Ask Avalonne

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, the end of the tax season — or none of the above — there’s no denying that things are different this time of year. Somehow it seems that we should be more happy and well-off — and if you’re struggling in any way, the discomfort can seem much worse during the holiday season.

The holidays often evoke a mixture of hope and fear, joy and pain. For every person who’s caught up in a merry round of parties, presents and fun, there are probably at least a dozen who are too burdened with worry or difficulties to enjoy this season.

If you need help, advice or support — or just a friendly and understanding listener — I’m here for you. I plan to be available as much as possible, starting today and right on through the weekend.

And yes, I’m still keeping my fees ridiculously low — lower than the rates that most advisors offer as their “special” or “sale” prices. Why? Because I believe that anyone who sincerely wants help should be able to get it. I don’t discriminate in favor of “high end” clients. I try to help everyone who sincerely wants to change their lives for the better.

Important note: Have you had any difficulties finding me on Keen, or contacting me when I was showing as “available”?

Keen has had some programming issues that affected mail (and probably other functions) over the past couple of weeks. If you’ve been unable to find or contact me for any reason, please send me a Keen Mail describing the problem so that I can work with Keen to get it solved.

Here’s wishing you all the very best, this season and always.

Blessings and peace,

Avalonne

What if there was one little thing that most of us do dozens of times per day — one little thing that you could change, and thereby improve every aspect of your life?

The not-so-little thing we’ll be looking at here is a popular activity called complaining. What’s wrong with complaining?

Let’s look at the “payoffs” of complaining first. What do we gain — or hope to gain — by complaining? Complaining may get you some sympathy (for a while). It can be used to establish a sense of bonding with another person or a group (a lot of break room gossip is based on this). We may think that complaining will motivate another person to improve their behavior (it usually has the opposite effect; see below for some clues to why this is so).

But these supposed “gains” come with a high price tag. Let’s look more closely at this seemingly innocent practice:

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a surprisingly powerful way to turn your circumstances around. At first glance it may appear too “simple” to work, but if practiced consistently and with sincere intent it can have a transformative effect on any “problem” condition:

Ask yourself “What’s going RIGHT in this area?” And then write out as many things as you can think of that are working, even a little bit, in this area of your life. Here’s an example to get you started:

Read the rest of this entry »

To all aspiring Miracle Makers:

How are you doing with the blessing exercise that was introduced to you in this post? Have you found yourself resisting it? Or has it been somewhat difficult for you to bless other people who are enjoying the kind of good that you are seeking for yourself? That’s OK… if you keep going. Please read on:

Read the rest of this entry »