Anne's Note reminds us that Traveling can be EZier. The main article, From Chaos to Order, offers a way to take control of the stuff of our lives. Healthy Living reminds us about toxic auto chemicals in Car Off Gassing. The Anne Talk is Anne's discussion about Dynamic Prayer. The Featured Product this month is Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic.

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

  A Note From Anne

Dear ,

This week I’m headed to South Carolina to see the twins then on to a family wedding in North Carolina. I will finish up the trip by stopping by Asheville, NC to look at homes to purchase. I’ve had a number of people point me to the HGTV Asheville Urban Home Give Away, so I am entering that sweepstakes on a regular basis. I’d love to win a little Asheville bungalow. That’s what they call the little older home in Asheville. The name is quite charming, but the price tag prize value is more than charming. It’s astounding - half a million dollars for a 1,500 square foot home and car. I guess the South has grown up to west coast prices.

It will be a long week and certainly a week to keep the EZosophy principles in mind. While traveling is a luxury and a treat, most people stress and strain over trips. They have hard attacks. Why? Because when we travel, we enter the unfamiliar and feel out of control. We don’t have control when we are at home, but our familiar routines and habits make us feel safer. When we travel we often don’t know the routes and we get lost; we don’t know where to eat that suits our particular preferences; and the people we encounter are unknown.

Traveling can be a spiritual pilgrimage because it offers us a chance to grow our trust muscle – trust that everything is and will be okay, especially since more things than usual are out of our hands.

Hope the end of the summer is easy for you and that you are living in EZ. And if you are traveling this week, remember the EZ mantra, “Everything can be EZ or at least EZier.”

Anne's Grand Twins

Anne

  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 what made these 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, self-talk is negative. 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 human that we had too much stuff, didn’t 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.
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 asked 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. Made 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.

As humans we walk a dual path. One path involves our physical world. This includes earning a living and taking care of our physical world in an effective way. It is the path of the physical, the practical, and the sustenance of life. The other work we do is on ourselves. This is our dharma. Our dharma requires that we live life in an effective way that enriches life itself. In order to live the path of rightness for our lives, we must identify the obstacles than keep us from fully living. Working the steps helps us live our dharma, lighten our karma, and makes our lives EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

We lost one of the great ones this week. Wayne Dyer was an inspiration to many of us. He rose from humble beginnings as an orphan and made the world his sweetheart. All the quotes this week are Wayne Dyer quotes.

"Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you."

"How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours."

"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be."

  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

Car Off Gassing

Last week I received two e-mails about the article on off gassing. One of them asked about what to use in the dyer in lieu of dryer sheets. I think the easiest alternative is aluminum foil balls. Just roll up 5 balls and throw them in the dryer. They will fall apart eventually, so you’ll have to replace them. They really work. I use them and am happy with the results. For more information, please refer to a previous newsletter that gives options for drying clothes.

The other e-mail was about off gassing in hot automobiles. Even though I could not substantiate the claims about off gassing of unacceptable levels of benzene in a hot car, it makes good sense to open our car windows when we get in a hot car. I live in the south and when I enter my vehicle, especially if it’s been sitting in a hot parking lot, the heat is intense. All plastic off gases when heated, so please open your windows before you drive around in a hot car, with the AC on, without ventilation. Just because the research is not available, doesn’t mean there’s no validity to the argument.

In my poking around the Internet I did find that new cars off gas and found this nifty chart of the safest and most toxic cars that off gas.

Click this image to read the article
and see a larger view of this chart.

Also, skip the air fresheners in your car--those little hangy things. They are Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's) or, in plain terms, toxic.

Cars offer us a freedom that our forefather did not enjoy. Let’s be conscious when we drive and remember to roll down those windows for a minute or two when we go for a ride.

Anne

  Anne Talks

In this video Anne discusses Dynamic Prayer. She also includes a special prayer for others that you can use to help ease your mind about them and their life and also two other prayers for you. Time: 9:02

  Anne Art

Starry Night 1
Click the image to see a larger view.

  Starry Night 2
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  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time.

Call Anne to Schedule Your Meeting.

You may reach Anne by phone at 281-419-1775 or click the button below to contact Anne by email. Anne is also available to officiate at weddings and funerals.