0:00:00 – Speaker 2
nextTalk, sponsored by nextTalk.org contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised. Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim Every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630, the Word. Mandy is the author of Talk and Kim is the director of nextTalk, a non-profit organization helping parents’ cyberparent through open communication. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:38 – Speaker 1
Today’s show is about over-scheduling and being over it. I think we can all relate to that Over-scheduling yourself and your family, and why that can be so detrimental, and then why we need rest.
0:00:55 – Speaker 3
I think business is one of the tools that Satan uses the most.
0:00:59 – Speaker 1
That is so funny. I think it is one of the secret tools in his tool belt that he uses on a daily basis to bog us down. It truly is.
0:01:09 – Speaker 3
And the other thing is, once we recognize it and we correct it, he uses it again in another season. You know, a year later he’s not creative. No, it’s the same thing over and over again. It creeps up on us as we sign up for things and we say yes to things.
0:01:24 – Speaker 1
Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking a lot about some really heavy subjects mass shootings, terrorism, sexual assault. These are really huge topics and we need time to talk through them with our spouse and with our kids. But I’ve got to be honest with you, as we’ve been talking about them more and revisiting them and I’m realizing, oh, I need to cover that or we haven’t talked about that. I’m like when am I going to fit it in? Because we’re over-scheduled in my household. I am the first to admit that it is something a trap that we fall into so easily and then we’re in it and we’re like oh, here we are again. How did this happen?
0:01:56 – Speaker 3
Well, and even though we have this practical approach to talking when you’re on the go, when you’re in the car, when you’re going to bed, when you’re getting up, when you’re at the breakfast table, even though it’s an on-the-go approach, sometimes, if you’re so busy, you’re a zombie, you’re driving down the road You’re tired and your kids can be asking all sorts of questions and you don’t even hear them because you’re just tuned out, because you’re exhausted mentally and physically.
0:02:19 – Speaker 1
Yes, we’re talking rest, yes, the kind where you’re quiet and still during the day, but also just sleep, and that is something I struggle with sleep. I have a lot of friends that struggle with getting really good rest and it’s an epidemic. I mean, in some states they have even said it’s a health epidemic, the lack of sleep for us and our kids.
0:02:37 – Speaker 3
Well, and it contributes to our stress levels. We covered stress and cutting on a previous show. If you guys have trouble with that, you can go watch those. But that all contributes to it, because we are so over-scheduled and we’re running a million different directions all the time that we just can’t get a break.
0:02:56 – Speaker 1
You know just breathe, and when we have high stress, that produces cortisone in our bodies, which makes it hard to lose weight, and then your pants don’t fit, and that’s stressful and you know what else?
0:03:04 – Speaker 3
You know what else? When I get stressed out and I’m over busy, guess what I do? You eat more. I eat bad junk, bad junk, and I’m living off caffeine because I’m so tired and I need more caffeine to make it through the day. It’s a vicious cycle.
0:03:18 – Speaker 1
It’s on all fronts health, social, like your relationships everything.
0:03:23 – Speaker 3
And then if exercising is not your thing, you know I mean. I mean I have some friends that they love to exercise.
0:03:29 – Speaker 1
My husband. He gets up at 3.15 in the morning because he loves it.
0:03:34 – Speaker 3
Okay, can I just have a 10th of that? I need it bottled up. I know I just need three times a week at 30 minutes of that. I wish I loved exercising, but I don’t, and what happens is when I’m busy I will top myself out of it Because it’s like the last thing.
0:03:49 – Speaker 1
There’s so much to do.
0:03:50 – Speaker 3
Well, and I come up with excuses not to do it. The things that I need to do, or reading my Bible, the things that are most important To my sanity, to my health, to be a good mom, to be a good wife, all those things I top myself out of it because, well, I’m too busy, like I’ve got all this stuff going on.
0:04:06 – Speaker 1
It’s a cycle. It’s a cycle, it’s a problem. We talk to a lot of moms and a lot of dads, but really a lot of moms. And I tell you what, lately I feel like I’ve heard this over and over mom’s telling me I just want to move away to the country, like pioneer woman, I just want to move out of the city and get away from it all. And I know we all feel that way, or a lot of us feel that way, and it’s not that we actually want to move and get away from it all and live off the grid in the trailer.
0:04:31 – Speaker 3
I would love to live off the grid. You do, yeah, that’s true, like my husband and I. It’s a dream of ours, like that’s where we’re gonna retire. That’s see a self-sufficient. We grow our own food, you’re gonna grow your own food. We don’t have to leave.
0:04:41 – Speaker 1
Have your own cattle and chickens. Oh, that sounds like heaven on earth. Well, and that’s good for you. Sister, I’ll come visit you. I am definitely a city girl, but you will hear me say I want to move away to the country, and I hear people saying that because most of the time, it’s not so much that they want to move away. We’re trying to get away from this schedule we’ve created. We’re trying to be escape artists.
0:05:04 – Speaker 3
Or or we have to talk about this, everything coming at us in social media there’s no rest because even when you’re at home on downtime, if you’re on social media, your mind is going to all the things that you’re seeing and hearing online and it’s stressful stuff, it’s violent stuff, it’s shootings, it’s taxing on your mind, it’s heartache and it’s like you can’t shut it off.
0:05:25 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s really a big problem and I really believe, like what we talked about, satan just truly has crept, especially into the middle class, into the middle class world and said if you are not busy, you’re missing something. It’s that FOMO fear of missing out. Fear of missing out If you’re not going to every camp and if your kid is not in a sport and playing an instrument and on a team and you’re taking an awesome vacation at least once a year, that you’ve planned out outfits and coordinating everything Like I do, that it’s so bad.
0:05:58 – Speaker 3
I’ve got spreadsheets, and why do I do that?
0:06:01 – Speaker 1
I create more work for myself, and then you come back and you need the vacation from your vacation. Yes, because you’re like oh, we just have much work.
0:06:07 – Speaker 3
We just spent all this money to go on a vacation and now you come home and you’re like okay, I need to sleep for four days, so kids, make your own lunch because I’m tired.
0:06:14 – Speaker 1
Yes, and it comes from again that whole concept of the. American dream that you have made it because you have enough money to do whatever you want and so you should.
You should say yes to everything and fill up your schedule, but if we really think about that for just a moment, there’s no breathing room, there’s no time to connect with your family, there’s no space to have that unplanned chat with your neighbor who stops by in tears, there’s no energy to be in the word because you’re at your wits end, and so you start losing all the things that you truly dreamed about having and being as an adult. And then what is the point?
0:06:50 – Speaker 3
Well, you may have the material things, but do you have the relationships that really matter? You know I share you’re talking a lot about our story and what I share in my book is, you know, we were chasing the American dream. We moved cross-country. I mean that takes a lot to get settled. Get a new house. We were building a house. You know all this stuff that went into that. A new career, a new job. I mean there’s extra hours because you’re proving yourself all over again to a whole new group of people and I mean all of that. You know compiles.
And then I had, on top of it, kind of taken my hands off the wheel. I like to use the word complacent. I had been kind of manipulated into this complacency of let’s just coast in this parenting thing right now, because all my priorities are over here, because I was so busy, you know, and on top of it I was adding play dates and you know saying yes to everything at the church, to volunteer, because, oh, I needed to get to know friends, which I know we all have to do that. But you say yes to so much and then you actually say no to your family and those times when they’re wanting to talk. You’re too tired to talk.
0:07:56 – Speaker 1
If you feel yourself which is me, I’ve had this talk with myself a lot lately if you feel yourself saying all the time we got to go, we got to go, we got to go more than what’s going on, what’s going on how you doing, then we’re probably too busy.
0:08:09 – Speaker 3
Oh, sister, oh, do you remember? Okay, so this is kind of personal. Kim had to call me out one day because we were in a meeting, a team meeting, and I was so stressed out because I was over scheduled, over busy, and I made a comment of we were looking ahead at the calendar and I said, okay, we’ll just get through the holidays and then this, then we’ll do this. And Kim was like whoa, red flag, red flag, we don’t just get through the holidays. But I was so in my mind, trying to figure out how we were gonna get through everything, that it was just like get to the next season, get to the next season, get to the next season. And that’s not how we should live our lives.
0:08:47 – Speaker 1
We’ll miss it and in the day to day, we miss the beauty and the gifts that God gives us in the day to day when we’re trying to look ahead and get past it instead of living in it. And that is something someone’s spoken to me that I have to be reminded of all the time, all the time. You know Genesis two, two through three. We all know this verse. By the seventh day, god had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a holy day. You know, god knew, before he even created man, that we would need rest. He knew he not only modeled it for us, but he set apart a designated time for us so that we couldn’t make excuses. He’s saying look, I know what you need and I’m giving you the okay for it. I’m giving you the space for it because you need it to be close to me.
0:09:35 – Speaker 3
You know, and if God of the universe, who spoke everything into existence, if he is saying, take a day to rest, I’m gonna take a day to rest. When we say we don’t have time, we’re acting like we’re better than God, like we are so busy and people need us so much more. It is a pride thing. Like I know better than he does what I need to do Exactly exactly, or I’m spread so thin that I know he could take a day off, but I can’t because I’m needed so much. Exactly, no.
0:10:04 – Speaker 1
It’s an easy trap. It’s a trap.
0:10:06 – Speaker 3
It’s an easy trap.
0:10:07 – Speaker 1
And here’s the other thing. It’s one of those that I like to call the socially acceptable traps, you know there’s so many of these socially acceptable traps that are really sin, but it has become such the norm that we celebrate them. We celebrate them and we say, yeah, it’s okay, we’re all busy Instead of holding each other accountable and helping each other and here’s the thing you can say yes to admirable things, yes, but it’s still saying no with your time, to your family.
0:10:37 – Speaker 3
Yes, this has been a process for me, kim, I can just tell you, because, you know, I went from stay at home mom now to I’m working full time. You know, with the release of the book, I just didn’t anticipate what this was gonna entail for me and my family. And it has been a process for us, because now we’re both juggling a full time job and parenting and speaking and traveling and all of that. And it’s new. It blindsided us and I can tell you. You know, a couple of weeks ago we had to get it in line.
We had some bad weeks and it was because we weren’t talking about it. We weren’t talking about okay, this is our new normal, because I love to be, you know, take care of everything in the house, to cook meals, to do the laundry, to clean, like I love to do that for my family. I can no longer do all of that and everything else I’m doing, but we had never had a conversation about okay, it looks different now and so we’re signing up for our normal activities, we’re juggling everything and we realize we’re not having time for each other.
0:11:41 – Speaker 1
You’re over here drowning thinking why is this so stressful we?
0:11:43 – Speaker 3
had to reevaluate. Yes, and so I. Just my advice is if you have a different dynamic going on in your family you know a life change, a job change, maybe a new job, whatever it is a different dynamic you need to talk through that. Re-establish your roles for each other, make sure each other knows okay, we’re way stressed out, so we gotta talk through things. We can’t just get snippy with each other, cause we’re always tired and busy.
0:12:10 – Speaker 1
We’ve been in the same season. Anyone who knows me is saying Kim, are you listening to your own show? Because they know how much I have on my plate.
0:12:18 – Speaker 2
Those accountability friends.
0:12:19 – Speaker 1
They’re like Kim you gotta listen to this podcast. I bet I’m gonna get a lot of messages about this one cause people who are near and dear to me are like wait a minute sister.
0:12:31 – Speaker 3
Hold her accountable?
0:12:33 – Speaker 1
Yeah, we. That’s the reason we’re doing this show, Cause my husband and I just had to set up what we call new norms. Same thing. And a big one is also maybe the outside’s not changing so much, but your kids like, as they change ages, their demands, their needs, everything is different, even just simple things, like my kids all of a sudden eat like 75 horses. It’s just more meal prep, more shopping. Things change with the slightest of change.
0:13:01 – Speaker 3
Well, and it affects your family and you’re figuring this out. The older they get, the more activities they’re in. I mean, my teen daughter has a a more active social life than I do and I’m driving her everywhere. You know, that’s a whole new thing. You’re a taxi driver, you’re I mean, a new role.
0:13:17 – Speaker 1
It is it’s a new role, so it’s. I think there are some obviously spiritual things that we need to talk about, as we have, and then there’s some real practical things that have really helped us and we’re having to revisit them, and I think that’s another thing we need to always say, just like we said, satan will bring it and bring it and bring it, and you’re like I’ve been, he’s been bringing it for 22 years the same way and I still fall for it, you know. But the thing is, it’s always good to revisit it, to go back to that point where you say, okay, I got it.
0:13:44 – Speaker 3
If you’re just now tuning in, this is nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630. The word nextTalk Radio and everything at our nonprofit is supported by our listeners. We keep kids safe online through donations To support our organization. Go to nextTalk.org and click on Give you know real rest, not being overwork, not being under-rested.
0:14:12 – Speaker 1
It plays a significant role in living the abundant life that God talks about so much in the Bible. And people have asked about that before. You know, people that I’ve met and I’m sharing my faith and they’re like what does that mean? That whole abundant life thing? And that’s part of it. You know, if we’re rested and we’re plugged in and we’re really seeing what God has for us and how he wants to use us, that’s abundant life. But if we’re completely worn out, that is not abundant life.
0:14:38 – Speaker 3
Well, and if we’re completely worn out, we don’t have the energy to be in tune to what God is saying, we don’t create that quiet space where we can hear the voice of God and tune everything else out. I mean that’s so important.
0:14:54 – Speaker 1
It’s so important because God calls us to be still in Psalm 46-10. He says it very clearly be still so that you can know that I’m God. You’ve got to be still so you can hear my voice. Be still, and if we are quiet and we’re more focused on him, then we become better at helping others, because when we are trying to juggle a million things, we are more self-focused Because we’re trying to figure it all out and then we can’t put our eyes and our time and our energy on other people.
0:15:19 – Speaker 3
Well, you know, there’s a great quote. I don’t know who said it, but somebody amazing said it you can’t pour from an empty cup.
0:15:26 – Speaker 1
So good, you can’t pour from an empty cup.
0:15:28 – Speaker 3
You know we have Holly on our team. Her husband is a pilot and she says she uses the example of the oxygen mask. You know they always tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first in the event of emergency. They do that because if you put it on your child first, you’re gonna run out of breath and not be able to help. So you have to put it on yourself first, then you help your kid.
We’ve got to take care of ourself. We’ve got to have time, quiet time, time to take a shower. That’s important. Okay, mums of littles, I know they’re walking in on your shower or you’re not getting any time, but you need some time to just take a shower.
0:16:06 – Speaker 1
Got to wash your hair, Kim. That’s what my friends say you need to wash your hair a little bit more, kim.
0:16:10 – Speaker 3
I know you like it when you wear it down, when I wear it down and people are like oh you have hair?
0:16:15 – Speaker 1
Oh, because I washed it, because I had a minute. I made a minute.
0:16:18 – Speaker 3
I should say you made a minute.
0:16:19 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I made a minute, it’s not gonna just happen.
0:16:22 – Speaker 1
You know another one. It’s so easy when you’re in the parenting stages of life to put all your focus on your kids. Oh, this is a big one. And this is a big one. Our hopes and dreams. They’re rekindled If we’re continually reminded that our creator is all powerful and he has us here for a purpose beyond what we think it is. And if we’re in tune with him and resting, we get rekindled and refueled and poured into by him about how he wants to use our passions. And that’s such a good place to be.
0:16:50 – Speaker 3
And you know what we got to sneak in a marriage plug right here too, because if all your focus is on the kids, one day they’re gonna grow up and leave and you’re gonna look at your spouse and be like who are you? Are you a stranger, have we?
0:17:02 – Speaker 1
grown apart. What do we do now?
0:17:03 – Speaker 3
It is the same thing with you and Jesus, too. If you’re not spending daily quiet time, you’re growing away and away and you’re hearing more of the world, more of the world, and one day you’re gonna wake up and be like I am so far, like I’m doing all these bad things that I never thought I would do, because you haven’t made time for that connection Between you and Jesus, you and your spouse and you and your kids.
0:17:24 – Speaker 1
Right on, that’s exactly right on. You know, one of the things that’s funny Breaching it over here, breaching it.
Sunday on the radio. Okay, so anyway, moving on to one that is so funny. It reminds me of like dieting. We’re like, oh, you know, I don’t wanna diet, I’m too tired, but you start to eat. Well, I shouldn’t say diet, Life change. You know good choices. They say, yeah, healthy habits, Healthy habits. You start doing those things and you start to feel better and then the more you want to have healthy habits, Like it’s that boomerang effect, Like the more you do it, the better you feel, the more you wanna do it. Same thing with the way that God is. When we spend that quiet time and rest and we are in the Word and we start to know His character better and we start to feel better about what is going on in our life and the direction he’s leading us, the more we crave Him and the more we are on the path he’s designed for us.
And we live a life that is abundant and peaceful. So the more we rest and the more he can pour into us, the easier it is to live that way.
0:18:22 – Speaker 3
Well, and I’m so glad you said that because also, the more we’re in tune to Him and we’re resting and we’re hearing His voice, I mean we’re just less likely to like go into crazy mom mode yes, go into, you know, say words that we really don’t want to say. All of that. We have more control over it. And you know what I’m more productive Like when I’m rested and I’m in tune with the spirit. I can get double the amount of stuff that I can get done in a day, sometimes probably triple If I’m just not sleeping, drinking a lot of caffeine in the cycle of busyness. It’s just you’re so much more productive when you’re rested.
0:19:00 – Speaker 1
You’re so right, you know. The other thing is it’s so important, not just for yourself, but just like everything we talk about here at nextTalk, we are modeling this for our kids.
And I always think you know, if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your children. If you can’t pull it together for you, then look at your babies and say I want you to live a more abundant life, and maybe that will be the precipice for change. And then here’s one that again all the people who know me are saying Kim, this is your message. If you don’t rest, sometimes he forces us to. I have been put down and laid out a few times in my life. Where I have been forced to rest, and you know, in that time is when I’ve heard his voice the loudest, because I haven’t had a choice but to lay and be still and be in the word all day long. And not that you have to be laying down and in the word all day long to have the kind of rest we’re talking about. But if you completely fly past that and there’s none of that in your life God loves us so deeply, he pulls us near and sometimes that means laying us down.
0:19:59 – Speaker 3
Yeah, it’s so good that you can. You know, coming from you, that is a word, because you’ve had to go through some health stuff, big health stuff.
0:20:10 – Speaker 1
Big scary.
0:20:12 – Speaker 3
Scary, almost dying health stuff almost dying, and for you to sit there and say God, you know God needed to get my attention. He didn’t do it because he hates me. He did it because he loves me and he needed me to hear him, hear his voice.
0:20:26 – Speaker 1
It reminds me so much of. Sometimes my kids are acting out just crazy town and you know I want to react in anger or frustration, but sometimes I realize I just need to pull them near and say you just need to lay down for a minute.
Like, force them to rest and I feel like that’s what Jesus has done in my life a few times. Like Kim, you are not getting it. I’m trying to show you and I’m trying to teach you and you’re just going and going and I just need you to rest for a minute. So this message is just for me as much as it is for everyone else. And you know we’ve got a lot of great scriptures on rest and we all need rest. Thank you, and we want to help you with that. If you would like all the scriptures, we won’t even have time to go through all of them. Text 44222. Text the word need rest. One word N-E-E-D-R-E-S-T need rest to 44222. And we will send you a list that you can print out or have on your phone of all these great scriptures to remind you to rest.
0:21:22 – Speaker 3
You know and let’s talk about. We talked about all the biblical reasons and listening to God. Let’s talk about some practical things that we can do in our family. Kim Like to balance all of this. You know, one of the things for me is I know, you know, I’m getting asked to speak a lot more, and some of that involves travel and it’s a new thing for us and my husband already has a busy career. We have two kids who are in a lot of activities, and so one thing that we’ve I don’t commit to any speaking engagement. One thing we’ve set up a guideline in our family is I don’t say yes to a speaking engagement without talking to my husband first.
Like we talk through that, we look on our calendar, we make sure we can juggle it all, because I don’t want to be saying yes to everything and then he’s over here saying, okay, this has to stop, because that’s not good for my family unit.
0:22:09 – Speaker 1
No, we do calendar night on Mondays.
0:22:11 – Speaker 3
This is a new thing.
0:22:12 – Speaker 1
We used to do it on the weekends, but we do want to rest now on the weekend. So we meet after dinner on Monday nights and we both bring out our calendars and we plan, and then we sometimes we’ll take things off as we’re planning. We’re like you know what? That just looks crazy, and so we’ll say we need to take something out or whatnot.
0:22:28 – Speaker 3
And let me just say you don’t have to go to every party you’re invited to.
0:22:32 – Speaker 1
I had a friend tell me maybe two or three years ago.
0:22:35 – Speaker 3
You don’t have to go to every party you’re invited to.
0:22:37 – Speaker 1
Yeah well, she said, if you wouldn’t invite them, if they’re not on your VIP list for your party, then you don’t need to be going to theirs. Just go to the very close inner circle parties or play dates or whatnot, because that’s enough, and you know what your inner circle will understand if you can’t.
0:22:52 – Speaker 3
I had a friend yesterday. He’s very much in my inner circle and our family was invited to their family’s house and I wanted to go so badly and I wanted to talk with her. But I did a workshop yesterday. I heard a lot of heavy stories the day before and I just thought I’m exhausted and my husband said you’re grouchy, I need you to take a nap.
I’ll go, I’ll take the kids take a nap, be refreshed when we come home. And I texted her and I said look, I really want to hang out with you today, but I’m exhausted and for my family I need to just take a nap. And your inner circle will high five you for that she was like I’m so proud of you, Like this is what you need to do. You’re setting a good example for all of us. That’s a good thing.
0:23:36 – Speaker 1
That’s a good friend. Another one is creating family guidelines, and these are things to help, just practical things that we have learned. One of our friends told us. They said we always take a season off from sports. We let our kids each choose one activity, like if you want to be in football or you want to be in theater, whatever, it is fine. But we’re going to take one season off and we adopted that and it has been so great.
So you have a season to rest or one volunteer commitment per month whatever it is, set up some family guidelines together and talk about family values. I have a home body. He needs downtime.
0:24:11 – Speaker 3
Yeah, introverts no. If you’ve got introverts in your family, they need that time, because we’re almost all introverted in our family. Yes, you need that.
0:24:18 – Speaker 1
I have a mix, and so we have to look at our week and we have to look at our activities and we have to schedule it so that there are times when there’s nothing and we’re just at home.
0:24:26 – Speaker 3
And listen to your kids If they’re begging to stay home in their pajamas. That should tell you something that just happened to us recently.
0:24:31 – Speaker 1
We canceled what we were doing. Good for you. We ate, dinner, played outside, and you just have to be aware of what’s going on in your family, be willing to say no, have a designated downtime. We try to do that on Sundays. We try to go to church on Saturday night and then have nothing on Sundays and then reevaluate often Again. Satan will try the old tricks. So reevaluate often. Is this working? Do we need to change it? How can we bring more rest to our family?
0:24:56 – Speaker 3
Matthew 11, 28, and 30 says come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will give rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.
0:25:13 – Speaker 1
Plug into him he’s telling you. I will teach you how to rest For our wrap-up segment today. A couple of points. Number one recognize that being over-scheduled keeps us from God’s best from our lives. Number two kids will model our habits, model balance and rest for them. And number three set up healthy family boundaries to create space for downtime.
0:25:31 – Speaker 2
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am 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
