“I’m falling apart.” “I feel so broken.” “My life is in pieces.” “I’m at my breaking point.”

The journey from brokenness to resilience seems like a long way to go for some, especially now. The last year of loss, disruption, stagnation, stress, chaos, discrimination, uncertainty, and/or monotony has left many of us feeling scattered or in pieces. I recently completed a workshop where we broke a bowl and literally glued it back together to represent our own journey through pain and healing.

You’ve probably seen this concept floating around social media used as a metaphor in this way. It’s called Kintsugi.

So what is it and why should I care about another glossy metaphor?

The Japanese art of Kintsugi has been intriguing to me for quite awhile. It is a practice and an art of repairing broken pottery with gold, thereby increasing its value. In such a perfectionistic “cancel culture,” something that’s more valuable when repaired is a little bit of an oxymoron. Reiterating how shattered all of our expectations were— and thus the trajectory of our lives in March of 2020— this workshop was all the more timely.

Kintsugi is about repair. We've all felt broken at one point or another, when people hear “self-care,” there’s an eye roll and a list of excuses about why there’s no time for bubble baths and Whole 30. Being broken feels sharp: it’s the piercing jab in your throat when you’re trying not to cry, it’s the pounding headache the morning after drinking too much, it’s the slammed door to passive aggressively communicate your pain; when we break into pieces it can feel like we lose who we are. We all have a story that’s being written whether broken or not. We can work to identify what our pieces are in order to fill in the cracks of our broken vessel. We can learn to appreciate all parts of ourselves, notice them and integrate them in order to feel more centered and grounded.

My personal experience with Kintsugi

The process of breaking a bowl, decorating the pieces, and repairing it was more emotional and moving than I’d imagined. Surprisingly, a 7 hour virtual workshop facilitated by Christa Brennan, LPC, LCAT, ATR-BC, CADC, with colleagues around the country felt more intimate than you’d think. The other folx in the workshop were able to witness my process by holding the emotional space, and vice versa.

The Beginning

The facilitator had shipped our bowls to us prior to the workshop with instructions. When I first saw my bowl I didn’t like it. It was small (like me), and the outside is ridged, which makes it more challenging to decorate (perfectionism anyone?) Even more, when I signed on to the workshop, I found that other participants had different bowls! They had larger ones, smooth ones, ones with holes to hang like a planter, etc. I immediately went to my refrain of processing my feelings about my size and past shame triggers, trying to reframe my thoughts and feelings. I’ve had to work to accept that I’m so short that you don’t really need to ask how tall I am. The fact that I’m so small that my feet don’t touch the floor sometimes when I sit in a large chair. My bowl was reminding me of that. It was about to remind me of a lot more.

The Messy Middle

When it came time to take a hammer to our bowls, it was exciting but anxiety provoking. I have never considered myself “broken,” so the literal metaphor wasn’t totally landing. The hammer did feel ominous, however, and the act of doing something so against social norms was unsettling. My son was excited to watch this destruction take place, but it was ultimately anticlimactic for him as pieces didn’t go flying across the room. It was much more sacred than dramatic. We were not instructed how many times to hit the bowl. All we were told was to stabilize the bowl by placing it upside down and holding the bottom when impacting it with the hammer.

When I hit it the first time, it broke into about 3 pieces. I hit it again and it broke a bit more. I hit it again and it did not break. Again. It did not break. Again. Still intact. This is why RESPECT is screaming out of my bowl. I really felt like the bowl was making a statement: Respect me. I’m strong. I am not going to break. Courage is on that piece as well. Courage is brave and afraid. Courage is what is needed to survive vulnerability to get through the messy middle to find joy, connection and love. There are many little tokens and quotes included in my decoration of the pieces; too many to get into here. I’ll try to summarize a few of them.

Repair and Reflection

I am not a jigsaw puzzle person, I’m not that patient. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to put the pieces together, but there were many tiny jagged pieces near the point of impact that took me more time than I thought it would to fit together. This also felt symbolic.

At the breaking point is an eye, which represents the Third Eye Chakra of intuition. Learning to trust my intuition has built self-trust and self-awareness. It is so foundational to me, which is also why I wanted it in that spot at the bottom. This intuition and listening was how I was able to discern that I needed to stop hammering my bowl and respect it.

The lightbulb symbolizes many things. One of them is around being seen. When we are brave, we are showing up and being seen. It also reminds me of Amanda Gorman’s quote: For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. That resonates with me to my core, which is why that quote stands alone opposite the light bulb. This breakdown of meaning goes on and on.

Other participants decorated theirs very differently. Radically different. Some put a lot of meaning and symbolism into it, some did not. We are all individual and on our own journeys. Thus we have our own bowls.

Do you want to do your own Kintsugi?!

It is so moving, transformational and exciting, it feels impossible not to follow the energy and enthusiasm this creates in me.

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