Blog – Page 53 – Pam Grout

What to do with the ongoing antics of your mind

September 27, 2017 19 Comments

“You’ll be fine. Feeling unsure and lost is part of the path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you. Take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.” ― Louis C.K.

I just had an amazing session with Martha Creek. She’s a teacher, a spiritual life coach and a beautiful human being. She asked me to speak at next week’s Affiliated New Thought conference. Which is a really cool honor except for one tiny little thing.

It terrifies me. For the last week, I’ve been fretting about it, procrastinating the preparations and well, feeling like I would do everyone an enormous favor if I just backed out, ran away, canceled this commitment I made many months ago.

In other words, as Martha so generously pointed out, I’ve been having normal human thoughts.

Our brains churn up thoughts. It’s what brains do. By some estimates, the average human mind regurgitates 60,000 to 90,000 thoughts per day.

As Martha reminded me, it’s the mind’s operating system. It’s reality. The war begins when we pluck a particular thought out of the normal litany and declare it to be “a problem.”

It’s when we set up a framework of good and bad that the stress begins. Having fear is the most normal thing in the world. As Elizabeth Gilbert once said, “I know fear’s social security number and its mother’s maiden name.”

When we make a thought wrong (say, my particular thought that I’m not worthy to speak to all these New Thought gurus) is when it owns us.

What if it’s okay to have fear? What if I didn’t make myself wrong for having these thoughts? What if I simply recognized that there’s nothing bad or unnatural going on here?

Fear is a pretty standard 45 in the jukebox of every human mind. As Martha reminded me, I can always put a period at the end of those thoughts. I’m afraid. Period. I think I can’t speak. Period.

It’s only when I start adding humiliating extra clauses (I’m afraid and that means there’s something wrong with me, I’m panicking and that means I’m inferior, I’m terrified and that means I should just run away) that it grows into an insurmountable thorn bush.

So thank you, Martha Creek and thank you to my perfectly normal, enterprising little mind for delivering the perfect intel at the perfect time.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

Every moment offers a multiple choice of perceptions. Choose wonderment.

September 25, 2017 24 Comments

“Life is not a roll of the dice. It is a result of what conscious awareness we find ourselves living out from. We can make a deliberate choice to shift our perception from this atmosphere of sickness and sorrow and live out from a higher principle.”–Michele Longo-O’Donnell
wonderment

Elizabeth Gilbert had the words “stubborn gladness” tattooed on her arm. It’s from her favorite poem by Jack Gilbert. In the poem, “A Brief for the Defense,” he writes, “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”

I think about stubborn gladness a lot. It defies the chasm so many of us believe—that you are either A) a realist who can’t help but notice the world is going to you-know-where in a you-know-what or 2) you’re a naïve Pollyanna who turns a blind eye to the world’s suffering.

The middle way, that Gilbert embraces, is to find joy even when……. even though….

The stubborn gladness worldview is being committed to finding the wonder amidst the chaos, amidst the terror.

A few years ago, a member of the Canadian Olympic dressage team came to a workshop I gave in British Columbia. I was spouting my normal controversial belief that joy is always possible, that finding it in every situation is one of the greatest gifts we can give our fellow humans. Some of the workshop participants weren’t so sure. But what about this? What about that?

So the Canadian Olympian told this story from her childhood. Her father worked for an international corporation. When the family was in the Philippines, they had a housekeeper who loved life with a deep and abiding joy. She found astonishment in everything. Her unabashed contentment and happiness was a continual source of inspiration to the wealthy family who employed her.

One day, a tsunami or earthquake or typhoon (sorry, I don’t remember the exact natural disaster) struck. The wealthy family fretted after hearing that their housekeeper’s family home had been swept away, had been completely obliterated in the storm. When she showed up for work the next week, they tiptoed around, wondering how they could help. They wanted to know how she and her family were faring. They fully expected her to be morose, to have lost her unbridled enthusiasm for the beauty of each moment.

“Oh, we are having so much fun,” she said. “My whole family, including all the aunts and uncles and cousins are living together in the basement of a church. It has been so fantastic all of us being together.”

Say what?

How was this even possible? How could she find joy in what most of us would rate as one of the top worst things that could ever happen.

Stubborn gladness, my friends, is an internal decision. No question that life sometimes throws curveballs. But it’s still up to us to cultivate joy and find the wonderment that, like air, always surrounds us.

Is your spiritual catcher’s mitt on?

September 21, 2017 22 Comments

“Art and music are two of the most powerful healing forces in the universe. I mean, have you ever gone to a museum and stood in front of a Vermeer and just had tears roll down your cheeks? That doesn’t happen when people stand in front of First National Bank.”—Rosanne Cash

Readers who love my law of attraction books seem surprised. Why are you writing about creativity?

Here’s the short answer. To practice creativity is to tap into the energy that underpins the entire world. There’s something mystical at the center of art.

Roseanne Cash once told an interviewer that she doesn’t write songs so much as she catches them. She even joked that if she didn’t have her catcher’s mitt ready, Lucinda Williams, another amazing songwriter, might just snag one of her songs.

And that’s really what my new book, Art & Soul, Reloaded, is about. It’s about getting ourselves ready to field the Divine. About listening for songs, stories and inspiration that will right the listing ship.

I’m uninterested in catching material stuff. I have more than I could ever need. Instead, I want to catch big, generous, buoyant ideas.

And that’s why I’m currently blogging every day. I’m out here in left field with my catcher’s mitt on, snagging ideas.

I’m faithfully here, looking towards the light, waiting for my next assignment.

I also want to share a couple photos from people who have taken to heart my Zumba for the Soul assignment to find an outrageous outfit at a thrift store.

It’s becoming a thing.

I’d love to see your photos. Post them here or on FB or Instagram.

It’s an effective rehearsal for Life Rule #62: Quit taking yourself so seriously.

Are you spreading wisdom? Or woe?

September 20, 2017 15 Comments

“The universe is being healed. Don’t you want to be a part of the dance?”—Rob Bell

Joys

I’m often asked about my possibility posses. How do you start one? What do you do?

Because I’m allergic to rules and steps and how-to’s, it’s hard to give a definitive answer.

But I can say this.

Every human on the planet has woes. And every human on the planet has wisdom. There’s no exception.

The going cultural paradigm focuses on the woes: the problems that need to be fixed, the “others” who are doing it wrong.

This complaining and anger takes up a lot of space. In our heads. In our everyday conversations. In our political discourse.

In my posses, on the other hand, we leave space for wisdom. We leave the woes temporarily hand-cuffed and tied up in the cellar.

We don’t deny they’re there. We just actively acknowledge that there’s an alternative narrative.

We commit to starting the discourse with “what is going right?”

Each of us feels responsible to show up with our best game. To put on our hard hats and mine for the wisdom that each of us has.

It’s perilously easy to get sucked into the woe conversation. There’s always temptation to join the dominant life sucks story.

So instead of asking what we’re against (the typical manner for picking the popular us-against-them teams), we ask what are we for? What beautiful thing is there to behold? It’s a judo move that completely changes the energy.

What do I stand for? What might be possible?

And then, when the light is shining, we untie the woes in the cellar and find that, not only are they untrue, but they shrivel into nothingness when exposed to all that light.

I need do nothing.

September 19, 2017 23 Comments

“We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain.”—Annie Dillard

jesus-is-scandalous-grace-400x400-400x360 I recently heard an interview with Kenya Barris. He’s the creator of Black-ish, a wildly popular, Emmy-winning TV comedy.

He talked about a spiritual realization that rocked his world. Like most of us, he was led to believe that if you want the goodies—success, acclaim, God’s blessings, etc.—you have to abide by a list of “good people” rules.

And he followed them. And his career kept growing. But finally, the weight of all these beliefs on how to reap God’s favor became too much to bear. He broke the rules. He divorced his wife. He left the conventional path. And guess what?

The blessings kept right on coming. His career took off. Black-ish was nominated for Emmy’s and People Choice and Critic’s Choice and NAACP Image awards. He couldn’t keep up with all the acclaim.

He said it was a stunning realization. Grace comes because grace comes.

He did not have to earn it.

And once the weight of “what he should do” was gone, he was free to do what he wanted to do which was reunite with his wife.

Not because he needed to to earn God’s favor. But because that’s what he wanted.

Despite what the churches preach, despite what our families and our cultures have pounded into our heads, there are no “good people rules.“

That’s why my favorite mantra is this: I need do nothing.

The Course in Miracles says it like this: “It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this (I need do nothing) than to consider what you should do. It is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way at his own time.”

The Course says we can save time by using but this one practice. “I need do nothing,” it says, is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty.”

When we’re not all stressed about earning the goodies, unhappily following arbitrary rules, the riches of the kingdom can’t help but pour in.

Because here’s the thing. We are already good people. We are already given God’s grace.

The only thing that can keep it away is our guilt (because we think we’re not doing it right) or our belief that we have to earn it.

We do not have to earn anything. It’s given to all of us. It’s our natural state.

Once we surrender the “good people rules.”

Note to body: You are not the boss of me

September 18, 2017 20 Comments

“I am large. I contain multitudes.”—Walt Whitman

nasa-image-lulin-self-2 I have nothing against my body. It’s very useful for playing pickleball, for taking selfies and for passing out hugs to fellow humanoids.

But to see my body as the boundary of my being is a myopic belief. My body is but one piece on the chess board of who I really am.

My true self is a much wider realm made up of my joys, my ideas, my fears, my interest and my loves. My body is a temporary clown suit that’s happening within the larger phenomenon of me.

To give our bodies so much attention, as we do in this culture, is to miss the whole point.

Does it really matter which purse it’s carrying? Which type of mascara is trimming its eyes?

According to A Course in Miracles, the body was made by the ego in order to strive. It’s a wall we erected to make believe we’re separate from others. The linear body can only be one place at a time. It’s eyes can only see so far.

Putting it on a pedestal like we do is a mysterious case of mistaken identity.

We can pretend all we want to be these bodies we dress up like Barbie, whose pictures we post on Facebook.

But making your body the “thing” is a silly game that changes nothing at all.

Who you really are is a sacred being with no beginning and no end.

Let’s take Andy Mackie, a retired horse trainer. Andy’s body underwent nine heart surgeries. Doctors insisted that in order to survive, it needed 15 different medications.

Andy finally tired of listening to doctors and their limitations. So he took the $600 per month he normally spent on heart meds, and bought 300 harmonicas to give away to school kids. He fully expected it to be his final grand gesture.

When he didn’t die, he decided to do the same thing the next month. And the month after that. Wasn’t long before he forgot all about his body and the medical reports.

Rather, he got on with the business of honoring his multitudinous self. In the next 13 years, he gave out 18,000 harmonicas complete with lessons. In 2005, he even set a Guinness World record when he led 1706 harmonica players playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

Andy got on with following the thing that made his heart pitter-pat. He gave up all pointless plans to protect his linear self, the packaging that, as I said, is only one small piece on the cosmic chess board.

So today I ask, which piece of your own ginormous chess board are you going to play? The limited slab of flesh that’s prey to guilt and ends in death? Or the wider eternal self that beholds, appreciates, loves and expands?

The linear self is kinda sweet. And it’s fine for taking out to dinner, posing for photos. Just never forget who you really are—a cosmic self that’s here to create the good, the kind and the beautiful.

Wriggle out of the straitjacket of negativity

September 15, 2017 18 Comments

“Absolutely everything is available to us—sorrow and joy, grievance and forgiveness, horror and transcendence—it’s all on the menu. It’s up to us where we put our attention.”–Josh Radnor
costa surf

My daughter, Taz, and I once took surfing lessons in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. Our instructor, a Venezuelan named Jesus, was very clear.

“When you get on the board, keep your eyes focused on the sandy beach. Do NOT—under any circumstances—take your eyes off that beach.”

“But when do we start paddling?”

“The board,” he continued on in his sexy Latin accent, ignoring us, “is always going to head toward whatever you’re looking at.”

Since the last thing Jesus wanted to do was peel two first-time surfers off the scary-looking rocks on either side of the beach, he was adamant:

“Keep your eyes on the beach.”

“But when do we jump up, hang ten . . . ?”

“Keep your eyes on the beach.”

Jesus’s message also comes in handy in life.

When you dwell on what could go wrong, you head for the rocks. When you get all buzzed about how cool something is going to be, you head for the soft, welcoming sand.

When I launched my travel-writing career, I had a choice . . .

I could focus on the rocks:

**I’m an unknown from Kansas.

**I don’t know a single person who makes a living as a travel writer.

**I have no idea how to get started.

. . . or I could focus on the sandy beach:

**It is going to be utterly awesome visiting exotic locales, meeting dashing foreigners, getting begged to stay at five-star resorts.

**I mean, can you imagine, getting to write (my favorite thing in the whole world) about countries I’ve yet to explore?

When I decided to write a book, I had the same two choices . . .

The rocks:

**Hardly anybody gets a book deal these days.

**Why spend all that time and energy on something that may or may not happen?

. . . or the beach:

**How cool is it that I can sit here in my pajamas and do what I love.

**How amazing is it that my words can make a difference in people’s lives.

Just like on that Santa Teresa beach, both realities exist.

But the pertinent question is: which reality is more fun? Which brings more joy?

Why waste the 1,440 minutes we get each day on pessimistic assumptions? Why dwell on worst-case scenarios? Why mentally prepare for doom? Why wait for the dropping of the dreaded other shoe?

Especially when you have the power to focus on how frickin’ amazing it’s going to be when you find your perfect partner, land your dream job, sign that book contract.

It’s impossible to fall short of the glory of God

September 13, 2017 52 Comments

“We are players, actors on many stages. We yearn to wonder, we long to be amazed, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live.” Matthew Fox
1z1z1sign

Although the term “fake news” is nearly as popular as Despacito, it recently hit me that the first purveyor of vicious falsehoods was probably the fundamentalist church. It created its entire doctrine around the idea that “all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Think about it. The first thing a young child learns sitting in the pew is that he (or she) was born into original sin.

My message, the same one that J.C. and the Holy S came to spread, is that every one of us, without exception, was born into original blessing. Every one of us is entitled to the infinite outpouring of the Divine, of the indwelling spirit that continuously bestows miracles and grace. This flow never stops. It can’t. It’s impossible for it not to love, to bless, to comfort, to pass out miracles. Sin, in fact, is nothing but a mistaken identity, an oft-repeated item of fake news.

As regulars to this blog know, I consider it one of my jobs to document the many miracles that so many of us pass over and call coincidence. That’s why I often share stories readers send my way. Today, for example, I heard from a reader whose hospital bill was unexpectedly paid off by an unknown guardian angel. Another reader told me about landing the exact home on the exact street she’d been visualizing complete with roses and honeysuckle around the door.

But today, I want to share a blessing that happened to me.

My new book is out and, well, it hasn’t exactly been tearing up the charts. I’ve even seen a few reviews comparing it unfavorably to E-Squared, the book that will probably always be my “Jack and Diane.”

So I was feeling embarrassed that my “violin,” this time around, seemed to be out of tune and squeaking. Doubting the wisdom of asking readers to undertake weird and unfamiliar creative projects.

So the universe, who kinda has a thing for us humans, noticed I needed a little sign. It noticed that well, I was feeling a little blue. So it recruited this amazing man from Melbourne to send me the following email:

“I felt I had to send you photos of my Art and Soul amulet. I can’t tell you how much fun and the sort of release this bought.

“The thought of making something like this would have never crossed my mind before your book. The son of a talented artist who did not feel as though he received the “gift”, I was intimidated by the seeming ease with which my father seemed to be able to create things, that I felt as though that I had failed before I had begun, stunting any creativity.

“Making this gave me great pleasure because it freed me from my self judgement which crippled me from trying things. I now feel freer. You have given me the spark to write again and for this I am truly thankful.

“I have to admit that I was reticent to take part in you projects at first but I now see that they free from constraints I put on myself and allow to be in places I never expected to be.

“Once again, many thanks.”

And many thanks back to you, Graham, and to the universe for reminding me that even if only one person is comforted by my creative output, my efforts will not have been in vain.

I am so grateful for the unique opportunity to share my gifts with the world.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Why I no longer march in the streets

September 8, 2017 62 Comments

“Turn your light on for those with no vision.”–Pharrell Williams

I used to ADORE a good protest! I marched against war, against guns, against racism.

Nothing’s more exhilarating than carrying a sign and chanting in resistance with fellow comrades.

But it finally dawned on me that being AGAINST something only adds energy to a reality I no longer want. It gives things I don’t like more credit than they deserve. And it negates my power to create something better.

Now, I prefer to be FOR things. I prefer to create better things. Things that make the old things obsolete.

Remember dial telephones? Black and white TV’s? Card catalogs in libraries? Nobody carried placards to protest those things. Rather, someone came up with a better vision.

Fighting against something only makes it more real. Forgiving (AKA: no longer resisting) makes room for new things to burst forth. It makes room for a new vision.

There’s still no shortage of things I’d like to change. It’s just that now I go about it by using my true power to imagine new things.

I use two very significant words. What if?

In the comments section below, share your “What if?” for the world.

Be radical: choose to inject surprise, fun and outrageousness into your day

September 6, 2017 45 Comments

“There’s power in looking silly. And not caring that you do.”—Amy Poehler

“He actually caught himself saying things like “Yippee,” as he pranced ridiculously round the house.” ― Douglas Adams

In my new book, Art & Soul, Reloaded, I offer what I call, Zumba for the Soul. These fun, quirky activities, add-on’s to the weekly projects, came straight off a big sheet of butcher block paper I taped to the door of my basement office when my daughter Taz was four.

Recognizing the weighty assignment of being a single parent, I was determined to do a good job raising her. But at the same time, I didn’t want to surrender my free spirit. So on the door-long piece of paper, I magic-markered ideas I could undertake to keep my mojo flowing.

A reviewer on Amazon recently called them silly stunts. And she’s right. They are, for the most part, silly.

Taking your sketchbook to the park, dancing to the bathroom or making a sock money are not listed on too many grownups’ to-do lists. Most would consider such “silly stunts” a ridiculous waste of time.

But are they?

A majority of the adults in this country are bored, lonely and afraid. They’re literally wallowing in rules, in old miserable paradigms. They have forgotten how to have fun.

In fact, if you really want to serve mankind, figure out a way to enjoy yourself and let people know that enjoying yourself is a good thing.

For me, silliness is an important public service.

So today, after one of my possibility posses, I enlisted my friend, Rhonda, to join me in my Zumba practice. You may remember Rhonda’s nickname—Never Say No to Fun Rhonda. I knew she would be the perfect co-conspirator.

The task? Find the most outrageous outfit you can at a Thrift Store. I think you’ll agree we were quite successful.

thrift store

thrift c3

Most of us don’t spend enough time in the silly zone. We’re too busy following rules, living in ruts. Because we think we have to. Or because we’re conditioned that way. It doesn’t even cross our mind we could try something else.

So maybe you’re not ready to overhaul your wardrobe, but the question I urge you to ask yourself: “What can you do to have a good day? How can you have a little fun?’

Not just today. But every day.

The Blog

What to do with the ongoing antics of your mind

Like this:

Every moment offers a multiple choice of perceptions. Choose wonderment.

Like this:

Is your spiritual catcher’s mitt on?

Like this:

Are you spreading wisdom? Or woe?

Like this:

I need do nothing.

Like this:

Note to body: You are not the boss of me

Like this:

Wriggle out of the straitjacket of negativity

Like this:

It’s impossible to fall short of the glory of God

Like this:

Why I no longer march in the streets

Like this:

Be radical: choose to inject surprise, fun and outrageousness into your day

Like this:

Like this:

The Blog

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: