The Beauty in Our Brokenness

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. Instead of discarding pieces of a broken bowl, the fragments are put back together with liquid gold. There are no attempts to hide the damage. The pottery becomes enhanced and valued as a one of a kind work of art.

We can apply this as a philosophy in our lives. When we experience trauma and moments of struggle that leave us feeling broken and worthless, we can find healing. The liquid gold helping to put us back together might include connections to supportive people or even animals, tools to help calm our nervous system, releasing emotion through our body, expressing our true self through creative outlets, or therapy to help us reconnect to ourselves and find growth and wisdom in our trauma.

We might remind ourselves that our cracks and brokenness are part of our own unique perspective, creativity, strengths and beauty. No one else in the world will see it exactly as we do or offer exactly what we do. And we might also find strength in our healing, just as bones that break and heal and skin that is cut and forms scars become stronger than the original bone and skin. So in our lives, in the inevitable series of breaking and then healing and breaking again and then healing, we can become stronger and more uniquely beautiful just like a Kintsugi pottery bowl.

Betsy Bryan, Ph.D., LPCC