Back to the Basics

Sometimes when life isn’t going well, it seems like absolutely nothing is working out, and we’re almost to capacity with how much stress we can take, we have to take a step back and see if we’ve lost touch with the foundation of our lives—the simple stuff that (literally) keeps us alive and in the best position to deal with life–however it shows up each day. These are ‘the basics’.

Life has a funny way of showing you when you’ve wandered a bit too far and need to get back to the basics. Are you tired all the time? Are you feeling unmotivated and unfocused? Are you unhappy, bitter, or resentful? Are you spread too thin and overwhelmed with responsibilities? Are you feeling empty or disconnected from yourself? Are you feeling empty or disconnected from God? These are all often signs that it’s time for you to get back to the basics—the foundational components of life that, when attended to faithfully, make life that much easier to navigate.

I consider the basics of life to be the following five things: eating well, sleeping well, moving your body often, connecting with others, and (most importantly) connecting with God. Too long of a disruption in any of these areas will upset the balance and peace of your life! You want to maintain these areas as best as you can, so that you can show up in life as whole and as centered as possible.

If you are wanting to increase or ‘level up’ in life you need to be extra careful—we often want to move forward when truly we haven’t mastered the basics in our lives. Ignoring your foundation while pushing ahead is almost guaranteed to have you eventually tripping over your own feet and feeling stressed, fatigued, frustrated, and overwhelmed. There IS such a thing as growing too fast. Make sure you have the basics down, so that all of your hard work and efforts don’t end up going down the drain.

No one is perfect, but a general consistency in the basic things of life can take you a long way. As a mental health advocate, I know that when you have strayed from maintaining consistency within the basics of your life your mental health will take a hard hit, often in the form of anxiety and depression. It never hurts to get back to the basics.

Comment below what you do when you feel you’ve lost touch with the basics in your life. How do you get back on track?

Marie