Life is nothing if not without its challenges. And that is normal.
But if you’ve ever had a broken heart, been ripped to shreds by an unexpected verbal attack, or felt shattered by someone else’s decision, did you think of yourself at that time as feeling metaphorically ‘broken’?
Recovery and finding a way to move forward from all that pain can be hard, but what if that process resulted in personal growth, a greater appreciation of what beauty is and reshaped your thinking?
Celebrating Imperfection
Twenty of us were sitting in a light-filled workspace. We each had an apron to protect our clothes and had been provided with a rather scary-looking toolkit of items, including a lethal-looking scalpel we would need for our repair work.
We were then invited to choose a ceramic bowl or cup, place it in a paper bag and hit it with a hammer to break the pottery.
No, this wasn’t the setting of a Greek Tavern, where everyone was enjoying a plate smashing time, we were there to learn more about the art of Kintsugi, of restoration and repair.
When something like a special piece of china or glass breaks, it can make us sad.
But rather than putting it in the bin, the Japanese art of Kintsugi seeks to mend the piece and in the process make it more beautiful than before it was broken.
Traditionally gold, silver or platinum was used.
In our workshop, we used a special lacquer glue combined with powdered gold mica.
This artform is an extension of the Japanese philosophy of wabu-sabi, where beauty is seen in the incomplete.
As we sat engrossed in our task, painstakingly putting the pieces together again, like Humpty Dumpty, I realised how much I was enjoying the task, despite my impatience at the pieces not coming together as quickly and easily as I had expected. I wished I had not been so enthusiastic in bashing my cup with the hammer that led to pulverising some of the ceramic, making its full repair impossible. Lesson learned.
The bigger lesson being that in our world where external perfection is often pursued at great cost, we forget that our true beauty is accompanied by a variety of imperfections and flaws.
What if, we chose to celebrate these instead, to see our laughter lines and crow’s feet as signs of a life well-lived?
Because ultimately everything gets to a point of withering or dying.
Would this make it easier to accept life’s natural trajectory with all its rough edges along with the smooth, the good and the bad?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Do you enjoy looking at beautiful things?
When we gaze at an aesthetically pleasing piece of art, a piece of jewellery we love or a photograph that amazes us, it shifts our emotions, increasing levels of inspiration and awe.
The importance of this is it helps distract us from all those other worldly worries we carry. It broadens perspective, and triggers abstract cognitive processes in your brain that otherwise get lost in the mire of smartphones and computer screens.
Engaging with an art form or hobby such as Kintsugi in this way, shifts your thinking to a more expansive state.
Now you can see the world through fresh eyes and perhaps even look at yourself differently.
This contributes to healing and is why lifestyle medicine practitioners provide social prescriptions that utilise different forms of art and promote social interaction which can help reduce loneliness and build coping and resilience skills as well as having fun learning a new skill or appreciating different art forms created by others.
Those scars and wounds that we often seek to hide, are testament to what you have experienced, learnt from and been transformed by in the process.
My Kintsugi ‘masterpiece’ left considerable ‘room for improvement’ in technique. But looking round the room at the proud artists who had each created their own masterpiece and seeing the broad smiles on their faces made me reflect.
Yes, we are fragile and vulnerable, but every healed wound like the gold inlay of Kintsugi reminding us of our inner strength, and capability, and that is something to celebrate every day.
Many thanks to the wonderful team from Peace by Piece Art who provided us with so much inspiration and a new appreciation for imperfection.
