The Anne Report, Sizing Up Life As It Is, helps us evaluate how life really is, instead of believing how the ego says it is. The Main article, Join the Hunch Bunch, discusses intuition and how we all can use it to make our lives EZier. The Healthy Living article, Romancing the Bean, provides a tasty recipe for Curried Garbanzos. The Anne Talk is The Universe Handles the Details. The Featured Product This Month highlights Anne's fifth book, The Living Book. Click to learn about all of Anne's Books. Click for What is EZosophy? Click for Abundance Affirmations.

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

Living EZosophy, May 01, 2018
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

Anne's Websites:

  The Anne Report

Sizing Up Life As It Is

Dear ,

My husband returns today from a family reunion. I've been driving our truck because he took the Prius. I'm not a seasoned truck driver, and I'll be happy for my ride to return. For years we only had one car, and I bicycled when he was gone. Having another vehicle is wonderful. I love my husband, and I'm glad when he goes on a trip. It is a rare occurrence. We normally travel together, but there's something neat about breaking our routine. I eat when I want to. I read a lot and relish the time I have to travel with the deeper thoughts of life. It's been wonderful, this alone time, and I'm looking forward to his return.

I spearheaded a fundraiser for a local Unity church on Sunday and also had the luxury of working in my yard for a few hours. Life seems soft and cozy, yet it has its brittle moments. The UN came out with the Ten Happiest Countries list. While being rated as the happiest country is an honor, the idea of the happiest country paints an unrealistic picture. The same countries noted for their happiness are filled with high rates of depression and hopelessness. I like that, because I too am filled with happiness and hopelessness. I don't have a cookie cutter life, one stamped with sugar sprinkles. I have my ups and downs and find it tiresome to listen to people trying to cheer me up. I know the drill. Life is fickle, but it is interesting and has endless possibilities. Romantic comedies are my favorite kind of movies, but I like other kinds of movies too. Getting past life's little scrapes and even enduring pain brings me to deeper levels of resilience and creativity.

There is a difference between ego driven suffering and genuine suffering. When we worry and fret about the same things for decades, the worry is most likely ego driven. When we suffer about maintaining our lives, that's probably ego driven as well. Suffering when our pet died recently is grief. Suffering when we've lost a job and we need to pay our bills is grief driven as well. But suffering because we have to work, that is ego driven. It's important to know the difference, so we can suffer only when it's appropriate, not when it's ego contrived. Become an EZosophist and give up ego driven suffering. And that's it for the Anne Report.

Anne

  Main Article

Join the Hunch Bunch

I watched the movie PGS (Personal Guidance System) last week. The director had a startling intuitive experience that saved his life. He had never thought about intuition, but this event hurled him in a new direction. He made a movie based on that experience.

He travelled the world and interviewed gurus, spiritual teachers, and psychics. He used intuition to guide him to people to interview, yet he investigated the process in ways that some might use to investigate a murder mystery. His conclusion was that we can develop this skill by asking a question, listening for the answer, learning to trust our hunches, and following through on the advice. Everyone has access to intuition.

People approach intuition as if it is special gift, but intuition is natural. We all have it, but too often we've been educated to listen to the voice of the authorities, such as teachers and parents. Unintentionally, they've beaten our minds into submission, and we held it down after their departure, until that still, small voice of inner knowing was drowned out by intellect, logic, and gobbledygook.

There are many books on intuition. While these books offer sound advice, the biggest hurdles to overcome are the beliefs that we can't do it, that intuition is reserved for spiritually talented people, and that intuition is woo-woo stuff.

If someone held a pillow over our mouth and nose long enough, we would lose consciousness and eventually die from the lack of oxygen. Not being in touch with our intuition is like someone holding a pillow over our minds and suffocating our natural knowing. We are designed to use much more of the mind than its logic, but we're taught that logic rules life. I suspect the same people who say that sex is a sin were in on this! They say natural knowing is not good; natural pleasure is not good. You get the picture.

The Silva Mind Control Course, now called The Silva Method, teaches people to access their inner knowing. I took the class in the 1970's and was thrilled to have the class validate much of what I already knew and how I lived. I had shouted to the Universe that if I didn't meet other people who believed like me, that I was going to give it all up and act like a "normal person." I was tired of being alone and living on the psychic-spiritual edge. As soon as I asked, I had a hunch to look in the back of a book I'd read. I saw "Silva Mind Control" listed as a resource. I looked up Silva in the phone book, found a listing, and two weeks later I was in a Silva class. The class provided context and structure for my intuition, but what was more valuable, was finding people who lived life in the same offbeat nature as I do. I was not alone. I felt more sure-footed; this connection brought a new host of people into my life who were like me. We were the weirdos, and we marched and even danced to a unique way of living that leaped past the boundaries of the intellect.

Here are some ways that I've learned to listen to and trust my intuition.

• Take note of my powerful dreams – those that are etched in my mind when I wake up. I write them down, consider the feelings evoked by the dream, and see if I can get a message from them. I once was in a relationship that was coasting. I was complacent, but one day this man crossed a line. He made fun of my beliefs. I asked for guidance. That night I had a dream. My mate was rolling a golden heart uphill in the dirt with a stick. It was my heart. I broke up with him the following day. I was worried about what he would say, but my intuition gave me the perfect words to say and we walked away as friends. There was no drama.
• How to handle a stalemate situation - When there was no strong feeling or inkling of what to do, I should wait and do nothing; either the answer would show up when I could implement it, or the circumstance would clear up without my doing anything. I just needed to take the next lighted step.
• I should listen to the thoughts and feelings I'm having when I'm around people. - Many of the thoughts and feelings I have are not mine; they emanate from people around me. These thoughts and feelings were information for me. This information taught me whom I could trust and count on and helped me to comfort people in distress. It is one of the most important things I learned about listening and discerning whose stuff I was processing and how to respond appropriately.
• Don't be afraid to follow a harmless hunch. - The other day, as I walked, I noticed clover on the side of the path. It’s been years since I’ve found a four-leaf clover. I looked up and saw two construction workers taking a break. I asked, "Have either one of you found a four-leaf clover lately. One man held up his arm. He had a large four-leaf clover tattooed on his arm. The other man replied, "My daughter found one the other day." It wasn't a big thing, but it was a small validation that speaking to the men was the perfect thing to do.
• Intuition is usually quiet and unobtrusive. It doesn't march to a drum roll; it slips in unannounced. Therefore, I had to develop the art of listening to be able to hear it. I had to open to silence and other ways of receiving information other than the mind. I had to be familiar with how my gut felt.

Last year I rented our guest bedroom to a man whom I met at a spiritual center. We both were in tune with our intuition, and my gut feeling led me to offer him our extra bedroom. I was wanting some extra income, and when I found he wanted to move to our area, I asked if he would like to live with us. I had known him for only a short time, but relying on our inner knowing brought forth a great match. Asking him to rent our room didn't seem like a risk. It felt like putting a warm glove on a cold hand. It was the logical thing to do, given my strong gut feeling. And it's worked out well.

My husband doesn't believe in intuition. This is hilarious, because I watch him using it all the time. We all use intuition, but we don't realize that we are being guided by an unobtrusive force that nudges us in the right direction. Believe it or not, we don't hang out in an unorganized, acausal Universe. Our intuition becomes more apparent once we consciously tune in. We don't have to, but it's probably better to use our GPS when we are driving in a new city, rather than using the sun, stars, and moon to guide us. Our intuition, or PGS (Personal Guidance System), is always on. Why ignore it? Why not use it, so we don't have to stumble in the dark? Maybe you've had a hunch that you should follow your hunches more often. I'd follow that voice, because when you do, everything becomes EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

Quotes

"We live in a perpetually recurring new world. Technology has provided benefits that would have been considered miracles just 50 years ago. But, and that's a huge honking "but," technology doesn't give more time, which is what one would expect from labor saving devices. It sucks time."
-- Anne Sermons Gillis

"Drama, ego driven suffering, and emotional intensity are ego's designer drugs. They make life worth not living and keep us safe from imagined harm. They allow us to hide, to cover our brilliance and creativity, and assist us in living a Milquetoast life."
-- Anne Sermons Gillis

"There are phonies and charlatans claiming to know the way, but, at some point, you have to stop closing yourself off because of them. At some point you have to risk the ridicule of the mob, of your own internalized voices, and try to see clearly what has been set in front of you in this life and try to act on that as bravely and honestly as you can, no matter what kind of rules you've previously been living by. At some point you'll be asked to believe in some possibility that transcends newspaper headlines and TV shows and the opinion and assumptions of your friends, and how you respond to that will have a greater impact on your life than anything else you'd ever decide to do or refrain from doing."
-- Roland Merullo, reworded and excerpted from Breakfast with Buddha

  The Living Book

Learn more about The Living Book, by Anne Sermons Gillis.
Paperback $4.95 plus $3.00 shipping. PDF Download $0.99. Kindle Book $2.99.

  Anne's Books

Click to learn about Anne's books.

  What is EZosophy?

Click to learn about EZosophy.

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  Healthy Living

Romancing the Bean

I've been on a cooking crusade all my life. Cooking can be an intimate act of relating to food. Cooking can be an art. Our thoughts and attitudes while cooking seep into our food. What we cook is like litmus paper for our thoughts and feelings. Best to keep it happy and stay calm while cooking. Don't watch a thriller when cooking. Listen to classical or uplifting music.

My favorite cookbook is Romancing the Bean by Joanne Saltzman. Joanne understands that cooking can be a sacred art. I cook almost every day and love it. It's a creative time. The following recipe comes from Joanne's book, and it's always popular when I serve it to guests. Try it, and, while cooking, be aware and romance your food. Cook your beans from scratch, throw out your cans for now, and romance the bean.

Curried Garbanzos

• 2/3 cup of coconut milk
• 1 1/3 cup of garbanzo bean juice or water
• 3 T. unbleached flour
• 1/2 cup of sautéed shallots (I use yellow onions if I don't have shallots.)
• 2 t. curry powder
• 1 t. sea salt
• 1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzos
• 4 cups of raw spinach (Substitute 1/2 cup sautéed celery, 1 cup of cooked, sliced, green beans, or use your imagination.)
• 1 T. of fresh lemon (bottled doesn't provide the same taste or nutrition)

Combine coconut milk, juice, or water, and flour. Cook until thickened.

Add shallots, curry, and salt. Mix. Add beans. Mix. Cook 10 minutes.

Five minutes before serving, or when the spinach is wilted, add the lemon juice and spinach. Serve when spinach is bright green.

Serve on brown rice, quinoa, or cooked grain of choice.

Yum. Yum

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

  Anne Talks

The Universe Handles the Details

In The Universe Handles the Details, Anne invites her long-time friend, Mary Helen Hutchison, to share her experience of a talk by this title which Mary heard Anne give at Anne's Connection Church in Memphis many years ago. Time: 5:16

  Anne Art

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  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time
unless otherwise specified.

Saturday, May 5, 2018
10 AM to 11:30 AM
"Finding, Developing, and Using Your Intuition"
Houston Theosophical Society
1525 Heights Blvd., Houston Texas

Sunday, May 6, 2018
11:00 AM-12:00 PM:
"Living An EZier Life"
Unity of Brazosport
507 S. Brooks St. (Hwy. 36)
Brazoria, TX 77422

Sunday, May 20, 2018
10:30 AM: To Be Announced
Centers for Spiritual Living, Clearlake, TX
18096 Kings Row, Suite D
Houston TX 77058

  Shareables from Anne

The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

40 Days to Abundance

  Abundance Affirmations

Join Anne's Facebook Group

This group is a place to post uplifting affirmations and thoughts about prosperity and abundant living. Let's create a right relationship with money so that we feel comfortable about money. Let's use money as it's meant to be used, and not as a way to accumulate power or to fill a void. We don't need money to buy more stuff. We need it to create a world that works for everyone. We want to cast off old beliefs of lack and reclaim our natural state of abundance.