What’s your covenant with the universe?

“To be the salt, you also need to be the shaker. Shake the world. Shake the truth. Shake the people. Have it sprinkle, melt and preserve humanity.” ― Anthony Liccione

hubbleLast week, I had the privilege of spending several days at Unity Village.

You might remember the story in E-Squared about the founders of Silent Unity, a worldwide movement that proclaims a bigger truth about who we are and why we’re here. The movement was started more than 135 years ago by Myrtle Fillmore who healed herself of tuberculosis and aggravated malaria.

Despite the fact she was spitting up blood, running a constant fever and depending on a cabinet full of medications, Myrtle decided to put to the test the outrageous claim made by a New Thought teacher who told her that God, who was all good, would never wish disease on anyone. Furthermore, the teacher promised that if she would align herself with this spirit of all good, she would discover her true self—which was completely healthy and whole.

Over and over, Myrtle affirmed: “I am a child of God and therefore I cannot inherit sickness.” She refused to “judge according to appearance.” She praised the vital energy of God within every cell.

Within two years, there was no sign of her old illnesses.

As I mentioned, she and her husband, Charles, who also healed himself from a disabling hip socket injury, started what’s now known as the Unity movement.

What I didn’t know was that on December 7, 1892, Myrtle and Charles made a written covenant with the universe. They committed their time, money and all they had and expected to have to the Spirit of Truth and to the Society of Silent Unity.

In exchange for this commitment, they made it clear that they would expect God (the Universe, the F.P.) to render unto them an equivalent in peace of mind, health of body, wisdom, understanding, love, life and an abundant supply of all things necessary to meet every want.

I heard about the Fillmore’s covenant from Dr. Carolynn Conley, an aerospace systems engineer who spoke at the conference of the Affiliated New Thought Network that I attended at Unity Village. In the 70’s, when Conley was a young woman living in the Virgin Islands, she heard about the Fillmore’s covenant.

Inspired, she decided to make her own covenant, decided to dedicate her time, talent and money to further the peaceful evolution of the planet. That commitment led her to become an aerospace engineer. It led her to NASA and the Johnson Space Center where she has worked for more than 40 years, facilitating research on the Shuttle, Shuttle-Mir and the International Space Station.

As she explained in her presentation, the International Space station transcends borders, politics and religion, propelling dozens of countries to work together for a higher good.

Indeed, Conley’s covenant is furthering the peaceful evolution of the planet.

So I ask you today, are you willing to make a covenant with the Universe? Are you willing to give everything you’ve got to your highest vision and to know that, in return, you will be given everything you could ever need.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

Worldview 2.0: You will bring abundance and joy into your life once you stop talking smack about it

“Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin, American comedian
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Just curious, my friends?

What are these phrases still doing in your head?

“Something needs to be fixed.”

“This is not good enough.”

“I don’t have enough.”

Visualize all you want. Affirm until the cows come home. But as long as your vocabulary is toxic, as long as you fail to get up each morning and realize how blessed you are—just to be alive, just to have this 24 hours—all your efforts will be futile.

When you say things like “This is going to be a great day,” or “Things always work out for me,” you are using your words to prophesy a positive future.

Most of us, instead of utilizing the magic potion of our words, throw them around carelessly like confetti at a party.

To continue to rehash things that didn’t please us makes no sense. Replaying negative stories over and over only adds energy to them, emitting the frequency that will attract more events with a similar frequency. Especially when we could use our allotment of words to inspire, uplift and encourage.

Most of us are smart enough not to rush to Red Box when our least favorite movies come out on DVD, so why do we insist on running repeats of the least favorite events in our life?

Just like it’s important to head west if you’re going to California, it’s important to send your words out in the direction you’d like your life to go.

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, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

Dilbert, doing affirmations and discovering your passion

“Life is a closet filled with pool toys.”—Amy Poehler

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If you’ve read E-Squared, you might remember that I used affirmations to launch my freelance writing career. I even sent myself postcards with reminders that, “I, Pam Grout, am a great writer.” “I, Pam Grout, have what it takes to sell to New York editors.”

So I was thrilled to discover there’s another writer out there who also used affirmations to kick off his career. Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, credits writing 15 affirmations a day (“I, Scott Adams, will be a famous cartoonist”) for his meteoric rise.

Doing affirmations started as a lark. At the time, he was taking a hypnosis class. One of his classmates mentioned that by affirming what you want, you draw that very thing into your life. He didn’t buy it at first, but figured, “What can it hurt? It’s worth an experiment.”

He started by getting a date with a girl who was clearly (at least in his mind) way out of his league.

“At the time, I was a 6, maybe a 6.5. But she was a 9. The odds of her going out with me were long indeed,” he said.

But after several weeks of affirming just that, they ended up dating.

Still not convinced, he decided to ask for investment tips. He wanted to play the stock market.

Of course, it would have helped if he knew how to actually buy stocks. But nevertheless, he woke up one night and, with startling clarity, heard “Buy Chrysler.” He was a wet-behind-the ears kid at the time and had no idea how to actually make the purchase.

But as he followed Chrysler (this was during the Lee Iacocca days), he watched as it shot straight up, filling its investors’ pockets with mucho moolah.

Next (and this time he was ready) he got a hit to invest in something called ASK computers. Sure enough, it quickly increased by 10, then 20 percent. Smugly, he sold it, happily pocketing the proceeds only to hear that it soon doubled and then tripled in value.

Next, he put his 15 affirmations a day to work on the GMAT test. He got a score of 77 the first time which wasn’t high enough to get into UC Berkeley, his graduate school of choice.

He decided he needed a 94 if he had any hope of securing admission to his dream school.

“I knew I wasn’t really smart enough to get a 94, but I keep affirming and visualizing that number. I kept seeing a 94 peeking through that little window on the envelope,” he says.

He re-took the test, even though he knew 77 was probably all he was capable of.

Several weeks passed before the envelope arrived in his mail slot. He turned it over, looked in that little window and, you guessed it, his score was 94.

So by the time, he began affirming that, ‘I, Scott Adams, am a famous cartoonist,’ he was an old pro at affirmations. The universe had little choice but to reward him with the popular cartoon strip that, at last count, was syndicated in 2000 newspapers around the world.

As for me, I am presently affirming that all of you will have the very best Fourth of July 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 about to be released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless

“Tell the negative committee that meets in your head to sit down and shut up.” –Kathy Kendall

“We all need a daily dose of vastness.”– Rob Brezsney

Today’s daily dose of vastness is from Mollie Player, a fellow LOA blogger who, like me, is a freelance writer, a mom, a traveler and an author. Woo-hoo!! As I told her, “we’re twins….only I’m a lot older.” With no further adieu, take it away Mollie:

When I first decided to start saying affirmations way back in January of 2012, one of the first I tried had to do with work.

Work is my passion. I love what I do (I’m a freelance writer) and want nothing more than to keep sustaining myself (maybe, more than sustaining? Dare I say, thriving?) in this way. Since I had just given birth in November, though, and had only worked sporadically since then, I desperately needed things to pick up. So, I made some phone calls, wrote some emails and did all the usual things, without getting much response.

Then I tried it: My affirmation.

It was this: “I have steady freelance writing work.”

Here is what happened next: The following day (yes, DAY!) I received an email from a client that I hadn’t heard from in a while (my best paying client, no less). Then, later that same day, I landed an interview that resulted in a one-time paying job and a job offer (which I later refused due to other work opportunities).

And the story gets even better. I got more work from my best client. I got several jobs from my from my agent. And I’m happy to tell you that the following months (until the birth of my second child) were the most productive and financially lucrative of my career. I am so surprised that things picked up so quickly and for so long–with just that one affirmation!

mollieContributor: Freelance writer Mollie Player, who shares true, uplifting law of attraction stories every Friday at www.storiesandtruth.com.

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.

How the parlor game “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon” gives us hope

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” –Aibilene Clark, from the book and movie, The Help

I’m sending a shout-out today to the anonymous person that taped uplifting affirmations to the bathroom stall at Mirth Café in Lawrence, Kansas. Your words reminding me that “I am beautiful. I am powerful. I am capable of great things” made me so happy and reminded me that the simplest of things, the tiniest of actions can impact the world.

Your affirming words not only added joy to my day, but they elevated the energy of every person I encountered from that moment forward.

I once saw a comic strip where the boss scolded his employee who went home and took it out on his wife who then screamed at the kids. In the last frame, the toddler is sitting outside on the front porch shaking her finger at the puzzled dog.
That boss had no idea the chain of events he started when he chose to criticize rather than encourage.

You’re probably heard of the parlor game, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, which suggests that any two people on earth are, on average, a mere six acquaintance links apart.

I like to think of those beautiful human bonds when I get discouraged, overwhelmed by the issues in the news. It’s tempting to wonder what I, one solitary person from Kansas, can do to solve the political chasm, what I, a single mom with a couple twitter followers, can do to stop gun violence.

And then I remember. I can invite my neighbor over for ham and eggs. I can bake a casserole for the new mom that just came home from the hospital.

Yes, we’re all different, have varying political beliefs and religious affiliations. But every last one of us eventually shows up in the same bathroom stall.

One tiny sheet of paper. Five simple lines. Tiny actions sending beautiful ripples out into the universe.

Leave a comment below with the words you’d like to leave on the door of your bathroom stall.