KINSTUKUROI – Broken Open – Becoming Whole

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Many years ago I lived, worked and studied in the amazingly beautiful and spiritual country of Japan. It was a time of transition for me, leaving a wonderful job at UCLA as a psychologist, and opening my heart to a place I knew I needed to live after a visit I made in celebration of getting my PhD a number of years before.

There is so much to learn in Japan and my heart also expanded to things I hadn’t imagined in my life before, like Ikebana (flower arranging), and Cha no yu (Tea ceremony), and Japanese cloisonne. To be able to study with masters in these deeply meaningful arts and practices took me spiritually so much deeper into the workings of my soul.

To walk in Japanese gardens, to live among people who treat politeness as a sacred gift to others, and to find a sense of humor within all the proper behavior could have been enough to make my years in Japan a most profound experience.

I was fortunate enough however, to receive and then learn from my healers. The wife of my shiatsu master wife was a master in Kinstukuroi and taught me this wonderful philosophy and practice. These experiences added to my personal capacity to heal and to my opportunity to offer this graceful healing process in my own work.

Kintsukuroi

Kinstukuroi is a philosophy that considers breakage in life an opportunity to create something new and beautiful, and to honor the broken experiences of your life as events to share openly with the world. Kinstukuroi offers the world information on your history and on your human capacity to not only survive, but to thrive in grace and in celebration of your human spirit over adversity.

Kinstukuroi is your opportunity to recognize and embrace when you have broken open and to take that experience and create a more expansive life beyond where you were before.

Kintsukuroi also relates to the philosophies of wabi-sabi (an embracing of the flawed or imperfect), and mushin – (meaning no mind, non-attachment, and the acceptance of change). With Kintsukuroi you get to heal your wounds, reclaim your path with new information and celebrate your life with greater clarity.

Kintsukuroi reminds you who you are, really, in the fullness of your life. You are not just what you would call your successes – you are even more deeply the broken times. You are the hero of your own journey with the scars to show it. Broken places filled in with gold (real gold is often used in the repair of objects, such as tea bowls and other pottery). Your broken places are filled with the gold of inner knowledge, of new awareness, and of the recognition of your own true strength.

This is your Way to replace holes with Wholeness.