Thinking about the wounds and scars I’ve acquired along the way.

We speak about letting go of the past. What makes this difficult is when you carry the scar tissue from them. Hard to get rid of them and therefore hard to forget.

This struck a chord with me and reminded me of the Legend of Kintsugi. The Legend of Kintsugi is a Japanese tale that speaks of an ancient practice of mending broken pottery using gold. According to the legend, a shogun, or military leader, had a favorite tea bowl that accidentally fell and broke. Disappointed, he sent it to China to be repaired, but upon its return, he saw that the cracks were filled with unsightly metal staples. Unsatisfied with the result, he challenged his craftsmen to find a better way to repair the bowl. Eventually, they discovered that by using a special adhesive mixed with gold powder, they could not only fix the cracks but also enhance the beauty of the piece. This practice became known as Kintsugi, which translates to “golden joinery,” is the Japanese philosophy that the value of an object is not in its beauty, but in its imperfections, and that these imperfections are something to celebrate, not hide.

This made me realize that we should not hide our scars and feel compelled to leave them behind, as they resemble not the trauma we faced but celebrate the solutions we use to mend these traumas and forge forward like a broken bone that has healed. Stronger than before.

Make sense?