12 truths I learned from life and writing | Anne Lamott

Anne states the first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is filled with heartbreak and beauty, and many other things that are swirled together.

Help is an inside job. If it's someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the answer anyway. Our help is usually not helpful, but toxic. Help is a sunny side of control and we should stop helping so much.

Radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out into the atmosphere from you. It’s a huge gift to the world.

Everything that happens to you is yours to tell. Every writer writes terrible drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. Writers do it by prearrangement with themselves, they do it as a debt of honor, and they tell stories that come through them one day at a time.

Grace, or water wings. It is what changes us, heals us, and heals our world. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but doesn’t leave you where it found you.

Laugher, because it helps us breathe again and again. It also helps us give back to ourselves. This gives us faith in life and each other.

Wow and yikes. You will never get over these losses and you’re not supposed to. Their absence will be a lifelong homesickness. Death is as sacred as birth.