kindness – Pam Grout

Imagining a new world

November 9, 2021 8 Comments

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”–Terry Pratchett

In response to a comment on my last blog post, I stated that I have a crush on all of humanity. And I meant it. We humans are utterly fascinating creatures, star dust all, random collections of molecules.

My latest crush is Adrienne Maree Brown, a black, queer activist from Detroit. I heard her interviewed by Tami Simon and was fascinated by her wisdom, her clarity and the following ideas:

We live in a world and a culture that was imagined by someone else. It’s not permanent—even though we often think it is. Many of the stories and beliefs we still act upon today were created long ago and way too many revolve around want, accumulation and fear. They’re not working anymore. The cool thing is we can change them.

How? Fractal responsibility. A fractal, of course, is a pattern that repeats itself on many levels—in the universe and in a tiny cell. So to change the world, we can begin by altering our own personal fractal.

As Brown says, “Fractal responsibility is saying, How do I operate in a way that is responsible to my vision, in a way that’s not just pointing fingers and asking other people to change, but recognizing the kind of change I can make in the world is directly related to the change I’m willing to make within myself.”

For example, democracy. Rather than rail at what seems like threats to our country’s promise of equality, I can look at my own home where (gulp!) I don’t consistently practice democracy. My arrogant position too often is “Well, I bought the house, I pay the bills. I should make the decisions.” That’s not fair or democratic to Jim, my long-time partner. And that’s something I CAN change.

She also talked about pleasure activism, what she calls “a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work.”

In other words, let’s make the revolution irresistible. Let’s make it impossible to want anything else. My mission has always been to create a path (to equality, freedom, creativity, joy, etc) that’s so compelling that people can’t imagine walking any other.

If you’re interested, here’s the interview that compelled me to bring home three of adrienne maree brown’s books:

Embracing Pleasure, Fractal Responsibility, and the Power of Our Imagination – Sounds True

#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)

Boundary or Itty-Bitty Box?

June 29, 2021 39 Comments

“Love is a built-in strength that’s far more effective than all the usual means of self-defense.”—D. Patrick Miller

It’s de rigueur these days to set boundaries. It’s okay for so and so to do this, but if he dares step over this self-imposed line in my sand, it’s curtains for him.

Here’s why I prefer to eliminate boundaries. Every person, no matter how they present on the outside, has dreams and wants to give love. And every person, unless they’re Jesus or Buddha or maybe Oprah Winfrey, also has their ugly parts, the parts that judge and want attention and do things that, on the outside, aren’t pleasant to be around.

But those traits are temporary, usually caused by some belief that involves their own safety as they perceive it to be.

Over and over again, I get proof that every living being (including birds and trees and ants) is much more complex than I can ever know. And for me to think I have enough information to make a judgement about really anything is a foolish conceit.

My mission, rather than to protect myself from what looks like some slight or wrong, is to stay open and draw out the truth, to feed the part, even if it seems invisible, that dreams and wants to give love.

I’m doing little things to prove that my judgments about others are limited. For example, there’s a waitress at a café I frequent that, in my less than magnanimous moments, I compare to a Nazi. My judgmental self thinks she’s controlling and has used the pandemic to impose “her rules.” For a while, I avoided this restaurant and even shared a few anecdotes with my friends about her “unacceptable behavior.”

Until it occurred to me that I could be wrong. And that, if I treat her (and even think of her) as the loving, friendly, happy person she truly is, I would notice those qualities.

Now, I go there every chance I get, give her way bigger-than-necessary tips and am constantly treated to the medicinal properties of my own kindness.

Those boundaries that everyone thinks are so important not only limit the person I judge, but they lock me into a cramped box that’s getting more uncomfortable all the time.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be released from all sense of threat, all tight places that limit me in any way. Wishing you big, bounteous love and freedom in every area of your life. #222 Forever

Why it’s time to be recklessly generous and relentlessly kind

July 13, 2016 15 Comments

“We need a million Martin Luther Kings to show up right now.”—Kyle Cease

Josh Radnor, the guy who played Ted Mosby on How I Met Your Mother, is one of my heroes. He meditates daily and knows the inner landscape (not the trappings of Hollywood) is the important thing. I thought it would be a good time to bring up one of his quotes, perhaps my favorite, about kindness.

Here’s what he said:

“It’s not our job to play judge and jury, to determine who is worthy of our kindness and who is not. We just need to be kind, unconditionally and without ulterior motive, even – or rather, especially – when we’d prefer not to be.”

When we choose kindness and generosity in whatever situation we find ourselves, to whomever happens to be in front of us, it opens a crack that enables us to see a whole different reality.

That tiny twist—a smile, offering a hand, even just being generous in thought—not only changes the inner landscape, but it creates a ripple effect. It reminds us, “Here’s how the world could be.”

Generosity doesn’t fit the narrative, not in a me-me-me world. And that’s the very thing that shakes up the old story, the very thing that flips the dominant paradigm.

Which is why Kyle Cease is spot on–the world is crying out for a whole country full of Martin Luther Kings.

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

Be recklessly generous and relentlessly kind

November 20, 2015 13 Comments

Left to its own devices, the human mind is quick to jump to conclusions, leap towards fear and cower in the face of possibilities. That’s why I’ve made “training my mind” priority numero uno. On a daily basis, I instruct it to look for beauty. Encourage it to seek out the bigger picture, to focus on the love and the seemingly impossible.

Yes, it’s an incorrigible slacker. Keeps returning to familiar old ruts. Keeps listening to the spin doctor that looks at the world as a potentially scary place. Insists on focusing on the “information” from my five senses, from the news media, from the default setting that says, “Be careful. Worry. Don’t even think about learning to trust.”

So I just keep getting back up in the saddle, directing my mind to focus on what I know to be Truth. That everybody in the world really loves each other and that kindness is always the answer.

I’m often asked, “How is that even possible?” when the “what you see” looms so large in your mind.

And all I can say is it’s the same as the answer to the old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

Practice, practice, practice.

So, quit talking about the “world as it seems” and start practicing the way you’d like it to be.

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 is your Full-time Gig.

Be recklessly generous and relentlessly kind.

April 13, 2015 25 Comments

“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.

“Light is going to win.”—Michael Beckwith

October 1, 2013 8 Comments

“Don’t fight forces; use them.”― Buckminster Fuller

With all the apparent dysfunction in the news, I thought this would be a good time to point out some of the good that’s “trending,” to use a word that might have been invented by Twitter, right now.

1. We have a pope who is open and loving and actually acting like Jesus.

2. The leaders of the U.S. and Iran talked for the first time in 34 years.

3. Recent polls show 65 percent of Americans favor gay marriage. Just a few years ago, ago, 65 percent were opposed. What changed? Our consciousness is moving towards love and acceptance.

4. And there are people all over the world doing really nice things for each other like my friend, Rhonda, who left candy for her recycle collectors.

Politicians may not be able to get it together quite yet, but the rest of us, in our refusal to believe in anything but love and connection, can lead the way.

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.

Why it’s time for an intervention from the relentless 24/7 media

January 17, 2013 1 Comment

“Violence is interesting which makes it a great obstacle to world peace and more thoughtful television programming.” –P.J. O’Rourke

Crisis, conflict and violence are the prevailing themes of our 24/7 media. If some stranger talked to us the way newscasters do, we’d tell them to go jump in a lake. Likewise, if our boyfriends made us feel the way headlines often do, our friends would line up for an intervention. ‘Toss the jerk out on his head,’ they’d say.”

Living in fear sells products, creates economies, elects politicians and keeps the flying monkeys on the job. But it’s not the truth about the world.

The reality is that the world is safer today than at anytime in history. The murder rate has plummeted in the last ten years. School shootings are no more prevalent than they were in “Leave it to Beaver” days. In fact, collaboration, goodness and, yes, love are the norm.

It’s just that the dominant paradigm, the one we’ve blindly bought into is “life sucks.” Any thought to the contrary is sidelined immediately by the 27-inch box in the corner of most of our living rooms (and kitchen and bedrooms). In fact, if you pay attention to the box–and most of us use it to form our view of reality–you have little choice but to conclude that murder, rape, war, and genocide is the human condition.

But if you look at it scientifically, the math just doesn’t work out. For every Koran-burning Terry Jones, there are 335,000 ministers who aren’t burning the Koran, who are espousing peace and love and tolerance. For every Scott Peterson, there’s 58.9 million husbands who didn’t murder their wives.

Every day, we’re spoon-fed “news” about missing children, identity theft, the mild-mannered neighbor who walks into work with an AK-47 and a bomb pack and blows up his boss and 27 co-workers.

Why do we think this is news?

On the same day (February 18, 2008), two-year-old Karissa Jones was abducted from her home in Louisville, Kentucky (by her father, as it turns out), there were 53,298 two-year-olds in Kentucky who didn’t get abducted, who were safe and sound at home, happily sipping apple juice from their Winnie-the-Pooh high chairs. Nearly a million children of all ages in Kentucky also didn’t get abducted that same day.

Why is Karissa the “news?”

News, by definition, is new information that teaches people about the world. Picking out what happened to two-one thousandth of one percent of the state’s two-year-olds is not an accurate picture of the world. If you ask me, what happened to the other 53,298 two-year-olds is a bigger story. Or at least it’s more realistic news.

What you see on the newscasts at night, what you read in the morning newspaper is not a realistic perception of our world. It’s an anomaly, an out-of-character thing that happened at one moment in time. News junkies pride themselves on believing they’re well-informed. Because they know what Ann Curry said about the latest layoffs at Boeing and what Morley Safer reported on the earthquake in New Zealand, they smugly believe they’re up on current events.

But do they know about the African-American postman in Germantown, Tennessee who jumped into a lake to save a couple whose brakes went out of their car when they were coming home from a hospital dialysis treatment? Do they know about the Marysville, Kansas attorney who flew, on his own dime, to Israel to donate a kidney to a 10-year-old he’d never met?

Thinking you’re informed because you watch the news is like thinking you understand a zoo when you’ve only seen the “Z” on the entryway sign. It’s not a complete picture, guys. It’s not even a good picture. I’m not going to argue that you can’t find the letter “Z” at any zoo. But if you try to convince me you’re a zoo expert or even that you have a faint understanding of what a zoo is all about because you’ve seen a “Z,” well, I’m sorry, I have no choice but to argue.

Attention-grabbing headlines and newscasts are nothing more than a sales tool, no more “factual” than “The Simpsons.” Isolated incidences get turned into frightening trends and our own thoughts have become conditioned to leap to the worst.

The mission of this blog is to free readers from the straitjacket of the relentless news media. Instead of asking “What’s wrong?,” a question we hear over and over again, I’d like to pose a simple question with the power to change the world: “What’s right?”