“We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.”–James Baldwin
So my new book about A Course in Miracles debuts in exactly four days.
So while I’d love to tell you about my travels, my upcoming speaking gigs, the 100 applicants for this year’s 222 Foundation award, I figure I owe a mention to those of you who insisted I turn my ACIM musings into this book.
More than anything, the Course is about the F word. Everything, it tells us, boils down to forgiveness.
But like most important concepts, forgiveness is widely misunderstood.
So I’ll let this story about Brad Pitt illustrate what the Course means when it suggests making forgiveness our chief goal.
The hunky heartthrob’s first job in Hollywood was dancing in a chicken suit in front of El Pollo Loco restaurant.
If he’d have stayed in that job, he’d have never landed his role in Thelma & Louise, he’d have never stunned us all in A River Runs Through It. He’d have never…well, I’ll let you look up his IMDb for yourself.
Brad’s willingness to surrender his first “acting” job is a classic case of forgiveness. All forgiveness means is letting go of where you are now. Letting go of what you’re just sure is true.
When we hang on to our certainty, to our beliefs that this is just the “way the world is,” we literally imprison ourselves. Life, the Divine Buzz, can’t get in.
Forgiveness simply means recognizing that today is a completely new day and that anything–absolutely anything–is possible. Forgiveness breaks the pattern of false perceptions. It allows us to experience reality unblinded by yesterday, unblinded by past beliefs.
“The spiritual lens—even just the nightly gratitude list–is starting to rewrite the story of my life. I feel like I have been snatched out of the fire, salvaged, saved.”—Mary Karr
You might have seen my post on Facebook, where I gushed in glee about my new book. Hay House, my publisher, moved up the pub date (that’s publication date, not a day where I lift pints of hearty ale) from October to August.
It’s now available for pre-order so I posted the cover and wrote two sentences about my excitement. That tiny mention sold enough books on Amazon to move it to #1 in New Releases in New Thought. At least for a day. I was blown away.
That being said, I want you to know that I don’t view this blog as an advertisement or a marketing tool. In fact, yesterday, I paid to have all ads taken off my site. I figured it was the least I could do for those of you who so generously take the time to read my posts.
I write them out of sheer joy. I write from my heart and I view them as a gift to anyone who cares to read them. I’m not out to monetize this website.
Which is why I don’t use my blog to promote what’s known as affiliate programs. You know–those posts that have the same spiel, the same wording and everything, from five different people. While there’s a certain kind of mad genius in promoting someone else’s program or product in exchange for a percentage of sales, I choose to turn down such invitations because I don’t view you as “a list.” You are my compadres in spiritual mischief, my friends, my sounding board. If I write about something, it’s because I’m genuinely excited about it.
Financial capital, the goal of affiliate marketing, has glaring limitations. It’s fine, but it’s not why we’re here. The riches I talk about in my new book, Thank and Grow Rich, are not the kind you find in a bank.
One of the chapters, in fact, is called Becoming the Warren Buffet of Happiness. The book talks about amassing a different kind of capital. Five different kinds: spiritual capital, social capital, creative capital, adventure capital and alchemic capital.
We acquire these riches by getting on a frequency of joy and gratitude. By taking off the blinders that block the presence and the radiance and the unforced generosity of the universe.
My service is to this presence. And to you, my dear friends, who have put a little bit of trust in me. For that, I say thank you, thank you, thank you.
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 Mirth, Magic and Merriment
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” —Maya Angelou
As an adventurer on the frontiers of magic and enchantment (my self-appointed job description), I am devoted to poking holes in the veil of illusion. My pin for rending the veil is telling stories about the new paradigm, the paradigm of oneness.
It’s not a huge thing, not a Gandhi-size accomplishment, but I gotta believe that every tiny hole in the old story of separation shines a little more light and accelerates the new.
Today’s story comes from the I Can Do It! conference in Orlando. Hay House events are always magical, but this was one was OTT, to use a little textspeak.
At the Friday tribute to Wayne Dyer, Anita Moorjani told the story of how she first learned of Wayne’s passing.
A friend had come for lunch bearing flowers. She asked Anita, “What’s with the orange?”
The friend went on to explain that she’d gone to buy red roses for Anita’s cool new beachside home, but a voice, seemingly from the other side, kept telling her, “Take the orange flowers.” So she did.
Anita explained that orange was her favorite color, but she couldn’t imagine which of her already dead relative and friends would have given those instructions because well, they’d never done it before.
During lunch, Anita’s phone rings. It was Maya, Wayne’s long-time assistant. Anita knew immediately. Not only did Wayne tease her about her penchant for orange (her wallet, her cell phone cover are all orange), but he, too, had a thing for oranges, the fruit. If you’ve heard him speak in the last few years, you know he always carried one on stage.
But even cooler is that when Anita went to talk during her slot at I Can Do It!, there was an orange sitting on her table. She asked everyone she could think of (the Hay House handler, the technician, her husband Danny), but no one, at least no one in the physical world, had left it there.
Yes, my friends, magic is afoot. And the more we can give up our old stories, the more we can see and enjoy the bigger story where miracles are normal and love is all there is.
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.
“Happiness is where you start from rather than where you go. God, I sound like Yoda.”—Simon Pegg
I’m so excited. I leave for Denver in two hours for my first North American “I Can Do It.” I’m speaking on Sunday if you can make it.
Another cool thing is my episode with Nick and Jessica Ortner on “Adventures with Happiness” went live yesterday. You can check it out here. I previewed it last night and I sound a bit daft, but, hey, I’m going for it despite my imperfections.
And speaking of Jessica (who I adore), I’m re-running a blog post with her magic word. Enjoy:
In E-Cubed I talk about the power of words, how we literally foretell and create the future by what we say. When we talk smack about our lives, even little things like, “Oh, I wish I’d gotten up earlier and wasn’t running so late. I wish that idiot in traffic hadn’t cut me off,” we are creating a resonant field of problems.
But since I believe we should take our attention off problems and animate a different possibility from the infinite field, I’d like to tell you about two words I have just added to my vocabulary.
The first is “Shazam!” I’d heard this word before. Captain Marvel uses it when transforming into his superself. But I just had breakfast with the awesome Jessica Ortner (from the Tapping Solution) and she told me that she and her friends always “shazam” each other as a way of sending positive energy.
For example, Anita Moorjani (who was at breakfast with us—Am I a lucky camper or what?) is finding out today whether or not her extraordinary person visa for the U.S. will come through. Jessica sent some Shazam her way!
The other word I learned is brand new, or was when Phil Parker made it up. He’s a brilliant London osteopath who is able to transform we humans’ “issues” seemingly overnight.
And it starts with the word du with a ^ over the “u.” Instead of saying “I am angry” or “I am poor” or “I am…. (whatever you don’t want to be) say, I am du^ing anger or I am du^ing poor which makes it a temporary state. It reduces the charge.
The reason he chose not to use the word “do” is because that reeks of blame. Last thing any of us want to do is point finger at ourselves. That’s what started the “issues” in the first place.
Two tiny words—huge possible change.
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.
“If your mind isn’t cluttered by unnecessary things, this could be the best day of your life.”—From a message left on my voicemail by The Zing of the Possibility Alliance
Some authors write about changing your life through healthy eating. Or meditating. Others suggest writing affirmations or visualizing
As for me, I offer one easy message: Open your joy channels.
When you get happy, the largesse of the universe can’t help but rush in.
It’s so easy that most people walk right by it, they roll their eyes and think, “Sure, Pam! It can’t be that easy.”
So I’ll say it one more time. It really IS that easy.
In my power posse yesterday, we had a blast sharing stories about just this topic. We decided that part of our mission and why we love this group SO FRICKIN’ MUCH is because we take time to register, to note, to document (well, we don’t really write it down) how frequently the universe works in our favor.
Frank brought in a stuffed monkey (says he’s doing the extra credit from Experiment One in E-Cubed), Nikki told us about the free pizza she won after taking the day off work and Rhonda shared this story that clearly demonstrates the awesome fact that celebrating life brings more to celebrate.
She and her husband, an architect, went to an awards banquet at a small Catholic college where he’s doing some design work. Sitting behind them was a table of eight or so nuns. They were all somewhere between 60 and 90 years old, Rhonda said
“Now, I’ve been to lots of these banquets and they’re always nice, polite affairs. But at this one, after all the awards had been given and the ceremonies had commenced, a DJ came out and started playing dance music,” Rhonda said. “My jaw nearly dropped.”
And as Kool and the Gang started in with “Celebrate Good Times,” those nuns got up and started dancing. Really getting into it.
“They didn’t sit down once,” Rhonda said. “And then the emcee got up to pull a name out of the hat for the grand prize trip to Ireland.”
You guessed it?
“Mary Katherine!” One of the “We’re gonna have a good time tonight” nuns.
If you’re anywhere near Denver this coming weekend, Rhonda and I will be at the Hay House “I Can Do It” conference. I’m giving a workshop on Sunday and we’re both psyched about meeting Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay (we’re affirming she’s going to make a surprise appearance), Cheryl Richardson and all the other cool Hay House authors. It’s not too late to get a ticket.
And in the meantime, tell me in the comments section below what you’re going to do today to “Celebrate Good Times.”
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.
“All right is almost always where we eventually land, even if we fuck up entirely along the way.”–Cheryl Strayed
I decided to headline today’s blog post with those words of wisdom, not because it’s exactly the topic I’ll be discussing, but because those two intentions match mine.
My topic today is Gabrielle Bernstein’s e-Course “God is my publicist.” Hay House gifted me with this three-week lecture partly, because they’re really cool folks, but mostly because they figured it would help promote my books. I was lucky enough to meet Gabby last year in London and she was recklessly generous enough to write the forward to E-Cubed.
Unlike some publicity campaigns that require big budgets, weekly strategy sessions and countless pleas to the media powers-that-be, Gabby’s course suggests appointing God to handle the details.
That doesn’t mean sitting around polishing your nails and refusing to pick up the phone when say, Oprah calls. It means making a rigorous practice of connecting with the big guy and asking that your message reach the folks who need it. As she points out, the possibilities to connect and make an impact are endless.
Endless possibilities, as far as I’m concerned, is a synonym for God, even though many of us hooked that word up long ago with the exact opposite.
God, to use the synonym I refer to in my book, is the FP (or the Field of Infinite Potentiality). I devoted my life to the FP many years ago. I appointed it the CEO of my career and, so far, it hasn’t let me down. It’s enabled me to write 17 books and create a life without “a real job” for more than 20 years. It’s enabled me to make a living on my wit and my craft.
I believe the only thing keeping anyone apart from the FP is their own walls and judgments.
Judgment, I was relieved to find out, is not my function. Surrender to the FP is really my only job. The less I try to do on my own, the better my life becomes.
Gabby’s other potent publicity strategy is sending love to potential customers….in my case, readers.
She reminds us that all of us have a mission and, no matter what we think it might be, it always involves love. Expansion. Beauty. Joy. So, dear readers, whoever you might be, I send you heartfelt appreciation and, yes, love which is the only thing that’s real.
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.
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”– George Washington Carver
You might remember that quote from E-Cubed. It’s in the experiment about getting an important message from the natural world, the one about the Divine 24/7 Buzz.
In that chapter, I also mention the herd of African elephants who showed up at the home of their former advocate to pay respects after his untimely death.
Lawrence Anthony was a conservationist, an environmentalist, an author and he saved this particular herd of rogue elephants from slaughter at his Thula Thula game reserve in South Africa. You might have heard about his valiant effort during the Iraq war to save the animals at the Baghdad Zoo.
When he died unexpectedly of a heart attack on March 2, 2012, two herd of wild elephants that he rescued and rehabilitated somehow knew and trekked 12 hours through the Zululand bush, formed a circle around his home and honored him for an entire 48 hours. They hadn’t actually seen him in 18 months. How did they know?
The elephants, like all of us, are connected to this big universal life force, this Divine Buzz that wants to connect with us, wants to guide us, wants to bestow blessings.
Anymore, that’s about the only thing I’m interested in—the rest, as Einstein said, is just details.
Speaking of details, don’t forget to enter the E-Cubed Selfie Challenge. By tagging your selfies to my Facebook fan page, you’ll be entered to win such prizes as a cruise to Alaska and tickets to the four North American I Can Do It conferences.
I’ll be speaking at the upcoming Denver event in April and, if you’re so inclined, you can get your tickets here.
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 just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
“Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.”–e. e. cummings
Okay, so you’ve made some goals, set some intentions. But, so far, nothing has shown up. Wanna know why?
You’re trying too hard. You’re trying to force things instead of just relaxing and connecting with the power and genius of the universe.
See this picture. It’s green bean seeds from Experiment No# 6 (The Superhero Principle) in my book, E-Squared.
The reader who sent me this picture made the intention that the back row of seeds would grow faster than the front row.
It worked like a charm, because she knew there was nothing she could personally do to make those green beans grow faster. Except be willing. She had to surrender and believe that her focus and attention was enough.
With most goals and intentions, the ones where there’s something we perceive we should do, we think surrender is not an option. We insist on trying to make our intentions happen. We use force, we manipulate. We get personally involved instead of letting go and letting the majesty of the universe do its glorious thing. The tactic of aggressiveness sometimes works, but it invariably employs “weak energy,” an energy that will always play second fiddle to the simple power of willingness.
Willingness brings openness and flexibility and new possibilities. It’s the prerequisite for changing anything in your life, the starting point for manifesting goodness.
I understand your desire to push, to go, go, go. It’s the cultural norm. We’ve all heard some version of these statements:
“You have to fight for what you want in this world.”
“You have to put your nose to the grindstone.”
“Nothing comes easy.”
“If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.”
But there is another way. And it’s simple willingness.
By cultivating a willing mind and being willing to approach things in a new way, you’ll come from a place of power. You’ll find an energy that unifies, that encourages wholeness.
Yes, this energy is invisible (making it a lot harder to trust for some folks), but, in reality, it’s more tangible and powerful than forcing and grunting and groaning will ever be.
To change your life for the better, you simply connect with the power of the universe and then step back and allow it all to unfold with ease and grace.
And just so you know, there’s still time to enter the E-Cubed Selfie Challenge, the contest where every single entrant wins. You might win a free cruise or a pair of tickets to one of the four North American I Can Do It! conferences, sponsored by Hay House with all your favorite authors. Hope to see you there.
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 just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
“As long as your experience of self and life is defined by the mechanical, conditioned, and compulsive movement of thought, you are bound to a very, very limited perception of what is real.”–Adyashanti
It starts the moment we’re born. Doctors (or probably nurses these days) measure and weigh us, giving us the message that there’s a proper height and weight we need to be.
Then we learn that language (and all the rules conveyed by language) is more important than those imaginary friends that tell us exactly what we need to know.
Spirit, the universe, the F.P., God (lots of synonyms for this thing I often call the Divine Buzz) has never deserted us, but we’re so busy with our dark clouds of guilt and shame, the “should storm” that begins the moment all the frightened adults start administering “tests,” that we fail to notice, we fail to appreciate its unending gifts.
Even the self-help literature (and, yes, I’m one of its dispensers) sometimes makes us feel guilty. Oh no! I’m having a negative thought. Oh, no! I’m not vibrating enough joy.
You know what? It doesn’t matter. If you simply let go of all the “shoulds” that have infiltrated the Truth of who you are, you will be guided, blessed and constantly taken care of.
As my lesson in A Course in Miracles says today: The only sacrifice asked by this Infinite Intelligence is to give up all suffering, all sense of loss and sadness, all anxiety and doubt.
The good news is that minus the “should storm,” LOVE comes streaming in, healing all pain and granting the awareness of eternal joy.
Also want to share this beautiful blog that a friend sent me. It’s more of the new and improved headlines we all wrote yesterday.
And lastly, Hay House would like me to remind you that both E-Squared and E-Cubed are going for a measly $1.99 on the Amazon Kindle store.
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 just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
“People love their mental prison cells because it gives them a sense of security and a false sense of, ‘I know.’”—Eckhart Tolle
I LOVE this picture with 15 of God’s adorable angels. It was sent to me by the inimitable Becky Buckman, who is teaching the principles of E-Squared and E-Cubed to inmates at a maximum security prison in Nashville, Tennesse. As she says, “I love teaching LOA to these ‘tough on the outside” men who are continuing to expand the way they think and empower themselves.”
I was so thrilled that my fabulous publisher, Hay House, donated books for their next session beginning November 8. I also want to thank Becky for inventing a new word from my name. She now says, “She is groutful, which is one step better even than being grateful.”
I hope she’ll report back with results of this upcoming eight-week class, but in the meantime, here’s a blog post (as I mentioned I’m in Helsinki this week, rocking the casbah at the Glo Art Hotel) from Linda Ford, a Martha Beck master coach who has blessed us here on the blog in the past. Take it away, Linda:
THE POWER OF NOT CLOSING DOWN
Remember when you were a kid playing with your friends, and you lost the game you were playing, or you came-in last at the race, or you realized that you just couldn’t keep up or compete with your friends? Do you also remember walking away with a temper tantrum and saying out loud in frustration: I don’t want to play anymore!
We may be grown-ups now, but many of us still react this way when life doesn’t give us the relationship we’re longing for, the job we desire, or the house of our dreams. And unfortunately, many of us see our disappointment and frustration as a reason to close down, especially if you’ve been waiting a long time. It’s the grown up version of I don’t want to play anymore.
I have a client (who I’ll call Mary). She’s gone through years of feeling frustrated and despondent because she never seems get what she wants. Life is one big struggle. She recently experienced a huge disappointment when a job she had high hopes of getting and which she had invested a lot of time interviewing for, didn’t pan out. Here’s what she told me:
I feel as if I’m back in the trenches, starting all over again. Other people don’t seem to go through this prolonged crap that I go though. How long is this going to go on?
Mary’s tendency to want to close down when she doesn’t get what she wants is a pattern that also shows up in her relationship life. She goes on dates, and ends up feeling depressed and disappointed that the guys aren’t a match for she’s looking for.
What Mary and many of us don’t get, is that when circumstances don’t match up to our desires—when we experience red flags that something is not quite right with a job or a date—it’s not because we’re unlucky or unable to attract, or because we’re not favored by the gods. It’s just that we need more fine-tuning and personal alignment. We need to do the inner work.
We don’t get what we want because we continue to play out a vibration with our words and feelings that tell the universe that we don’t want to play anymore. And in that moment of disappointment (and it’s a pivotal moment!) we make the decision (and the huge mistake) for the umpteenth time, to close down and let our negative emotions sweep over us and dictate our energy. And once again, the door to everything we want gets slammed shut in our face.
What if instead of seeing your disappointment and frustration as just another indication that you’re unlucky or cursed, you saw it as an opportunity for fine-tuning your desires? What if you saw the job or relationship you didn’t get, as an opportunity to line up with a bigger and better version of what you want? What if you saw your defeat as an opportunity to practice unconditional self- love? What if you saw the let down as a way to get CLARITY?
People who are getting what they want in life don’t go off in a temper tantrum. They stay in the game. They don’t buy into the thought that they’re unlucky, or that life is out to get them. They prefer to hang out with and stay attuned to their desires rather than their disappointments. They are grateful for the clarity that’s emerging.
As savvy as we all are about the principles of the law of attraction, many of us still hold onto the belief that there are outside (external) forces that are blocking our success. We just love to pass the buck and blame something, anything but ourselves. We still secretly love to believe that some people are favored by the gods while others have been left out. We still partly believe that it’s about the family we were born into or the boss who keeps denying you that promotion. These old paradigms of thinking from the outside-in—even if they occupy just ten percent of our thinking—interfere with our ability to manifest the life we crave. Why? Because we end up NOT taking full responsibility for the quality of our thoughts and feelings. We resist doing the inner work.
What if you could finally accept that whatever is manifesting for you in life is one hundred percent because of the way YOU think and feel? What if you could finally start living from the INSIDE OUT?
The brilliant Joseph Campbell said: The gods will give you want you want, but you have to be ready for it.
I love this quote because it reminds me that I am in the control box. I am steering my own ship. And the only thing I (and Mary) have to do is get ready for the delicious life that’s waiting for us to step into.
Linda Ford is a Master Coach, personally trained by Martha Beck. Her mission is to help people get out of their own way and THRIVE. http://www.attractalife.com
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 just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
