The Anne Report, Watch Your Self-Talk: Your Body Is Listening illustrates how our thoughts can alter our body. The Main article, Distinguishing Real Suffering From Ego Driven Suffering reminds us to notice the difference between real suffering and ego suffering. The Healthy Living article, Research, Facts, Choices – What Am I to do?, provides tips for how we work our way through the maze of various health options. The Anne Talk, Wisdom Talk, discusses some of the origins of the concept of wisdom. The Featured Product This Month highlights Anne’s third book, Standing In The Dark. Click to read What is EZosophy? Click to join Abundance Affirmations. Click for Shareables From Anne.

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

Living EZosophy, May 21, 2019
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 713.922.0242
Email: anne@annegillis.com

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  The Anne Report

Watch Your Self-Talk: Your Body Is Listening

Dear ,

I sit in my den writing. The windows drool because it’s so warm and humid outside. My throat is scratchy and I’m catching my husband’s cold. He’s been hacking around the house for a week and my body seems to be standing in solidarity with his. My grandchildren turned five yesterday. I had pneumonia right after they were born. I gave my body an ultimatum. “You cannot get sick. If you do, Elizabeth won’t let you be around the boys.” It’s been five years since I threatened my body and I have had no colds since then. Unfortunately, I forgot the ultimatum and caught a cold. You’ll read in the main article about all my body stuff this week. Don’t be alarmed. I’m taking it all in with a grain of salt. Life rebels sometimes and just does its own thing, impervious to my wishes and desires.

I’m glad for today's rain. It provides the perfect setting for lying around and luxuriating in my illness. My body had to pull many strings to get this cold, and I’m going to enjoy the down time! All illness is healing in progress, and I’ll marvel at how my body reclaims its health in just a few days. What a wonderful thing, this body. It’s a cornucopia of cleverness. We have a movie to watch tonight and I think it’s time to watch it, so that’s it for the Anne Report.

  Main Article

Distinguishing Real Suffering From Ego Driven Suffering

Last week I stubbed my little toe one day, and the day after, my neighboring toe caught on the bed frame. Ouch. A trip to the doctor confirmed that I was infirmed! Yes. X-rays proved both were broken. They are buddy taped. “About that sore on my face?” I asked the doc. “Shingles” he replied. I was so happy it wasn’t MRSA, I drew in a breath of relief. Fortunately, I had no itching and no pain. The day before the toe mishap, I spent two hours with my endodontist as she drilled, scraped, and packed my failed root canal. Fingers crossed that she got to the infection. Did I mention my washing machine broke? I’m laughing, not bragging, about these mishaps. I hear that humor heals. Thank you, Norman Cousins.

EZosophy is a philosophy that distinguishes between pain and suffering. My foot did hurt, but had I started feeling sorry for myself, I would be struggling with ego driven suffering. It’s a faux emotion. My body has many challenges, but since I’m not my body, I don’t need to get wigged out about it. I won’t feel guilty because I brought these conditions on, a common reaction from Law of Attraction students: I don’t have to try to figure out what the Universe wants to tell me, and I don’t have to pity myself. I am free and happy, and happy that I’m okay; therefore, I’m doubly happy. I can have physical pain and inconveniences without producing emotional struggle. Being somewhat semi-retired makes it easier to move past life’s inconveniences because I have time to spread out. I have breathing room. I’m not tied to a schedule. Unfortunately, regardless of how packed or open-ended our schedules, suffering over interruptions and pain is never flattering. It’s called whining. No one wants to be around and listen when we suffer over pain or nuisances.

I recently attended a friend’s funeral. She was a Zoroastrian; the service was unique and lovely. Two priests chanted for more than an hour, in Farsi, as family members sat quietly, nursing precious memories. The loss of such a lovely woman was sad, but not tragic, because she was in her eighties. Her quality of life had diminished rapidly over the past two years. Grieving a resent loss is not ego driven suffering (EDS). It is helpful to cry and mourn the loss of a close friend or relative.

While grieving a resent loss is not EDS, the continual grieving of a loss that happened years before, is EDS. Continual grief, grief that interrupts one’s life, is ego driven. Our grief will be triggered on and off forever. We never get over the loss of a loved one. It’s like losing an arm: the arm never grows back, but at some point, we must return to our natural joy and peace, arm or no arm. If we don’t get over our loved-one’s death, we are doing a disservice to the deceased. They would want us to live zestfully and to have a good life.

There is a distinction between actual suffering, physical pain, and ego driven suffering. It is important to know the difference, because if our suffering is ego driven, we can stop it. People in our culture suffer from too many unfounded upsets. Focusing on not-so-real problems, EDS, offers benefits that are frequently called payoffs:

• EDS offers a chemical fix. Drama is a drug.
• EDS keeps our attention focused on the unreal and saps our energy.
• EDS gives us an excuse to cop out on life to avoid failure. “I can’t possibly participate as upset as I am.”
• EDS provides a sense of self-righteousness and offers false entitlement.

Positive Thinking (PT) brings relief from EDS, but we can’t use PT to cover up real suffering and fear. I had a friend who was going into surgery. He told me he didn’t want to suffer. He was on the gurney and only minutes from being rolled away. He didn’t want to be afraid. He knew the EZosophy philosophy and wanted it to be EZ. His understanding of the philosophy was misplaced. EZosophy is not meant to replace normal fears. Who wouldn’t feel some fear when they were headed into surgery? I told him it was okay and normal to be afraid. He relaxed and made it okay to be afraid. The surgery was successful, and he was able to face it with clear fear, rather than buried fear.

We can’t cover up real fear with PT, and we don’t want to manufacture false fears and dramatic reactions. Suffering, struggle, stress, and strain are a part of life, but it’s essential to be honest about our suffering. Is it real and appropriate or is it drama? Once we answer this fundamental question, and learn to let go of the unreal, we can face life’s real dilemmas face on. When we can do that, life quickly becomes EZier and EZier.

  Quotes

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  Shareables From Anne

The World's Best Weight Loss Secret

Thought Freedom

40 Days to Abundance

EZosophy Vows

Vows of Seriousness

Anne's Conscious Carols

  Featured Product This Month

  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

Research, Facts, Choices – What Am I to do?

We know that the most important contribution we can make to our health is our frame of mind. When we are in a good mood, aches and pains lessen or even disappear.

The mind is impressionable; therefore, it is good to be discerning about what we read. Best not to take our good moods down, with an overload of facts. When I read the symptoms of an illness or a disease, I often think, “I have those symptoms. I wonder if I have this.” I have to remind myself that I’m okay.

Research has its limits. It’s provided me with challenging information on mushrooms. “They are not good for me; they contribute to systemic yeast.” “They are a miracle. Just eating a few a week staves off dementia.” We are showered with infinite information in these high-tech days, and often one report contradicts the other. Here’s a great article on the subject.

When faced with a health decision, we don’t have time to read all the information available. What are we to do? Personally, I use doctors as advisors, and as wonderful as I am at diagnosing my body, I miss some things. Last week, when I visited my doctor, he was quick to diagnose my outbreak as shingles. I was going with poison ivy, a spider bite, or MRSA, but when he said “Shingles,” I knew he was correct.

When I make my health decisions, sometimes I go with my gut. It seems as if science backs my decision. In a study done on the cure rate of those who use alternative medicine versus allopathic medicine, the cure rate depended on something else. The people who believed in the method they chose had the best cure rates. It didn’t matter which one they chose.

Back to the question, “What are we to do?” Here’s my answer. Look at the research, talk with your friends and family, and then stop gathering information. Make your decision, stick with it, and don’t second guess it. Think, “This is going to work.” Then find that positive frame of mind and go forward. When it comes to our health decisions, sometimes the saying, “It’s the best I can do” applies.

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

  Anne Talk

Wisdom Talk

Today’s Anne Talk, Wisdom Talk, discusses some of the origins of the concept of wisdom. It was presented to Unity Bay Area Houston, in League City, TX. Time: 27:00

  Anne Art

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  Abundance Affirmations

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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. Anne, AKA Dr. Money, posts a nightly goodnight for the prosperity team, and everyone who watches them becomes a part of the prosperity team.