Cook Islands – Pam Grout

The wisdom of woo-woo

April 22, 2021 40 Comments

“I am what I pay attention to. I literally surrender my life force to it.”—Becca Brewer

In the corner of my living room sits a small black rock given to me by a bare-chested medicine man from the Cook Islands.

“Pa,” as he is known, plucked it out of a jungle river in the South Pacific Island, handed it to me and said, “Put this in the north corner of your living room and you’ll become a millionaire.”

I drink water from a blue glass bottle that I set outside in the sun to purify. This suggestion comes from Dr. Hew Len (the ho’oponono guy) who says “blue solar water” removes recurring and no-longer useful data running in my subconscious.

And I believe that every single hedgehog that shows up on the first of every month is sent to me by my precious Taz.

Admittedly, these techniques are rather unorthodox, definitely not something my accountant or my doctor would prescribe.

I follow them because I happen to know that reality is fluid and that wherever I put my mind, my finances, my body and my life will follow.

Beliefs and expectations are SO powerful that placebos (fake treatments like sugar pills, saline injections, and sham surgery) cause bald men to grow hair, high blood pressure to drop, ulcers to heal, dopamine levels to increase and even tumors to shrink. And although pharmaceutical companies would rather keep this on the down low, placebos relieve symptoms on par with real medication. Actual biochemical changes in the body make you wonder–—or it should—how “factual” facts really are?

So, yes, there are people who call me crazy, think I’m too woo-woo for drinking blue solar water and placing exotic black rocks in my home. But I don’t care. I’m rather proud that I use the luminous superpower of my thoughts and beliefs to imagine, expand and create.

And while the verdict’s still out on the blue water (I DO notice I’m less and less interested in all sorts of cultural expectations), Pa’s rock, which I carried home in my suitcase, was added to my living room just a few months before E-Squared hit No#1`on the New York Times bestseller list, right before it was translated into some 40 languages.

I was visiting the Cook Islands for this travel assignment.

As Harvard researcher, Ellen Langer likes to say, “It is not our physical state that limits us. It is our mind-set about our own limits, our perceptions that draws the lines in the sand.” #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)

Becoming the Warren Buffet of Happiness

August 24, 2016 19 Comments

“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.

Your brain on gratitude: the perks of brazen thanksgiving

September 16, 2015 29 Comments

“Gratitude is some seriously powerful stuff.”–Emily Wenstrom

I’m heading to Orlando tomorrow to speak at the Hay House I Can Do It! conference. Among other things, there will be a huge celebration of Wayne Dyer’s life. If you want, you can lifestream it. For free. Click here for more info:

I’m preparing for the conference so thought I’d re-run a blog post that’s all about gratitude which, as you know, is the topic of the new book I just turned in. Enjoy!!

A couple years ago, I wrote a travel piece on the Cook Islands, a tiny nation of 15 spits of land, surrounded by millions of miles of ocean.

The 15,000 or so people who live in the Cooks rightfully believe they are blessed, that God has given them everything they could possibly need.

It’s an attitude that can’t help but provide. When someone shows up on this planet with a grateful heart and eyes seeking only things for which to be thankful, that’s exactly what they’ll find. Abundance aplenty.

Cook Islanders don’t need researchers to tell them that their feelings of thankfulness have a direct and beneficial effect on their brains, a finding scientists are reporting from labs all over Western universities.

By naturally focusing on positives, on how lucky and blessed they are living in these beautiful South Pacific islands, they’re rewarded with neurotransmitters like dopamine and other feel-good chemicals that form neural patterns of happiness. Their unending gratitude literally sculpts their brains which in turn increases their enthusiasm and energy and lowers their stress.

Consequently, their neural pathways are markedly different than those of us in the West that are conditioned to shine our spotlights on what we resent or regret or what we think is “wrong with the world.”

Renee Jain, a coach of positive psychology, says most Westerners have a negativity bias where “bad stuff” outweighs the good 3:1. Think of all the good drugs (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin) we’re missing out on by our bitching.

That’s why my mission in life is to be like the Cook Islanders, to focus only on the supreme beneficence of the universe.

I consciously choose to believe such thoughts as:

Life is freaking awesome.
The universe is bounteous and forever generous.
Something miraculous is bound to happen to me today.

Today, I say thank you for all the blessings that are barreling my way, all the abundance, the joy, the peace of mind that I count on day after day. To my way of thinking, responding to any other reality is simply irresponsible.

So tell me … what are you grateful for?

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.

“Have fun, be crazy, be weird.”–@tonyrobbins

March 6, 2013 1 Comment

“Most people are as happy as they make up their mind to be.”
–Abraham Lincoln

Last week, I was talking with Mastin Kipp. He’s the 31-year-old whiz kid behind the popular website, TheDailyLove (TDL). You might have seen him on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as one of the spiritual leaders for the next generation. Although he now lives in L.A. and hobnobs with the likes of Tony Robbins and Kim Kardashian (she’s the one who helped get the ball rolling on his website, when she tweeted out to her 2 million followers, “You should follow this.”), he is originally from my hometown. His parents still live here, he came home for Thanksgiving right after the big Oprah wing-ding and so I decided to profile him for the local Lawrence Magazine.

My editor, who adores sidebars, said, “Ask him for some tips.” He gave me several, but the one I most resonated to was this: “The one thing we have control over is our thoughts, the meaning we give to events that happen in our lives. We can frame things in whatever light we choose and how we word the questions we ask ourselves is extremely important.”

For example:

“Is something the end….or is it a new beginning?”

“Is this a breakdown…or a breakthrough?”

As he says, “It’s a very powerful thing that we get to decide the meaning we give to things.”

So in honor of Mastin and my own evolving awareness, I’d like to share a couple reframed thoughts that have really blessed my life.

1. I am the Bill Gates of free time and flexibility. I’m a freelance writer so there’s no boss expecting me to clock in. I can travel whenever I want to. I can attend get-togethers in the middle of the day—like my spiritual entrepreneurs group—or lunch with a dear friend as I did yesterday for two and a half hours. Some people would panic without a regular job. I prefer to see it as having an abundance of time and a whole wagonload of opportunities to create new things.

2. I am OTT wealthy with an unlimited supply of creative capital. I have so many ideas I want to write about, so many books and TV series and articles I want to produce. And to my way of thinking, creative capital trumps the other kind of capital because mine is capable of producing the other kind of capital and is lots more fun.

3. I have fun no matter what. There’s no question that, as a travel writer, I get to do a lot of cool things—meet medicine men from the Cook Islands, hang with wealthy people at five-star resorts, eat every meal beside the ocean—but it doesn’t take that for me to have fun. My favorite recent example of this happened in December.

I was scheduled to go to Belize to bring in the “end of the Mayan calendar” at Caracol, a jungle Mayan city still being excavated. The night I was supposed to pack for my 6 a.m. flight, my back went out. I wasn’t able to go….at that time. So I lay in bed that first day in what some might describe as excruciating physical pain. I could barely get up to pee. But I, because of my commitment to fun and joy, actually had a stellar day. I was so happy–really!!! I decided to have fun anyway. I look back at that day as very important to my spiritual growth because I realized this:

Our thoughts are the only thing that separate us from having every single thing we could ever want.

Thank you, Mastin, for the reminder.

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

Your brain on gratitude: the perks of brazen thankfulness

February 26, 2013 11 Comments

“Gratitude is some seriously powerful stuff.”
–Emily Wenstrom

I just returned from the Cook Islands, a tiny nation of 15 spits of land, surrounded by millions of miles of ocean.

The 15,000 or so people who live in the Cooks rightfully believe they are blessed, that God has given them everything they could possibly need.

That’s why my mission in life is to be like the Cook Islanders, to focus only on the supreme beneficence of the universe.

I consciously choose to believe such thoughts as:

Life is freaking awesome.
The universe is bounteous and forever generous.
Something amazing is bound to happen to me today.

Today, I say thank you for all the blessings that are barreling my way, all the abundance, the joy, the peace of mind that I count on day after day. To my way of thinking, responding to any other reality is simply irresponsible.

So tell me … what are you grateful for?

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” – Thornton Wilder

February 13, 2013 1 Comment

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
 – Oprah Winfrey

My friends, relatives and anyone who follows my blog knows about A.A. 2.0. It’s a simple, two-step program for revolutionizing your life.

The name comes from my daily practice of getting up each morning and proclaiming, “Something amazingly awesome is going to happen to me today.”

The next step, just as easy, involves texting three miracles and/or blessings (A.K.A. awesomeness) to four friends who I refer to as my “power posse.” The only stipulation is the list has to be different every day. I like to say that my number one mission in life is scouting miracles. I’ve found that the more I look for them, the more plentiful they become.

Since I’m writing about travel today and looking over my itinerary for next week’s oh-so-exciting trip to the Cook Islands, I thought I’d demonstrate how this simple program works by sharing the awesomeness from last month’s adventure to Belize:

Thursday: Easy, on-time flights, staying on a 7200-acre rainforest preserve and drinking Argentinean wine with the resort’s South African manager.

Friday: Exploring a 3000-year-old Mayan site, howler monkeys who sound like Jurassic Park and rescuing my favorite hat before it plunged down an 800-foot waterfall.

Saturday: Swimming three-feet away from a three-foot loggerhead turtle, seeing lemon sharks, barracuda and a giant school of blue tang and being invited to watch the Caribbean cup soccer finals on an outdoor TV while eating just-caught barbecued lobster.

Sunday: Egrets and pelicans on my morning beach walk, mimosas and gelato before my 10 a.m. flight and getting home 30 minutes early.

If you want to join A.A. 2.0, tweet your daily blessings to #A.A. 2.0.

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