Pam Grout

Rewilding the mind

July 30, 2024 25 Comments

“If not for reverence, if not for wonder, why have we come here?”–Raffi

My guy, Alby, once described Mozart’s music as so pure and so ever-present in the universe that it was simply waiting to be plucked out by someone with a sympathetic ear.

That’s my overarching goal these days—to listen to the universe with a sympathetic ear. To hear, not with the dirty bathwater of my brain, but with the music that’s ever-present in the universe. I do this mainly by connecting to nature.

Truth is I’ve always been connected to nature (so are you, we all are), but because we pay so much attention to other things, we rarely notice. We focus on the file cabinet in our brain where we store grievances and beliefs that we just know are absolute fact.

The Course in Miracles is all about rewiring the mind—not the brain. The brain is basically a receiving device that, as I said, keeps files from the past. It superimposes old stories, old judgements on “the now.”

“The now,” for anyone who takes time to notice, is brimming with possibility. It hasn’t yet selected one out of the world’s gazillion trillion superpositions and named it fact. It hasn’t discarded all that’s possible for that one measly superposition.

True guidance doesn’t come from the brain, doesn’t rely on the three-pound blob of grey matter that plays nothing but old tunes from the jukebox of the past. The brain stores yesterday, ideas that were conjured up when we were two or ten or twenty-one.

My intention is to discard yesterday as any kind of guidance for today. And to recognize that the sights my brain shows me are nothing but a catalog of what used to be.

We might think our eyes show us the world as it is. But it’s been proven over and over again, that our eyes, mandated by the file cabinet of grievances called the brain, show us but a depiction of reality that we’ve long thought was true, but actually isn’t. It shows us a limited, inaccurate view of the world that’s so far from truth we can only laugh when we finally see it.

Rather than buy into the brain’s evaluation of good/bad, right/wrong and trust its depiction of the world, I prefer to close my eyes and FEEL the universe, to listen to the music of the spheres.

Have a stellar week, oh joyous ones.

Life is kinda stunning when you quit trusting the brain’s faulty wiring and listen, like Einstein said, with a sympathetic ear.

#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).

Not falling for the illlusion

July 25, 2024 34 Comments

“I feel duty-bound to unearth, enhance and promote the world’s beautiful things, rather than obsess, worry and agitate over the worst of things.”—Nick Cave

It’s a curious thing, being here on this star hurtling through space.

And even more puzzling is that we humans, as we go about our day to day lives, completely overlook the one thing that never changes. We wholly ignore the one thing that can never be extinguished.

And by that I mean the inner peace, the inner light that is the inheritance of each and every one of us.

Instead, we turn our attention to events and situations that change on the daily. Heck, at the speed we’re all moving now, distractions and circumstances change by the hour, like the soup of the moment I once enjoyed at London’s Globe Theatre.

I suppose it makes sense that we would take the inseverable connection for granted, that we would disregard the light and love that resides undisturbed within us because, well, it’s always here, it never wavers.

Spirituality, rather than being a requirement that good people must pursue, simply means shifting our attention from the always-changing to the reality that never does.

It’s so simple that most of us miss it.

The Course in Miracles, my spiritual go-to, continually asks me for a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters up my mind.

So when I begin obsessing about this little thing or notice a slight edge of anxiety waving at me from the sidelines, I simply ask myself, “What does that really have to do with me?”

Reality—true reality—knows nothing of those things.

Love is the only thing that can ever really happen.

I wish you all good cheer on this glorious summer Thursday. And a quick return to the peace of mind, the state of love, the only reality that’s well, real.

#222 Forever

Make way for miracles

July 18, 2024 48 Comments

“Hold your own victory parades, award your own medals of honor.”—James Hillman

My dear friend Diane (who also submitted one of the all-time best selfies during the E-Cubed Selfie Challenge**) sent an email yesterday inquiring where I’ve been.

So, Diane, the answer which I’ll share with you and everyone else who hangs out at this party known as a blog, is I’ve been traveling.

I’ve been in the U.K. with my sister experiencing miracle after miracle after miracle. The Course tells us that if miracles aren’t happening on the daily something has gone wrong. Our perceptions are askew, our judgments are blocking our natural state of happiness.

Miracles, as far as I’m concerned don’t have to be ginormous (for example, five moonflowers in my garden popped open last night), but I’m going to share a couple biggies from my two weeks away. I could literally share 3000.

First, we had a magical, perfect-in-every-way day at Wimbledon, eventually sitting not far from the Royal Box on Centre Court. I hadn’t put this on any vision board. In fact, I’m not sure I even knew the famous tennis tournament was going on during my holiday, as the Brits call it.

But because I grew up in a tennis family (I once wrote an article that started with something like, “Not being able to play tennis in my family was like not being able to moonwalk in Michael Jackson’s family.”) Wimbledon is in my consciousness, in my thoughts. And most importantly, I hadn’t put going to Wimbledon in the “that’s not possible” box.

We all have two boxes. There’s the “of course, I can go to the grocery store, the local bar, the bank.” And then there’s the “that’s not possible” box.” At this point in my life, I’m happy to report there is very little left in my ‘that’s not possible” box. I’ve witnessed way too many “impossible” things.

In fact, someone recently sent me a picture of the pair of peacocks that marched in front of her suburban home after she made the intention to see one.

The second miracle involves my beloved Taz. The two of us traveled to London together at least twice. One time, in fact, we stayed in Room 222 at the Langham Hotel.

This time, my sis and I rented an Airbnb in Cookham, a short train ride from London. We loved this little town on the Thames SO MUCH that we only ventured into the big city one day, opting to catch a show in the West End. The name of the show? 2:22: A Ghost Story.

The last miracle I’m going to share because well, I’m sure you have other things to do than read a recounting of what I told my possibility posse was one perfect day after another, is that when I got home, an unexpected payment for a workshop I did years ago landed in my bank account. And well duh! It was the exact amount I’d spent during my amazingly awesome two weeks abroad.

If you build it—or rather if you don’t put something in the “that’s not possible box.”—it will come.

I love and appreciate you all SO MUCH and if you feel so inclined, I’d love to read some of your own recent miracles in the comments section below.

**The E3 Selfie Challenge encouraged readers to visualize their intentions in a selfie. Diane’s intention, to meet Al Pacino, included her and the handsome actor. Diane’s husband Marty even snapped the photo.

#222 Forever

Outside the normal boundaries

June 26, 2024 48 Comments

“Find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.”—Deepak Chopra

I was recently reminded of this story about Joan of Arc. The King of France, curious about the peasant girl’s unwavering conviction, asked why everybody doesn’t hear the voice that so clearly guided her.

She was quick to reply that the voice she hears is available to everyone. It’s just that most people don’t listen.

Listening is a priority for me. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten orders to lead a nation or to be a martyr, but I do recognize that I’ve been given a purpose. It’s nothing lofty or even that important to anyone but me. But over and over, I’m instructed that my purpose is to love the world.

Notice that’s different than trying to save the world or change the world. I’m simply guided to notice all the remarkable blessings this world offers, to say good morning to the sun, to thank it for making all this possible.

One of two of today’s Course reviews tells me “I am entrusted with the gifts of God.” So I reckon I can either ignore these gifts or I can do everything within my power to notice and celebrate their ever-flowing nature.

When I attune myself just a slight turn to the right or the left, I see, as the Course says, “only the loving and the lovable.”

So in this frenetic political season, when everyone’s promising to change and/or save the world, my mission remains the same. To love the world. To appreciate its countless gifts.

And to trust that when enough of us free our vision from the limits of the body’s eyes, anything that’s not love will be displaced with the real deal.

Happy Wednesday, all you beautiful people. I know you will delight in this gorgeous day!

#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)

Mugged by too much content

June 20, 2024 32 Comments

“Strike the pose and something is bound to happen.”—Willem Dafoe

In today’s world, we are bombarded with content. We’re flooded with a whirlpool of mostly irrelevant information. It comes so fast, so vehemently that it’s becoming harder and harder to take it in, to accurately determine what is true, what is important.

I was so touched with Carla’s comment on yesterday’s post (actually I bow to each of you who left a comment) that I felt inspired to elaborate, to write more than just a simple response.

She mentioned that while she’d always felt the connection with the Divine, the writing practice that I introduced a couple months ago has increased the signal exponentially. She says it has helped her better understand her guidance. She asks specific questions, gets specific answers. She says she has found greater clarity and peace.

I think all of us have experienced the connection, the peace and the clarity from time to time. Heck, I feel like every book I’ve ever written came from something outside of me. And we’ve all gotten signs, proof, as I called it in E-Squared, that we’re always interacting with an energy field.

We’ve had enough time in to recognize there’s a palpable intelligence that’s wiser than our own personal faculties.

But, until now, we haven’t fully trusted its consistency. We haven’t fully believed we could ask and receive answers at will. At any time.

So with all the nonsense circulating out there in the world, all the ads, the marketing ploys, the campaigns, having a way to access a reservoir of true intelligence is ever more vital. My task, my intention with the two-way is to better create my capacity to receive.

As I mentioned in Art & Soul, Reloaded, the bigger thing is always chomping at the bit to interact with us. It always has. It always will.

And as we live through what Carolyn Myss calls, ”the greatest transformation in the history of civilization,” it’s time for all of us to become active participants, to listen intentionally for the Divine signal, the Voice that speaks only of a radically new vision of love.

#222 Forever!

Straight to the Source

June 19, 2024 41 Comments

“Everything but “I love you” is small talk.”—Andrea Gibson

Happy Wednesday, you beautiful humans!

This morning at one of what I call my possibility posses, we were talking about business. Not a topic I relish, but one that tends to come up a lot.

We were discussing coaching programs where you pay some “expert” to steer you towards higher sales, more clients, you know, the normal stuff business types aim for.

I might have been a bit cheeky when I mentioned the only true expert is what I’ve been calling my cosmic concierge, the voice I rely on to make important decisions.

I find when I look to any other source it comes with restrictions and a ”to-do” list. It offers ideas that are anything but fresh and innovative. Sure, they might have worked for someone, but I’m a different person, this is a new day, today’s climate is a new climate.

The only truly reliable source is one that’s custom-designed for me. And I find this to be true in business, in my personal life, in everything. I also find it’s extremely generous and kind and sees nothing but my divine magnificence, something I see only part of the time. It also charges nary a penny and is on call 24/7.

Some might roll their eyes and admonish me with some comment like, “But that’s not the real world.”

My response? Who told you the “real world” got it right? What if the real world, the actual bottom line real world offers 100 percent perfect love for everyone, 100 percent perfect guidance for anyone who takes the time to listen?

Saint Ignatius, the inspiration for the Jesuits, says the belief in any God (source, universe, whatever you want to call it) that doesn’t comfort you is a lie.

So, yes, follow any program or success book you like, but know that there’s an energetic life force that is always there to guide you, comfort you and remind you how incredibly perfect-in-every-way you are.

Just a quick note that next Saturday, June 29, the day before my sojourn to England, I’ll be yakking it up with two powerful women. Here’s the link if you’d like to join in the yakking.

I adore each and every one of you. Thank you for being my comrades along this beautiful mystical journey called life.

#222 Forever!

Do you confine the Divine? Let me count the ways!

June 13, 2024 11 Comments

“Love is a really wild energy and like any force field, the more you send out, the bigger the boomerang.”—Joy Sullivan

Happy Thursday, peeps!

While I’d love to claim authorship of the phrase from the above headline, the truth is I picked it up from Father Greg Boyle.

Boyle, the recent recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, is a Catholic priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention and rehabilitation program in Los Angeles.

Besides being a fantastic wordsmith, Boyle is a master at seeing the innate goodness in everyone. He talks about radical kinship, about how we’re all loved without measure.

Because we don’t really know this, we have a tendency to, as he says, confine the Divine. So I started thinking about the countless ways we neuter the very force that sustains us.

For example:

1. We don’t really believe it exists. I mean how do you count on something that’s, well invisible? We think we’re out here, all alone, without resources. We think we have to do everything ourselves.

2. We don’t allow it to nourish us. Even those who give lip service to this higher energetic field don’t allow themselves to enjoy its unbounded, unfettered nature. Gotta keep everything in check, after all.

3. We don’t give it room to do its job. Each of us is here as a Divine expression of love. Rather than let go and depend on this this radiant field of love, we stiffen up and tune instead to a made-up vibration of lack, limitation and separation. And as long as we keep dialing into that particular reality, we keep that reality alive.

4. We don’t fully trust it. We think it judges us, that it expects something from us. We don’t dare surrender to love, because well, it might backfire and judge us or scold us for not being perfect.

Right now, as old structures crumble around us (this, by the way, is cause for celebration), let’s open wide and invite Divine Love to emerge. In us. Through us. As us.

And as the new world is being birthed, we just need to breathe, to trust and to catch it when it comes out the other side.

I also really dug this video:

Love to all.

#222 Forever!

Loved unconditionally

June 5, 2024 24 Comments

“Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Welcome to my office where birds provide the soundtrack for my writing hours and where the trees and the flowers and even the weeds (according to an article I just read) strengthen my immune system and improve my cognitive function.

The study even suggested that time in nature slows biological aging so perhaps I should also post an after picture at the end of my workday.

All I know is that I love spending time outdoors and that I feel so alive when I wake up to the sun, go outside to gather up the petals and leaves and other natural gifts to make my morning mandala.

The only downside I can report is that a recent podcast interviewer requested I move my laptop back inside. Evidently, the birds were compromising the sound quality.

I still commune each morning (in writing) with my cosmic concierge and it’s becoming ever more clear why the message of being loved is repeated over and over and over again.

Being loved unconditionally–no matter how you look or what you do–is not a message often imparted. Even the best of parents convey an idea about the proper way to do things, the necessity of “being good.” I’m still unclear what being good actually entails.

Our culture continues the “you could always be better” program. You could make better grades, get a better job, find a better situation than the one you’re in now.

My guidance keeps pointing out that by waiting for that “better someday” I snub the unfathomable, beautiful now. Or as Rumi called it, “the infinite moment where everything happens.”

I ran across a line in the Course in Miracles the other day that confirmed the importance of thoroughly understanding how deeply I am loved. It said that until I wholly know with every fiber of my being how valuable I am, I will be unable to understand anything.

When we don’t see ourselves as unconditionally, whole-heartedly loved, it’s virtually impossible to walk out into the world unguarded and secure. Until that sinks in, we continue to harbor…oh, just a slight need to impress people, to act in ways that ensure they like us. Certainly wouldn’t be safe to just run around and start hugging everyone.

All our energy, whether we’re aware of it or not, is sucked into this futile pursuit, this unending self-improvement project.

So, yes, my morning writing tends to be a broken record, telling me over and over that, “It’s okay. You are forever loved no matter what you do. It’s okay that you ate all that buttered popcorn at the movie. It’s okay you didn’t get to the essay you’re working on. It’s ALL OKAY.”

I hope you, too, are getting confirmation of how gorgeous, talented and perfect you are.

I also want to share a couple upcoming events. On June 29, the day before I fly to England, I’ll be “sharing the online stage” with Lisa Natoli and Maria Felipe. Here’s a link to this event called, “Living in your True Nature.”

On September 22, the amazing Karen Drucker will be back in my hood where she, Greg Tamblyn and I will be hosting a free Happy Hour of Song and Stories to benefit the Taz Grout 222 Foundation. I’ll be sharing more about that in the next few weeks.

If I don’t see you at any of these heart-opening events, please know that you are deeply embedded in my soul. And that I love you no matter what!

#222 Forever!

Let’s hear it for the small and mighty

May 29, 2024 15 Comments

“In the universe there are things known and things unknown and in between there are doors.”—William Blake

Newtonian physics tells us change occurs when force is exerted on mass. To this day, most folks believe the only way to improve life is to gather enough signatures or rack up enough social media followers or amass a hefty enough pile of moolah. Then and only then, the thinking goes, can we effect positive change.

But what if that’s an outdated idea, disproven some 100 years ago when quantum physics found that even the tiniest of movements, the smallest of acts has cosmic significance?

What if the two-way conversations so many of us have begun is impacting consciousness? What if life is working in quiet and subtle ways in the journals of individuals all over the world?

What if this appeal to another intelligence is impacting the planet? What if anytime one of us opens our heart a tad bit further, the whole world opens to a new possibility?

What if the single family of four who currently enters and exits their house on a ladder through the kitchen window (so as not to disturb the mother robin who built her nest by the side door or the mother finch and her four babies by the front door) affects how all of us honor and value life?

Again, it’s not the conventional path, the one that has long told us that working hard and struggling and relying on big organizations and big governments is the route to a more beautiful world.

But here’s the thing. We all have equal power to determine the future.

I can’t help but notice that something really significant and powerful is happening behind the scenes.

Not long after I started formally asking the Divine for guidance (I’ve been a fan and a beggar for its wisdom all my life), I was told that Elizabeth Gilbert had embarked on a similar project. Last weekend, I finished a book by Julia Cameron, a sequel of sorts to the Artists Way, where she also suggests seeking written guidance (this is in addition to morning pages). As Cameron says, we all have a direct dial to God.

Each of us are interconnected at a level beyond space and time. Every part of the universe has access to information about every other part, giving all of us the power to sway the world towards light.

We need only pick up a pen and begin.

#222 Forever!

Something borrowed, something new

May 22, 2024 36 Comments

“Change your mind on what you want to see and all the world must change accordingly.”—A Course in Miracles

Two of my early mentors recently showed up again in my life.

They’re both authors and, while I never met either (not sure our time on Planet Earth ever even crossed), they both gave me important inspiration and ideas which I “borrowed” and expanded on to write my own books.

Florence Scovel Shinn, author of The Game of Life and How to Play It, was a favorite in my early days of metaphysics. I was reminded of her last weekend when my friend, Jay, gave a talk on her no-nonsense approach to spirituality. Beware of every word, she cautioned, because each utterance casts a spell and creates reality.

Neville Goddard, another early favorite, came up in a conversation between Michael Beckwith and Abiola Abrams, who just published a book about Abdullah, an Ethiopian rabbi who first introduced Neville to spiritual law.

Neville, as you probably know, taught that our imagination (our consciousness) creates its likeness (its manifestation) in the physical world.

When he was still a young dancer on Broadway, Neville told Abdullah he longed to return for a visit to his native Barbados. Thanks to the Depression, the theater world was on hiatus and well, he hadn’t seen his family in 12 years. Never mind that he was broke.

Abdullah simple shrugged and gave him these three words. “Be in Barbados.”

“But……” Neville sputtered.

“Don’t see yourself going to Barbados. Be in Barbados. Now!”

Neville finally got it and even though he was smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, he began “being in Barbados” in his imagination. He imagined palm trees, he imagined smelling ocean breezes, sinking his toes in a white, sandy beach.

Within a few days, his brother called “out of the blue” to say the family wanted him home for Christmas and had just bought him a ticket for steerage that he was to pick up at the Furness Ship Line.

Abdullah wasn’t finished with his student.

He simply added a second set of three words. “Be in First Class.”

“But this was the only ticket available,” Goddard insisted,

Abdullah would have none of it.

“Be in First Class,” he simply repeated and walked away.

You can guess what happened? Neville Goddard sailed first class to Barbados, spent three glorious months in his home country and sailed back to Manhattan, in, of course, first class.

The “something new“ is my practice of making mandalas each morning. I mentioned it in the last post, but I wanted to further gush (you know how I am?) about the startling abundance that has been so clearly illuminated.

Every single day, there are new, beautiful” art supplies” just waiting for me to pluck up and use in my daily design. It’s not an exaggeration to say that being witness to this ongoing supply has been life-changing. I mean, wow!

By letting go my need to find the extraordinary and spectacular, I am coming to recognize the simple wonder that lies all around me, in the ordinary. And it makes me question, “What else do I miss? What else do I walk by each and every day?”

Life continues to prove that everything I could ever need is right here. Right now. I just need to look.

#222 Forever!