Anne's Note shares tips on How to Prepare for the Cold. The main article, Chill and Heal, encourages us to seek support when faced with the difficulties of life. Healthy Living looks at Chocolate Date Candy, a recipe for a healthier snack. The Anne Talk is A Guided Meditation into the Light. The Featured Product this month is Anne's latest book, Standing in the Dark.

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

Living EZosophy, November 17, 2015
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 281-419-1775
Email: anne@annegillis.com

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  A Note From Anne

Dear ,

I sit wearing my undershirt and a sweater. I ruminate on my reaction to coldness. Check out my article, How Do You React When You Are Cold. The article talks about our reaction to the cold itself, but there’s another aspect. What do we expect when we get chilled? What do we expect in the winter? We expect flu, colds, and illness.

Unfortunately our expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our psychology becomes our biology. It is wise to wear adequate clothing during cold weather and not do anything purposely to chill our core, but the belief that we will get sick in the winter is a powerful thought that should be questioned.

As many of you know, we are moving to the Asheville, NC area when our home sells. Compared to the Houston area, it is cold. We’re talking mountains! When I find myself dreading the cold, I dial it back, see myself as toasty, wearing plenty of clothes, and healthy. Subtle expectations about cold weather do not have to come true. While we might not stave off all illness though our expectations, we can ward off many illnesses. Drink warm drinks, wear warm clothes, and expect a healthy enjoyable winter and let our intention for health overrule our beliefs in illness.

Anne

  Chill and Heal

When I turned 60 my husband threw a big party. We searched many venues before we decided on a local park with a covered pavilion, large kitchen, huge fireplace, and lots of natural stone. The weather was perfect for the October gala, the stars winked from behind wispy clouds, and there was plenty of parking. Our friends, who were practically professionals, brought their karaoke machine. There was a decadent chocolate cake and a pot luck meal.

My mission was to create a green party with zero waste. The year before I attended a large GREEN convention in D.C. The vendor food came in biodegradable paper plates and the flatware was made from vegetables. There were recycling containers for compost and recyclables. There were water filling stations and people refilled their brought-from-home water bottles. Thousands of people attended the conference, but the convention footprint was relatively small.

My party invitation requested that celebrants bring real plates, forks, cloth napkins, and reusable glasses from their kitchens. Disposable plastic and paper were discouraged. There were extras provided should one forget their tableware and there were containers for drink cans and compost. We poured water from one gallon glass apple juice jars and sipped wine from real glassware.

Today, my kitchen drawer sports four or five errant forks left by party goers. The forks rest alongside my flatware. At first, they lay unused, but now I grab any fork when I eat. Recently I realized that the forks have been living in my drawer for more than seven years, so I’ve adopted them. They are no longer visitors in my mind; they are a part of our fork family. They belong to us.

Nothing has changed about the fork situation. They had been in the drawer all along, but my thinking changed. My story about forks was an illusion. The only real story is that forks rested in my flatware drawer. That’s reality, but my mind crafted an us and them fork story.

Our minds take reality and bend it to suit its purposes and prove our points. The bending is accomplished through stories. Most of us know the power of the mind to create stories, but our personal stories are so fetching, that we plant them, without examination, into our life’s narrative.

Waking up occurs as we begin to examine our stories. It’s shocking when we learn that our life sustaining illusions are false. Since there’s nothing available to prop us up, the foundation of our lives crumbles, and we feel crazy. People often get pissed off during this phase because when they don’t know what to believe, they think life is meaningless. There’s not too much we can do to navigate this transition/ transformation; it just sucks. People want to be happy and positive all the time, but sometimes we must face the dark and there’s no prettying it up. Giving up the false and discovering the true can be an arduous process.

Ways to navigate the dark night of the soul:

• Share what’s going on with a trusted friend. Don’t whine and play poor me. Use an adult voice to admit that you are going through a tough time and that you are scared/angry/confused, etc.
• Find a support group or start one. Once, when I was transiting, I found a great church group for those who didn’t know what they believed. The group pulled me though. At another juncture I joined a Codependent’s Anonymous group. The important thing is to be with people who are in transition and know how it feels to not know.
• Journal. Write one page a day in a journal. Share how you feel, what you want to happen in your life, or write about anything that comes up.
• Try zentangles. They are very relaxing. It’s amateur art. All you need is a black ink pen. I love to draw them. I often share them in the newsletter. Click here to learn to draw zentangles.

The idea is to chill out when you experience growing pains. Even though it seems like there is no end to the confusion and misery, I promise you, it will end. Your job is to support yourself and let life’s answers emerge. They will come: life will knock on your door. Your job is to be patient, stop running around trying to force life to make you happy, and trust that things are as they should be. When a seed sprouts underground, you can’t tell that one day a mighty tree will stand there. Everything that needs to happen to get the process started is happening, out of sight, and all is well. While the old is dissolving, remember that beneath the soil of your life a mighty tree is growing, you are loved and safe, and that life will get EZier and EZier every day, when you allow yourself plenty of space to grow.

Anne

  Quotes

"The Light is a wordless supply of all things necessary to support and sustain life."
— Anne Sermons Gillis

"My mind contains sensitive data that could harm me if taken seriously."
— Anne Sermons Gillis

"To face in naked openness that which horrifies us is both sweet agony and tender freedom."
— Amoda Maa Jeevan

  Featured Product This Month

  What is EZosophy?

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  Healthy Living

Chocolate Date Candy

I admit I have a sweet tooth. I seem to be in the majority. It’s easy to get hooked on sugar. Sugar is a drug, and brain studies show that the same part of the brain lights up when we eat sugar as does when we do recreational drugs. Once sugar gets in our system, we crave more.

Sugar is linked to increased heart disease, diabetes, brain fog, cancer, inflammation, obesity, and many other degenerative diseases. Modern sugar is even worse than earlier versions of sugar because much of it comes from genetically modified beets.

Therefore I love to get on the healthier side of my sweet tooth, and, while this recipe has some sugar, it is not entirely made from sugar, and it is delicious. It’s one of those recipes that tastes better than the recipe sounds. It’s always a hit with my guests.

Chocolate Date Candy

Ingredients:

Nuts
Dates
Dark chocolate chips

Wrap a pecan or walnut with a whole date. Melt chocolate chips. Be careful they melt quickly. Dip date nut into chocolate to coat it. That’s it. Let it cool and eat. They are so rich that one is usually enough for a dessert.

Anne

  Anne Talks

Take a few minutes to relax with a guided meditation into the light of who we are. Short, but powerful. Time: 9:24

  Anne Art

Illumination
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All Right
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  Anne's Schedule

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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.