“What’s possible” is far more important than “what is”

 “Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.” ― Gloria Steinem 

I love Michael Beckwith’s recent description of the mass media. He called it a “weapon of mass deception.”

He also said that instead of calling it news, we should call it “olds” because it tells a dying story, an antiquated anomaly that only exists because we continue to place our attention upon it.

What if instead we woke up every morning to different stories? Stories about all the spontaneous healings from the last 24 hours, stories about all the relationships that have recently been reunited, about philanthropic acts, about new innovations and creativity, about all the good that is taking place on the planet.

If we were bombarded with stories like this instead of stories about the lowest common denominator, our awareness would expand. We’d literally re-engineer, as Beckwith called it, our imaginations. We’d come to expect ever more good, more cooperation, more compassion.

The current news media wires our nervous systems for worse case scenarios. We actually believe and expect bad things to happen. We think that’s normal.

It’s not.

As always, we have a choice. We can place our attention on the news (AKA the “olds”) or we can dream of what can be. By placing our attention on new possibilities, we animate a completely different future.

Here are the headlines I’m envisioning for today:

New Zika cases around the world fall to zero

U.S. Democrats and Republicans hug it out on the Senate floor

The Middle East celebrate 10 years of peaceful coexistence

Snows return to Kilimanjaro

Pam Grout appears on Super Soul Sunday


Tell me in the comments section below: What’s your new headline?

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

Why I’m the luckiest person on the planet, Episode 18

“I can’t just sit here vibrating with my own joy— I have to write about it, I have to share it.”
— David Mason 

Thanks to the filter known as the brain, I often fail to notice the amazing gifts I receive in every moment. Right now, for example, I am getting free oxygen, support from a chair, light from the sun, technology that allows me to communicate with you even though I’m here in my Kansas office and you’re in Bangladesh, Seattle or Terre Haute, Indiana. The gifts stream in on a continuing basis.

I recently heard it called “the miraculous imbalance.” At all times, we receive  far more than we could ever give.

I love when I remember that.

Luckily,  I get reminded of the largesse of the universe every morning. I get emails from readers  who share incredible miracles with me. As I say in my new book, it’s like having my own personal self-help channel.

When I get a moment, I like to pass these stories on to you. Here are three I heard just this morning:

1. “Remember how you told us in E2 how badly you wanted to travel? And that you found the perfect job that allows you to do so? You write from any corner of the world, yes?

“Well. I made that my mission. And like you say, ‘the universe is always paying attention, it always has our backs.’

“I got fired from not one, but three different jobs, and I knew I had to continue sending out CV’s and do what I had to…..but then it hit me, did I?

“Instead of sending out 10 CV’s per day, I decided to take naps. So, that made me have a talk with creativity which inspired me to launch my own online language business.

“It has been a year now. I take my laptop anywhere I want to and work from there. And it doesn’t feel like I’m working so much as enjoying meeting people from different sides of the world.

“It is so awesome. Life is so good to you when you are good to yourself, and trust.

Right now, for example, I am sitting in an apartment I rented in the beautiful city of Queretaro, Mexico.

2. “Your book E2 came at the perfect time for me. I am a small business owner and I was struggling to find personnel for my store.

“Inspired by you, I decided to create a vision board where I put pictures of the type of people I wanted to attract along with the affirmation “the person I am looking for is also looking for me and will find me”.

Within 48 hours, I hired a girl who is perfect for me and is moving from Florida to Massachusetts… to the same town where my business is! We are meeting in three days.

Thank you for your wisdom and for reminding me what I had forgotten: we are magical beings.

3. The last story comes from a member of one of my possibility posses. She just graduated from college two weeks ago. Last week, while taking a shower, she thought to herself, “I think I’ll start looking for a job today.” She got out of the shower and found a message on her phone from an architect firm (that she hadn’t contacted or even heard of) asking her to call them for an interview. She starts today.

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

All you gotta do is ask: a Friday love story

“The universe waits for the perfect time to whisper in your ear, ‘Look this way.’”—Amy Poehler 

Thought I’d share a fun story to kick off the weekend.

A chiropractor from Marco Island was reading E-Squared. She asked for a sign about her relationship with her boyfriend who, after a beautiful winter together in Florida, was returning to Canada. Before boarding a plane to Tennessee (they were both flying to a friend’s wedding), she got very still and, from her heart, said, “Hey dude, I could use a sign about this wonderful man who is heading home soon to Canada!”

Here’s what happened:

1. The flight attendant congratulated them on their marriage. That was odd since a) they are not married, b) they are not engaged and c) they hadn’t mentioned they were heading to a wedding.

2. The taxi driver also congratulated them on their marriage. Again, why would he say something like this out of nowhere?

3. That night at dinner, after returning from the ladies’ room, she found a card waiting for her. It was from her boyfriend and it said, “When you know, you know.” Yep, even though she had no idea this was coming, he asked her to marry him.

4. The next day, at the wedding, where she was a bridesmaid, guess who caught the bouquet?

Congratulations to the happy couple. And congratulations to all of us who are starting to get it, that indeed the universe is just waiting for us to ask.

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 your unapologetically weird self.

“God wants us to put this stuff down now. He wants us to wear the world like a loose garment. And be of good cheer.”—Mary Karr

I headlined this post with the advice venture capitalist Chris Sacca gave to the 2011 graduates of the Carlton School of Management.

Every last one of us is weird and different and that’s a beautiful thing. Diversity is not something to be threatened by. Or to avoid. It’s to be celebrated.

Instead of reaching for the spring-loaded trigger, we should all bust out laughing. The commentary on this blog over the last few days reminds me of a Saturday Night Live sketch. And I’m a huge fan of Saturday Night Live.

Thank you all. I so appreciate your support, your funny comments (imagine disowning someone because they prefer bleu cheese salad dressing or penny loafers) and the reminders that baby, it’s high time to rev up our love engines.

Those old habits of defending our positions might have worked in cavemen days, when saber tooth tigers were trying to rip elk meat from our baby’s mouth. But it’s 2016.

And it’s time to create some new habits, some new beliefs. It’s time to quit gnawing on old miseries and start enjoying the now.

Several of you wondered why I would apologize. It’s not because I did anything wrong. It’s because it felt like the loving choice. Because it’s my spiritual practice to know that, in Truth, nothing can hurt me.

So if I’m asked to apologize, why not? One of my many gurus said if someone asks for your cloak give them your “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt, as well.

Remember it isn’t agreement with others we need. It’s agreement with ourselves.

So I’m hoping the uproar can die down and we can all get back to dreaming, loving, believing in new possibilities.

Again, thank you all so very much.

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

It’s official: I’m not the poster child (nor have I ever aspired to be) for perfect human being

“The history of my stupidity could fill volumes.”—Czeslaw Milosz

I believe in saying thank you for everything. I think there’s a gift (a pony underneath the dung for those who’ve heard the joke about the excited kid on his birthday) in every circumstance. Even those that might appear, at onset, less than desirable.

Yesterday (and I’ve been more or less obsessing about it ever since), I wrote a post about my excitement over a particular political candidate. I’ve been known to gush about many things—books I love, music, movies, other authors. I don’t expect others to like the same books, movies, music. It’s a diverse planet, something I celebrate daily.

However, this particular spurt of enthusiasm did the exact opposite of what I most want: to promote love and peace and understanding. Let’s just say, it was a huge fail. I was shocked really at the strong reaction it provoked. People were more or less shouting, “off with her head!”

My first reaction was, “well, fine. I’ll just quit writing my blog.” But that’s petty and little and not the person I aspire to be. My only goal remains to love to the very best of my ability. That’s it.

Needless to point out, I’m an imperfect human being. I make many missteps and will continue to make many more.

Since I believe change starts on the inside, the angry reaction I got prompted me to take a good look at the part of me that still feels insecure and easily hurt. As I always say, you don’t notice your mascara is smeared and try to fix it on the mirror. You fix it the only place where it can be fixed—on (or in this case IN) yourself.

So thank you, all—those who stood up for my right to express an opinion (one of the things I’m grateful for is that I have that right) and for those who basically acted out that part of myself that still feels like a poser.

I’m deeply sorry I offended anyone. And I hope each of you (especially those who took on the role of my inner critic) has the very best, amazingly awesome weekend of your life.

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.

Your soul is too beautiful to do anything but shine light and love.

“At any moment, you are perfectly free to see the radiant beauty of the real world pervading all things.”—The Way of Mastery

In the interest of dismantling old paradigms, here are two stories I love:

When Pancho Ramos Stierle was getting his PhD in astrophysics at UC Berkeley, he was involved in a hunger strike to protest the university’s involvement in nuclear weapons.

After nine days, university muckety-mucks got tired of fasting students blocking walkways so they sent cops to break it up. Amid the melee, Pancho was brutally handcuffed and slammed into the pavement by a police officer who was much bigger than him.

I don’t know about you, but I’d have probably been a little miffed. At very least, I’d have been righteously indignant.

Pancho made a different choice. He looked the officer in the eye and said, “I know you’re just doing your job and I forgive you. I want you to know that I am not doing this for me. I am not doing this for you. I am doing it for your children and the children of your children.”

The officer was a bit befuddled.

Pancho asked him his name and said, “Brother, let me guess, I bet you like Mexican food.”

After an awkward pause, “Well, yeah.”

“I know this place in San Franciso that has the best carnitas and fajitas and quesadillas,” Pancho says. “How about after I get done with this and you get done with this, let’s get together and have lunch there?”

In other words, Pancho brought Truth into the story. We are all one and when appearances seem to defy this, it is our task to remember—there is no enemy. And we are all way too beautiful to be anything that perpetuates the old story of separation.

The other story I love is about a dancing principal who makes going to school loads of fun.

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.

Why I’m the luckiest person on the planet, Episode 14

“Eventually you will see that the real cause of problems is not life, but the commotion the mind makes about life.”—Michael Singer

I’m in Costa Rica, on a Pacific beach, hanging out with my daughter, writing my new book.

But that’s not why I’m the luckiest person on the planet. I’m immensely blessed because of all of you. You guys so rock! I’ve said it before, but I constantly feel like Sally Field when she gushed, “You like me, you really like me.”

So thank you for being so generous and kind and well, liking me and my running bra thoughts from the last post. It really blew me away. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I’m also constantly wowed by the cool stories you send that only add add further proof that the universe adores us all and is trying like bloody hell to point that out.

Here’s a story from Hillary from Toronto:

“I recently took my first vacation by myself to Paris. It was a last minute decision. I was at a work conference in Amsterdam. I was a little nervous that I’d be alone the entire time…especially during dinners!

“I do daily manifestations all the time because I love seeing them turn up in joyful ways. On the Sunday I arrived, I chose yellow bows to manifest. Sunday goes by and nothing, but I was exploring the Parisian streets so no big deal. Monday goes by…still no yellow bows…but I was having a great time none the less. I met some nice ladies at dinner.

“Tuesday I did a food tour, and it was awesome! My tour guide invited me for drinks after and helped me get to my next destination, the Catacombs! I still wanted my yellow bows though😉

“She took me to the subway and explained how to get there. While I was on the subway, this guy in colorful attire noticed I looked confused as I stared at the mass intertwining of subway lines for the Paris underground. He asked where I was going and if I needed help.

Turned out he and his bandmates were going to the Catacombs as well, they were from L.A. (on a side note ever since I started pursuing being a musician, I am a musical magnet lol). I had such a great time with these guys, especially the colorful one that first approached me.

His name was Sal. We had a special connection immediately and spent the rest of the day and night together and decided to remain friends. Can you guess what color his shoe laces were?”

Big, bright yellow bows.

I’m offering a new experiment in the Hay House World Summit that begins May 9. If you register now, you’re entitled to five free videos. 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 recently-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.

Are you terrorizing yourself with your thoughts about food?

“We are all love just looking for a place to happen.”—Esther Hicks

I leave for Switzerland in about two hours. I’m giving a workshop in Bern and then I’m off to Norway for a travel assignment. Among other things, I’ll be sleeping in a snow hotel (just one night), enjoying a Viking dinner and viewing (knock on wood) the Northern Lights.

But I simply have to share this amazing blog post I got from a friend yesterday. Do yourself a favor and read it yourself (it can be accessed here), but to summarize, my friend Linda, like most of us, had picked up a lot of “rules” about how and what to eat. You know the feeling. Guilt if you eat too much sugar. Confusion over whether you’re getting the right amount of carbs. Shame if you went off the damned diet you vowed to begin January (or February or March) 1.

Starting Christmas, Linda was having trouble with her eyes. She tried everything and finally decided to surrender and ask the bigger thing for help. Almost immediately, a voice, very clearly, said the following: “You have terrorized yourself with your thoughts about your body and food, declaring that food is MORE powerful than your thoughts. It is exactly the opposite… but as with all things, your thoughts have “made it so.” Your body obediently overreacts to many foods now. And you hold the fear of that all the time. Are you ready for an undoing?”

Being no dummy, she said, “YES! Please undo this for me.” She gave the fear to God, the F.P., the Divine Buzz, the thing that has so many synonyms, none of which begin to do it justice.

I’m sure you can guess what happened. But again, go here and read her story.

The other thing I want to share is that the word “desire” comes from a French word that means “of the Father.” So if you, like most of us in Worldview 1.0, feel at all guilty for wanting stuff, it’s time to let that go. It’s time to feel innocent about your desires and to know that your intentions and dreams are actually God’s way of expanding itself. Yep, your desires are holy.

With that being said, I want to extend the deadline for the E-Cubed Selfie Challenge. I know I said it was yesterday, but because I’m about to fly across the ocean, I won’t be passing out prizes until I return. So post those selfies (a picture of you with your HIGHEST desire) to my Facebook page and get entered to win tickets to all four of this year’s North American “I Can Do it” conferences.

They’re going to be life-changing. And as I’ve said, every single person wins because once you make a new vision for yourself, the universe begins to conspire to bring it to fruition.

I’ll probably check in with ya’ll when I’m in Europe, but, either way, have a stupendous couple of weeks.

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.

Lessons learned on the pity pot

“You move away from reality when you believe there is a legitimate reason to suffer.” –Byron Katie

Judgment by Rosea Lake

Okay, so I’ve been a bit blah this week, not really motivated to do much. I laid under my down comforter, read, called friends, worried about stuff.

And this morning I woke up realizing what a powerful lesson I created for myself. I learned, once again (don’t you love how opportunities to grow never stop circling the wagons?) that my judgments are the only thing blocking the Truth of who I am.

Like everybody else, I am a radiating transmitter tower constantly sending out signals. I draw to myself exact vibrational matches to what I expect, what I believe.

And when I judge myself (yes, I was berating myself for not being motivated, not living up to the ideas I write about), the love and joy of the universe (in other words Truth) can’t get through my cloud. It bounces right off my judgments, faithfully letting through only what I choose to perceive.

I woke up this morning totally getting how exciting this it. Totally appreciating how cool it is that I create it all and that, by simply choosing to love it all and own it all (my judgments about myself can get quite creative, they’re often Oscar-worthy), I get even more love and joy. Right now, with this lesson under my belt, I am buzzing and happy and so grateful that for several days this week, I got to see a perfect example of my infinite power of creation in living color.

As the old idiom suggests, “It’s all good.”

Thank you, universe!! Thank you, friends.

And, as I always like to say on Fridays, “Have the best weekend of your life.”

I know I will.

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.

Be crazy with love. Love, even when it makes no sense.

“We all long for love. Everything else is just killing time.”
–Kenny Loggins

A reader of E-Squared wrote to me asking how to draw love into his life. I always chuckle at that question because the bottom-line truth is theres no need to draw love TO us, because love is who we are. It’s our number one super power. And we don’t have to seek for it…ever.

It also reminded me of a blog post I wrote for Valentine’s Day two years ago. Thought in honor of the upcoming holiday, it might be time to repeat it. Here goes:

Most people hear the word “love” and immediately think of long white dresses, tuxes and diamond rings. Our tendency to associate love with romance is a gaping blind spot. Not only are there millions of people to love (forget your quest to zero in on Mr. or Ms. Right), but there are million of ideas, millions of causes, million of quests to fall in love with.

Take Dale Price, for example. This stay-at-home dad from American Fork, Utah, has spent the past three years waving at his high school son’s bus dressed in weird costumes, a different one every day. It started the first day of his son’s sophomore year when he realized the bus, for the first time, would drive down their street. Price greeted the bus (and his embarrassed son) that first day wearing a football helmet. From there, his creativity grew. He has waved at the bus dressed as Elvis, Fred Flintstone, Santa Claus and, once, a lampshade. He and Rain, the red-faced son, ended up on Good Morning America and the resulting blog, Wave at the Bus, has received millions of hits and raised money for Rain’s college fund, although his dad is quick to admit it may also end up being used for therapy.

Or take Matt Harding who fell in love with traveling. In 2003, while in Hanoi, his traveling buddy videotaped him dancing, a rather kooky arm-flapping, march popular with adolescent boys at middle school dances. And then he videotaped Matt dancing in Tonga. And in the Philippines, Mali and the Panama Canal. The video on the resulting “Where the Hell is Matt?” website shows a grinning Matt bouncing up and down in 69 countries. What’s more, the underlying, if unplanned message of unbounded human joy and connection comes across loud and clear.

“There are no words on the video and I’m not trying to get anybody to doing anything,” Harding say, “It just makes people happy.”

The point is, there are lots of ways to make people happy, lots of ways to love. Don’t sit around waiting for your soul mate. Be crazy with love. Love when it makes no sense. Love in all it bewildering ways, shapes and styles.

Happy Valentine’s Day.