Dusk, Night, Dawn

Sharing my learnings from the book, Dusk, Night, Dawn by Anne Lamott

Dusk, Night, Dawn by Anne Lamott

In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad newspiles up—from climate crises to daily assaults on civility—how can we cope? Where, she asks, “do we start to get our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?”

We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity.

• When the world outside seems scarier every day and the news gets grimmer by the minute, how do you hold yourself together and summon the strength to carry on? And how do you cope with past traumas that bubble up to the surface at the worst of times? The easiest and most obvious place to start is with yourself, accepting your shortcomings and embracing your imperfect nature, before turning outward.
• You can start to recover your faith in life by waking up to the present.
• Real intimacy means seeing and being seen. the fear of being seen probably stems from our families. Intimacy is scary because it’s loaded with the potential for loss and rejection. The catch is, the people who love you are going to see this stuff anyway. But this intimacy is a great gift because by showing who you truly are and letting yourself be loved, you’re learning how to be lovable. That is, to love yourself.
• By changing where you focus your attention, you begin to change your heart. If you can lean into the good – if you can try to be less of an asshole from the bottom of your heart – you create a shift in focus that can transform you at your core.
• It can get tiresome carrying around all those old hurts. But if you focus your attention on doing something good – like being more understanding, more tolerant, and more patient – then forgiveness comes naturally. And for each little bit of forgiveness, you’ll find you get a little bit of peace, which in turn will help you to become more aware of the beauty around you.
• No matter how bad things get, you always have enough to keep going.
• While it might feel like we’re living in pretty dark times, darkness doesn’t last forever. And since you know that the darkness won’t last forever, you can choose to use it as a respite and slip into the comfort of shadow.
• During hard times, when it’s dark, people’s best selves come out, stupid resentments are put aside, and friendship and service are offered instead. Because that’s the beauty of dark times – they reveal what still works perfectly: candles, cake, friendship, and love.
• love is a mirror that reflects back to us our own beauty.