Spiritual Foundations: How to Live in Joy

What are the foundations of your life — and when was the last time you took a look at them? 

A house can stand firm and strong because of its foundations. It is the quality of the foundations that support a strong house to emerge on top.

Yes, strong walls and roofing are important, but if the foundations are not there, sooner or later they will all crumble, like a house of cards.

Here’s the thing about foundations: they are something we normally don’t get to see.

Foundations exist, they are real, but they are also almost invisible — hidden.

We easily see what lies above the foundations, and all the wonderful things that are possible to create because of the foundations. As a result, we focus much on the walls and decorations.

Since we rely so much on what we see, taste, smell, and feel, it is easy for us to neglect the foundations. Because of that, we don’t manage to create what we want, and live the life we want to live.

What we are missing is foundations. 

Solid foundations are essential in our lives, for they are the structure that will hold all we want to build for us.

The life of each and every one of us is like a house that we are working so hard to keep up. Life requires much maintenance, caring for things that break. We also look for ways to keep improving it, bringing new beautiful things to it — that is, if are also not working on expanding it, making it bigger, more colorful, more abundant. 

Again, without the foundations, the house crumbles. Without foundations, there is no coherence and cohesion in our lives. 

Here is an insight:

Your well-being, your joy, your peace of mind, your growth come from and are affected by the quality of the life you live

So I ask you: what are your foundations, the pillars of your life?

What do you need to SUSTAIN, on an ongoing basis, for your life to be good and grow?

See, here is another insight, in the shape of a single word: 

SUSTAIN

Because that is what foundations do: they sustain your house. 
They sustain your life.

So it is not enough to only pay attention to them one day a week. Their work is done if they keep sustaining, day after day. 

Which means, foundations require work.

I know many people are allergic to this word, work. We are living busy lives, forever late with our to dos, and no one wants more work. 

Yet, this is about your foundations: for your well-being, for your growth. This is a work of love, of self-love, of self-nurturing, which is why I call this type of work devotion.

Developing solid foundations for your life, for your well-being, for your healing, and for your growth, is being devoted to yourself.

Without the foundations, everything can actually become harder than it has to be. They simplify life. Foundations allow for anything we build on top of them to sustain stronger, and that’s their power. 

What are your foundations, the pillars of your life?

Here are a few examples.

• Health can be a foundation. We easily neglect it when we feel healthy, but when we get sick we see how life can spiral so fast. Eating well, sleeping well, exercising, drinking water, and not consuming drugs that harm us; there are so many sides to health. 
• Self-expression and creative output can be a foundation. Your love for singing, playing music, drawing, writing, dancing, or any other creative output you have to express yourself can highly impact what gets to be created in your life.
• Connection can be a foundation. Self-connecting, quality time with yourself, meditating, journaling, in nature, time to reflect on your life and what you want, quality time with the people you love, time in nature, these are all sides of connection.
• Simplicity in your schedule can be a foundation. For instance, not having more than five things in your schedule per day, because you know that more than that makes you stressed and scattered, and the more clear priorities you have, the stronger your life.

These are all examples, and you yourself create your foundations. No one can tell you what your foundations are, they are the pillars of your life, based on what you need — and they can come from all different aspects of life.

Foundations bring coherence, strength, authority, and cohesion

In my life and work as a spiritual guide, I have established four foundations. I orient much of my work around them because foundations give us depth. They are not basic, quite the opposite: they have multiple layers, and the stronger they are, the more deeply rooted they go. The result is that the more we can expand, for they can sustain us go much higher.

Remember this word: sustain

It is not enough to create. The power lies in what we are able to sustain as we keep expanding our lives.

If you are curious about my personal foundations, check out this post.

Keep It Simple

I mentioned my own foundations here mainly because of the number that I use: four.

See, it is not a lot. It is important to have clarity of what matters, so we can keep sustaining it.

It is easy to make a list of 10 things that matter — but pretty difficult to sustain that. Your foundations are to be always there, so you don’t want to get overwhelmed by them.

Be clear, and make them manageable. In this way, they can become your priority, and not get neglected. 

Foundations are only foundations if they are sustained.

This means, commitment, routines, and discipline, from that heart-place we talked about: devotion to yourself. 

Remember:

Your wellbeing, your joy, your peace of mind, your growth come from and are affected by the quality of the life you live.

What are our foundations, the pillars of your life?

What do you need to SUSTAIN, on an ongoing basis, for your life?

Practice: Let’s Get Hands’On

Here is an invitation for your contemplation:

Would you sit with yourself and reflect on your foundations, your needs, what you need to sustain for your wellbeing, and your joy?

This exercise has two parts.

• First part: sit with yourself and reflect on your foundations. What did you need in place to sustain your well-being, joy, and growth?
• Second part: act on your answers, take aligned actions, live them, and organize yourself around them because again these foundations are precious.

Foundations allow your life to flourish, so please, go within and access your foundations. Will you?

Will you understand your needs and cater to yourself?

Devote yourself, so you can heal, live and grow.

To learn more about spiritual growth, download my free guide “What Is Spiritual Growth?”, you will find the link in the video description here

To learn more about what spiritual growth is, get my free guide “What Is Spiritual Growth?”