0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk, sponsored by nextTalk.org, contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised. Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim On AM 630, the word. Mandy is the author of Talk and Kim is the director of nextTalk, a non-profit organization helping parents’ cyber parent through open communication. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Visit our free video series and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:37 – Speaker 2
Today’s show is about Simplify. We kind of touched on this a couple shows ago and we were like, okay, we need to dive a little deeper into this.
0:00:46 – Speaker 3
I think it was over scheduled and over it.
0:00:49 – Speaker 2
It was kind of a trigger point, because we struggled with this and then we work it out, and then we struggle with it again.
0:00:54 – Speaker 3
It’s like that wheel. We’re on that hamster wheel and it’s hard to get off because culturally it’s acceptable.
0:01:02 – Speaker 2
And everybody wants the social media. Perfect family. You’re taking a certain amount of vacations and you’re in this many number of sports and just all of it.
0:01:13 – Speaker 3
It does feel like a rat race. I was talking with my husband about this the other day and he said I feel like the idea of the American dream has been shifted into. If you are not busy all the time and if you’re not doing all the things, then you are not taking advantage of the American dream. You are failing. You’re kind of a loser. You’re kind of a loser Like, why are you even here? You should be doing all the things.
0:01:36 – Speaker 2
And then we’re guilted, so that when we actually have family night and stay home in our pajamas, we actually feel guilty for spending time, downtime with our families.
0:01:46 – Speaker 3
When you say it out loud, it sounds crazy. It sounds stupid, and yet we all fall into the trap. I do, I mean we do.
0:01:53 – Speaker 2
You and I do. Maybe nobody else does.
0:01:55 – Speaker 3
I actually know one person who has learned the art of a simple life, and I look at her and I long for that piece.
0:02:06 – Speaker 2
Do they live on an island, you would think, because that’s where I want to go.
0:02:09 – Speaker 3
It’s funny she lives in a big city. I’m just going to say it’s my sister. I have never met anyone like her, who is like I am not doing all the things, I’m doing this one thing and I’m doing it well, and I’m going to have time to pray and I’m going to be still, and you can see it all over her.
0:02:23 – Speaker 2
She’s a peaceful person, so I want to be that mom and I want to raise those type of kids. Yes, that don’t get caught up. Or doing a show. The next show that we’re doing next week is about doing it because everybody else is doing it, like getting on bandwagon.
0:02:38 – Speaker 3
It’s the same kind of thing. It’s an extension of.
0:02:41 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:02:41 – Speaker 3
Absolutely Well. I think it must be on the minds of more than just us, because I see it a lot, you’ve seen it a lot lately Kind of this tide shifting of people saying I want more of a simple life, I want to go back to the basics, because we’re all stumbling and falling as we try to keep up with this rat race.
0:02:59 – Speaker 2
Well, I mean, I think what’s happening is we’re trying to keep up with it all. You know, like you said, the American dream. And then you add on all the time we spend on social media and you know, then we get to the point where then we’re not even really talking to people face to face, we’re not spending quality time Even with the people we love the most. It’s like because when we get a minute, we sit down and then we jump on social media and see what everybody else is doing Exactly, and so you know this.
God has been speaking over and over to me the last six months. Like, mandy, I need you to get back to the basics. Like get back to the basics. Like I want you to invite people over to your home and I want you to read scripture and just talk about it. Like I don’t need an elaborate Bible study, I don’t need eight pages of homework, I don’t need a teacher who knows everything. I need you to just be in community and get back to the basics.
And we did that last semester and it was like revolutionary for us, like it was almost like we didn’t realize how much we were craving just being back to the basics, like talking to people, getting to know people, hearing their stories, like spending time in the word together without some like five point lesson plan. You know it was just let’s read this verse and what, what, what does it say to you? The agenda is Jesus and doing that now with our kids. So now we’ve implemented that with our kids in the evenings, like doing that as a family, and you just turning off the TV. We don’t need to watch the latest episode of everything. It’s back to the basics, it’s. It’s almost like little house on the prairie. Let’s sit around and talk a little bit.
0:04:38 – Speaker 3
That’s what I feel like. Yeah Well, I think you’re right. I think you touched on something there with the fact that we’re so overexposed because of social media. It’s just pushed everybody over the edge and we’re kind of feel like almost grasping at just the simple things that made us feel whole before, because we feel so scattered and torn and and dragged in different directions and then publicized while doing it.
We’re wanting some of that simple life that felt so right, and I think that’s the shift that we’re starting to see and people are wondering how do I do that? And part of the reason I think people are longing for that is we’re seeing the fruit of what a life lived like, the crazy life is, and that’s exhaustion. We’re seeing a lot of addiction, not just in adults, but in our kids as well Failed relationships, emptiness, depression, midlife crisis, lots of anxiety. I cannot tell you how many people in the last week have told me that they are thinking of pulling their kids out of school because their anxiety is so high. I mean just in the last week. And so there’s an epidemic going on here of people feeling overextended and they want something different, and I really think it is the simple life.
0:05:49 – Speaker 2
Well, and the arguing just never stops On social media in the class. I mean, it’s just like debate, debate, debate. Everything you know I just in my mind. I long for the days where my kids and I are in our jammies all day and we’re making homemade bread which we’ve never made before, but it just sounds neat, right, and there’s no screens on at all, there’s no video games, and we’re just like having fun as a family, like I long for that. And if I’m longing for that, I feel like God may be speaking to me and saying I need you to do that, Like I need you to create this space so you can have that type of life.
0:06:28 – Speaker 3
Yes, I think we almost need to flip the switch and that we long for those things. So we create that environment during vacations yes, sometimes not everyone and so during a break where we have a few days, we’re like we’re gonna do nothing, we’re gonna sit in our PJs, we’re gonna play games at night and it’s wonderful and you’re like this is wonderful and then we go back to the craziness 95% of the year.
I think we really need to flip the switch, like there is so much that we have to do. Education is important Work. Obviously. You can’t just sit around in your PJs all day. That’s not what we’re saying, but there’s a lot of demands every day that we have. So we have to find a way to just find a way to relax and have downtime during the rest of the year, not just during the vacations.
0:07:12 – Speaker 2
Well, and that’s kind of why we’re doing this show right now because we experienced that, yes, we had a great time with our kids over Christmas break and now we’re back in it, we’re back in the grind and we’re really noticing the difference. And so we’re looking at each other saying how can we capture some good downtime even in the busy season? Like, how can we capture some of this back to the basics, but also keep up with all of our responsibilities and thinking about this show, I started writing some notes and funny thing came up.
0:07:45 – Speaker 3
I did not do this on purpose. I was writing the notes and at the end I realized that it spelled a word Take inventory, that’s a T. Observe, oh, listen, oh, discuss, t. All together that spells told.
And literally. Well, look at you, I did not mean to do that. I know it was from the Lord, because I literally was making notes and I was like told. And then, immediately I went to the scripture. Jesus told us to rest, he told us, he told me. He’s told me so many times and yet I ignore it. It’s all over scripture.
0:08:16 – Speaker 2
I love that. Take inventory, observe, listen and discuss, told, and you know, I just going off of that. I just saw a Rick Warren quote that was so good the other day and it said if Jesus needed to rest, so do you? Yeah, like hello, hello, he is God. Yeah, and he needed to rest and he modeled that for us like a parent. Yeah, and when we do the rat race and we don’t know how to rest our weary souls, we’re teaching our kids they’re not going to know how to rest Exactly.
0:08:46 – Speaker 3
Which is causing all the ancient yes I mean, yeah, so the first one, take inventory.
You know, I walked through these steps myself. What is a week, a weekend, an overall month look like for your household, literally? Take the time, sit down and think about it. Whether for me, it’s our family, lives off of my planner. So I sat down during the break and looked at my planner. I made a list. These are the things we have to do. My husband has to go to work. I need to go to work, whether that’s at home or it’s at a meeting, whatever that looks like. Those are your responsibilities. We need to eat. You know things like that. There are certain things. Our kids go to school.
0:09:21 – Speaker 2
We have to go to school, yeah.
0:09:22 – Speaker 3
Yeah. So list of things you need to do, list of things you want to do, that’s okay, put them on there. And then everything else. What else is on there? That’s kind of extra. That’s your inventory. Then observe your family through the week as you walk through all of these things, keeping those lists in mind and this was eye-opening to me and it really helped us kind of sort through our list.
I started to really pay attention to what was happening under my roof as we went through a week and went through a month and I will tell you what it was the faces of like, oh, we got to go again. It was the comments on the side, like I just want to do nothing. It was the weariness on my husband’s face as we headed out the door to another thing on the list. And let me just say right now, they are all good things. Yeah, it’s not like we were going to do something terrible or something bad or something upsetting or you know, a jail visit, whatever it is, you know, whatever it might be for you. It was all good things, things that sound fun and positive and fruitful just too many of them. And so I started to really kind of notice what was happening under my roof.
Also, the pace of my household Is it frazzled all the time? Is it frantic? Is there at least once a day when there’s yelling by the front door? We all know that front door entryway where the shoes and the bags and the coats something happens in that space where people just break down and there’s usually yelling, there’s all kinds of stuff because you’re trying to get this transition out the door.
So is that happening in your day? Is it look crazy? Is there chaos, anxiety and arguing and then just really listening to my family. What are you loving about our lifestyle right now? How do you really feel about this activity? And just hearing them out, not defending it, not giving excuses, just hearing my family and it was in passing conversations, just like everything here at nextTalk In the car.
I’d be like how you feeling about choir this week, how you feeling about this youth group thing that we’re going to go try out, and just hearing them out, hearing my husband and then the big part taking all of that, and we sat down and we just discussed it at dinner. I just brought it up. We talked about what’s 2019 going to look like for our family and it was after I gave some examples and we talked through some of these things, it was very clear that there were things that had to go and I will tell you, there were tears, there were some back and forth, there were some, I’m not sure, and we made a decision as a family to focus on just a few things that we were going to do. Well, and then we were not going to fill up the rest of the space, which is the inclination. But we’ve got all these nights available, or we have all this time. We made the decision not to do it and although it hasn’t been a long time, it has been glorious.
0:12:12 – Speaker 2
Well, and I think too, with littles, they don’t see both sides some of it. So sometimes they’re just like I don’t get to do that activity. But if you talk to them and you say, but that night you get to stay home in your PJs, right, let them see the different perspective. Yeah, you know, because instead of just we don’t get to do this anymore, absolutely.
0:12:31 – Speaker 3
And remind them of some of the things and that’s why that observation piece is so important. Remind them of some of the things they said and some of the looks that they may have given as the month was going by and they were in those things. You remind them of the things that they said, so they say, oh yeah, it was, I was tired. You know, I did wish we were at home, and that also helps them come to that decision with you.
0:12:52 – Speaker 2
Well, and as they get older too, I know when they’re littles you know you’re trying out different activities in sports and so it’s like you’re trying to figure out what is their thing. Yes, so there’s a lot of trial and error. I get that. As they get older, you know where my kids are. They kind of hone in on something and I know what we’ve tried to do is like if they’re really interested in something and they’re like this is something I want to do throughout school, like it’s something I want to focus on, we pour into that, yeah, and then we scale back everything else kind of thing. Yes, and I want to say you mentioned youth group. You know, get your kid in a youth group they love. If you are having to drag them there, that may not be the best fit and that’s okay. That doesn’t make that a bad youth group. It makes it a not a good fit for your kid. We had to work with that and it was all about getting my kid in a youth group where people from her school went.
Like that was her people that she sees every day in the hallway that she has connection with, and you know, San Antonio is such a big city and so that was a thing Like we had to get. It was trial and error, but now we found one and I don’t mind pouring the time into it because she’s connected.
0:14:02 – Speaker 3
Now it’s not just a check off item and it’s filling her up, she’s growing, and your family, instead of it being something you drag yourself through, she’s growing and she’s making friends at her school that go to church with her.
0:14:13 – Speaker 2
It’s beautiful to watch, but it took a minute to figure it out for us.
0:14:17 – Speaker 3
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0:14:42 – Speaker 1
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0:15:08 – Speaker 2
Investment advisory services offered through PAX Financial Group. Today we’re talking about simplify and we just it sounds like you’ve really done a lot of inventory taking and discussing and figuring out Because we were just stretched, we could do it Well.
And the more kids you have I mean I just want to be realistic the more kids you have, the more stressful this is, because they’re each in an activity, so you have to take that into consideration too.
You know, one thing I like to do that centers me, kim, is I call them breath days, and breath days are not rest days, really Breathe days. They fill me up. They just fill me up because I’m at home working, but they are. Sometimes I have calls I have to be on, but for the most parts, like I’m in my PJs and I’m going through emails, I’m doing laundry, I’m getting stuff accomplished, like I’m paying bills, you know that kind of stuff, and I will tell you when I feel that organization it helps me do the rest of the week. Yes, but if I don’t get that day to kind of like organize and prepare and get all that going, I’m a frazzled mess and I have less patience with my kids and I’m yelling more and I have more tone with my husband, and so it has really been a process to make time for those days.
0:16:34 – Speaker 3
It centers you.
0:16:35 – Speaker 2
It centers me. I mean, kim will tell you, like Monday, monday of this last week I was spiraling. I wanted to quit everything because I’m back in the grind and I was like, oh my gosh, it’s crazy how much is on our to-do list. And then Tuesday was my breed day and she texted me and she’s like how you’re doing? I’m like I’m great, like I’m the whole new world, I’m ready to tackle everything now. It’s just that, you know, whatever centers you, whatever makes you feel like OK because to me, organization it does that for me.
0:17:06 – Speaker 3
Having a clear understanding of what’s going on helps me as well, too.
0:17:08 – Speaker 2
And it may be exercise for you, it may be spending time with your friend. I mean, I don’t know what it is for you, but figure that out. Yeah, like that’s important.
0:17:16 – Speaker 3
I just want to say one hard thing before we move past this and this is something you and I experienced this last year there are different seasons for things.
0:17:24 – Speaker 2
Yes.
0:17:25 – Speaker 3
And you know I love myself a good mom’s night out. I do. I think a lot of us do. You know there’s great programs for our kids. Like we mentioned earlier, I love to cook. I would love to have like a gourmet meal for my family every night.
Yes, I would love to have hours in the kitchen to design and plate the food and I mean, I know it sounds silly, but part of the letting go and the paring down and simplifying was realizing. In this season some of those things need to take a back burner. My husband was in a place in his career. We’re going out during the week On. A mom’s night out was difficult. It just stretched our whole family in a way that was not fruitful. And so for a season I had to say this and friends maybe on a Saturday night or a Friday, but I cannot do it during the week. It’s not forever, Forever, and I think sometimes those decisions are hard because we feel like we’re sacrificing. But I will tell you, when I do those things and I notice those things, overall I feel better and my family feels more centered. So it’s not always a bad thing that you’re getting rid of. A lot of times they’re good things that you’re just sorting through.
0:18:27 – Speaker 2
Well, I like what you said on your take inventory. You said you list the things you want to do. So mom’s night out maybe on your want to do, and you’re saying to your husband and your kids, when we get more centered and you guys are older and daddy’s schedule is a little less crazy, I want to do this once a month with my friends because it fills me up, but right now I’m willing to sacrifice it because y’all are more important. I think those are great conversations to have with our kids and also we grew up, I think, with the mentality of you can do it all Like.
0:18:57 – Speaker 3
I was just always told, you can do everything.
0:19:02 – Speaker 2
I have different conversations with my kids. I talked to my kids like I wanted to go to law school. I ended up not going to law school, but I was at that crossroads where I almost did and I sat down and I told my kids why I made that choice. Because I was trying to look ahead five years and say I want to have a family and I don’t think it’s feasible Like I don’t think it’s feasible for me to actually survive law school and do this right now. Now some people can do that. I can’t. I know my limitations. Like I need my breed days, I need my organization, like I need all of that to help me feel centered. So I’m not saying you can’t do that, but some of us can’t and I couldn’t and I had to be realistic about that. Like that’s not where I was supposed to be.
0:19:45 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I think those are hard conversations to have with kids, but so helpful. So helpful for them to understand they are not expected to be everything and all things.
0:19:54 – Speaker 2
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, if you want to grow up to be president, like, I’m going to support you and we’re going to do everything we can to get you on that journey and you can volunteer and whatever. But you also have to realize the president gives up a lot, like you know, when you have a big job like that, you’re giving up a lot of your time with other people. So there are just real conversations. We need to be real conversations, yeah absolutely.
0:20:16 – Speaker 3
I think one of the things that has been a journey and continues will continue to be because we’re never not learning is finding the why behind your why you’re feeling every moment. A lot of times you know one that I see all the time including in myself because I have young kids is FOMO, fear of missing out. Like my kid needs to be in karate too, or oh, we have to go to learn how to tie a bow play date, you know, whatever it is, all those things are fun, whatever we’re missing out. You know my son needs to be going in that extra workshop for football. He’s got to go to that throwing work. Yeah, it’s just all good stuff. It sounds fun and great that you cannot do it all. You are not missing out if it is not filling your family.
And so, again, looking at that, is this going to be beneficial? Does this make us feel hurried and rushed all of the time? And sometimes, you know, for me, I grew up in a family it’s kind of looking at that past history. I grew up in a family where it was just me and my mom and she had to do everything, so there was always a lot going on, and so in my mind that’s what is supposed to be happening. You’re always supposed to be busy, so it’s been quite a process deprogramming myself. That rest does not equal failure. I even made that on my planner because I struggle with it so much, and so being able to recognize your past also, or what your self truths are and what you’re telling yourself, helps you to understand the why behind why you’re filling all your time.
0:21:40 – Speaker 2
I think that is super profound. Rest does not equal failure. The world tells us that you go 180 miles an hour all the time and you’re busy, and even important people show up late because they’re so busy. You even kind of get that kind of vibe right and it’s wrong. It’s wrong. Jesus needed rest, we need rest. We’re not going to live our full potential as parents and as whatever we do in our career if we’re not centered and we’re having that inner peace that comes from hearing God’s voice. I think this one is kind of the finding the why I think some people are afraid of that.
0:22:21 – Speaker 3
Oh, absolutely.
0:22:22 – Speaker 2
And I think this is a hard one. It is Because sometimes, when you are still, god asks you to do things that are hard, you know, like have a conversation or make a career change, or this isn’t working for your family. You need to give it up, like your mom’s night out, and so I think this is the looking in the mirror, gut-wrenching stuff that’s hard.
0:22:45 – Speaker 3
It is. It’s hard. A lot of times we avoid that, Like by filling up our busy schedule. I don’t have time to hear the Lord.
0:22:52 – Speaker 2
And when you don’t have time, then you don’t have to deal with whatever he asks you to do. You don’t have to be obedient.
0:22:56 – Speaker 3
And then we circle back to the things that we brought up in the beginning. You feel empty and you don’t know why. You feel tired, you feel depressed, you feel like some things just not right.
0:23:05 – Speaker 2
And then we get these calls when your family is spiraling and everything’s going crazy. Nobody can even sit down and have a conversation because they’re just not used to it. They’re used to going out so fast all the time. It’s like we don’t even know how to get back to the basics and just sit around the dinner table. One of the things we do is we try to have dinner three nights a week together, like try, and sometimes we can’t yeah, because of schedules, or my husband’s get stuck at work or I’ve got something going on or something. But it’s important for us, the meals. They’re important and sometimes they’re not even at our dinner table, they’re at our island, because I don’t want to even mess up the dinner table Right.
Yes, but there’s still meals and we turn the TV off. We normally have our Christian music playing, or sometimes we don’t even have that, and it’s literally sometimes we’re so tired we just sit there. Yeah, but sometimes we have really great discussions, but what we are not doing is we’re not each zoned out in our own world, like we’re not each on a device. We do not do that. We don’t have the TV on. It’s just that together. That back to the basics. Like I see you, yes, I see that you’re struggling. What’s going on?
0:24:15 – Speaker 3
Just that kind of stuff, making space for whatever needs to happen. Yeah, truly so. We have to figure out that. Why I think to man. That is such a huge example for your kids to be able to say to them man, I grew up like this, or this happened, or this is how I feel, but I don’t want that for our family. And just being transparent is such a huge teachable moment for your kids to start looking at themselves and the reason why they’re doing certain things. Last but not least, I just want to share a few scriptures. Psalm 4610, be still and know that I am God. Exodus 14, 14,. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. I love that. I read that one quite a bit when.
I’m worried about something, or stressed, or I feel like everything is crazy. I know I need to be more still than usual. And Psalm 62, 5, god alone, oh my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is in him. I’m telling you, if we have no space for quiet and downtime, when will we hear God speak?
0:25:12 – Speaker 2
In our wrap up segment today. One take inventory, observe, listen and discuss. Remember that’s what’s told. Jesus told us to rest. Two find the why. Why are you feeling every moment? And three, if we have no space for quiet, how will we hear God Be still?
0:25:33 – Speaker 1
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM 630, the Word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
