The Anne Report, Resilience Takes You Through, shows how to manage life when things get tough. The Main article, Prayer Makes Life EZier, talks about how various types of prayer can help us navigate life. The Healthy Living article, Be a Good Moodist, provides some easy tips to elevate our moods. The Anne Talk is Dennis Tardan Interview - Part 2. Learn about Anne's newest book: The Living Book. The Featured Product this month is Standing in the Dark. Click to read What is EZosophy?

The EZ Mantra: "Everything can be EZ or at least EZier." – Anne Sermons Gillis

Living EZosophy, September 12, 2017
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 281-419-1775
Email: anne@annegillis.com

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  The Anne Report

Resilience Takes You Through

Dear ,

I sit watching a pink sunlit sky. The cicadas sing and there are Texas jack rabbits racing around. They stop intermittently for a bite of dinner. The peace is palpable. Lucy, our dog, sleeps beside me. This is Texas, Harvey ravaged Texas, yet here in the hill country, the water knows its bounds and flowers call my name. Night is falling.

I refuse to suffer from survivor's guilt. Yes, I left town, but in my defense, my back is still smarting from the disaster aid I gave at the beginning of the end of Harvey. I'm almost 69 and have scoliosis, and while I do not like to place limits on what I can do, my body tells a different story. I am an official geezer, and I don't need to be lifting boxes, moving chairs, and hauling floor tiles. Today we went to the Leaky, Texas library, to get WIFI. I told a story to the librarian and I geezered. My voiced cracked as I spoke. I cackled as I laughed, and I was amused at how young I feel and how old I sound.

A day has passed. I trek up the side of a mountain. It's challenging – that's what the trail map said, challenging - and that was an understatement. The sun pours down like lava and the air sucks us dry. We reach the darn cave, and what was described as one of the park's natural wonders was a hole in the ground. Another lesson on "It's the journey, not the goal that matters." Halfway down the mountain, one of my shoe soles falls off. I walk until the bottom falls out of my shoe; then, as if on cue, the other sole falls off. This place is treacherous, with falling rocks and steep inclines. I unlace my shoes and tie the bottoms on with the shoe laces and wonder what happened to the geezer who knew her limits! I walked gingerly down the mountain, and made it unharmed! Another miracle.

The Texas State Parks cancelled all their reservations for Labor Day weekend to allow hurricane refugees places to stay. We met a man from Port Aransas who lost everything. He said to my husband, Jim, "Give us a year and we'll be back. And come down for some fishing." I love this Texas resilience.

And that's it for the Anne report.

  Main Article

Prayer Makes Life EZier

Prayer has not only comforted us for generations, it has brought about miraculous healings and turned impossible situations around. Studies show that people who pray are happier than their counterparts. There are many kinds of prayer. There are prayers of petition, affirmative prayers, and blessings. The Centers for Spiritual Living call their method of prayer a "Treatment." Breath is said to be the prayer of the mystic. Meditation is the prayer of being. It is a prayer of listening rather than one of asking or speaking.

When I was young, I had a Santa Clause God. "If I am good, good will happen to me, and if I am bad, I'm in trouble." I prayed to my Santa Clause God asking for favors and making bargains. As I spiritually matured, I realized that God was not a man with a white beard that doles out favors. I stopped believing in a Santa Clause God when I was 17.

It took years to replace that image with something that worked. At least I was clear that if God was not at least as nice as I am, then why bother? I needed unconditional love and not a bully that needed my adoration to feel good about himself. I searched and slowly began to realize there had always been a Presence that was not only with me, it worked through me.

I've shifted the way I pray many times over the years and have a few recommendations.

• Do not pray for guidance. Pray that you can see the guidance at hand.
  
  We are not alone. We are bombarded with hints and insights, yet we stay preoccupied with trying to manufacture guidance that will take us down the road of personal safety, comfort, and success. Of course, the nature of the universe is to let us have our own way, yet the way we chose is fraught with limited vision.
   
• Do not pray to change what is at hand. Pray to see what is at hand.
  
  A rich man asked a Zen master to write something to encourage his family's prosperity for years. The man wanted a document that the family would cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."
  

  "The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why did you write something depressing?"

  "If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."

  The rich man received what he asked for, but was blind to the wisdom and blessing of the master.

• Do not pray for safety, but for the knowledge of who you are.
  

  There was a time when the Chinese slaughtered thousands of Tibetan Buddhists. During this period, a warlord sent word through a minion for the last monk in a monastery to leave. The monk refused. After repeated threats, the monk wouldn't budge. The warlord himself went to intimidate the monk. He roared to the monk, "Sir, I don't think you know who I am. I could run my sword through you and never bat an eye." The calm monk replied, "Sir, I don't think you know who I am. You could run your sword through me, and I would never bat an eye."

  This monk knew who he was. He had a body, but he was not that body.
  
  We pray for things, events, and circumstances, but who we really are does not want those things. It's really who we think we are that wants those things. We cannot know what we want until we know who we are.

The above suggestions speak to prayers of petition. As mentioned earlier, there are many kinds of prayers, but prayers of petition allow us to give voice to our uncertainties. As we walk down the road to wisdom, prayer is the friend we can count on. When I can't voice my thoughts in prayer, I'm left with these tried and true requests:

• Help.
• Thy will.
• I surrender.

Prayer is not a requirement for the spiritual life, but communication with something wiser and more benevolent than the egoic mind, is helpful. I recommend my book, Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic, if you would like to explore the many sides of prayer. Prayer is not necessary, but it does make our lives EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

Anne Quotes

"Make time for your spiritual wealth, for inner peace. Make time for love, forgiveness, and gratitude. What good is your life if no time is made for the essentials of being?"

"Become worthy of who you are. This being that you are is the SELF. It is not unique to you as a personality, because it is boundless awareness. Subjugate the personality to that. Serve that. Embody that. Embolden yourself to be who you are."

"Resurrect yourself. Resurrect your compassion. Resurrect your peace. Resurrect your love. You are the savior of your desires. Make them work for your highest good."

  The Living Book

The Living Book, by Anne Sermons Gillis
PDF Book Download $0.99. Kindle Book: $2.99.

  Featured Product This Month

  Healthy Living

Be a Good Moodist

Want to get your alpha waves going? What are alpha waves? They are the lower frequency of brain waves that offer relaxation, and it's helpful to get them going when you are feeling blue or just to improve your mood. Want to get your energy flowing? Want to elevate your mood? The following exercises can lift your mood, help you get unstuck when you feel immobilized, give you energy to get going, and get your body and brain working together. While we can get out of a bad mood by changing the way we see things, it is helpful to give the whole body a lift, not just the head.

Four Exercises for the good moodist:

• Roll your eyes up and return them to their normal position. Repeat 10 times. This movement creates alpha brain waves and helps improve your mood.
• Rise up on your tippy toes while raising both hands up to the sky. Do ten times.
• Tap in the center of your chest slowly ten times. Each time you tap, imagine a rock landing in a still pond and see the small waves radiating out in concentric circles.
• Throw your arms up in a "y" formation and say "yes." Do this ten times.

Finally, imagine that you are the happiest person in the world. You can hear people say this about you: "S/he is the happiest person I've ever met." Or "S/he is the happiest person in the world." Our self-image is often tied up with an image of being depressed, lonely, marginalized, or weird. Change your self-image to one of a happy person. It might take a bit because we are so tied into our position about ourselves.

What we think about, we bring about. How do you want to be? Decide that for yourself, then mentally move yourself in the direction of your dream, and, if you do, you will soon be a good moodist!

If you have any healthy living tips for the newsletter, send them to me at anne@annegillis.com.

  Anne Talks

Dennis Tardan Interview - Part 2

  Anne Art

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The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

  Anne's Schedule

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Friday, October 6, 2017
Workshop, 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM EDT
"Building Self Esteem and Courage"
5 hours CE credits
Location: "Phoenix Center"
1400 Cleveland Street
Greenville, SC
Click Here for Registration

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