Rediscover Your Passions and Make Space for What Fills Your Soul

Happy Thursday. This is the fourth day of our Dream Builders Workshop, and I'm here with my piano in the back background, if you've been following me for any length of time, you know that I am a piano player. I had lessons the majority of my formative years, and in these most recent years, I have been interested in reigniting that hobby, that passion, that joy of mine. So I am taking lessons again, but this is my piano, the one I practice on, and this piano is in my music room slash library because also I'm a book lover, bibliophile, I love books. So you may not have a piano, you may not have a library, but you have a library in your city, and you probably have somewhere that makes you remember or, um, gives you a desire to invest in the things that you enjoy. And so today, that's what we're going to be dreaming about— what we love doing, our passions, our, um, the projects that we want to invest ourselves in, the things we want to learn or try. And so much of life Honestly, when you got to go to work, take care of your kids, finish school, be responsible, pay your bills, so much of the things that bring us joy and help us to experience the abundant life that God talked about in John 10:10 simply go on the back burner because we don't make time for them. Or frankly, we may not even remember what they are. So I want to give you space today to dream about what you love, what you enjoy, to remember what those things are, or to give yourself the freedom and the opportunity to come up with something new. Sometimes passions are developed because they were embedded in us as kids and we just have to get back to them. Sometimes our passions are things we discover later in our lives just because we decide to live and try things out. And so today is your invitation not only to believe what God said in his word, that he came to give us an abundant life, and abundant life means enjoying the earth he created us and put us in, but that also that there is supposed there's supposed to be a joy attached. If I go back to the garden, Adam and Eve were in the garden. God put them in there. He gave them everything they could want. There was one tree they weren't supposed to touch, but he said, "You can eat from every other tree." There was variety. There was color, different animals, different plants, beautiful weather, ground that watered itself. He placed them in a place where they could explore and enjoy. And if you are not exploring in your life, trying new things, discovering new things about you, you are not living. But it starts with dreaming. And so today we're going to do a little bit of what we've been doing already, and that is me asking you a question and you taking the time to write down your thoughts. The key is write down the thoughts that are right here in the frontal lobe, and then when you run out of thoughts, keep writing because your soul will speak, your subconscious will speak. So your job is to answer my question to the degree that you can mentally, and then just keep writing whatever comes to mind. This is an exercise in dredging up the soul for all the best reasons. So I want you to, if you're watching me live, to get in a place where you feel comfortable. If you're watching the replay, take the time to go to a place that inspires you the way my music/library room inspires me. Coffee shop, library, bookstore will do. Get your notebook or whatever you're going to write on, a favorite pen, whatever you're going to write with. And here's your first question for today. I want you to think about what fills you up, that you can't get enough of it. When you finish doing it or engaging in it, you just feel alive. It could be anything— a hobby, a place, an experience. It can be fun, it could be serious, it could be growth-oriented learning, or simply silly. It doesn't matter. But when you're done, you feel fuller, better, more of yourself than before you did it. So start thinking about what those things are and just start writing it down. Okay, let's go. Okay, how's it going? Keep thinking. Um, if you get stuck, think back like in decades of your life. What did you enjoy in previous seasons? But keep writing. I'm having to think, but I'm gonna keep running. Okay. So, how'd it go? If you are feeling anything like me right now after taking the last few minutes to write down the things that fill you up, I just started feeling filled up thinking about the things that fill me up. And so I hope you're feeling a little lighthearted and warm and fuzzy from remembering, thinking about, and bringing to just the front of your mind those things that make you feel energized and full and like you're participating in your life. Uh, but you know, here's the problem. We can take all the time in the world we want to remember and to document the things that fill us up. But like I said earlier, the problem is we don't make room for them. Um, we remember them, but we don't always do them. And so here's what we're gonna think about right now. There may be a little overlap and that's okay. Uh, we wanna think about those hobbies and passions that you want to make room for. And I want you to do a little thinking and digging here. It's not just that it fills you up, it's that you haven't made room for them. So I want you to narrow down all the possible things that you could do and really think more specifically about those things that maybe you did do at one point in your life that you stopped doing. So this means you got to take a trip down memory lane. Um, think about being, um, a younger child, like under 12. Think about being a teenager. Think about your 20s if you're past that season in your 30s and think about the things that you once did. That you haven't made room for, or that— here's the other thing that might help you— or that people said you're good at that, or you come alive when you do that, things that you have been celebrated for. So it's the same question with a different little flavor on it. You've picked it up, but you put it down, and you need to pick it up again. So think about the little girl in you. What would she enjoy that you're doing with your life right now? Get your pen. It's time to write. Write it down. Hey, how's it coming? If you feel like you're being redundant, let me just tell you, that's a good thing. Because if you're being redundant, it's probably on the things that are the most important from your first dream list. If you come back to it and come back to it again, it's because it really matters. So keep writing. Okay, you ought to feel nice, good, and empty, like you have talked about the things that energized you, written down the things that are hobbies or, um, activities that you've left on the table. And, um, you ought to have some clarity now about about what you want to enjoy in your life. But here's where we want to land the plane right now. Sometimes we look back on who we were, and often that's a good thing to draw guidance for what we should double down on now in this season. But we are ever-evolving beings. And what that means is there ought to be some things that you didn't do in past years, that you didn't do when you were a kid, you didn't do when you were a teenager, you didn't do in your 20s, that you want to do now. Things you want to learn, things you want to try, places you want to go, things you've never done before and other people seem to enjoy them and you're not sure you will unless you try it. So what we want to do now is to think about what you want to learn, how you want to grow, what you don't know, where you've never been, where you've never traveled, things you've never experienced, because a part of enjoying life is trying things. So you're going to take the next few minutes and just brainstorm. And if you're looking for ideas, think about your friends. If you don't have friends that do anything, think about the people you follow on Instagram. If you don't have anybody that you follow on Instagram that's interesting, you might take a minute and just Google a little bit. But get the water stirred simply so that you can have ideas of things you can try in your life to keep your life exciting and interesting. And you don't have to jump out of a plane like I did, but it was fun, so you might want to try that. Okay, y'all, so I'm in the middle of all these things that I want to try. And you know what? I've heard of a book once by the title Die Empty. And the author said you ought to reach the end of your life having done or tried all the things that you feel like you had enough time for. Dying empty doesn't mean you got to the bottom of the list. It just means that the things that were the most important on the list, you got to first. Having a long list is a good thing. So if you find yourself thinking like I am right now, I'm never going to get to all this. That's okay. Just keep writing those ideas down. Okay, so you have all these things that energize you and fill you, all these hobbies and passions that Uh, maybe you want to resurrect or try again. All these things you want to learn, the ways you want to grow, the things you want to try. You don't even know if you'll like them, but other people do it and they seem to enjoy it, so why not you too? We've done all this thinking and we've dredged up the desire in our souls. Desire is God-given. Desire is not bad. Desire is an indicator of things that you might gravitate to or be magnetic about. But here's the reality. You've spent all this time so far thinking of stuff that you probably don't have time to do all today, correct? So we have to make room for these things. We have to little by little make space in our lives to put the things that we want to do. So you may have to do a little flipping back and forth in this session of writing to look at the things that you want to do and to decide where would they go. Is this a summer activity? Is this an early morning activity? Um, Where are you going to stop doing something so that you have room to start doing something? Is this for next year? Is this for next month? Just start thinking about where would I put that, the things that matter most to you, because you have to make time for them or they will never happen. So think about all the things that you're doing and what you can release or let go of and where you can create space in your life for the things you love. Listen, these piano lessons, I'm quitting a whole lot of stuff to make room for them, but I'm so glad I am. Okay, here you go. Okay, so I'm writing all these things and I told you I'm in a room that I love. I got pictures of my mom in here and I'm thinking, not only did she do a good job making room for the things that she loved, she wrote this stuff down. One of the gifts that I have is that I have her bucket list of the things she wanted to do. Many of the things that she did, some that she didn't, but she was committed to that, you know, and she left me a great example of what I'm teaching you to do now. So anyway, I'm doing it, I love doing it, but I learned it from someone who did it well too, and I just wanted to share that with you. Okay, okay. I found myself getting a little creative about my cracks and crevices, cuz you know, there's, there's a time to dream, there's a There's a time to ideate. There's a time to plan, like put it on your calendar. And in between the dreaming and the planning is the creativity of how else could I do this? Because if you're like me, it's like, I don't have time. But when I thought about it, I actually do. Sometimes it's about inventing your life and creating your life, and sometimes it's about reinventing. Reinventing yourself. We all have 24 hours, so if we are each able to look at someone else and say, how can they do that? How are they able to fit that in? Then that means that we have the capacity to dream a little. And so for me, that looked like a little bit of fun activities, but relegating that to the holidays when all my kids are here. For me, that looked like early mornings. For me, that looked like— not even this year, but like next summer. For me, that looked dating routine with my husband because some of these fun things can be done with him if we would commit to that weekly and monthly date. So I haven't planned them in yet. I'm just thinking about how to use my existing time to rearrange it a bit and to reinvent what I do with it. Okay, so my hope is that today you have reignited yourself, like you've lit the fire and remembered who you are, remember what you love, remember what you enjoy, and felt the or even tasted a little bit what it would feel like for you to connect with those things because you felt the joy rising just thinking about them. But I know that dreaming is a great place to start. It is not the place that you want to end. I say it all the time, a dream without a plan is just a wish. If we write all of this stuff down in this book, yes, you can refer to it, and that's amazing. But when you actually decide how you're going to implement it, when you're going to do it, and what you need to, um, where you need to take action to facilitate those things happening. That is planning. And I don't want to leave you without a plan. So this is our Dream Builders Workshop, but next week I'm going to be going deeper with my VIPs. How are you a VIP? How can you become one? Are you one? Well, let me tell you, you have to be an Inner Circle member, or you have to own the planner. It's right here. Because obviously you want to plan your life, and Inner Circle is committed every month, every week, every week of the year, every first Monday, every Monday, um, to hearing from me and to being encouraged to never forget the things that we're thinking about. So since those two groups of women have made a commitment already, I want to make a commitment to them to go deeper and to use a tool that will help them plan out and structure out their lives in such a way that these don't just stay dreams, that they can become reality. If you want to know more about joining me for that VIP Dream Builders Workshop, all you have to do is go to Chrystal Hurst www.christalhurst.com/dream and all the information that you need will be right there on that page. But this, the Dream Builders Workshop, it's my give. It's something that I want you to do. I want everyone to have the capacity to do. That's why I'm doing this with you. And so this is our 4th day, but it's not our last. And I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.