“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
— Audre Lorde
The Courage to Begin
Fear is never far away.
It sits at the edges of ambition and truth — whispering, “You cannot.”
We live in a time that rewards performance but punishes authenticity.
A time that asks us to shrink for acceptance,
to speak softly when our truths could shake the room.
Yet as Audre Lorde taught, courage isn’t the absence of fear — it’s the decision to move through it anyway.
In my recent episode of Seeds of Fire, Mirrors of Truth, I returned to this quote from Lorde — echoed unexpectedly in the 1999 film The Best Man, where a character invokes her words at a moment of vulnerability.
That scene — tender, raw, and deeply human — reminded me how easily fear disguises itself as caution,
and how power often begins with simply choosing to act.
What Happens When We Dare to Be Powerful
To dare to be powerful is not an act of ego.
It is an act of alignment.
Power, in Lorde’s world, is not domination but wholeness —
the integration of every identity and contradiction that society teaches us to compartmentalize.
She wrote, spoke, and lived as Black, woman, lesbian, feminist, and mother —
identities that were often in conflict with one another in the world she inhabited.
Yet rather than divide herself to belong, she embraced the fullness of her being.
Each part sharpened her vision:
Her Blackness taught her to see where history hides its cruelties.
Her womanhood revealed how patriarchy disguises its power.
Her queerness showed her that love itself can be political.
Her motherhood tethered her to the future — giving revolution a heartbeat and a name.
When we dare to be powerful, we stop asking permission to exist.
We define ourselves on our own terms.
And in that moment of self-definition — however fleeting — fear loses its hold.
How We Turn Fear Into Courage
Fear is not the enemy; it is a messenger.
It shows up whenever we’re near the edge of something transformative.
Lorde understood that fear thrives in silence — in the unspoken words that live in our throats.
“Your silence will not protect you,” she wrote, reminding us that unvoiced truth becomes its own form of suffocation.
Courage, then, begins in small acts of honesty.
Naming what we feel.
Asking hard questions.
Holding eye contact when the world looks away.
We turn fear into courage not by erasing it but by using it — as Lorde did — as raw material for clarity.
Her essay The Uses of Anger reframes anger not as destruction, but as information.
“Anger is loaded with information and energy.” — Audre Lorde
That line is both a revelation and a roadmap.
Courage is what happens when fear finds purpose —
when we recognize that our trembling is simply the body remembering that something important is at stake.
To Live as Both Love and Fire
Audre Lorde’s life reminds us that resistance is not only confrontation — it is also creation.
Her fire was fueled by love:
a love fierce enough to name injustice,
and tender enough to believe that we could be better.
To live as both love and fire is to understand that passion and compassion are not opposites.
They are the same force expressed differently —
one destroys illusion; the other rebuilds what’s true.
In a world obsessed with control, this balance is revolutionary.
To be loving without losing our edge.
To burn without consuming ourselves.
To hold others accountable while still believing in their humanity.
Lorde’s fire was never just for her time.
It was a map for ours —
a reminder that the most radical act we can perform
is to live fully, love fiercely, and tell the truth even when our voices shake.
An Invitation to Reflect
As we navigate our own intersections — personal, professional, and communal — Lorde’s question lingers:
What will you do with your fear?
What will you create with your anger?
How will you dare to be powerful — and use that power in the service of your vision?
We do not get to choose the times we live in.
But we do get to choose how we burn —
with rage,
with truth,
with love enough to remake the world.
✨ Closing Thought
From the mirror,
to the fire,
to the seed —
this is the journey of resistance.
May Lorde’s fire stay with you —
to challenge, to illuminate,
and to call forth the courage already waiting within.
📘 Author Bio
Gary Mobley is a leadership coach, business strategist, and host of The Mirror and the Window — a podcast exploring how the words of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler continue to shape our understanding of truth, power, and collective transformation.
Check out the Moreel Pics and Words website, a space where photography, storytelling, and visual artistry meet. Or if you are interested in strategy and coaching, take a look at his website, Propel Strategic Solutions, for more information and scheduling.
Share
Moreel Pics+Words 
Leave a comment