Kintsugi – Golden Scars

Are you familiar with the Japanese art of kintsugi – 金継ぎ- mending broken items, usually pottery, with gold? The word means ‘golden joinery’ and it links with the concepts of wabi-sabi (侘寂), an eastern view that finds beauty in damage and imperfection, and mushin ( 無心 “no mind”), which embraces non-attachment and acceptance of change.

In kintsugi, broken ceramics are repaired using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, or occasionally silver or platinum. The artist highlights rather than hides the damage, treating any imperfection as part of the object’s history and life, becoming even more precious through the damage and repair. It is a powerful symbol and philosophy for living life by accepting our failings, our broken parts, loving ourselves as we are, helping to heal ourselves and value ourselves.

Some worry that this celebration of past hurtful experiences can gloss over the pain and damage that trauma can cause, and while this may be true to some extent, in fact, we must remember that we cannot erase the past. We all have painful struggles, some a great deal more than others, but the western attitude of ‘throwing away’ imperfection encourages us to try to deny the past, to push away our hurts, to not bother processing them, because by having damaging, traumatic experiences somehow makes us less valuable. Kintsugi helps us think the opposite – our pasts hurt, yes, but we are no less valuable people for that pain. Celebrating an imperfection does not mean looking at it with superficial joy and pretending that it did not hurt. It means recognising the hurt, holding it with compassion, making a promise to yourself not to deny that pain has happened, to acknowledge it as part of yourself and, moreover, to heal it.

That said, it is true, too, that some traumas never heal and we remain permanently damaged and changed from them – but the point of kintsugi is not thinking that this is necessarily a joyful thing in itself, that we should feel happy that we have struggles or that painting a pretty shiny line over pain makes it all ok again. These broken pots have very clearly been broken, but the artist has not tried to make the pot what it once was. The pot instead becomes something new. The point instead is that you, the broken pot, are still worthwhile, scars and all, no matter what you or your life look like now, and even if you never heal.

Place your hand on your heart.

Say to yourself, “I love and accept myself exactly as I am, flaws, scars and all. I love myself despite my imperfections, my pain, my struggles. I am worthwhile.

Diana Bebby