photo by diametrik (mod­i­fied WC Allen)

1. Sim­plify

Ever notice how much ‘stuff’ you have? Crap piled in base­ments, fat, thin, and old wardrobes? Books you’ve read and will never read again?

Friends, lovers, rel­a­tives that you keep hang­ing out with out of habit?

Beliefs that you cling to, despite their being out­moded and ineffectual?

Start a “pitch­ing them out” campaign.

We’ve moved sev­eral times in the last few years, and each time have got­ten rid of mul­ti­ple pickup trucks worth of stuff. With the big moves we have com­ing in the next two years, we’ll be down to one part of a ship­ping con­tainer. Funny thing. The only thing so far I’ve missed is a rolling pin.

Walk through your space and look for mean­ing­less piles. Start by mak­ing a list of stuffed stuff. Then, make another list, say a room a week, and just start. Give away what you can, have a garage sale, and pitch the rest. Then move to the next room.

Peo­ple become col­lectible items too.

I’ve writ­ten before about deal­ing with rel­a­tives, and it bears repeat­ing. Just because you are related to, in rela­tion­ship with, or mar­ried to some­one, does not mean that the rela­tion­ship is des­tined to con­tinue. Here’s a good oppor­tu­nity to visit a ther­a­pist. If you think you are cling­ing to a friend, part­ner, or rel­a­tive because you don’t know how to leave, talk to an expert and see if your instincts hold under scrutiny.

The plain fact of the mat­ter is that each of us changes as time goes by. Peo­ple we are in rela­tion­ship with may not be shift­ing along with us and the wider the gap, the more it hurts, and the more effort must be expended hold­ing things together. If, after reflec­tion, you real­ize you are caught in such a pat­tern, think about mak­ing 2008 the year of clean­ing your rela­tion­ships house.

Weed Your Beliefs

Still believe in good luck, magic, wish ful­fill­ment, or ‘res­cue from the sky?’? Still believe insti­tu­tions, politi­cians, big busi­ness, big pharma? Still believe that any­one inter­ested in col­lect­ing money from you is doing things in your best inter­est? Get over your­self. In 2008, exam­ine your beliefs. There are sev­eral chap­ters of my book, Liv­ing Life in Grow­ing Orbits, online for you. The book is designed to lead you through a year-long self-examination. Have a look at the free, online chap­ter “Rock” to begin.

Ulti­mately, sim­pli­fi­ca­tion is more than a mov­ing of piles. It’s a way of being that is light, effi­cient, and self sufficient.

Drop the beliefs, the blind faith, the trust­ing oth­ers to look out for you, and build a spine, gain ‘a pair,’ and stand forth as a whole, com­plete and ‘sim­ple’ human adult.
Talk about being in rar­efied company!

2. Clean Out

A while back I wrote about doing a Fall Body Cleanse. Here’s another oppor­tu­nity. Read the past arti­cle. Then, go stand on your scale.

Ouch, right?

Me too. I have per­son­ally con­sumed two tons of garbage this hol­i­day, and I’m not quite done. On the 31^st, I’m going with my sweetie to a New Years eat­ing fest, with two of our best friends. And Thurs­day the 3^rd is my 57^th birth­day — I plan to have a nice meal.

Then, time to get back into shape. In my case, car­bo­hy­drates and I do not get along. So, the first thing I’m clean­ing out is the pantry.

Amaz­ing how many peo­ple buy crap food, and then can’t fig­ure out why they are eat­ing it. I was hav­ing cof­fee with a friend, who was com­plain­ing that her kids only ate junk. I said, “Hmm. I didn’t know 6 year olds shopped.”

See point 1, above. Clear all the crap out. Do not replace it with new crap.

You might want to con­sider the cleanse aspects of the above article.

Para­dox­i­cally, the Kitchari recipe you’ll find in that arti­cle has a some carbs, but given that you’re eat­ing only Kitchari for a day or two, no harm, no foul.

Then, set man­age­able goals.

I’m aim­ing to lose 15 pounds or so. A pound or so a month is minus 3500 calo­ries, or 100 less per day.

Man­age­able.

While you’re at it, clean out your atti­tude. No point bad mouthing or blam­ing your­self. Most peo­ple get into rag­ging on them­selves for the mess they are in, and then do more of what­ever they did in the first place, to com­pen­sate for feel­ing bad. Let go of the grip­ing, fin­ger point­ing, etc., and sim­ply start.

Same thing goes for exer­cise, get­ting a mas­sage, doing some Body­work, etc. Get your­self worked on. Pound your­self into shape.

Haul your butt out there, and hand it over to peo­ple who can help you clear and clean out. No excuses.

3. Make Man­age­able Resolutions

Empha­sis on Man­age­able. Most peo­ple make these odd lists of things to change, and then try to do every­thing at once, and of course, fail mis­er­ably. If you look again at the two above points, you’ll see a pat­tern, and it is this. Decide, right now, that 2008 is the YEAR you trans­form all aspects of your­self. In stages. With del­i­cacy and care.

As you will read in any time man­age­ment sys­tem, projects get accom­plished when bro­ken into bite sized pieces. Dar­bella got quite addicted to the 43 Fold­ers con­cept at school, and finds the 2x per day paper sort means much less work over­all. She’s got­ten quite good at it, and oth­ers on staff have picked the idea up.

My eat­ing goal, above, is highly man­age­able. If I go faster, great! But to set an unre­al­is­tic goal, as we all know, means fail­ure is right around the corner.

Back when I coun­selled at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph, Mas­ters stu­dents typ­i­cally came in dur­ing Jan­u­ary, whin­ing about hav­ing to write a the­sis. Most were sci­ence majors, and needed to write 100 pages. (I laughed, as my the­sis topped out at 297 pages.) I’d say. You do not write a the­sis. You take a page and type “Intro­duc­tion,” on it, and go on from there, word by word.

Look at the list of things you want to accom­plish. Break each one down into man­age­able chun­kettes, stick dates on the chunks, and do them! One by one. Cross them off as you accom­plish them.

Oh. Count­less stud­ies indi­cate that if you do not write down your goals and your chun­ked plans, you are almost cer­tainly doomed to fail­ure. Write them down.

4. Develop a Practice

Dar and I are just back from a new Zen Cen­ter we’re check­ing out. We shot down to Buf­falo for a New Years Zazen (sit­ting med­i­ta­tion.) We sat and med­i­tated for 3 hours, in chunks. (What else?) We’ve deter­mined to do this monthly at the cen­ter, and I am com­mit­ted to mak­ing it hap­pen at home, by Feb­ru­ary lat­est. I’m plan­ning on a morn­ing prac­tice, and those of you who know my sched­ule (Hint: 9 am to 1 am, most days) will be laugh­ing think­ing of me get­ting up an hour or two early to tend our Bud­dha Hall altar and to sit in Zazen.

Nonethe­less, I will prevail!

We talked at length with the Zen center’s leader, and I sug­gested that I have, since I left the church in 1996, felt a decided lack of spir­i­tual prac­tice. Sure, I’ve learned a lot about pres­ence and focus and liv­ing in This End­less Moment, yet the feel­ing is that I could do more to be grounded. Ground­ing is key to liv­ing life fully and passionately.

Most peo­ple flit around in their heads— think­ing, plot­ting, and plan­ning. And they get nowhere. Our cul­ture seems to be head­ing more and more into the head, away from the heart, away from the soul, way from bod­ily prac­tice and centeredness.

I’m going to pro­duce a dvd with exer­cises to help peo­ple with back pain and injuries, and will let you know when its done. It will con­tain yoga, Ki Gung and Breath tech­niques that will make a nice start­ing prac­tice. I’ll keep you posted.

Look for a local Zen cen­ter. You don’t have to become a Bud­dhist to sit. Zen is not a reli­gion — it’s a way of liv­ing, being, and engag­ing. Pri­mar­ily, it uses body tech­niques to still the mind and to being your atten­tion to your whole, com­plete self.
We are also fans of Iyen­gar Yoga, and Tai Chi is also a good thing for ground­ing.
In the mean time, have a look at this arti­cle about the first chakra and ways to ground your­self.

Dar made this!

5. Cre­ate Something

Most peo­ple are so busy run­ning around in cir­cles that they fail to bring cre­ativ­ity into being. All of us have tal­ents — for most, they never see the light of day. Paint­ings don’t get painted (or they remain hid­den in the extra bed­room…) sto­ries remain unwrit­ten, beauty remains hid­den in the dark recesses of scram­bled minds.

Think about what you’ve wanted to bring into being.

Some of the teach­ers at Dar’s school have taken car­pen­try courses, and have made amaz­ing things. Dar and I both give our­selves over to our cre­ative energies.

Cre­ate amaz­ing rela­tion­ships. Once you’ve cleared the decks of the dud and drag­ging rela­tion­ships, com­mit to only excel­lent rela­tion­ships, from now on. Learn and use a com­mu­ni­ca­tion model. Speak using “I” lan­guage. For more ideas, check out this arti­cle from a few weeks ago.

Go play. Hang out with your favourite niece (hey, Lisa…) and teach her to use chop­sticks while eat­ing sushi. OK. That’s one Dar and I did with Lisa last week…

Actu­ally, Lisa is walk­ing this path pretty well. She’s mak­ing informed rela­tion­ship, edu­ca­tion, and career deci­sions, with a min­i­mum of drama. This means she’s fun to hang around with, and she’s cute to boot.

Have fun with a kid. Play games, and laugh. Be encour­ag­ing, reach out, make phys­i­cal con­tact, and let the peo­ple you care about know you love them.

Cre­ate a beau­ti­ful, secure, and serene envi­ron­ment. Chaos in your space equals chaos in your life. Clean your room, hang up your clothes, stop being a slob. Make pieces of art and dec­o­rate your house. Set up a lit­tle shrine and keep in unclut­tered and clean.

Clear the crap out of your house, phys­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, and spir­i­tu­ally, and refuse to let it back in the door.

6. Stop Complaining

I men­tioned the “Com­plaint Free World” cam­paign a few weeks ago. I’ve been really work­ing on this one. I’ve only man­aged to get through one com­plete day, with no com­plaints, a week ago. I seem to be down to one or two com­plaints a day, and Dar and I are laugh­ing about how often we think one, and then catch our­selves before we give it voice. 21 days in a row? We shall do it!

Have you not noticed that com­plain­ing doesn’t work, and only gets you more of what you com­plain about? Knock it off. Right now.

THEN, change what is change­able. Some stuff can only be changed by oth­ers and all you can do is ask, politely, and then let it go. Any­thing that has to do with you (the stuff we’re talk­ing about this week) is some­thing you can change — either directly, or by describ­ing it differently.

For exam­ple, some peo­ple fight because their part­ner wants to and they don’t want to appear “weak.” Yikes. Bad karma all around, and the peace and con­tent­ment that could be yours van­ishes. Instead, let your parter be, refuse to fight, to com­plain, to demand.

Live your life as you want to live it, and walk away from con­flict. Just refuse to play that game.
Very quickly you will see the con­flict end,
as one sided fights are impossible.

Don’t com­plain about your health, ever again. Do some­thing. Try other approaches — east­ern approaches, ther­apy, Body­work, what­ever. When your body needs a shift, shift. Com­plain­ing only brings you more of what you com­plain about.

7. Do Some­thing Chargy

Or risky. Or scary.

There’s a new show on TV in Canada — called N.O.W. (No Oppor­tu­nity Wasted) The guy from Amaz­ing Race is help­ing peo­ple face their fears. Exam­ple: two peo­ple afraid of heights even­tu­ally rap­pelled down the face of a mountain.

Find a way to chal­lenge your fears, includ­ing your fear of los­ing con­trol. This is a big­gie for many. You can learn to let go through dance, mar­tial arts, act­ing classes, learn­ing to give and receive a full body mas­sage, going to a spa, and through count­less sports and out­door experiences.

Travel. leave the false safety of North Amer­ica and see other parts of the world. Skip the guided tours and meet people.

This is your only ‘go-round’ and it’s a big world filled with really inter­est­ing expe­ri­ences. Stop wait­ing for the right moment or for ‘per­mis­sion,’ ask for what you want, and go get it, feel it, have it, savour life lived full bore.

8. Make a Difference

OK. Fair warn­ing. The next points are polit­i­cal, and a bit of a rant. Nec­es­sary in my opin­ion. I’m inter­ested in yours!

Stop try­ing to blend in — please!

Stand for some­thing, have integrity, and be inspir­ing. The world is stuffed to the gills with small, petty, mean spir­ited peo­ple, who love noth­ing more than to rain on other’s parades. Since you’ve cleaned those sort of folk from your life, now is the time to show the world who you are.

Get out there. Be of ser­vice. Teach your skill set to others.

Demon­strate authen­tic liv­ing - don’t just talk about it. Your life is your mas­ter­piece, your life is who you are. If you don’t like aspects of your life and your self, add those things to the list, and make a plan to do things differently.

Be relentless.

Step by step, declare your­self as a free and inde­pen­dent being, liv­ing your truth, com­mit­ted to your val­ues, and a per­son of your word. There should never be an excuse for being any dif­fer­ent than you declare your­self to be, never a rea­son to betray your self and your path.

9. Be Steadfast

This year’s list is meant to be life chang­ing. In the past, you’ve likely given up and stopped try­ing. This year, keep going. If there are set­backs, give your­self a hug, and start again.

Reset your goals (paper is cheap) and go for it.

If you find you’re bog­ging down, find some­one to talk with. Encour­age your friends, and accept encour­age­ment from them.

Do not yield to the temp­ta­tion to give up, to get by, to set­tle for less than you are and who you are becom­ing. Not this year, not ever again.

The world needs you to walk your path, step by step, inch by inch, as each per­son who so com­mits changes the energy of the world,
just a bit. Giv­ing up when the going gets tough is for wimps and sissies.
Strap it on and get it done.

10. Be a Realist

Remem­ber: No One Is Com­ing.

No one is going to marry you and sweep you off to Never Never Land. We live in a world where morons strap bombs onto their bod­ies and kill inter­est­ing women and men, maim­ing in the name of stu­pid, asi­nine causes. In a world where power and force is val­ued more than strength and integrity, being any­thing less than a real­ist is a chump’s game.

Real­ism lies between opti­mism and pes­simism. Just as airy fairy res­cue think­ing gets us nowhere, lying down and snivel­ing in fear is equally non-productive.

The real­ist says, “Here is my world, and it is exactly as weird and nasty as it appears. It is also mag­nif­i­cent and lov­ing. It is exactly as it seems. I can’t change the world . How­ever, how I am in this world is com­pletely my choice.”

You are not forced to join the morons and idiots (lem­mings all) in a charge off the cliff. Stu­art Wilde, one of my favourite prophets, coun­sels “walk­ing rapidly in the other direc­tion.” I agree. Walk your own path. Set your own goals and direc­tions, decry the fool­ish­ness and mad­ness, and refuse to get sucked into it.

Killing the killers sim­ply means more killing. Build a life of cen­tered, eth­i­cal, pas­sion­ate pres­ence, and invite oth­ers to join you.

Abhor vio­lence, and stand your ground. Do not cave in, do not move an inch from what you know to be right… for you.

As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Think of Lin­coln, John & Bobby Kennedy, Mar­tin Luther King, Gandhi, Man­dela, Steven Biko, and count­less other “walk­ers of this path.” Many died walk­ing, at the hands of “the dark side.” Yet, each touched and shifted the planet, just through the force of their presence.

Each of us, in our own way, has a sim­i­lar chance to make a dif­fer­ence, but only if you do what you be. The rip­ples may not be world chang­ing, but are no less sig­nif­i­cant. Stand for some­thing, and have it be some­thing other than “The one with the biggest pile when they die, wins.”
Give up pil­ing and duck­ing, stand forth, and be the change you want to see.

2008 — the year you became the best you can be — the year you became yourself.

With bound­less metta from Wayne & Dar­bella,
and a smile from Lisa!