Anne's Note is a brief Father’s Day message. The main article, Mind Talk, provides some tips on taming our egoic minds. Healthy Living spotlights the benefits of Using an Exercise Ball and includes a brief video with Anne and Lucy, her dog. The Anne Talk is on Dealing With Emotions and Going Beyond. The Featured Product this month is The I AM Affirmations CD.

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

  A Note From Anne

Dear ,

Happy Father’s Day to the dads.

My dad and mom were divorced when I was about 3. It was unusual for people to divorce in the 1950’s and it made it more difficult to get very close to my dad given he lived 22 miles away. Dads, at that time, were not hands-on like they are today. I was a child and he was an adult. Today dads don’t act like adults when they are around their children; they play with their children, feed them, and diaper them. The divide is dissolving.

My husband gets his way all day long when it’s Father’s Day. He is not my father, but since it’s a father’s day of honor, he gets to choose the meal and get out of any household work. He gives me the same privilege on Mother’s Day. We make it like a birthday. It’s “me” day.

I’m leaving at the end of the week to see my grandbabies. They will be back from their two week holiday in Italy.

Anne

  Mind Talk

The egoic mind slices life into events, circumstances, and emotions and then scans them until it finds something to chew on. This selective process creates a biased limited reality. The limited reality becomes our perception and all life is filtered through this creation. This creation provides a challenge to the mind, and we utilize our energy and resources to grapple with this self-constructed reality. The reality is an illusion because it is simply the product of the mind. We make our life’s work about changing the illusion and making it more to our liking. It’s like trying to tidy up a turd; it’s a useless endeavor.

We can slow the mind when we direct it toward harmony. This action is a steppingstone to reality, but ultimately creating a positive mental climate reaches its limitation. A good looking, warm feeling turd still stinks. The only escape from the turd express is to stop the way we look at things. Life is not a broken series of SNAFUs; it is our minds that invent and churn reality. It is the mind that must be stopped in its tracks.

In the summer my life is shared with thousands of mosquitoes. They hide under plants, in old downed trees, under the drainage pipe in my driveway, and in dampened leaves. One cup of water spawns as many as one thousand mosquitoes. They create a mighty population. It is not unusual to feel a prick on my arm and to look down and see a mosquito, having lunch. When the mosquito bites, it’s the prick that brings the mosquito into my awareness. We tend to live our lives through the mosquito bites of life, only looking up when something bites us. We wake up to the annoyances of life, but not to the joy.

This is not morally wrong; it is just counter to our best interests. The egoic mind runs the show, and even though it is quite convincing as to its altruistic purpose, it tries to protect us though thoughts and actions that stifle, scare, and isolate us. That’s why it’s important to combat our conditioning. It runs us until we overcome it.

The conditioning to overcome is not so much in the content of the mind, but in the runaway nature of the mind. The egoic mind is nothing more than runaway thoughts and feelings. Awareness, on the other hand, is the aspect on the mind that brings us into reality, and into contact with our true selves.

I was surprised and delighted when Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now, became a best seller. It sold more than three million copies, and his subsequent book, A New Earth, sold more than five million copies. Tolle’s books are about dissolving the egoic mind and making our conditioning irrelevant. It is astonishing that so many people are ready to wake up. They are ready to stop living life from upset to upset. Are you ready? Are you willing? Do you want to wake up to a reality that supplants the egoic mind? Are you ready for that first step? The first step is to stop getting upset about everything. Drama is additive, and we need to stop living from one ego spike to the next.

• Make this pledge for yourself: “Just for today I will not live in upset.”
• Watch the mind go for the drama and don’t judge it; simply watch it. It is That which watches that we want to encourage. The more we watch our ego perform, the more we identify with the Watcher.
• Take care of the body. Hunger, needing to go to the bathroom, sedentary bodies, and not getting enough rest tend to numb us. Taking care of the body enlivens us and opens our perception.

It’s always time to make a commitment to who and what we are. Our soul renders a constant cry for enlightenment, peace, and harmony. When we fail to listen, it will shout louder and louder until the ego’s sound is muffled and we are forced to see the futility of ego’s plans. Simple, heartfelt intention, coupled with relevant action, can knock the mind of drama and suffering off its block and make our lives EZier and EZier.

Anne

Featured Product This Month

  What is EZosophy?

Click the graphic above to learn more.

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

  Healthy Living

Using an Exercise Ball

Almost everyone these days needs stress reduction. I used to bounce on the mini-tramp for fun, stress relief, and exercise, but the mini-tramp was hard to store. Also I was concerned I might miss the fabric and have my foot go through the springs. I found a great substitute for the mini-tramp: the exercise ball.

Bouncing on the ball listening to upbeat music for 5 to 20 minutes:

• Energizes the body. When I start I don’t think I can make it, but after about 5 minutes I feel an energy boost and I can easily bounce for 15 more minutes.
• Reduces stress. I feel like I’ve had an emotional bath after bouncing for 20 minutes.
• Gets the lymph system going. The lymph system relies on exercise to get the fluids moving. This system has no muscles to keep things flowing, so exercise is imperative because the lymph system moves lymph, which helps detoxify the body.
• Is fun. It’s like dancing. Play some cool music and bounce, bounce, bounce.

My dog, Lucy, likes to get in on the action. Here are Lucy and me bouncing.

Click the image to watch the short video.

Anne

  Anne Talks

This week's Anne Talk is Dealing With Emotions and Going Beyond. It's a telephone seminar Anne presented to some of her listeners in April 2012. Listen for helpful tips for dealing with Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 emotions. Time: 54:01

  Anne Art

I made this painting with
Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad on my iPad.
Click the image to see a larger image.

  I made this painting with
Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad on my iPad.
Click the image to see a larger image.

  Quotes

"Suffering is caused by the ego wanting life to be other than the way it is. And problems are created by defining something as a problem. And there is only one thing that does that: the ego. Detaching from the ego and aligning with our true nature means an end to suffering and problems."
— Gina Lake

"The ego tries to exploit all situations and turn them into praise for itself. This is its crazy way of overcoming fear and doubt."
— Unknown

"The ego is great with questions, but it can't perceive meaningful answers."
— Unknown