Let's talk about fighting the #FatDemon - Coffee with Chrystal #alittleQC

Good morning, good morning, good morning. Let's talk a little bit more about the fat demon. Hi, Jesse, you're watching me on Instagram today. Look at you. Good morning, good morning. Am I on the right camera? I don't think so. Hmm, I go through all of the— oh, cuz you have to turn it on, Chrystal. Amazing! Look at what happens. Wonderful. Good morning, y'all. Good morning, good morning. I see you checking in from all over the place. Yeah, I switched cameras. I look better. If you have a DSLR, you should use it, right? Good morning. I see you logging in on Instagram, making sure my phone doesn't fall. Hey, Vicki Ennis! Uh-oh, Jesse, you talking to me on Instagram? Uh-oh, y'all, Jesse's in the comments on Instagram. Oh my goodness, you said you've been binge watching the videos and you were up till 2 AM. Don't do that, don't do that. I need you to be awake for your day. I need you to be awake for your day. Yesterday, y'all, I had a little bit of a crisis. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. And I just want to acknowledge that crisis can happen. I may still be a little bit in it. Just a little bit. Um, but before I jump into that, I haven't done this for the last couple of days and there's always somebody new. So for y'all who jumped in, it's Chrystal, chrystalhurtz.com. I'm Chrystal Hurst, and if you want to know more about me, you can simply go to my site. And if there's nothing else you do today, you need to make sure that you go to my website and get on my email list because I deliver all the great things through email. I would deliver it through text actually, because text, I know I'll get your attention. Here's the problem with text. Text is expensive. Maybe one day I'll graduate to that and/or graduate to an app where I can just give you a little encouraging message— messages all day long. But we have to grow slow. Growing slow is good. Hey y'all, Connecticut, I see you. Houston, Denton, all my Dallas peeps. Mississippi, do y'all remember spelling Mississippi in school? M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. It was a whole— it was a whole thing. Alabama, Chicago, Oklahoma, New Orleans, New Jersey, uh, New Hampshire. Jesse, we got some people saying hello to you on all the other platforms. Jesse, I think the people want to see you, so one of these days I may have to take the risk of having you come online. Yay, I see you! Listen, if you are watching and listening and you are in the Inner Circle, uh, can you just type in Inner Circle in the house? I saw somebody do that on Instagram and I think that's fun. Hey Toronto, Delaware, Inner Circle peeps, just type it in, say Inner Circle in the house. St. Louis, I see you. Good morning. So depending on where you're watching from, it may or may not even be morning. East Coast, it's 8 AM. West Coast, you are up at 5 AM. And if you are here from the West Coast, shout out to you too, or from the other side of the world, because there are people watching here from everywhere. Uh, Chrystal Hurst on, um, Facebook says, uh, hey, the mister. They talking to you, Jesse. Let me tell you what happens whenever I bring Jesse into anything. He will say things that he has never said to me in private. It's like a gate opens, and I'm always scared. I was like, what's he gonna say? What's he gonna say? Hey, Inner Circle peeps. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for showing up. Okay, so let me tell you a little bit about my crisis situation. Oh no, I gotta do this first. One day, y'all, I'll actually do this more professionally, but right now, Inner Circle, y'all, the question I asked at the beginning of this week— if you're in the— not Inner Circle, in the Facebook group, the Sister Circle group on Facebook— the question I asked this, uh, the beginning of the week was What's the best marriage advice you've ever received? So that's the question that's in there. And if you need marriage advice, or if you've ever gotten great marriage advice and you're in the group, jump in there and chime into that conversation. Also, if you're not in the Facebook group and want to take some of these topics that I talk about and let them live a little better, let them live a little more, um, then I want to encourage you to jump in there. And every now and then when I feel like we just need a little more conversation, I jump in there and push it so y'all can help each other. Um, so jump in there. Then the Inner Circle, while we do have like 4 or 5 levels, only one level is open right now because, uh, all the other levels, we're doing a 21-day experience together. I think Inner Circle, you're having a good time. It seems like you are taking a look at you, like slowing down to say, what are my gifts? What are my abilities, my passions, my interests? My personality? What has God put in me? What gift do I have to give to the world? And it's amazing, y'all, how many of us people— but honestly, how many of us girls— don't take the time to look. We just get busy doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, and we don't necessarily say, my goodness, what has God put in me, um, that I need to utilize, that I need to use that I need to maximize. Because what he's put in you and the unique combination of things that he's put in you— he didn't, he didn't give everybody that same thing. Nobody else has your same history, experiences, personality meshed with, uh, positives, negatives, great experiences, poor experiences, your personality, your fingerprint, your DNA, like the sum total of all that. Nobody else has that. So We've been doing that. The good news is if you're not in the 21-day, there's a couple of things that are good news. Number one, what we're walking through is just a group experience of content that's already in my book She's Still There. So if you've read that, you know that. So here that is. If you've read that, you know that. And y'all know y'all always have to help me with my chapters, but it's in here somewhere. Let me stick my finger here because I'm going to read from that today. Um, so basically you look at your gifts, your abilities, your interests, and your nature, and I walk you through that process in here in— I don't even know what chapter it is. This is what happens, you write a doggone book and then you don't know what you put in it. Hold on, it starts in chapter 12, chapter 12, and then it talks about gaining a new perspective on your life. There may be another chapter too, but anyway, it's a good book. You should read it. Okay, so we're walking through that journey together. The good news is, is that that journey will— the Inner Circle will open back up and we're gonna do some other fun things together. And it's actually chapter 9. Chapter 9 is Gain a New Perspective on Your Life. And so the good news is about that, that we will open it up because we will be having a 90-day journey, but anybody who's in there will always have access to the 21-day thing. So it's pretty cool because y'all, I believe that there's a lot of things that we know, but if we don't do the thing, we don't change. That'll preach on a lot of different levels. Like some of us know about Weight Watchers because we've done it, but then we don't keep doing it so we don't see change. Or some of us know that we're supposed to eat less carbs, but we don't actually do the thing. So we don't see change. Or some of us know good and well if we have the dark chocolate covered almonds in the refrigerator— because you got to keep them cold, you know— or the Oreo Thins in the pantry, if you eat them, no, you don't see change. Some of us know we need to drink more water— thank you, Jesus, for the water bottle— but if we don't actually do the thing, then we don't see change. The name of the book, y'all— I see y'all asking me questions. Is she still there? So here's what I want to do this morning. I want to read you something and I want to teach you something that is really the basis. It's the basis for change in your life. I'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that in this day and age where we have so much information, so much material, so much access to the interwebs, y'all, we all have Google on our phones, no less. That if we can simply do this one thing, change happens. And this is what we're doing in the 21-day. This is what we do in the 90-day. This is what we're going to do in the event. Oh, there's an event. I, I'm telling you that this— I actually was going to share it with you today, and then for some reason my web page wasn't working. If you got the email from me on Monday, you already have a link. And it's just long. It's a long link. So I'll share it tomorrow. But we're doing a live event next weekend. It's a Sister Circle online event. And again, email list people get things first. And so if you want to do that and join us, there will be just about 30 speakers. It's awesome. I'm calling friends and like, listen, do you want to do something with me? About 30 speakers. And here's, here's what I want to do. I want to inspire you. I want to motivate you. I want to teach you. But here's what I really want to do. This is more than inspiration, motivation, and teaching. I want you to be able to harness all of that information to change because you're getting practical how-to. Have you ever listened to a speaker and you're like, that's good, like the principle is good, but I just need you to tell me how to do it. Just tell me how to do it. Like, give me a 1, 2, 3. Hey, Turks and Caicos, I've been to your place, I've been to your house, love it there. Um, I want you to walk away with steps. Now, I don't want you to walk away with legalism, because somebody's steps for them may not be the exact steps for you. But I want you to walk away with, okay, Like if somebody says you need to hide God's word in your heart, that's a principle, okay? I want you to know the principle, but I want you to also know the how-to. So what I'm encouraging all of my encouragers— that's what I call the speakers— encouragers to do is, yeah, give you some principle, but I want them to teach you how to do the thing. So when they say hide God's word in your heart I want them to say, so these are the 5 ways that I, that I personally hide God's word in my heart. There are a million ways to lose weight, but I want the encouragers to say, here are the 5 things that have worked for me. You understand what I'm saying? Because y'all, listen, we have so much information. We are not at a lack of information. What we are at a lack and I hear this from you all the time, is a lack of good mentors who will say, this is how you do it. And so here's what we're going to do. Um, uh, here's what we're going to do. The, the— we're going to have the mentors, the encouragers, give you the how-to. And because of technology, and because we want to make sure that you get the, um, that you get the nuggets, we're actually having them pre-record their session So if something goes wrong, we at least have the content, but they will be there on the front end during their teaching in the comments and after the teaching, they'll come back live to answer your question. Does that make sense? So because of technology and y'all know that sometimes Instagram just can't take it. I mean, I think they've gotten better, but for a minute there, y'all, Instagram was breaking down. Everybody was breaking down because they couldn't handle all the traffic. And so just for technology's sake, we will have them prerecord their sessions. But they will be there with you watching, listening, answering questions. So it's a totally live experience, and the goal is to practically tool you. We're talking about debt, we're talking about your body, we're talking about motherhood, we're talking about finding your passions. Of course, we're talking about the Bible and prayer, we're talking about, uh, we're talking about having fun, all the things. I might have to I might have— hmm, you just made me think of an idea. Anyway, it's just fun. We gotta have fun, but we gotta learn how to. So that's what that's about. And if you're on my email list, I'll make sure that you get the link again tomorrow, or that I'll share it tomorrow morning. Okay, so it's on the 22nd and the 23rd, Friday night and all day Saturday, and Saturday night. This— the night sessions will be for real, for real live, like all the way live. Um, and I may have some good news for you about Friday night. I may have, I may have some good news. I actually have a few things up my sleeve that I may have to tell you about tomorrow. Yes, Nadia, I'm gonna put this on the screen, honey, because this is what I'm trying to say right here. Nadia from YouTube says something I'm learning, something I'm learning. I'm not just spiritual. I am physical, mental, emotional, and social. And I think that's so important. You are at the core of your being, you are a soul, and your soul is spiritual. Your, your soul will live beyond this life. Do you understand what I'm saying? Which is why you have to take care of your soul. We understand that you have to take care of your body, and we're going to talk about that in just a second. But the reason why you have to take care of your soul is because your soul is the part of you that influences everything else. And your soul is the part of you that will live beyond— beyond— it'll live beyond. Now, where your soul lives beyond depends upon what you believe. Of course, I believe that the only way to live forever is to live, uh, with our Heavenly Father, with God in heavenly places. And the only way that he lets people in is if you believe in Jesus. Why? Because all of us are jacked up, and God is holy, and he can't deal with jacked up people. He can't deal with sin. What he can deal with is somebody who is perfect like he is. And the only perfect— only person, physical person, who is perfect like he is, is Jesus. So the only way God lets you into heaven is if you get the pass, and the only way you get the pass is Jesus. So if you believe on Jesus then you get to be with God who is perfect and holy, because then God doesn't hold all your junk against you. He is— y'all like my gospel presentation? This is, this is the Chrystal Hurst version of the gospel presentation. He says, I can't deal with your stuff now. I, I can deal with my son, and because my son was perfect, because you believe in him, when I look at you, I don't see you and your junk. I see him. And if I see him and he says, the day you die, hey Father God, there's a soul at the door of heaven and I know, I know her, and you don't have to worry about all her junk because she accepted me. You can just look at me, I'm her pass. That's the way you get in. It's, it's the way you get in. I actually have— listen, if you don't know Jesus Oh my goodness, I'm trying to keep up, I'm trying to keep up. Law Abiding Citizen said, I almost spit my hot chocolate out. Is that because of my gospel presentation? Is that the gospel presentation? Is that because— I'm sorry, I hope you didn't— listen, it is what it is sometimes. Y'all listen, I'm slow. I was gonna— let me finish my thought. There is a site, let me make sure I'm gonna give it to you right. I actually put it— oh, it's right here. I can tell you because I put it in the back of my book. Um, I love Jesus, and here's my problem. My problem is that I love Jesus, but I really feel called to talk to my reader, to my, um, to my audience in a way that I, I need, I need people to talk to me. I need people, because I'm a little slow, to spell things out for me. I really do. I, I just, I've been in church all my life, but sometimes, because I'm such a thinker, I'm such a thinker, I have to have people make it plain for me. And so sometimes, y'all, when I write, when I talk, I know the spiritual way to say things. I've been in church all my life. I, I totally know the spiritual way to say things. The problem is sometimes, because we are so churched out, we are numb to the spiritual. We've heard it all before. And then what happens is we don't get it. We don't get it. And sometimes if somebody would just say the thing, if somebody would just say it, and they say it in a way that's a little raw, a little restless, you know, and a little reasonable, like they just say it plain speak, then we get it better. So y'all have to forgive me. So in the back of She's Still There, in this book, because y'all, I wrote it, um, I wrote it for the girl who— it's not that she's an atheist, probably. She probably wants to be on the right side of God, but she hadn't been living on the right side of God, and she just needs somebody to say it plain. Just say it plain. So I wrote it like that. And then some people— I knew some people because I knew my Super Saints were gonna probably reach out and say, Chrystal, you know, why'd you say this this way? Or why did you, you know? And I, and I wanted to— I wrote it thinking about the girl who knows enough about God that if somebody super churchy starts quoting scriptures to her, she's gonna be like, oh my gosh, I know this already. Like, just, just tell me the way it is. So I wanted, I wanted at the back of the book for people who maybe read it and could get through it because it wasn't super, super, super super Jesusified, you know, super spiritual, that if they didn't know Jesus, I still told them about it. So I say all that to say that if you do not know Jesus, or if you're not sure that when you get to heaven that Jesus is going to recognize your soul, uh, when you show up at heaven's gates, here's what you can do. You can go to chrystalevanshurst.com/tellmemore. Tell me more, no hyphens, no space, no nothing. chrystalevanshurst.com/tellmemore. The whole gospel message said the right way is on that page with next steps, what to do if you didn't know Jesus before. Okay, so chrystalhurst.com/tellmemore. Okay, and I was gonna say something else and now I totally got derailed and I don't know what I was gonna say, but that's the point of the event. The point of the event is with God as a foundation, with faith as a foundation, teach me how to do the thing. Teach me how to do the thing. Um, okay, so there's this chapter in this book. Oh, RM, she said, you, you, you're— I'm 64 and God is forever reteaching me, reteaching me. And listen, this is what God does. The Bible says all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each and one of us to his own way. That's what the Bible says. You know what sheep are? I say this all the time. Sheep are dumb. They're dumb. And the Bible says we're sheep. Even David said, the Lord is my shepherd, because basically he was saying, I'm a sheep. Y'all, we need things repeated. Some of us need things said slow. Some of us need things said better. On Instagram, help me out, type it out, chrystalhurst.com/tellmeme more. All right, so let's talk about this one thing that you can do to get your body in check. And this is my problem. I'm telling you this because this is my problem. So in this book that I wrote, y'all, you can get it on Kindle, Audible, whatever. I read it myself. If you get it on Audible, 40 and Fat— that is actually the title of a chapter. Chapter 18 is 40 and Fat. Okay, so let me read this to you, and then I'm going to tell you about the problem That this is the problem. There is one problem. If you are— now I'm not talking about gaining weight because you're on steroid medication, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you eat too much or you eat too much of the wrong thing. Okay, 40 and fat, that pretty much sums it up. Let me just pause right quick. No offense to anybody, this is me talking about my life and my story, okay? So don't be offended. This is a little to the left. If it's not PC, I'm sorry. But this was my real thought. I'm just trying to be real with y'all. Yesterday I walked up and down the street like a fat girl. That's what I, that's what I said. If I go outside and I put on my, my tights and I have on my shirt, put on my sports bra, I need to do a whole episode. My husband's going to shoot me right now. A whole episode on the best sports bras because y'all, I have tried them all and I'm endowed. God blessed me, but that means you have to corral the children. When you're out for a run. I totally know. Panache is one of them. P-A-N-A-C-H-E. It is what it is. Sorry, Jesse, because he's always like, 'Men are on here,' and I'm like, 'Well, they're on here of their own volition.' Okay, so I went outside, I walked. So because, because if I'm not ready, if I don't have my earbuds in— which, by the way, I cannot find my AirPods. You know, they are, they're small They may be in the bottom of my purse. I know when I used them the last time. I don't know where they are. Can y'all see a theme here? Can't find my computer, I can't find my AirPods. Okay, so I went outside, y'all, but I went outside because yesterday was a crisis day. Oh, that's what I was supposed to tell you about. Stream of consciousness, I gotta come back. It was a crisis day. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But I, um, had been outside already and I wasn't planning on walking, but I needed my boys to leave. I needed them to leave And so, um, I sent them on a run, see the 5K run. No, I did not go with them. I was like, y'all need to disappear, y'all need to do day 3 of week 5, no matter that I've only done week 1 of day 1 of week 5. Y'all go run. They were, what? I was like, whatever, go run, stay together, be together, be safe. So when they were out, I was on the phone and I just started to, um walk the street. And I said, this is the way fat girl walks the street, you know what I mean? Like, totally, this is totally not correct. Somebody's gonna email me, I already know it. But I was just walking up and down the street, like, fully clothed, had on my dress shirt, had on my yoga pants, but not the workout-looking ones, the ones that look like pants, you know. I did have on tennis shoes, but I just didn't— I wasn't ready, you know what I mean? It was just a slow stroll. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't for real. I didn't break a sweat, you know. I just was just strolling up and down. And you know, when you're for real, you have a plan. You know, you go out and you walk a block or two. You know, you set your watch for 30 minutes, you turn on your Nike app, you know, you do the things. You make sure that your Apple Watch is set so that it records what you do. You, you just, you, you go out with intention. And yesterday I was just strolling up and down the street without intention. It was the kind of walk where it's like, if I could just get in a few steps, you know what I mean? Just if I could just make it to the end of the street, if I can just make it to the street side, if I could just— and then I got to the street side and turned back around, you know what I'm saying? It was the kind of walk where you got to keep it safe. You don't want to go too far, you don't want to do too much, you don't want to, um, disrupt your brains. Listen, my son My son— I know I'm going too far, I'm going too far. My son, the other day when we first started running, he was complaining because he said, my skin is itching. I saw that's the fat itch. You all right? And he's not even fat, he just was just not— hadn't been working out lately. And I said, oh, that's the fat itch. He said, the fat itch? I said, yes, because basically this is my theory. I'm sure somebody that's here can give me the actual physiological, um, replica, you know, real reality of this. But, um, somebody— some of y'all are out there walking. I'm not calling you fat. I'm proud of you for doing your walk and tuning in this morning, this morning. But, um, when you haven't worked out in a long time, you're— my philosophy is, my, my, my, my speculative mindset about this is that all of the capillaries and the vessels that have not been receiving adequate blood flow. Once you start walking or running or doing something exceptional, all this blood starts going to all the areas of your body, and then your capillaries are like, oh shoot, oh, what is happening? That's what I feel like is happening. And I call it the fat itch because it only happens when I haven't been doing anything for a while, that I've gained some weight, and then I go out and then I start doing something and my body is, you know, out of control. See, y'all are telling me you get the itch too. It's a situation. See, Bonita said, I remember the fat itch. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Now, I don't know if that is physiologically true. So somebody that is actually, um, you know, a physical person, like they actually have, you know, like actual, like medical knowledge can tell me if I'm making that up. But basically in my almost smart brain, um, you know, I think that that could totally be the reason why that happens. And listen, y'all are all about this fat itch. I thought it was, you know, I thought it was a thing. Teresa on Facebook, I have had that fat itch. Y'all are on Instagram. Tanya Dutton, Tanja, girl, yes, it's almost definitely a situation. It is. Your body is like, okay, oh, that could preach. Hold on, I may need to save that as an illustration because here's how this works. If you haven't done anything that you're supposed to be doing for a while and you go out and you run or you walk or you bike and you have a fat itch, it's uncomfortable. Nobody likes to feel that fat itch, but that is your body telling you that you're actually doing the right thing and doing the right thing initially brings on discomfort. Hey, did you hear that? Did you hit— did it hit— did it hit you like it hit me? Initially, when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing that you have not been doing, your body might communicate to you initially that what you're doing is not the right thing. But actually, the thing that makes you uncomfortable is the exact signal that is telling you that you are doing the right thing in the right season. Uh-oh, I'm getting preachy. At the right time for the right reasons so you can show up in your right life as a right person. Hey, okay, I'm gonna— I gotta bring it back. I gotta dial it back. Hey, I'm so sorry, it came on me. I'm so sorry. Listen, most of the time The very thing that you start feeling that feels wrong when you're doing what you thought felt right, the wrong feeling is the exact indication that you're doing the right thing. That's why people say do it afraid. That's what Jill Briscoe said. I believe it's in episode 257 of the podcast. 256, 257, 257. If you haven't listened to it, you need to listen to it. Okay? Because most of the time we think that other people have something we don't have. To do something we're not doing. And the reality is, is when they got that fat itch, when they got that feeling of discomfort, when they got that feeling of, I don't even know what I'm doing right now, they persevered. They said, this might actually be my signal that I'm living in a new season because I've never felt this feeling before. And this feeling is the acknowledgement that my body, my mind, my soul is giving me that I'm actually doing a new thing. In the right place. I gotta save that illustration. Let me go back to what I was saying. 40 and Fat, this is chapter 18. She's still there. Maintain your direction. Here's the key: by paying attention. 40 and Fat, that pretty much sums it up. Apparently me and my girl— there's a previous chapter where it talks about me and my girl had a few too many hot chocolates with extra whipped cream, thank you very much. That is still how I get my Starbucks drink, by the way. One day I looked in the mirror and realized I didn't recognize the person staring back at me. She was hidden by pizza, sweet tea, and french fries. French fries from Wingstop, dipped in ranch to be specific. I'm almost sure those fries have crack in them. Actually, y'all, it's not crack, it's sugar. If you didn't know, the wings from Wingstop have sugar on them. I was in a battle with the fat demon, and apparently I was losing badly. I stood frozen with surprise, gazing at the reflection of someone familiar, yet someone who only resembled the woman I expected to see staring back at me. I looked deep into my eyes and I saw her, the girl inside. I stood there for a long while, pondering how it came to be that I'd neglected her. While I understood that I was loved and valued— previous chapter— that acknowledge— that knowledge was not connecting with care for myself, my body, or my soul. I could see the uncared-for, abandoned version of my girl, and I realized I'd unintentionally buried her. I drifted right up the scale, one small food decision followed by another, until I drifted right into the body of someone else, except the body in the mirror belonged to me. In the absence of attentive living and vigilant choices, I drifted along the path of least resistance, a path paved with Hershey's Chocolate Kisses, dark chocolate covered almonds, and Wingstop fries. About those fries, did you know that they put sugar on those things? Oh, I did tell you in the chapter. Hashtag crack. Without attention, the grip— the drift just happened one choice at a time. Now don't get me wrong, I know how to get rid of unwanted pounds, but while I'm good at losing weight, I'm terrible at keeping it off. Keeping it off— here it is— requires me to focus. Focus and keep up that focus. It requires me to dig deep and then keep on digging. My problem is that as soon as I lose weight— here it is— I want to celebrate by, you know, going out to dinner, or better yet, grabbing a 440-calorie Panera Bread chocolate chip cookie. That's how much that cookie is, y'all. 440. An hour's worth of working out. Over the years, I've had my fair share of bouncing up and down the scale, but this time I'd quit trying. I'd given up, and my weight had ballooned without treasuring the gift of life that God had given me, without doing what was in my power to take care of myself. I looked up years down the road and realized that my health was way off course. So the good news is that having a battle with the bulge for much of my adult life, I know the antidote for mindlessly putting on pounds. It just so happens to be the antidote for unintentionally pulling the plug on your potential. Pay attention. It's that simple. You want to know what the antidote is for taking care of your body and your soul? Paying attention. Paying attention. Paying attention is important. Here, here's another little paragraph. Most of us don't practice paying attention to our lives, but paying attention should be a habit, a consistent and regular practice that keeps you aware and in touch with your life. It's different from looking at your life and making an initial assessment or correction Paying attention to your life is a habit that helps you to stick with any corrections that you've made and to stay on track with them. Proverbs 4:23 says, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the spring of life. So to nurture the person that you want to be, you have to pay attention or watch over your heart and your life. You have fight to take notice of your soul and to guard the place from which you live, because everything is an overflow of your soul. This job has to be done with diligence, which can be defined as continuous effort, conscientiousness, and hard work. Now listen, there are a lot of us that are afraid of New Age things, New Age people. New Age isn't really even thing— something that we talk about anymore, but we get afraid when we start talking about people who may not even be believers because they start using using terminology that makes us afraid, like meditation or mindfulness or all of these different things. But let me tell you, there is no truth other than what God has said is already true, okay? There is no truth outside of what God has said is already true. Now, people may rename it, they may repackage it, they may resell it, uh, but they're usually saying something that God has already said is true. It's like, you know, even people who claim to be spiritual teachers, they'll reference the Bible because why? The Bible was the beginning of the truth. Okay, so what I want you to know is that there are words that we can use that really reframe or frame for us for the first time what God has already said, like mindfulness. That is a word that I want to use right now, and I don't want scare you, but mindfulness— for you super, super churchy people, mindfulness is basically paying attention to your life. It's being wherever you are. Because how many times have you not been wherever you are, and so you put something in the oven or something on the stove, but you're doing something else, and then you don't realize it's burnt until you start smelling the burning smell? Because you really weren't actually mindfully doing the thing you were doing. You were doing 3 other things. Did you know that multitasking is a misnomer. Sean Cannell and I talked about that. Um, it is actually task switching because you actually cannot focus on more than one thing at a time. Now, you can be a fast task switcher, but you actually can't do 3 or 4 things at one time. Now, some things are easy to switch between, like you can watch TV and fold laundry. That's not a hard switch because they both don't require a lot of attention. But try to solve a pre-calculus problem at the same time that you're trying to type a dissertation. It doesn't work. They require— they are high-energy suckers. When you are mindful, you are paying attention to where you are in that moment. Often, uh, Lisa TerKeurst talks in Made to Crave. If you don't know who Lisa TerKeurst is or you don't know anything about, uh, uh, Made to Crave, you should totally check it out. But basically, the premise there is that we were all made to crave something. We were all made to crave something. We were all designed for worship. And if we don't put that worship, put that energy, put that focus on the right thing, we are designed to put it on something. And then if you are not intentionally watching what you're filling yourself up with, then you will find that you're empty and you will fill yourself up with any old thing. Which is why we eat bored. This is why we eat when we're stressed. This is why We eat when we're emotional because we're needing something. We're needing something that we're not getting. And when we don't get what we're needing, we go fill up with something else. This is why people will stay in a bad relationship, because you want the love and because you can't resist the urge to get it from any old place. You'll receive any old guy doing any old thing, talking any old mess, because you are need— you are wired for love instead of reorienting that to say the only person who can love me completely and fully is God. And so if you don't pour all of your energy into your relationship with Jesus Christ, you'll take any old thing from any old body who'll give you any old level of love. So the same thing is true when we start talking about our physical bodies. Okay, so the question is, why are you eating that? Now, there is a physiological craving. Yes, if you've been eating Wingstop fries, you're gonna crave them because they got sugar in them. Did you know sugar is so addictive? Yes, if you've been drinking a Coke every day for the last 5 years, you are addicted to it. If you drink coffee every morning and you can't function without your coffee— no shame on coffee, I'm just saying you're probably addicted to it— and when you say that I can't function without my coffee, what you're really saying is I've taught my body to need the caffeine every day, and if I don't get the caffeine, then I can't function. What were you doing when you were 14 years old? You probably weren't drinking coffee every morning. You had learned to function without the caffeine, but you can create dependencies. Now, I'm not against coffee. What I'm telling you is that when you are saying, I, I gotta have that, whether you're physically saying that to yourself or not, you are telling yourself that there is a need that your body has created that is physiologically communicating with your psychological self. And you actually can break that chain because you can decide by being mindful who and what your soul needs. You understand? It comes back to the soul. It comes back to the soul. I was in a seminary class and we were talking about, uh, disciplined living. We were walking through Romans and we had to fast for a week. He said you can pick anything. Now my problem is I didn't— I don't want to be super cranky with my kids, and to fast from food for a week was going to be a little tough because, you know, you got— you detox starting on day 2 or 3. It's tough. I didn't want to do that to my family, so I said I'll pick something else. I said, I know I won't get any— I will only eat at home. I will only eat at home, meaning I won't drive through for anything bad. I won't drive through for anything good. I want to— I want to be intentional about slowing down and eating food that I fix. I wanna, I wanna slow down because spiritually, here's what I— there's a connection in my life. If I'm moving so fast that I'm driving through to get something to eat, I'm probably moving too fast to spend adequate time with the Lord. That they, they, uh, they run parallel. They run parallel in my life. That this is me, okay? I don't know about you, this is me. So I said, if I want to slow down in my spiritual life, that will probably be mirrored by a slowdown in my my physical life by what I'm eating and how I'm eating and whether or not I'm eating out. Okay, so this is me, y'all. Oh my gosh, I, I— once I made that decision, I was shocked at how often my knee-jerk reaction was to grab something on my way home, mostly because I was stressed and needed a pick-me-up. I had waited too long to eat and just needed something quick to fix it. Or I didn't plan. So these— my driving through were indicators of lack of planning, out of lack of making time to nourish my body, out of habit. And when we are gaining weight or not able to lose the weight, a lot of us, if we would just say, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? You would start to see that it's not because you were hungry It's because you were too busy to plan, you have a habit you haven't broken, or you have a need that's gone unmet. You're not— you're malnourished with something else, with something else. So what I'm trying to tell you is you gotta slow down, and writing what you're eating is paying— when you write it down, it makes you pay attention. Now I gave you some, some app ideas the other day. And let me see if I can do this again. I'll try to be fancy here and show you my— I need a new computer, y'all. Hold on. My computer is 5 years old. And what I have learned is that video editors need really solid computers to render video, right? But what I have learned is that live streaming is probably more of a problem for computers than video editing is. And my little 5-year-old computer, it's like, I cannot— I can't do it. I can't do it. Y'all, the apps are a dime a dozen. I'm only going to talk about MyFitnessPal because I know it, and it has worked really well for me. It's always on my phone. And the beauty of MyFitnessPal is that I'm showing it on my screen on all the Facebook, Instagram— not Instagram— YouTube, Periscope. You sign in, you can have friends and all the things. But the biggest thing is it's with you all the time. So if you're not a notebook person, you could jot down what you have in here. And the cool thing is, once you start, if you do, if you write down what you eat, after about a week or two, you start to realize you don't eat a lot of different things. You just don't, you know. You, you probably have 4 or 5 things you eat for breakfast. And so after you do it for a while, then it starts to bring it to you, like, do you want to use the breakfast from yesterday? So it becomes easy to write things down. And then now it— the app has a, um, scanner, so you can— if you're eating something that's packaged, which— watch the packaging— but you can scan it and it'll just bring in. So even if you're not trying to lose weight, it's a great thing for you to watch your macros. Macros are watching your carbs, watching your sodium, you know, watching your protein, like the big rocks of your, your vitamin and mineral intake. Um, I mean, you, you would be surprised how much power you feel when you start looking— oh, I feel another illustration coming on— when you start looking at what you are eating as fuel. Am I actually getting what I need? It's not like, did I even have a salad today? It's like Did I get enough protein today? Did I, did I eat enough carbs? Have I— how much sugar have I had? Because y'all, we don't count the sugar, and when you count the sugar, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm eating a ton of sugar. Okay, sodium is a problem. Most people— not most, no, I shouldn't say most— many people are on high blood pressure medication simply because they're eating too much sodium. And if you would just cut back on the sodium and lose the weight, and drink the water. Think back to chemistry class. The more water you have in your system, the more diluted the particles will be. You know, some of us need to educate ourselves on nutrition. What do you think studying the Bible does for you? What do you think going to college does for you, or getting that MBA, or working on that certification? You are indulging, you are diving into, you are immersing yourself in learning what you need for your brain. For your brain. You gotta decide to immerse yourself in what you need for your body. Because your brain, by the way, you know, is mostly water, hence the water. But I mean, my goodness, if you want to live well and use your brain, why would you not nourish the body that's connected to it? So here's what I want you to do. I— when I talk about homeschooling, and I have a homeschooling video on YouTube, if you go to YouTube and you search for Chrystal Hurst homeschooling, you'll find it. One of the reasons why I don't like talking about homeschooling a lot, um, is because everybody wants a magic pill. Tell me what you're using for your kids, tell me what you're— and I don't mind sharing that. My hesitancy though is you have to do the work and, and just pick something, like just start, because most of the curriculums are going to get your kids through the basics. And if all these people who have kids who are homeschooling are all writing, they're all graduating these kids and their kids are going to college and doing fine, and we all use different curriculum, then guess what? The curriculum isn't as much the key as it is that you pick something and you do it. So I'm all for you asking questions. I see you asking questions in the comments. Yes, talk to each other about what's working for you. 100%. That's why we're here. We're here so we can share all the knowledge. But here's what I don't want you to get caught up on. I don't want you to get caught up on the system. Pick something, start somewhere. And here's the beauty. Once you pick something, then you get to know what you like about it. And what you don't like about it. And then after you have that knowledge, then you can tweak it. Like, for example, this is, this is, this is me. I went to Weight Watchers with my sister. I think I went to 3 or 4 meetings. This is probably 10 years ago. I didn't like it. Now, Weight Watchers works. My mother did Weight Watchers. My sister did Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers works. Let me tell you why it didn't work for me, because I am a recovering perfectionist, and I beat myself up. I'm very high in the self-condemnation quotient. And if I have to get on a scale that somebody else is going to look at, and if they're going to write it down so I'm not the only person who knows, and then they're looking at, did I lose weight last week or did I gain weight? And if I— if they put down, um, well, they'll say, good job, Chrystal. Good job, you maintained for the week. That's failure. That's me. I couldn't take it. Now I will get on the scale every week, every week, but I do better when I compete against myself. I don't want anybody else to know, not until I reach milestones. It's just me. It's just, it's just me. So I needed something that I could kind of do on my own and wrestle with. Now I could do with friends, you know, I could like talk with friends about what are we eating and share our meal plans and all that kind of stuff. Well, I don't lie to myself, Valerie Rose, on my Fitness Pal. I tell the truth. I do tell the truth to myself. So Weight Watchers in that season, I'm not saying it wouldn't work in this season, but in that season it didn't work for me. My Fitness Pal worked great. I was my own worst enemy, but I, you know, did the thing. I also tracked my running and my walks in my Nike app. Um, I kept up with my, uh, like my blood pressure, my weight in the health app in, um, on my phone, you know, and I just kind of did these things myself and just paid attention. Now some of y'all will swear by Noom, some of y'all swear by it, and that's great. Some of y'all will swear by Jenny Craig, or you're like, I know Nutrisystem may not, you know, food in a box may not be the most healthy version, maybe I should be eating healthy food. But I knew that I needed to not think about it for a while. I just needed to have a victory. So like weight training, y'all, I hate weight training. I hate it because it takes too much planning and thinking about it. And I know how to lose weight, but to plan it out and then what I'm doing on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know, and legs and back and all, it's just that. And what I need when I first start working out is I need to lose weight. So when I first start working out, my system is I change my food because food is where it matters the most. And then I do cardio because I don't have to think about it. And I'm trying to put my thinking energy on my nutrition. Then once I'm in a routine and I don't have to think so hard about my food and about my carbohydrate and my, my, um, cardio, then I start adding in some strength training. Because if I try to do all 3 things at once, one time, I'll fail. I'll fail. What I'm trying to say is, um, you have to pick what works for you. And you just need to start somewhere. Some of y'all don't need a Weight Watchers, you don't need a Noom, you don't need MyFitnessPal. Um, I'm gonna put this thing on the screen because I think I saw something that would have been helpful. Yeah, it disappeared. Y'all are talking too fast. Somebody said on— I believe it was on Facebook— she said— oh yeah, here it goes. Z said, uh, I needed Weight Watchers because I actually needed the accountability somebody else besides me seeing. Okay, so you got to know you, and you have to know what's gonna work for you. What I want you to know is if you dilly-dally around, talking about I'm trying to find the right thing, if you're going to looking online trying to find the right book, if you're searching out all the apps trying to figure out— uh-uh. Just start somewhere. As long as you are paying attention, as long as you are paying attention, you will win. Because half the battle More than half the battle is won by paying attention. What did I ate? What did I eat last week? And just say I did it. I think, you know, here's another truth. I think about taking care of your body, and I also think it's a truth about taking care of your spiritual soul. Hold on a sec. The truth is we can lie to ourselves. You know how many people that go to church are just lying to themselves. They go to church every Sunday, but they shacking. They go to church every Sunday, but they haven't picked up their own Bible all week long. They go to church every Sunday, but they are the meanest, cruelest, most toxic person alive. They refuse to go take care of themselves. Do you know how many people go to church and have never dealt with that abusive relationship or that abusive situation, but they come to church and they know how to put on the mask? Listen, I think the first step in losing weight is looking in the mirror. That's kind of what I was talking about in this chapter, this 40 and Fat chapter, and she's still there. It's saying, I'm just going to be honest and say, this is not— wait a minute, is this me? Like, I can still be me and be confident in me, but is this the house that I want my soul to live in? And if it's not Am I going to be honest and say, as cute as I'm gonna be, as big as I'm gonna be, uh, as alive as I'm gonna be, as me as I'm going to be, am I going to be honest and say, I gotta do better, I gotta take care of my house? And if I'm gonna be honest about that journey, then am I willing to do the next thing? Honesty. Taking off the mask, paying attention. All it says is, I'm actually going to be honest about where I'm at, I'm going to pay attention to where I'm at, and then based on where I'm at, I'm going to make some changes. When I realized driving home every day how much work it was taking for me to not stop and pick up something for dinner or not get a treat on my way home— oh my gosh, I'm stressed, I'm going to go get my little sweet tea from Sonic, no ice in my medium please, but give me a large cup of ice so that I can stretch out the sweet tea. Don't be, don't be ripping my sweet tea for me with a bunch of ice. No, you give me my whole sweet tea, charge me the same amount of money, I'll get my own ice, thank you very much. Until I realized that these were habits that were actually— I was drinking all these calories and I said, wait, I did not realize until I said let me pay attention that these habits, that my stress, that my lack of nutrition in other areas was affecting and infecting what I put put in my mouth. It wasn't until I was honest that— honest that change could come. So the first step is being honest. So I said in this book, first, take time to review what are the decisions that you're actually making. Second, make time to retreat. Leave margin in your life for reflection. You got to leave margin. Third, go to sleep, get some rest. So here's what I wanted to tell you all about, about my crisis Yesterday. Okay. Oh, somebody's— y'all are asking where you can get the book. It's on Amazon. It's anywhere books are sold. If you want a signed copy from me, because I can't beat Amazon's prices, but if you want to support me, get it for me, I sign your book. You can always go— let me turn this on so y'all can see it because I see y'all asking. You can always go to chrystalevanshurst.com/shop. There's a bunch of stuff there. There are planners and journals and talks on CD, if y'all even use that anymore. I got to figure out how to get my talks digital so y'all can just download them. But anyway, so that's where you can go if you want to get the book from me, but get it from Amazon. It'll get there faster. I mean, I just have the books here as a courtesy sometimes to people who come to me looking for them. Okay. The name of the book is She's Still There. She's Still There. Okay, so here was my crisis, y'all. Yesterday I just— how can I say it? I was just done. I love my people. I was just done. They were just— they're everywhere. And I think my plate is pretty full right now. Um, and I think I have a lot going on and I'm, my kids just home was a lot. And so we had to run an errand. I got back home. I shared this with some of the inner circle this morning. Um, we got back home. I got my kids out of the car and I just sat there for a second and closed my eyes. I think I took a nap, wound down the windows. It was beautiful. Y'all, I didn't get out of the car until 8 o'clock. I ended up driving. I sat there for a while, took a phone call. Then I drove to the Target parking lot because I was thinking about going to Target. Then I didn't do that, but then Panera was right there and I realized I had a gift card. So I got something healthy, got a salad, got some soup, drank some water, sat in the parking lot, came back home, sat in the driveway. My kids kept coming out and they were like, what's wrong? It's like nothing. I'm just sitting. Why? Because I just want to sit. Then I came in and I told them to clean up the kitchen and they had gift cards to Wingstop, so they ordered Wingstop. So I didn't cook, came inside, got in the bed, went to sleep. When I go to sleep, y'all, y'all, at 9 o'clock. I cannot sleep for more than 5 or 6 hours, 6 hours. So I woke up at 2 AM and I was like, absolutely not, go back to sleep. So I went back to sleep, woke up about 5:30. Why did I sit in the car for 4 hours? Because car therapy. Car therapy, Lisette. Yes, that's what I'm gonna start calling it— car therapy. That's a good one, it's a good one. Car therapy. Um, because my soul needed it. I didn't have a reason, I didn't have a plan, I just felt my soul tightening and it needed to breathe. I needed some water. I needed some sleep. I didn't need fries. I didn't need sweet tea. I didn't need pizza because it's quick and easy and I don't want to think about it and I'm stressed and I just want to feed the kids. Know, I just needed space, quiet, a nap. And I know that you can't always do that. I know that life sometimes demands otherwise. I know when you have small children, but you know, sometimes when I talk to daughter Charis, I'm just like, your kids are up too late, put those jokers to bed. You know, when they're little like that Oh my gosh, 7 o'clock! You should have the whole evening free to yourself. My soul needed that. My soul needed nothing, just nothingness for a minute. And the problem is, is that if you, if you don't pay attention to what your soul needs you'll fix it. You'll fix it too quick. You know, when you're disciplining your kids, if you don't pay attention to really what's going on with this kid, you'll fix it. You'll discipline them, you'll reprimand them, you'll speak too quickly, and you're really not seeing— because they don't know, you know, when they're kids, teenagers especially, they don't have words. Boys, they don't have words. They don't know what's going on in their soul. That's part of the job of a mom, a being a cook and a nurse and a chauffeur, counselor— there's that. You can look at your kids and ask questions and say, you know, why did you do that? Did this bother you? And help them to learn how to pay attention to their soul. Your spouse sometimes needs your help and how to pay attention to your soul. And you need room, my friend, to pay attention. So what I'm saying about the fat demon though is in order to be healthy, you have to know what health is for you. You have to pay attention to your macros and your micros. You need to pay attention to what you put in your mouth. You need to write it down, keep calories, not because calorie counting is the way to go, but because at least initially it will help you to see, and calories is just one of the easy ways that you can see. You know, um, I want you to pay attention to your life because maybe fat is not what you're dealing with. Maybe weight gain or weight loss is not what you're dealing with. What if— what if pain is what you're dealing with? What if you're wearing a mask and you just are not paying attention? What if your spouse can't figure out what's wrong with you because you don't even know what's wrong with you? You can't even communicate to your spouse what you need because you don't even know. You don't even know. So I want you to pay attention to your life. Slow down. I mean, this is me telling myself because I'm a fast mover. Slow down. Okay. Slow down. All right, Instagram, I'm gonna log off here in a second because Instagram only gives me an hour. I've been on a little over an hour and it's gonna shut me down actually in 38 seconds. So I'm gonna say goodbye on Instagram. I would love to answer a few questions on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope for the Periscope peeps that are there. Write down what you're eating, pay attention. Have a great day, Instagram. All right, let me make sure I share this, y'all. Share the story. Okay, that's done. All right, questions, y'all, about anything, but you know. Okay, there were lots of questions that I missed earlier. So I'm looking for your questions now. Okay, see y'all still watching strong. Good morning, um, you guys. I will say this, if this— if you have enjoyed watching this, if it's been helpful, share it, because often sharing things is how people see things. Tag a friend in the comments, that would be super, super helpful. Thanks, Lydia. Lydia said, Chrystal— oops, I lost it. Chrystal, we need you to take care of yourself. We love and need you, so please take some time for you. Thank you, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Um, and let me say this, nobody can teach you your speed. You know, some of us are high capacity people. High-energy people, low-energy people, you know, and you have to give yourself grace for being you. You got to know you. You have to know when you've had enough, when you don't want to. Some of that comes with age, but some of us, if we just would pay attention, we would, we would know the answers to those things. Do you think it is wrong to tell a boss when you hit your breaking point. No, no. Now I think that— see if I can get you on the screen here, Allison. I think that not all, but many people who are employing other people, they cannot read your mind. Now you do have to get your job done, and there comes a point where you have— your boss may have to decide whether or not, or you may have to decide whether or not this job is for you. Because if there's a job that needs to be done and you're having difficulty doing it, well, maybe it's not your lane, maybe it's not your gifting, maybe you're not, uh, you're not— you don't have the skill set. It could be a lot of different things. That's your boss's call. But what is your call is to say, you know what, I need a personal day. Um, if you're an accountant, close a month, close a quarter, close a year. Uh, be strategic and plan time when you know you're going to need to decompress from the work that you've done. But I think it's healthy to communicate. Uh, I mean, I've had people tell me, because I'm an extremely high capacity person and I actually, I actually overestimate my own capacity, which is why sometimes I burn out. So you can imagine what I do to people who work with me. They're like, uh, ma'am, it's 11 o'clock at night, go to bed. So I've, I respect somebody who's says to me, hey, I want to get this job done well. Here's the priority of things I've been tackling, but the list is 20 things long and I'm just not able to get to X, Y, and Z. Um, and I'm actually maxing out and it may be too much for me. Can you prioritize? So this is a something that actually works with a spouse as well, uh, with a husband. It's better to ask your husband questions than it is to just dictate things to him. So to say, and I have to work on this, but to say, listen, I know we had prioritized these 3 things as a family, but I'm only able to get to number 1. So is number 1 the highest priority item? And if I can only get to one thing, is that going to work? I think it's the same thing with your boss. Listen, I want to prioritize what's important to you. I want to prioritize what's important to the company, but based on the hours I have to work and the hours this thing is taking me, uh, I'm kind of maxed out. Now, if you are having stress in your life, I mean, I hope your boss wants to hear about the stress in your life. However, your boss hired you to do a job. So at a certain point, you have to manage your life. You have to figure out how to reorient some things. But I think that there can be a marrying of the two if you have a good boss. If, for example, you've lost a loved one and it's month-end close and you're an accountant and this month you're going to need some assistance because if you've just lost a parent or a sibling and you got to be all in for month-end close, you may have to say to your boss, listen, what's our plan B? Because I just don't know that I can do that this week. Yeah, I do think it's okay to say it, but I have, I think you always have to frame things when you're working for someone, when you're married, when you're at a church or someone in authority over you, you have to frame things in your speech with acknowledging that their, their program is the program. And you're asking for a break in your program to accommodate it. If you come in only talking about you, don't no boss want to hear just about you because they didn't hire you for you to be you. They hired you for you to do a job. But I, you know, I think that when you can come in and say, listen, I'm for the mission statement, I'm for our values, I'm for our bottom line, I'm for our strategic plan, but here's where I am in that. I think any good boss would want to hear from you and know how you're doing in this season, because they want the job done. But if they want you to stick with the job, they want you to be okay. Uh, what is a practical way to study the Bible and make time for God? More so the how to read and study. Okay, this is a whole class, it's a whole teaching, and I believe, uh, Priscilla will be at our Sister Circle. Yeah, she's at the Sister Circle online event teaching that very thing— how to study the Bible. 3 simple questions: what does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean to me? What does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean to me? If you can basically restate what it says, process what it means, and then say how you should apply it in your everyday life, that's the best, most simplest way I can teach you how to start. But there are so many great devotionals on YouVersion, and then you can also log into to, uh, bsfinternational.org and check out Bible studies. Please ask your pastor, pick up a Bible study book and just search the word, or just read it. Just read the word of God. I talked about this last week on another live. Maybe we can put the link, Marissa, to that live in these notes for this resource. But here is my one-year chronological Bible, and, uh, I've read bits and pieces of it. Eventually we'll get through the whole thing. I always just start where I am, and then I mark the pages that I've read so I know that I've read them. And often I mark them with the date so I know what year I passed by that way. And then you just keep— you just keep going. You just— you just read. You just read. I would say just read. But there are so many— uh-oh— so many resources out there. Just start somewhere. A couple more questions. Am I feeling better today? I am, I am. And I've said no to a couple things already. I was on my phone this morning looking at my notes, looking at my calendar, and just saying there are some things I'm just not gonna do today. It's not gonna do it. And you also have to learn how to give yourself a break, meaning you can put dinner on the table for your family and shortcut it. You know, at Sprouts they have chicken that's already kind of seasoned seasoned and ready to go. Get that, throw it in the pan and sauté it and be done, you know. Or, uh, bagged veggies from Costco. They have these, um, like slaw salads in a bag, and all the fixings are in the bag. You just open up the bag and pour it in. You don't have to kill yourself julienning those carrots. Just, you know, get the bag. You can eat fresh from a bag and still eat healthy from a bag. So take, you know, be okay with taking shortcuts. Um, Zayda Gonzalez says— it's either Zayda or Zayda, not sure— but what are you doing this summer? Are you still planning to do this? No. So this summer for my kids, I haven't gotten there yet, but I want to explore, do some fun things as a family. May go camping, my husband may take them camping. In terms of— there's some computer coding classes that I want them to be engaged with. They may even be taking some summer school classes. They are going to be taking some summer school classes because both of them jacked around in their English class. So welcome to Chrissy's school. They had teachers. I tried to get them to do what their teachers said, but they messed around. And you will not leave the Hurst household and not know how to write. Not when I've taught writing to other homeschool school kids, not when I am a writer and a published author, and not when I've been homeschooling for 18 years. You will leave this house being able to put a well-written 5-paragraph essay together and being able to do your research for your research paper, because that's what we do. So I'm not going to do this because every day is not a part of my— I know, I don't think so. If I ever get to a point where I had a team that could do this for me produce it, find the topics, give me the tips, get the interviews. And I do have a team, but we're busy preparing for other things. I don't have a big enough team to take this on. Then maybe. But, um, podcasting is where you can always find me. You can go again to my blog, chrystalevanshurst.com, sign up for my email newsletter, and you will not miss a thing. Oh, real quick, I've heard people say this, but if you want to make sure you don't get my emails and you know you signed up, just make sure that chrystal@chrystalevanshurst.com is in your contacts and it'll come through. It'll come through. So I'm going to do this up until May 22nd, a week from this coming Friday, May the 22nd, we're having our online event. Monique told me that the, the link is live. So I'm going to share it. If y'all have problems with it, then let me know, but it's a sistercircle.com. Now y'all, this is not a free online event. It's not free, but there are 30 women coming to teach you. Okay. And I wanted to set it up in such a way that many of the women who are writers and speakers who have had many of their things canceled, that they have an opportunity to be blessed by sharing content with you. Now, all this stuff on this lives and on my podcast and my writing, that's all free. So, you know, indulge, enjoy. Okay, that's why I do so much free content, because I really do want to help. But in order to do what I do, um, and I've said this before, mics and systems and computers and all those things, they cost. So when you are supporting what I do, either by being a part of the Inner Circle or by coming to events like this, not only are you getting more information, deeper information and not just for me, but you're supporting the work of people who want to, um, who want to serve you. So yes, registration is still open and it will be open until Friday, Friday night, um, Friday night. Okay, so that's that. Thesistercircle.com. Uh, I get your email, but a devotional, is that all you send out? Um, well, Sister Shirley Help. That's what it says, Sister Shirley Help. I send out blog posts, podcasts, sometimes recipes, tips and tricks. I refer you to the best things that I love. So, you know, okay, somebody's asking me, Lanika, about writing a book. So here's how I help people write books right now, okay? I always have— I try to attach, since that's one of the most requested things that I get. Can you please help me write? Um, there's only 3 ways I can do that. Okay, one is, um, yeah, well, yeah, 3 ways. One is online or offline, in real, in real life speaking, right, workshop. So in person, we've done a workshop, people fly in, it's small 30 people. I get a chance to listen to you speak, read your writing, give you feedback online. And we did it at the Sister Circle Retreat too last August— October. I said, hey, if you want in person, come early, I'll bring my friends, we'll dive all the way in. But because we're not going anywhere online, I have— I'm attaching a summit. A— it's not as big as we normally do it, but it's still a summit for speakers and writers. To that event. So you can get that online. Um, you can also take a class. I've created a course for speakers and writers, um, and I will probably share information about that on my email list probably in the next week and a half or so, because I'll probably put a sale on it. Um, so that's the ways that I do it. And every now and then, when my life allows, then I will take a few people who have either taken the course or come to a summit or workshop and offer those people who have done that foundational level an opportunity to be coached. But I do the coaching very, very rarely because one-on-one time is a lot of time, and I still have kids at home who need me to coach them on their writing. So those are the 3 ways. So the easiest and most quickest thing for you to do right now is to come to the live event, um, that is next Friday, and make sure you take the summit option because because that's where the teaching will be. Okay, I'll take one or two more, more questions. How do you deal with guilt? Guilt of not being able to show up for your kids and husband when you just can't find the strength to go on. I heard a lady one time speak. In fact, I thought of her this morning and wrote her name down because I think I'm going to reach out to her and ask her to join me next weekend. I'll never forget, she was struggling with something in her life. She shared what she was struggling with. She's a doctor of psychology, and she said, every day, even in my struggle, I have to show up and say, you know what, I'm the best me I can be today, and I take pride, and I will, I will be joyful to be the best me I can be today, and I'm going to celebrate being the best me that I can be today. And you literally have to encourage yourself and say, I'm doing the best I can. I tell my children that sometimes they're like, Mom, well, you didn't do this. I just say, you know what, y'all, I'm doing the best I can. And you just have to talk yourself out of that because guilt is something that's going to grab you about what you've done. But you can reframe that and say, what I've done is the best I can do. Just like you would talk to yourself, like you would talk to a friend, you can do that for you. Okay, y'all, let y'all give— y'all give Lanica a break. Norma, you're saying you're trying to register for events on the Inner Circle and having issues. I'm unable to click on enroll in class. Okay, so send us a message. Go in the Inner Circle and send us a message there and somebody on my team will get with you. Um, any resources for someone that has had so much self-doubt and cannot truly be happy and joyful in life? Okay, Cassandra Hall, there's a book I have on my shelf right now. I have a whole bunch of books because I'm writing a book right now. The, the name is The Gift of letting go, and it is about letting yourself off the hook. This is a person I interviewed. Her name is Kim Fredrickson. Kim Fredrickson. Go. Oops. Oops. Focus, focus. Why is it not focusing? Okay, Kim Fredrickson. The name of this book is called Give Yourself a Break. This lady has since passed away. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to interview her on my podcast. Marissa, can we find the podcast for Kim Fredrickson and put that in the resources for today? So loving. She was teaching me how to give my— take myself, just take myself off the hook. And it's so practical, so very practical. Um, trying to read you a quote from here. When I read books, if it's a quoted— quotable statement, it says, when we aren't caring for ourselves, no amount of encouragement or care from another person is enough. And she teaches you how to not be overdependent on other people's validation. Um, you know, she talks about the needs that you had when you were growing up that may not have been met and how to meet those right now. Wonderful book, and it's on my tall shelf of books that I'm referring to about forgiveness and healing your life and overcoming hurt and anger and healing shame and what shame looks like in the soul and how your body keeps score and how to design your life. This is what my bookshelf looks like right now. So hopefully that helps, that gives you a resource. She's wonderful. Any of her things are wonderful. Do you have to register if you're not doing the session as a part of the Inner Circle? So basically, if you want to come to the online event, you have to register, and it is not a free event. So I will tell you that the Inner Circle also is not free. What's free is all of these things that I'm doing every day, and then also the Sister Circle. Chrystal Evans Hurst, the Facebook group, chrystalevanshurst.com/thefacebookgroup. Okay, I love this question. Young Spiritual Warrior said, hi Elector! Like elector, elector, like Don Marie Elector. I'm glad to see you. How do you tell yourself no from eating something? Well, you tell yourself no, but you can make the no easier by setting yourself up for success. Meaning, have a routine before you go to bed at night. Fill your water bottle. Get up in the morning so you don't give yourself something to do when you're sleepy, and then maybe when you're running late, and then you don't do it. Plan your meals before you base what you're gonna eat on how you feel. Plan it out. Make sure that the food that you need is in your refrigerator. Get rid of the things that are not good for you. Get rid of them. You know, just don't have them in the house. And if you're going to keep some things that you love, then don't keep everything that you love. You don't have to keep the Oreo Thins and the dark chocolate almonds. You don't have to buy the fries and, you know, the fries that you can put in the oven and also then have the spinach. Like, stack the deck in your favor. Find things that you like, learn how to cook them little by little. But the art of saying no is first embedded in the art of setting yourself up for success. Because nos are hard to give when everything in your life is pushing you towards a yes. So orient the things in your life to push you towards the no that you so want to give. And then yes, you got to give the no. Another thing is community. Have people around you that are also setting the stage for you to be successful so that they're also saying no to themselves. So y'all are all saying no to each other. And then having accountability, because it's a lot easier to give yourself a no when you know somebody's going to check on on you later. So hopefully that's helpful. When I try to join the Facebook group, it made it seem like I needed to be a part of your inner circle at a higher level. Okay, you may have found— I don't know, um, Battle Rhythm Pursue— I— you may have ended up at the wrong spot. So if you simply go to chrystalevanshurst.com/facebookgroup that you just, you just come in and it just says what's your email and what's your question, and then you get it, you come in. So that one's— you may have ended up at another spot, but that's where you want to go if you want to get on. All right, set yourself up for yourself success, people. All right, all right. Oh, this is a whole thing, uh, The Sweet Life of Stephanie. Hmm. When and how do you start a team? You know what, I'm going to hold on to that thought. Um, maybe I will talk about that tomorrow. Let's talk tomorrow about what it looks like to build your sister circle, to build your community. And I'll talk a little bit about that, uh, in terms of building a team, because really all, all a team is, is a community that y'all have decided that the thing y'all do together is work. So, um, let's talk about that tomorrow because I can dovetail into that from this, um, about, you know, how to build a circle that's going to support you in your desire to be healthy, how to build a circle that's going to support you in, you know, whatever way you want community, and how to build a circle basically that supports you in the work that you want to do. So, fair enough, fair enough. I'll save it. I'll save it. And then we'll pick up there tomorrow. Building community. I think that's great. So again, share this if this has been a blessing to you. And then also, if you want to make sure you get in on the Sister Circle event— and I know, I want to just say this to y'all, I know— that, oh, NNE Online, you said you're working on Friday. No problem, because the main event doesn't start until Friday night. During the day, it's speakers and writers, and it will all be on replay. You'll have replay access to it till the end of May, till May 31st. So I want to just tell you that I know it's not free, and I want to tell you that one of the hardest things for me in this season right now out is doing anything that's not free because I know people are losing their jobs, they're not getting enough hours. I understand that, I understand that. And I had to make the decision, do I still move ahead and do something that I have to charge for because it costs, you know, it costs to do these things? And then also, how do I honor people who, who are struggling right now? So I want you to know I didn't make the decision lightly to have this event or to charge for it. But I also know that there's so much content that I'm giving you that is for free. So I want you to know that I have thought about that. I have— I am mindful of that, but I also wanted to be able to do more, and doing more had a cost associated with doing it. And this is what we have to do in order to make it, make it work all the way around. That said, that said, that's why there's so much free content, and that's That's why I have some fun things that we're planning around this event that will make it easy for those of you who are struggling right now financially to still participate in a part of that event. So I just wanted to say that in case you're listening and you go look and you're like, ah, ah, I can't do it. Just know that I feel horrible about that. I do. But you said it's not coming up for you. Y'all have to let me know if it's not coming up for you. thesistercircle.com, thesistercircle.com. I have it on the screen, but the bottom line is if you are on my email list, you're gonna get the right link. So let me know if that's not working. Y'all can let me know that. But even if it's not working, you can always, always, always— the main thing thing, always the main thing, is to make sure that you're on my email list. Okay, is there an opportunity to sponsor others that want to attend but can't afford it? Will you send me an email, Desira? Desiree, uh, send me an email. Do that, do that, because I would love to help connect people who want to sponsor one person. Yeah, Miss TJ said you have a business, we appreciate your free content. Thank you for that, I appreciate it, I appreciate it. Yes, you can— it's not working. Okay, well, we will come back tomorrow with a link that works. We'll make sure we get it working today. But again, the main thing is get on my email list and you won't have to worry about it. Okay. All right. I will talk to you tomorrow, ladies. Maybe some men. All right. Yay. I see your comments. Yes. Yes. Thanks, Battle. I know it's tough and I appreciate you joining the inner circle and hopefully the bonus content that you have access to there is helpful. All right. I'm gonna log off, get my kids going, get ready for the day. Today is podcast recording day. Back to back to back to back to back to back to back. I do them all in one day. All right. Bye.