Anne Lamott: Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of...

You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

Anne Lamott

grief hurt heart

Oh, my God. What if you wake up some day, and you're 65 or 75, and you never got your novel or memoir written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools or oceans because your thighs were jiggly or you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen.

Anne Lamott

nice ocean kids

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

Anne Lamott

including minutes ifs

Close friendships are one of life's miracles - that a few people get to know you deeply, all your messy or shadowy stuff along with the beauty and sweetness, and they still love you. Not only still love you, but love you more and more deeply. I would do anything for my closest friends, and they would do almost anything for me, and that is about as spiritual a truth as you can get.

Anne Lamott

spiritual love-you friendship

Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, 'Well, isn't that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I'll figure out what we're going to do about your stuff.

Anne Lamott

prayer god water

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

Anne Lamott

autism wisdom inspirational

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Anne Lamott

god inspirational life

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

Anne Lamott

creating trying people

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

Anne Lamott

return light faith

Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.

Anne Lamott

grief prayer believe

Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.

Anne Lamott

struggle jesus thinking

Hope begins in the dark.

Anne Lamott

healing dark inspirational

Some people have a thick skin and you don’t. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams.

Anne Lamott

pain dream heart

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.

Anne Lamott

badass women mistake

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

Anne Lamott

tribes nuts reason

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Anne Lamott

acceptance running commitment

You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed in certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His or Her child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily, like I love you...like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.

Anne Lamott

crazy lonely children

You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born.

Anne Lamott

writing song memories

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

Anne Lamott

knowing dog sides

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

Anne Lamott

gratitude heart mean

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).