It's Time to Thrive - Day One

Good morning, good morning, good morning! Good morning! Good morning, it's me. I'm not at home in my yellow chair. I am here somewhere in Texas with a paper towel because it's muggy here out in these streets and I have to keep wiping my camera so that you can see me. Good morning, good morning, good morning. I am happy to be with you today, and I'm here, um, for a few days actually. There's a few reasons for that. Uh, number one, it's July the 1st, and every July the 1st I have a few thoughts. Number one We are officially in the second half of the year. Number 2, I am a few days away from my birthday. Number 3, um, it's just a good time to start over. It's just a good time to start over. I am in the Piney Woods, as we like to call it. And, uh, you'll see people behind me, you'll hear kids talking and babies crying because we are at a place I have been coming to ever since I was a baby. And, uh, this is actually where we had the Sister Circle retreat a couple years ago. Um, we are here just as a family to hang out and spend some time together, so I am on the porch with all my gear because this is how I roll. And, uh, hoping you can hear me good enough. I think you can. So I got my earbuds in to make sure that I can hear you, but I just wanted to come on to talk about a few things. I go live still every Monday in the Inner Circle. Um, we do that every Monday and then we share the videos here on YouTube and on Facebook about a week later. We edit them, clean them up, take out some of the foolery that was only for those who were live, because I don't want to be on record as saying certain things that I say or look at certain ways that I look. You know, it's just foolery. Every now and then I like to throw out a little foolery. Sometimes even when I go live on Instagram, that can't stay up. Just can't, because everybody doesn't need to have access to all of the Chrystal foolery all of the time. Hold on, I'm about to wipe my camera again. Mm, because it is hot out here. But I wanted to go live and I'm going to try for the next few days to go live every day until my birthday. On my birthday, 7/7, yes, I know it's the perfect number. On my birthday, July 7th, I am going to do a special Coffee with Chrystal Hurst because I have some wonderful things to tell you about and some wonderful things to kick off. But until then, I just want to have a little chat with you, um, and, uh, remind you of a few things. In the Inner Circle, we will be, uh, jumping off on, uh, this next week into a 90-day journey for those who are, um, at the levels that get access to that. And that focus for the next 90-day will be about thriving. So while we're gonna spend, dive deep in Great Community, um, into doing the work to assess what it means to thrive and how we can be a part of our own growth and development and our own thriving, cuz you do have to play a part in your own thriving. Um, I wanted to just share some things with you cuz I, I really believe in what what I do to share content with everyone. And then for those who want to go deep, like you want to do the work and you want to have a different level of access, that's what the Inner Circle is for. So the sun is coming up, y'all, which is making my camera not want to look amazing. It's okay. Y'all can see me. Y'all get the drift. Drift. Gist. All the above. But, um, cause I could turn, but then y'all wouldn't be able to see the woods behind me. And I think that's what's pretty. So I listen to y'all. Y'all tell me what to do. If you want me to turn the camera and take another seat so y'all can see me clearly, I will do that. But I have a feeling y'all want to see the woods and all the extra foolery behind me as well. There's that. So, um, I like you, uh, I'm in a crazy season because we have been through, uh, as Dr. Anita Phillips put it, a collective trauma. It's been a collective trauma that we've all been a part of. Nobody that I know has ever been through a pandemic before. Nobody. Uh, we can read about pandemics, we can, um, get statistics and facts about previous pandemics, but none of us has actually ever lived through that before. And it's traumatic. It's been traumatic, the grief that we've suffered. It's been traumatic, the changes that we've had to endure, working at home, living at home, being with your kids, trying to hold down your job, being away from people that you love, losing your job, figuring out income, finding new rhythms only to lose them again, being concerned about your health, you know, trying to get the vaccine, you know, it's just, There has been every day, every week, and for sure every stinking month, there have been new things to learn, to figure out, to do. And when you live in a constant state of uphill, it wears you out. Can anybody say amen? That's all I want to know. I'm looking at the comments and I want to see an amen. Is anybody aware that you have been part of a collective trauma for the last 18 months? So when that happens, when you are not in your correct environment, when you're like a fish out of water, you are gasping for air. And it doesn't matter if the air that you're breathing is good. If that's not your environment, You're gasping. And a lot of us have been gasping. So here's what's happening. Here's what's happening right now as we speak. And this is why in the Inner Circle, we're going to be diving deep in the next few weeks and months to re-hit the reset button. Because even though things are returning to normal, can I just say real quick, that things will never be normal again. Whatever your normal was before this, even if you get back to some semblance of that, it's not ever going to be 2019 normal. Like for me, 2019 normal will never be again because 2019 wasn't even normal. 2019, my mother was sick and I lost my mom in 2019. So my life will never be normal again. Whatever I've had for normal for the last almost 50 years of my life. Yes, that's right. I'm closing in, not quite there, but I'm closing in. Um, and no, I don't turn 50 this year. Whatever I've had for normal for the majority of my life left me in 2019. Now that doesn't mean that I can't establish new rhythms and figure out new things. But then in addition to that, 2020, I've gone to church pretty much every Sunday of my life, and that did not happen in 2020. I've been able to see my friends and have my kids be in their activities as normal, but nope, 2020, that is not what happened. I've been able to hold in-person events, and I've been able to speak in person, teaching the Bible, writing books, and sharing the practical encouragement that God has put on my heart to share. That did not happen in 2020. So When you look at whatever normal was, it will never return. And we've spent a year and a half trying to find our doggone new rhythms. It will never be the same. But, but we are on the verge of returning to normal. And here's what the mistake is that a lot of people are going to make. They will not realize that in this new normal, the rhythm that you had before don't work the same way now. And you're going to spend the next 2 to 3 months, 6 months, even a year trying to return to normal if you don't acknowledge right here and now that in order to thrive, the first thing that you have to understand is because your rhythms were ripped out from underneath your feet, what you're trying to do in this new season is not return to normal, cuz normal will never turn. What you're trying to do is in this new season is to learn how to thrive in your new rhythms, your new normal, your new landscape. And here's the best part, the new you. Mm-hmm. Because out of all the crap that we have been through the last 18 months Let me tell you what else is new. You are. You, my friend, are new. You may not like the new you. You may not understand the new you. You may not even recognize the new you, but you are new. And therein lies the beautiful thing about this new season where you can choose to thrive. What does thrive even mean? It means that you're making progress. It means that you're growing. It means that you're moving forward. And in order to do that, there's so many things that have to happen. You want a plant to thrive? It needs to be in good soil. It needs good water. It needs good nutrients. Without that, it won't. Well, you've been transplanted, my friend, from 2019 through the crap of 2020, and here we are in 2021.. And the question is, are you ready to thrive? Are you ready to pay attention to where you're planted and the nutrients you need, the water, the sunlight, the environment? Are you ready to pay attention to how much space is the right amount of space between you and other people and your problems and your situations? Are you ready? Because the new you needs a new situation. And if you try to do in this new season what you did to work well in the old season, it'll take you longer than necessary to grow, to flesh out the new you in your new skin, in your new scenario. It'll take longer, and I, I don't want it to take you longer. I don't want it to take you longer. I want you to be intentional about this season. And so My intention, and I may not be able to do this perfectly because there are kids roaming all around here and you know, the time is always going to be 7-ish. I do my best, but what I want to do for the next 7 days is to, is to join you and to walk you through some things that you need to think about as you thrive. I actually If you're on my email list, we sent out an email series about this very same topic. And, um, and if you're not on my email list, you should be. Just go to chrystalhurst.com because there's stuff that I share there, um, that I don't share other places. I was telling someone yesterday, when I'm not blogging, I'm blogging. I'm just microblogging on Instagram, or I'm blogging in my newsletter to my email list. Or I'm blogging by running my mouth here on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or what have you. So I, um, I've been sharing some of this content with my email list and I just thought, you know what, let me, you know, I had fun last year going live every day. It's not sustainable with all the things that are happening in my life. So we went to every week and now every week that belongs to the Inner Circle. And so, um, what we do is every quarter we open up the Inner Circle so that anybody can join any of the levels. Um, then the doors close and then we focus on the work that we wanna do together for the next quarter. And, um, while anyone can join the Inner Circle at the first level and join me live every Monday, all of the other levels where you get to do the work, pay attention to you, join a great community, deepen your faith and see see progress in your life. Those levels only open and close once a quarter. But what I've found myself doing is at the beginning of those quarters, right at the beginning of the Inner Circle— here, I'll put this on the screen— is coming on here because, um, one, I miss you. It's fun to go live and to see you in real time commenting on what I'm saying. But I also want to give. I always want to give. That's why there's a podcast and other fun things to come. Bada bop. So make sure you're paying. If you don't join me on any other, other lives, make sure you join me on my birthday for some foolery, some fun, and some phenomenal new things. But that said, I wanted to— I was looking at our email that we sent out to our email list, and I just thought, man, I— some of this everybody needs. And everybody may not want to join me in that inner circle group and do the work, but I want to give you something to work with, if that's okay. So the first thing that you need to understand is you have been a part of a collective trauma. If you're tired, you're not the only one. If you find that you just can't get your mojo going, you're not the only one. If you find that you just don't seem to be able to do it the way you were able to do it 2 years ago, you're not the only one. If you feel like I— if you found yourself saying the last few days, I don't know what's wrong with me. You, my friend, are not the only one because all of us are saying that same doggone thing. I was actually, I'm looking on my phone because I was actually looking at an article. Um, ah, if I can, it's not gonna let me find it, but it was a Washington Post article that I found that was saying that employers are giving their employees time off because everybody's tired. Like the whole come back to work thing is in full effect. And everybody's like, we don't, we don't want to do that. It's like, we've developed whole rhythms around our new life. We've developed new circumstances. And some people are like, no, please bring me back. But the problem is my kids are home, right? Or my kids want to go back, but maybe we've gotten, we've got some weak immune systems in our life. And if one kid goes back, then we're exposing somebody else. I mean, it's a disaster. Like everybody's trying to figure out in this season, what does it mean to move forward? And this Washington Post article, like literally, like I Googled Washington Post worker tired. That's what I just Googled. Okay. And I found a bunch of articles. All right, here we go. Overworked. And this is a September 3rd article. Overworked and exhausted warehouse workers brace for the return for a frenzied holiday rush. Okay. Here's another one, August 11th. With no end to the pandemic in sight, Corona, coronavirus fatigue grips the nation. April 22nd. Burned out by COVID, doctors are considering quitting medicine. I mean, grocery workers say morale has hit rock bottom. We went out to eat yesterday here in, um, hey, y'all want to say hi? Come on. I know you do. It's okay. This is my niece and nephew. This is Kyler. Say hi, Ky. Hi. And this is Cam. Hi. Hi. I have 500 friends here with me. 500? Yeah, can you wave? Can you wave? Okay. What are you about to do? You waiting on your parents? Okay. You'll see them shortly. Love you. Go wash your face, babe. Wash your face. Your face is dirty. Okay, so this is a conglomeration of articles from the last year, right? But if I search for the last week, okay, Washington Post a day ago, we hate the office. We love the office. Do we want to go back? Like it's a whole thing. And again, some of us are anxious to be back with our coworkers and do things the way we did them before. Some of us are stressed out about that, but there is a collective tired. And I need you to understand that, that you're a part of that. Like, regardless of what tired means for you, tired means you're tired of being with your kids, you're tired of being with your husband, you're tired of working from home, you're tired of, you know, you started going back to work and all of a sudden the traffic, you're like, I forgot, I forgot. About the traffic. I forgot about the stress. And because just like on an elimination diet, you get out of the normal rhythms of what you eat so that you can figure out what is affecting your system. What we went on last year, uh, and I called it the Great Reset over and over and over again, is we went on an elimination diet of hurry. We went on an elimination diet of, of, of our, of our normal patterns We went on an elimination diet of people. We went on an elimination diet of places to go. We went on elimination diet of breaking our habits. Cause for a minute, even those of us who are addicted to fast food, we're afraid to get fast food. Some of y'all still haven't eaten out in a year and a half. So now that you're starting to add back in your normal diet, your body is like, I'm allergic to that. You are now able to see what you've been allergic to for your whole life, but you had gotten so used to the overwhelm and the stress and the weight, you did not know you were allergic to it. And now the kids are back to their sports schedules, or, um, you know, your church is opening back up, or I mean We have this running joke in our family. My dad looks at us and says, you know, so you're, you know, you're coming back on Sunday. And my brother-in-law always says, I don't know. I don't— we call my dad Poppy. The kids call him Poppy. I don't know, Poppy. I think I might have joined your online membership because maybe an online membership sitting at home with my coffee in my chair is where I want to go to church, which of course we're going back to church. But the point is we're church kids. We can't help it. The point is, we all realized, huh, going to church at home isn't so bad. I don't have to deal with the parking. I don't have to, you know, don't have to fool with the dressing up and the— this is not so bad. And so as we say, the world is our opportunity to ingest and be exposed to our normal diet of activity returns. Some of us are realizing We're allergic. We're allergic to being rushed. We're allergic to being busy. We're allergic to stress. We're allergic to too many people. We're allergic to too many activities. We're allergic to overcommitment. We're allergic to engaging with people at work. Who knew we were an introvert? We're allergic. And now And now— oh, you're saying your volume is low? I can turn it up a little bit. I turned it up. Let me turn it up. I'm talking low, so maybe that's it. You can let me know if you can hear a little better. Turn things up a little bit, and I can talk louder too. There's that. But, uh, yeah, you're allergic. So now the question is, now that you've realized that you have an allergy, what are you gonna change about your diet? The first thing that you have to realize is you were a part, and are a part, of an ongoing experiment of what happens when people get locked away for 18 months and everything they've known about their lives to be true changes. Yeah. And what are you going to do to realize that in this new season, normal will never return? And because you were on an elimination diet and realized what you were allergic to, how are you going to live in the new you season? Better yet, I don't just want you to live I want you to thrive. So again, for the next few days, you know, give me grace. Um, cause it is a weekend and it is the 4th of July and my birthday is coming, but I do have some things I want to tell you. If you got the email, it's basically a little bit of the email mixed in with Chrystal Hurst's commentary. Why not? It's Coffee with Chrystal.. And I want to, um, kind of put a little salt and pepper on some things that we shared in the email and encourage you and remind you, I would love for you to be a part of our deep dive for the Inner Circle. You wanna say hi again? Hi. You can wave, wave, wave. I want you to be, um, I want you to know you're invited. And you can take a look at what's happening in the Inner Circle by going to chrystalhurtz.com/innercircle. Um, but if you choose not to do that, join me here every day and I'll give you some encouragement. But here's what I will tell you. Encouragement is not enough. Now you don't have to join the Inner Circle, but encouragement is not enough. You have to be willing to do the work. To pay attention to exactly what it is that you cut out of your diet and what is healthy for you to add back. If you don't do the work, then all you did was go on a diet. And we all know that dieting doesn't work. All we wanna do is provide the atmosphere and the opportunity to do the work that all of us need to do, and that some of us have decided that we need the accountability and the community and the practical encouragement from someone in your ear to get this work done. I know that from dieting a million times, that one of the most successful ways to improve your health by changing your diet is to do that in the community. I've probably said it a million times, but this is why Weight Watchers works because you can do it by yourself. I mean, this is not rocket science, y'all. There's a million videos and websites dedicated Instagram, social media. They're dedicated to giving you tips for losing weight. You don't need more tips. You need to be challenged to stop listening and looking and actually love you by investing the time in you to do the work. And when there's an opportunity for community to help, taking advantage of that. So I want to encourage you, whether you join me in the Inner Circle for our next 90 days, so where we do the work of learning who we are now in this new season, um, and join a community of women who are looking at their lives and learning from each other. I want to encourage you to get your sisters together because we're all a part of this great concept, this great great idea, this great phenomenon called the Sister Circle. We girls, when we get together, we can do great things. So you need to call your sister, get your daughter, your nieces. You need to get some coworkers together at work and bring them on into the inner circle with you. But even if you don't, you need to ask yourself some questions. What did I learn about myself last year? What am I going to take about these last 18 months with me? Into this new season? What am I gonna do differently? Where am I feeling exhaustion and where am I experiencing burnout already? And the engine hasn't even really started. Listen, girl, you got one life. You gotta pay attention to it. And here's what I know for sure. If you don't make the space to pay attention to your life, your life will slip through your fingers. One of the best ways to pay attention to your life is to have a community of women who you gather together with. Even 2 or 3 will do to say, to look each other in the eye and say, how are you doing? I bear witness to the wonder of your life and I see you and I'm interested in what you're learning about your life. I'm here for it. I'm here for it all. So take the risk, reach out to 1 or 2 friends, 2 or 3 again will do. And if you'd like to do that with guidance from me and some other great women, great content, great resources, great questions, and great community, consider joining me in the Inner Circle. I have the link on the screen, chrystalhurst.com/innercircle. And regardless, know that I'm going to do my best. There are kids and there are trees and there's weather and there's internet. I got to be in the exact right spot for the internet. I'll be here prayerfully, hopefully, Lord willing, every day for the next few days to give you some tips for thriving. And I want you to be committed to you. That's what I need you to hear me say. I've said it before, wrote a book about this, She's Still There. There has never been, nor will there ever be, someone just like you. And if there has never been a better time, the time is now for you to own who you are, to choose to love the one life you've been given, to not waste another day on stuff ingesting things that aren't good for you and that don't give you life abundantly. And if you don't do you, who will? Who will? You are divinely inspired work of art, and I need you to own that so that as you bloom and as you thrive in this new season that not only will you recognize your own beauty, but others as they pass by you will see the beauty that you are too. It's up to you to embrace that, to own that, and to live that. And I'll be here to encourage you here for the next few days. And then if you want to do the work in the Inner Circle, You'll join a group of women who want to do the work too. It's a beautiful thing when we get together. All right, y'all, it's almost time for breakfast. See how excited I get about food? And that is the problem. Oh my gosh, that is the problem, is that I start dancing when I talk about food. That I start getting excited when I talk about food, that I start dreaming about what they going to have for breakfast. Aye, oh, aye, oh, mm, mm. Y'all pray for me. It's also a good time for day one. I was telling my brother, I was like, I think that's it. I think it's time. For me to do what I need to do, do what I know to do, get my food under control, because y'all, it has been a freaking free-for-all, OK? And then I said, but the problem is next week is my birthday. That's a special occasion. The week after that, we've got a function going on as a family. I can't. That's a special occasion. Next week is my birthday too. It is your birthday too? Come here. What we going to eat for your birthday? We're gonna get some ice cream. We're gonna eat some cake. What day is your birthday? July 31st. Oh, yeah. So it's coming up. Mm-hmm. See what happens? Then the week after that, there's a special occasion. Listen here, y'all. I can't do a constant elimination situation with my actual food because I always got something to celebrate. But anyway, Every day is day one. That's what I'm gonna tell myself. And then I'm gonna get myself together. Oh, that's the other thing, because I need to get myself together inside of the Inner Circle, inside of this journey for thriving. There'll be an optional Fat Demon Challenge because it's about that time, y'all. And whether you put on the COVID 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 5, It's a good time to invest in you. This part of you, this part of you, and this part of you. I'm not the only one. All right, y'all. I'm so glad you're here. I'll see you tomorrow.