What if tragedy and unhappiness are nothing but a rumor, cemented into our consciousness by years of faulty conditioning?

“Nothing in life is to be feared.
It is only to be understood.”
–Marie Curie

Most of us think life is some sort of boot camp for heaven. We believe this short life span is “only a test” for the paradise we’re eventually going to earn. If we hang on and bear up, we’ll someday walk through those pearly gates and be happy. These errors in thinking have been condensed into living facts. Nothing is plainer than the inevitably of sorrows and trials.

But what if it isn’t necessary? What if these is no reason to be poor? Or sick? Or anything but living an abundant, exciting life? What if these tragic, difficult lives are nothing but a rumor, cemented into our consciousness by years and years of conditioning?

What I’d like to suggest is this heaven you’re waiting for is available now. And that you’ve been sold a bill of goods about who you are and what is possible.

The way I see it, there are only four reasons we aren’t all joyous, loving and free.

1. We didn’t know we could be.

2. We didn’t ask.

3. We don’t use our mind power properly. If you’ve ever been in a sailboat, you know that unless you hold the sails in the right position, you’re pretty much stuck paddling in circles. The wind, like your mind is a potent energy source, but it won’t take you anywhere until you learn the proper way to use it.

4. We have a thing about drama. Ever wonder why rollers coasters are so popular? Why movies like Alien v. Predator boost ticket sales? C’mon, admit it. You crane your neck around to see those mangled bodies lying there along the side of the road after a car accident. You actually like being a little off-kilter and guess what? As long as you enjoy this, you get to have it.

This may be a hard pill to swallow, but we—you and me—made the mess we call material reality.

If you look very closely as what we politely assume to be the building blocks of the universe, you’ll discover they’re dicey at best. Or to put it another way, since renowned physicist Brian Greene is much better at explaining these thing than I am, “quantum fluctuations so mangle space and time that the conventional ideas of left/right, backward/forward, up/down and before/after become meaningless.” In other words, we experience war and global warming because that’s what we’ve come to expect, what we think of as reality. We created these disasters with our angry, fearful consciousness. The exciting thing about this truth (that it’s us, not some random misogynist named God) is that another way IS possible. We do not have to accept war and sickness and injustice. We, by changing our consciousness, can create a peaceful world that works for everyone. In fact, looking for anything else is irresponsible.

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

What The Hangover Part III taught me about quantum physics

“There’s a certain delusional quality that all successful people have. They have to believe that something different can happen.”—Will Smith

Okay, true confession. I didn’t see The Hangover Part III. Didn’t even see the second in the trilogy.

But what this one-star summer bomb demonstrates is our tendency to repeat ourselves again and again, day after day.

We get stuck in these loops, looking for the same things we saw yesterday. Today is a brand new day with an infinite number of new possibilities. Whoever took over for Ed McMahon could knock on your door with the winning check in the magazine sweepstakes. You could make a new friend or meet a potential S.O. You could get an idea for a book or a song or a nonprofit that might change the lives of millions.

The thing is you never know. But because we get up every morning expecting the exact same thing, we get re-runs (Hangover Part III’s) of yesterday. Yea, there might be a little variety. You could get a speeding ticket, for example, or eat a pepperoni pizza instead of pasta, but admit it, you basically expect your world to look like a clone of yesterday.

But what if you woke up to a world where everything was completely unrecognizable? Are you willing to allow that possibility? The possibility that the world’s largesse could flow into your life? The possibility that we could have peace on earth? And that every child could go to bed with a full stomach knowing they were deeply loved and cherished?

If there’s one thing I know it’s this: We get out of life exactly what we look for…down to the precise shape, size and color.

A major conundrum of quantum physics is that whatever the observer expects to see he sees. Physical reality, at its essence, is made of high-energy photons. And we, you and me, are patterns of light and information, patterns of light and information that we keep re-running and re-running.

So, to my way of thinking, the more open we are to brand new, completely different possibilities, the better our world will become.

So, yea, the first Hangover was kinda fun. But as for me, I’d rather see Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and all those other actors starring in a whole new film.

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

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”—Arthur Conan Doyle

“Really, weren’t these facts just placeholders until the long view could really assert itself?”—David Levithan

I’m a journalist, trained, degreed, the whole nine yards. In fact, I stated my illustrious journalism career at the Kansas City Star, the same newspaper where Ernest Hemingway and Walt Disney started their road to fame.

The last few years, however, I’ve begun to alter my beliefs about “the facts” I’m sworn by my profession to seek.

I’m not so sure that “just the facts, ma’am” is helpful anymore. In fact, these so-called “facts” create a negative energetic momentum that I no longer want to perpetuate.

The “facts” I now choose to report are that happiness is our birthright, that love is the only reality and that the only reason the “facts” sometimes look otherwise is because that’s what we’ve spent so many years focusing upon.

I now know that it’s unproductive to talk, report or give attention to anything I don’t want. And anytime I don’t feel joyful and at peace is because I’m giving attention to something that disagrees with Source.

To use the old radio analogy, I’ve tuned into an “oldies station” that still believes in pain and suffering.

I’m now committed to bringing a different energy to the party. An energy of love, an energy that sees only beauty, an energy that recognizes the Truth (and there is such a thing as truth with a capital “T” which is different than “facts”) in every person.

I believe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Turn the other cheek.” He wasn’t suggesting that we should walk around with bruised cheeks and black eyes. He was saying that we should begin moving in a different direction, turn our cheeks, so to speak, to a higher, brighter, more pleasing reality.

“Facts” are simply habits of thought we’ve been thinking so long that they now seem normal. When we invest in them over and over again, we validate them. We create more of them. “Facts” fill in around those beliefs.

Quantum physics has proven it’s impossible to observe anything without affecting it. Sadly, we’ve been seeking (and therefore affecting) things that no longer serve us. We’ve been seeking “facts” that were perpetuated long before we evolved to the place where we realized we have the power to change them. And, yes, they’ve picked up quite a bit of momentum.

But at any time, we can “turn the other cheek” and look in a different direction.

As for me, I’m turning my cheek towards joy, towards peace of mind, towards the idea that all of us can be free and abundant and living lives of insatiable well-being.

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

That was easy!!

“Our thoughts hold more medicine than many of the astonishing breakthroughs of our time.”– Kris Carr

I am so happy to be back home and ready to ease back into my regular writing routine. Traveling is so much fun, but so is talking about it. Or rather writing about it which I do on my travel blog and in my work with CNN Travel, Huffington Post and several other travel mags.

Today, I’m tying up loose ends (just got back last night) and want to rave about my favorite word, “EASY!”

My beautiful colleague and friend, Annola Charity, presented me with a Staples “Easy” button this morning at my Spiritual Entrepreneurs group. This three-inch red button, when pressed, repeats “That was easy.” I’m not a TV watcher so I didn’t realize Staples has been advertising that sentiment for years.

But it’s certainly one of my mantras and one of the most important beliefs you can have.

In honor of this amazing gift, I’d like to re-run the following blog post:

“Quantum physics is not just stranger than you think, its stranger than you can think.”
—Deepak Chopra

Life is a piece of cake!!!

Today, I’d like to talk to you about the most dangerous four-letter word in the English language. This word that I’ve specifically banned from my vocabulary is especially damning when combined with something you’re trying to do: lose weight, attract money, get a hot date.

The word is “hard,” as in “It is hard to……(pick your poison).

You know you’ve said it:

“It’s hard to change old habits.”

“It’s hard to find a better job.”

“It’s hard to empty my mind when meditating.”

Because our beliefs are so powerful, literally sculpting our lives on a moment-by-moment basis, to believe (and especially to say out loud) that anything is difficult is extremely counterproductive.

Still, even those of us who know about (and happily use) the power of our thoughts sometimes speak that ugly word.

I prefer the words “smooth” and “easy” and repeat those beautiful sentiments as often as I can.

I affirm that whatever I want to accomplish is smooth and easy. In fact, the less I do, the better things turn out. The more I hand over to the universe (the field of potentiality that is SO much smarter than me), the better my life becomes.

Because I occasionally still see limitations, still believe the headlines, still believe in old school conditioning, I’m much better off affirming smooth and easy and turning things over to the big guy.

A friend of mine, by simply changing her phraseology, has lost 18 pounds in the last month. She hasn’t changed her diet or started a new exercise program. She simply started believing that losing weight is easy, a piece of cake.

What diet program could be more simple than that?

So I ask you today, with all you’re trying to accomplish, will it be hard or will you join me in affirming “smooth” and “easy.”

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

“My mind is a bad neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”–@Anne Lamott

“Thinking the physical world is all that matters is like shutting oneself up in a small closet and imagining there is nothing beyond it.”—Eben Alexander

One of the great joys in my life is knowing the universe is so much bigger than anything I can conceive, in knowing that miracles (or what we call miracles) reside right on the other side of the veil I’ve imposed with my very limited brain.

As cool as the brain is, a veritable network of neural pathways, it actually puts up a tremendous barrier to Truth. It limits, it takes all the available input and boils it down to what I call “Cliff Notes for Dummies.” Sadly, our Cliff Notes are restricted to what we’ve decide to let in, to what we’ve erroneously pick up from our culture, our family upbringing and the six o’clock news.

As the Course in Miracles says we would be astounded, literally blown away, if we had even the slightest idea how many limits we have placed on Reality.

While we’re here, living on this physical plane, we put the brain’s two pounds of wrinkled mass on a pedestal. We believe everything it tells us, listen to its crazy promptings, its tendency to focus on the past and worry about the future. I amaze myself with how much time I sometimes waste thinking about some person who “did me wrong” or about some financial dilemma. Not a good expenditure of my valuable time.

The brain is so NOT reliable that, I believe, our very highest calling is to distract it as often as possible. That’s why meditation is so important. It puts an end (or will eventually) to the crazy person blathering in the brain. Once the brain gets out of the way, Truth can’t help but rise up.

I really hate to knock my brain. It has accomplished a lot in my life, but from here on out, I’d like to officially appoint it as secretary of my neurology, digestive system and other things it’s proficient at and leave the rest to Source, to Truth, to the Reality of Pure Bliss.

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

“Whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of every day.”—Marianne Williamson

“Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.”
Pascual Jordan, German physicist

This is a story about a speck and infinity. Since infinity is a rather difficult concept to grasp, I’m going to use the metaphor of this familiar painting:

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend Mona Lisa here is infinity.

So here’s the speck:

( . )

It should be pretty obvious, even to the untrained eye, that Da Vinci’s famous painting is a heck of a lot bigger than this itty, bitty speck.

.

(Notice, you practically have to strain your eyes to see it)

Yet the speck is what we have spent the last two days (and indeed most of our lives) focusing on. The speck is the anomaly of recent events in Boston. While most of the world is perfectly fine (the sun’s still rising, spring flowers are still growing, the school crossing guards are still directing hand-holding kindergartners across the street) and 99.999999 percent of its inhabitants are safe and alive and still breathing fresh, clean air, we’ve glued all our attention to the speck.

Herein, lie the challenge of our times. We manifest into our lives whatever we focus on. This is a spiritual law and a certainty of quantum physics.

The world we see on television is nothing but what we’ve chosen to focus upon. Sadly, up until now, that has been mayhem, problems and unsightly bath tub scum.

We’ve drawn out of the magnificent Field of Infinite Potentiality a speck of seeming disaster and we’re staring at it like it’s a 16-plex movie cinema.

I compare it to the job review where the boss gives high marks in 16 areas. Yet we focus on that one slight aberration that “still needs improvement.”

It’s time for all of us to start bringing our attention back to beauty, to Truth, to what’s working. A friend of mine even healed her sprained right foot by taking her focus off the pain and concentrating on how wonderful her left foot felt.

Once something grabs our attention (a headache, a thought of unworthiness, an unfortunate world event), we devote every waking moment to worrying about it, to getting the latest twitter updates. And as long as we keep looking at the speck, it will only grow.

If you can see even a tiny glimpse of goodness, of peace, of kind, well-meaning fellow humans, place your attention on that. This simple truth is what will ultimately save the world.

We draw into our lives whatever it is we focus upon. Isn’t it time to take our battery-powered headlamps off the speck and focus on the beauty, the depth and the Truth of Mona Lisa?

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

The most dangerous word in the English language.

“Quantum physics is not just stranger than you think, its stranger than you can think.”
—Deepak Chopra

Life is a piece of cake!!!

Today, I’d like to talk to you about the most dangerous four-letter word in the English language. This word that I’ve specifically banned from my vocabulary is especially damning when combined with something you’re trying to do: lose weight, attract money, get a hot date.

The word is “hard,” as in “It is hard to……(pick your poison).

You know you’ve said it:

“It’s hard to change old habits.”

“It’s hard to find a better job.”

“It’s hard to empty my mind when meditating.”

Because our beliefs are so powerful, literally sculpting our lives on a moment-by-moment basis, to believe (and especially to say out loud) that anything is difficult is extremely counterproductive.

Still, even those of us who know about (and happily use) the power of our thoughts sometimes speak that ugly word.

I prefer the words “smooth” and “easy” and repeat those beautiful sentiments as often as I can.

I affirm that whatever I want to accomplish is smooth and easy. In fact, the less I do, the better things turn out. The more I hand over to the universe (the field of potentiality that is SO much smarter than me), the better my life becomes.

Because I occasionally still see limitations, still believe the headlines, still believe in old school conditioning, I’m much better off affirming smooth and easy and turning things over to the big guy.

A friend of mine, by simply changing her phraseology, has lost 18 pounds in the last month. She hasn’t changed her diet or started a new exercise program. She simply started believing that losing weight is easy, a piece of cake.

What diet program could be more simple than that?

So I ask you today, with all you’re trying to accomplish, will it be hard or will you join me in affirming “smooth” and “easy.”

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

What if tragedy, chaos and unhappiness are nothing but a rumor, cemented into our consciousness by years of conditioning?

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
–Bob Marley

Most of us think life is some sort of boot camp for heaven. We believe this short life span is “only a test” for the paradise we’re eventually going to earn. If we hang on and bear up, we’ll someday walk through those pearly gates and be happy. These errors in thinking have been condensed into living facts. Nothing is plainer than the inevitably of sorrows and trials.

But what if it isn’t necessary? What if these is no reason to be poor? Or sick? Or anything but living an abundant, exciting life? What if these tragic, difficult lives are nothing but a rumor, cemented into our consciousness by years and years of conditioning?

What I’d like to suggest is this heaven you’re waiting for is available now. And that you’ve been sold a bill of goods about who you are and what is possible.

The way I see it, there are only four reasons we aren’t all joyous, loving and free.

1. We didn’t know we could be.

2. We didn’t ask.

3. We don’t use our mind power properly. If you’ve ever been in a sailboat, you know that unless you hold the sails in the right position, you’re pretty much stuck paddling in circles. The wind, like your mind is a potent energy source, but it won’t take you anywhere until you learn the proper way to use it.

4. We have a thing about drama. Ever wonder why rollers coasters are so popular? Why movies like Alien v. Predator boost ticket sales? C’mon, admit it.  You crane your neck around to see those mangled bodies lying there along the side of the road after a car accident. You actually like being a little off-kilter and guess what? As long as you enjoy this, you get to have it.

This may be a hard pill to swallow, but we—you and me—made the mess we call material reality.

If you look very closely as what we politely assume to be the building blocks of the universe, you’ll discover they’re dicey at best. Or to put it another way, since renowned physicist Brian Greene is much better at explaining these thing than I am, “quantum fluctuations so mangle space and time that the conventional ideas of left/right, backward/forward, up/down and before/after become meaningless.” In other words, we experience war and global warming because that’s what we’ve come to expect, what we think of as reality. We created these disasters with our angry, fearful consciousness. The exciting thing about this truth (that it’s us, not some random misogynist named God) is that another way IS possible. We do not have to accept war and sickness and injustice. We, by changing our consciousness, can create a peaceful world that works for everyone. In fact, looking for anything else is irresponsible.

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