“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
~ Dalai Lama

Our post today comes from Randy Rabney.

Randy Rabney is a board certified holistic health coach, trained chef, food lover and working parent. She is the founder of TheConsciousPlate.com a company dedicated to helping people create joy, power and freedom in their relationships with food.  As a Coach she will support you in changing your mindset to create a healthy relationship with food which results in weight loss and healthy weight maintenance. She will also help you discover the foods that work with your body so you can lose weight naturally and teach you an uncomplicated way of eating for life.

She is also the author of “Delicious For Life: Your Everyday Guide to Making Quick & Healthy Meals.” She is a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts as well as The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, both in NYC and has cooked at the Golden Door Spa in California and has taught classes in a variety of places, including Whole Foods Markets.

Thank you for sharing this post, Randy!

Can you actually say that you are happy?  Just a short time ago I could not have said it. Now, I actually can say that I am so happy that I’m losing sleep over it. It’s not that worried kind of sleep loss and I don’t feel sleep deprived. It’s that life feels so good that I can’t wait to jump out of bed in the morning and start my day. I love to get up early, usually by 5:30 and watch the sky change color from my kitchen window before the sun comes up. It’s so beautiful and inspiring that I get right out of bed without hesitation.

So I was thinking recently about what the source of my happiness is and I came up with a combination of things that I do which contribute to my happiness.  So here is my recipe for happiness and I’m not sure if the ingredients are in any particular order:

1. Practice Gratitude: I have been big into gratitude and acknowledgment for a long time. I think it’s really important to appreciate what we have and most importantly to appreciate the things that others do for us.  Having said that, I also used to focus on what I didn’t have all too often as well. Once I realized that I may not have everything that I think that I want AND I have much more than I need, everything shifted for me. Funny thing is that from that point on everything I needed started showing up.
2. Create a Positive Community:  Surround yourself with uplifting people. Create friendships and relationships with people who foster and support your growth and development and are working on their own growth and development as well. It’s amazing to know that you have people to turn to whose advice can move you forward rather than pull you down or keep you stuck.
3. Eat Food that Gives You Pleasure and Nourishes You: Eat the highest quality, freshest food that you can possibly get.  Make easy meals that you enjoy. Take time to savor what you are eating and when you can, share a meal with someone you love.  What we eat is the foundation of how we feel.  Avoid overly refined foods and eat foods that are as close to the way nature created them as possible. You will feel and taste the difference when you eat this way.
4. Exercise Regularly: Find a form of exercise that you love, don’t just do it because you think that you should. There are so many kinds of fun classes available now. Grab a friend, join a class, do whatever it takes to get you moving regularly.  Not only is the exercise good for you, having fun with people you like can help to make you happy.
5. NO NEGATIVE SELF-TALK: If you’ve been reading my writing lately you had to know that this would be on here.  If you can’t control it, at least recognize it for what it is and don’t take it seriously. Practice patience with yourself, I find that this helps me to calm my negative self-talk. How can you possibly be happy when someone is being so mean to you all the time? (I saw that on Facebook)
6. Be of Service To Others: I am not talking about neglecting your needs or putting yourself last on the list. I am talking about something very different. Volunteer for something, give a free talk that will enhance someone else’s life, cook a meal for homeless families; take the focus off you.  That’s why we are here to love, to serve and uplift each other.  When you are helping others, you tend not to focus on what you view as inadequate about you and your life which is a source of unhappiness for many of us.
7. Have Some Type of Reflective Practice: When we are busy, busy, busy as so many of us tend to be, we go through life in survival mode. We race from one place to another and from one thing on our “to do” list to another, always feeling like there is not enough time to get things done.  A while back I used to say “I don’t have the time” I would think my plate was full and then I realized that I was viewing my life was a bread plate that couldn’t hold much AND so I decided to recreate my life to be a buffet table that could fit so much more. By doing this I became far less self-limiting and I stopped limiting the people around me. Create a practice where you take time at least once a day to stop, regroup and reconnect with you and what is going on around you. This will create space in your heart and your mind. You will be surprised by how stopping and taking a few minutes when you think you couldn’t possibly spare the time will allow you to be much more productive and aware of all the good stuff that you are likely currently missing.
8. Be Vulnerable: This was the toughest piece for me. I was walking around very self-protected.  I’m not sure why I felt that I needed to be and I’m not even entirely sure how I let go of some of it. What I do know is that it didn’t allow me to fully connect with people.