“Everyone gets an A+ in the end.”—Elizabeth Gilbert
Last weekend, one of my possibility posses threw a retreat. There wasn’t a leader, an agenda or really any kind of planning except someone offering to bring food.
We spent Saturday and Sunday together dancing, playing games, star-gazing, hot tubbing and letting Spirit take the lead.
It was pure magic.
And the real beauty is we didn’t orchestrate any of it.
Which makes me wonder what would happen if humans could just yank the cord, abandon the rules, give up the programming, forsake all the planning.
If we truly trust that the universe has our back, if we really KNOW how deeply, deeply cherished and loved we are, couldn’t we just relax. Laugh. Dance.
The lessons from Course in Miracles the past few days have encouraged us to recognize that we’re the ones creating the world.
Our thoughts — the ones that encourage fealty to the old story, to the fear, to the limitations — make images that replace true vision.
But like the headline of this post points out, “It’s all coming from inside us.”
What we see out there are images we concocted. And they’re not real. They block us from seeing that the world we live in is actually alive, intelligent and forever supportive.
At the retreat, someone mentioned a woman she knew who spoke great spiritual wisdom. And she did it with two simple words.
T’aint so.
Whenever anyone began discussing a problem –no matter what it was—she’d listen, shake her head and say, “T’aint so.”
Or as another friend said quoting, I think it was Abraham-Hicks, “If you could believe and trust that everything is so very all right, it would immediately and instantly become very all right.”
‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’”—C.S. Lewis
This photo came up in FB memories this morning. It’s the amazing team that hosted me in Japan 10 years ago today. Notice they’re wearing my face on their heads!
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I was thinking about that quote while walking to this morning’s possibility posse.
And I decided to amend it just slightly:
Even if something IS broke (or appears to be), don’t fix it. Here’s why:
Trying to fix something churns up energy of brokenness. Of things not being “okay.”
And I rarely (maybe never?) have enough perspective to truly judge that something is “not okay.”
When I completely surrender to life, when I trust implicitly that life loves me and wants nothing but my greatest good, I have to bow to every experience as a gift. Why would I choose to return it or attempt to amend it?
I notice when I refuse to churn up resistance, which is exactly what happens every time I judge something as needing to be worked on, life has a way of “fixing,” if you want to call it that, all that’s amiss. It works like magic.
Allowing, in my world, is a gazillion times more powerful than attracting or fixing or trying to change anything.
One of the themes of my new book is “Just stop!” Stop getting so involved. Stop thinking you need yet another course or teacher or book (touche!). Putting your attention on things that need to be improved, fixed or changed simply solidifies the mess.
I shared a story that I may have shared before (forgive me if that’s the case, although I notice I need continual reminders) about a friend who had quit trying to fix her relationship status.
Or rather she gave up looking for a relationship. She knew quite clearly the qualities she wanted, but nope, she vowed, never gonna seek again.
She joked that if she was ever going to be in a relationship, her perfect partner would have to knock on her door.
Instead, she started paying attention to all the things she loved. She put her attention on all the beautiful things in her life.
Within a month or two, the guy she was married to for 44 years (he shuffled off the mortal coil last year) literally knocked on her apartment door in New York City.
Rickie Byars is going to be singing, there’s a Sound Bath and a Candle Light Labyrinth Walk and well, it’s completely free. The idea is to put so much energy into possibility and peace and joy that planetary consciousness will noticeably shift. Did I mention it’s free???
I’ll be there, not presenting, but working the booth with Robin Goff and her remarkable LoveLights organization. You may remember the Taz Grout 222 Foundation contributed to their mission earlier this year. It was such a great honor to be in South Africa at the Ubuntu Camps in January.
So if you’re anywhere near, please come, say hi and let me give you a big, sloppy hug!
It is going to be epic.
In closing, let me just say, as they do in Unity, ‘I love you, I appreciate you and I behold the Christ within you.”
I am headed out of town and, in lieu of a post, I thought I’d send this little ditty.
We sang it Sunday at one of the possibility posses. It’s a Y.O.U. (Youth of Unity) standard and, as I always say, follow the young ones. They haven’t yet cemented in all the conditioning and rationality and patterns that get stuck in our adult heads.
Every day, we have the chance to let go of yesterday and start anew.
“I feel nothing but deep gratitude to be part of this whole cosmic mess.”—Nick Cave
One of my possibility posses is currently running a month-long experiment. The question we’ve posed is this: “What would life be like if we knew just how deeply loved and forgiven and taken care of we really are?”
If we knew this fact beyond a shadow of a doubt, how would we approach each day?
With nothing to fear or worry over or question, the only reasonable expenditure of time would be to just stop and enjoy everything this astonishingly beautiful world has to offer.
The only reason life so often seems the polar opposite of our “hypothesis” is because we’ve been programmed to believe the polar opposite. From the time we’re born, we’ve been trained into a life story that tells us we are each a separate self, competing with all the other separate selves in a world that’s dominated by scarcity.
And, unfortunately, the brain is partial to its old patterns and familiar pathways and goes out looking for things to affirm them.
Which is why I continue to share miracles stories, to keep reminding myself and others of things that aren’t rational or “normal” or conform to what we’ve been taught.
Here are three I heard last week:
Eighteen years ago, when he was 21, “Joe” was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was given a few months to live. Doctors wanted him to immediately begin chemo. He said, “no.” Rather than put “that poison” as he called it, into his body, he proclaimed he was healthy and free. That, he said, was his divine right as a perfect child of God. Well, guess where “Joe” was when he shared this story nearly two decades later? Hiking the Appalachian trail.
The second story is from a woman who had attended a Zoom pop-up possibility posse back in 2022. At the time, she had just been admitted into a long covid clinic in Montana where she was told her lung function was 50 percent. She was having to move back to her mom’s home in Minnesota. Well, when she wrote to me last week, she was currently in the Caribbean island of Dominica, having a blast and getting ready to travel to Peru.
Lastly is a story from a woman who had read the first version of E-Squared. While doing the Volkswagen Jetta experiment, she skipped right over yellow cars and butterflies and decided to look for luxury BMW X’s. Sure enough, she spotted many during the 48-hour experiment, but within a few weeks, she was also presented with “an offer she couldn’t refuse” to see one every day in her own garage. Yes, she now owns a BMW X.
So friends, I ask you today–what would your life be like if you threw aside the limited narrative your brain keeps weaving? What if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were deeply, deeply loved, 100 percent safe and always being looked after?
“The world is an exquisite place if you can just stop for a moment.”—Chris Rush
The above headline is from yesterday’s Course in Miracles lesson. It might be my favorite lesson. But then I say that about a lot of the lessons.
Preparing for miracles is more or less my intention every day. To open my mind, to change the story I’ve long believed. As long as I limit myself to what everyone else accepts as possible, as long as I cling to what my culture tells me is statistically likely, that’s all I will ever see.
The Course says life comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and wonderful as those I could ever dream of or wish for. And that if I just surrender what I learned is possible, I will be led and guided every moment of every day.
As you know since you’ve joined this party called a blog, miracle stories drop like rain into my inbox.
I got one yesterday from a brilliant filmmaker in Moscow who was reading, E-Squared. She asked to see something that everyone knows is impossible—something that just couldn’t happen because of the snow, the cold, the….you get the picture. Yet, the very thing she asked to see (a butterfly) appeared within moments.
She said she was covered in goosebumps and wanted to cry from delight. Me thinks, that’s a reasonable plan (being covered in goosebumps) for every day.
And why not? I’ve been thinking about how we create reality. And how we don’t really start “creating” until the third act when everything on the stage of life has already been drawn up and decided upon.
But what if everything that has been drawn up, always by someone other than me, is completely wrong and only appears to be true because that’s what was created back then.
If we truly create our reality, then we need to let go of all beliefs that were automatically bestowed upon us by well-meaning parents and a culture that has historically invested in fear and scarcity.
Here’s a story that happened this weekend that I was trained to believe is preposterous, outlandish. The adjective “crazy pants” might have even occurred to a couple members of my possibility posse when I shared this with them yesterday.
But you know what? I am tired of believing in limitations and beliefs that offer so little, that preach protection and safety and you better watch out for those “other guys.” Why would I need to protect myself from life that only wants to give, that only wants to love me fiercely?
So I’d had a restless night and was sleeping in Taz’s room. The sun hadn’t yet come up. The birds were just barely starting to sing so I decided to go out and join them, to walk to where I could bear witness to the sun as it rose above the horizon.
All my clothes, of course, were in my bedroom where my partner was offering a contented lullaby of his own (read: quiet snoring). I did not want to wake him. Something told me to look in Taz’ closet. Say what?
But there, on a hanger, waiting for me to notice, was a long skirt and a jacket, perfect for my walk. I didn’t recognize the skirt as something Taz had ever worn and, believe me, I gazed on that girl’s beauty and style with great interest and love every time I saw her. The skirt was way longer than her normal size. I’m a good three inches taller than she was. The skirt was….drum beat…my size, my exact perfect size.
Needless to say, I went on a delightful walk in the outfit prepared just for me.
So yeah, it could have been Taz’s. But how much more fun to see it as a miracle that was prepared especially for me at the exact moment I needed it. And, from this point on, to know with complete surety that I don’t need to hoard things or prepare for things because what I need will always be provided by life that holds me in its ever-loving arms.
“Writing music is my second career. My first career is to be happy.”—Jewel
I have never had what’s considered a normal career, the kind with insurance benefits and retirement packages. Instead, I spent the years people typically use to “climb the career ladder” pursuing interesting adventures and, like Jewel, investigating practices that encourage peace, wonder and spontaneity.
I’ve come to believe that this state of pure aliveness is my natural state (yours, too) and that other states of say, stress, impatience and fear are the result of an erroneous belief system. I’ve been known to blame society and old cultural paradigms for trapping me inside the box, but I realize my own mind is also guilty of misappropriating truth from time to time.
That’s why I believe sharing miracles (the only conversation worth having, in my opinion) is so important. So here are two:
At today’s possibility posse, Jay mentioned his intention to forgive the Catholic church. We all have those institutions and legacies that seem to have hurt us. Jay, a cradle Catholic who LOVED the church, was devastated when a priest, upon learning they were gay, refused to give communion. At the time, Jay wrote the church off, but in their desire to live the most authentic, open life possible, knew forgiveness would eventually be necessary. When Jay was ready, they said it out loud. “I now forgive the Catholic church.”
Soon after, Jay opened their old childhood jewelry box and found a very unusual Catholic medallion.
“I’ve seen lots of Catholic medallions, but never one like this. Where did it come from? I know I didn’t put it in there.”
What Jay did know is that once you make a sincere intention, you better hang on to your hat. Especially when said intention includes the F word. Because the universe–the field, God, whatever you want to call it–takes that shit seriously. Signs will start showing up like the owls who inundated Harry Potter’s muggle relatives with invitations to Hogwarts.
In the last month, Jay has been invited to four Catholic funerals. The willingness to open to new things (that’s all forgiveness really is) resulted in a priest apologizing, a canter singing “Panis Angelicus,” the song Jay’s mom sang every year and more importantly, Jay being willing to look the very priest who slighted them in the eye, and say, “I forgive you.” In other words, Jay is now free. They even reported doing a rosary the other day.
Despite its reputation, forgiveness is the path that opens us to all good things. It has nothing to do with letting someone off the hook. It’s simply a realization that nothing or nobody can hurt us. That’s true freedom.
Another climbing out of the box miracle occurred at All Souls. A beautiful young woman shared that she’d been asking the question so many of us have—what is mine to do right now? How can I make a difference? How can I help mend the world back together? One night during this period of soul-searching, she had a vivid dream, a dream that seemed realer than normal reality. She was sitting on the couch in her living room when a little blond girl with blood coming out of her nose and her ears approached. Needless to say, the woman picked her up, held her tight and comforted her. The little girl said she’d lost her parents, so the woman hugged her even tighter. They shared a beautiful, holy connection.
When she woke up the next day, she read in the paper about a bombing overnight in Ukraine where many children and their parents were killed and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had lovingly ushered that little girl into the next realm.
It was a stunning moment. All of us who heard her story knew it to be true. Truer and more real than “normal” reality.
As we climb out of our heads, as we escape the four walls in which we endlessly circle, we discover that our true purpose may be happening in a cosmic realm. And that anybody or anything we forgive heals not only us, but the entire world.
“Whatever appears to be obstructing you has no reality, no substance. It’s your own creation, a phantom lurking in the shadows of your own mind.”—Jed McKenna
Every blip in this photo is not a star, but an entire galaxy.
Who’s up for a little experiment?
This week at my P.P. (Possibility Posse), someone recalled a book entitled, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?” We all got a laugh out of it, but recognized the wisdom. Wanting to “be right” is a bullet train to misery. It’s one of the ego’s most efficient henchmen.
So I decided to try a little seven-day test. Anytime I notice myself getting into a tug-of-war with anyone, I stop, take a breath and admit, “You may be right.”
Boom! Cuts resistance off at the pass. In the end, it doesn’t matter who’s right. In fact, concepts like right/wrong are rather archaic. I mean just look at the photos from the James Webb telescope? We’re looking at stars and galaxies whose light was emitted 13 billion years ago. Astronomers have even detected a mysterious radio burst, with a pattern much like a heartbeat.
What I think about the rightness or wrongness of anything is, as Michael Singer wrote in his new book, statistically insignificant. Yes, it arranges complicated realities into tidy, satisfying narratives.
But wow! There’s SO.MUCH.MORE.
So rather than play the “who’s right?” game, I plan to focus on the unexplored provinces within me that remain forever free, spacious, aware.
“Forgiveness is man’s deepest need and highest achievement.”—Horace Bushnell
Good morning, sports fans. I trust you’re staying toasty, cozy and celebrating the fact that much-needed moisture is falling free of charge from the sky. Talk about a miracle!
Today’s Course in Miracles lesson, for those following along, brings up the F word. Forgiveness. As I often say, this life-changing concept is widely misunderstood.
It doesn’t mean overlooking something “bad” that happens. It’s admitting I don’t know enough to really judge what’s good or bad. And knowing that when I forgive (which means knowing nobody has the power to hurt me) I undo what fear has produced. Like magic, it causes illusions to disappear.
And when illusions start disappearing (I thought about calling this post—Pop Goes the Illusion!), you start bumping into other dimensions. Like things suddenly appear out of nowhere.
In E-Squared I compare consciousness to a skyscraper. I may be living on the second floor, but the miracle (the love, the peace, the truth) is waiting for me on Floor 17. Once I define something (or refuse to “forgive it”), I no longer question it. It becomes my reality. In quantum speak, it collapses the wave, leaving no room for mystery, wonder and new discoveries. Despite popular opinion, the phenomenon we observe with our five senses comes AFTER the decision to see, experience and feel it.
I was reminded of this yesterday during my weekly possibility posse. Jay mentioned a missing phone charger that suddenly showed up in the middle of a couch they’d searched countless times. Cindy’s favorite earring returned to the jewelry box she’d scoured for weeks. It reminded me of the hiker with a runny nose. She desperately needed a tissue, but she was miles away from civilization in an old growth rainforest. She looked down and there, underneath a tree, was an unopened box of Kleenex. The more we forgive, the more other dimensions can get through.
I love these kinds of stories because they demonstrate that whatever we need is always available. That’s a radical departure from what we’re taught. The one and only thing that keeps miracles at bay are my judgments (again, lack of forgiveness) and game day analysis. Miracles are common as pie when we open to life’s multi-dimensional nature.
Thanks, my friends, for taking this journey of possibility with me. I hereby announce that all of us are open and ready for dimensions of every kind, that we’re moving on up to higher floors where miracles are more real than the material world of phenomenon.
In exactly, one week, I’ll be announcing Taz’s 222 Foundation awards. Stay tuned. Stay warm. And stay open. #222 Forever
“The secret is to gang up on the problem.”–Thomas Stallkamp
If you’re a regular at this blog, you know how much I love my possibility posses and how important I think it is for all of us to “gang up” on the problem of lack and limitation.
I get together with my one of my posses (we call ourselves the Spiritual Entrepreneurs of LFK) twice a month.
They’re like my own personal pit crew who help me change my flat tires, fill me up with gas and steer me in a new direction whenever I go astray.
Today, Jennifer mentioned something that I probably knew, but had forgotten. That’s another one of the bennies of getting together to talk about possibilities. We all need reminders, inspiration, cheerleading.
Since Jenn is coming off hip surgery, she is currently focusing on the fact that every single day, her body create 500 million new cells.
Not only is that a heck of a lot of new cells, but it’s all the proof anyone should need that reality, as ACIM Lesson 227 reminds us, is up for grabs.
With all those new cells (and, yes, your body generates that many, too), there’s absolutely no reason you have to be the same today as you were yesterday.
The real question is “What are you communicating to these new cells each day?”
The options, according to Jenn, are: “Welcome to pain and misery. Or welcome to the party of vim, vigor and vitality.”
I couldn’t say for sure, but I thought she looked at least five years younger.
Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.
“In an exuberant state of joy, you are at peace with everything about you . . . there is no thing unconquerable, no thing unreachable.” — RAMTHA
Neuroscientists have discovered that humans reverberate to the actions and emotions of the people around them. This unspoken but ongoing communication is why someone yawning can make you yawn even if you slept ten hours the night before. It’s why dancing on a roof with my fellow Course students makes me so happy.
I probably sound like a broken record, but there is nothing like compadres on the path of enlightenment to encourage, celebrate, and challenge personal perceptions.
It’s why I’m part of two possibility posses in my hometown. It’s why I’m here in Mexico, getting loved up by this beautiful Course in Miracles community.
This Divine communion makes me buzz with joy and love and creative ideas. Which creates even more joy and love . . . and makes me wonder, Why doesn’t everyone do this?
Why doesn’t everyone spend their time talking about possibilities? Why doesn’t everyone move towards the love? Move towards the joy?
Adults, it seems, have a million reasons for declining an offer to enjoy themselves. Kids never turn down fun. They’re constantly in search of the next good time.
When was the tipping point? At what point did we begin rejecting the chance for joy and glee? At what point did we quit talking possibility and start talking problems.
When did we learn to pinch off our gorgeous, clear love energy? When did we allow but a small percentage of who we really are to radiate? When did we get so busy fixing our problems that we forgot to notice the incomparable possibilities?
What I’ve discovered is that when I join with others in possibility, when I commit to being open to love and joy, I don’t even have to look for ACIM Lesson 95. It’s right there, the knowing that I’m forever united with my one Self.
Once again today, I commit to having fun. I commit to being overjoyed. And I commit to letting my light shine.
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.
