Elizabeth Gilbert – Page 2

Every moment offers a multiple choice of perceptions. Choose wonderment.

September 25, 2017 24 Comments

“Life is not a roll of the dice. It is a result of what conscious awareness we find ourselves living out from. We can make a deliberate choice to shift our perception from this atmosphere of sickness and sorrow and live out from a higher principle.”–Michele Longo-O’Donnell
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Elizabeth Gilbert had the words “stubborn gladness” tattooed on her arm. It’s from her favorite poem by Jack Gilbert. In the poem, “A Brief for the Defense,” he writes, “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”

I think about stubborn gladness a lot. It defies the chasm so many of us believe—that you are either A) a realist who can’t help but notice the world is going to you-know-where in a you-know-what or 2) you’re a naïve Pollyanna who turns a blind eye to the world’s suffering.

The middle way, that Gilbert embraces, is to find joy even when……. even though….

The stubborn gladness worldview is being committed to finding the wonder amidst the chaos, amidst the terror.

A few years ago, a member of the Canadian Olympic dressage team came to a workshop I gave in British Columbia. I was spouting my normal controversial belief that joy is always possible, that finding it in every situation is one of the greatest gifts we can give our fellow humans. Some of the workshop participants weren’t so sure. But what about this? What about that?

So the Canadian Olympian told this story from her childhood. Her father worked for an international corporation. When the family was in the Philippines, they had a housekeeper who loved life with a deep and abiding joy. She found astonishment in everything. Her unabashed contentment and happiness was a continual source of inspiration to the wealthy family who employed her.

One day, a tsunami or earthquake or typhoon (sorry, I don’t remember the exact natural disaster) struck. The wealthy family fretted after hearing that their housekeeper’s family home had been swept away, had been completely obliterated in the storm. When she showed up for work the next week, they tiptoed around, wondering how they could help. They wanted to know how she and her family were faring. They fully expected her to be morose, to have lost her unbridled enthusiasm for the beauty of each moment.

“Oh, we are having so much fun,” she said. “My whole family, including all the aunts and uncles and cousins are living together in the basement of a church. It has been so fantastic all of us being together.”

Say what?

How was this even possible? How could she find joy in what most of us would rate as one of the top worst things that could ever happen.

Stubborn gladness, my friends, is an internal decision. No question that life sometimes throws curveballs. But it’s still up to us to cultivate joy and find the wonderment that, like air, always surrounds us.

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.

Why perfectionism is a no-fly zone

August 26, 2017 24 Comments

“I am the world’s most disciplined half-ass.”—Elizabeth Gilbert
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My new book, Art & Soul, Reloaded, is about being a maker. It is my contention that we are here on Planet Earth to create, to make beautiful things.

I believe our greatest longing is to expand the universe, to make things that, until we came along, didn’t exist.

Maybe it’s a vision for a new way of being. Maybe it’s a song that might change someone’s life. It doesn’t even matter what it is. We are all being called to breathe life into the new.

Right now most of us, instead of being makers, are consumers, really talented consumers, I might add.

But despite the insistent drumbeat of the marketing machine, consuming will never fully satisfy. Whether it’s finally getting the new Porsche on your Vision Board or polishing off Season Six of Modern Family, it’s a half-empty pursuit.

I believe something—maybe your Higher Self?—is tugging at your heart, whispering in your ear—There’s more. There’s much, much more.

I’ve discovered, in my own relationship with creativity, that the “other woman” is often perfectionism. The belief that whatever I’m working on is supposed to be stellar in every way. This foolhardy notion often stops me in my tracks.

However, when I let the need to be perfect go, when I pooh-pooh the old voices that insist the project must be ready for the New Yorker, I find I get a lot more done.

My motto, as I’ve often said, is “Dare to Be Mediocre.”

It has served me well.

I encourage you to join me, to snub your nose at perfectionism. Step up to the plate. Be the the maker you were created to be! The world desperately needs what you have to say.

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

Get your boom box on the right frequency and call in miracles

January 6, 2017 28 Comments

“The universe that constantly spins out new galaxies wants to shine through you, to speak through you, to expand through you.”—A tweet I tweeted out this morning

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Elizabeth Gilbert tells a funny story in her book, Big Magic. She was working as a cook on a ranch in Wyoming. She was drinking beer one night with a cowboy named, Hank, who told her about the instructional tape he had just bought to learn how to imitate an elk’s mating call.

I spent an autumn near Rocky Mountain National Park one year, and I can attest that Gilbert’s description of a bull elk calling for a mate is extremely accurate—an eardrum-shredding Styrofoam-against-Styrofoam screech.

So while we women are listening to tapes with yoga mudras, these Wyoming hunters are mastering their ability to imitate rutting elks.

Gilbert, who thought this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, eventually convinced Hank to go get his Larry D. Jones mating call tape. And possibly because of the beer, they hatched the crazy scheme of taking the boom box out into the woods. Giddy and laughing and, as she says, not in tune with nature in the least, they stumbled through the woods with the artificial bull elk’s mating call twanging at full blast.

Suddenly, there’s a crashing of branches and a 700-pound bull elk exploding towards them. He snorted and pawed as he prepared for war against this rival bull elk. Luckily, Hank had the good sense to throw the boom box as far away as possible.

I tell you this story, partly because I think it’s hilarious, but mostly because it reminds me that if I can get my boom box on the right frequency, the universe is going to show up, snorting and pawing and ready to move in my life. It’s out there. It’s ready to go. It’s digging up the earth with its paws. I just need to get on the frequency that calls it in.

Have the best weekend of your life, my friends!!

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 recently released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

3 more tales from the quantum sandbox

February 2, 2016 21 Comments

“Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.”—Elizabeth Gilbert

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I’ve been absent from the blog because I’ve been in Arizona, soaking up the sun and playing pickleball.

But I’m back and I’ve got a couple quick stories to share.

One of the reasons I was in Arizona is because the Phoenix Creative Living Fellowship invited me to give a workshop. The minister who initiated the process told me she manifested a brand spanking new BMW when doing the experiments in E-Squared. And her colleague, the minister who picked me up at the airport who happens to be from Colombia, South America, said the reason he was now in Arizona is because he had pasted a postcard of the Grand Canyon on a vision board he’d made years earlier. The postcard inadvertently added to represent his desire to travel was taken quite literally by the universe. And, after a short stint in Europe, he ended up—not surprisingly–in Arizona.

The second story comes from a wonderful 15-year-old named Isha:

“So I am just a 15-year-old who happened to come across your book E Squared and have even read its successor with great exuberance. And though my problems as compared to those others face are teensy, I’d like to share how I dealt with it.

“Yeah, so at this point in school we were about to start learning how to use the logarithmic tables. In case you don’t know what it is: an easy way to multiply divide and find roots of, well, complicated numbers. Everyone was pretty tense about it, and naturally, I absorbed from the environment around me. I started thinking it would be tough and all the bad stuff. But then I halted those nasty thoughts right there and exclaimed to myself, “FP, the logarithmic table will be fun to use and very easy and I won’t make any mistakes in using it.”

“And guess what? After the class was over, I was able to solve all of the problems and I truly enjoyed doing it (though a mass of my class looked flustered). So, yep, FP always works and it is the change in your perspective that counts!!!”

The last story comes from the post I wrote right after the Paris attacks. Remember the Lizard or Lover post? Remember the piano player I mentioned who rolled his baby grand to the Bataclan to play “Imagine?”

On Sunday, my friend Diane told the rest of the story. Turns out the piano player’s name was Davide Martello. He was watching a football game in Konstanze, Germany when the explosions began. He knew he had to do something. Within 15 minutes, he loaded his piano onto a trailer and drove all night, 400 miles to be in Paris.

Keep in mind that Davide wasn’t a doctor or a medic or a counselor. He was a musician who used what he had (a talent for playing music) to give love. That’s why we’re here, guys. To give love. To have fun and to play around in the quantum sandbox.

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 its equally-scintillating sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Magic and Miracles is your Full-Time Gig

Get your boom box on the right frequency and miracles will come crashing in

January 21, 2016 34 Comments

“The universe that constantly spins out new galaxies wants to shine through you, to speak through you, to expand through you.”—A tweet I tweeted out this morning

Elizabeth Gilbert tells a funny story in her book, Big Magic. She was working as a cook on a ranch in Wyoming. She was drinking beer one night with a cowboy named, Hank, who told her about the instructional tape he had just bought to learn how to imitate an elk’s mating call.

So while we women are listening to tapes with yoga mudras, these Wyoming hunters are mastering their ability to imitate rutting elks.

Gilbert, who thought this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, eventually convinced Hank to go get his Larry D. Jones mating call tape.

And possibly because of well, just a few too many beers, the late-night duo hatched the crazy scheme of taking the boom box out into the woods. Giddy and laughing and, as she says, not in tune with nature in the least, they stumbled through the woods with the artificial bull elk’s mating call twanging at full blast.

Are you smokin’ what you’re selling?

May 1, 2015 51 Comments

“I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement and everybody is working very hard to make me happy.”– Terence McKenna

Elizabeth Gilbert used that phrase in a Facebook post that was brought to my attention the other Sunday by my power posse. I mentioned how, during my February workshop in Switzerland, I freaked out because I’d run out of material by Saturday afternoon when I still had Sunday to go.

Speaking in public, up until now, has been one of my demons, one of the last “stories” I seem to protect. My heart races, my fears start jabbering and my thoughts get to moving so fast that I’ve considered buying them a training bra.

A couple of marvelous women from the workshop in Bern (one was a banker, the other, a mystery writer) invited me for drinks and dinner Saturday night. My old self, the one with the running bra thoughts, would have declined. After all, I needed to go back to my hotel room and work diligently on tomorrow’s workshop.

But if I was truly “smokin’ what I was selling,” I would go for the joy and the fun and trust the universe.

I took the hit! I went for drinks and dinner, had a marvelous time and woke up to the Divine serendipity of great ideas for Sunday’s workshop. It went great!!!

Last Sunday, I spoke in Denver at the I Can Do It! conference. Same crazy running bra thoughts, same fear.

It went quite well. Or at least I thought so. I got lots of rave reviews and a long line of people wanting me to sign books. I felt good. I went out to celebrate with two old college friends.

But that night, when I returned to my hotel room, an email popped into my inbox from a woman who had attended the workshop.

She said she was disappointed. She was writing, she said, to help me, to point out how uncomfortable I seemed and how I wasn’t the caliber of the other speakers.

Needless to say, my crazy thoughts had a field day. They even urged me to ignore one of my chief Course in Miracles lessons–“In my defenseless my safety lies.” I was tempted to write her back to ask, “And this helps me how?”

I also considered canceling all my upcoming gigs. But then I remembered another one of the things I “sell.”

If you don’t like the way your lipstick looks in the mirror, it’s pointless to fix it on the actual mirror. You have to fix it in yourself where’s it’s actually fixable.

I realized that as long as I still “yammered on” about my fears of public speaking, I was going to continue to see that reality in the mirror. She was just voicing that part of myself that still believes the old story, that still thinks criticizing myself will somehow improve me.

And I realize that those critical running bra voices offer NOTHING helpful. I just need to observe them. And love myself 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.

“The universe always dreams bigger for you than you would for yourself.” –Amy B. Scher

March 11, 2013 9 Comments

“Where is the joy in my life and what have I sacrificed it for?:
–Elizabeth Gilbert

There are a grand total of two ways to do things.

Whether you’re looking for a job or having a conversation with your BFF, whether you’re making a smoothie or plans for a European vacation, you either do what you’re doing with the resources of Door Number 1 or Door Number 2.

Door #1, the drug of choice for most of us, means doing your life, your daily activities with the power of your own resources. You make decisions based on the thoughts within your own head, with what you know so far, with what you’ve learned from your parents, from school, from the news. In a nutshell, it’s using the resources of the past.

Door #2, the only other choice, means conducting your life hooked to your Source or what I call the F.P., the field of potentiality.

For me, it’s a no-brainer. When I depend on my limited resources (Door #1), I’m like a toaster that’s not plugged in. I can press the button a million times, but if it’s not plugged in, there’s not going to be any toast on which to apply butter and jam. I can eat the bread, of course, but it’s not toast.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Sin, rather than a judgment call, merely means separation from your Source. It means your toaster’s not plugged in. There’s no condemnation involved. You don’t damn your toaster all to hell. If you’re smart, you simply grab the cord and plug it back in to its source.

For the sake of clarity, let’s stretch the toaster metaphor. Let’s say you really, really, really want toast. You can plead and beg and pray all you want, but until you connect the toaster back to the wall, “Sorry Charlie, you’re S.O.L.”

You can throw the toaster in the dumpster, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not connected.

That’s what we’ve done. We’ve thrown our toasters (the days and the hours of our lives) away.

Your Source (Again, call it what you like—God, the F.P., Divine Intelligence) doesn’t judge anymore than electricity judges. It’s completely 100 percent non-biased. If has no opinions on whether you choose to employ its power or not. It’s just there, waiting for you to plug yourself back in.

Some of us don’t plug in to our Source because we feel guilt. Or we don’t feel we’ve worked hard enough. Or we bought this crazy notion that It doesn’t want us.

But that’s as ridiculous as saying electricity doesn’t want (or won’t work) for a thief. Electricity doesn’t judge. It works equally well for everyone.

In fact, it’s OUR judgments, our grudges, our preconceived notions that block the flow. Source is always there, patiently waiting for us to lay down our judgments and plug ourselves back in.

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