International model, actress, and mom shares her story
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Alana Stewart’s new memoir, Rearview Mirror, is the story of love, loss, and addiction. Through two high-profile marriages—and divorces—with two iconic stars (rocker Rod Stewart, who just released a memoir, and actor George Hamilton), drug addictions, and death, she’s managed to find spirituality, love and happiness. DailyHap got the chance to hear from the international model, actress, talk-show host, filmmaker, and bestselling author herself; read on for Alana Stewart’s happiness insight.
DailyHap: What was the happiest period in your life?
Alana: THE happiest, the three happiest events were the births of my three children. That is sort of unconditional love and happiness. George and I had a lot of happy times in our marriage, and so did Rod and I.
When you’re younger, you don’t know so much, and happiness doesn’t last, well it doesn’t go up and down, it ebbs and flows, and we go through happy periods where everything is calm and then the shit hits the fan … it can turn on a dime.
What I’ve really learned about happiness is you have to appreciate every day you’re alive and you have to make up your mind to want to be happy, to make that a goal. if you’re going through something awful, you’re not going to want to be happy on a daily basis. But I can just go through my routine, and it’s so important to be grateful for and appreciate what you do have.
DailyHap: Through those highs and lows, how do you keep the peace?
Alana: I read my spiritual books and I write about how I’m feeling. I write the problem and the solution, and then I go into the solution.
I just turn to the tools I’ve learned over the years: read spiritual books, I love Joel Osteen, I’ll turn on a Sunday sermon if I’m going through a negative place, or read a book by him or Marianne Wiliamson. I have an arsenal: my daily word, I read that every day. I keep a journal, a book, of uplifting thoughts and sayings and solutions, and I’ll start flipping through that, and I’ll see some saying and it’ll shift my attitude.
BONUS! Alana’s exact happiness action plan: I have a ritual: I do my yoga, I read a little spiritual page in my daily word, and then I meditate 10-20 minutes.
DailyHap: What’s one thing you’d tell your childhood self?
Alana: Just keeping having faith, with God anything is possible, and it always gets better. There’s always a solution, even though you may not see it, it always gets better. Faith for me is the most important thing. My grandmother was a solid foundation, she was the only one.
DailyHap: Your grandmother would be proud of you, wouldn’t she?
Alana: Oh yeah … she was very, very proud of me. That’s the other thing: taking the time for he people we love; you never know what’s going to happen. I wish I’d written her more, called her more once she got a phone, I wish I had taken those moments to spend more time talking with her, writing her, I always regret that I didn’t.
DailyHap: What do you hope to pass on to your granddaughter?
Alana: I have to remember that time just passes so quickly, she’s 17 months, if I don’t spend every minute I can with her—it’s just shocking, time went too quickly. I wish I could have made it pass slower, I wish I could have just savored every moment more.
DailyHap: Any more happiness advice?
Alana: I love this quote of Abe Lincoln: “A man is just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” It’s something even when we’re not feeling, we have to make it out goal just to be happy in the moment not waiting for some thing or someone to make us happy. Appreciating the little things.