Choosing who to vote for or how to vote on initiatives is about creating the kind of future you want. Making those decisions isn’t easy, and it certainly won’t always go your way, but choosing not to participate means your voice doesn’t get heard at all. Your voice matters.

When I have to answer questions about me, I can feel my mind start to panic. When I feel people's attention on me, I can't deal with it. I answer with the least amount of words and try to change the subject as quickly as I can.

A homebody through and through, I was deeply averse to anything outside of my comfort zone. The only time I ever moved away from home was for college, and even then, I followed my best friend, so a piece of home was really just a top bunk away.

For some of us, the world feels like it has come to a stop. We’re at a standstill just waiting to see what life on the other side of a global pandemic will feel like. Will things return to normal, or will a new normal take its place, forcing us to adapt and change — for the second time in 2020? It felt like a great question to address inside Illuminate, our writing community.

Do you know what your time is worth? Even more, do you have a vision for how you TRULY want to spend your time? For many working mothers/women; we work because provision is needed. It can become a rat race, always striving and never winning.

In the same way a gardener tends to their garden is how one must nurture their own heart, spirit, and soul to grow with the ever- changing elements and challenges.

Remind yourself often that nothing is purely good or bad. Just because you’ve spent a few minutes/hours/years in a subjectively inefficient way doesn’t make them a waste.

My reasons for being productive are all the things I want to do in my own life. You have to know why it is that you want to get things finished, instead of just trying to do things without a purpose.

Most people assume that because I’m an artist, I have this unconditional outflow of creativity. The reality is quite the opposite. Most years have been devoid of creativity as I’ve come to know it.

I am more than a wife. More than a mother. There are pieces of me that have been sitting dormant in my mind for years, itching to work their way out and become part of me. Now that they are emerging, the hard work of figuring out who I am and how to make the pieces of me fit together is just beginning.

As I became engrossed in the lives of people living their dreams, I thought, Why not me? And as I spent my days building someone else’s passion, I sobbed, Why not mine?

Over the years the balance of our lives, and my life in particular, has gotten skewed, then righted, and gone askew again. Over and over again. Every time I find myself spiraling, I examine what in my life I can control, what I can fix, and what practical steps I need to take to regain balance.

Motherhood was my main role, and the responsibility of it was deeply ingrained in my identity. I suddenly discovered, however, that it was not my only role. Also, I wanted more, and there were dreams outside of my children that I needed to invest in.

I’m sure it’s true – you ARE busy, but so is everyone else! Our society at large has placed ‘busyness’ as a status symbol. What kind of status is yet to be seen?

I was 11 years old when my father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I remember it clearly. The pink shirt I was wearing. My mother sitting me down on the sofa repeating what the doctor had said, “This is curable! If you get cancer, this is the one you want! They’ll take out his thyroid and he will be OK!”

Many highly successful people have said they don’t believe in the idea of balance. While we can certainly debate that, I believe balance is less about finding a perfect split between your priorities, and more about knowing how to find your personal sense of stillness. Finding calm in the chaos doesn’t have to mean that you meditate for 20 minutes a day. For some, calm might mean singing in the shower, hitting the gym, or movie night. Your calm is what you make it.