Kintsugi

The ancient Japanese art of kintsugi — which repairs broken ceramics with gold to make them stronger and more beautiful.

Translating literally as “golden joinery”, this beautiful concept from Japanese history is now considered an important art form, but it also teaches us to embrace the beauty in our imperfections. Kintsugi reminds us that something can break and yet still be beautiful, and that, once repaired, it is stronger at the broken places. This is an incredible metaphor for healing and recovery from adversity or challenge. There is a beautiful quote by Leonard Cohen that says, “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Kintsugi encourages us to live a full, rich life because we should not afraid of the things that might break us. Just as a ceramic is delicate, beautiful and strong, so are we. And just as ceramics can break, so too can they be repaired. “Ceramics and life can break into a thousand pieces, but that should be no reason to stop living life intensely, working intensely and keeping alive all our hopes and dreams,” says Navarro. “Adversity is nothing more than a challenge, so do some training to overcome it.”

The loss of a job, a divorce, a serious accident — can, with hindsight, be a powerful motive for change and the chance of a new, happier, more deeply lived life.

Realisation is that pain awakens you and makes you feel alive. It will remind you of what is important and how without darkness, light cannot exist.”

The real power of kintsugi lies in the beauty of both what you have lost and what you have gained. Kintsugi shows us that scars and breaks are important. We shouldn’t be looking to cover them up, but instead recognise and acknowledge the part they have played in shaping us, and the work we have done to fix them. .
This is true of pottery, and it is true of people. Like the golden fault lines running through kintsugi, just as we are broken, we can be repaired — and the manner of that repair, the learning in that growth, becomes a strong and beautiful part of who we are.
As people, the things in life that are sent to try us can also be the things that truly make us. They create golden threads of experience that run like fault lines across our souls, pushing us to extremes so that we emerge bolder, wiser and more beautiful for the healing we have done. We humans are delicate. There are bound to be things in life that will knock us down. Making us susceptible to breaks and but we need to discover how to pick up the pieces and repair what may have been damaged in your life, embracing the emotional scars is what makes our life beautiful. They are proof that you have suffered; let them remind you that you are strong.