’T WAIT to jump on board.

Rather than railing about injustice, we honor people and projects that bring health, wholeness and big love to the world. We showcase restorative stories, new ways of approaching life with joy and creativity. We celebrate all efforts to move our world from a consumption model to a production model. After all, each of us has so much to give!!!!

After seeing the excellent movie, Common Ground, (go see it if you can), we decided to focus our grants this year on regenerative agriculture. Like the Taz Grout 222 Foundation, regenerative agriculture celebrates the web of life that connects us all.

It restores soil, sequesters carbon, creates beauty, boosts health, brings people together and basically relies on Mother Nature to do her glorious thing.

So with no further adieu, here are the honorees of this year’s Taz Grout 222 Foundation:

Gilliard Farms. Jupiter Gilliard bought 457 acres of farmland in coastal Brunswick, Georgia in 1874 soon after being freed from slavery. Today, his great-great-great grandchildren, Matthew and Althea Raiford and Matthew’s wife, Tia, are restoring the land, growing medicinal gardens and promoting the Gullah/Geechee culture from which they hail.

Tia and Matthew are both professional chefs. In fact, they first met at the Culinary Institute of America and have worked at some pretty impressive venues—from the House of Representative to the Olympics. Their mission is to awaken the soil, awaken people and as Tia says, create ever more opportunities for abundance and inner-connections.

I first learned about the Raifords from Farmer’s Footprin t, an innovative nonprofit working “to accelerate regenerative food systems as a way to restore human and planetary health.” It was co-founded by Dr. Zach Bush who noticed the link between industrialized agriculture practices and plummeting health. Bush, who also happens to be a Course in Miracles student, continuously inspires me with this beautiful vision for humanity’s future.

2. The second honoree is AGILE International, a program in Mali, Africa, that secures farmland for rural women who have been pushed out by large-scale industrial farms. Started by Fatou Doumbia, who moved to the States in the 90’s, Agile International gives women the opportunity to own their own land and therefore control their own destiny. Agile’s motto is “Growing Food, Nourishing Minds and Flourishing Culture.” And, yes, they use regenerative farming methods that restore their ancient lands and ancient wisdom.

3. The Sunrise Project. This project, right here in my hometown, is not only growing food, but it brings people together with free community meals, weekly gatherings and what I call “Show and Tell,” a monthly forum letting people stand and brag about their creative gifts. As I said in Art and Soul, Reloaded, “Why is this not a normal thing?”

We are sponsoring the Taz Grout 222 Community Orchard, a free food park where anyone can pick ripe fruit. Located near the William S. Burroughs Trail (Yes, the famous beat poet spent the last 16 years of his life in Lawrence, Kansas), the orchard is part of Sunrise Project’s mission to build an equitable community for people of all ages and experience to live self-determined, healthy and meaningful lives.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our mission over the years—from sending hedgehogs and 222’s to lavishing me with non-stop love.

Here’s to Taz who always stood for loving fiercely, creating relentlessly and doing quiet, kind things for the underdog.

She also just reminded me to add this little bit: “Hug a tree, plant a seed and walk barefoot whenever you can. Nature will take it from there.”

So as always, #222 Forever!

Don’t take your thoughts personally

February 13, 2024 16 Comments

“Without these “me” thoughts taking up your mental space, you’re quiet, aware and available to what the moment is offering.”—Gail Brenner

Happy Tuesday to all you bright beacons of love!

It’s very possible that I’m only writing this post so I can brag—about how I finally became a cover girl in my 60’s. (See the attached picture of the cover of the March/April issue of Unity magazine.) Yay me!

But I also thought I’d mention that, despite years of listening to them, your thoughts are not facts.

They have tremendous power, yes, but most of what your thoughts tell you is not true.

Far as I can ascertain, thoughts are mostly good for building walls of resistance, judgement and fear.

When we identify with our thoughts, when we give them more credit than they deserve, we have a tendency to suffer. We live in a trance of the mind, a trance that actually shows us everything we add to our “I am_____.”

For example, if I say, “I am worried,” I create worry. The universe seconds every thought I add to my “I am.” What’s worse is the scared little ego then proceeds to offer up all sorts of visual and mental evidence showing things to worry about. It can become a vicious circle.

The only true statement about myself is, “I am.” The rest is just speculation.

In emergencies, I might use the word d^u, a French word with a ^ over the ‘du.” Instead of saying “I am anxious” or “I am tired” or “I am….whatever I don’t want to be,” I’ll say I am du^ing anxiety or du^ing exhaustion.

Then it’s a temporary state and reduces the energetic charge.

But I refuse to claim it as my identity, as my “I am.”

After all, I want to get back to celebrating the aliveness of my true nature, back to noticing that it’s quite possible to have a productive, meaningful life without taking my thoughts seriously.

Have a beautiful week!

#222 Forever!

Moving beyond yesterday

February 6, 2024 16 Comments

“I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing.”—Mary Oliver

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Happy Tuesday, my dearest lovelies.

I am headed out of town and, in lieu of a post, I thought I’d send this little ditty.

We sang it Sunday at one of the possibility posses. It’s a Y.O.U. (Youth of Unity) standard and, as I always say, follow the young ones. They haven’t yet cemented in all the conditioning and rationality and patterns that get stuck in our adult heads.

Every day, we have the chance to let go of yesterday and start anew.

I love you to the Milky Way and back!!

#222 Forever!

This is probably more than you need to know

January 26, 2024 44 Comments

“Nirvana is where you are, provided you don’t object to it.” — Alan Watts

My favorite aspect of infinite potentiality is that it’s, well infinite—meaning that it continues to expand. Love, light, joy—there’s no end point, no finish line.

What’s possible in our lives is limited only by our beliefs.

So here’s a belief I carried for probably 40 years. I believed I was a person incapable of sleeping through the night.

I didn’t deem this a problem, per se. I just thought it was my constitution, how it was. My “story” was further cemented into my consciousness by consensus reality that tells us that as we age, getting up to pee (That, by the way, is the bit that’s more than you really need to know) is par for the course.

So a couple years ago, my old college roommate, who lived on a yacht with her husband for three years, told me she started sleeping through the night. I was dumfounded.

Really?

“Yes,” she explained, “Our bedroom on the yacht is so tiny, that, if I need to go the head (boatspeak for bathroom), I have to crawl over Tom (her Mister).” So she decided to quit getting up to pee.

Just like that.

Her words, said in passing, inspired me to consider that as a possibility. What if it’s not true that I’m person who can’t sleep through the night?

Certainly, I had stacked up a lot of evidence. Even when I was 16, working at a camp in Colorado, I got up every night around 3 or 4 a.m. to stumble to the camp bathroom, often passing bears rifling through the trash.

But what if the reality “I don’t sleep through the night” only plays out in my life because I believed it for so long. Because I read some article somewhere about biorhythms and melatonin levels changing as we age.

I’m sure you can guess why I’ve chosen to let you in on my bedtime activities. Because it demonstrates a profound truth. That simply opening to possibilities never before considered can change everything.

And, yes, I now regularly sleep through the night!

Have the best Friday of your life, my comrades in ever-expanding possibilities!

#222 Forever!

Celebrating the “I don’t know”

January 24, 2024 26 Comments

“Awe is all around us. We just need to know where to look.” — Dacher Keltner

Yes, we’ve been coloring at the local coffee shop.

Quick question. Did you wake up this morning, like a three-year-old, super excited to see what the day might bring?

Or did you open your eyes and make the conclusion that “well, today is likely to be an awful lot like yesterday”?

I think it was Dr. J (or maybe one of his disciples) that said something to the effect of we humans see “through a glass darkly.”

Because we are so convinced we understand life, so darn sure we know how things are, we see through a filter. It’s virtually impossible for us to see life clearly.

Maybe it’s just here in Kansas City Chiefs country, but our headlines are filled with “news” about Taylor Swift.

My algorithm (if you want to know what you’re interested in, just notice what pops up on your device) is filled with stories about the brilliant star’s wardrobe, who she partied with, analysis of her relationship with Travis Kelce.

I chuckle because all those news reports have NO IDEA what’s really going on. None. Zilch. Yet, I hear people talking (Taylor did this or Taylor did that) as if they have some kind of insight.

That’s pretty much what the ego does, feeds us stories straight from our algorithms, straight from thoughts we’ve been interested in before. And then we go on to repeat them, believe them, invest in them. Pretty soon we think we’re experts in something that is pure speculation.

Most everything we believe about the world is pure speculation, fed to us by our egos to limit what we believe is and isn’t possible. Or as Taylor might say, “weaving little webs of opacity.”

What happened yesterday is of NO RELEVANCE to today. What you could or couldn’t do last week is of NO RELEVANCE to right now.

Which is why I celebrate a deep state of not knowing, not figuring things out, not having to be what I thought I was yesterday.

Not knowing leaves room for bright, shiny “sacred new beginnings.”

#222 Forever!

Giving it all to the cosmic secretary

January 10, 2024 60 Comments

“Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.”–Rumi

In E-Squared, I mentioned that I appointed “the Dude” as CEO of my career. It was patently obvious that the faulty wiring I’d downloaded from my past had no business making any kind of strategic decisions in the fickle world of freelance writing. Clearly, I needed help.

Recently, I’ve added a new “hire” to the team. I’m calling it my cosmic secretary.

Since my only job, according to the Course in Miracles, is to be a conduit of light, I figure I need outside help to handle the minutia of every day life. The Course says it’s a waste of energy to get bogged down in to-do lists and details and trivia. What’s important is strengthening my spiritual mojo.

So, for now, there’s only one item on my daily task list—stay on the joy frequency. Everything else is assigned to my personal cosmic assistant.

Helen Schucman, scribe of the Course, balked when she was told to ask for guidance on even the smallest of details of her life. Her cosmic secretary (she, of course, referred to it as the Holy Spirit) even specified which winter coat to buy. And it assured her that, despite her objections, it wasn’t intruding on her free will. It was trying to free it. It was attempting to lead her to bigger possibilities.

So rather than depend on my own personal faculties, I’m turning my attention toward the infinite field of intelligence, asking it for guidance and noticing everything gets taken care of quickly, wisely and with supreme grace.

P.S. My cosmic secretary told me to mention she has a lot of colleagues that are currently looking for employment if anyone else needs a hand.

#222 Forever, my lovelies!

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)

Human brain: master of deception

January 4, 2024 33 Comments

“Draw a boundary and then erase it. Because it is a fragment of your imagination.”—Buckminster Fuller

This was one of three hedgehogs Taz and her many emissaries sent my way on January 1. Bodes well for an extraordinarily epic year!!!

For those who might be wondering, I began Lesson 1 of A Course in Miracles on January 1, as I do every year.

And it’s not because I’m a slow learner (although, admittedly, that could figure in), but because I love the daily reminders of the world’s “indiscriminate generosity.”

I love hearing again and again that my fleeting, anxious thoughts mean nothing. (That happens to be today’s lesson).

I love being reminded that my piddly fears were created by a blob of goo in my head that evolved, not to produce genius or peace, but to regulate my body.

The brain’s grand productions (thoughts, feelings, senses) are patterns that come with the job of keeping the body in check. They don’t begin to show the boundless, astonishing energy field in which we live. The Gospel of Thomas says it like this: “infinite love is spread out upon the earth and men don’t see it.” To which I will add, thanks to the reducing valve known as the brain.

The Course offers a seismic shift in the way we perceive the world. By changing our perceptions, we literally begin to live in a different world. As the Course says, “In this world, the unconditional care of God (the Dude, in my lingo) becomes our experiential reality and the worldly assaults fade into insignificance. We are carefree and know we are taken care of. Anxiety is replaced with celebration.”

One of the things I’m celebrating is the amazing, brilliant people I get to meet, one of whom called me a “messenger” yesterday. This is after I balked at her insinuation that I was a teacher. Again, I don’t see myself as a teacher, but rather a person who likes to share her toys.

Her story, a perfect example of the guidance we can expect once we give up our patterned thoughts, is so cool I thought I’d share it here. About a year ago, she started getting a nudge to leave her job and move abroad. She wisely said, “Okay, show me!” No sooner did she consent to listen than she was further guided to move to France.

France? I think I might have gone back to my regulated thought patterns at that point, the ones that insist “that sounds like a lot of trouble.”

But she surrendered and kept tuning in to her guidance. The moment she committed, she started meeting people from….France, started noticing doors opening up. Everything proceeded with ease and grace. That doesn’t mean the brain didn’t try to chime in. But she knows better than to attend to its pointless preoccupations.

So in about a week, she is moving to the south of France where she will be conducting the event we’re doing from her NEW HOME.

I love how easy life can be when we let go of the patterned perception fed to us by our brains. The Course helps us loosen the chains and transform all limited beliefs.

Here’s to a 2024 free of all misguided beliefs and ideas.

#222 Forever!

The Blog

Tuning into a higher frequency

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Straightening twisted perceptions

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Safe in a world that loves and protects me

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Celebrating a regenerative new reality

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Don’t take your thoughts personally

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Moving beyond yesterday

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This is probably more than you need to know

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Celebrating the “I don’t know”

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Giving it all to the cosmic secretary

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Human brain: master of deception

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