The Anne Report, High and Dry, gives an update on Anne's situation during and after Hurricane Harvey. The Main article, Living in A Dramarama, provides guidelines for dealing with difficulties without becoming victims of the drama often associated with them. The Healthy Living article, The Feel-Good Stuff, has tips for increasing our Dopamine levels, so we will feel better. The Anne Talk is Dennis Tardan Interview - Part 1. 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 5, 2017
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

Anne's Websites:

  The Anne Report

High and Dry

Dear ,

Last week, you may remember, I had electricity. Later, however, we did lose our power for 5 days. We borrowed a generator and connected one light, our computers, and the fridge. The weather was relatively cool, so having no AC was tolerable.

I turned the light switch to the On position every time I entered my closet and small, windowless bathroom. Jim did the same. We laughed at each flip of the switch, realizing that habits are engrained in our behaviors.

I almost hugged the electrical worked who knocked on my door to say the power would be restored in a couple of hours.

 
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We have suffered a great tragedy. Many of my neighbors are still recovering from last year’s flood. They have flooded again. There were tears and fears, but as the waters receded, people jumped into action. The roadside trash blocks easy passage down our street, but there’s relief and resilience. These people are amazing.

Thank you for all the calls, texts, and emails to check on us. We are fine, our house is fine, and we left this morning for a three-week trip to west Texas. We’ve been dreaming of this trip for a long time. We are going to Garner State Park, Big Bend National Park, and places in between. That’s it for the Anne Report.

  Main Article

Living in A Dramarama

I live in the Houston area; therefore, I am living in the after effects of Hurricane Harvey. There’s been more than enough hurricane porn and I’m suffering from hurricane fatigue. Watching a disaster has the same pull as watching other addictive drama. The news was helpful when the storm was coming my way, but, at some point, it became drama. Fortunately, we lost electrical power, so we couldn’t watch dogs being pulled from a flooded house and babies clutched in their mother’s arms as water surrounded them. There’s value in seeing those things. We don’t want to go through this alone. We want to be informed, but at some point, it becomes more of an infatuation with pain, than a call for compassion.

I spent one afternoon working in disaster recovery. (That’s about all my back could take.) While the loss was real, people were more about getting the job done, than lamenting the loss.

There was a movie entitled The Razor’s Edge. The title says it well. There’s a thin line between healthy and harmful, and it’s a challenge to walk that thin line and to know when we’ve crossed it.

It is a time for compassion, yet some people suffer from hysterical empathy. A friend recounted how his mom was panic-stricken about his being in the area, when he was not even in harm’s way. He was close to the tragedy and he was having to bring her down from her drama attack.

Take the person who still gets upset about the 1994 flood because her home ALMOST flooded! “I was so upset and scared,” she says, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She sprinkles a little indignation then turns on the tears. That was more than 20 years ago. This is a case of ego driven suffering (EDS). It’s time to pull out the DRAMA-MINE, because there’s too much e-motion sickness going around.

Transactional Analysis (TA) offers an interesting take on the process I call ego driven suffering. The TA model says we play predictable psychological games, and one of them is “Ain’t it Awful.” An example of this game would be a group of older people complaining about the younger generation and how disrespectful, lazy, uninformed or fill in the blank they are. It can be any conversation whose underlying message is “Ain’t it awful.” People fret about how bad things are on earth, how bad people are, then worry about an apocalypse. Everything is awful. The purpose of all games is to thwart intimacy and to bury one’s zest for living.

While we want to recognize real suffering, or suffering caused by a recent loss, we don’t want to use circumstances, even tragic ones, to strangle authentic aliveness and expression. We have to leave behind platitudes, and stand authentically in the present, without trying to restructure what’s happening to fit our models of how we believe life to be. There is no need to squeeze life through the lens of our upbringing and belief systems and go berserk. While wild pigs have a certain charm, humans, acting like wild pigs, is just drama.

Make no mistake, we are in shock. Our town is suffering. The tears we cry fall in the hearts of many, but let’s make the distinction between real losses and imaged losses. This is not about having a positive attitude; it is about being real, without having to slap synthetic pain or pleasure across our wounds.

Let’s stay on course, be supportive, skip the drama, and act when we can. We never want to minimalize tragedy, but we do not need to use tragedy as an excuse for ego driven suffering. Let us pray for those who suffer and pray to know the difference between genuine loss and imagined loss, because when we do, our lives always become EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

Anne Quotes

"Ego driven suffering can be cleared up in an instant, but an instant cure for genuine suffering rarely exists. The trying times anoint us and guide us. These wearisome times, at their best, evoke compassion and humility. When we are on top, it’s so easy to serve the egoic mind, but when tragedy strikes, it brings with it the ability to reach into our deepest spiritual strengths and reach out to our support systems. This is what makes our situations EZier."

"Changing life supporting but illusory patterns takes conscious questioning, yet the most important aspect of change is our willingness to have a better life. We are comfortable in pain or feeling sorry for ourselves. We relish the thought that nothing can or will change for us, but we are not comfortable with pleasure and a sense of safety in our lives."

"The spiritual path is delicate, fraught with mysteries and seeming inconsistencies. Sometimes we have to do something different, take a chance and move forward, and at other times we have to back down."

  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

  Healthy Living

The Feel-Good Stuff

Everyone knows that the chemicals in our brain can make or break our mood. We’ve heard about exercise, the runner’s high, and drugs than can turn our moods around. We know about chocolate and sugar, but here are a few things you may not have run across in your quest to end depression or just what to do to keep up your spirit.

Dopamine (a brain chemical) is golden. The more we have, the better we feel. Try these things to increase it:

• Take a cold shower. It raises our dopamine levels by 250%. It’s tough to do in the winter, but I just tried it (of course, it’s summer), and it is invigorating and mood stimulating.
• Eat more bananas. We know that bananas provide potassium, but they also boost our dopamine levels. I have never met anyone who didn’t like bananas. They are the number one selling fruit in America. Guess we now know why.
• Listen to music you love. You’ll get a chemical response.
• Self-massage and get regular massages. Massage not only loosens our muscles, it lights up the brain.
• Use gentle touch. Rub your body gently. My latest book, The Living Book, provides a 3-minute technique that boosts dopamine levels.
• Pet an animal.
• Turn into bed early, since lack of sleep can reduce the number of dopamine receptors. It appears that dopamine controls the production of melatonin, which helps prepare us for sleep.
• Increase the number of dopamine receptors by losing weight.

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

  Anne Talks

Dennis Tardan Interview - Part 1

  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.

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