Greg Tamblyn – 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).

Stay close to the love

September 5, 2022 28 Comments

“Everything rises to truth.”—Emma Curtis Hopkins

Oh my gosh, you guys! I’m super excited and grateful and well, I probably oughta warn you right now: this post may get a bit annoying.

For one thing, I’m heading out tomorrow on my first travel assignment in a really long time. I’m going to the Yerkes Observatory (widely recognized at the birthplace of modern astrophysics), visiting Hugh Hefner’s first Playboy Bunny Club (now a 5-Diamond Resort and Spa), ziplining, hitchhiking with one of the country’s last mailboats (it delivers mail to the old Gilded Age mansions on Lake Geneva) and well, generally having a ball with a bunch of crazy travel writers.

Later this month, we’re finally dedicating the Taz Grout Library that the 222 Foundation built in Nepal and, in less than two weeks, the incomparable Karen Drucker is coming to town for the Amazingly Awesome Benefit concert. I recently learned that Karen launched her piano career on the piano of none other than Carole King. I already knew she’d won a Tarzan calling contest with Carol Burnett when she was 14, but how was I to know that she later babysat for Carole King’s kids?

However, the main reason I’m bursting at the seams with joy is because it feels like I’m finally breaking up with the story in my head. And by the story in my head, I’m referring to the cultural fabrication that used to run my life. I no longer identify with much of anything my ego tries to spoon feed me. Notice I’m not saying my ego quit trying to control the narrative. I’m saying I no longer buy its tiny, tidy lies. At least most of the time.

For a long time, the ego’s story seemed normal, the way life was. Of course, I nodded obediently when it suggested that my job was to “find” spirituality, that I needed to seek happiness and joy.

But now I see that all those things I so dutifully attempted to forge connections with already exist within me. My natural state is happiness and joy. I’m discovering this raw, unnamable current of peace is inescapable once you break up with the ego and its desperate fabrication that something is missing, that things aren’t fair.

As I said, I’m a bit giddy with joy. But that’s okay. Because that’s who I authentically am. #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).

Big, fat juicy thanks all around

November 5, 2019 121 Comments

“If you have the right music very loud on the radio, you get about 50 more miles from your tank.”—Hunter S. Thompson

It’s gratitude month, my friends. And as I do every morning with my possibility posse, I simply must share three amazingly awesome things that recently transpired.

Numero uno. Dr. Christiane Northrup who may just be the most generous person in the world recently made an Instagram video about my new book. My editor asked her to possibly provide an endorsement (after all, she’s a well-known and very famous expert) and wow! Not only did she provide kudos, but she made this fun little video, completely unprompted. She even said this was the first time she’d ever been able to embrace A Course in Miracles and she wanted my book (when it comes out in January) on her nightstand. As I said, WOW!

Second really cool thing is that Karen Drucker, the uber famous touring musician, speaker and retreat leader (and winner of the Tarzan calling competition when she was 13) has offered to throw a benefit concert for the 222 Foundation.

The Unity Temple on the Plaza has agreed to host this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on May 3 in Kansas City. Karen, who will be playing and singing songs from her 15 albums, will present along with Greg Tamblyn, me, Emmy-nominated Stowe-Good and other like-minded friends. And, just so you know, we’ll be presenting the song Karen and I wrote called, “Something amazingly awesome is going to happen to me today.”

We are hereby affirming that this consciousness-bending show will alter the world forevah!!! The 222 Foundation is all about moving the needle and this benefit concert is guaranteed to rev up the engine. Make plans now to be there.

Third reason I can barely sit here in my chair is that an auction has just begun for the 52 paintings that were created by the German artist, Sigrid Drobner, for the 222 Foundation.

flower2 After Taz passed last October, this artist who I had never met promised to paint a special flower (and make a 3-D butterfly) every week of the year in Taz’s honor.

People sometimes say they’re going to do things, but this amazing artist actually followed through. She sent me one of these gorgeous paintings every single Saturday for 52 weeks. I can’t even begin to express how much her generosity has meant to me, how often it picked me up when I was wondering what in the heck I’m still doing on this planet.

And now she is auctioning them off with ALL PROCEEDS going to the 222 Foundation. Here’s what she says: “If anybody wants to make an offer, they can easily write an email to my address s.drobner@buntezeiten.de.” The auction, she says, will end December 1.

Again, my friends, never forget that support, love, generosity and abundance is the reality of the world. We simply have to let go of old school ideas that tell us otherwise.

I love and appreciate you all SO, SO much. I’d love if, in the comments section below, you share three of your own blessings. Let’s keep watering those seeds.

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).

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.

Life-changing reminder to tattoo upon your body

April 4, 2016 35 Comments

“I don’t have issues. I have subscriptions.”—Greg Tamblyn

I’ve noticed an odd tendency among readers of my books. Some of them make the disturbing assumption that I have my s*%t 100 percent together.

While that’s certainly a beautiful notion and, in Truth, we are all perfect, beautiful, loving agents for God, I sometimes forget.

So here’s the tattoo-worthy reminder:

Successful people feel fear and doubt and have bad ideas.

It’s vital to remember this. Because when we feel fear or doubt or have a bad idea, we too often decide there’s something wrong with us and that we’ll never write that book or find that relationship or do the thing that our heart is bugling out for us to do.

I gain the strength to follow my heart’s bidding by hanging out regularly with what I now call my possibility posses (nee: power posses). As songwriter Greg Tamblyn reminded us yesterday, everybody needs to find a group of abnormal people to commune with.

We’re abnormal in that we tell stories that defy what society tells us in normal. We tell stories about miracles and possibilities. We witness to the fact that when we get on the right frequency, the bigger thing has plenty of room to work with us, to guide us, to bless us. And when one of us is having an “issue” or even a “subscription,” the others of us can gently point out that: “yep, that’s one story. But there are a gazillion others.”

All of us are all full of stories. Why not be abnormal and choose the ones that instill peace and joy and light?

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