Blog – Page 44 – Pam Grout

Effort is overrated

March 15, 2018 15 Comments

“Love is present everywhere, and its presence only needs to be realized.”—David Hawkins

If you really want to change your life, ditch the struggle, throw overboard the idea that you have to do more, try harder.

ACIM Lesson 74 (There is no will but God’s) encourages us to give up conflict and rest in a deep sense of joy and increased alertness. It tells us this peaceful, joyful way of being is what’s natural.

It tells us that any time we perceive a problem, we’re at odds with how God sees us.

It’s probably a good time to re-mention that God is nothing like the long-bearded guy the church made up for the sake of convenience and control.

Super God (or the Dude) is a luminous force of constant love and life is an enormous piece of art that I’m helping to create with my thoughts, with my frequency, with my love.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

That was easy

March 14, 2018 34 Comments

“Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said he.” ― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

easy My beautiful colleague and friend, Annola Charity, presented me with a Staples “Easy” button a few years ago. This three-inch red button, when pressed, repeats “That was easy.”

I take it to all my playshops and tell everyone I know that it’s one of my favorite mantras and one of the most important beliefs you can have.

In fact, the section that stood out to me when reviewing ACIM Lesson 73 (I will there be light) was how easy it is to pass the barrier of grievances that stand between me and my happiness.

Because it’s a wordy lesson, one of those that rubs me the wrong way, I plucked out two major points:

A) What I see in the world mirrors what is within.

B) While it seems complicated to let go of my grievances (mainly because they sometimes seem so REAL), it’s a whole lot easier if let go of what I frequently call the most dangerous four-letter word in the English language.

This word that I’ve specifically banned from my vocabulary is especially damning when combined with something you’re trying to do: lose weight, attract money, get a hot date.

The word is “hard,” as in “It is hard to……

You know you’ve said it:

“It’s hard to change old habits.”
“It’s hard to find a better job.”
“It’s hard to empty my mind when meditating.”

Because our beliefs are so powerful, literally sculpting our lives on a moment-by-moment basis, to believe (and especially to say out loud) that anything is difficult is extremely counterproductive.

Still, even those of us who know about (and happily use) the power of our thoughts sometimes speak that ugly word.

I prefer the words “smooth” and “easy” and repeat those beautiful sentiments as often as I can.

I affirm that whatever I want to accomplish is smooth and easy. In fact, the less I do, the better things turn out. The more I hand over to the universe (the field of potentiality that is SO much smarter than me), the better my life becomes.

I hope you will join me in affirming that it’s “smooth” and “easy” to live in and be the light.

Unfurling a new map

March 13, 2018 12 Comments

“The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”–Eckhart Tolle light_of_the_world_by_pantalamonshan-d56yqcs

One of the key reasons I accept all invitations to present workshops (what I call play shops) is because I meet the most amazing people. I hear the most miraculous stories.

In Seattle, for example, I met a woman who used the principles in E-Squared to win one of HGTV’s Dream Homes. Another got front row tickets to a U2 concert even though it was sold out.

Perhaps my favorite story was from a woman who got a very clear message from her dog, a dog who had died several years earlier. He told her to be on the lookout because he was coming back. Sure enough, a stray dog showed up on her doorstep later that day. He had the exact markings on his chest, but the real kicker was when he laid down and crossed his right paw over his left just like he always had.

ACIM Lesson 72 (can you believe we’ve gotten this far?) says holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. To me, it’s a reminder that I’m much more than my body, that these miraculous stories are the way it’s supposed to be.

Grievance-free thoughts carry an amplitude of energy that overrides the dominant paradigm.

Nothing is set in stone (the field is infinite and ever-changing). It is only my repetitive habits that show me the same results. I can change all that seems like “fact” by withdrawing my attention from it.

A whole new instruction manual

March 12, 2018 12 Comments

“None but ourselves can free our minds.”—Bob Marley marley

Not long after he returned from India, spiritual guru Ram Dass was speaking to a group in New York. He was decked out in a flowing white robe and beads. A woman in the audience stood up and asked, “Why are you dressed like that? Aren’t you Jewish?’

Without missing a beat, he answered: “Only on my parent’s side.”

All of us are SO MUCH MORE than the genetic makeup of our bodies, the heredity of our families. We are literally God in drag.

ACIM Lesson 71 (Only God’s plan for salvation will work) tells us that trying to be anything else is crazy ridiculous.

The ego’s plan (if only this were different, I’d be okay) is like following a map of Peoria to navigate the streets of London. Or like using a do-it-yourself bookshelf manual to fix your vacuum cleaner. God’s plan is to know that everything IS OKAY! To celebrate that fact with full frontal abandon.

This lesson also has one of my all-time favorite passages, one I use nearly as much as my “Something extraordinarly epic is going to happen to me today.”

What would you have me do?

Where would you have me go?

What would you have me say, and to whom?

The answers I get from this practice are the only instruction manual I could ever need.

Interrupting my mind chatter with an important non-commercial announcement

March 10, 2018 24 Comments

“All that I ever hope to say is that I love the world.”–E. B. WHITE
light
There’s a dry erase board near the elevator in my Seattle hotel. It gives a weather forecast, lists interesting nearby events and offers a daily bit of trivia.

Yesterday, for example, I learned that sea otters, when they sleep, hold hands. It keeps them from drifting apart, getting lost, losing their tribe.

That’s sorta how I see this blog. We’re all here holding hands until we wake back up and realize we could never drift apart or get lost or lose anything.

The only reason we think we’ve drifted or that we’re lost is because of our grievances.

ACIM Lesson 69 (My grievances hide the light of the world in me) is yet another attempt to ”go towards the light.”

Our brilliance, our unending luminosity is in there, temporarily obscured by our complaints, our loudmouth thoughts that like to pretend something is wrong.

Today, I’m encouraged to let go of my mind’s regular programming and rejoice in a higher truth.

And every time the old programming tries to run its commercial message (‘something’s missing,’ ‘you’re not okay,’ ‘gotta strive for this’), I’m just going to lay back, relax and grab my fellow otters’ hands.

Lay that sucker down!

March 9, 2018 19 Comments

“Evade every influence that keeps you frozen in the past. ” ― Rob Brezsny

med I’m in Seattle this weekend giving a couple playshops at East West Bookshop so I’m going to make this quick.

If you haven’t heard of this inspiring little bookshop, let me just say it’s a nonprofit (I love when money isn’t the prime objective) and it’s run by members of the Seattle Ananda community who follow the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. His book Autobiography of a Yogi is a spiritual classic. In fact, if you click here, you can read a post I wrote about Paramahansa when he was just starting out.

But we’re here to talk about A Course in Miracles.

ACIM Lesson 68 (Love holds no grievances) is an extremely potent lesson. It says I can’t really know my full beautiful loving self if I hold grievances. It tells me in no uncertain terms that any of my ‘he done me wrong’s, any of my ‘life’s not fair’ clog up the pipes of the badass I really am.

But to make it really clear, I’m going to tell you a story Eckhart Tolle once told, “If we had little cameras inside our bodies that showed us what happens when we held grievances, we’d never have a grievance again.”

Talk about a mike drop.

Well, as Arnold would say, “I’ll be back.”

Love, only love,
Pam who is sorta sleepless in Seattle

What marvelous thing might I create today

March 8, 2018 18 Comments

“A better world is sitting, literally, right in front of us.”–Tom Shadyac
stretching

It’s time for our daily ACIM workout, where we stretch our antiquated views, where we work our imagination muscles, where we reach for a whole new vision.

ACIM Lesson 67 (Love created me like itself) reminds us that we place very low expectations on what might be possible. Even our best and our brightest demonstrate a tiny fraction of what we’re all capable of.

The best way I know for reaching a bigger, more brilliant world is to ask better questions.

Every time we ponder the question “How do I get rid of this?” or “How can I overcome that?” we add energy to sustaining the unwanted state.

As we devote more and more attention to its existence, we further validate its reality. We continue to view the state we’re attempting to overcome as a linear, predictable “problem.”

Not a lot of options in that teensy box.

By continuing to ask the same boring questions and residing in the same uncomfortable little shoebox, we block the flow and full expression of the F.P’s power.

The force, to borrow from Luke Skywalker, “can’t be with us.”

So my intention is to ask bigger questions, to think bigger thoughts?

“What if?” is always a good start.

“What if our politicians could see eye-to-eye, to join forces for true and lasting change?”

“What if every child on the planet had a hot meal before they went to bed tonight?”

“What if every family had a roof over their head?”

“What can I do today that makes me dance with joy?

“How can I grow into the loving, wise, inspiring person I am meant to be?”

“What marvelous thing might I create today?”

Anything is possible, but we have to imagine it first. The more big questions we ask, the more we dare to say, “What would it look like if….?,” the bigger our lives will become.

Putting your attention on something calls it into existence. We can literally reshape and redesign our lives by asking bigger questions.

A most unlikely love affair

March 7, 2018 46 Comments

“Reclaim your land with love.”—Jack Kornfield

asshat So, I started a new relationship today.

And even more noteworthy is that I’ve decided to throw myself into this love affair with complete abandon.

Who is this lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) being?

I’ve decided, as of today, to make a 100 percent commitment, to unconditionally love the asshat in my mind. I’ve mentioned him before. The voice that tells me I’m not good enough, the one that points out my flaws, the one that rolls its eyes and says, “Who are you to talk about the Course in Miracles?”

I’ve tried fighting the voice. I’ve tried resisting it. And now, I’m going all in with the only thing that can ever transform anything. I’m going to love it. I’m going to appreciate that, at one time, this voice was working to protect me. And above all, I’m going to remember one of the first tenets of Buddhism.

Hatred never ceases by hatred.
But by love alone is healed.

ACIM Lesson 66 is My happiness and my function are one. It tells me God only gave me happiness.

And since being happy is my only function and since resistance to the voice and its madness doesn’t make me happy or change anything, I’m–as of today–officially declaring my love for all parts of me, especially the scared little asshat. Who knows? I might even send flowers.

3 thought-twisters that slow down fun and joy

March 6, 2018 32 Comments

“Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Chronic ecstasy is a learnable skill.” –Rob Brezsny

Merriam-Webster just announced the addition of 850 new words to their dictionary. My favorite, coined by a writer of The Simpsons, is embiggen (to make bigger or more expansive).

That’s what I think A Course in Miracles does. It embiggens my happiness.

In fact, ACIM Lesson 65 (My only function is the one God gave me.) encourages me to be single-minded in my pursuit of joy, to make this my one and only goal.

I know a lot of people can get hung up on the wording, but this lesson is very simple. It’s also very radical.

To believe that happiness, joy and fun is why we are here is a completely foreign concept to most people. As I said, it’s so radical that most people can’t even wrap their heads around it.

Which is why the Course suggests I set aside a time every day to reflect on how important my mission really is.

It also asks me to notice (and then eliminate) all thoughts, cultural paradigms and beliefs that interfere.

Here are 3 biggies that often get in my way:

1. It’s preposterous to believe you can be happy and have fun all the time. This is deeply-engrained cultural paradigm. It’s only true to the extent that I believe it.

2. I don’t really deserve to be happy and have fun. Otherwise, known as guilt, the belief that I’ve done something wrong and deserve to suffer. It often comes with the word “should.”

3. If I work really hard, I might deserve a little happiness and fun. Like on weekends. Or my birthday. Certainly not all the time.

So who’s with me? Who’s willing to take on the 24/7 mission of happiness and joy?

Rewriting my story about God

March 5, 2018 23 Comments

“It is not until our image of God is corrected that we begin to understand how we sabotage our own happiness.”—Michele Longo-O’Donnell
anything

Before we commence with today’s festivities, I want to answer a question that was posted on my blog yesterday.

Could you give some suggestions on how to forgive the old story?

The simple answer, of course, is quit thinking about it, but that’s rather flip and perhaps not helpful.

So it came to me this morning as one my own old stories was playing out in my head that: a) I had cemented this “problem” into the plaster of my life by believing it was absolutely true and b) that an alternative story (in fact a gajillion other stories) were also true.

And that maybe that field of the other gajillion stories (where an alternative story could be true and a whole different thing could happen) is actually a pretty good definition of God.

And that forgiveness is nothing more than withdrawing my belief in the one story, withdrawing my conviction that this “problem” needs to be solved.

At that point, I can return to the field of gajillion possibilities. Or, to use the old terminology, return to God. Or love.

Absolutely anything is possible. Until that moment I pluck one particular possibility (usually a problem) out of the gajillion possibilities and then whip the bejesus out of myself for having it.

In quantum physics, it’s called collapsing the wave. All of our problems are nothing but waves we chose to collapse out of the field of gajillion possibilities.

So to turn it over to God is to turn it back over to the field where anything at all is possible. Where the wave is no longer collapsed.

It occurs to me that this definition may be just as difficult to understand as the Course often is. And my goal is to make it as simple as possible. So let me try one more time.

ACIM Lesson 64 (Let me not forget my function) encourages me to bring my attention back to the field of gajillion possibilities instead of zeroing in on one collapsed wave.

My function is to “be the light,” “to spread molecules of merriment.” And it’s much easier to fulfill that function when I focus on the gajillion possibilities (God) rather than the one thing that I just know is a problem, that thing I failed to “forgive.”

This lesson tells me that it’s all very simple–although it begs the question why the Course has used so many words to tout simplicity.

Every decision I make leads to either unhappiness (This problem is real, I believe in it with all my heart) or happiness (Absolutely anything is possible once I return to the field of gajillion possibilities). I prefer definition 2.

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Effort is overrated

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That was easy

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Unfurling a new map

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A whole new instruction manual

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Interrupting my mind chatter with an important non-commercial announcement

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Lay that sucker down!

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What marvelous thing might I create today

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A most unlikely love affair

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3 thought-twisters that slow down fun and joy

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Rewriting my story about God

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