When I was a toddler, I had a favorite doll that I used to carry around by its hair. Over time, it began losing its hair from my unorthodox method of carrying it, but I loved it still.
Because it was such a beloved doll, my mom took the time to take the doll apart, thread yellow yarn through the top of the doll’s head, and make long braids to fix the doll’s hairlessness and give me a better “handle” to carry her with.
She didn’t spend the time and creativity fixing that doll because it was an average, indifferent, nothing-special doll. She fixed it because (to me) that doll was beloved, precious, and treasured.
The story that’s told about the beginnings of kintsugi are similar. According to legend, there was a Japanese shogun in the late 15th century who had a tea bowl that was so precious to him that when it broke, he sent it back to China to be repaired.
The bowl came back strapped together with ugly metal staples that the shogun did not find acceptable. The art form of kintsugi was developed in response as an aesthetically pleasing way to repair his treasured tea bowl.
It’s worth noting, though, that all of that effort and creativity was not employed because someone wanted to make something valuable; it was because the tea bowl was already treasured and beloved that it was deemed worth the time and effort it took to repair it.
I observe the same thing all the time when people contact me about doing custom repairs of broken stones they own. Inevitably, the request comes with a description of how treasured, special, and beloved the stone item already is to the owner.
They wish to repair not in order to make it precious but because it already is, despite the brokenness that has happened to it.
You are no different.
The healing and growth that occur in the wake of the broken places in your life is not what makes you valuable. Healing and growth come about to mend those broken places because you are already beloved and precious.
Healing flows from the Divine (God, Goddess, the Universe, or however else you name that which is more than us) because the Divine already treasures you, loves you, cherishes you, and values you.
The “gold” of the healing in our lives is a sign of that belovedness, not the source of it.
As helpful as it is to look for that “kintsugi gold” in our lives and to treasure it so that we can build on the healing and growth that has happened, it’s important not to confuse the gold of our healing with our own value.
You are valuable just as you are … even if there are broken places that haven’t healed yet.
You are precious just as you are … despite the bruises and bandaids and patches that are still healing.
You are treasured for who you already are … not for how you might grow or heal in the future.
You are beloved.
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