“Consciousness will whip up whatever we wish to experience and will present it to us in a way that is convincing and believable.”—David Bingham
While I’m slower than a speeding bullet and unable to leap tall buildings with a single bound, I do happen to possess an impressive superpower.
This rock-em, sock-em superpower has the ability to change not only my world, but the world that appears before my eyes.
My superpower is my attention. And how I dispose of it is the ultimate creative act. What I attend to with my consciousness renders the life I will experience.
I can place my attention on lack and limitation or I can place it on life’s never-ending blessings.
I can direct my attention towards displeasing situations and circumstances, to things I want to fix or change or I can actively direct my attention towards beauty.
And here’s the thing about consciousness. Where we choose to look starts hardening up. It becomes the only model we see, not because it’s the only available possibility, but because everything that doesn’t fit (those things we’re not paying attention to) are quickly rendered invisible. That’s why my attention is a superpower.
I heard a definition of abundance the other day that I really dig. Abundance is not about what you have. It’s about how you feel about what you have.
So, as always, you get a choice which phone booth to duck into, which reality you’re going to attend. Perhaps your decision could even qualify as a moral act.
“The real goodness of Life is not to be found in the reasoned spaces of our thinking minds.”—Ameeta Kaul
Yesterday, the website, Inspire Me Today, re-ran a post I’d written 10, maybe 12 years ago. Here’s the link:
In the post, I called for love—instead of being relegated to a Valentine’s card or a chick flick—to be our society’s main curriculum. I said that anything this powerful should be emphasized every day in school, in business, on Capitol Hill.
And then I got to thinking about love itself and how, in our culture, it’s always filtered through the brain. It gets turned into concepts and judgments and rules for who is worthy, who is not.
Love that’s filtered through the brain, asks questions like this:
Does he/she check off all my boxes?
Does she/he behave the way I think she/he should?
To filter love through the brain, where it becomes a mathematical equation, is a huge disservice. To love. To you. To the world.
Love is not a concept. It has no right and wrong, good and bad. It is literally a force, a power, a light. And it is rendered crippled when it’s filtered through our brains.
As complex as human brains are, they’re chiefly wired to keep us safe, to see danger, even when there is none. Because our brains act as reducing valves, they are at best capable of regurgitating past beliefs and boxes and limitations.
I’ve got a new book coming out, hopefully by the end of this year. It’s about a different state of consciousness than the one filtered through our brains. This love/life/light (it really can’t be named or even described) is innate and always present.
It always knows what you need. It always supports you. It’s always loving–not the kind of loving with requirements and standards and judgements. The kind of love that accepts you EXACTLY as you are. Right now. Right here.
In this love lies indestructible, infinite freedom.
“Ask yourself how you can transform this very moment into something radiant and radical and spectacular.”—Elizabeth Gilbert
I often share “You are never gonna believe this” stories here on the blog. And while an eerily spectacular tale recently dropped into my inbox (it involved a completely empty cabinet that suddenly filled with necessary medical supplies), I’ve been thinking more about the gazillion little miracles I walk by every day.
For the past week, I’ve been hosting some of the folks I met in South Africa. Lucien and Theolene are currently attending I.Y.O.U. (International Youth of Unity) at Unity Village, but last week, we did a lot of things that I’ve been known to take for granted—going to a movie theater (neither had ever been), for example, or eating foods from other countries. We even stopped by the local “Make Good Trouble” protest in honor of John Lewis.
They loved EVERYTHING! They were excited by EVERYTHING! They even requested their picture taken with a big yellow school bus.
Maybe more important than making an impact, I should make sure I myself am impacted, that I myself notice and get excited by the countless treasures that exist in every moment.
Sure, things can look scary from one viewpoint, but it’s a mistake to tether myself to that position only, to disregard all the everyday lusciousness, like the hibiscus showing off in my front yard right now or the curly-haired three-year-old who danced her way up to the stage at yesterday’s quilt auction.
Like so many people, I’ve been deeply inspired by Andrea Gibson, the poet who passed last week from ovarian cancer. She said in one of her poems, “Dying is the opposite of leaving” and that, after death, she’d be “more here than ever before.” That certainly rings true-her poems are everywhere now.
She knew to fall in love with tiny things (“every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see”) and, after her cancer diagnosis, every single experience became radiant and filled with light.
As Byron Katie once explained to Elizabeth Gilbert (I just read about this in her weekly “Letters from Love”), all she saw when she looked at her was pouring beams of light. Liz pointed out that Katie also saw those same beams of light emanating from the ketchup bottles.
But you get the idea. We see what we decide to see. We create our world with our attention.
So, yes, I will continue to celebrate big, juicy, “impossible” miracles. But I will also celebrate the small and seemingly insignificant. In other words, I intend to fall in love with everything I see.
“To identify as ‘only a body’ is a narrowing of awareness.”—David R. Hawkins
Caution: serious woo-woo ahead!
Feel free to continue seeking.
Feel free to look for another book or teacher or workshop.
Feel free to sit forever on that proverbial pot.
But just so you know, it’s all bullsh*!t.
In actuality, you are already free and whole and have everything you believe you don’t have because well, you think you’re broken or you fell from grace or you still have karma. Gotta keep practicing.
Family and culture passes out a script — “There’s something you need to do,” “There’s somewhere you need to go.”
“You’re not quite there yet,” we hear over and over again.
“Woe is me” makes for some interesting drama (I like a good Netflix show as much as the next guy). Believing there’s some kind of hierarchy (“that person is realized and I’m still working on it”) fits right into the cultural narrative.
But to reiterate, it’s all B.S.
I prefer to use the hologram known as Pam to enjoy, dance, create, hug, uplift, shine light and surrender as much as I possibly can. To let go of all belief in limitations, time, space.
I just read David Hawkins book, Letting Go. This book was particularly poignant for me because he doesn’t use the word “I” to describe himself. The I, the me, me, me, me is where we start to pick up an identity.
Instead, when he’s relating a story that would normally be first person, he simply talks about encountering a particular event that might just as well have been a scene from a movie. As the quote above suggests, he didn’t identify as ‘only a body.’
Because the hologram known as David Hawkins often drove into New York City to see clients, a thought arose “Wouldn’t it be great to have a small apartment in New York City.” And then he surrendered it. He’d be happy to have it. He’d be equally as happy not to. He let go all desire.
The next day, within 24 hours, he had the urge to drive into the city. It was around 4:30, normally rush hour, but there was little traffic. A car pulled out right in front of a real estate office near the area he wanted (or not wanted, it didn’t matter). C’est la vie!
He walked in, made his preposterous inquiry (everyone knows there aren’t inexpensive apartments on Fifth Avenue) and the agent said, “You are one lucky son-of-a-gun. Exactly one hour ago, we listed the only apartment in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue.” It was affordable and had just been painted.
“You can move in any time,” he added.
This scene from his movie happened without effort, without trial and error, without hard work.
So sure, believe the story. Keep practicing. Or let it all go and just have fun being God.
“Once you identify a choice that your culture has made on your behalf, you are free to begin forging a new one.”—Philip Shepherd
My most important practice is non-resistance. Me and Elsa—letting it go. Over and over and over again.
Like today’s Course lesson advises, “Give up your tight control of what you see.”
Personally, I want to give up my tight control of what I see, what I think, what I believe.
I was pondering this common phrase today. “But that’s just human nature.”
It’s often used to explain away all sorts of less-desired behaviors, things like fear, jealousy, greed, anger. And it’s billed as inescapable, “just the way it is.”
But that doesn’t ring true for me. I would say 100 percent of these kinds of projected behaviors are anything BUT human nature. Our true essential nature is love, peace, acceptance and joy.
And anytime, we feel less than peaceful, less than innocent, less than “what a freakin’ awesome world this is,’ we are resisting something and projecting whatever we’re resisting onto a screen outside ourselves.
Another myth I’d hereby like to bust is the prevalent belief that it’s your job to figure everything out. When you rely on your precious mind to solve some issue that’s troubling you, it produces thoughts—lots and lots of thoughts.
The intellect, as great a tool as it is, relies on old files stored in the brain. It churns up stories revolving around the above myth—that others and their “human nature” are out to get you. And these thoughts, which are endless and self-reinforcing, only breed more thoughts.
So today, let’s all join Elsa, belt out a joyous “let it go.” And relax in the boundless peace that is our true nature.
“Identities and opinions are the least interesting parts of people.”—Maria Popova
So I just returned home from one of my Possibility Posses (P.P.), checked my email and saw a comment on last week’s blog post that said something to the effect of “so grateful you keep writing these.”
I took that as a sign to share a little something we discussed today.
Possibility posses, far as I’m concerned, are non-negotiable. The important part isn’t so much what we say, but the frequency we create by being together, by focusing on a different narrative. Someone last week even mentioned that the story he was about to share wasn’t as important as the energetic field he intended to create.
I always think of Jill Boelte Taylor’s Ted Talk about the stroke that shut down the left hemisphere of her brain. That’s the logical, conceptual, mathematical part of our brains. While that part wasn’t online, she looked at her hands and saw, not the flesh and bone and fingers we normally associate with hands, but two intermingled clouds of energy.
So the field or the “cloud of energy” to which we commit is one of upliftment and possibility, of a story beyond what we’re often enmeshed with in our culture.
Are we really these bodies? Or are we conjoining fields of energy, fields that we, by our very presence, can use to reach towards light and love or what I like to call, the way things really are.
I know it’s a popular sentiment in the self-help arena to figure things out and fix things with our minds. But I’ve noticed the mind, more often than not, gets in the way.
I compare thoughts, those fields of energy dispensed by the right side of our brains, to birds. Yes, that purple-bellied, green-eyed warbler may still be flying around your yard.
But if you don’t put seed in the bird feeder, it’ll soon fly away. In other words, if you keep putting the same suet out for the same old thoughts, be it thoughts about money or your childhood or whatever else keeps squawking around your awareness, it will continue to vie for your attention and darken your cloud of energy.
So that’s why I only feed “birds” that feel good and why I continue to show up at my possibility posses whenever I can.
“The present is whispering to us, “Come and play, come and risk.”—Philip Shepherd
When Philip Shepherd graduated from high school, he had a choice. He could follow societal convention, study physics at Trinity College in Toronto. Or he could fly to London, buy a bike and cycle across Europe, Middle East, India and eventually end up in Japan studying Noh Theatre.
As he says now, “I knew instinctively that if I stayed in my culture, it would win.”
Like many of us, he noticed early on that adults followed a lot of well, ridiculous rules and customs.
Had he not defied traditional expectations, he likely wouldn’t be the pioneer he is today. I probably would never have heard of him or gone to his life-changing workshop last weekend in Brooklyn, Wisconsin.
As he points out, everything in the accepted culture is tied to safety. And if we’re not aware of patterns we’ve inadvertently adopted, they will continue to run and run and run.
From the moment I first read about Shepherd (thank you, DailyGood), I resonated with his work of finding guidance, not in our heads, but in the living present. The workshop was aimed at noticing barriers that dull us to the world around us and finding the spaciousness and fluidity that is our natural state.
Until we let go of what we “know for sure” (as he says, the head is like a medieval fortress), we have little choice but to blindly follow reactive patterns.
I’ve always called it changing consciousness, opening to higher dimensions. As all you party-goers here at the blog know, that’s the mission of the Taz Grout 222 Foundation and the reason I keep writing these blog posts. Well, I also happen to really, really LOVE writing and opening myself to whatever the muses instruct me to purvey.
And today, I want to share a trio of stories that touched me and defy the cultural Kool-aid which, as we’re starting to recognize, doesn’t satisfy or even taste good anymore:
1. Money is perhaps the most entrenched belief in our culture. “The more, the better,” the story goes.
But Jeffrey Lee, who owns 1200 hectares of land on the eastern edge of Australia’s Kakadu National Park, turned down the opportunity to become that country’s wealthiest man. The uranium deposit on his land is worth $5 billion. Mining companies had pestered him for years, offering exorbitant amounts to purchase his family homeland.
Finally, to escape the incessant pressure, he traveled to Paris to make his case before the World Heritage Committee.
“I believe this land and my cultural beliefs are more important than mining and money,” he told the committee that was able to officially protect Koongarra and his indigenous Djok way of living.
2. The next belief that’s firmly wedged in our societal enculturation is the idea of “the other”—that we are separate and that we must defend against the “opposition.” I got a kick out of a quote Philip shared: “Stereotypes are a great time saver.”
Anyway, Destiny Smith could have saved a lot of time and, according to conventional reality, been pretty mad at the stranger who rear-ended her car. But after learning he was 97-years-old, had no license, no insurance and virtually no family (his wife had recently died), she ended up befriending him, finding him some nursing assistance and now visits him a couple times a week.
3. Last story is about a former police officer named Denis Chagnon. In 1996, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three weeks to live. Rather than take the recommended chemo and pain meds, he started to experiment with the energy he was starting to notice in his body.
It started as a way to comfort himself. He began placing his hands on areas of his body where he was in pain. Before his mind could begin lecturing him “this is ridiculous and you heard what the doctor said,” he noticed he was able to move energy, was able to eventually dissipate the blocks that were creating the cancer throughout his body. He had what society calls “a spontaneous remission.” But was it? Chagnon now works as an energy healer in his hometown of Val des Monts, Quebec, Canada.
So that’s my Friday offering and this is my big chance to wish you (and everyone you love-in other words the whole world) the most fabulous weekend of your life.
“Our love for the world keeps eternity wide and bright and full of potential.” — Nick Cave
Like any conversation, a good blog post attempts to keep the reverberations going.
So just a quick postscript to yesterday’s words:
I like to think my cosmic daughter added these thoughts to my thoughts about loving the world:
“Despite what the culture prescribes, there is nothing that needs to be added, nobody you need to become.
“In fact, other than the mind’s nonsense, nothing could ever be wrong.
“Any method or technique that pretends to offer something or somewhere to reach at some nebulous future (in other words, anything that’s not now) by its very nature starts with the assumption that something’s wrong.
“Even a goal of self-discovery only keeps you on the path. But there is no path. You’re already there.”
“I’ve learned that when they call you crazy, it usually means you’re onto something.”—Jacqueline Novogratz
Happy Monday, my peeps! I know I typically send out Friday missives — mainly so I can wish you the most astounding weekend of your life, but thought I’d mix it up a bit.
Plus, while walking around my yard this morning, counting new lilies, adoring the clematis, reveling in the morning’s avian Opus #143, a voice clearly spoke to me—“This is your mission, Pam.”
“Say what?”
“You heard me. Your life’s work is to notice, give thanks, be joyful. And don’t let anybody tell you that’s not enough.”
“Even with all the potential causes, protests, issues I keep hearing about?”
Yes, I’ve been regularly hitting up the Dude with the question, “What is mine to do?”
This morning’s answer couldn’t have been clearer.
“Love your life, create a field of joy, expand your presence.”
Not the presence, it emphasized, that the world maintains you “should” expand — get more likes, attract new followers, sell more books– but the presence of peace and possibility, of imagination, new ideas.
But what about all the “shoulds” I inherited from my culture: that I “should” build my 401K, keep my fingernails painted, rid my lawn of all those beautiful yellow flowers that eventually turn into white wispy delights?
The rules are extensive, many buried beneath awareness, taken for granted, believed to be absolute duty as a responsible human being.
These invisible “shoulds” are buried in the left hemisphere of our brains, the rational, pragmatic side that constructs a map of the world that currently dominates reality. It alleges I “should” put up defenses, stay safe, stay separate, stay loyal to the dominant narrative. And sadly, that map has formed a world with little room for awe and wonder.
But it’s the awe and wonder, the beauty of it all, as Dostoevsky said, that can save the world.
So, no, I have not identified any new assignment, any new cause. But I have been given full-throated permission to abandon all “shoulds,” to simply walk through life as a loving, energetic field of presence. To forever enjoy “this very now” and be open to the unbounded truth that surpasses all maps, all limitations, all “shoulds.”
Here’s to enjoying a ridiculously rowdy, sensuously satisfying week, the best of your big, beautiful life.
“Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination.”–Rob Brezsney
In the movie, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray wakes up every morning to Cher belting out the lyrics of the popular 1965 hit, “I Got You, Babe.”
For much of the movie, the self-centered weatherman resists and cusses and hates the time loop he finds himself in.
Finally, he decides to try a different perspective, to open himself to the idea that maybe there’s something else at play. Maybe he’s not the axis around which the world revolves.
Nothing else changes—the same song, the same deejays, the same weather report wake him up each morning. But once he puts down his dukes and begins connecting to something outside himself, he notices everything is different—more alive, more loving.
When he decides to trust in the intelligence outside of himself, when he decides to stop fighting, drop his defenses, “put his little hand in mine….” as Cher sings, life shifts.
So I’d like to pose a little experiment. Here’s the hypothesis, “There is a peaceful, loving intelligence that’s way stronger than any judgment, doubt, anxiety I might feel. And trusting that is all I need do.”
Anxiety and all its insolent cousins arises in the left hemisphere of the brain, the part that calculates, measures, judges. According to British neuroscientist, Iain McGilchrist, the left brain doesn’t know what it’s talking about. It literally makes up stuff. It gives us fake directions for coping with life. Because our society is so left-brain oriented, we all turn to thinking (that scared, calculating left side of brain) to address our daily lives.
The left side comes in handy, but it also causes us to miss the magical reality in which we live. So to test the above hypothesis, I suggest making the decision each morning to trust that, behind the scenes, everything is being orchestrated by a power much greater than ourselves.
Think of those dot-to-dot puzzles we used to do as kids. When you begin, you have no idea what the picture is going to be. It could be an elephant or a lamp or Snoopy, for all you know. Your only instruction is to move to the next dot. One dot at a time.
You don’t have to figure out the whole picture. Or worry about where to go. You just trust that moving to the next dot is your only job.
And that’s enough.
So today and maybe for the next five days, choose to trust. Don’t figure your day out. Or think you have to plan everything. Just trust. The truth that surpasses all things will cheer and sing, “I Got You, Babe.”
