Kintsugi

Kintsugi Themes

• Broken pieces are valuable and necessary- Opportunity
• Imperfections add value to the story of the object- Appreciation
• Highlights the vulnerability and innate resilience of all things- Gratitude

Essential Human Needs

• Belonging-to self and others
• Love and worthiness
• authentic Self Expression

self inquiry Questions

• What do you feel when you see your teen's broken pieces?... or you see your own imperfections?
• What do you do when you see these pieces?
• can you acknowledge the hammer, the impact, and broken pieces?
• What is most difficult about acknowledging these parts?

Holes and Cracks

• Cracks create the spaces for other influences to come in
• Holes allow the realization of loss and change
• Everything is seen as valuable
• This is part of the evolution of all beings.
• This is a rite of passage

Integration

• Identity develops through the reassembly of pieces
• Holes and cracks leave openings
• Our form is always evolving nothing is fixed
• Perfectionism and the loss of connection

Bringing it together

• Witness
• acknowledge broken pieces
• connect
• Repair
• Integrate what happened

Kintsugi Workshop

Our Children Our Mirrors

Bowl

• Expectations, wishes and hopes
• The desire to protect
• Love and Devotion to the Relationship
• Rigid, Perfect and flawless
• What do you feel knowing the bowl will be broken?

Main points

• We cannot give people what we don’t have and we can’t expect them to do what we aren’t doing.
• What do you mean the girls didn't sit with you at lunch. What do you mean you got a B on your test. This doesn’t emerge with our young children. When I say to my son, what you do on this test does not define you? Then I turn at dinner and discuss how I need to nail this presentation.
• Our response to what feels imperfect has lots to do with what we feel or think the pieces mean. What we believe and how we feel will often dictate what we do. Today our work will be to bring greater awareness to what arises in each of us as we sit with and work with our broken pieces.

Broken Pieces

• Shame
• Grief
• Anger
• Fear
• Blame
• " I have lost Wholeness "
• Can I notice the feelings and not rush into fix or move away?

Self Inquiry

Pausing

Awareness

Untitled Slide

Hammer

• Acknowledge the hammer
• Feel the potential for impact and force
• Appreciate the universality of these hammer's
• What have been your teen's hammers? Yours?

Jewish Tradition

• Breaking of the Glass
• Shabbat - Pause and Reflection
• Importance of struggle

Protective Factors

• Relationships
• Animals
• Spirituality
• Inner strengths
• doesn't stop the hammer, but softens the blow

Glue

• Movement to wholeness
• Not too much and just enough
• Gloves keep you from getting stuck
• When to ask for help in holding
• Willingness to stay at the table and interact with each piece

Gold

• Accept change occurred
• Acknowledge the gifts
• Appreciate the journey not the destination
• Redefining the new shape and function

Untitled Slide

• We are hardwired for resilience
• vulnerability