How to Restore Balance to Your Life

Do you ever feel like you are simply out of balance? That your life is just a runaway train? That what you want to experience is not happening? Or maybe just to bring that down a little bit, in your relationships, do you ever feel like, I want to have better relationships. I want to create memories. I want to have, um, I want to have life-giving relationships and not be too burdened or too stressed. I'm too frustrated by the relationships that I have. And between my own personal peace and maybe my peace with other people, I'm just out of whack. Well, that's how you feel. You're not alone. And I want to talk to you about how to bring and restore balance to your life today. Hi there. My name is Chrystal Hurst. And if you're new here, welcome. I am live every week inside of my membership, The Inner Circle, where I love to mentor, teach, and coach those women who want more from me and want more accountability and community from a wonderful group of faith-based women. But I'm here, uh, putting those videos up every week on YouTube and on Facebook, but it's the buttoned-up version minus the foolery, simply because y'all don't need to see all my tricks. But I'm here because I love you. I'm here because I want to help you, and I'm here because I want to share lessons that I've learned in my life that I believe can be helpful for you learning yours. As I dive into a deeper dive of faith in the Inner Circle for the rest of the month of June, and as we turn the corner for the third quarter of this year and talk about family balance and relationships, I wanted to kind of intro that topic here with you today because I, I think that we all struggle in some season with bringing balance and intentionality to our relationships. And there are some keys for you to have the balance and the peace that you want in your own life and in the relationships that surround your life. But you do have to be committed to it. And I want to give you some areas of commitment so that you can experience what you really want to experience. How do I know this is what you want to experience? I'm making a big assumption here. Well, I'm making this assumption because no one on their deathbed has ever regretted not working more. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted, you know, having more money. But I can tell you that there are lots of people on on their deathbed that regret not doing the things that brought them joy and peace, not living for their own passions, not accomplishing their own goals. And then there are even more people who regret not having good relationships, or that the people that they wanted to care about them when they were not well and on their way out were not there because they hadn't poured into those relationships. Relationship matters— your relationship with people, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with God. Relationship, in fact, is all there is, because really only what you do for Christ will last, and only the impact that you left on others will continue to ripple on after you're gone. So yeah, go get your money, make wealth, do all of that, get your degrees, you know, do the most, figure out how to get your hustle together. Absolutely. Live healthy, get your health together. Yes, stack your bank account. Awesome. Do all of that. But at the end of the day, if you don't have peace with others, peace with yourself, and peace with God, you're not living. So what I wanted to give you are some practical pointers for bringing balance and peace to your relationships, particularly with yourself and with other people, because again, that's the corner that I'll be talking about and diving in deeper with the Inner Circle over the next few months. There are 3 things that I want to tell you about. These are 3, for lack of a better word, mantras that I live by, and I want to tell you what they are and then give you examples of what they look like in my life right now and what they've looked like in life in other seasons. Those 3 things are pillars, rhythms, and margin. Pillars, rhythm, and margin. So let me explain to you what each of these things are. Pillars are the big rocks in my life that I am not willing to compromise on. Sometimes a pillar is saying yes, sometimes a pillar requires saying no, but these are the major things. So the major things for me, of course, are going to be time with God, time with my family. But get beyond those obvious things. Some of my pillars are also taking vacation. Some of my pillars are getting enough sleep, making sure that I'm committed to resting. Some of my pillars are my first Sunday with my family. Every first Sunday, most of the year, maybe 9 months out of a 12-month year, um, because of special vacations or whatever, we may miss a few here and there, but I would say 9 a year, I'm hosting family dinner with my family my father's children, our children, cousins, aunts, and dear friends, and maybe a guest or two every now and then. And I make room for that. I plan my life around that. If I have to travel out of town, I'm not going out of town if I can't be back for first Sunday. I'm not going to go out of town if I don't have room enough to prepare for first Sunday. A pillar is something that you move your life around. Let me give you an example of something that is a current pillar for me. So I've been saying for years that I wanted to start piano lessons again. Now, I, I play the piano. I took piano lessons from age 5 to age 15, and I can play a Bach two-part invention like nobody's business. Sit me down to do scales and arpeggios, lots of technique. Can I fill out my, uh, my, my theory book? Absolutely. Can I play Minuet in G? Most of these things I have memorized. Can I play a few things by ear? Yes. But I've always wanted to develop my ear, to develop my know-how and my prowess with the instrument. One of the things I don't want to regret for my peace with myself on my deathbed is not maximizing my gift of music. I am a writer, that is true, and I write books, but I also am a writer of songs. I hear songs in my head and I'll write the words down, but then I was frustrated because I couldn't get it out, and I was always dependent on someone else who played the piano to try to create the sound that I was hearing in my head. I want to be able to lay it down myself, so I've recently restarted piano lessons. Now, I started piano lessons with a gentleman that's been tuning my piano for 20 years. I asked him about lessons for one of my children and ended up realizing, oh, he's gonna be for me. But he ain't playing, y'all. He believes in immersion. It is a 2-time-a-week lesson, and each time I go it's 2 hours. And because he believes in giving me a lot for my money, sometimes I have been there as long as 3 hours for a piano lesson. But do you want to know why I'm carving out not only the money but also the time to go to that piano lesson? It's because it's a pillar. So I stopped my work day at 3:45 or 3:50, and I run out the door to get to piano lessons. I tell the children, if you get hungry before I get home, this is dinner, or you can wait until I get back. I have canceled things in my life, moved meetings, because this is important to me. A pillar is something that you are making room for because you consider it to be a big rock in your life. You are willing to make minor or major adjustments to everything else because this is so important. You need to have pillars in your life, and I would say most of your pillars need to be yes pillars because it's hard to live life constantly telling yourself no. So maybe a pillar in your life, like for me, is health. Now what does that look like? It may look different in different seasons, but what I'm always wanting to make room for is my health. And if I'm too busy to cook, too busy to, to, to put lemon in my water, too busy to work out, or even just go for a walk in my neighborhood, I'm too busy. Because it's a pillar. If you're too busy to spend time with God, you're too busy. That should be a pillar. If you're too busy to go out on a date night regularly with your husband, then you're too busy, because you should have a pillar. If you don't pray with your family, that should be a pillar. If you're not in church— it's somebody's church— every Sunday, that should be a pillar, because there are certain things in your life that hold your life up. If you're not praying, that's a pillar. Pillars are things you say yes to. They're the big rocks in your life, because you're going to put everything else in around it. The second thing that will help you to bring peace to your life is rhythm. Now you need to understand that, y'all, when I was traveling during COVID I started traveling pretty early as a speaker. You know, that's how you earn a living. So I was grateful to have other ways to earn a living, but when it was time to get back out on the road, I was willing. Went to hotels. The very first thing I noticed when I went to hotels is that you weren't getting your hotel room cleaned because of COVID right? So they were only having the housekeepers come in, you know, upon each turnover of stay. If you needed extra assistance, you'd have to ask for it, but they didn't by default come into your room and clean it up. That was a problem for me. One of the beautiful things, one of the major reasons why a hotel is amazing is because they clean up. You come back in after you've done whatever you've done and the bed is made and the bathroom is refreshed. I mean, don't get me, I'm not a fool. I realize that hotels are nasty and there are a lot of things in the hotel room I won't touch. In fact, I have a girlfriend that literally intentionally, when she goes to a hotel room, she'll spill some water on the bed and call them and say, oopsie daisy, I spilled water on the bed, can you come change the sheets? Because she's like, I'm gonna guarantee that these are fresh sheets on the bed. Some of y'all are like that. Y'all go into a hotel room, you bring your own Lysol, your own wet wipes, your own Clorox bleach in situations. You, you declutter and de-clean. You clean that room. You are making sure that it is sanitized and ready for you. You would prefer not to sleep in a hotel. I'm not at that point yet. I still believe that a good hotel that gives me great rest and the little room service— thank you, God. I'm gonna pray over the germs. But you know what? The rhythm disrupted of me having my room clean messed it up, because a part of my rhythm with going out of town is that when I get back in my room, it's taken care of. The things that are rhythms in your life are the things that bring you ease, peace, regulation. Pillars are the big rocks. Rhythms decide what else gets put in there, okay? The things that you want in your life, but you want them in your life with some consistency. Because if you take one vacation in 20 years, you're not good. You're not good. You need a vacation, even if it's just a staycation at home, taking off work and being intentional. So these are things that when you put them in your life, you put them in your life because you want them because you need them. They are not non-negotiables. Your big rocks, your pillars, are non-negotiables. But rhythms are things like your— not just that you're going to be rested, that's a pillar. A rhythm is how much time you need to sleep. When do you go to bed? What's your bedtime routine? What's your wake routine? Rhythms are eating. When do you eat? What do you eat? When do you go to the grocery store? Do you meal plan? It is making your life easier. It's like having your life run on a treadmill because there are things in your life that you know you want, and rather than have to figure out when you put them in your life, you plan for them. You want to have a great family? Well, then you need to plan to spend time with your children. And I know that dinner time is a great time, a rhythm to have in your life, but you need to plan to— if you got 5 kids, try to spend time with them individually every now and again. That can be a rhythm. Taking your kids out on dates, another rhythm relationally, of course, is a date night. Another rhythm relation— relationally is spending time at your kitchen table praying, because your kids seeing you pray is important. That rhythm will teach them what to do. You're eating, your rhythms— what time do you eat? I go to Costco every Sunday after church. I swing through there, I get gas, I pick up groceries. I order groceries every Thursday, or maybe Friday, because I meal plan every Thursday of the week. I try to get my act together on Sunday and clean up my fridge. These are the things that I do so that I'm able to operate in my life with ease. There are too many of you— I'm not talking about being straight-laced or Type A, but there are too many of you that where life is hard, relationships are hard, home is hard because you're doing it on the fly all the time. Rhythms will bring ease to your life for the things that you know you want to keep in there consistently. I, when I was home with the kids and not working, every week I had an errand day, and if it could wait, it waited until that errand day because on Tuesdays I'd get in my car and run all of my errands. It helped me save money on gas, it helped me be intentional with where I was going to go, it helped I think intentionally about what I was going to do, how much money I was going to spend, because when you're out in these streets, y'all, you spend money. I had an errand day, I had a bill pay day. My husband would take the kids to church on Wednesday night for Awana, and while they were gone, I would balance the checkbook. Some of the reasons why your life is so out of whack and so out of kilter is because you don't have rhythms. And I'm not talking about being Type A, and I'm not talking about being anal. What I'm saying is that if you want to bring peace in relationships peace to your soul. Rhythms bring that ease. It doesn't fix it totally, but it does bring ease. Because after a while, if you have a monthly coffee date with your sister every month of the year, eventually you're gonna talk about it. Eventually you're going to talk about it. The problem we get into is when we try to save everything up for a one-stop shop and it's not enough. The sounds and smells of home are a rhythm for me. Every morning I get up Well, after I do the live, but around 7:30, 8:00, 8:30, in that hour, I'm going to turn on a diffuser, mix my smells for the day, and I'm going to turn on music. I'm going to listen to some Bethel or some Travis Greene. I'm going to listen to some Jesus Culture or some Hillsong, or I'm going to listen to some Fred Hammond or Kirk Franklin or, you know, whoever. I'm going to turn something on because the rhythm of music and smells in my home is good for me. And you know what else I'm doing when I create rhythm? I'm creating an atmosphere for my family that they'll never forget. Why? Because I always did it. I always did it. Now, there are some things I've fallen off with. Working out is one of those things personally, but also even with my children in scripture memory. We, we've memorized books of the Bible together, um, and doing that every morning at the table. And we've had a very crazy last year, year and a half. So there are some things I've fallen off about. But rhythms are things you can identify so that when life falls off, you can get back to it. So pillars are non-negotiables. I'm going to build my life around this. Rhythms are what would bring ease to my life. I'm a big fan of meal planning. I'm a big fan of sleeping. I'm a big fan of looking at your week so that you can manage your minutes. In fact, if you're on my email list, we'll make sure we send out the Manage Your Minutes downloadable later this week so that you can have something to map out your time. If you've never sat down and said, what do I do with my time? And like, literally, like, like you're building a budget, like write down everything you do with your time. You have enough time. Every one of us has 24 hours. So people that do great things have 24 hours. People who do nothing have 24 hours. The difference is what you decide to do with your pillars and with your rhythms. We are all built with circadian rhythms, our physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. It's a natural process. When you're not consistent with rhythms in your life, you are fighting your natural processes because your body wants to get on a rhythm. It, it wants to because your body was designed rhythmically. The sun rises every morning, the sun sets every evening. The world works on rhythm. So when you refuse to have rhythm in your life, you can operate that way. You're just making it harder than it has to be. Pillars are your non-negotiables, your yeses, and sometimes your boundaries and your nos. Rhythms are your routine. For those of you who are anal or Type A, it's your schedule, it's your planner. For those of y'all who are more Type B and little nilly-willy, it's just the things that you just do every day because they make you feel good. And when they don't make you feel good anymore, change them. When they don't work for your family anymore, change them. We used to eat dinner at 6. I changed that time to 3:30. Why? Because during a season my boys were playing football, so they ate their big meal at 3:30, and then after they got home from football, I gave them a snack. Why? Because that was the rhythm our family needed for the season. What do you need? What does your soul need? What does your family need? Rhythms will help make it easier. The last thing I want to tell you about is the hardest thing for me. It's margin. Ugh, because listen, I want to pack my life jar full of big rocks, full of pillars that I want to pour all the little rocks in, in every little nook and cranny. Those are my rhythms, those are my routines, and I want to fill every waking space. It's my design. I'm a firstborn. What can I say? That's not good. One of the things that I've learned and have continually had to remind myself of is the importance of margin. Margin is Sabbath. Margin is space. Margin is silence and solitude. It's Sabbath rest. Margin is being still. Margin is white space. Margin is quiet. Margin is moving slower. Margin is not just exhaling all day in your life, but making room to inhale, to be filled up, to leave room for God to write between the lines of your life. Do you remember that when you would be in school and you would write a paper and you'd have to skip every line and your teacher would say, "I need to have room to give you direction, to create correction, to give you instruction. And if you leave room, if you double space, I'll be able to do that." Double space for your life works too. You shouldn't fill every waking minute. And every waking minute that's available shouldn't be filled with white noise. What am I saying? I'm saying that just because you're bored doesn't mean you pull out your phone and get on social media. That just because you're bored, you go to sleep. Sometimes white space is just being still. It's moving a little slower through life so that you get wherever you're going early, and you can just sit for a second and know the rhythm of your own heartbeat. Margin leaves room for God to put something in your day that you did not plan for. Margin is living the blessed life. If you have no margin in your life, I would challenge you to create a budget with your time. Why? Because when you are able to not only put your big rocks in, not only have the rhythms that make life a little easier, but leave room for the things that come up that you didn't even know to plan for, That is life indeed. That is life indeed. Because there are so many things that are going to be delightful to you. They're going to come up. And if you have no room in your life for the child that showed up and wanted to play, if you have no room in your life for a spontaneous walk with your husband, if you have no room in your life for a phone call with a friend or a meetup that you didn't plan for, if you don't have any room in your life for the unexpected you're not living. I serve a God who loves to give us things that we did not expect. He loves to give us things above and beyond anything that we dreamed of. He loves to put on our plate things that we did not plan for, that we don't have enough money for, that we don't even think we have the bandwidth for. But if you literally don't have room, he has no room to work. Margin is a form of rest, and rest is a form of trust, and trust is always a form of worship. Did you know that? Did you know that you are worshiping God when you leave room for him to move in your life? Because what you're ultimately saying is, I trust that you may know about things that I don't know about, and because I trust you and trust your hand in my life, I'm going to leave room for what you have in mind for me. Your pillars are your big rocks. Your rhythms are your routines that make life a little easier. And your margin brings trust, rest, stillness, because you expect God to bring and do great things in your life. Listen, you cannot experience balance in your life if you don't know what your life should be comprised of. And so I want to challenge you to do two things. I want to challenge you. Number one, I actually found the location of the download that I wanted you to have. So number one, I want you to make sure that you go and grab this free resource that I've prepared for you. You can find it at chrystalevanshurst.com/myminutes. And all it is is a time schedule that's empty. And for a day, just a day, or you can print multiple out and do it for a whole week, I want you to write down everything you do with your time. And then I want you to turn it over and write down the things that were of value to you that you didn't have room for. And then your job is to figure out what are my pillars, what are my rhythms, and what is margin in my life. But you can't make changes if you don't even know how you're spending your time. So again, that's chrystalevanshurst.com/myminutes. The second thing that I want you to do apart from managing your time, budgeting your time, thinking about your time is I want you to tell me about your time. I want you to tell me in the comments, what are your pillars? What are your rhythms? And what can you do, or where do you need margin in your life? What are your big rocks? What would make life a little easier? And what in your life would give God space to work? I hope this has been helpful to you, and if it has, I hope you share it with a friend. Listen, for a minute I haven't been sharing my videos on YouTube. I was taking a little bit of a break, but here's the good news. This is the first of a new string of videos. In addition to the interviews that you can hear on the podcast or watch on YouTube, you'll also be once again seeing and hearing from me. And what better way can I kick off this season of the time of year by saying, listen, all that matters is relationship. Relationship with God, relationship with yourself, and relationship with other people. And in order for you to do those things well, you need balance in your life. And pillars, rhythms, and margin will help you get there. Share this with a friend and I'll see you next week.