How Kintsugi helped me move on from Cancer

“My heart is full of gold veins, instead of cracks.” – Leah Rider

How Kintsugi helped me move on from Cancer:

Using kintsugi as a metaphor for healing ourselves and embracing our own flaws and imperfections teaches us an important lesson: Sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something that is even more unique, resilient and beautiful.

Following my breast cancer surgery 8 years ago I have definitely been left with  scarring both physical and emotional. My physical scars are going to remind me every day, for the rest of my life of the path cancer traced across my skin and my life.

But scars don’t have to be thought of as ugly reminders of something terrible, of the price your body has paid for fighting cancer. By embracing the philosophy behind kintsugi, I have been able to find a way to accept my scars, those visible and those hidden in my heart and mind.

Kintsugi embraces authenticity and imperfections, and highlights rather than hides the scars. Alongside the scars these  breaks in the pottery, also show endurance, strength, resilience, determination, sheer bloody-mindedness, and, we hope, recovery.

This same philosophy can be applied to life. We all long for a good life. We want happiness, prosperity, success and some seek perfection. Yet things are never easy or perfect. Life is full of successes and failures, although sometimes it can feel broken, damaged and imperfect.

The truth is, it is such struggles and challenges that make life worth living. That makes the good that much better.

Following the philosophy of kintsugi, what becomes important is how we handle the situations that don’t go our way. We shouldn’t hide them away or prevent them from being part of who we are. Instead, we should embrace them and let them make us stronger.

We should grow and allow them to transform us into something beyond our wildest dreams.

Life will never be perfect. Things don’t go as planned and our time here on Earth is full of twists and turns. What we can do though, is control how we react to our struggles and challenges. 

Embrace the imperfections. Realise they are just as important as the rest.

If this article resonates with you and you would like to chat about how to heal send me a message [email protected] I would love to hear from you.