Then he infuses these deeply back into you. At last, you can fully incarnate your soul and be reconnected with it, while nourishing it every day, and live without forgetting to put your soul back into your life.
What if kintsugi were a form of shamanism?
What About You?
Do you feel complete and one, or do you feel you got lost on the way? What if you tried to reconnect with your initial promise, your inner child’s voice?
It’s Time to Act!
Reconnection to Your Initial Vibration
Often you lose sight of yourself, not knowing who you are, or what speaks to you anymore.
You just exist, instead of really living. To find this connection, you have to contact your true inner passion. What gets you excited? What makes you burst out laughing? Jump for joy? Literally makes you vibrate? Moves you? Gives you goose bumps?
Write down in reverse chronological order a few memories from your professional and personal life that answer these questions.
This year:
Exciting memory
Theme of this memory
Last year:
Exciting memory
Theme of this memory
The last ten (or twenty, thirty, forty, etc.) years:
Exciting memory
Theme of this memory
During adolescence:
Exciting memory
Theme of this memory
During childhood:
Exciting memory
Theme of this memory
Analyze your own evolution . . . Do you identify certain common themes or energies that show up regularly in one way or another? Now is the time to reconnect to these sensations and energies perhaps long gone.
Choose one of the activities that really excited you once, and reconnect with it, starting today.
Schedule a time in your agenda to do the same thing this weekend!
Go Further . . .
Shamanism is an interesting tool to use for exploring your inner self and connecting with your true self without mask or filter.
Start Here and Now!
Write down the first exciting memory.
Fill
What we lack instructs us.
—German proverb
If you’re missing a piece, prepare a paste (sabi-urushi), blending the lacquer (urushi) with powdered stone (tonoko), and patiently re-create the missing piece with this paste.
Kintsugi is also the art of patiently complementing what is missing in a respectful and harmonious manner. In fact, sometimes it is even necessary to re-create the missing pieces. This is a beautiful metaphor to adopt for life: We have the choice to live unsteadily, accommodating our flaws as best we can, without trying to identify them or take care of them . . . Or, on the contrary, we can showcase them instead of denying their existence, in order to better complement them.
As I mentioned earlier, it is sometimes more difficult to detect our own flaws, which are easily visible through the eyes of others! It took me a long time to recognize my emotional voids. My initial hurt was an injury of love. Thirsty for love since my childhood, I could never get enough of it, which, ironically enough, scared and drove away others . . . When I was eight years old my best friend brutally broke up with me. I still recall the moment. She took me aside and explained to me that friendship was like a thread that sometimes breaks to attach itself to another thread. That sounds okay in theory, but the experience for me felt like a real divorce. At the time, I didn’t understand why she did that. Today, with some distance, it occurs to me that she must have felt almost suffocated to take such drastic action.
For a long time, I could not see my patterns: the conditional love I was enforcing, as a mirror of my own mother’s patterns (“You do not appreciate all I am doing for you”), suffocating my friends and my partners with emotional demands that were difficult to meet, unsolicited advice (savior syndrome), or inappropriately large gifts.
I remember having an epiphany during an “inner child” workshop. The host was explaining fundamental needs, and when she mentioned love, at first I did not understand. She explained that one must find love in oneself, instead of expecting it from others. It left me disconcerted. It went beyond my comprehension. It was the opposite of the way I lived! It was so incomprehensible to me, I asked her to repeat what she had said word for word so I could write it down.
I am still working on this problem, and I must admit that it is not completely solved, or I probably would not have married again, only to divorce one year after! But today I can at least see the door, the light at the end of the tunnel, and I begin to understand . . .
What about you? What are your needs? I’m not speaking of the desires that attempt to fill a vacuum (those are often of a material nature and sometimes even compulsive) but about fundamental needs, of the essential kind, often related to shortcomings from our childhood. What initial injuries do they express? Only by becoming completely cognizant of one’s fundamental needs and beginning to complement what is lacking is it possible to move forward and to start to repair oneself. Fill your gaps, fulfill your needs!
The Fundamental Needs
In clearly exposing your fundamental needs, Nonviolent Communication enables you to express what is going on inside you, without blame or judgment. Messages are communicated calmly by respecting others and yourself.
The communication process in four primary phases:
Objective observation and expression of concrete facts: “What I see, what I hear, what I remember . . .”
Expression of emotions and feelings facing these facts: “I have the feeling . . .”
Expression of needs based on underlying feelings: “Because I need . . .”
Expression of a practical requirement about the actions to undertake: “I would like to . . .” “Would you agree to . . .”
This appears to be simple, but it can take a lifetime! But it is worth it, since the results are incredible.
What About You?
Do you know your basic flaws and your fundamental needs, without confusing them with desires? Do you know how to express and fulfill them?
It’s Time to Act!
The Discovery of Your Needs
In his book Words Are Windows, or They’re Walls, Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication, established a list of fundamental needs that motivate all of us.
Grab a pen and relax. Among the following propositions, spontaneously check the key words that instinctively speak to you, without thinking too much or editing.
Autonomy
Choose your dreams, your goals, your values
Choose the strategies to realize your dreams, your goals, your values
Celebration
Celebrate life and the realization of your dreams
Celebrate your losses: loss of people close to you, the nonrealization of your dreams, etc. (mourning)
Integrity
Authenticity
Creativity
Meaning
Self-esteem
Interdependence
Acceptance
Appreciation
Proximity
Community
Consideration
Contribution to the enrichment of life
Emotional security
Empathy
Honesty
Love
Reassurance
Respect
Support
Trust
Comprehension
Physical Nourishment
Air
Food
Movement; exercise
Protection against life-threatening organisms: viruses, bacteria, insects, predatory animals
Rest
Sexual Expression
Shelter
Touching
Water
Play
Amusement
Laughter
Communion of Spirit
Beauty
Harmony
Inspiration
Order
Peace
Copy the words you selected to page 87 (identified need), and then study the list in greater detail. These are your basic needs impacting you daily, influencing your life.
For each one, indicate if you fulfill it (“need fulfilled”) or if you detect something missing (“need unfulfilled”).
Wherever you have checked “need unfulfilled,” imagine a way to “quench” the corresponding need by inserting a positive idea into your daily life.
For example, if you have checked “laughter” as a need, but you feel that you are not fulfilling it in your daily life, note some related activities: Reserve a seat at a comedy theater, sign up for a laughter yoga session, etc. The idea is to begin activities that complement what’s lacking in your life.
Go Further . . .
On a daily basis verify with your circle of friends and family whether you express your needs to them clearly enough.
Start Here and Now!
Go to the fundamental needs list and check off all of the words that resonate in your mind.
Associate
Art challenges boundaries.
—Victor Hugo
If it inspires you, you can even choose a piece from another object to replace the missing piece (yobi-tsugi).
Sometimes the kintsugi master expands the object’s transformation. Either because the flaws to repair are too severe or because of a preference for contrast, he might choose to combine two disparate objects by taking the shard of one to repair the flaw of another. Consolidated by an outside addition, the object thus becomes more original and unique, richer and more beautiful.
Here is a powerful metaphor about what the Other has to offer: Rubbing against other habits, discovering new influences and new ideas enriches our lives. Personally, I love to open myself to other cultures. For example, twelve nationalities were represented at my international business school. Most of the examinations were based on group works, which spurred us to confront different points of view and different ways of working and considerably enriched our learning. Since then I have lived and worked in France, England, Spain, and the United States (and maybe one day soon in the Netherlands). I have experimented with flying trapeze in New York; climbed a glacier in Ushuaia; performed volunteer work with handicapped children in Russia; floated in the Dead Sea in Israel and in the Red Sea in Egypt; done la marcha (bar tour) in Madrid and danced to techno in Belgium; climbed the 293 steps of the Tower of Pisa and the 364 steps to the top of the Statue of Liberty; eaten couscous in Tunisia and sweet herring in Denmark; drunk wine in Chile and Viennese hot chocolate in Austria; explored the fog in Oxford
on bicycle, and visited the gardens of Versailles on a Segway and the canals of Amsterdam by paddleboat; toured Iceland by hitchhiking and Corsica by motorbike; participated in the Venetian carnival and the gay pride parade in Paris; teased the clown fish in the Maldives, the black squirrels at Princeton, the crocodiles in the Ivory Coast, and the whales in Madagascar—and, to crown it all, I am of Corsican origin!
It does take some effort to leave the familiar, to open oneself to others and to the world. In your own comfort zone, it appears as if there is no danger or fear. Nothing sticks out. But also, there is no challenge, nothing new, no surprises . . .
When it comes to love and relationships, for a long time I stayed in my comfort zone, searching for the perfect match with people just like me: same culture and habits, same education . . . By marrying a Moroccan-American, from a cultural background vastly different than mine, what a shift and an opening to another world! The least one can say is that it was very exotic. I had more experiences during the two years with him than during the last ten years of my life.
That is the power of cultural blending, hybrid solutions, and association mixes. By opening yourself up to the unknown, something new and different from the familiar, you are welcoming entirely new combinations, where 1 + 1 = 3, where ideas are fused together, and where unreleased ideas are formed. So, open yourself to what is different, open your eyes and your mind, leave the beaten path you know by heart to explore new territories, let the Other enrich you. Let a breath of fresh air into your life: Inhale inspiration!
The Beauty of Blending Cultures
At all times, cultural mixing has been a source of inspiration and richness.
In confronting different cultures, new combinations are created, unreleased and vibrant, in areas as varied as music (influence of African-American music on rock), architecture (the Arabian inspiration in Spanish architecture, the pyramid of the Louvre mixing modern and ancient styles), art (Picasso and African art, Gauguin and Tahitian art, Van Gogh and Japanese art), the culinary arts (Marco Polo’s introduction of pasta to Italy upon his return from China, the European discovery of potatoes and corn imported during the exploration of the Americas, fusion food, Tex-Mex cooking), wine (vines introduced in France by the Romans), etc.
Contact with the outside can be so enriching!
What About You?
Have you always walked the same paths? And what if you were to open yourself to new inspirations and encounters outside your world?
It’s Time to Act!
Open Your Mind
Are you ready to try something new? For that I suggest you play an unusual game. Pick something you do not know, something that’s outside of your normal universe and, in addition, something that does not particularly tempt you because “it isn’t your style!” This may appear a bit extreme, but it is the best way to get out of your own comfort zone and to let yourself be surprised.
For example:
Go and see a film that doesn’t appeal to you at all, the opposite of what you’d normally watch.
Read a book that does not tempt you.
Go and attend a sports event that has never interested you because it seems boring.
Discover an exhibition you wouldn’t normally attend.
Reserve a ticket for a show that’s the opposite of your usual cultural preferences.
Go to a restaurant you don’t know to order food you don’t particularly think you’ll enjoy.
Watch a TV program or series that doesn’t appeal to you.
Dress in a style completely different from what you normally wear.
Listen to a style of music that you don’t like.
Let yourself be surprised and carried away!
Go Further . . .
If you liked this exercise, extend it to an entire weekend to let yourself be surprised in all areas.
Start Here and Now!
Quickly choose one of the listed activities! (And yes, certainly one of those that tempts you the least!)
Stage 3
Wait
Kiri shigure / Fuji o minu hi zo / omoshiroki
Chilling autumn rains
curtain Mount Fuji, then make it
more beautiful to see.
Matsuo Basho̅
(1644–1694)
Remove
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Scrape off the extra matter with a utensil (razor blade, toothpick, palette knife), and clean using turpentine.
This step is very important. When assemb
ling the pieces to be fused together, some glue will seep out of the fissures. It’s therefore essential to take the time to remove any excess matter with care, because once it has hardened, it compromises the remaining repair.
Just like in life, to move forward with ease, it’s necessary to take one’s time to get rid of superfluous, encumbering matter, whether it’s of a physical or mental nature.
Often, while consumed by the chaos of daily life, it’s difficult to clearly see your priorities. The superfluous constantly threatens the essential. Always wanting to accumulate more, you try to do too much and end up saturated and overloaded.
Ironically, even when trying to discover your well-being, you can find yourself out of breath and exhausted. At the beginning of my spiritual quest, I wanted to try a bunch of different things at the same time: all the methods, all the books, all the seminars, and all the conferences—from one extreme to the other. I didn’t have much spare time, but I ran from one lecture to another, from one meeting to the next. In addition, I was trying to manage my life as a young single mother, my wedding planning business, my swing dancing lessons, and my physical and mental personal-development training. One day I arrived at the office of an energy therapist literally running, out of breath and out of steam. How relaxing . . . How can you possibly hope to find your balance in such a state of chaos? How can you take the time to assimilate the notions you’ve learned if you’re always running from one learning process to another?
With all of this accumulation, I had to learn how to simplify, to sort, to remove the excess, and to keep only the essential. No matter what your excess stuff might be, whether it is materialistic (too much shopping, accumulated objects, expenses), physical (too many pounds), or mental (too much responsibility, too many obligations, even too many hobbies), it becomes necessary to reduce it in order to see clearly what’s going on. Remove everything that holds you down and weighs heavily on your mind and body: refine, purify, simplify your life. Return to your true essence.
Kintsugi Page 5