Anne's Note discusses New Projects and Christmas Past. Anne's article, Going Beyond Self-help, reminds us that we can’t fix what is not wrong: we can only realize who we are, and that realization ends the search. Healthy Living provides three exercises on How to Heal Your Bunions. The Anne Talk is Anne's video on EZosophy. The Featured Product this month is Anne's The One Year Seminar.

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

Living EZosophy, January 12, 2016
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

Anne's Websites:

  A Note From Anne

Dear ,

I finally printed the first full draft copy of my 4th book. I have no set date for publication, but it feels great to get it organized. I still have to write the conclusion, but I’m saving that for later. It has about 50 chapters. I have so many books spinning around in my head, but I have not allowed myself to work on other books, except the short children’s book, until I finish this project. Even though it is not complete, this feels like a milestone.

It was wonderful spending time with my grand twins during the holidays. When asked how they are, I usually reply, “It’s like two cannons being shot simultaneously. They move so fast I can barely see their trail. They went from crawling to sprinting.”

Anne's Grand Twins
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It seems like the holidays are a dream. There’s no trace of Christmas at our house. It’s like it never existed. The decorations are all settled in the attic and there’s no pie. Some neighbors still have their lights going. I figure they must have young ones who want to have lights every night. Once, at my church, we left the Christmas tree up until Valentine’s Day. We decorated it with hearts made by the children. The cards were addressed to Saddam Hussein, the cruel Iraqi leader. The teacher had explained that when people are mean to others, it was because someone hurt them in the past and they were passing along the hurt to others. The red heart-shaped cards read something like, “We hope you feel better.” “You are lovable.” And “Please be nice to people. My mommy won’t let me hit anyone.” While Hussein would never read those messages, they served as a reminder that when the pain inside comes out toward others, tragedy ensues. Here’s where compassion comes in, and the children were provided with a great lesson.

Have a great week.

Anne

  Going Beyond Self-help

Self-help, new thought, and positive thinking open our lives to new vistas of understanding and freedom, but when we continue to use them to fix ourselves, they can be a problem. Ultimately, though self-help and other disciplines minimize suffering, they don’t alleviate it. Improving ourselves, obtaining success, and getting newer cars, smart phones, and bigger houses, always leave us thinking there’s more work to do before we can be okay. We can’t absolve suffering by getting a new job, feeling better about ourselves because we’ve lost weight, eating the right food, or because we’ve amassed a fortune.

Suffering is not eliminated by something we do; it is dissolved by something we recognize. Imagine a naturally beautiful woman who thinks she is unattractive. She colors her hair, spend hours on her makeup, fingernails, and shops for the perfect clothing to highlight her figure. She never leaves home without her make-up. Her life is defined by trying to be physically beautiful. One day she looks in the mirror and sees through her misconceptions about her beauty. She recognizes that she is physically attractive. This transformation doesn't occur because she is dressed perfectly or her hair is attractively quaffed; it comes as a recognition of the truth. She sees and experiences herself as beautiful. Once she experiences her beauty, she is no longer driven to create and recreate the perfect appearance.

We are like this woman, and the clothes, shoes, and hair are our thoughts and beliefs and the world we try to create and control. We try to transform the outer and this outer layer camouflages our identity. When we fundamentally believe we are broken, and life itself is a problem, we try to fix something that is not broken. When we can see through these beliefs, to what is true, all the fixing becomes irrelevant. When we experience who and what we really are, the fixing is unnecessary. Just like the woman who finally realizes she is beautiful no longer needs to continually improve her appearance, when we wake up, self-help is pointless. There is no need to parse our words or say things in a particular fashion.

While all self-help is not a problem, it can become a trap. At its best, it gets us to the place where we no longer need it. Once we live a truth, we no longer need to study it. While techniques can be helpful, it is important to recognize that they are only stepping stones to realization and that they are only beginning steps. That’s why, in the final stages of transformation, the surrender of our wants and desires is necessary. We can’t be spending all our time fixing problems because the fixing creates a veil that obscures the realization of our being.

When our egos are steeped in desire and suffering, they cause drama. When we give up our wants and desires and surrender to the present, without needing anything to change, we are free to experience what is truly present. We no longer listen to the egoic mind and its running commentary on what is wrong. We discover the mystery of life and the truth of our true nature. “What a blessing it is when you can meet life in this truly open way.”* Our true nature is unbounded awareness, love, compassion, and peace. We can only meet ourselves when we put away the toys of the mind and relax into the bliss of our being.

It is always time to make this choice; this is not something we can do in the future. It is always only now that we can put away our thoughts and surrender to the love of our being. A Course in Miracles says, “Why wait for heaven?” This is a seminal question in life. Why wait? Only the egoic mind, which seeks preservation, wants us to stay stuck within our familiar limits. We have incarnated to have this ultimate experience of self and that experience can only happen now.

This does not mean not to fix our tire or go to the dentist. We have to maintain our lives. We still have activities in our lives and will continue to make plans to go on a trip. The shift is about the fundamental way we view life and ourselves. When we let go of the need to have life or ourselves be any other way than it is in this moment, we lose the struggle. EZosophy is ultimately a philosophy that points deeper than dropping the drama. It points to the ultimate realization of ourselves. When we recognize our wholeness and our unity with all of creation, life is no longer a burden to be cast aside or fixed; it is an experience to celebrate, appreciate, and to live.

*Nirmala

Anne

  Quotes

“My belief that there is something wrong with you is a reflection of my belief that something is wrong with me, but you can’t know that because you were so preoccupied with the belief that something is wrong with you that you cannot move beyond our misconceptions.”
— Anne Sermons Gillis

"Alone we can do nothing, but together our minds fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its  separate parts. The kingdom cannot be found alone, and you who are the kingdom cannot find yourself alone.”
— A Course in Miracles

“Life is alive with harmony, peace, and joy. They clamber to reach the mind, heart, and the feeling nature. They arise from the stillness. They bubble to life’s surface and bring love, purpose, power, vision, and creativity.”
— Anne Sermons Gillis

  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

How to Heal Your Bunions

As I’ve aged there seems to be a strange protrusion on my right foot. It’s a bunion in the making. My friend had her bunion corrected surgically, but I wondered if there was something I could do to help my tootsie along naturally.

Of course there is. One can find anything on the internet, so we’ve learned to discriminate, but these exercises look simple and reasonable, and should be at least helpful in increasing circulation in the feet. Then again, these exercises may be the perfect exercise for you. Three short videos make it easy to learn the exercises.

http://alldaychic.com/how-to-prevent-and-treat-bunions/

  Anne Talks

Watch Anne's video on EZosophy. It was presented at Unity of North Houston on May 5, 2015. Time: 28:30

  Anne Art

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  Anne's Schedule

Monday, January 25, 2016
5 PM CST
Center of Light Radio
with host Keith Blanchard
interviewing Anne Sermons Gillis
“The Path to Conscious Awakening:
The Stages of Spiritual Growth.”
Click for more info on accessing the show.

Thursday, February 18, 2016
10:30 AM-12:30 PM, “EZosophy”
Thomas A. Glazier Senior Educ. Center
16600 Pine Forest Lane
Houston, Texas
For information contact:
Lisa Rice at lrice@pct3.com

Call or Email Anne Now to Schedule Your Next Meeting with her.

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.