So you too should patiently continue your efforts, your progression layer upon layer, page by page, scene after scene, thought after thought, until you have reached this step when all becomes clear. Access the next level of your life.
The Art of Fuki Urushi
Japanese arts often proceed slowly and with great patience, layer upon layer, in order to bring out the full beauty of the object. As in kintsugi, fuki urushi uses the same urushi lacquer, but natural (translucent, without pigment, the same lacquer that is used by the kintsugi master to glue the broken pieces together). With Japanese lacquer art, often the colors red and black come to mind. Therefore you can’t perceive the natural aspect of the wood hidden beneath successive layers of lacquer. The fuki urushi technique attempts to create the opposite effect, highlighting the beauty of the grain of the wood: The artist first applies a thin layer of lacquer to a well-prepared object, then immediately wipes it before placing the object in the muro to dry for one or two days. Then he sands it, only to repeat the procedure many times (up to eight layers).
This technique allows him to enhance the beauty of the object’s natural surface, instead of hiding it, by “listening to the voice of wood.” This is another way to look at things, searching for truth and authenticity.
What About You?
Are you impatient to see the end result? And what if, instead of being discouraged, you understood that each phase is a necessary progression and could wait patiently for a new level of understanding?
It’s Time to Act!
The Next Level
Do you have a favorite movie or book? One that you’ve seen or read time and again, over time, maybe even since you were a child?
By loving it above all others, it’s probable that it has a special message for you that strikes a chord internally. It speaks directly to your subconscious. Could it have a message to convey if you were to explore it one more time?
Write down the name of the book or film you’d like to read or see again.
Without looking or reading it yet, write down all of the emotions it evokes.
Now watch it or read it again with fresh eyes, in full appreciation of every scene. Try to really “taste” it, as if you were discovering it for the first time.
How do you feel?
What does it say about you?
What message does it convey today?
Absorb it . . .
Go Further . . .
Watch a film or read a book that you loved above all others as a child or teenager but that you haven’t seen or read again since. I remember that I once asked the best student in my preparatory MBA class what he did during his vacation. He confided in me that he read and reread every year . . . Noddy! Immerse yourself in an earlier time, rediscover your youth, travel through time, remember that delicious moment that speaks to you like the madeleine of Marcel Proust . . . What is it whispering to you?
Start Here and Now!
Select a book or movie you’d like to rediscover and place it in view next to your bed or on your coffee table.
Reanimate
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
—Oscar Wilde
The joints are finally covered by beautiful red lacquer. Brilliant and free-flowing veins have cured the object to give it a second chance. Put it in the box for half an hour.
Patiently, the kintsugi master, week after week, layer upon layer, has gathered, bandaged, and cared for the object. Now he will reanimate it. Soon it will be revealed in all of its splendor.
Sometimes in life you forget one “little” detail: TO LIVE! You’re satisfied to just survive, to just exist, going from point A to point B. Every day it’s the same old routine: commute, work, television, sleep . . . Does this remind you of someone?
Personally, I’ve already been trying to fight this force of inertia for a long time. To start with I don’t have a television. What an enormous time-saver! And I simply refuse to give in to the desire to become addicted to any kind of technology. When I went to New York to join my future husband, he had been living in the same mode for twenty years. He lived a few steps away from what most people only dream of, without taking advantage of it. (Any Parisian who has never visited the Louvre or Versailles might understand what I’m talking about.) So I decided to take control by creating an intensive “reanimation program” by discovering New York from the inside, the New York of real New Yorkers. No visit to the Statue of Liberty this time! In ten days we saw four interactive and immersive plays, tried flying trapeze, went to the beach, enjoyed vegetarian dishes at a three-star restaurant, contemplated cherry blossoms, wandered through Luna Park, took an aerial tram, enjoyed parasailing, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, relaxed in a spa, bought an inspirational bottle of “intuition” from the official superhero supply store, launched wish boats on the Hudson River, teased fireflies and black squirrels, visited two museums, and undertook a pilgrimage to Princeton (in Einstein’s footsteps). We had not seen each other for twenty years and wanted to celebrate our reunion. That certainly was a lively vacation, shaking us up in every sense of the word.
We all need lightness and fantasy in our lives. Look at the unexpected success of the movie La La Land. You too can transform your life into a musical comedy, where you are the author, actor, dancer, scriptwriter, producer, director, casting director, lighting technician, makeup artist, and hairdresser. It’s up to you to choose the theme and the actors. But don’t forget one detail: In the movie of your life, there are no dress rehearsals and there is just a single take!
Now then, don’t you have anything better to do with your life than be half asleep? It’s time to wake up! Take action now and rise! John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” And without realizing it, life passes you by . . . Would you prefer a sparkling and explosive life, or the mediocre version? Do you prefer to live in HD (high definition) or in low definition? Breathe air into your life and rediscover what makes you live again.
Reanimate yourself!
The Yes Man Spirit
For inspiration I invite you to watch or watch again the Peyton Reed movie with Jim Carrey. The hero leads a life filled with depression, gloom, and repetitiveness. Almost like he’s half-dead . . .
One day, by accident, he’s participating in a personal-development seminar and is invited to say “Yes!” to life, according to a simple methodology: Never refuse an opportunity anymore. He therefore starts to say “yes” in any kind of occasion, and his life becomes radically transformed.
What About You?
Are you really alive? Are you saying “Yes!” to life, or are you holding yourself back using any possible excuse? What if you got out of your comfort zone in order to finally start to feel completely alive?
It’s Time to Act!
The List of Your Life’s Desires
I invite you to list all of your life’s desires!
To start with, in order to see more clearly, list everything that moves you and that you have accomplished already. All those moments that made you really feel alive, explode with joy, be in harmony with yourself.
Read this list over again and search for common themes that are being regularly repeated: Sports? Relaxation? Adrenaline? Care? Exoticism? Music? Friends? Creativity? Children? Love? It’s probably what touches you the most . . .
The idea is to rediscover that vibration. How do these themes inspire you? Note a new desire with the same theme that you’d like to explore very soon, something you’ve always dreamed of doing, to put life back into your life.
Make an appointment with yourself . . .
Life desires already
accomplished
Theme(s)
Next life desires with the
same theme(s)
<
br /> Go Further . . .
Make a deal with yourself to accomplish one of your next life desires every month!
Start Here and Now!
In your diary, enter right now a first life desire to fulfill. And if possible, take the first step to get there: Inform all concerned persons and book the desired activity.
Stage 5
Reveal
rakka eda ni / kaeru to mireba / kochō kana
The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
was a butterfly.
Arakida Moritake
(1473–1549)
Illuminate
. . . being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.
—Laurence Sterne
While the lacquer is still moist and sticky, delicately apply the gold powder to the lacquer with a brush or a metal application tool (without touching it, as it is still fresh).
After a long wait and much work, here is the long-anticipated final moment where you add the gold dust to the fresh lacquer along the cracked lines. Each particle of the gold powder will become one with the lacquer, giving the impression of gold flowing along the fissures.
Gold is a strong symbol, representing purity, perfection, value, and light . . . After all your phases of curing, cleaning, effort, and progress, you are now ready to sparkle. How long has it been since you treated yourself like a precious object? The time has come to illuminate your life . . . to add sparkles, smiles, and laughter, and maybe even a touch of silliness! Everything you might have forgotten over the years . . .
On a personal level, after all the challenges I have been through, I was still surrounded by a heavy cloud of sadness. I used to be a radiant little girl. But that was a long time ago . . . and now I found myself huddled in a corner because of all my sufferings. I had forgotten how to laugh, I even had forgotten how to smile.
Interestingly enough, I had started my personal exploration with laughing therapies: clown workshops, comedies, improv, and laughter yoga! And I had selected a therapist who specialized in connecting with your inner child.
Bit by bit, I heal my wounds and sprinkle them with gold, rediscovering my former lightness and sparkle, putting laughter back into my daily life. As the saying goes, once the student is ready, the master appears. Isn’t that perfect? I had a second master right at home in my own daughter. She is a real little laughing Buddha, a true force of cheerfulness and magic. Her bursts of laughter slowly soothe my frozen heart, melting the protective layers with a whirlwind of living, adding lightness in our daily lives. She puts me back on my path.
What if you too were to take everything not so seriously? Add some glitter and gold to your life, a bit of silliness, one touch of tickles, a dose of joy. Smile, laugh and giggle, make faces, jump on a trampoline, sparkle, and connect with your inner child! Turn the bursts in your life into bursts of laughter. Live, love, laugh!
The Laughing Buddha
Westerners often confuse the Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama with the smiling Buddha of good life, who is often represented sitting with a contagious smile on his face or standing with two raised arms. In Japanese mythology, he is one of the seven gods (kamis) of Fortune and represents abundance, good health, contentment, and commerce.
In Japan he represents the itinerant monk Hotei (Budai or Pu-Tai in China), who lived during the tenth century. He was an eccentric Zen master, jovial, benevolent, and generous, who wandered from village to village to accomplish his mission. Legend has it that he put broken wooden toys in his bag and returned them repaired with sweets for the children. Once he was done with distributing toys and sweets, he looked at the sky, raised his arms, and burst out laughing in such a contagious way that the entire village started laughing with him. At that point, he could leave to accomplish his mission of spreading joy and happiness elsewhere!
When he was asked why he acted the way he did, he answered that his bag contained life’s heavy burdens, and it was best to put it on the ground to lighten the load. Legend has it that he was such a joker that he made people laugh even after his death: He asked to be cremated (which was not the Buddhist practice at the time), and during his cremation fireworks suddenly illuminated the sky. He had hidden firecrackers in his clothing . . .
Tradition says that rubbing the tummy on one of his many statues results in instant happiness. When you too are in a sullen or morose mood, connect to the energy of this jolly Buddha!
Laughter Yoga
When we are relaxed and happy, smiling and laughing is easy. But, paradoxically, even when we force a fake smile or laughter, we are sending a message to the brain that we are happy, making it believe that we are. We therefore have the ability to actually make ourselves happy! Our brain and our body do not differentiate between a fake laugh and a natural one. The brain’s endorphins are released, and the physiological benefits (stimulating and analgesic) are the same: They are natural opiates, creating effects similar to those of morphine! Not to mention that laughing is also beneficial for the abs . . .
It’s according to those principles that laughter yoga was invented in India during the 1990s. The founder, Dr. Madan Kataria, summarizes it perfectly like this: “I am not laughing because I am happy, I am happy because I am laughing.” Since then, laughter yoga clubs have spread across the planet.
Don’t panic if you’re not flexible. Laughing yoga is not based on physical postures but rather on a certain lightness of spirit, on not taking oneself too seriously. It’s therefore accessible to all ages (I have taken my daughter to sessions since she was three years old), and different physical conditions, even though one has to move at least a little. (Although it is not advised during pregnancy because of diaphragm contractions.) For one hour, you let yourself go and connect with your inner child.
A typical session starts with a warm-up period of stimulating laughter: ho, ho, ha, ha, ha, while clapping your hands. And then, depending on each particular session, perhaps a few silly exercises to mobilize the body, to fully contract the diaphragm, to liberate the endorphins, and to stimulate laughter through dancing, singing, and improv. A session might consist of imitating a chicken, presenting yourself to a crowd as a celebrity star, dancing like you’re possessed, imitating a cross-country skier, or pretending to dry the paint on your fingernails. You always use your diaphragm when breathing to simulate the contractions of laughter. This provides a warm-up for the grand and contagious final session, when all the participants laugh together, with continuous explosions of laughter. The forced laughter at the beginning is simulated but becomes spontaneous and self-propagating by the end.
The best way to understand is to test it!
What About You?
Do you manage to find lightness and joy in your daily life, or are you overwhelmed by your injuries? What if you tried a laughter and silliness therapy, to reconnect to your inner child, and heal your wounds with glitter and gold?
It’s Time to Act!
The Reconnection with Your Inner Child
This visualization helps you find the emotions hidden within your inner child and to listen to what he/she is whispering to liberate you.
Settle into your ideal position: Get comfortable, quiet, calm, alone, and have some crayons and something to write on within reach.
Take thirty deep and slow breaths to relax. Take your time.
Contact the inner child within you. Gently approach him/her and let your inner child manifest slowly. Where is he/she hidden? In your stomach, your solar plexus, your throat, or your heart? There aren’t any wrong answers. Feel his/her arrival and observe your sensations.
Focus on your search: Do you see him/her? Is your inner child a boy or a girl? (Sometimes we visualize a child of the opposite sex.) What does he/she look like? What is he/she wearing?
Let your inner child a
pproach at his/her own pace . . .
Connect with your inner child and observe your own feelings: What is his/her personality? Is your inner child shy, forceful, exuberant, calm, furious, stressed out, or happy?
Look, your inner child has brought you a present. What is it that he/she brought you? Can you visualize it? A big bag, a treasure chest, in his/her hands, in his/her pockets or backpack . . .
Open the present. What does it contain?
Give your inner child a big hug and thank him/her from the bottom of your heart.
Cuddle with him/her.
Listen, your inner child has something to tell you before leaving. He/she whispers something in your ear . . .
Invite him/her to come back as often as he/she wants to.
Tell your inner child goodbye and let him/her leave.
Concentrate on your emotions. How do you feel?
Immediately write down this visualization, describing it with words and images, noting all your sensations.
Infuse the feeling . . .
Go Further . . .
Revive the experience by engaging in an activity you loved as a child, whether it’s coloring, shaping Silly Putty, jumping on a trampoline, or watching a cartoon you loved, to get back in touch with the emotions of your childhood.
Start Here and Now!
Listen to music from your childhood (ideally a song from the cartoon you watched) that transports you instantly back to that time.
Collect
The future is nothing but organizing the present. Your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Save any remaining gold powder for your next creation. Then put the object back into the box for two to three days for drying and hardening.
Kintsugi Page 9