ACIM – Page 2 – Pam Grout

Expand what you believe is possible

May 10, 2022 35 Comments

“If you think bending spoons is cool, wait until you learn to bend your whole life.”—Martha Beck

Back in 1981, Bud Tribble, who at that time was a new hire at Apple, suggested that his boss possessed the superpower of creating “reality distortion fields.”

What he meant is that Steve Jobs could take what everyone else believed was utterly impossible and inspire his teams to do it anyway. Tribble said he got the term from an episode of Star Trek where aliens created new worlds using mental force.

What he didn’t bother to mention is that this same superpower is engrained in all of us. We all create our world, 100 percent of the time. Except instead of using our imaginations and going for what others believe is impossible, we get up each day and compress our world back into the mold we used yesterday. And the day before that.

The Course in Miracles says it like this: “I see only the past.”

Talk about a waste of a superpower. We could literally imagine into existence a more beautiful, just and compassionate world, one that works for everyone. The past story of scarcity and separation is getting creaky and old. All the forces trying to hold it in place are literally falling apart.

That’s why it’s the perfect time to use our superpowers of imagination, creativity and love. If we refuse to fall for the story that impossible things can’t be done, we can literally regenerate everything.

But we have to give up our training, our rules, our old, sad story. Each of us is a whirlpool of individual consciousness inside a vast universal consciousness. If we can give up the past, meet each moment anew and ask for help from what I often call The Divine Buzz, things that were once dubbed impossible can become “well, duh!” Here’s to regeneration, imagination and peace. #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)

Bombarded with miracles

May 4, 2022 50 Comments

“Your smarts, your talents, your good looks – take off these impediments and let us dance!” — Chelan Harkin

Tomorrow, in my playshop with Mike Dooley, I’m going to share “techniques” for widening one’s miracle bandwidth.

The term “technique” sounds rather didactic and I’ve never really felt like a “teacher” in any real definition of the word. If anything I’m just a regular Jane willing to experiment with my own life in public.

And I’ve learned from lots of personal experience that always, always, always the best technique for accomplishing anything is to manage my fear. To do whatever it takes to calm the nutty voice in my own head that constantly tells me that stepping into the unknown is unsafe. Whether that’s writing a book or hugging someone I’ve never met.

Our entire culture is predicated on avoiding the unknown, keeping us safe, convincing us to protect ourselves, to fit in, to march in line with the consumer system that tells us we need this product and that “technique.”

But like it or not, the unknown is where the magic happens. The unknown is where old, crusty beliefs are overridden by this more beautiful reality. And the unknown is scary.

My current “technique,” if you want to call it that, is getting up every morning and going outside, listening to the birds, making eye contact with my neighborhood fox. I go out there and feel this intense aliveness that, when you take the time to look, you notice permeates everything. I ask that life force to use me, to guide me, to show me what I need to do right now in this moment. Then, when the next moment comes, I ask again.

Maybe it’s a technique. But it feels more like surrender. Because I honestly don’t know.

Except that out there—in the real world, the alive world of nature–I feel connected with my daughter, with what some call angels, with this bigger thing that just keeps bombarding me with miracles.

To give you one small example, this Magical Mystery Adventure that I was invited to participate in with Mike Dooley has raised $22,200 for The Taz Grout 222 Foundation. And the logo that Mike’s amazing team created for the adventure happened to have a giant 222–which they didn’t even realize (they were going for 21 days, starting on the 21st, etc) until I pointed it out. Check it out below.

So I will continue to count my blessings, let go of what I was taught to believe and step out into the wildly mystical unknown. #222 Forever!

Going up?

April 15, 2022 32 Comments

“My anthem is the feisty joy parade that goes from my heart to yours.”—Chelan Harkin

So in this video (that I’m going to try to add to the bottom of this post), Mike Dooley asked for my elevator speech.

I said something like, Gosh, “I guess I should write one” even though I know full well nobody can be contained within a label, a description or even an elevator speech.

But since he asked, I looked up the definition and discovered a good elevator speech explains what I’m up to, what project I’m working on, what comes next for me.

And even though my cultural programming instructs me to articulate something that sounds impressive and/or fulfilling, I concluded–upon a bit of inner reflection–that my only mission is to BE love. Right here. Right now.

I know. I know. It sounds flimsy and woo-woo and shouldn’t I have more goals?

But upon even more inner reflection, I concluded that “well, what else could I possibly want? What else beyond love would I ever want to experience or would I ever want anyone else to experience?”

So screw it! That’s my elevator speech. My mission is to overcome all limiting beliefs that would block this indwelling source of love. And to know that love is not something you find in people, places or things. It’s a life energy that dwells within, a powerful force that yearns to make its presence known.

All of us are inherently happy and worthy of love and acceptance. So my elevator pitch, if I ever get asked again, is: I, Pam Grout, am a love activist. #222 Forever.

Here’s the video and here’s where you can join us for our 21-day Magical Mystery Manifestation Adventure.

Have the most extraordinarily epic weekend of your life, my beautiful compatriots of joy. #222 Forever!

Willing to consider the freaky sh*t

March 16, 2022 21 Comments

“Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”― St. Augustine

“My big love,” by Ukrainian painter Olesya Hudyma

The universe is vast and complicated. What we actually see of it is a mere 4 percent of what’s actually there. Scientists have confirmed the existence of the other 96 percent (what they call dark matter and energy), but they can’t quite measure it yet.

Which is why I’m not only willing, but eager to make room for what some call crazy sh*t. Cancer suddenly going into remission. Unexpected money showing up. Angels pulling kids out of burning car wrecks.

Some call such improbabilities miracles, but for me, it’s simply a matter of surrendering the belief systems that suggest they are improbable.

What if they’re not improbable? What if things like this are happening ALL the time? What if the only reason we can’t see them is because we’re stuck on a different frequency, mired in a belief system that allows in a very narrow band of reality?

We see only what we’re programmed to see. And at this point, most of our programming is being conveyed by authorities invested in worn-out, status quo beliefs systems.

I’d like to suggest that being willing to believe in freaky sh*t is the pinnacle of rationality. And at any time, we can supersede the going narrative and leap into a truer, more beautiful reality. On one syntax of reality, peace exists now. #222 Forever!

Advice and why I never give it

March 11, 2022 46 Comments

“Only wonder leads to knowing.”—St. Gregory of Nyssa

I am frequently asked for advice. On writing. On marketing. On how to go on after losing the one person you can’t live without.

I find it rather humorous that anyone would think I have any kind of good answers. First off, I’m hopelessly unqualified. My mantra, you may remember, was pilfered from Sergeant Schultz, the fictional sergeant in the old TV series, Hogan Heroes, who regularly proclaimed to Wilhelm Klink, “I know nothing.”

It was only a month ago I found out bed linen tags are always on the bottom left side. I could have saved myself 50 years of guessing which side was the long side (and usually getting it wrong).

If anything, I’m a middleman who has made a career writing about where I — when and if I remember — go for answers.

And it all boils down to this: I stop feeding my thoughts (man those guys are insatiable) and head to the Source. There’s a reason I appointed The Dude as the CEO of my career, why I let him handle all the details.

When I get into coherence, I find silence, peace, aliveness and maybe not ALL the answers, but at least guidance for what to do right now. When I stop, bring my attention back to this moment, it opens a portal.

So no, I offer no formulas, no all-important guidelines, but I do know this. Living in this right-now moment, in bewilderment and wonder is a mighty fine place to start.

And just so you know, I DO plan to have a word with the Big Guy for waiting so long to fill me in on the sheet situation.

Have the very best weekend of your life, my treasured friends. #222 Forever

Holiness is your superpower

February 8, 2022 63 Comments

“I want this now to be the now where we save our place, your place, our earth.”—Louise Erdrich

Do you feel it? The powerful shift in consciousness? Not only have we just entered the Year of the Water Tiger which encourages each of us to take big risks, but it’s the 2^nd month of the 2022 year. Hi, Taz!

Big things are abrewin’! For myself, I’m hyper aware of just how little interest I have in the “old story.” The story of scarcity and consumption and fear has zero appeal. Zip.

I’m being drawn even more to stories of love, of openness, of miracles. And they’re everywhere. I’m hearing stories about indigenous people who can retreat into a cave for a few days and come out without cataracts or say, a broken foot. They simply leave the quantum superposition where that was a “reality” and step into a new reality. In fact, any story that doesn’t have an “anything is possible” narrative at its core goes poof in my brain.

What’s this you say? War? Disease? It’s just not of interest anymore. It like a bad movie that is begging to be clicked off.

Especially when so much beauty and love is happening right now, in this and in every moment. Just looking deep into the eyes of another human should convince you of the enormous potential, the infinite light that exists within each one of us. All we gotta do is dive below the crust of the psyche. That ego story isn’t real, guys.

The line “holiness is your superpower” from yesterday’s Course lesson really stuck out to me. Every single “problem” that our culture tells us to fear can be healed right now. We don’t need a politician or a product or anything else that society tells us we need. There’s no limitation. There’s nothing we’re not connected to.

I must admit that, as I’m writing this, I feel a little crazy. Or rather, I’m admitting to all the world that I’ve officially departed the bounds of normality. I’m no longer tethered to any semblance of what I’ve been “trained to believe.”

But why would I choose to live in a culture where these truths are considered the provenance of a crazy person.

This whole rant sorta kicked off February 1. As you know, Taz always sends a hedgehog on the first of each month—in really weird, supernatural ways.

I was scheduled to be in surgery all day and was curious, “how will Taz deliver this month’s hedgehog? For one thing, I’ll be under anesthesia.” But lo and behold, I get home from the surgery center and waiting on my front porch is a stuffed hedgehog and a box of chocolates. Keep in mind that this was sent from someone I’ve never met who had NO IDEA I was having surgery. The chocolates were an especially thoughtful touch, don’t you think?

I believe Taz has emissaries all over the world. As we all do. This connection is so strong right now and I feel so many beautiful souls from what we call “the other side” stepping up to free us from the old story that anyone with a nose can plainly see is breaking down.

Anyway, beloveds, it’s almost 2/22 and, in the meantime, I’m out there employing my superpower to heal every water system, every soil system, every belief system that no longer applies. Consider yourself invited to join in. #222 Forever!

Overturning stubborn belief systems since 1956

January 19, 2022 48 Comments

“Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought divides it into a multiplicity of objects, selves and others.”—Rupert Spira

Something really weird is happening in my life. I’m not traveling much or working on a specific project. In fact, when friends ask, “So what have you been up to?” I have no good, pithy answer.

I once prided myself on my ability to provide scintillating, conversation-starting responses. I was usually on my way to Namibia or Helsinki or I was getting ready to interview say, Blake Shelton or Eminem’s mom. My life was rife with engaging happenings.

Now, not so much.

But here’s what’s weird. Or rather incompatible with what society has taught me. I feel blissfully happy, at peace, engaged with each moment. That’s not to say the asshat doesn’t rap its knuckles on the window pane every now and again, but mostly I just laugh and recognize it as a worthless distraction.

Its murmurings are nothing but temporary whiffs of energy unless I decide to invite them in for chamomile tea and crumpets. Which I don’t seem to do so much anymore.

I’m finding it more absorbing to sit by the fire, to walk around my neighborhood, to live in the presence of each precious moment.

Writing these words actually floors me, makes me wonder, “Who is this person? And where did she hide the body?”

I can’t really explain it and I’m not suggesting it will last (because, after all, that’s in the future which isn’t right now,) but I have to believe that whatever is mine to do next, whatever it is that Source, Spirit, God has up its sleeve for me will be much easier to ascertain than it was when I was distracted non-stop with past and future.

Happy Wednesday, my beloveds!

Reporting in from small town Kansas,

Grout, Pam, as they called me in a recent book promotion #222 Forever!

Living in a wonderland

January 13, 2022 21 Comments

“The only treasure we really have is this moment right now.”—Pico Iyer

Can you believe it? Look at that sky.

It’s a refrain I seem to repeat to my partner nearly every morning. Before we light the incense and meditate, we often step outside just to see what’s going on, to see what new wonder awaits us in our little mini-forest here in Kansas.

Some people, of course, think the way to learn what’s going on is to turn on the TV or check FB. But I’ve discovered that everything those “news sources” broadcast is old news, something that happened maybe yesterday or 20 minutes ago.

My news program shows a brand new, just-this-moment, never-before-seen sky. The birds, even in the winter, are rhapsodizing about some great happening here in the neighborhood. It’s truly magical and I feel so blessed that this “newscast” is there for me every single morning to witness. Just now, looking out the window, I’m mesmerized by a comedian squirrel who is masterfully executing a two-paw pull-up to reach the chair where my partner left birdseed–not, I might add, with him in mind.

My life right now isn’t exactly how I might have planned it. It doesn’t quite match the picture on a vision board. But boy oh boy, are there still a lot of marvels in which to revel.

I can’t know what may come in the door tomorrow, what forest fire or new variant or who knows what might happen, but I can sure rejoice in what’s here right now, in my little wonderland in northeast Kansas.

I love you all! #222 Forever!!

Peace, music and other merriment I may have missed

January 6, 2022 24 Comments

“The unknown is where the most exciting part of life happens.”—adrienne maree brown

Joyous 2o22, my friends!

One of the bajillion things I loved about spending last summer in Mexico was the singing. Guys crowded together in trucks, sang joyously together as they headed off to work. I was reminded of this yesterday because a Mexican construction crew that’s building a house near my home was, not whistling while they work, but singing to the catchy Spanish lyrics coming from what must have been a boom box.

Hearing this made me incredibly happy–humanity out there celebrating life—even though it was cold, even though they were slinging and pounding boards.

Today’s Course in Miracles (yep, I started it yet again) reminds me that all my certainties about life cause me to miss the most miraculous of realities. For example, it’s common knowledge that “you don’t sing while you work. You put your nose down and you get ‘er done.” But what if that belief stunts what’s possible.

My intention for this year is to surrender every single thing I believe, to toss out all facts and convictions that constrain and tame the bigger reality. I want to be open, to leave space, to wake up excited to see what might happen today without my conclusions about what it’s going to bring.

I heard an interview with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. When he was 27, driving from Seattle to graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin, he pulled over in a field to get some rest. While he lay there in the dark, a thunderstorm rolled over, echoing throughout the valley. He heard the crickets, the booms and he suddenly realized that he had the wrong impression of what it means to listen.

Like all of us, he’d been trained to pay attention to teachers and other authority figures, to gather information, to listen to what other humans told him was important. In other words, completely ignore the orchestra of life that literally surrounds us all. That night in a field changed everything. He dropped out of school, became a bike messenger and focused on one goal—to become a better listener. To actually take in what he calls our “solar-powered juke box.” His passion is recording sounds from around the world, everything from Sitka spruce logs (which sound like a violin) to thunder in the Kalahari Desert to dawn breaking around the world, including near me in Caney Creek, Kansas.

Which begs me to wonder, what else do I miss?

Yes, folks, life is singing to us, blessing us, even guiding us. All we gotta do is give up our assumptions and our narrow band of seeing and listening and believing. Here’s to being completely open to the tangled wild in 2o22. #222 Forever!

Put down the duckie

December 30, 2021 17 Comments

“Until you know yourself to be essentially whole, and not the wounded and broken one who needs to be fixed, the true solution to your personal suffering will remain out of reach.”–Gail Brenner

So I was watching a documentary about Sesame Street. In one of the songs, Ernie was futilely attempting to learn to play the saxophone. All he could produce was a sorry-sounding squeak. Hoots, the Owl, finally diagnoses Ernie’s problem and launches into a clever song that I’ve decided to use as my New Year’s resolution: Put down the duckie.

Ernie is unable to play his heart out, to fully join the exuberant band because he refuses to let go of the rubber duckie he has been clutching to his heart.

The “rubber duckie” most of us non-Muppets refuse to surrender are the highly-conditioned thoughts and patterns that make up the ground of our awareness.

On the top of the list is the suffocating belief that we need to be fixed, that we’re not quite as good at “playing the saxophone” as the next guy. We also believe we must jump through a series of hoops to get there—wherever there is.

But the need to grasp onto that duckie is nothing but the ego’s opinion. And in 2022, the only voice I’m listening to is the one reverberating in my heart, the one that doesn’t come and go.

So bye-bye duckie!

I also want to announce that the Taz Grout 222 Foundation has finally chosen a candidate for the 2/22/22 award that happens to fall on a Tuesday (2’s day). As usual, there were SO MANY inspiring ideas. Reading through them all made me pump my fist in the air and hoot, “Shazam!”

People are out there doing amazing things. The Global Art Project for Peace, for example, pairs artists from around the world. Each creates a work of art (a song, a dance, a painting) that expresses their vision of global peace and goodwill and then every two years in late April the messages are exchanged, with peace circulating across the globe. Artists from more than 97 countries have participated.

Another beautiful candidate helmed by 25-year-old Romanian artist Florentina even has a “spokes-zebra” whose motto is “My stripes may be different, but my heart beats the same.” I also really liked their “We are all Stardust” t-shirts.

Like always, the winner will be announced on February 22.

In the meantime, East West Bookshop has asked me to do a Pop-up Possibility Posse. It’s on Zoom and, as the notice says, there’s no agenda, no set format…just a fun, high-vibe gathering where you can ask me anything.

My portion of the proceeds will, of course, go to the Taz Grout 222 Foundation.

I’d love to see you there.

So Joyful New Year, my loving, brilliant, inspiring friends. Let’s make this the year we put down the duckie for good. #222 Forever