222 – Page 3 – Pam Grout

A piece of good fortune in this glorious affair

March 10, 2021 61 Comments

“I hate it when I gain 20 pounds for a role and then remember I’m not an actor.”—Stevie Oakley

Hello, friends! I haven’t written in a while because, well, I’ve been in hiding, hiding the fact that I’m not exactly feeling “amazingly awesome” right now. That’s not a comfortable admission for a writer who has staked her career on spreading hope and joy.

Everything feels like a bit “too much.” Too much isolation. Too much loss. Too much division. Too much white supremacy.

But amidst it all, I found a note from Taz, a note she had written to her gloves. On one side, she had written the words with which I titled this post: “A piece of good fortune in this glorious affair.” On the back, she wrote a thank you note to her gloves for keeping her hands warm with a reminder that no matter how long it seems, spring will someday come.

I’ve also encountered many other pieces of good fortune during this dark period including a new friend who created the most beautiful quilt from Taz’s t-shirts. I’ve encountered inspiring books, received notes from readers (one even included a mini beach ball, folded into the envelope) and glorious invitations, one of which I share below. My amazing partner of 18 years fixes me dinner almost every night. We’ve discovered countless new trails and parks.

And miracles, despite my weakened propensity to notice them right now, continue to show up. In a phone call with Hitaji Aziz, one of the recipients of this year’s 222 Foundation awards, I was reminded of the Course lesson “To give and receive are one in truth.” We were talking about her incredible work, about the best way to send the grant money. It was basically a business phone call. She stopped for a minute and asked, “What’s going on with your psoas muscle? I see bright red in that area.” Even though she was 700 miles away, she could clearly “see” the issues going on in my hip. She generously sent me a video and a meditation and a referral for a different kind of hip surgery. It was remarkable to me and a potent reminder that when you let God have the floor (which she did), miracles can be more readily orchestrated. Thank you once again, Hitaji!

I also want to let you know that I was invited to join Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden, Rupert Sheldrake, Sue Morter and two dozen other scientists, healers, physicians and researchers for the FREE Science of Healing Summit that starts next week. You can listen to me and all 35 speakers by RSVP’ing at this link.

Did I mention it’s FREE?

As Taz (and the crocuses erupting in my front yard) remind me, spring is coming. #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) that has just been turned into an app. Badass ACIM (badass-acim.com)

It takes a crazy person to even try this

January 25, 2021 36 Comments

“Except for the unquestioned thoughts you’re believing, life is always good.”—Byron Katie

So we’re three weeks and a day or two into the Course lessons for this year. And while I certainly hope you’re every bit as pumped up as you were on Day #1, I happen to know from personal experience that enthusiasm sometimes starts to flag about now.

Which is why I want to post this reminder of why we’re doing this, why Morpheus said “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” It can be summed up with one word: unbelievable.

According to Webster’s, the word unbelievable is an adjective describing something (an event) as extraordinary and difficult to believe.

Like the email I got the other day from a mother whose daughter sent her a cloud formation of E2 reminding her (from the other side) to read my book. Or the 13 crazy squirrels who all stopped and silently meditated with a friend of mine.

These things seem inconceivable, far-fetched. It’s like Gayle King said to me when I was on her show many years ago. “C’mon, Pam!”

But miracles like these are only un-believable because our beliefs are wrapped up in rationality, materiality, limitation. Our egos, the poster child for these beliefs, base everything on what it takes to gain approval, to “stay safe.” Our culture gives us an unwritten rule book that does not allow the unbelievable to happen, not with all that fitting in we’re required to do.

Our cultural belief system holds us in a pattern that precludes us from hearing the still small voice that is always trying to support us, to help us. The cultural pattern, championed by our loud mouth ego, revolves around fear—What will they think? What if they don’t like me? What if I get sick? What if……..

Remember Amanda Eller, the hiker who got lost for 17 days in the Makawao Forest Reserve without her phone, her wallet or her water bottle? Once she let go of the fear (something our culture trains us NEVER to do) she was very clearly guided—eat this, walk this way.

Today’s lesson tells us in no uncertain terms that our ego goals have nothing whatsoever to do with our own best interests. The ego goals are good for maintaining culture, for maintaining the status quo, but they are not useful tools for accessing the benevolent voice that will rise up when you move past fear. Once you begin to recognize that everything you believe, do and think is a product of cultural conditioning, you begin to access more and more of the unbelievable. As the Course reminds us, if miracles are not happening on the daily, something has gone wrong. #222 Forever

Break on through–there’s another side

December 4, 2020 51 Comments

“Every day should be devoted to miracles.”—A Course in Miracles

Perhaps this year’s biggest blessing was the chance to practice the Course in Miracles adage, “I need do nothing.”

It’s one of those Course principles that is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of all we’re indoctrinated to believe. From the moment of birth, we’re trained that it’s all up to us. Rules, expectations, you gotta keep up with the Kardashians.

But what I’ve discovered during this year of hibernation is that blessings haven’t stopped just because I’ve slowed down. Money still shows up. Miracles keep happening. It’s mind-blowing all the things a person can attract from a small home in Kansas. Like yesterday, I got an email from a big shot New York money manager who wants to help with the 222 Foundation.

A tech-savvy whiz from Tasmania offered to create an app with the lessons from my Course in Miracles book. Even better is I finally got the title and the design I wanted.

When it launched this week, I was so thrilled to discover that one of the creators experienced a healing while working on it. As her thinking was being rewritten (that’s what the Course does), she literally “did nothing” to eliminate her chronic pain. It simply disappeared. As the Course says, “No exercise is urged except a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters up the mind.”

So here’s Erika’s story along with a link for those who want to join us in following through on the Course lessons this coming year.

Take it away, Erika.

“Early this year I slipped two discs in my back and had sciatica… excruciating chronic pain which left me lying in bed barely able to walk for months. It also led to my redundancy at work. I ended up in chronic pain at 41 years old, unemployed and at a loose end of not knowing what to do with my life. A perfect storm to fall into feeling like a victim that was down and out of luck.

“It wasn’t a fun place! In the meantime, my partner Phoenix offered to create an app around Pam’s Course in Miracles for Baddasses.

“When I helped work on the app, the pain just poof..evaporated! It was indeed a miracle! As I was typing and formatting the lessons for app form, it was like doing ACIM for Baddasses on steroids!! My head would swim with all the new knowledge. My consciousness needed time to catch up so I had to take days off in between just to let it all sink in otherwise my head would explode.

“As I kept working on the app, my back healed much quicker than expected surprising both my physiotherapist and doctor. My mindset had shifted rapidly and my consciousness was expanding every day.

“Now I’m completely healed without needing surgery and pain free!

“Four months ago I launched a new business making ‘period pants’ for dogs on heat combining my loves of design, sewing and dogs. It was an idea I had ticking around for a year or so. Why didn’t I act on it before? I just never believed I could do it! And besides who would have thought you could start a successful business in the middle of a global pandemic?! Making pants for dogs of all things! Anyone would think you’re crazy BUT of course you can…if that’s your reality bubble. My business continues to thrive and attract wonderful customers and I love it!

“Change comes from the inside out! Change how you think and it will change your reality. This book and now app is truly a blessings that will change so many lives as it has mine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

And thank you, Erika, and Phoenix for helping ME prove that “I need do nothing.” I don’t have to be good enough. I don’t have to fight. I don’t have to struggle. I just have to, as the Doors so wisely sang, “Break on Through to the Other Side.”

If you’re interested, here’s the link for the app. #222 Forever

Is there confetti in your pocket?

November 24, 2020 47 Comments

“We are the promise of one people, one breath declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.”—Richard Blanco

I often share stories from my inbox, miracle stories that, as I’ve mentioned, often begin with “You are NEVER going to believe this.”

Today, I’m going to share a couple stories from my most important teachers—kids who, before they’re taught to “be careful” and “act responsible,” know the important stuff.

When I was out walking the other day, I ran into a family of 5. The youngest boy spotted a fuzzy caterpillar on a tree. Rapt with this amazing creature, he waved his parents over who dutifully “oohed” and “aahed” until finally they had to call him off, “C’mon, we gotta go.” The little boy, lingering a bit longer, leaned down to the caterpillar and said, “Goodbye. I love you.”

My other teacher is a little boy whose mother shared this story on Twitter. He was buckled into the backseat of the car when he asked, “Is it okay to throw the confetti in my pocket?”

“What?” she exclaimed. “Why do you have confetti in your pocket?”

Nonplussed, he answered. “It’s emergency confetti. I carry it everywhere in case there’s good news.”

This Thanksgiving season, I plan to share my love with caterpillars and trees and to keep confetti in my pocket because good news is everywhere when I decide to look for it. #222 Forever

Do something remarkable today. An assignment

October 15, 2020 21 Comments

“You need no other authority than your good intentions and your loving heart.”—Colin Beavan

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was participating in a Laddership Pod with 100-some people from 17 countries. One of the participants has been standing at a busy intersection in her hometown with a sign. Nothing political. Nothing controversial. It simply says “Choose Love.” She has been holding this sign every Wednesday for two years.

This might sound like a simple thing, but the ripples from this one tiny action are immense. Articles have been written, minds have been widened. Who knows? Maybe someone saw the sign and decided against some mean and ugly thing they were secretly plotting.

The thing is we can’t know how our actions might positively benefit someone we don’t even know.

This week, another one of the participants from our pod lost her precious mother. As a tribute, many in our pod decided to follow Ruth’s lead and hold up our own “Choose Love” sign, in many countries around the world. These signs will be turned into a collage and sent to our friend in honor of her mother.

At the top of this post is the one I made yesterday (and held from 5 to 6). As you can see, I even roped in a few local friends to help in my gleeful scheme.

Yesterday was two years since Taz had her completely unexpected aneurysm. I could very easily have set around moping. I’ve certainly done my fair share of that. But instead, I did the very thing Taz would have done—I created something fun and spread a little joy.

I didn’t spend any money (well, a few bucks for the poster board), didn’t feel sorry for myself. I just got out there and put some merriment out into the world.

So here’s the assignment. Quit fretting about the coronavirus or the election or any other worry that currently lives rent-free in your head. Instead, make a sign. What would you like to broadcast to the world?

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently published a paper that says it takes but 10 percent of a population to create a tipping point. A very small number of impassioned people really COULD turn this ship around.

So make your sign, snap a photo, post it here on the blog and if you REALLY want to make merry, be brave and take it out to the streets. It could just change your life. #222 Forever!

A Friday gift from Taz and me and Martha Beck

October 9, 2020 42 Comments

“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”—Toni Morrison

The new “cover” for the Course in Miracles app that debuts soon.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how Taz radically changed my life. Martha Beck, who I met years ago when we were both speaking at a writer’s conference, also had a child who upended everything she thought she knew.

I decided to catch up with Martha and discovered three miracle stories that I feel indebted to share.

Fair warning. They’re all a little woo-woo, but as Martha says, the law of attraction is “inane and bizarre, but it keeps working for me.”

Recently, she’s been “attracting” animals. Like the Nature vs. News experiment I wrote about in E-Cubed, Martha gets most of her important intel from the natural world. And this is a woman with three degrees from Harvard.

She noticed lately that when she imagines a certain animal, it shows up. She was driving across the wide expanse of Wyoming and thought, “I’d love to see a pronghorn antelope.”

She’d never seen one and because it’s the only antelope native to the U.S., she wanted to rectify that glaring deficiency. Almost numb from a long day of driving, she noticed what she called a “smudge” on the horizon. So she stopped her car. As the smudge got closer, it turned into a giant herd of pronghorn antelopes, whipping up dust as it galloped across the open plain. This herd screeched to a halt right in front of her car and stood there for a while. She said she cried.

“These are the kind of things that should not happen in the mechanistic world,” she said. “But they do.”

Another time, she was in Sedona, Arizona for a quick meeting. She thought to herself, I’ve always wanted to see a javelina, but it was an “in and out” trip with no time to tour or do anything so “oh well.”

She and her assistant were in the hotel suite doing the interview when they heard a knock on the door. The assistant goes to the door and screams, “It’s a pig.”

Sure enough, it was a javelina (how does a Labrador-sized pig knock on a door?) that was soon joined by a whole family of javelina.

“These things shouldn’t be happening according to Newton’s worldview,” she says.

The last thing I want to share is a video Martha created. I love it so much, mainly because she puts into words the answer to a question I’ve been pondering (and I know some of you have been pondering) for a very long time. What in the heck is happening in our world?

Enjoy, my friends. And, as always, go out and have the VERY BEST weekend of your life. #222 Forever

Why it’s time to widen the aperture

October 7, 2020 72 Comments

“Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty. Live the life that chooses you, new with every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.”—Rebecca del Rio

Tomorrow is Tasman’s birthday. She would have been 27.

I strongly believe she came to me 27 years ago as an act of great love. I was a 37-year-old singleton who desperately needed a monster lesson in loving with my whole heart.

I was a, let’s just say, wishy-washy creator who needed a reason to fully commit to being responsible and going for my dreams.

At the time I discovered I was pregnant, I was making it (sorta) as a freelance writer. I had my moments of glory, getting a few good-paying assignments with Travel+Leisure, Modern Bride (ironic since I had always been single) and the Washington Post. I was dabbling in travel writing and more or less following my whims. Nothing wrong with whims, but it was clearly time for me to do something more substantial.

I’d struggled with commitment to one man so Taz, entering my life as a tiny human totally dependent on me, became the soul mate I so acutely desired.

Thanks to her, I buckled down on my spiritual practice. I turned my career, my parenting, my entire life over to The Dude. I’ve written before about how painfully clear it was that I needed to see things differently, to let go of all the limitations I’d placed upon myself, to well, widen my aperture.

If I was truly going to make it as a writer, the dream I’d long pursued, and if I was going to properly care for this beautiful soul who could have chosen a two-parent household, a bigger bank account, a caregiver with a more stable career, it was pretty obvious I needed to shape up.

I am forever grateful that she and her infinite love chose me anyway. She believed in me in a way I didn’t. She gave me a flesh and blood reason to become the person I always wanted to be. In short, she inspired me to completely rewire and rewrite my life.

Many in my circle, after hearing the surprising news that this gypsy was going to be a parent, encouraged me to seek a more stable profession, something with regular hours and benefits.

But to truly be a good example to my new soulmate, I felt I needed to go for the whole enchilada—to carve my own path, to follow my urgings to honor the gifts I was given. Yes, I would have to write consistently, become disciplined, but writing consistently is what I LOVE to do. Plus freelance writing gave me space and time to be there for Taz.

The most significant change required was for me to surrender old paradigms and ways of seeing the world. I had to rely completely and humbly, not on my own smarts or talent, but on the bigger force that continuously whispers to me, the force that wants to guide, bless and interact with all of us.

Every day, I repeated this affirmation:

Into my will, let there pour strength.

Into my feeling, let there flow warmth,

Into my thinking, let there shine light

That I may nurture this child, Tasman McKay Grout,

With enlightened purpose,

Caring with heart’s love

and bringing wisdom to all things.

In a week, it will be two years since Taz joined the cosmic love team or what we often call the “other side.” I’m still getting my equilibrium after this shattering loss. But this I can say with complete certainty:

My gorgeous, brilliant daughter who was always the wisest person in any room still lives within my every thought, my every breath, my every heartbeat.

So thank you, Taz, for choosing me, for overlooking my shortcomings and for inspiring me to be a better person. I feel it in my bones that this lifetime was one of many we’ve experienced together.

I will love you forever. I’m excited about the upcoming 222 Foundation award and for the day we meet up again, unencumbered by the illusion of these fallible bodies. Happy magical birthday, my love. #222 Forever.

What would a being of light do today?

September 9, 2020 28 Comments

“If we only knew deeply, absolutely, that our smallest act, our smallest thought, has such far-reaching effects; setting forces in motion; reaching out to the galaxy; how carefully we would act and speak and think. How precious life would become in its integral oneness.”–Irina Tweedie

So let me guess. The question I posed in today’s headline (How would you spend your day if you knew you were a being of light?) was not the first question you asked yourself this morning. Not with news to catch up on and precautions to take.

But what if we started every morning with that question, with that intention? How different our morning, our day and our lives would be.

Instead of penning a to-do list, what if we actually got up and began acting like the being of light we truly are? A being of light isn’t worrying about coronavirus or getting tangled in political knots.

As long as we seek to become something, to get something, we will forever remain in the energy of seeking, of not having. Why not just go there now?

“Be the change,” as Gandhi famously said. Taz directed me to listen to an interview I gave post-E-Squared as I was walking this morning and wow! Did I ever need to hear this again? I even mentioned something about death back then. Really?

I’ll be writing today (on my upcoming project) about a girl, now grown up, whose brother, her best playmate, died when she was young. For many months after, he came to play with her every night after everyone else had gone to bed. Her grief-stricken mother, who like most adults forgot the truth about who she is, woke up every morning wondering why his favorite truck was out in the dining room or his legos were strewn across the kitchen. The young girl, who hadn’t yet mastered the dominant paradigm, tried to tell her mom, but she was far too invested in the old paradigm.

Eventually, that mom will be reunited with her son. Eventually, we’re all going to get there. It’s already a done deal.

But for now, for today, ask yourself “How would a being of light spend her day?’

And if you’ve got an extra 58 minutes, listen to this interview. It helped me. And I trust it will remind you of who you really are. #222Forever

https://howshereallydoesit.com/podcast/pam-grout-ww/

Escape from the trance

September 2, 2020 28 Comments

“To save the planet, we don’t need technological breakthroughs or vast amounts of capital. Essentially, we need a radical change in our thinking and behavior.” – Rob Hopkins

My wonderful interviewer, Carolin, made this backdrop for me the other day.

German mystic Meister Eckhart said, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.”

Because we are distracted by a long litany of misery, we don’t even notice God or the truth about who we really are.

The world we’re seeing now is a byproduct of decades of enculturation, decades of believing that we are limited to these physical meat suits. Most of our fear comes from trying to protect them. Until we turn our back on all that is emerging out of the chaos of our current thoughts and beliefs, we will continue to miss the light.

One of the main lessons from A Course in Miracles is “I am not a body. I am free.” It’s repeated A LOT. It says that if we can just get that one lesson, if we can learn to embrace the part of us that’s bigger than our body, our lives will come alive in a whole new way. Our bodies are nothing but a resource, a tool, a conduit for a higher level of consciousness.

What’s missing for many of us is the wisdom to recognize we are much MORE than our body. Once we get this, we can travel through reality in a whole new way.

Let’s take Taz, for example. As I’ve mentioned before, we had a ritual involving hedgehogs. Whichever one of us said that silly word first on the first day of each month won the prize of a lucky month. We started this game when she was in junior high.

To this day, she sends me a hedgehog on the first of every month. Sometimes, it comes as a photo or a text from her old phone. On May 1 of this year, I was doing a podcast with the wonderful Course teacher, Lisa Natoli. While we were chatting, a hedgehog crawled into her back yard in Maine. She said it had never visited before.

Tasman McKay Grout, even though she’s busy doing her God work out there in the cosmos, still finds time to bless me with this monthly reminder. Yesterday, September 1, she must have been in the mood to show off. Because she sent me not one, but four hedgehogs. Two of them came from readers of this very blog—one whose daughter dreamed of a white hedgehog and another who was sent a pair of socks tricked out with, you guessed it, dozens of hedgehogs. She said, “I knew right away this was meant for you.”

During the first months after Taz’s passing, I failed to notice the hedgehogs. But as Meister Eckart points out, “it was me who was out for a walk.”

Meister Eckhart also said, “If the only prayer we ever say is thank you, that would be enough.”

So thank you, Jodi, and thank you, Rosa, and thank you, Taz, for helping me realize that I am, that you are the energy, light and consciousness that animates the body, not the body itself. Love you forever. #222Forever

Who’s on your board of directors?

August 28, 2020 31 Comments

“Your creator is itching to contact you.” – George Washington Carver 00001aaad

One of my first books, commissioned by a national seminar company, was about mentoring — how to be one, how to find one. SkillPath, the company that hired me to write it, sold it at the seminars they trotted around the country giving.

Upon reflection, I realize that most of my mentors dispense wisdom from what many call “the other side.” To be fair, I don’t really believe there’s an “other side.” Rather, the potential to connect with anyone, dead or alive, is available to all of us.

Like Napoleon Hill, who appointed his own personal “Cabinet of Invisible Counselors” including Luther Burbank, Leonardo da Vinci and Abraham Lincoln, I recently opened a conversation with George Washington Carver.

I’ve written about this great scientist and inventor before. Not only was he one of the first Americans to be invoked into Britain’s Royal Society of Arts, but this brilliant man practically saved the economy of the South after the boll weevil devastated the cotton crop.

I love him because he KNEW he was deeply connected to God or what I call the “Field of Infinite Potentiality.” Anyone, he said, can “tune in.” The vast broadcasting system is available to every single human. The very air around us contains an energy current we can plug into.

YouTube and Google are fine, I suppose, but they show us “old news,” stuff that humans have figured out. Carver’s broadcasting system offers brilliant NEW ideas, ideas with the power to rewrite the apparent “what is.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, the apparent “what is” isn’t looking so sunny right now. So, as of today, I re-up my commitment to tune in – to the higher idea, the loving, generous broadcasting system that, as Carver said “is itching to make contact.”

Every single thing he needed to know was easily revealed to him — starting as early as grade school. He had been praying (and begging his adopted parents) for a pocket knife. One morning, he woke up, ran out to the garden and came back calling “Aunt Sue. Aunt Sue.” He found an ivory-handled knife in a watermelon, exactly as he’d dreamed.

Every morning, before the sun arose, George Washington Carver, got up and walked. His communion with nature, he insisted, provided the recipes, the formulas to create the hundreds of products for which Henry Ford, Albert Einstein and three presidents lauded him. He didn’t do it for the acclaim. He did it because this 24/7 broadcasting system was telling him — here’s how you can help.

This energy broadcast is there for all of us.

We are connected to every single thing we could ever need to live a fulfilling, abundant life. All we have to do is tune in. #222forever