Anne’s 8 Word Miracle Mantra: “Everything can be EZ or at least EZier.  Anne Sermons Gillis

Special Announcement, April 22, 2021

Special Announcement Edition

This is a special edition of my regular newsletter to acknowledge and celebrate Earth Day.

You will continue to get her regular newsletter every Tuesday morning.

Scroll down to learn about Earth Day on April 22, 2021.

Thanks.

Phone: 713.922.0242
Email: anne@annegillis.com

Anne’s Websites

Happy Earth Day 2021

“... on April 22, 1970, Earth Day was held, it was one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy....” – American Heritage Magazine, October 1993

Senator Gaylord Nelson commissioned April 22, 1970 to salute our earth and bring to the forefront the sustainability problems we face on our planet. This annual earth awareness event has educated and involved millions of Americans.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years, starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political “limelight” once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons, the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.” – Senator Gaylord Nelson

The event is now international. You can find activities for the USA and other countries at https://www.earthday.org.

You may also want to visit https://www.thegef.org/topics/sustainable-cities to see evolving models for sustainable urban growth.

Work the Twelve Steps for Planetary Recovery

In 1992 I attended the Global Forum, which was a parallel event to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro. As a result of this event and other preparatory events, I became friends with Dr. Gary Herbertson, the president of Earth Day International. Gary was aware of my involvement in the 12 step program and challenged me to address the recovery of the planet. I took on the challenge and gathered the help of a small group of people that included Beth Ingber Green, Dr. Terry Davis, Gary, and me. After several months of conference calls and refining, we came up with the Twelve Steps for Planetary Recovery.

Twelve Steps for Planetary Recovery

In the 1930’s, a handful of people confronted the life-threatening condition of alcoholism and launched a recovery program called the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This program is so effective it has inspired many other twelve-step programs that have touched the lives of millions of people around the world.

Now we face an even more life-threatening condition: the destruction of the environmental life-support systems of our planet. Like alcoholism, this destructiveness is based on addictive attitudes, lifestyles, and behaviors, and as millions of recovering addicts have shown, these self-defeating patterns can be changed.

Twelve Steps for Planetary Recovery is designed to address our personal, local, and global condition. Practicing these steps will free us individually and collectively to discover solutions to our environmental crises and the interrelated emotional, economic, spiritual, and social problems that confront us. One day and one step at a time, they can become a guide for our individual and collective lives.

1. We, humanity, admitted that we were destroying the planet and that our need to dominate, consume, and control had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that we, the earth, and the universe are one, and that our tendency to dominate could be balanced by our desire for unity.

3. Made a decision to call on a power greater than ourselves to bring us into balance.

4. Made a fearless and thorough moral inventory of our beliefs, attitudes, and practices, and evaluated their impact on us and the rest of the planet.

5. Admitted to ourselves, a Higher Power, as we understood it, and each other the exact nature of our wrongs, and released shame, so that we could move forward with compassion for ourselves and others.

6. Became willing to make social, attitudinal, and economic changes in order to be in balance with our planet and in harmony with ourselves.

7. Humbly asked our Higher Power to help us change our technologies, social relations, and personal and collective lives so that we could promote life enhancement and sustainability for ourselves and other species.

8. Made a list of all the ecological and social damage we had caused and became willing to reverse it.

9. Cleaned up our rivers, oceans, landfills, and air, as we cleaned up our thoughts, emotions, actions, and social relations.<

10. Continued to monitor how our attitudes and economic and social behavior impact the web of life, and when we were wrong, promptly called ourselves to awareness.

11. Sought through observation, experimentation, cooperation, and meditation to expand our conscious contact with ourselves, the earth, and the universe, so that we could continually support our collective well-being, evolution, and sacred rhythm.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to bring balance into every relationship, with ourselves, each other, our planet, and the universe of which we are a part.

These steps may seem overwhelming. In fact, we do not expect to practice them perfectly. Instead, we plan to use them for study and discussion, as reference points to evaluate where we are. We need to be honest about our situation and our capacities. We need to face ourselves and each other squarely and lovingly. And we need to do so now. Nothing less has worked or is working. Nothing more is required.

From Chaos to Order

Chaos is an important idea in the totality of the universe, but when it is a part of our daily lives, it creates and sustains stress. We are drowning in our stuff. Annie Leonard’s video, The Story of Stuff, tells of the predicament we are in with our possessions. Our society not only supports the purchase of more and more, it solicits these purchases.

It’s possible that we are genetically predisposed to hoard, buy too much, and clutter. In the past it’s been wise to store food or other supplies for the future. This is not the case today, but epigenetics show that genes are malleable and they can change in the midst of trauma. Environments, even emotional environments, affect our genes. Could it be that our needing to have so many things is a product of our parents' or grandparents' experience of hoarding during and/or after the Depression? Studies of holocaust survivors suggest that people whose parents went through the Holocaust carry unique genetic markers: the same markers their parents carry.

One of the most popular ideas of our time is the idea of decluttering. It’s about taking control of the physical chaos that surrounds us and creating order. Does the story of more have an irreversible hold on our lives? If our genetics predispose us to hang on to too much stuff, does that mean we are doomed to buy and keep much more than we will ever need?

We are destined to fail unless we become aware of the problem and take some time, energy, and effort to overcome the problem. The first step in overcoming our stuff problem is knowing that we have a problem.

I've written a 12 step Program to help us with decluttering our lives that's fashioned after the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

12 Steps to Freedom From Stuff

1. We admit we are powerless over our stuff—that our lives are unmanageable. Just say, “I admit that I have too many things, and, as a result of that, my life is unmanageable.” Having too much stuff makes a heavy load. We call that a burden.

2. We believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, relieve our chaos, and empower us to let go of useless items. There is a force larger than our problems. It’s larger than our past and more powerful than our limited minds.

3. Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of The Infinite Source of our understanding. This is the humbling step of surrender.

4. Take an inventory of our keeping behavior and of our stuff. What behaviors keep our chaotic system going? For example, too busy to take care of ourselves, don’t know what to do, negative self-talk. Make a list of categories of stuff. For example, kitchen gadgets, shoes, shirts, makeup, or toiletries.

5. Admit to Source, to ourselves, and to another person, that we have too many unneeded possessions, do not have the ability to organize our belongings, nor the willpower to let go of our useless items. Talk with a trusted friend. Tell them you are in the midst of cleaning up your life and your environment and that you have a problem. Tell them you are going to get rid of the things that no longer serve you and that you don’t want or need as many things in your life as you used to. Ask for support.

6. Become entirely ready to have The Infinite Source remove all these defects of character and self-judgments, and for Source to break the chains that bind us to our family history. I am willing to have my life changed at the core. I am willing to be changed internally so that I can make the external changes I need to make.

7. Humbly ask Source to remove our need to buy and keep too many personal and household items. Ask Source to instill in us a sense of having more than enough of all things necessary to abundantly support our lives. We pray or ask for help in our own way. The Cosmic Forces Exercise , developed by David St. Clair, has proven an effective way to ask for help. Years ago I taught this method to a Catholic Priest. He told me later that he had solved a long time problem using this technique.

8. Make a list of how having too much stuff saps our energy, keeps us from succeeding, and keeps us in the addictive drama of overwhelm. Be specific. For example, “When someone rides in my car, I feel ashamed because there’s so much junk and trash in it.” “My purse or briefcase is too heavy and taxes my body.” ”I’m ashamed to have anyone to my home. I don’t want them to see the mess.”

9. Work the steps, develop an action plan for decluttering, and execute this plan. Take action. Go through the steps, make your plans for recovery, and implement them.

10. Continue to take personal inventory and continue to declutter on a daily basis. Carry a copy of the steps with us and affirm perfect and easy order in your mind and all your surroundings. Click here for a PDF Printable copy.

11. Seek, through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with Infinite Source, praying only for knowledge of our dharma and the power to carry that out. Stay in touch with the stillness. It is from this stillness that all order is born. The stillness allows us to experience the enough-ness of the universe and gives us the ability to lighten our loads.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we seek to live in freedom from stuff, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

My 5-5-5-5 Plan will help you declutter your mind so you can focus on the task at hand and provide a plan for the day. The Minimalist blog offers ten creative ways to declutter your home.