It gives back time. For fourteen-time Grammy Award winning artist, Alicia Keys, give back is one of her ways to “feels good.”
Mother of a handsome boy, named Egypt who has “the most perfect eyes and beautiful nose, the sweetest lips and skin so soft and kissable!” through WebMD shares her “balance.”
“Life is balance. It’s all a balance,” Keys says. “And if there’s something you’re thinking about, and it’s something you really want in your life, then you will — you’ll do it.”
Keys is a 30-years-old woman with so many capabilities and willing, and she lives her life to feeling good, because so much to be thankful for in life. Her union to music producer, rapper and entrepreneur Swizz Beatz, 33. Here are some ways Keys “feels good:”
Be grateful. “No matter what’s happening in the world, every day is a brand new breath, a brand new chance, a brand new path to feeling good,” the singer says. “I take every opportunity to live, and I’m so grateful for every day — even more grateful now that I’m a mother and wife with such a strong foundation and with such a beautiful family. I see how phenomenal life can be.”
Give back. “The most incredible thing is to change a child’s life. We have to ask, what kind of life can these kids have without their parents?” she says, referring to the 16.6 million children orphaned by AIDS worldwide. “It’s incredible what the medicine will do and how it will turn lives around.”
Love yourself first. “If you can’t love yourself, how can you take care of others?” asks Keys. “Watching what you put into your body and eliminating anything that could possibly hurt you in any way are extremely important.” During her pregnancy, Keys says she “made more of an effort because you know it’s not just you in there — whatever you’re eating, the baby is eating, too. I did yoga, I love to run, and with Egypt I continue to be healthy in what I eat, what I feed him, and how I exercise. It makes me feel better!
“It’s really so important to care for yourself first, then you can give your love to everyone else.”
Feel rich with love because that’s capital base that will never run out, which need to be rained and issued shared by all people.
Love is the underlying when Keys signed on in 2003 as co-founder of Keep a Child Alive with Blake. It began when she’s touring to South Africa for the first time and found the massive scale of suffering among the world’s children.
She witnessed AIDS orphan and widows across that continent struggling to survive; babies and kids of all ages battling the ravages of the disease they’d inherited from their infected parents and the elderly who poor and often incapacitated themselves, caring for their dead children’s offspring because no one else was left to do the job.
“At the time, I didn’t have a child, but I was empathetic to these young people I met [in Africa], so close to my age. It really struck me how I had to pay attention. What if I was 15 going through what these kids are going through, and nobody paid attention? To have to deal with all the things a teenager has to deal with, on top of being the ‘parent’ and breadwinner, and putting food on the table for younger brothers and sisters who might be 3, or 7, or 10…it wasn’t about how impossible it was, but, rather, if I can help one person, five people, 10 people, 100, 200, 100,000 people…that’s what’s real.”
Today, she has a handsome bundle of joy, Egypt, who was celebrating his first birthday this past October, and learn deeper love in motherhood.
“Motherhood is a billion times better than I expected, and I already expected it to be great,” she says
“It’s all the things everyone ever said, but you don’t know it until you’re there. It’s a really special time, and I feel so honored that I get to help somebody in this world find his wings, and navigate and learn happiness, and be loved. Actually, he’s helping me learn, because I’m smarter now. He’s awesome! I’m having a ball!”
How can she balance between her creative side and taking care the baby and husband? Keys juggles between work and family just like so many working mother, with so many additional activities, such as her ongoing activism in KCA (Keep a Child Alive), her recording career (her breakout album –Songs in Minor– was just re-release to celebrate its 10th anniversary), act career (she was last seen opposite Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson in The Secret Life of Bees, 2008) and she produces (the play Stick Fly to Broadway this winter)
Add also director to her additional activities. In October, the Lifetime Network aired Five, a film about five women’s lives, all touched by cancer. Keys was tapped to direct one of the five interconnected segments, along with Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore, Penelope Spheeris, and Patty Jenkins.
“I feel like I’m more balanced than I’ve been in my life, actually,” she says. “I felt a lot less balanced about five years ago. More than ever, I consider everything I do now, and make sure it’s something I can’t live without and something I believe in. There has to be a powerful reason to do it, one that makes me feel great.”
“There are a lot of things I can’t do now. Having my son and a family, that’s my barometer, when before I was maybe more inclined to say ‘yes’ and do more — and then be super-exhausted and overspent.”
