workshops – Pam Grout

Why I always sign up for happiness and joy

December 7, 2015 16 Comments

“Future historians might conclude that our age suffered from a pathological need to repetitively seek out reasons for how bad life is.”—Rob Brezsny

NPR’s Ira Flatow produces “Science Friday.” I’m offering “Science Monday” with three scientific reasons to choose happiness this week.

1. Your brain, still running ancient “Eat lunch. Don’t be lunch” programming is not hard-wired for fight or flight. Two-thirds of its neurons, in fact, are malleable and CAN. BE. CHANGED. You man the dials and can train those pesky neurons to seek out joy.

2. The new science of epigenetics is proving that even genes are not set in concrete. How they unravel depends on their environment.

3. By taking time to register within your mind that at this moment “I have all I need,” at this moment “Everything’s actually going okay,” you can rewire your brain.

By actively stopping for a moment and registering moments of “Life right now is going okay,” we can literally re-sculpt our neurological structure.

We wouldn’t walk into a wedding or a funeral and not sign the guest book. Why do we fail to register for all those countless moments when life really is just fine the way it is?

Once you actively start noticing those moments, you’ll find the years will take care of themselves.

And speaking of taking care, I’ve been told I’m somewhat remiss in the “marketing side” of my career. As I told the producer of the Google hangout I’m participating in today, I mostly see my “business” as spreading love around. If you’re interested in jumping on the love train, here are a few upcoming opportunities:

If you’re free this afternoon at 4:00 EST, I’ll be doing a google hangout. I think this is the link:

On January 24, I’m giving a workshop in Phoenix. Get the skinny here:

March 6 to 10, Jewels Johnson, the fabulous creator of Law of Attraction Radio, is hosting a cruise to Mexico that departs from Long Beach, California. I’ll be giving a workshop along with Richard Harper, Constance Arnold and a bunch of other LOA experts. Here’s the link:

April 8, I’ll be in Reno at the Center for Spiritual Living.

April 24-27, I’ll be speaking at the Butterfly Retreat in Jordan, Ontario. Get details here:

June 10-12, I’ll be back for a weekend workshop at Omega. Last time I was there we started the full-moon dancing event.

It would be so great to meet some of you at any or all of the above events. My intention stands that I hope to someday hug every person on the planet.

Until then,

Signing off from Lawrence, Kansas

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.

Are you smokin’ what you’re selling?

May 1, 2015 51 Comments

“I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement and everybody is working very hard to make me happy.”– Terence McKenna

Elizabeth Gilbert used that phrase in a Facebook post that was brought to my attention the other Sunday by my power posse. I mentioned how, during my February workshop in Switzerland, I freaked out because I’d run out of material by Saturday afternoon when I still had Sunday to go.

Speaking in public, up until now, has been one of my demons, one of the last “stories” I seem to protect. My heart races, my fears start jabbering and my thoughts get to moving so fast that I’ve considered buying them a training bra.

A couple of marvelous women from the workshop in Bern (one was a banker, the other, a mystery writer) invited me for drinks and dinner Saturday night. My old self, the one with the running bra thoughts, would have declined. After all, I needed to go back to my hotel room and work diligently on tomorrow’s workshop.

But if I was truly “smokin’ what I was selling,” I would go for the joy and the fun and trust the universe.

I took the hit! I went for drinks and dinner, had a marvelous time and woke up to the Divine serendipity of great ideas for Sunday’s workshop. It went great!!!

Last Sunday, I spoke in Denver at the I Can Do It! conference. Same crazy running bra thoughts, same fear.

It went quite well. Or at least I thought so. I got lots of rave reviews and a long line of people wanting me to sign books. I felt good. I went out to celebrate with two old college friends.

But that night, when I returned to my hotel room, an email popped into my inbox from a woman who had attended the workshop.

She said she was disappointed. She was writing, she said, to help me, to point out how uncomfortable I seemed and how I wasn’t the caliber of the other speakers.

Needless to say, my crazy thoughts had a field day. They even urged me to ignore one of my chief Course in Miracles lessons–“In my defenseless my safety lies.” I was tempted to write her back to ask, “And this helps me how?”

I also considered canceling all my upcoming gigs. But then I remembered another one of the things I “sell.”

If you don’t like the way your lipstick looks in the mirror, it’s pointless to fix it on the actual mirror. You have to fix it in yourself where’s it’s actually fixable.

I realized that as long as I still “yammered on” about my fears of public speaking, I was going to continue to see that reality in the mirror. She was just voicing that part of myself that still believes the old story, that still thinks criticizing myself will somehow improve me.

And I realize that those critical running bra voices offer NOTHING helpful. I just need to observe them. And love myself anyway.

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.