The Anne Report, Giving Thanks on Rainy Days, shows that, in difficult times, the best we can do may simply be to give thanks for what we have. The Main article, Life's Purpose, shares meaningful and practical ideas for creating a joyful life. The Healthy Living article, Meditation Cures Modern Ailments, reveals meditation as being like a "medicine" that heals the mind as it feeds the soul. The Anne Talk is Communicating Love. Learn about Anne's newest book: The Living Book. The Featured Product this month highlights Anne's second book, EZosophy: The art of EZ or at Least EZier Living. Click to read What is EZosophy?  Click here to learn about Anne's book, Words Make a Difference.

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

Living EZosophy, August 29, 2017
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

Anne's Websites:

  The Anne Report

Giving Thanks on Rainy Days

Dear ,

I’m writing The Anne Report early, on Sunday, because it’s possible we might lose power. For those who don’t know, I live in a suburb of Houston. We are experiencing flooding and a lot of rain, but as of today, my neighborhood is safe. While it is tragic and sometimes scary, when there’s a tornado warning, there’s a carnival like atmosphere. Neighbors walk back and forth to the creek to see how far it’s risen, and everyone has a prognostication. Other than the rain, the 74° weather is perfect for walking. My dog is not happy about the rain. We have to drag her out to piddle. These days are not business as usual. Some of our neighbors have moved their furniture to the second floor, but it’s not so easy to figure out what to do.

Along with this carnival like mood there’s a heaviness in the air; we watch our Houston area neighbors, via television, waiting to be rescued. There’s a psychic dust that I can’t shake off my mind. It shuts down my ability to write. The phone rings on and off all day, as loved ones check in. Texts faithfully arrive to send prayers and good thoughts.

I wish I had a practical spiritual message to emerge from this weather festival, but right now, I’m just happy to have electricity and to be dry! That’s it for the Anne Report.

  Main Article

Life's Purpose

When I was in my mid 20's, I started playing tennis. I had never played sports. I believed sports were a guy thing, yet there I was, day after day, practicing, taking lessons, and playing the game. I read Tim Gallwey's book, Inner Tennis, drank in every word, and called on the essence of tennis masters to help me. "Pretend I am them. Ask them for help." It worked, and I moved easily on the courts.

I played for about 15 years. The experience caused me to radically reinvent my self-image. It was not an overnight reinvention. It took months and even years to break the sex-role scripting of which I was a product. I continued to develop my skills, and eventually I could fix my lawn mower, scale cliffs, and scuba dive. I could even travel a foreign country alone and paint a house.

I was raised in the 1950's and was expected to be a secretary, a teacher, or a homemaker. I didn't like the first two choices, so I majored in Home Economics. If I was going to become a wife and mother, I would learn to do it well. Cooking sounded like more fun than typing and teaching sounded like a prison sentence. I had been to school all my life. Why would I want to go back?

Harnessing my physical power was a singular step in helping move me out of my assigned role. Eventually I succeeded in the business world and thought, "So this is what runs guys. This? No. This is empty. Yikes! I've been duped." The guys were duped too. They were in another kind of trap – the success trap. I thought the problem with my life was that as a woman I was trained to aim low in the world, so I figured out how to aim high. When I found myself working on Christmas eve, I knew I had gone too far.

This is when I had another one of those multitudinous dark nights of the soul. The bottom sucks, but the top sucks too. Now what will I do? When I looked for what was missing in my life, I looked in the wrong places. Getting my body fit, trying a new relationship, and succeeding were only time fillers. I was lost. The good news is that I was such a high achiever, that I got lost fast. I might have spent years bouncing from relationships, to career, to body. While those things are ingredients in a life well-lived, they are secondary to life's purpose.

What is life's purpose? What did I learn? Life's purpose is:

• To discover who I am. This involves dismantling the me I thought I was, the me I was told I was, and the me I tried to be.
• To live in each moment, free from attachment and judgment.
• To develop kindness and compassion toward others.
• To have fun. I don't have to be a jokester, but if life contains no pleasure, there's no treasure. The spirit of life is the Spirit of Joy.
• To get past my personal agenda and to serve humanity. (This can only happen after one discovers and works with the shadow side of service, which is codependency.)
• To remove the blocks to the awareness of Love's presence.

You now have the spiritual wisdom I've developed in my near 69 years on earth. I wish I could do all that. Nope. Sometimes I am a master, but at other times I freak out like a frightened child. The trick is to be authentically with myself, without lambasting myself for my flighty emotions and to not hide what's going on with me from with my friends and loved ones. I've learned not to paint a smile on my face when I'm hurting and not to cater to trite sayings that positive thinking throws my way. I've learned to climb the mountain and nurse my toes. Who wants to reach the top of the mountain with sore feet?

The mystical and practical must hold hands while we live on earth. The miracle and the mundane are cousins. The perfected image of life I wanted does not exist. It's freeing to know that. I can fall, get up, make mistakes, and still live an amazing life. When we realize that there is no situation or problem that can stand in the way of living brilliant lives, then everything gets EZ or at least EZier. Blessings!

Anne

  Quotes

Quotes

"Is our reality relevant to what's going on in our lives or is it a composite of habitual, worn out thoughts and beliefs?"
-- Anne Sermons Gillis

"Don't interfere with the moment. It's enough. Set it free."
-- Anne Sermons Gillis

"Train yourself to see the divine. See it in people. See it in nature. What beauty are you tracking? How much of your surroundings are you aware of? Fall in love; stay in love. It will determine everything."
-- Sister Gabriel Uhlein

  The Living Book

The Living Book, by Anne Sermons Gillis

• Suppose someone told you that you could change your life radically, for the better, if you spent just three minutes a day doing inner work? Would you believe it? Maybe not, but wouldn't it be worth an investment of three minutes a day to try it?
• The Living Book offers just this. Devote three minutes a day to this process and your life will become a living testimony to the seed principle. A tiny seed can grow into a mighty tree, but it must be planted. Plant your daily seed for three short minutes and notice both subtle and miraculous changes in your life.
• In addition to the daily practice, one can use the process when they are stumped or afraid or angry. This process transforms anger into love. When we plant seeds of light into our thoughts and emotional bodies, we move into higher frequencies of well-being.

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

  Featured Product This Month

Click here to check out Anne's book, Words Make A Difference, a book of affirmations, action plans, and deep insights into the human consciousness that transforms and heals the soul, the local and global community, and the planet. Travel with Gillis on a journey through deep psychology, metaphysics, and nondualism.

What is an affirmation?

  Healthy Living

Meditation Cures Modern Ailments

Modern life creates seductive demands. We think life is calling us to do something worthwhile, but it keeps throwing busy work our way. Our mind grabs everything in thinking distance and runs with it, demanding more and more productivity. We live lives mired in expectation, beliefs, and fervent commands. Our minds are sick. We need mental medicine. Meditation is just that. It is a medicine that heals the mind as it feeds the soul. It is an intervention that bypasses the mind and delivers us to the core of who we are.

How do I meditate? There are many ways to meditate. I use a mantra and coordinate it with the in and out breath. Popular Western mantras are "Be still and know that I am God" and "I am that I am." A powerful Sanskrit Mantra is Om Namaha Shivaya. I used the Om Namaha Shivaya mantra for many years. When I was with a powerful spiritual teacher, I asked for a mantra. She replied, "Om Namaha Shivaya is a good one." I laughed. The mantra includes the five elements and means "I bow to the divinity within" or "I respectfully invoke God's name." Leonard Orr provided an effective mantra for those who fight poverty: "God supplies all my needs, according to his (I would add her, but, of course, God does not have gender) riches and glory in Jesus Christ."

Maybe the mantra we use is secondary to our commitment to sit quietly daily as we subjugate the mind to a higher power.

The benefits of meditation are numerous. Meditation:

• Brings a flow of inexhaustible creativity.
• Increases intuitive abilities.
• Creates unflappability and peace in the midst of chaos.
• Plants love inside and grows into a loving outlook on life.

This morning, as I came out of meditation, I grabbed my pen and these words flowed:

As the bonds of my mind dissolve, I rest in the still sweetness. I arise, renewed and refreshed. I walk the path of love and its nectar sweetens everything. Compassion unfolds around me and the living presence of the Self directs me. The creative resonance of the universe resounds as I awaken. I am the architect of life. Bountiful blessings shower me and I am free. What love, what great miracle has captured my heart? I may not know its name, but the blessing is so deep I want to luxuriate in it forever. Thee and me, together, dissolving into the One. Oh blessed being of life, I glorify you in me and surrender.

If you want to be a writer, meditate or draw on a regular basis. Stillness births creativity. Our lives move so fast, that without healthy mental habits, we are left with unhealthy coping mechanisms, like shopping and alcohol. Hope I've convinced you to meditate if you don't already, because if you do, you will find that your life gets EZier and EZier.

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

  Anne Talks

Communicating Love

  Anne Art

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NOTICE: Here are two shareables from Anne. Feel free to pass them along.

The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time
unless otherwise specified.

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

Call or Email Anne Now to Schedule Her for Your Meeting.

You may reach Anne by phone at 281-419-1775 or click the button below to contact Anne by email. Anne is also available to officiate at weddings and funerals.

  Anne's Services

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Interested in getting ongoing support? Try life coaching with Anne. Anne offers both short-term and long-term coaching. Contact her for details. Click here to contact Anne by email or Click here to view information on Anne's One Year Seminar and other training too.

The EZosophy Bracelet