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Inquiring minds want to know: What were the most amazing, profound, surprising, or even whacky things you’ve learned over the last year?

And now, an entry from Isabella Mori, winner of the “Most Prolific” award during our 6-Word Stories Contest back in January of ’07. Here’s the best of 2007 from her blog, Change Therapy:

Thanks, Robert, for the invitation to participate in Blogapalooza! What a great idea!

So… this is Isabella Mori from Vancouver in Canada. I’m a psychotherapist, counselor, whatever you want to call it, and my blog is called Change Therapy. “Making lives better, making better lives” is my blog’s tagline. You see, I figure that if we each make our own lives better – for example, through getting rid of our resentments, learning about our habits, and asking for support – then we can also contribute much more to the world as a whole, and help make other people’s lives better. And my job is to help and support you in doing this. I hope you’ll find that my blog makes your life just a little better…

The biggest thing I’ve learned about blogging in 2007 is how very important and rewarding it is to build relationships with other bloggers. “Links” aren’t just those techie things on the internet – I like to think of links as building a web of knowledge and appreciation – or of holding hands.

So … here are my entries for the year 2007:

December – Buddhist blog carnival

The second Buddhist carnival at change therapy was a great joy to put together. I’m a big fan of carnivals; it’s a wonderful way to build community. This one was extra special. I learned more about the connection between Buddhism and the martial arts.

November – Learning about lists

Why do we like lists so much? That’s one of the things I set out to learn in November. In addition to trying to answer that question myself, commenters came up with these ideas: lists guide us through our lives – even the law is like a long list of things we’re supposed to do and not do; lists are forgiving: you can scan and skip and jump, read them in any order, read every third if you so prefer, etc. – and then of course there’s also reasons not to like lists: “we risk entering some monotonous regime where everything we do is by list”, as maritim said.

October – Learning about comments

The taser death at Vancouver’s airport was a big topic that month. I learned that I need to write a blog comment policy!

September – Blogging communities

This post looks quite nondescript – it’s mostly a list of bloggers. But boy, this idea of putting together a list of personal development bloggers, conceived by Priscilla Palmer, took off like a rocket. This taught me that it’s always worthwhile to take part in such projects – first, it always builds community, and second, once in a while it turns into something really big.

August - Kindness

Flaming vs. appreciative communication was a reaction to reading a post by Thomas at Microsoft about unfriendly comments on Robert Scoble’s blog. A bit of research on the topic introduced me to the concept of appreciative communication.

July – The inscrutability of the internet

This is an article on the death of one of North America’s most influential psychologists, Albert Ellis. The funny thing about this article, and about anything else regarding Albert Ellis I’ve written, is that while it is one of my more frequently read articles, nobody has yet commented on it. Go figure, huh?

June – Nutrition and genetics

Nutrigenomics, diet and obesity taught me a bit more about new nutritional science. Nutrigenomics is a new field of study that eventually hopes to match optimal diets to a person’s unique DNA make-up. Following up on the link provided by one of the commenters, I also learned about the connection between ethics and nutrigenomics.

May – Normal??

In Watchful words: 7 ways to rename a mental illness, my blogger friend David and I try to learn a bit more about what it means to be “normal”.

April - Family

In April, I learned what it’s like to hold your first grandchild in your arms!! I also learned how lovely it is to be supported by your blogging friends. My daughter’s labor was long and arduous, and people like Tanya, part of our wonderful Vancouver bloggers meetup group, were there to cheer us on through the process.

March – StumbleUpon!

Letting go of resentments was the post that introduced me to StumbleUpon. Scott from Finding Your Marbles had picked it up, and I think it was one of his readers who followed the link and stumbled it. StumbleUpon has since become my favorite social media site.

February – Understanding different philosophies

Another news event: here in Vancouver, sextuplets were born to a couple who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Much public controversy ensued following the ill health of two of the little ones. This post and its comments are an attempt to understand the thoughts and feelings of people whose philosophy is very different from ours.

January – Middle Zone Musings

This is the month I learned about Middle Zone Musings! Robert had come up with the idea of inviting people to write 6-word stories. I had tons of fun with it. Thanks, Director Tom, for introducing me to this project!

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So what’s it all about?

Friends, if you’ve written about it at your blog in 2007, then you’re invited to join us for this special edition of What I Learned From… Care to share with us your favorite/ best/ most controversial/ strangest, etc. posts? (You get to pick one from each month you’ve been blogging in 2007.)

Well, don’t just sit there like a bump on a pickle; click the link, check out the simple instructions, and jump right in! Get your entries in by Sunday night, January 13, and I’ll publish them all right here at Middle Zone Musings.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!