Important news flash: There is only one problem left in the world.

“Through His power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone completely, releasing you and your brothers from every imprisoning thought.” —A Course in Miracles

This will probably come as a shock, but there is only one problem in the world today. Despite all its many wily manifestations, this one problem is the same for all of us.

It’s a problem of perception. Our perception is the ONLY thing we need to heal. If we pray for healing of the body (or money issues or relationship struggles or any of the other myriad “problems” we think we have), we only reinforce the belief that there’s a problem.

There is no problem. There is only wrong perception.

As you know if you’ve read my blog, I’m all about smooth and easy. Joy and fun. Anything else is but wrong perception, a story we made up to entertain ourselves or frighten ourselves or… heck, I don’t know why we persist in investing all our energy into solving all these problems. Why we spend so much time identifying problems and coming up with 7 steps to get rid of them.

A few years ago, I became Facebook friends with a beautiful, wise woman named Ley Love. Her story so inspired me that I asked her permission to share it with you. If you’d like to hear more from Ley (I lap up her every word with relish), she can be found at https://www.facebook.com/ley.tog/

And, as promised, here’s Ley’s story:

Twenty years ago, i was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. It had been apparent that i had suffered the problems that come with the label for all of my life. After being diagnosed with the condition, i set out to discover all there was to know about the subject, so that i could be informed about my own condition. I read countless books, read websites, pamphlets, talked to others with Bipolar, anything i could find to understand why i was the way i was. I wanted to heal and thought that information was the best way to do this.

Today, i can see that all of that reading, the years spent pouring over information that would inform me of who i was being, was totally counter-productive. In fact, all it did was to teach me more about ‘How to be Bipolar”. I noticed that as time went by, i began to develop even more of the symptoms i had been reading about and life began to become unbearable. I suffered major anxiety, deep depression, panic attacks, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, low self esteem, OCD in many many forms, Agoraphobia (I didn’t leave my house for two years), I had countless problems in all of my relationships, self harmed and had basically completely closed down and given up on life. I had no hope of ever recovering and wanted to die.

This was the ego’s story.

Today, since studying ACIM, I am symptom free of nearly every one of those problems! I am happy, healthy, in love with life extremely grateful for all that ACIM (and god of course) has done for me. My only want in life now, is to be able to share this wonderful system of healing with others. To show people that there is a way out of the seeming nightmare that life can be and to give hope that what the course in Miracles insists can happen, DOES happen! I am the living proof.🙂

I encourage anyone that wants to exchange the nightmare for the beautiful dream, to study this course. It is truly life-changing and has saved me from the depths of the hell that i thought i was living in. You can have this too. All it takes is a little willingness to see things a different way, God will do the rest!😉

Let love lead the way :-

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

“Whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of every day.”—Marianne Williamson

“Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.”
Pascual Jordan, German physicist

This is a story about a speck and infinity. Since infinity is a rather difficult concept to grasp, I’m going to use the metaphor of this familiar painting:

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend Mona Lisa here is infinity.

And here is Exhibit A. Ergo: a speck:

( . )

It should be pretty obvious, even to the untrained eye, that Da Vinci’s famous painting is a heck of a lot bigger than this itty, bitty speck.

.

Notice, you practically have to strain your eyes to see it.

Yet the speck is what we have spent the last several months (and indeed most of our lives) focusing upon. The speck is the anomaly of say, this year’s political season.

While most of the world is perfectly fine (the sun’s still rising, autumn’s trees are still ablaze in brilliant colors, school crossing guards are still directing hand-holding kindergartners across the street) and 99.999999 percent of its inhabitants are safe and alive and still breathing fresh, clean air, we’ve glued our attention to this one insignificant speck.

The world we see on television–the mayhem, the violence, the unsightly bathtub scum–is but a particle, a grain, a hardly-worth-registering speck. Especially when you compare it to the size and scope of the Creator’s enterprise here. Our earth is one planet among billions of planets that form one single universe of which we’re told there are also billions.

We draw out of the magnificent Field of Infinite Potentiality a speck of seeming disaster and we staring at it like it’s a 16-plex movie cinema.

Herein, lies the challenge of our times. We animate into our lives whatever we place our attention upon.

Once something grabs our attention (a headache, a bad review, an unfortunate world event), we devote every waking moment to worrying about it, to getting the latest twitter updates. And as long as we keep looking at the speck, it will only grow.

What do you say we bring our attention back to what’s working, to beauty, to Truth.

If you can see even a tiny glimpse of goodness, of peace, of kind, well-meaning fellow humans, place your attention on that. This simple truth is what will ultimately save the world.

We draw into our lives whatever we focus upon. Isn’t it time to take our battery-powered headlamps off the speck and focus on the beauty, the depth and the Truth of Mona Lisa?

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

The Universe and Me: a love story

“Accept but the joyous as truth.”–A Course in Miracles

I normally share miracles from readers here on the blog. And while this story involves readers, it concerns three miracles that happened to me.

It is only my conceit that believes you might have noticed, but I have been pretty quiet on social media over the past week. I’ve been hiding, so to speak, with my tail between my legs.

Here’s what threw me off my game:

I got an email from my publisher. They were concerned about “my brand.” I don’t know that I put too much weight in matters like “my brand.” I just want to give and love as much as I humanly can. The reason for their concern, it seems, is that some of the Amazon reviews for my new book have been less than stellar.

So I did what any creator knows not to do. I read the reviews. Never mind that 74 percent of them were five stars. But there were also some “bloody awful” reviews, to quote one of the Amazon headlines.

And, even though my spiritual practice is “In my defenseless my safety lies,” I began defending myself in my mind. How dare these reviewers misunderstand me? Against self-help? Against meditating? Against sports car? Anybody who knows me knows that not only am I a self-help junkie (I practically have track marks), I meditate regularly and I am committed to not being AGAINST anything.

Except for that one tiny habit of occasionally being AGAINST myself. I let my ego have a party in my mind. It brought in all the big decorations—shame, fear, depression. Heck, it suggested, maybe I should never write again. Or even leave the house.

But then the universe, who loves me so darned much, decided to send a life boat. Three life boats in one day. In the form of very clear signs. And to me, true miracles.

First, I got an email from a speaker who told me that, using the principles of Thank and Grow Rich (moving towards what makes you come alive, turning your life over to the big mystery, relaxing and having more fun) he’d started a new business and manifested $250,000 in income. Without, as he says, selling or trying.

Then, I learn that a reader in Argentina (hi, sweet Nelly) and a reader in Germany who met through Facebook started a possibility posse. They’re texting each other their three blessings each morning. It’s step two of the 30-day experiment in the new book. How cool is that!! International posses. Affirming my belief that, together, WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

And lastly, I open my mail (my snail mail) and a beautiful woman named Kris sent me a several THOUSAND dollar tithe because my book, the “bloody awful one,” inspired her to follow her dream.

I literally jumped up and down and pumped my fist to the heavens. I kinda think the universe might have even high-fived me back.

So thank you, universe, for these very clear signs that indeed I am on the right path. And for affirming that you love me and that all I need to do is follow my joy, offer my gifts unashamedly and let you take care of the details.

Thank you, my dear friends (those who are still reading) for being such a great blessing to me. I love you all so, so very much.

P.S. The picture on this post was made by Beverley Densham, who makes Happy Kids Cards. She sent it to me (yet another sweet gift) through twitter. Here’s her website:

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

You can’t make an elephant purr and other reasons to give up resistance

“Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.”–Cheryl Strayed 

Yesterday in the posse, my really wise friend Cindy made the above comment about the futility of resistance. It says it all. When we continue to beat ourselves over the head trying to make that elephant purr, we are going to continue to be miserable.

It’s plain and simple, folks. We cannot fight problems. We can try and try and try, but fighting, fixing, focusing on what’s wrong is like driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

But there is a steering wheel on our car. We CAN turn around. We can start moving with the flow of the universe. It’s done by taking our attention off everything we think sucks. All those problems we think need fixing. All those issues we have with so and so. Or with our jobs. Or with our bodies.

When we get in the flow of gratitude, when we start noticing all the gazillion things that are going right, those annoying problems have a way of fixing themselves. They literally dissolve. Without any input on our part.

It sounds counterintuitive, I know. We’ve been doing it the other way (driving the wrong way on the one-way street, trying to teach that elephant to purr) for most of our lives.

But we can turn around. We can let that elephant roar. And it all starts with putting our attention on things that we like. Things for which we are grateful.

As for me, I’m loving the open windows, autumn weather, listening to the crickets. I’m loving the fact that the sun continues to come up each morning. There is so, so, so much to be grateful for. And that’s the only road on which I want to drive.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

More tales from the frontiers of magic and miracles

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

Today, according to my Scrabble buddy Christine Smith, is International Buy a Priest a Beer Day, Opposite Day, Banana Day and Wonderful Weirdoes Day.

It’s also the perfect day to share a few new stories. Enjoy!

1. “I’d love to share something that happened yesterday, following my first “party game” from “Thank and Grow Rich.” It totally brightened my day.

“In the morning, I wrote on a Post-It note “Something magical is going to happen to me today” (making a little heart sign right after “today”). After work, I met up with 4 of my girlfriends: we usually meet in the city center, as we all live in different parts of the city. But yesterday, for the first time, everyone came to my neighborhood. After drinks, we decided to grab a bite to eat. I suggested the Italian restaurant near my apartment. Well, something magical did happen, which had not occurred before, in the 10 YEARS I have been going there with my boyfriend or my family. When the waiter brought us pizzas, we saw that the chef had made them heart-shaped for all of us! We were treated like queens the entire night. One of the most fun dinner experiences I have ever had!”

2. Yesterday, I wrote to Elena asking for permission to use the above story. Turns out there’s this addendum:

“I started doing one experiment a day since September 1st and I am blown away by the immediate results I’ve been getting. Aside from the amusing heart-shaped pizza (Party Game #1), I have also received some amazing financial benefits in the last week. I am a documentary filmmaker / public speaker and I routinely take my film on tour. Just this past week, two universities doubled my rate (from the original one we had discussed) and one even doubled the number of hotel nights they’re offering me (“just in case there are weather problems”). Needless to say, this has never happened before. Now every time I check my email, my heart is filled with so much joy and positive expectation, thinking “I wonder what amazing thing comes next.” Thank you for being the catalyst for such positive change in my life. Once I finish Thank and Grow Rich, I plan on starting again the party games on October 1st and doing one every day, just like I’m doing now. And then again in November… and December…

3. “I’ve been an actively manifesting since E-Squared, but have still not ‘fully surrendered’ to the fun joy ride the Universe is giving free tickets out for.

“This morning I prayed for the first time since I was 18. But this time I let go of the resistance I had towards my biblical understanding of prayer and just let it all out. I demanded help from the universe to prove to me that I didn’t need to try and control or worry about a thing.

I went for a walk on my lunch break and as I walked passed a woman I’ve never seen before in my entire life, she smiled from ear to ear, looked me in the eye, pointed to the sky and said “he’s listening, he’s really listening.”

Goosebumps and fist pumps followed as I laughed with the pure joy of the universe giving me the go ahead to let it all go and have fun.”

Thanks for sharing, my friends. Drink deep of joy this beautiful September weekend. Make it the best one of your life.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

It’s time to set your dial on joy, gratitude, peace and love

“You can’t set your dial on disappointment while everything you’ve created is set on joy, gratitude and love.”—Esther Hicks

When Jimmy Kimmel was a kid, he was asked to draw a picture of God. Evidently, not an unusual request when you’re educated by nuns in Catholic school. In his beautiful innocence, he drew a dude in a sweatshirt with a giant “G” on it.

I love this story because it demonstrates how our perceptions of the “G” word play out in our lives. So many of us think of the bigger thing as a judgmental prick. Which causes us to run the other direction. Somewhere along the way, spirituality (God) took an uncool turn. And sadly, the Truth is the exact opposite. The bigger thing (the dude, the field of infinite potentiality, Source, the Divine, etc.) is nothing but pure and complete love that never judges, never wants anything except for our joy.

It wants us to become the very best version of ourselves. That’s it. That’s its only desire.

Which is why I wrote this book on gratitude. When we believe the bigger thing is looking askance at us, judging our decisions, we are on a different frequency. When we think there is something to fear (the dominant paradigm), we can’t see all the gifts and blessings that are ours to claim.

Already, the stories are starting to come in from the new book. As I say pretty much every other blog post, I am the luckiest person on the planet because I get evidence in my mailbox each morning that we are loved unconditionally—always, without exception, no matter what.

Once we start to believe that, actually let it into our lives, magic begins to unfold.

Here are a couple stories from readers that prove my point:

Story #1: “So today I was clearing out my desk, and getting rid of unwanted stuff. I came across one of my journals that I was using to maintain track of my experiments for E-Squared, and to prove my age of 14 (at that time), I had also illustrated how I wanted certain things to happen. So I really wanted a full 10 GPA (in India we have 10 as the maximum you can score) and had illustrated how there will be an announcement will be made related to it in school. Then I had also drawn myself walking in front of the Big Ben in London.

“Yep you are guessing it right I certainly scored a 10 GPA in my 10th grade exams though I am in 12th right now. And just this May my family and I went on a month long Europe trip, enjoyed Scotland and stayed in London for a whole awesome week. All I had asked for was London and I got to see so much more than that.

“So to conclude I’d merely like to say that I and in fact everyone can get whatever they want and sometimes the FP’s blessings aren’t limited to your wish alone, but a lot more than that–to be specific Monte Carlo, Paris, Florence and a lot more places. Thank you loads Pam for introducing me to FP.”

Story #2: “I was legal guardian to my only sibling, my sister Alexis who was learning disabled. Since our mother passed in 1986 and our father in 1990, she resided with me. In 2007, she suddenly passed away which was a devastating shock to me and our family. I took her passing extremely hard and I still, after all these years, miss her very much.

“Well, just yesterday I was sitting on the beach thinking of her and said:” Hi Alex, I love you and miss you very much. I think about you each and everyday. Could you just let me know you are okay and are with Mom and Dad?”

“After about maybe 5 minutes or so I looked up in the beautiful sky and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I saw a huge, I mean huge “HI” in the sky. I burst into tears because I knew it was my wonderful of a soul sister Alexis letting me know she was okay and saying hello. After ready both your E-2 books I have had many gifts given to me but this was the very best gift ever. Thank you Pam.”

And thank you, dear readers, for blessing me every day with your tales of magic and enchantment.

I love you all to the moon and back 14 gazillion times. Probably more.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy

Today is my book’s birthday and I’ll dance if I want to

“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.”
— Martin H. Fischer

I am so incredibly excited about my new book. It officially debuts today. So rather than my normal quick post, I decided to humbly and proudly offer the introduction to Thank and Grow Rich: A 30-Day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

I hope you enjoy it!

In 2013, my world was choke-slammed upside down. And I mean that in the best possible way. After 20-plus years of being a writer, sitting in my pajamas penning 15 books and countless magazine articles, I dropped the tracks for E-Squared. For whatever reason (luck, timing, planets aligning), that little black book with the funny title shot up into the stratosphere, capturing the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. It has since been translated into 30-some languages.

To this day, I can’t open my in-box without finding e-mails that start with some version of “You are never going to believe this.”

It’s like waking up every morning to my own self-help channel. “Guess what?” readers will write. “I just won $500,” or “I just got my dream job on a horse farm.” And I get to celebrate with them right here in Lawrence, Kansas. I get to add to their energy of excitement and joy.

I am deeply humbled to think my words might have helped even one person recognize a deeper truth. I am infinitely grateful that the do-it-yourself experiments in E-Squared cracked open a window to the unending beneficence of the universe.

In fact, if any serious researcher out there is looking for evidence that the world is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating—one of nine spiritual principles covered in E-Squared—I’ve got a whole folder full of lab report sheets I’d be willing to share.

Occasionally, however, I get an e-mail from a reader who’s pissed. They want to know who I think I am, claiming the world is a beautiful place. They want to know why all the good stuff happens to everybody else. They claim to have seen no evidence of what I call the field of infinite potentiality (the “FP”), and they’re going to, poor things, go out and eat worms.

This book is for them. And for that scared little place in all of us that still can’t quite believe the universe actually likes us and works in cahoots with our highest aspirations.

When I can, I write back to these unhappy naysayers. I often send a blog post about my own days of worm cuisine. I encourage them to give it one more shot, to keep looking for the magic.

I started to notice a pattern within these anomalous “Why me?” letters. As I said, they sound a lot like my own crazy voices, the wild-haired loudmouths that still occasionally raise their hands in the back of my head.

“Hey, you!” they like to scream. “You’re all alone. The world doesn’t care about you. This is all bullshit.”

Those voices are the popular kids. The ones who make the nightly news, the ones we discuss around the water-cooler, the ones we appoint commissions and launch websites to fight. In other words, the dominant paradigm.

But they’re not the truth. They will never be the truth.

Another theme I noticed is just how hard these readers are trying—repeating affirmations, making vision boards, drawing focus wheels.

I have nothing against those practices. I’ve been known to use some of them myself. But what happens when we fight and work and struggle, because we think nothing will change unless we do, is we put up roadblocks to all the good that wants to manifest right before our eyes.

The last thing I noticed about the “life sucks” e-mails is how deadly serious they all were. Oh! The gravitas! The sobriety!

“I did everything exactly as you said,” they’d accuse with a hint of feral anger.

And every time, I was tempted to tell a stupid joke or make a goofball face.

Anything to get them to—lighten up, people! The whole idea is to have fun! To play around in the quantum sandbox!

But yelling at serious people never works. At least it never works on the serious voices in my own head.

But here’s what does: Giving myself a break. Counting my blessings. And getting on the frequency of joy and gratitude.

The Radio Transmitting Tower Known as You

“I can’t just sit here vibrating with my own joy— I have to write about it, I have to share it.”
— David Mason

Who can forget the explosive scene from the movie A Few Good Men? Tom Cruise has Jack Nicholson on the witness stand. Cruise is badgering him, wanting to know whether or not he ordered a Code Red. He wants the truth.

Nicholson, getting redder and madder, finally erupts: “You can’t handle the truth.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the real answer to those e-mails wanting to know why all the good stuff happens to everyone else.

Until we can get on the frequency of gratitude, our connection to the bigger thing is blocked. Our bandwidth can’t handle the eternal, infinite love of the Divine Broadcast that constantly airs possibility, joy, freedom. We’ve clogged up the connection by giving the floor to our inner anxieties, our fears, our time-sucking melodramas. Like Cinderella’s stepsisters, we’ve crammed life’s unending beneficence into our tiny shoes of old judgments and antiquated programming.

So in this book, we’re going to upgrade the bandwidth of our consciousness. By using a simple, straightforward practice that takes at most five minutes a day, you will rewire your nervous system, rewrite old habits, and literally change the chemistry of your brain.

And that’s where gratitude comes in.

Ode to Joy

“If your mind isn’t cluttered by unnecessary things, this could be the best day of your life.”
— from a message left on my voicemail by The Zing, AKA Ethan Hughes of the Possibility Alliance

Gratitude?

Really?

Isn’t that sort of, well, lame?

You just wrote a pair of powerhouse books about energy and infinite possibility. And now you’re just gonna sell out and write about something pantywaist like gratitude? That’s so basic, so flimsy, so 101 . . .

Hold on, Sparky.

The gratitude I’m talking about in this book is anything but flimsy or 101.

Let’s call it ferocious gratitude. In-your-face gratitude. None of the namby-pamby, sunshine-and-lollipops crap.

Because here’s the thing. When we don’t stop daily to inventory all the gazillion things going right in our lives, the crazy voices in our heads try to make us their bitch.

When we don’t militantly count our blessings, the voices start jabbering, telling us that life sucks, that we suck. They’re like the ticker crawl at the bottom of a news broadcast, running continuously in a nonstop loop.

As long as we keep tuning in to these voices, we fail to notice the incredible gift we’ve been given: to be here on planet Earth, to have this day, to enjoy this cosmic adventure. As long as we continue to etch their bald-faced lies deeper and deeper into our psyches, we cloud over our profound transformative connection to the field of infinite potentiality.

By simply stopping every day and registering our connection to this undeniable, unchanging Presence, we start to notice a deeper truth, a happier reality. We start to notice an eternal broadcast airing its joyful melody quietly beneath the static.

No offense to Napoleon Hill, the author of the self-help classic on which my title riffs, but the real power is in not thinking. If you want to override your brain’s unfortunate habit of leafing through your past and creating a present hologram to match, forget thinking. And start thanking. And I mean thanking everything. The bills that are stacking up. The doctor’s report you weren’t expecting. The buffoon of a boyfriend who drank an entire bottle of tequila last night and puked on your new Oriental carpet.

When we practice this brand of ferocious gratitude—what I have dubbed the extreme sport of gratitude—we come to realize that all the striving, the endless struggle, the perpetual scrambling for our place in line, is unnecessary. In truth, it’s counterproductive and actually blocks the energy field that is and always has been available to sustain and guide us.

Brazen gratitude provides a portal, an entry point straight into the heart of the very field of infinite possibilities my other two Hay House books introduced. It puts you on an energetic frequency, a vibration that calls in miracles.

When you’re on this frequency (and it’s very different from Eddie Haskell “That’s a lovely dress, Mrs. Cleaver” platitudes), there’s really very little else you have to do. The universe happily shows up with blessings and guidance. All you have to do is nod, don your scarf and new shades, and enjoy the ride.

Giving thanks, recognizing all the good in your life, is the gateway drug to a life most extraordinary. It’s the superpower that moves you onto the frequency where beauty and joy and creativity happen.

And here’s the big “secret.” You don’t have to work at connecting with this energy field. You don’t have to be good enough to merit its attention. Or follow any formula to find it. You really don’t have to do anything . . .

Except . . .

. . . quit listening to the voices. Quit creating static. This sweet, loving, all-knowing energy force is here right now, waiting like the bull on the other side of the rodeo gate, ready to charge out the very second you lift the barriers of all you’ve been taught. It’s pawing at the dirt, chomping at the bit, waiting for you to recognize that pretty much everything you’ve learned since the moment you popped out into the material plane is dead wrong.

This universal energy force never disappears. Or plays peekaboo or hide-and-go-seek. It never falters. It never does anything but love and give and bestow blessings.

This book is yet another chance (but please know you don’t need this book or anything or anyone else) to prove there’s a better way, a more natural way of living. It will help you tap into a frequency where miracles are as common as pie.

Like my previous Hay House books that offer real-time experiments, this one offers a 30-day trial in ferocious, militant, in-your-face gratitude.

Spirituality, as I’ve always said, should be more than theory.

The hypothesis for the 30-day experiment is insanely simple: If you devote yourself to scouting blessings, you’ll find them out the wazoo. If you turn each day into a 24-hour miracle reconnaissance mission, you’ll call forth Truth. You’ll get the happily ever after.

The book also contains 27 party games (who needs exercises?) that are easy to play, rip-roaringly fun, and guaranteed to build your abundance portfolio. (I’ll talk more about the five components of this blue-chip capital in later chapters.)

Just know that by the time you have finished the month-long gratitude party prescribed in this book, you will look around at the parallel universe you’ve suddenly entered and think, Really? Whatever happened to my depression? My fear? Was I insane back then?

You will behold the proof, as A Course in Miracles promises, that love trumps fear, laughter trumps tears, and abundance trumps loss.

And it all starts with recognizing the beauty that surrounds you, flows through you, fills you with light. It all starts with getting on the frequency of gratitude.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the about to be released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy

Why I always sign up for happiness and joy

“Future historians might conclude that our age suffered from a pathological need to repetitively seek out reasons for how bad life is.”—Rob Brezsny 

NPR’s Ira Flatow produces “Science Friday.” I’m offering “Science Monday” with three scientific reasons to choose happiness this week.

1. Your brain, still running ancient “Eat lunch. Don’t be lunch” programming is not hard-wired for fight or flight. Two-thirds of its neurons, in fact, are malleable and CAN. BE. CHANGED. You man the dials and can train those pesky neurons to seek out joy.

2. The new science of epigenetics is proving that even genes are not set in concrete. How they unravel depends on their environment.

3. By taking time to register within your mind that at this moment “I have all I need,” at this moment “Everything’s actually going okay,” you can rewire your brain.By actively stopping for a moment and registering moments of “Life right now is going okay,” we can literally re-sculpt our neurological structure.

We wouldn’t walk into a wedding or a funeral and not sign the guest book. Why do we fail to register for all those countless moments when life really is just fine the way it is?

Once you actively start noticing those moments, you’ll find the years will take care of themselves.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the brand new, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy

Becoming the Warren Buffet of Happiness

“I made the decision to never have another bad day in my life. I dove into a endless sea of gratitude from which I’ve never emerged.”–Patch Adams  

Somebody asked me about the waving cat on the cover of the new book. Maneki-neko, as the ubiquitous cat is known in Japan, is a lucky charm that waves in good fortune. I have one in the window above the rock that a Cook Islands medicine man gave me a few years ago, about the time E-Squared came out. He told me if I put it in the north corner of my living room, I would become a millionaire. Here’s the piece I wrote about this magical place.

Although the title of the new book is Thank and Grow Rich, it’s not really about financial capital.  It’s about amassing five far more important kinds of capital: adventure capital, spiritual capital, alchemic capital, creative capital and social capital.

That being said, I got an email this morning from a woman in Montreal who told me she shared my book, E-Squared, with her hairdresser and “everybody else.”

Her hairdresser just called to thank her for the reading suggestion because, after 25 years of buying lottery tickets, she and her staff, after doing the Dude Abides experiment, won a million dollar lottery.

So you never know.

Here are a couple other fun stories that recently came my way:

“Since the story I sent you below, amazing miracles keep happening to me. I won a Staycation at the Epic Resort in Miami a few weeks after the concert tickets. Then at a conference, I won an American Express $100.00 gift card. This month of July has been great too. During the 4th of July weekend, I wrote in the sand on the beach, LOVE, HEALTH AND WEALTH and threw the shell I wrote with into the ocean proclaiming it! Two days later, I was walking out of the ocean after my swim and a $50.00 bill floated right in front of me! I was so happy! This week, I was in a work meeting and received a call out of the blue that I won Dave Matthews tickets for this Friday night. God is great!!! Now I am on the lookout for the millions just waiting for me to connect to its higher vibration!

(And here’s the story she sent me below)

“I just love you and all you are doing for positive changes to our world. I am so excited that I have to share this manifestation story. I have been on this thoughts become things for a few years and have been teaching my daughter Chloe the principals and practices of this amazing gift all of us have been blessed with. We have had some pretty amazing things happen to us since we have been focusing our thoughts, words and action on good things. Well this week Chloe and 4 friends won a Penthouse Studio VIP Party with pop star Austin Mahone and she found out that the radio station was also giving away concert tickets for another pop star this weekend. I told her since she is riding high on this happy gratitude energy vibration that she has a great chance to win those tickets. She started make-believing that she won those tickets since that is the fastest way to believing… and believing is the fastest way to receiving! WELL CHLOE JUST WON CONCERT TICKETS FOR ARIANA GRANDE concert in Ft Lauderdale for Sat night!!! This happened so amazingly fast since we just started make believing and praying a few days ago! Thank you so much oh gracious God! We certainly have been given the power and tools to change our energy field and live in the world of the wondrous where there is heaven on earth! Have a great weekend Pam, I know I will!”

Story #2:

“I have read your book E2 twice now and I have to say I’ve manifested some pretty incredible things – the first one being a Shark Dive in the Neptune Islands (SA, Australia) which I initially could not afford, but asked for as my unexpected gift from the FP. The second thing I focused on manifesting was a pay rise!! It materialized in 30 hours. Thank you FP!

I’ve done most of the experiments and they’ve blown my mind. Ecstatic to say I’m now plugged into the FP like my toaster is to the electric panel on my wall.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for equipping me with these tools and for opening my eyes and mind.”

Here’s to all of us being equipped to open our eyes and minds.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the about to be released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

“We are all quantum special effects animators.”–Robert Scheinfeld

“Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.”—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Before entering the hospital room of a tuberculosis patient, visitors are required to cover their entire bodies. They even don surgical gloves and face masks.

None of us balk at this seemingly overcautious behavior. We don’t want to catch tuberculosis. It’s contagious, for goodness sake. Of course, we’d go to great lengths to avoid being exposed.

Yet, we never protect ourselves from the bad news we see on television, the horrible reports we read in the newspaper. What we see on the nightly news is nothing like what we see in our own neighborhoods. The new media presents a grossly-distorted picture, an anomaly.

And, unfortunately, that picture of “America, the Ugly” is every bit as contagious and as damaging as those tuberculosis germs.

Poet and novelist Maya Angelou went so far as to call negativity poison. She was vigilant in protecting herself from negative conversation. If she heard what she called “a poisonous comment,” she quickly said “sayonara” and didn’t feel a bit guilty about it. If anyone started in at her home, she asked them to leave.

“If you allow it (negativity) to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. So when rude or cruel things are said, I say, ‘Take it all out of my house.’ Those negative words climb into the wood and into the furniture and the next thing they’ll be on my skin,” she said.

She preferred what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians. They wrote complaining about old men who were chasing young women, about church members who refused to tithe. And he wrote back, “If there be anything of good report, speak of these things.”

Your thoughts are magic. Not one of them goes unheeded by the universe. Whatever it is you think and feel the great universal energy stands up and says, “I second it.”

Why cast your spotlight in dirty corners? Why focus on negativity?

Our thought about ourselves, about our world, about our relationships create our reality. In a landmark physics experiment, researchers who theorized that light waves were curvy found curvy light waves. And those who deduced light waves were straight as Billy Graham? They found Billy Graham-straight light waves.

Who needs a mind reader or a psychologist to dredge up an unburied unconscious? If you want to know what there’s just take a look around. It’s all right there in living color. If you see dysfunctional relationships, finances that are always a struggle, a word of snotty sales clerks, then that’s what you’re spending your time thinking about. In fact, the thoughts come first.

Change your thoughts and your focus and you can literally change your world.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the about to be released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy