Recipe for a Happy Life

I love cooking and baking. I don’t do anything fancy, but I enjoy making good food. Usually, I find a recipe on the internet, start making it, realize half way through that I don’t have one of the ingredients, and then proceed to wing it.

I don’t follow the recipe and yet it almost always turns out great.

In life, it’s usually a different story.

You see, I have a recipe for my life.

This recipe is a strict formula outlining the necessary ingredients, amounts, and instructions to blend and bake into a delicious and happy life, sprinkled with sunshine, laughter, and joy.

1 cup of relationship

2 cups of family

3/4 cup work

1/2 cup money

1 tbsp ease

1 tsp peace

Combine relationship and family until well-mixed. In separate bowl combine work and money. Combine and boil for a few years over low heat, while gradually adding ease and peace.

It sounds easy enough, but more often than not, an ingredient is missing. Or there’s too much of one thing and not enough of another. Or the instructions just don’t make sense.

That’s when the emotions rise.

Disappointment, anger, sadness, grief, and shame.

These emotions are uncomfortable, and we believe that they are telling us that something is wrong with the ingredients. That the ingredients are broken, damaged, missing, or lacking.

Because these emotions are uncomfortable, we try to fix the ingredients. We look at how we can force the ingredients to be what our recipe calls for. We try to force one thing, and we try to repress another. We try to manufacture something, and we longingly search the pantry of life for the missing ingredients.

We honestly believe that if we could just have these certain ingredients, and if we could just mix them this certain way, those uncomfortable emotions would go away and we’d have a perfectly happy life.

But those negative emotions aren’t telling you that something is wrong with the ingredients. They’re telling you that something is wrong with the recipe. That your recipe for life needs some adjustment.

The ingredients are what they are. Life is what it is. It’s you that must adjust your recipe, to adapt, to double up on faith, and add a pinch of patience, to lower the temperature, or to increase the cooking time.

There is no recipe for a delicious, happy life. You just have to work with what you’ve got and wing it, trusting that it’ll turn out great.

What is your “recipe for a happy life”? What is your formula that life is supposed to follow?

What ingredients do you feel you have too much of, or not enough of to fit in your “recipe”?

How can you adjust your recipe, your formula, to make something delicious with the ingredients you have?

What would be different if you unconditionally accept life for the way it is, instead of trying to force it to be what you think it should be?

Ready to make your recipe delicious, but you want some direction, guidance, or support? Contact us and tell us you'd like a complimentary 30 min consultation. Or call 204 828 3683.

Here’s to Conquering Stress.

With heart,

The Stress Experts