According to Kaushik, of www.amusingplanet.com, Kintsugi is a method of mending pottery that, rather than trying to disguise the breakage, restores the pot by “incorporating the damage into the aesthetic of the restored item, making it part of the object’s history”.
Photo at: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/05/kintsugi-japanese-art-of-fixing-broken.html
A client session recently put me in mind of this phenomenon, as we discussed the ways in which Third Culture Kid lives can been seen as a series of interruptions… Highly mobile life trajectories are regularly and routinely halted or redirected through repeated transition, loss, and challenging relationships.
And then for many TCKs, just as external forces cease their push-pull impact on our lives, we begin to generate our own. Our anticipation of loss or interruption may lead us to avoid markers of ‘settledness’ for fear of their eventual uprooting. We avoid deep relationships; after, all, they (or we) will leave. We avoid emotional (or financial) investment in our local area or even decorating our home; after all, this isn’t a long-term stay…
Yet our stories need not stop at Fragmentation, but could continue on to fill the empty spaces of our interrupted lives with something beautiful… something solid, something lasting.
The golden lacquer of friendship, connection, engagement, and home has the power to bind together our fragmented histories. However, this restoration does not disguise the life that has been, it doesn’t mask or deny it. Rather it honours it, acknowledging every angle, both smooth and rough, in full transparency. And then it makes something new. Something fit for purpose for the life to come.
If you would like support as you seek to create something new from your fragmented history, get in touch. I would be honoured to hear your story, and work alongside you as seek to move beyond restoration, and into the creation of new life.
Contact me here for a free consultation or to ask any questions you may have about Life Story work.
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