Anne's Note reminds us to Follow Your Gut but Get the Facts Too. The Main article, The Love I Am, invites us to Drop the guilt and be present to what is. The Healthy Living article, Be a Good Moodist, provides some easy tips to elevate our moods. The Anne Talk is Gut Check, Anne's story about taking her morning gut check. The Featured Product this month is Anne's book, Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic.

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

Living EZosophy, March 15, 2016
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

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

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  A Note From Anne

Dear ,

We took our house off the market for a month and we are relisting it. This way it will show up fresh and new as home buyers venture into the blossoming flowery paradise we call The Woodlands, Texas.

Once we took our house off the market, realtors started calling. They called, e-mailed, texted, and left elaborate proposals on our doorstep. We took names and made out a master list. We narrowed the list down to 7 names. After the first interview, I was ready to sign. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could outdo his presentation or impress us more. He gave an Academy Award winning performance. My husband said he thought we should interview them all. “We need to do our homework.” I groused around, having words under my breath about all the extra work we would have to do by interviewing all these realtors. After all, Jim is linear and has to have the facts, and I am intuitive and make decisions from my gut. And, of course, my way is the best way.

The next day we saw two more realtors. Again, I was blown away. While the first realtor we interviewed was well-prepared and did a terrific job, we felt an affinity toward someone else. I must have had gut-itis because we would have done ourselves a disservice if we had signed the first realtor. So I am eating crow and glad I didn’t push the issue of my gut feeling too much. This time the writing on the wall was not saying the right thing, and I’m glad I wasn’t stuck in my position! Send us a few good thoughts for selling our house and finding a perfect place in the Asheville, N.C. area.

Anne

  The Love I Am

When I was little I could make myself sick. My mom would call the doctor to come for a house visit but my fever would mysteriously disappear before he arrived. She was always puzzled by my instant recovery. Subconsciously, I knew that if I was really sick, I would get a penicillin shot. Everyone  received shots for everything when I was a kid, and I was afraid of shots. My strange illnesses got me out of school for a day, I received plenty of TLC, and returned to school the next day, shot free.

When I was 12, I came down with a mysterious malady. I looked like a ghost. I could barely eat, and I missed so much school that my teachers were concerned about my advancement to the next grade. Dr. Harr, yes, the give everyone a shot for everything doctor, told my mother that if I didn't start to get better, he was going to run some tests. He would start with a barium enema and proceed from there. Oddly enough, when I heard about the tests, my miraculous and speedy recovery began.

It was not until I was an adult that I grasped how much sway my mind had over my body. I never realized that I used my illness to either get out of school or to get love and attention from my mother. My poor mom. I was terrific at manufacturing illnesses.

When I was an adult and training to be a therapist, one of my mentors casually mentioned how people use illness to get attention. I expected him to talk about how lame that was, but, instead, he said, "Everyone gets attention and love in the best way they know how. Some people just don't know how to get attention and love. And that’s okay." I felt relief as the guilt I'd harbored over manipulating my mother slipped away.

When we are adults, getting love, attention, and affection is tricky. We don't have a mom or dad hovering over us to offer support and we often expect our mates, friends, or children to meet those needs. While it is wonderful to receive love from our loved ones, the one we most need to receive love from is ourselves. Eating a big piece of pie, having a drink, or going shopping are not ways to love ourselves. In fact, love is always present, and our job is to heal our self-judgments and criticisms so the love can shine though us to us.

The first hurdle we have to overcome is guilt. Guilt is not only the mafia of the mind, it is almost an institution in our culture. We cannot experience love at its fullness until we grow into our true innocent nature and say goodbye to guilt. Remorse over bad behavior is natural and helpful; without that we are sociopaths. But guilt is the egoic mind making sure we stay stuck in a position that ensures its survival. When we feel guilty, we always punish ourselves. We sabotage success, make ourselves ill, or find some other punishment for the crime of just being me. It's a crime that was never committed, but guilt keeps us paying for the non-existent sin of being alive.

As we embody innocence, we must realize that we are not our past behaviors nor our present ones. We are not our thoughts, emotions, or beliefs. Who we are is always, and has always been, precious and valuable. We long to instill our minds and hearts with the experience of our true nature.

The only place we can discover who we are is in the present. Watching the breath frequently brings us in contact with our senses. It is our senses that feel the passion and blessing of being alive. When we focus on the chatter that doesn't matter—the egoic mind maligning our true identities, we grasp for a few crumbs of attention and love from the world. If only the world will line up the way I want it to, I will feel the joy of living. Being radically present to each moment is so simple that it is overlooked for ego's wild and stimulating schemes for redemption. Yet, finally, the secret to life's enjoyment and satisfaction is revealing itself. Drop the guilt and be present to what is.

Leaving our self-induced guilt behind and showing up in the present is a path that cuts through the ego's shenanigans and into the heart of love. It takes practice and commitment, but when we drop the drama of guilt and stay present to life in the moment, our lives will always be EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

"It’s not choosing to be positive that brings freedom; it's choosing to be present that brings our ultimate release."
— Anne Sermons Gillis

"The ego skips over an experience and substitutes thoughts for experience. In assuming that it has already had that experience, the ego misses the moment altogether, which is where the juiciness and aliveness of life is."
— Gina Lake

"All life is ripe with blessings. They hide in every rock, tree, ’round every corner, and in every body. They cradle our thoughts, yearning for expression, longing for us to awaken to receive them."
— Anne Sermons Gillis

  Featured Product This Month

  What is EZosophy?

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  Healthy Living

Be a Good Moodist

Want to get your alpha waves going? What are alpha waves? They are the lower frequency of brain waves that offer relaxation, and it's helpful to get them going when you are feeling blue or just to improve your mood. Want to get your energy flowing? Want to elevate your mood? The following exercises can lift your mood, help you get unstuck when you feel immobilized, give you energy to get going, and get your body and brain working together. While we can get out of a bad mood by changing the way we see things, it is helpful to give the whole body a lift, not just the head.

Four Exercises for the good moodist:

• Roll your eyes up and return them to their normal position. Repeat 10 times. This movement creates alpha brain waves and helps improve your mood.
• Rise up on your tippy toes while raising both hands up to the sky. Do ten times.
• Tap in the center of your chest slowly ten times. Each time you tap, imagine a rock landing in a still pond and see the small waves radiating out in concentric circles.
• Throw your arms up in a "y" formation and say “yes.” Do this ten times.

Finally, imagine that you are the happiest person in the world. You can hear people say this about you: "S/he is the happiest person I’ve ever met." Or "S/he is the happiest person in the world." Our self-image is often tied up with an image of being depressed, lonely, marginalized, or weird. Change your self-image to one of a happy person. It might take a bit because we are so tied into our position about ourselves.

What we think about, we bring about. How do you want to be? Decide that for yourself, then mentally move yourself in the direction of your dream, and, if you do, you will soon be a good moodist!

  Anne Talks

Gut Check is Anne's story about her morning gut check. Time: 0:58.

  Anne Art

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  Anne's Schedule

Tuesday, March 22, 2016
1 to 3 PM, EZosophy Two: The EZ-U Process and the EZosophy Vows
Thomas A. Glazier Senior Educ. Center
Houston, Texas
For information contact:
Lisa Rice at lrice@pct3.com

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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.