Adventures in Happiness

Being fearless is jumping even if you are afraid

June 9, 2015 24 Comments

“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”—John Milton

The Universe is even better than the post office at delivering blessings. In spite of my shortcomings, miracles just keep on showing up. My weekend at Omega couldn’t have been more perfect. Perfect weather. Perfect group (the 35 souls who took the Magic and Miracles workshop were all beautiful geniuses who helped make the workshop SO EASY) and I even got the perfect rental car at LaGuardia—a powder blue VW beetle.

As you regulars to the blog know, workshop and easy are not words I usually say in the same sentence. I’ve talked a lot about my discomfort and fears that, as I often say, get so active that I’ve considered buying them a training bra.

The other blessing in this regard is something the comedian Pete Holmes told my friend, Jessica Ortner, on her Adventures in Happiness podcast. He said it took four years before he was comfortable doing standup. Four fricking’ years! Which makes me feel okay that, even though “my year of speaking dangerously” ended in March, I can “deeply love and accept myself” even when I’m still scared.

AND most importantly, I can continue to jump even when I am afraid.

For those who are interested, here’s my TedX talk where I definitely jumped anyway.

Pam Grout is the author of 17 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the recently-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.

Shazam or Suffering Succotash: you decide

April 24, 2015 12 Comments

“Happiness is where you start from rather than where you go. God, I sound like Yoda.”—Simon Pegg

I’m so excited. I leave for Denver in two hours for my first North American “I Can Do It.” I’m speaking on Sunday if you can make it.

Another cool thing is my episode with Nick and Jessica Ortner on “Adventures with Happiness” went live yesterday. You can check it out here. I previewed it last night and I sound a bit daft, but, hey, I’m going for it despite my imperfections.

And speaking of Jessica (who I adore), I’m re-running a blog post with her magic word. Enjoy:

In E-Cubed I talk about the power of words, how we literally foretell and create the future by what we say. When we talk smack about our lives, even little things like, “Oh, I wish I’d gotten up earlier and wasn’t running so late. I wish that idiot in traffic hadn’t cut me off,” we are creating a resonant field of problems.

But since I believe we should take our attention off problems and animate a different possibility from the infinite field, I’d like to tell you about two words I have just added to my vocabulary.

The first is “Shazam!” I’d heard this word before. Captain Marvel uses it when transforming into his superself. But I just had breakfast with the awesome Jessica Ortner (from the Tapping Solution) and she told me that she and her friends always “shazam” each other as a way of sending positive energy.

For example, Anita Moorjani (who was at breakfast with us—Am I a lucky camper or what?) is finding out today whether or not her extraordinary person visa for the U.S. will come through. Jessica sent some Shazam her way!

The other word I learned is brand new, or was when Phil Parker made it up. He’s a brilliant London osteopath who is able to transform we humans’ “issues” seemingly overnight.

And it starts with the word du with a ^ over the “u.” Instead of saying “I am angry” or “I am poor” or “I am…. (whatever you don’t want to be) say, I am du^ing anger or I am du^ing poor which makes it a temporary state. It reduces the charge.

The reason he chose not to use the word “do” is because that reeks of blame. Last thing any of us want to do is point finger at ourselves. That’s what started the “issues” in the first place.

Two tiny words—huge possible change.

Sting, Deepak and Steve Jobs all had a Day One. The question is how do you get to Day Two

April 1, 2015 20 Comments

“What would constitute a perfect day for you? Why do we always go home and watch Netflix instead?”—Susanna Wolff

I love Jessica Ortner. We just recorded a podcast for her new series, “Adventures in Happiness.” Stay tuned. Our episode will run soon.

In the meantime, I decided to listen to Episode One which she recorded when her brother Nick woke her up at 7 a.m. California time.

The theme was “GET STARTED.” On your dream. Right now.

The reason most of us don’t is because we’re judging our Day One with everybody else’s Day 42 or 50. Every person you look up to—be it Picasso, Tony Robbins or Meryl Streep—started somewhere. Every person had a Day One. And I guarantee it probably sucked.

Jessica told the story of starting CrossFit. She threw herself into it, but even so, Megan, as she says, “smoked her.” Megan who had been training for 18 months. Megan who, of course, had developed the stamina to smoke her.

So the takeaway is quit comparing your freshman efforts with people who already have days two, three, etc. under their belt.

The point is. Get started. Today.

Pam Grout is the author of 17 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.