How a 400-year-old Japanese practise could be the key to resilience – teaching us to bounce back

MAKING the most of a bad situation is a real skill, but it can prove tricky at times. 

So we could still learn a thing or two from a 400-year-old Japanese trick that encourages resilience by making a feature of what’s gone wrong. 

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Called, kintsugi the technique is used to repair broken ceramics, where cracks are filled with liquid gold to make a feature of flaws – not hide them. 

Experts reckon we can apply some of the principles of kintsugi to ourselves and others.

Bonnie Kemske, author of Kintsugi: The Poetic Mend, says many of us “feel an overwhelming competitive sense to be the best, to be perfect at everything we do and expect the same of others”.

She says: “Kintsugi shows us a way to acknowledge the imperfections in objects – and in ourselves. 

“It tells us that repair is something we can be proud of, not something to hide.” 

Sharing shortcomings and imperfections may not feel all that comfortable though, especially when pictures of glossy, perfect lives on Instagram and Facebook can already make you feel bad about yourself.

But increasingly we want to see the proper, messy, behind the scenes lives of people, not curated pics that aren’t quite real.

Dr Neil Thin, senior lecturer of social anthropology at Edinburgh University, believes it’s life’s curve balls, sent to challenge us, that can make us stronger. 

“Kintsugi has a very specific and practical meaning: mend something that was badly broken, but do so with such loving care that it becomes more beautiful, more interesting, more valuable,” he says. 

It’s an idea we can use “to help one another bounce back better after a setback” like if we’ve lost a job, suffered a health scare or gone through a break-up.

Japan itself is used to bouncing back. “In a land of earthquakes, there is a certain acceptance of cracks, breaks and the precarious nature of life,” says Bonnie. 

“There is no attempt to make a broken pot ‘as good as new’. 

“Instead, we accept that the old pot is gone and has been replaced with something new and unique, stronger, better and more beautiful.

“The same can be true for our lives. We all have tragedies and hardships. 

“We should not pretend they haven’t happened but should accept them and eventually, hopefully, put our lives back together in ways that are better than before.”

So how do you do it?

5 ways to be more ‘kintsugi’

1. Repair

“Repair what you can repair in yourself, your relationships and in your communities through acceptance, forgiveness and active repair. 

“Know that things won’t be ‘as good as new’, but aim for new versions that will be better and stronger,” says Bonnie.

2. Accept you got through it

“Appreciate there is beauty to be found in surviving life’s hard experiences – you don’t have to have it all figured out,” Bonnie says. 

3. Appreciate what you have

“Cultivate an appreciative mindset to stop striving for better, newer or different,” Dr Neil says. 

“We should encourage children to appreciate everything that may be of interest or value around them – friendship, beauty, stories, and practice it ourselves.”

4. Live in the moment

“Savour the good times,” Dr Neil says. 

“Appreciation doesn’t only happen in the moment, it can also happen again many times later through sharing memories and stories with other people. 

“This adds value to good moments, but we need to slow down, reflect, and socialise in order to do this.”

5. Know not everything can be fixed

“Accept that all our lives include imperfections, hardships and hurt. 

“There’s no stopping it, nor should we want to. 

“Every knock and chip to our metaphorical bowl makes us who we are,” says Bonnie.

Moving on

Dr Neil is keen to stress that embracing kintsugi is to be happy with what we have, imperfections included. 

“Consider which aspects of our lives are already good enough, and focus on maintaining adequate standards,” he says. 

“If we need to imagine new directions of improvement, they don’t have to be materialistic – it could be simplifying our lives, slowing down, taking up a greater variety of hobbies or building new forms of social connection.” 

Bonnie agrees and adds that accepting your situation – even if it wasn’t what you expected or imagined – is key to moving on. 

“I have personally found the metaphor of kintsugi to be transformative in how I think about the stresses, the strains and the hurts of life,” she says.

“It is not always healthy to try to rigidly change something you don’t like about yourself, to cover up your problem, or to force yourself to overcome a grief. 

“If we acknowledge our shortcomings and our pain, we can make adjustments in our lives that will help us be better people. 

“Accepting our ‘cracks and breaks’ can go a long way to accepting ourselves.”

Accepting differences

As much as we can forgive and accept things that haven’t gone to plan, a key element of kintsugi is to also be more accepting of those around us, and building resilience together as a society. 

“Accepting people for who they are, even if you don’t agree with them, is what makes humans interestingly diverse,” Dr Neil explains. 

“When people are socially supported through difficulties, it creates intimacy and trust in those relationships and they are much more likely to build character strengths and versatility. 

“Resilience essentially must start in early childhood, so the best investment in the resilience of future generations is to ensure that young children aren’t overprotected from minor harms and threats, and that no-one expects childhood to be entirely free of trouble.”

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