Words that express concepts
All of us develop scars throughout our lives, but being broken or wounded is never a bad thing; it is -in fact- part of being alive. When we are broken, the possibility of choosing to mend our fragmented parts is always present; these scars can be the birth of something new.
When things are shaky and nothing is working, we may find ourselves in a very vulnerable place, that can lead us to either shut down and feel resentful, or touch that pulsating fragility. We may find ourselves in a place like this because of an illness, death, because we are experiencing a sense of loss, or we have some sort of trauma, or maybe our inner child needs to be healed.
When things fall apart, perhaps we feel we are losing our grip and are no longer able to maintain things as they were. Our familiar sense of self may be gradually eroded by events we cannot not avoid. We may feel lost, as though everything is disintegrating. Our life may become tight and fearful as we struggle to protect ourselves. Nonetheless, the more we contract, the more we fill our world with stress and tension, the more we feel insecure and fear change. There is less and less room to move; less time; less actual freedom; less real personal space.
Holding on at these times does not seem to be the answer, nor is taking some form of anesthetic to cover up the reality of what we are experiencing; but rather to courageously begin opening and releasing the tendency to contract and tighten around fear. In a contracted space we lose relationship to the innate spaciousness that is present in all of us. If we could open it, if we can touch in that pulsing fragility, we might realize we are in the verge of something.
Being able to stay with that shakiness, touching our fragility, staying with a broken heart, with a feeling of hopelessness may be the path to our healing. In this path, we should not fear a breakdown, which it is certainly stigmatized in our society, as breaking down frees us from the past and the solid, stuck history we have become imprisoned within.
We may feel great loneliness and despair as we enter this process. We may feel intense grief and sadness as we mourn the loss of the past security and dreams of a life we thought were stable. In this place we may need to face something in ourselves that has been left unaddressed. We must face it willingly and openly and surrender to its reality. It may be a deep childhood wound; it may be facing our mortality, our aloneness. We may find something we have been holding on to that we need to finally let go; a lost loved one, a dream, an ideal.
In this journey, we need to respect what we are going through, appreciate the significance of times of transition, death, and transformation. Liberation comes when we are able to touch the depth of our pain, allow ourselves to surrender, and reemerge transformed. Through this healing process, a healthier, flexible, fluid and permeable sense of self may begin to emerge; just as a Kintsugi piece of art is recreated.
Kintsugi is a Japanese word that can be literally translated as “joining with gold”. It is a century-old art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, built on the idea that in accepting flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. It is part of a broader philosophy of embracing the beauty of human flaws. Kintsugi offers us the lesson of overcoming adversity, of accepting the beauty of human fragility and reminds us that nothing stays the same forever.
So, when we are broken and decide to put together fragments of ourselves, let’s join them with the gold of loving-kindness toward ourselves, replacing wounded concepts about ourselves with healthier, more loving and self-accepting ones. In this process, we can develop the awakening of a fearlessly compassionate attitude toward our own pain and that of the others.