“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.  Continuing the discussion on the importance of doing/belief so we can do, is this beauty of a quote.  In order to take those first steps we need to have belief, and we need to believe enough to take those first steps.  While this may seem like a contradiction, the truth is we need to know ourselves and have enough certainty in both what we can do and what we are trying to do that we push past fear and dare to embrace our power.  Many of us are scared of our power because of what it implies: there is a lot of work to maintain power once we start a movement like that.  It is difficult to stop a moving cart by pushing it.  But one thing that eases this fear and allows us to embrace our power is clarity.  When we have clarity and direction, it is easier to develop that vision and understand what it is we are looking to accomplish, what the goal is.  Fear dissipates when we take action and builds momentum for our power.  The more we develop an idea, the more it changes us and what we can do.  We learn more and we create more and we step more into our power as we become more confident in who we are and our ability to bring our vision to life.  All it takes is the first step.

I think the use of the word “dare” in this quote is especially poignant.  So many of us don’t have enough conviction in our idea or in our own power that we don’t think it’s worth it to even start.  The truth is those ideas do have power we just don’t have enough clarity on where we are going with them to believe in them and develop them further.  We don’t always have to know the exact end goal, but we do need to know where we want to go with this.  We need to have an idea.  Daring to be powerful suggests that we are brave and going against the norm somehow.  In many cases that’s true: in order to do something new, we must do something new and that kind of exposure (for lack of a better word) always means we are showing our vulnerability.  And that’s ok.  We can develop the power of clarity as we move through this and we often can’t learn to do something new without vulnerability.  Like learning to walk or fly, we have to develop the power, the strength, and the skill to learn to balance and trust our own legs/wings. When we have a vision/idea/belief, we have a purpose to keep us moving and developing that thought se we can see it through to the best use for all, to be of service to all.  To make change, dare to be great, dare to be vulnerable, dare to be who we are and let the magic unfold–and our strength is magical at eliminating fear and helping us take those first steps. Uncertain and shaking, power moves us forward regardless, and wonderful things happen.