The Anne Report, Putting the Ho, ho, ho Back into Christmas, suggest that we leave Christmas struggle behind and relish the joy instead. The Main article, From the Mundane to the Magical, shows how fantasy can open us to new discoveries in life. The Healthy Living article, Awaken Your Creativity, encourages us to recognize and use our creativity. The Anne Talk, EZ Today, shows how we can relax into our highest good and let it make our lives EZier. The Featured Product This Month is Anne's book, Words Make a Difference. Click to read What is EZosophy? Click to join Anne's Abundance Affirmations. Click for Shareables From Anne.

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

Living EZosophy, December 11, 2018
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 713.922.0242
Email: anne@annegillis.com

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  The Anne Report

Putting the Ho, ho, ho Back into Christmas

Dear ,

People know what we mean when we say, "Ho, ho, ho." It's Santa's most identifiable phrase. While Christmas is a holiday for Christians, it's hard for others not to join in – especially if they live in the USA. The Christmas holiday kicks in the day after Thanksgiving. Consumers are lured by the magic of buying more for less. It can be invigorating to get a bargain, but most bargain hunters don't need anything else. They are overrun with stuff.

We started a tradition of not giving presents for Christmas and birthdays. We donated money on our loved one's behalf to a charity. This "consume less policy" ended abruptly when we became grandparents. My husband and I were able to continue the practice among ourselves and we don't give each other birthday, Christmas, or anniversary presents. We know if we need something, we can buy it for ourselves. It's a relief. We love each other, and we don't need forced buying to prove our love. We do buy things for each other during the year, when we see a need or see something we think the other would like.

Some people love holiday drama. They are looking for scenarios to justify their already present addiction to Ego Driven Suffering (EDS). One of the movements that capitalizes on indignation is the made-up movement they call "The War on Christmas." I need to pray for those folks because they are Hard-a-holics. The drama is not about the content they focus on, it is about being addicted to drama. It is about starting a "I'm right; you're wrong" argument and spending untold amounts of puffed up abrasiveness to prove their point. Let's not use the holiday season or Christmas to promote outrage. I'm starting a new movement. It's called "Let's put the Ho, ho, ho back in Christmas." Ho, ho, ho is the chuckling sound that comes from a belly laugh. The Ho, ho, ho movement is one worth promoting, because when we do, life is EZier and EZier. And that's it for the Anne Report.

Anne

  Main Article

From the Mundane to the Magical

Stress, demands, suffering. I write about these perennial topics frequently. Are we transformed by our challenges? Do we integrate the hard and the ugly into a more palatable reality? Do we rise above the battlefield and stand our ground in the realms of the divine? How do we meet these challenges? Do we respond with transformation; integration; transcendence?

I recently read a series of books that involved vampires, witches, and demons. I avoided the Anne Rice vampire books several years ago, even though people raved about them. I had preconceived notions about such things that prohibited me from reading them. They were beneath my intellect (OMG! Don't be sick.), and offered only whimsy. But these books, the ones I read, danced from one time to another, and I'm a sucker for time travel. That's how I got hooked.

They were written by Deborah Harkness, a "history professor who tumbled down the rabbit hole and wrote the international best-selling, All Souls Trilogy." They were studded with historical references and characters. Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Christopher Marlowe came to life and, as it turns out, imaginary creatures such as vampires and flying witches have love interests, children, enemies, and friends. The author humanized these creatures until they felt like a part of my extended family. Combine a touch of magic and mayhem and there's quite an adventure. My pen quivered when I read of Shakespeare and Marlowe. I wanted to create and set imaginary characters free with the stroke of my hand. I felt bigger than life as the main character's familiar (animal guide) spread her wings to protect her mistress.

What is all this quibble about witches and vampires? It is about fantasy. Fantasy offers openings into our psyche that might remain closed, lest we use a magic key or an illuminated sword to awaken them. Fantasy worlds move and enrich the mind. Fantasy is mental play, and if the mind is not allowed to play, we get stuck in heartless ideologies that extinguish the creative, imaginative muse that lives within. As we age, we tend to narrow our focus. We unconsciously imagine that we know how to negotiate life. We watch the news, peruse the Internet, eat, listen to a song or two, go to work, retire, and take a few trips. We settle into an habitual mindset.

Our myths and fairy tales are over-shadowed by our busy-ness, but we need a rainbow-colored, gossamer-winged creature flying through our lives to wake us up to other possibilities. We need a quiver of love-laced arrows to open our heart. We need a mind that courageously flies into the unknown.

I can't guide us to the open path, but if we walk the path strewn by only the mundane, we've lost ourselves. We've lost the ability to see magic in a fork and possibility in a shoe. Give a shoe or fork to a three-year-old and you'll see captivation, awe, and vision. "What can I do with this shoe?" the child muses. Putting it on one's foot is not even an option. The shoe becomes a boat full of lizards or a bird's nest.

The second season of the hit, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, came out this week. There's an episode where the main character's mother left her husband and escaped her invisibility by fleeing to Paris. She flourished. No longer defined by her roles, she picked up life and flew it like a kite. She transcended her ordinary life and returned to her natural vibrancy. Her indignant, clueless husband came to take her home, but not before he too was captivated by life's magic. Upon return, their lives were a transformed. Existence was no longer to-do spotted days whose only joy was to be marked off on a calendar.

Fundamentalist thinking would have us pick one immutable path and travel that way, blind to common sense and intuitive knowing, but we can't pick some straight path and go only that way. When we climb a mountain, there is no straight path. And life presents itself as mountains, not as flat desert lands. Life calls us to listen, listen with the depths of our being, to its call. The terrain we travel invites us for a rich journey, not a guided tour. We have within our imagination a path that leads us over the rocks and crevices and delivers us onto a place and space of grace. It's a place where Peter Pan flies and Tinkerbell flits. In this grace space, the place riddled with imagination, the command becomes, "If you believe in fairies, then clap your hands," because when you do, life becomes EZier and EZier.

Anne

Special Announcement

Miracles in the Mountains Presents: Miracles, Scribes, and Mystics, a conference based on A Course in Miracles, Oct. 11-14, 2019. Join Miracles Productions at the beautiful Art of Living Retreat Center, Boone, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, during the peak of the glorious "Autumn Leaf" season! Early bird special through March, 2019.

  Quotes

Anne Quotes

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 Featured Product This Month

"Books are waiting to be written. Thus, it was my privilege to bring this book to the world. It brought with it such grace and love. Words Make a Difference sparkles with aliveness and blessing and delivers the perfect information under perfect timing. We are called not only to heal ourselves and those around us, we are destined to hold a vision for the world. This book commands us to be architects of a brave new future and lights a path for us to follow." Anne Sermons Gillis

Order Words Make a Difference from the website or call me at 713.922.0242 to order directly from me. The price is $16.95 plus $3.99 shipping, for a total of $20.94.

Click for the Kindle version on Amazon for $5.99.

Click to hear Anne discuss Words Make a Difference.

"Some people use affirmations to reprogram the mind. Certainly we have reams of questionable material in our subconscious mind, but I prefer to think of the affirmations in the book as commands for more compassionate living, openings to greater possibilities, and templates for a brave new world." Anne Sermons Gillis

  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.

  What is EZosophy?

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NOTE: If viewing this on a cell phone, be sure to scroll right to see the other column.

  Healthy Living

Awaken Your Creativity

My husband shared some music from one of his favorites, Kacey Musgraves. I listened to a clean, clear voice, delivering a pithy love song. The next tune on the program started playing. "Stop it," I requested. "I can't handle any more creativity."

I explained that when I get engrossed in any line of creativity, it consumes me. Years ago, my sister sent a cassette tape of The Phantom of the Opera music. It captured me, like a drug, and I had to stop listening.

Why did I want to stop listening to the Musgraves song? Because when immersed in song, I start channeling music. I want to write original songs - both the lyrics and the melody. That shouldn't be a bad thing, but between doing my videos, art work, and writing, I can barely keep up. I have tiny pieces of paper with ideas and writing on them strewn throughout the house. I once wrote a children's book while walking through the kitchen. The book reached out and I had to write it. That's why I told my husband to turn the music off. I'm not a musician or a song writer, and I don't want to learn a new craft. Not today. I don't need a creativity crisis.

People say, "I don't have a creative bone in my body." These people lie to themselves and others, and sadly they believe their lies. We all have creativity. It's a dimension of our existence. The creativity may not take a conventional form, but it's there.

How can one turn on their creativity? Maybe this will help.

If you want to be a writer, read books: the kind of books you want to write. If you have the desire and immerse yourselves in the creations of others, you begin to entrain yourself with the art.

This is true for all the arts. If you want to be a songwriter, study songwriters and listen to their songs. Listen to the kind of music you love and would like to write. If you want to sing, open that YouTube video and sing along with others whose voice range is like yours.

I hesitate to mention this, but I will. Silicon Valley spawns some of its creativity through micro-dosing brain-changing drugs. Kacey Musgraves, a Grammy award winner and the winner of this year's Country Music Album of the Year award, gives credit to the micro-dosing of a hallucinogenic drug for inspiring one of her songs. Michael Pollen's new book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, legitimizes the study and use of some psychedelics and other drugs. The stigmas placed on some drugs are falling away. Marijuana is currently legal in ten states. Reputable magazines, such as Psychology Today, explore the relationship of cannabis and creativity. We've seen how legal drugs alter consciousness. Maybe overlooking the power of other drugs is not wise.

I do not advocate the use of drugs. My personal experience is very limited, but I do think certain drugs open our minds to think and create in new and powerful ways. Talented people, who use drugs in a limited and conscious way, often move their talents forward through the use of mind-altering chemicals.

We are all created to create. We are created to sing, to dream, to dance, to play, to transcend the practicality needed to navigate contemporary living. If you are not creating in your life, it's time to open your mind to your inner creator, because when you do, life is EZier and EZier.

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

  Anne Talk

EZ Today

Anne's video, EZ Today, shows how we can relax into our highest good and let it make our lives EZier. Time: 5:00

  Anne Art

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  Shareables From Anne

The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

40 Days to Abundance

  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time
unless otherwise specified.

Sunday, December 23, 2018
11:00 AM-12:00 PM:
"Celebrating Christmas in Your Heart"
Unity of Brazosport
507 S. Brooks St. (Hwy. 36)
Brazoria, TX 77422

Contact Anne to book your event:
713.922.0242 or anne@annegillis.com.