The Anne Report, Getting Through Life, reminds us that we need humor and kindness to get through life. The Main article, Consistent, Persistent, Existence Resistance, shows how life can be EZier for us when accept we life as it is and find our peace within it. The Healthy Living article, Cooperation, contrasts the perils of competitiveness with the blessing of cooperation. The Anne Talk is Egor, the Ego. Learn about Anne's newest book: The Living Book. The Featured Product this month is Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic. Click to read What is EZosophy?

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

Living EZosophy, October 24, 2017
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

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  The Anne Report

Getting Through Life

Dear ,

There’s a saying in southern Texas: “It’s fall. You know what that means, don’t you?” “Yes. Nothing.” Living in the hot zone has its perks: our weather turns lovely in the fall, but there are no colors. We are so happy for the departure of 100-degree weather, that colors don’t matter. The leaves are falling, though, and pumpkins abound. I don’t remember this many pumpkins when I was growing up. Where are they coming from? The neighbors put out Halloween decorations. This also didn’t happen when I was young. We figured out something to wear the day before Halloween and rarely had a jack-o’-lantern on the front porch.

While I don’t like that people buy more plastic that will end up in the land-fill, I do like that we are getting more festive. We have gatherings to celebrate more holidays than ever. I never heard about Labor Day or Memorial Day when I was a kid, but now we have barbeques on those days.

We need some festivity. Our compassion is stretched thin as fires rage, people rebuild, and Puerto Ricans struggle to get food, water, and shelter. We’ve had more than 270 mass shootings in the U. S. this year. Is our compassion big enough to hold another shooting, another hurricane, another fire? Will our hearts wear out? I had Hurricane Harvey fatigue and my home didn’t even flood. That seems like a lifetime ago, yet all my neighbors are rebuilding, and will be for some time.

There was a video that went viral after the hurricane in Puerto Rico. A man laughed with wild abandon as his friends warmed some food over an open fire. Amid such tragedy, he let go and found joy in the moment. We need moments of joy to feed us, because when the going gets rough, we need to get soft, open, and flexible. Toughness will not get us through, but friendship and compassion will. That’s it for the Anne Report.

  Main Article

Consistent, Persistent, Existence Resistance

Tears stream down my face as I meditate. It takes a moment to identify the source, but the aha prevails. It is existence resistance. Yes, at the very core of most of the stories I tell myself, there's a shame, a willful pulling back from life that keeps me from the ultimate expression of myself.

This is confusing, given all the times I've lived in transcendent and transformational states, and even lived beyond any state. Yet here I am, contracted in shame. Shame contorts my face, my body twitches; yet the contractions and limits are old, well-worn, and over-used. It is hand-me-down shame. I feel the family pain, but it is more than that. The pain extends from the world of human expression; it’s hopelessness and fear. I flip between personal pain and collective pain.

Ouch! How clever this pain. No longer tucked away, it takes center stage. How do I deal with it? Yet time and time again, I escort myself and this God-awful pain, to a better space. I've moved from the story of pain to the story of glory, in seconds. But this time, the relief doesn’t come. I’ve felt it coming on: this hiding my existence, this fear. I sit in silence for an hour. It is time to see what is roaming around in the Netherlands of my soul. The peace isn’t here, yet this direct bout is welcome. It feels good to cry. Real crying, not the tearing over a Facebook dog story, but experiencing the authentic pain emanating from the belief that I don’t have the right to exist, and the feeling that results from believing I’m illegitimate. Not illegitimate in the legal sense, but feeling like I don’t measure up to some invisible standard that was written before time began.

It’s sad, this realization, but not because it’s all about me and my pain. It’s sad because I recognize it in others. I see the fleeting pain, the cover-ups, the flurry of restlessness. There’s good news in this, I promise. Even though we harbor pain and unresolved issues from our past, we can still lead wonderful lives. We get in trouble when we act like the pain isn’t there. We can’t fool the Universe. It knows our pain. It stands by to pick us up when we finally realize it’s there. And the realization drips into our lives drop by drop. If the pain came all at once, we’d be crippled.

I can’t really say I am a positive thinker, because positive thinking doesn’t make room for the pain that’s stitched into the fabric of our lives. There’s some pain that just won’t go away. At least, it won’t go away for good. My grandmother lost two children. When I asked her about one of them, she cried. It was 60 years later, yet her pain was fresh and raw.

This pain gives us grit. It humbles us. It gives us compassion, and, though I am an advocate of letting go of ego driven pain, I know there are other forms of pain we can’t ignore. We cannot traverse the sands of life while seated in a sandbox. Boxes don’t just protect us from the bad; they barricade us from our good.

We are human. We have been given a body and a set of circumstances to deal with. This game is called life. If we fight what is present, we lose the war. If we allow what is present to be present, without resistance, we win, without ever having to fight a battle. This is the secret to life. “It won’t be what you wanted it to be, but when you choose what you have, you will be happy, and you will have the strength to polish the pain, and that will make your life EZier and EZier.”

Anne

  Quotes

Anne Quotes

"Go to the place where form meets vision. It is the Gathering Place of Possibilities. Go with power and humility. Go for the good of all life, all existence, not just for personal gain. Go open-handed, as a servant of life. Bring back the best, the good, the beautiful. Place them beside joy, and share them with everyone."

"When the mind is still, we can see the many doors of Being, but when it is full of drama and mind junk, the flurry obscures everything and we operate in a haze. That is why almost anyone who uncovers the workings of the mind realizes that they have to spend time in deep stillness. Be it in meditation, contemplation, drawing, dance, song, or sound, the mind must still itself so that That Which is Greater than thought can appear. It doesn't matter how we move beyond thought and mind drama, but it is important that we do so. If we develop the habit of worry, stress, and hurry, we will never reach the depth of who we are, and we will remain on the sidelines of life, wishing for something that is within our reach."

"You can do it. Put away your can’t opener and take out your can opener. Then you can do it."

  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.

Learn more about The Living Book, by Anne Sermons Gillis.
Paperback $5.00. PDF Download $0.99. Kindle Book $2.99.

  Featured Product This Month

  Healthy Living

Cooperation

Our country thrives on competitiveness. From the basketball court to the boardroom, there is an underlying current of cut throat behaviors to ensure winning. Winning can be good, but the need to win brings a pressure that can cripple people’s natural expression.

“The suicide rate for girls ages 15 to 19 doubled from 2007 to 2015, when it reached its highest point in 40 years, according to the CDC. The suicide rate for boys ages 15 to 19 increased by 30 percent over the same time period. The analysis looked at data from 1975 to 2015, the most recent year those statistics were available.”

In a world that pits us against each other and tells us that if we don't beat someone else, we won't get our fair share, it's no wonder people give up and just let go of life. Young people are absorbent. They feel everything. They haven't numbed out. There's plenty of room at the top, but rivalry prevents sharing, even when there's more than enough. We teach children how to live on the bottom, then penalize them for it. We curtail children's natural aliveness and wonder why they grow up depressed. Maybe we could all be in this together.

The following story speaks to the power of co-operation. We are one people, and when we go it alone, we not only separate ourselves from goodness, we take on life as a burden and forget that life can be a party. How would you feel if you gave a party and no one came? Life invites everyone to the party and respects everyone’s gifts. Your life is your party. Will you be attending alone or will there be guests?

Power, Pain, and Presence were good friends, but lately they couldn’t get along. Each one thought she was smarter than the other and wanted to be the leader, the boss of everything. They competed more and more to prove who was faster, smarter, stronger, or more creative.

They decided to settle their differences through the Court of Wisdom. They would present their case to Wisdom and let her decide who was the greatest in the land and who should be the leader. Certainly, Wisdom would know. After all, she was wise, oh so wise, and she was respected far and wide.

Power was the first to speak. “I should be the leader because without me nothing gets done. Our society would collapse without me. I am the best. I am the greatest.”

Pain followed with, “I should be the leader because without me people get arrogant, but with me, they grow humble. I keep egos in check. I am the best. I am the greatest.”

Presence pleaded her case: “I should be in charge because I illuminate all action and bring steadiness to the heart. I am the best. I am the greatest.”

The head of the Court of Wisdom listened intently. She showed great compassion, and after the three pleaded their cases, the judge started crying. Power, Pain, and Presence were surprised and afraid. They made the wisest elder in the land cry. Without thought for themselves or for who would lead the effort, they rushed to Wisdom to console her. They held her hands, wiped her tears, and sang sweet songs. Pain shared the heartbreak, Power carried the distraught elder to rest beside a beautiful waterfall, and Presence flooded Wisdom with compassion and blessing.

Wisdom looked up, smiled, then spoke, “Can you see how well you work together? Each of you brings a special gift. Pain, you bring humility. Power, you give strength to rise about the pain and to act in the world. Presence, you connect us to all living things and bring forth the remembrance of I Am That I Am. Power, Pain, and Presence, you must work together to transform humanity by showing them how to work together.

Power, Pain, and Presence smiled. They realized how well they worked together. From that day forward, they were the best of friends. They respected each other and always made room for each other’s gifts at the table of life. Together they could do much more than they could alone, and they realized that being a member of a tribe was more fun too!

Humanity is a team sport, but there is only one team. It’s time to widen the playing field so everyone can play.

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

  Anne Talks

Egor, the Ego

Today's Anne Talk is the Egor, the Ego. Time: 1:57

  Anne Art

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