The Stories Behind the Cracks (021)

This week’s edition comes to you a day later than usual. It is not because I forgot. But because I wanted to honour the experience I had — and let it sink in before writing this edition.

This Friday, I took part in a Kintsugi Workshop, the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. It’s a delicate, intentional process and one that resonates deeply if you’ve ever lived through burnout, reinvention, or recovery.

Doing this alongside my beautiful friend RB, someone who has witnessed both the shattering and the rebuilding in my life (and I in hers), made the process even more meaningful. Together, we didn’t just glue ceramic.

We honoured history.

We witnessed healing.

We celebrated strength.

“Rather than disguising the breakage, kintsugi literally highlights it – transforming the artifact into something more beautiful than the original.” — BBC Travel, The Ancient Art of Embracing Imperfection

In Kintsugi, the philosophy is simple but radical:

Don’t hide what’s broken. Highlight it.

As the BBC article explains, Kintsugi literally means “golden joinery” — transforming flaws into features, cracks into something more beautiful than before.

And isn’t that what healing truly is?

As I brushed liquid gold across the lines of my once-broken bowl, I realised:

We don’t burn bright because we’ve never cracked.
We burn bright because we dared to mend — with courage, kindness, and gold.

Before and after

This Weekend’s Action

What story lives behind one of your cracks and who do you trust to help you hold it?

Let go of the instinct to polish or perform.
Let your reflections be raw, real, and yours.

To support this deeper reflection, I’ve created a bonus journaling worksheet just for you:

👉 Download “Share Your Story: Honouring the Cracks”

It’s filled with gentle prompts to help you name, honour, and rewrite the narrative around what once felt like a setback.

And if you're still mending…Closing with Kindness

You don’t need to be "put together" to be powerful.
You don’t need to have it all figured out to be valuable.

Whether you’re cracked wide open or already shimmering with gold, this moment belongs to you.

So, give yourself time. Give yourself tenderness.
And if you feel safe, share your story — with someone who will hold it the way Kintsugi holds a bowl: gently, reverently, without rushing the beauty.

Here's to the golden seams of your journey.
Here's to burning bright — not flawless, but whole.

To your spark,
Mary

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