Evy McDonald – Pam Grout

Everything leans on everything else

September 13, 2022 20 Comments

“The only true privilege in life is to love.”– -Justin Faerman

I’m totally jazzed about meeting some of you at this Sunday’s Amazingly Awesome Benefit Concert for the Taz Grout 222 Foundation. It’s such an honor to be surrounded by so much support, so much love, so much possibility. Even if you are on the other side of the globe.

Because remember – it’s impossible to step out of the ocean of wholeness. There’s literally nowhere else you can go.

So thank you one and all for so richly blessing me on this wild and crazy ride. From wherever you might hail.

I’ve already gushed here on the blog about my joy at writing a song with THE KAREN DRUCKER! She of Tarzan calling fame.

And I’d be remiss in not mentioning one of the other musicians who will be joining us on Sunday. Greg Tamblyn and I have been friends for eons. When I taught a journalism class at Avila College, he kindly showed up for my student reporters to interview. I wrote about his hilarious song, “The Shootout at the I’m Okay, You’re Okay Coral” in my book, Art & Soul, Reloaded. And it was Greg who first introduced me to Evy McDonald who I’ve written about on the blog and, if memory serves, in one of my books. It’s a story about stepping away from the ego’s limited narrative and returning to the present and the wholeness of who we really are.

Here’s the scoop:

In 1980, Evy was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. By the time doctors finally determined her illness, she was, to use her own words, “a bowl of jello in a wheelchair.” The doctor told her, at best, she had six months to live.

After raging about the unfairness of it all for a day or two, she had this thought: “Since I’m dying anyway, why not use the short time I have left to finally learn to love myself unconditionally?”

For years, she despised her body. She was overweight, for one thing. The polio she’d had as a child left her with two withered limbs and well, she was hard-pressed to find anything she really liked about her physical body.

But she was determined. Three times a day, she’d roll her wheelchair to the mirror and sit naked. She wouldn’t leave until she’d find new positives to add to a list. Her hair was pretty, for starters. She decided that whatever it took, she was going to learn to accept herself. She also resolved to give all negative feelings and thoughts over to the bigger thing.

At some point, she crossed some kind of miraculous threshold. She actually began to feel love and compassion for herself. She began to see her body as a miracle of creation, to see herself as a blessed being who could experience joy.

Strength began to return to her limbs. She eventually began to walk, to feed and to clothe herself. She became the first person to completely recover from ALS and 40 some years later, she’s still ALS-free.

So whatever fabrication you believe is ultimate reality, be open enough to consider it might just have a few glaring holes.

Here’s the song and one more invitation to join us this Sunday in our extraordinarily epic quest to change the consciousness of the world. #222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World).

No longer using my thoughts to attack myself

January 22, 2018 14 Comments

“If beating ourselves up worked, we’d all be thin, rich and happy by now.”—Cheryl Richardson

My friend, Anita Moorjani, wrote an amazing book called Dying to Be Me. It’s about her four-year bout with cancer and the NDE (near death experience) that completely revolutionized her ideas about life and death.

I can’t remember if this part is in the book or not, but after she returned from the other side and quickly began healing from the stage four lymphoma that had ravaged her body, she got out of bed (she’d been unable to walk for months before), shuffled into the bathroom and nearly fell over in shock when she saw her withered frame staring at her from the mirror. She looked herself straight in the eye and made this solemn vow: “I will NEVER do this to you again.”

Until she got cancer, Anita says she was afraid of everything. Like so many of us, she was a people pleaser. She worked hard to be liked, to be a “good person,” to be spiritual, to be a good employee. She tried to eat right. In fact, she says she worried constantly about microwaves, plastic containers, red meat, getting, you guessed it, cancer.

In other words, she was the poster child for Lesson 22 of ACIM: What I see is a form of vengeance.

At first read, this sounds pretty harsh, but when you hear stories like Anita’s or the story of Evy McDonald (which I shared last month and you can access here), you realize how vengeful we often are…especially in our judgments of ourselves. I know I would never dream of speaking to anyone the way I so often speak to myself.

Later in this lesson, we celebrate the joyous news that our countless fears and critical thoughts are not real. We learn that we can escape.

Anita had to die and go to what we call heaven to realize this precious truth. We get to do it today by simply asking help in seeing life differently.

And in case you’re wondering, here are a couple rules that Anita lives by today:

1. Don’t take life seriously.
2. Eat chocolate.
3. Realize YOUR OWN MAGNIFICENCE!!
4. Eat more chocolate.
5. Enjoy life and do what brings you joy.
6. Laugh at yourself every single day.
7. Start each day listening to “Dancing Queen” and singing along with it

And with that I’m signing off from Lincoln Street.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

The only New Year’s resolution that really matters

December 29, 2017 73 Comments

“We physicians and scientists have nothing to lose by a reexamination of fundamental assumptions of our models of health: on the contrary, we face the extraordinary possibility of fashioning a system that emphasizes life instead of death, and unity and oneness instead of fragmentation, darkness and isolation. –Larry Dossey, M.D.
evy

According to the Wall Street Journal, 132 million Americans (that’s 41 percent) will make a New Year’s resolution. A good quarter of those potentially life-changing commitments will have something to do with diet and health.

But here’s the rub—most of what we know about diet and health is incorrect. It’s a series of beliefs that we’ve all agreed upon and therefore reproduce in physical reality. These beliefs about our physicality are placeholders until we can, as Dr. Dossey suggests, fashion a new system.

Which is why I’m going to tell you three stories that not only defy our beliefs about health but actually provide clues to the only resolution you really need.

1. First story is about Amelia Boone. She’s a full-time corporate attorney and a four-time world champion obstacle racer. Sports Illustrated calls her one of the fittest women in the world. Wanna know what she eats before each race? A Kellogg’s pop-tart. Needless to say, the sugary, calorie-filled pastry is not widely regarded as health food. Except to one of the fittest women in the world.

2. The BBC did a documentary about a group of Brits who overcame all sorts of ailments and illnesses by listening to Britney Spears songs.

My point? The only thing we need to change about our health is our thoughts and our beliefs.

3. The last story is about Evy McDonald, a nurse I learned about from my songwriter friend Greg Tamblyn (listen to his song below).

Strength began to return to her limbs. She eventually began to walk, to feed and to clothe herself. She became the first person to completely recover from ALS and thirty-seven years later, she’s still ALS-free.

So, what’s the only resolution worth having? To become completely content with yourself exactly as you are. And to know that it is ONLY your thoughts and beliefs that can ever affect you.

I know there are lots of diets and rules and cultural paradigms that you’re probably contemplating right now. But do yourself a favor. Don’t resolve to change your body. Resolve to change your mind.

You can use any disturbance in your life (health, weight, whatever you believe needs to be changed) as an opportunity to expand your horizons, as a chance to evolve to a higher level.

As the Course in Miracles clearly states, the only healing that is necessary is giving up old beliefs and changing the way you think, feel and interact with the world.

As usual, I’ll be going through the lessons of the Course in Miracles this year. I plan to blog about my 2018 journey. If you feel so inclined, I’d love to have you join in.

Thanks, my friends, for being so amazingly awesome, so extraordinarily epic. I hope to see you all next year.

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.