Anne's Note talks about Taking Appropriate Action. The Main article, Dealing With Change, gives insight into how to handle life's changes. The Healthy Living article, Turning Back Your Biological Clock, provides tips on how to think yourself younger. The Anne Talk is Relationship Patterns and Healing Them Teleseminar. Learn how Anne made her life EZier. The Featured Product this month is Anne's first book, Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic.

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

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

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

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  A Note From Anne

Taking Appropriate Action

Dear ,

I'm writing this just after all the gun violence concerning the police and people of color. Kim Kardashian was called out because she just tweeted a sexy picture; she was scantily clothed.* While there is nothing wrong with sexy pictures, today, the sting of current affairs weighs heavy on many hearts. Some things seem flippant today that during normal circumstances might be considered moxie. All I have to say to Kim is "You may want to stay in closer touch with current affairs." We all need to pay attention.

My heart is broken and my prayer is that people use these events to open their hearts in compassion, not to feed their anger. May people be more open to their love than they are to their fear. Gandhi said, "There are many causes for which I would die, but none for which I would kill another." Words are like daggers and when we take any position that marginalizes others, we throw those daggers. Whatever we do, let's not add to the hatred and violence of the collective moment. Let us hold the ideal of peace and sanity and live them out in our transactions with others.

* Okay. Kim offered a compassionate response to the shootings the next day. Good for you, Kim!

Anne

  Main Article

Dealing With Change

When my husband retired a number of years ago, I lost my groove. He took residence in his home office, and even though we weren't face to face all the time, having him around rearranged everything. The only thing that changed was my routine, but the change seemed bigger. I gave up my life ritual, one that included only me, and emerged into what seemed like a flurry of endless tasks that had no direction. It was easy to see that replacing rituals threatened my sense of me. I felt like me when I performed certain activities and had a freedom that dissolved when he was around. Even though I am not what I do, my experience revealed how much my sense of self was linked to my activities. Giving up the ideas of what I thought I was, was difficult. When I looked deeply, it was easy to see the truth. I've done big things in my life, I've wasted time, I've been judgmental, I've done amazing things, but outside of all the doing there is always a presence that felt the same. It is untouched by what I do or who I think I am. I feel at peace when I focus on that presence, that transcendent awareness, and I feel lost when I don't.

During the transition time of incorporating my husband into my daily routine, I had to question myself. I reached down to the toenails of life and held myself accountable for the incarnation of Anne Sermons Gillis. Am I living my life in the best way possible?

I've watched people grow old and die while waiting for life's directions. Of course life doesn't say, "Turn right; now zig zag for three months." Life speaks in symbols, and these symbols are subtle. Life's directions escape a frantic mind, a demanding mind, and a busy mind.

As I made the transition from my cave to sharing the house with my husband, I began to watch my mind with a vengeance. What was going on? Here's some journaling from that time.

"I just lost my train of thought. Thoughts are like a train barreling though my mind. Thought has not delivered what I'd hoped for. There are a few good thoughts, but I am astounded by the dribble that drones by. Word, word, word. Reaction, analyze, emotions, word, word. Figure it out. It's like a mind prison. I sentence you to 89 years of mental confinement. You will be forced to think 16 hours a day. You will have thought without parole, and unless you wake up, you will spend your life in solitary mental confinement, or you can wake up now and see what is beyond the thought, the words, the beliefs. Wake up. Now is your chance. Run like the wind, so fast you soar beyond your constriction, into the still, simple, and ever-present presence of life. Don't search for gold or grail and miss what is here. The world you construct is not the real world."

Fortunately, five years after Jim's retirement, my groove is back, but I have to be careful about that groove. It's easy to confuse comfort and convenience with true peace. Sometimes the groove is helpful, but at other times it becomes a shield that isolates one from life. Trying to maintain a groove can become a grasping. But, there's no need to concern oneself with staying stuck in a place of complacency too long, because life will change. The friend will pass away, the job will be lost, the finances will dive, extraordinary things will happen, miracles will transform heartbreak, but things will change. We cannot make things stay the way they are. The outside world may respond to our command, but it is not under our command.

The EZiest way to handle change is to acknowledge that change is good and remember that eventually we will see that good. Regardless of the form in which change is delivered, change knocks our socks off and calls us to be the best we can be. Change calls us to examine our assumptions and allows us to rise in strength and courage. The next time unexpected change knocks on the door, let's be ready to usher it in, resist it not, and to be on the lookout for the next chapter in our lives, because when we do, we will find that our lives will be EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Quotes

"WARNING – meditation has been known to cause bliss and happiness."
— Unknown

"The best preacher is the heart. The best teacher is time. The best book is the world. The best friend is God."
— Swami Sivananda

"Most upset is a position. We take our opinion and affix it to everything we see, then plant our feet in the ground and remain unmovable."
— Anne Sermons Gillis

  Featured Product This Month

  What is EZosophy?

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  Healthy Living

Turning Back Your Biological Clock

We all age, but maintaining our minds and bodies gives us the opportunity to remain healthy and active as we age. Use your mind to assist you in creating youthful maturity. The nature of youth lives in us. We are neither our bodies nor our attitudes. Our attitudes are only the filters through which we view reality. It's easy to experience the ageless nature of consciousness, but sometimes we become so identified with the body, thinking we are our bodies, that we fix our beliefs, activities, and opinions into a stone-like mindset and resign ourselves to a narrow, limited life. Blessed be the youth makers, for they shall see the kingdom of heaven. Maybe that wasn't one of the original blessings, but it should have been.

Imagine It

• Pick an age when you were healthy and happy. Spend some time each day reliving that time. Include activities, music, smells, foods you ate, the kind of clothing you wore, and how you looked during that period.
• OR - Imagine that you are ten years younger. See the hands of your lifetime clock going backward. Feel what it was like when you were younger. Think about this at regular intervals throughout the day.

The following affirmations and ideas can turn back the clock in your mind. Don't read them and think, "This isn't true!" Ask yourself, "Is it possible that this could perhaps be true at some time in the future?" Ask, "Am I willing for these thoughts to be true?"

Affirmations for Longevity and a Long, Healthy Life

• My body is returning to an earlier, healthier condition of well-being, strength, and vitality.
• My mind is activated in a series of powerful connections and neuron firings that create an effective and deep memory.
• Getting older is a privilege, and I luxuriate in each moment.
• I live to be a vibrantly alive (fill in the blank) year old.
• I enjoy taking care of my body.
• I enjoy physical activity.
• I am physically active.
• I spend plenty of time outdoors and get plenty of fresh air.
• I have great long- and short-term memory.
• I am loved and cherished as a vital part of the community.
• I gravitate toward the activities that support a healthy body and a good memory.
• I mature with style.
• My body is restored.
• I am nimble and flexible.

Age is not only a state of mind; it is a state of body. When we feed our mind specific directives about biological youthing, our minds feed the ideas to our body. Let's get physical and turn back the hands of time. Our body will love it.

The content for above article is excerpted in part from Magical Words: Affirmations, Visionary Statements, and Revolutionary Ideas for Transforming Ourselves, Our Culture, and Our Planet, although the information is not in the order it appears on the book.

  Anne Talks

Today's Anne Talk is Relationship Patterns and Healing Them Teleseminar. Time: 1:03:10.

  Anne Art

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  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time.

Sunday, July 17, 2016
11 AM Service: "Creating Ease"
Unity of Brazosport
507 S. Brooks St. (Hwy 36)
Brazoria, TX 77422
Phone: 979-798-4171

Sunday, August 21, 2016
11 AM Service: "Spiritual Freedom"
Carmel Temple
1208 Pennsylvania St.
South Houston TX 77587
Phone:713-944-0014

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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.