Kintsugi – the beauty of being imperfect

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with gold.

It is related to the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi, the aesthetic tradition of embracing the beauty that is found in imperfections.

The underlying principles of this philosophy are: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

In other words: everything is impermanent, everything is in process and changing all of the time, and everything in life is imperfect. These are deep truths of life, laws of the universe. We can observe these principles easily and very obviously in nature – in the change of the seasons, the imperfectly formed trees, bushes, flowers, rocks, landscapes, clouds, rivers and streams…

When we begin to pay attention to these three marks of reality in our day-to-day life, we begin to notice them everywhere. That’s the first thing. The second thing is to feel into these truths of life, to relax into the fact that nothing is permanent, including us, that we are not perfect, and that nothing is static, that change is happening all of the time, inside of us and outside of us.

What might it feel like as we begin to sense into these deeper truths? It can feel freeing, light and it can come with ease and relief as we realise, this is how it is, as it is.

But what exactly do we get released from? Well, we are freed from resisting the flow and imperfection of life. We are released from unhelpful views such as: Life should be easy, life should be perfect, I should be perfect, life should give me what I want. But who determines all these ‘shoulds’? No-one. These are mind-fabricated ideas about life that set impossible standards and hence keep us trapped and make us unhappy, unfree to live fully.

I'm currently working with a client who suffers from the habit of needing to be perfect coming from her upbringing. To loosen the pattern and to begin to relax into the imperfectness of herself and all life, I encouraged her to notice something imperfect every day and to get curious about it, to explore it, to familiarise herself with things being imperfect. What does it look like? What does it feel like?

Perfectionism is such a detrimental idea that so many of us buy into, suffer from, and yet, it’s something that doesn’t exist. Isn’t that interesting? What exists is imperfection and uniqueness and herein lies the beauty of life. Every living thing is imperfect and unique. Where does the idea of perfectionism come from? From the old competitive story of ‘not good enough’ (compared to what and who?) and ‘needing to be better’, fuelled by our relentless western and modern paradigm of: more (not enough), better (not good enough), faster, right, wrong, good, bad.

Imagine you went to the park and every tree looked as perfectly shaped as every other tree? Or imagine you came to work and every colleague was as good, as fast, as accomplished, talented, skilled as every other colleague?

Coming back to the art of Kintsugi and repairing something that is broken, weak. By making the effort to repair, it becomes strong and beautiful. This is true for everything.

We all know what happens, for example, when we had a rupture with someone, an argument or conflict, and we are willing to work through it by listening, sharing honestly, being vulnerable, by seeing the other side. When we are willing to repair a rupture in a relationship, it becomes more beautiful: deeper, more connecting, stronger and often longer lasting.

And isn’t it interesting that in this age of perfectionism (and comparison - its toxic cousin), when we repair a broken bowl or vase or cup or plate with gold, naturally we experience it as more beautiful than it was before! Deep down we know that beauty, freedom, ease and uniqueness come from embracing being imperfect as it is completely in line with how things really are.

I want to leave you with the encouragement to begin to notice imperfection in your life, in yourself, in your partner, children, friends, colleagues, in nature, in your home… and to notice when you judge your or others for not being perfect, when you compare yourself to others for not being as perfect as they are (or not as perfect as you are which we would call conceit or arrogance). Notice with kindness and curiosity.

And when you begin to notice imperfection in and around you, feel into it, relax into it and let go into the flow of life.