Tag: Audre Lorde

---

Personal Reflection

We like to believe someone will notice when we’re tired.
That someone will step in when we’ve had enough.

Sometimes they do.

Most of the time, they don’t.

Not because people are cruel.
Because everyone is carrying something of their own.

And that means learning to take care of yourself isn’t selfish.

It’s necessary.

There’s a strange guilt that comes with self-care.

Like you should always be doing more.
Helping more.
Giving more.

Especially if you’re used to being the one people depend on.

You start to feel like rest is weakness.
Like slowing down means you’re letting someone down.

But running yourself into the ground doesn’t make you stronger.
It just makes you empty.

And when you’re empty, you don’t have much to give anyone anyway.

Audre Lorde didn’t talk about self-care like it was comfort.

She talked about it like survival.

Because sometimes it is.

Taking care of yourself isn’t stepping away from life.

It’s making sure you’re still here to live it.

---

Reflective Prompt

Where in your life have you been giving more than you can afford without admitting you need rest?

---

Personal Reflection

Some people move fast because they’re confident.
Others move slowly because they’re unsure.

But deliberate is something else entirely.

Deliberate means you know what you’re doing — even when your hands shake a little while you do it.

It means the step forward is chosen, not accidental.

Fear doesn’t disappear just because you decide to act.
Anyone who says it does is either lying or selling something.

Fear stays.
It sits in your chest.
It whispers worst-case scenarios while you’re trying to think clearly.

The difference is whether fear gets to decide.

Audre Lorde’s words don’t sound loud to me.
They sound controlled. Measured. Like someone who already understands the cost of speaking, writing, existing in a world that isn’t always built for you — and chooses to stand anyway.

Deliberate isn’t the absence of fear.

It’s refusing to let fear hold the pen.

Maybe courage isn’t charging forward without doubt.

Maybe it’s walking forward with doubt sitting right beside you —
and not stopping.

---

Reflective Prompt
Where in your life do you need to move with intention instead of waiting to feel fearless?

---

Personal Reflection:
Deliberate doesn’t mean reckless. It means I’ve counted the cost, felt the fear chewing at my edges, and moved anyway. Too often we wait for bravery to arrive like a clean shirt—we want to be fresh, unshaken, presentable. But courage is never neat. It’s raw, jagged, stitched together with trembling hands. To be deliberate is to move with intention even when your knees want to buckle. Afraid or not, you step. That’s the whole point.

---

Reflective Prompt:
Where in your life do you need to stop waiting for fear to leave before you act, and instead choose to move with intention through it?