How to Start Living Naturally: A Gentle Guide to Natural Living

The more I slow down, the more I crave a life that feels rooted in the seasons, in the soil, in the quiet, everyday moments that whisper of enoughness. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how to start living naturally, not in a performative or perfect way, but in a gentle, soul-aligned rhythm… welcome. This guide isn’t about extremes. It’s about small steps, slow shifts, and remembering that we are part of nature, not separate from it.

Let’s begin where all good things begin — with simplicity.

What Does It Mean to Live Naturally?

To live naturally is to soften your pace and realign your life with the quiet, steady rhythms of the earth. It’s waking up to the idea that a slower, simpler life isn’t a luxury — it’s our birthright. And while the world might tell us to rush, consume, and numb… natural living invites us to notice, tend, and nourish.

Natural living means choosing the real over the artificial.
The handmade over the mass-produced.
The seasonal over the instant.
The mindful over the mindless.

It’s not about becoming someone new or doing everything the “natural” way. You don’t have to make sourdough or grow your own medicine cabinet (though you can, and you might!). It’s not about throwing out every bottle in your home or abandoning technology. You can love your slow cooker and your skincare routine. You can keep your smartphone and learn how to dry herbs.

The shift is subtle — it begins with awareness. It’s about asking deeper, quieter questions as you move through your day:

• Is this good for my body?
• Is this gentle on the earth?
• Is there a simpler, truer way to do this?
• Does this bring peace into my home? Into my mind?

It’s about making friends with patience and honoring what you already have. Letting your hands learn again — how to stir, to mend, to plant, to bless. You begin to see beauty in the ordinary: the steam rising from a homemade broth, the rhythm of sweeping the floor, the joy of using up the last of something before replacing it.

Natural living is less about rules and more about remembering.

Remembering what your body needs.
What your grandmother knew.
What the earth has been whispering all along.

How to Start Living Naturally (Without Overwhelm)

Here are some small, doable steps you can begin taking today. Each one brings you a little closer to the natural life you’re craving — steady, soft, and true.

1. Simplify Your Cleaning Routine

A beautiful place to begin your natural living journey is right under your kitchen sink — a space that, for many of us, holds the harshest chemicals in our home. Conventional cleaners often promise sparkle and shine, but they come with a hidden cost: toxic ingredients, artificial scents, plastic packaging, and a quiet sense of disconnect.

Natural living invites us to reimagine even the most mundane tasks as rituals of peace — and that includes how we scrub, wipe, and wash. Start by clearing out what you no longer want to use. You don’t need to throw everything away today — just begin using things up and replacing them with gentler options over time.

Here are a few simple, effective ingredients that can replace almost everything:

• White vinegar – cuts grease, dissolves soap scum, and disinfects naturally
• Baking soda – a gentle abrasive that deodorizes and scrubs beautifully
• Lemon peels – add a fresh, clean scent and natural antibacterial properties
• Castile soap – a plant-based liquid soap that works wonders on almost every surface
• Essential oils – lavender for calm, eucalyptus for freshness, tea tree for antimicrobial power

You can create an all-purpose cleaner with just:

• 1 part vinegar
• 1 part water
• A handful of lemon peels (or a few drops of essential oil)
  Let it steep for a few days, then strain and use. It smells like sunshine in a jar and leaves your counters gleaming — no toxins, no overwhelm.

Beyond being safer for your body and the environment, this shift invites mindfulness. You notice the way the light falls on your freshly wiped table, you breathe in the real scent of citrus instead of chemical “lemon”, you feel — maybe for the first time — that cleaning your home is less about battling dirt and more about blessing the space you live in.

2. Choose Gentle Personal Care

One of the simplest and most nourishing ways to begin living naturally is by tending to the way you care for your body. For most of us, our bathroom shelves are filled with bottles promising glow, lift, firmness, and freshness… but often, they come with long ingredient lists, synthetic fragrances, and hidden toxins we can’t pronounce.

Natural living reminds us: your body is not a problem to be solved. Rather than rushing to toss out everything you own, begin slowly. When you run out of something, consider replacing it with a simpler, more natural alternative.

Here are a few gentle switches that I’ve come to love:

• Bar soap made with olive oil, goat milk, or shea butter. These are often handcrafted, nourishing, and free from harsh surfactants. Look for short ingredient lists with real oils and herbs. It’s a small change that brings beauty back to the everyday act of washing your hands.
• Coconut oil or shea butter as a moisturizer. A single jar can be used for dry skin, cracked heels, and even as a hair treatment. No fillers, no mystery ingredients — just rich, plant-based nourishment.
• Mineral-based deodorant. These often rely on magnesium, baking soda, or clay to absorb odor and moisture naturally. Some require an adjustment period, but the peace of knowing you’re no longer absorbing aluminum or artificial fragrance is worth it.
• DIY scrubs and masks using ingredients from your pantry. A simple mix of honey and ground oats makes a wonderful exfoliator. Add herbs like lavender or chamomile for extra calm. There’s something deeply satisfying about preparing your own care products — like making a meal, but for your skin.

You don’t have to throw out your whole drawer of products or make everything from scratch.
You simply begin to notice and to choose with intention.

3. Start a Simple Natural Pantry

If you’re looking for a grounded, meaningful place to begin your natural living journey, step into your kitchen. Cooking is one of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your body, your home, and the earth. It brings you back into rhythm with the seasons.

It’s about filling your shelves with real, whole, recognizable foods — the kind your great-grandmother would’ve used without thinking twice. These staples become the building blocks of nourishing meals and simple comforts.

Here’s what I keep on hand in my own quiet kitchen:

• Whole grains: oats for breakfast, brown rice for dinner bowls, millet or quinoa for hearty salads. They’re inexpensive, filling, and deeply grounding.
• Dried beans and legumes: lentils, chickpeas, black beans — the kind you soak overnight and simmer slowly. They stretch a meal, add protein, and feel like old friends on a cold day.
• Baking basics: flour (unbleached or whole grain), sea salt, baking powder, raw honey, and perhaps a bit of molasses. With these alone, you can make biscuits, muffins, pancakes, or bread.
• Herbs and spices: ones you recognize and use often — thyme, basil, rosemary, cinnamon, garlic, turmeric. These add depth and joy to the simplest dishes.
• Natural fats: cold-pressed olive oil, unrefined coconut oil, or ghee for those who tolerate dairy. These oils are stable, nourishing, and easy to cook with.

Your pantry doesn’t need to be large — it only needs to be filled with what you’ll actually use. Let it reflect the kind of meals you want to make: warm, filling, uncomplicated. Soup with bread is a sacred meal. Roasted vegetables with herbs are enough. A bowl of oats with fruit is breakfast royalty. Sometimes the most comforting dishes are the simplest — made from the pantry, stirred with care, and served with gratitude.

4. Grow Something — Anything

Even if it’s just a pot of basil on your kitchen windowsill, tended with love and a splash of water before the kettle boils — start there.

You don’t need a sprawling garden or a greenhouse to feel connected to the rhythms of the earth. You don’t even need a yard, you only need the desire to tend. Because there’s something deeply sacred about growing even one small, living thing. It slows you down. Softens you. Re-teaches you what it means to wait, to trust, to receive.

Start small: a jar of green onions regrowing in water. A pot of mint beside the sink. A tray of microgreens on your windowsill. If you can, grow something you can eat. A handful of chives snipped into your eggs. A sprig of rosemary tucked into your soup pot. A cherry tomato warmed by the sun, eaten right off the vine.

And if gardening has never come naturally to you — if you’ve forgotten to water every houseplant you’ve ever owned — you’re not alone. Some of us are wild for the soil. Others are better at admiring than maintaining. That’s okay. Natural living doesn’t require mastery. Only relationship.

If your strength isn’t in growing, then consider supporting those who do.

• Buy herbs from a local grower at the farmer’s market
• Join a CSA box and learn what it means to eat in season
• Trade baked goods for a neighbor’s extra zucchini
• Say thank you to the soil with every apple you eat

This is natural living, too — a quiet exchange, a shared harvest. Growing something, anything, is less about food security and more about soul security. It reminds us we’re part of something cyclical and beautiful. That from a seed — something so small you can barely hold it — comes nourishment, shade, medicine, and joy.

5. Be Mindful of What You Bring In

The world is constantly offering us more: more stuff, more noise, more options, more convenience. And most of it comes wrapped in plastic, cluttered with packaging, and layered with promises we don’t need.

Natural living offers quieter questions: Is this necessary? Is this nourishing — for me, for my home, for the earth? Being mindful of what crosses the threshold of your home is a powerful way to reclaim peace and purpose in a culture of overconsumption.

Here are a few small, conscious shifts that create big impact over time:

• Choose glass over plastic – Reach for products in reusable or recyclable containers. That simple swap from plastic to glass feels grounding and intentional. Over time, your pantry and bathroom begin to feel calmer, too.
• Shop secondhand before buying new – There’s a quiet joy in finding something with a story. A well-loved basket, a cast iron skillet that’s seen many meals, a linen blouse that feels like home. Secondhand living reduces waste and connects us to slower, circular rhythms of use.
• Ask yourself: Do I really need this? – Before buying something, pause. Picture where it will live, how often it will be used, and whether it truly serves you. This one question, repeated often, has gently helped me let go of so many things I once thought I needed.
• Support brands that align with your values – When you do buy new, try to support small makers, ethical businesses, or local artisans. Each purchase becomes a vote for sustainability, for craftsmanship, for slower economies rooted in care.
• Make do with what you already have – The most sustainable item is the one you already own. A frayed dish towel, a chipped teacup, a basket missing its handle — these things carry story and soul. See if they can be mended or repurposed before replacing them.

This isn’t about perfection or never making another Target run again. It’s about awareness. Every mindful choice is a quiet act of resistance against clutter, waste, and the constant pressure to do, have, and consume more. And in that resistance, we rediscover freedom.

6. Create Gentle Rhythms at Home

Natural living is not just about what you use — it’s about how you dwell. At its heart, it’s about rhythm — the slow pulse of your daily life, the patterns that ground you and give your home its soul.

Here are a few gentle rhythms that have softened my own days:

• Open the windows in the morning. Let fresh air sweep through your space like a blessing. Even in winter, a short burst of fresh air can shift the energy of a room and remind you that you are connected to the world beyond your walls.
• Light a toxic-free candle in the evening. As the sun sets, switch off the overhead lights and welcome the golden glow of a single flame. It slows the heart. It says, you’re home now.
• Wash the dishes by hand — slowly. Let the warm water and clinking of plates become a meditative ritual. You don’t have to rush through it. Let it be a sacred rhythm — a time to reflect, to pray, or to simply be.
• Step outside every day — even for five minutes. Stand barefoot in the grass. Sip your tea on the porch. Notice the sky. Feel the wind. Let nature remind you that the world is still turning, gently and faithfully, even on your busiest days.
• Choose silence when you can. Turn off the background noise. Let a quiet room wrap around you like a blanket. In that hush, you may find clarity, rest, or a whisper of inspiration.

These small actions might seem ordinary, but woven together, they create a home that moves at your pace, not the world’s. Your rhythms don’t have to match anyone else’s. You don’t need a perfectly timed morning routine or an elaborate schedule. Just a few moments, repeated often, that bring you back to yourself.

Why Natural Living Matters

Natural living is often misunderstood as a trend — another lifestyle to chase, a curated aesthetic of linen aprons, sourdough starters, and sun-dappled kitchens. But it’s so much more than that.

This isn’t just about health or beauty, though both are welcome fruits of this path. It’s about returning to a relationship with the land, with your food, with the quiet wisdom of your hands, and with the slow hum of your soul, the part of you that longs for stillness, meaning, and rhythm.

When we begin to live more naturally, something inside us softens. We remember what it feels like to move through the day with intention instead of urgency. We start to crave fewer things and deeper moments.

Living naturally invites you to:

• Slow down. To stop racing from task to task and instead move through your day with steadiness and care.
• Notice beauty. To see the golden light on your floorboards, the shape of a basil leaf, the steam rising from a pot of tea.
• Create with your hands. To return to the deeply human act of making bread, soap, herbal tea, and a home-cooked meal.
• Nourish your body. To honor your health with real food, clean air, warm sunlight, and rest that actually restores.
• Reduce harm to the earth. To tread lightly, waste less, and leave behind a footprint that feels more like a blessing than a burden.
• Live with more meaning and less noise. To quiet the endless scroll of input and remember that joy doesn’t come from more — it comes from enough.

Natural living is not performative. It’s not about being pure or perfect or Pinterest-worthy, but a quiet act of devotion — to the life you’ve been given, to the ground beneath your feet, and to the beauty tucked into everyday moments.

Start Small. Start Now.

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life to begin living more naturally, or a perfect pantry, a compost bin in the backyard, or a closet filled with ethically made linen dresses (though those can be lovely, too). You only need a soft, steady willingness to pay attention.

That’s where it all begins — with noticing. Noticing how your body feels after a meal made from scratch, how the light shifts in your home when the overheads are off, and a candle flickers in the corner. Noticing the peace that comes when your choices reflect your values, even in the smallest way.

Natural living is not a finish line to reach. It’s not an identity to wear or a lifestyle to perform. It’s a return. A remembering. A choosing — again and again — to come back to what truly matters.

So start where you are, with what you have. Maybe it’s using up what’s in your pantry before buying more, walking outside with bare feet and feeling the grass between your toes. Maybe it’s lighting a candle instead of scrolling your phone, or it’s whispering a prayer over your morning cup of tea.

Let the first step be small — and let it be now. Because once you take that first quiet step toward living more naturally — toward slowing down, simplifying, nourishing — you’ve already begun. And once you begin, the next step will find you.

One Quiet Thing You Can Do Today:

Line-dry a load of laundry under the summer sun and brew a cup of peppermint tea.

Quiet Thought for the Day:

“Live simply so that others may simply live.” – Mother Teresa

Pass Along the Peace ♡