Look­ing Back

I won­der where we’ve been…

2009 is almost over, and I wanted to send you a short arti­cle, review­ing the past year, and hav­ing a look forward.

• 2009 saw the release of my lat­est book, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall. Sales have been accept­able, and reviews have been over­whelm­ingly positive.

• I’ve posted well over 50 blog posts in 2009. I’d say that if I have one dis­cour­age­ment, it’s how sel­dom read­ers com­ment on the posts. I’ve there­fore cut the require­ments for post­ing to the min­i­mum — click on the title, scroll to the bot­tom of the arti­cle, leave a comment.

• Oh, here’s another blog odd­ity. Twice this year, I’ve posted a sec­ond arti­cle in a week. Both times, a cou­ple of peo­ple unsub­scribed, and listed “Too many updates†as their rea­son.
I
if that isn’t “whacked,†I don’t know what is…

Dona­tions to the cause were down a bit for 2009, per­haps reflect­ing the slow down in the econ­omy. Many of you do com­ment on the value you receive from this blog, and it’s amaz­ing to me how valu­able equates to “free!!!â€
In keep­ing with the sea­son, you might want to rethink that, and add us to your Hol­i­day giv­ing list!

• Here are the top ten blog posts dur­ing 2009. Many of these were writ­ten in for­mer years (about 50% 50%)

10 Zen Prin­ci­ples to Help You Live Life Better

10 Quick Exam­ples of Zen Liv­ing

9 Ways to Screw Up a Relationship

The Dance of Rela­tion­ships

5 Ways to Live the Zen Life

Exer­cises in Self-Discipline

6 Ways to Deepen Relationships

Clear­ing Body, Mind & Spirit – Body Cleanse

10 Things Your Mommy For­got to Tell You

5 Key Concepts

• We’ve hosted sev­eral week­end res­i­den­tials and day-long inten­sives, and we have sev­eral already sched­uled for the New Year. Dar­bella and I really like work­ing together — and have even taken to doing this with tele­phone coun­selling. We encour­age you to make plans to come and do some in-depth work, espe­cially given that we’re unclear on how much longer we’ll be in Ontario.

• You may remem­ber that Dar and I worked with the WSIB (the for­mer Worker’s Com­pen­sa­tion Board) — set­ting up a pro­gramme for injured work­ers. A pilot project has been off again, on again for a year. Now, there seems to be a short­age of peo­ple for the Pilot Project. We shall see where this goes, but see below.

• Dar reached her “magic 85 and out†on her birth­day this past Octo­ber. She’s ready to “retire from teach­ing,†or at least is look­ing for some­thing new and challenging.

Look­ing Forward

Hmm. I won­der where I’ll be…

Well, lets get to the speculation.

• Despite my mild whin­ing above, the Blog will con­tinue weekly for the fore­see­able future. And I intend to toss out extra arti­cles every now and again, so if you think you might piss your­self off over that, there’s an “Unsub­scribe†link down below.

• We’re encour­ag­ing you to make con­tact with us, both by com­ment­ing on the blog, and through e-mail. I respond to every­thing that arrives, and some­times the cor­re­spon­dence goes on for a long time. Take advan­tage while this is available.

• How about mak­ing sug­ges­tions about top­ics you’d like me to write about? I’d love to hear your ideas.

• We’re plan­ning a Win­ter Retreat. This will come to you as an extra blog post, and soon. This will be a Med­i­ta­tion / Qi Gong / Breath­work / Life Pur­pose Explo­ration week­end, held at Crieff Hills Com­mu­nity, south of Guelph Ontario. This will be lim­ited to 10 par­tic­i­pants, so pay atten­tion when the blog post comes!

• I’m cre­at­ing another web­site, this one with a 56 day pro­gramme that will reflect many of the themes of the above retreat. It will be inter­ac­tive, with videos and sug­ges­tions, and fol­low a mem­ber­ship model. HOWEVER, I’m plan­ning on writ­ing and releas­ing a FREE pdf guide­book con­tain­ing a 200 word “blurb†about each of the 56 days (plus intro­duc­tory info.) Stay tuned, as the pdf ought to be out in the next few weeks.

• Retire­ment: Now here’s a dodgy issue. As above, Dar’s ready to “retire,†and I’m ready to “get out of Dodge.†Most of you know we own land in Costa Rica, and intend to move there and start up a trop­i­cal train­ing cen­tre. This is one pos­si­bil­ity for later in 2010, as is teach­ing Eng­lish in Japan, and a few other ideas. Or, we might change our minds. But don’t bet the farm on where this one is going.

• If you have been intend­ing to do work with me or us, do not put it off! (unless you’re plan­ning on com­ing to Costa Rica.) Book coun­selling ses­sions, and com­mit to really push­ing your bound­aries and lim­its. Book week­end times, and really dig in.

We’ll keep you posted as we dis­cover the next step on our path.

Thanks for read­ing to the end. Dar­bella and I wish you a deep and mean­ing­ful Hol­i­day Sea­son, (what­ever your per­sua­sion…) and an adven­ture rich and pro­duc­tive 2010.

Thank you for let­ting us walk with you on The Path­less Path.

Love and metta, Wayne and Darbella

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