10 things kintsugi can teach us about trauma, healing, and transformation

Written By Isabel Slaney Urrutia

“The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation; this is the message that art brings.” - Stephen K. Levine

1. Healing doesn’t mean returning to who you were before the trauma—it means becoming someone new.

When a person has experienced trauma, there is often a sense that their value has been diminished. There is a belief that they themselves have been marred (shame) and that the hope they have to be loved and to have a future of happiness, peace, and joy is lost forever. 

Haunted and tortured, the traumatized person often lives in a state of constant survival. The belief that the experience of trauma has left them from a state of wholeness to a state of irredeemable brokenness keeps many people trapped in a cycle of shame with no imagination for a life of freedom, love, and a deep sense of wellness–hope. 

Kintsugi is an incredible ancient Japanese art I was introduced to years ago and I have been enamored with ever since. 

It is a practice of taking ceramic pieces that have been broken and repairing them with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum and a philosophy that speaks to the value of lovingly bringing fragments back together.

Kintsugi is a creative practice that can teach us a new perspective on brokenness and on the process of healing and transformation.

2. Embrace your imperfections, they don’t diminish you—they are what make you human.

In a world that often chases perfection and newness, kintsugi offers a strikingly different perspective—one that finds beauty in the broken.

Kintsugi (金継ぎ), which translates from the Japanese word Kin which means ‘gold,’ and Tsugi which means ‘to mend,’. Tsugi also has a second meaning which is ‘to pass onto the next generation.’ 

Rooted in wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that appreciates impermanence and imperfection, kintsugi is more than a repair technique—it's a profound philosophy. It teaches that scars are not something to conceal but to celebrate. 

They are part of an object’s (or person’s) history, and they contribute to its unique story. Much like the study of epigenetics and intergenerational trauma, what we take the time to repair, or not to repair, is what gets passed down the generations. 

Instead of hiding flaws or allowing shame to leave broken pieces for the next generations, kintsugi repairs in a way that values the imperfections. By emphasizing its past state of brokenness with gold, a new object is created that is often more beautiful and valuable than the original. 

3. What was once ordinary can become sacred through love and restoration. 

Imagine a cracked tea bowl. In many cultures, it might be discarded or glued back together discreetly. But in the hands of a kintsugi artist, those cracks are traced with gold, transforming the breakage into a golden river of resilience. The bowl is reborn—not in spite of its damage, but because of it.

Kintsugi offers a powerful reminder for our own lives. It suggests that our personal "breaks"—loss, grief, failure, or change—can be sources of strength and beauty. When we mend with care, whether ourselves or the world around us, we create something new: not pristine, but real and radiant. Through the healing of trauma, there is greater beauty, authenticity, freedom, and resilience.

4. Embracing imperfection can reveal a deeper, more radiant beauty.

Whether you're looking at a shattered plate, a broken heart, or a damaged nervous system, kintsugi invites you to repair, not erase—to gild the cracks, and to move forward with dignity.

Artist Makoto Fujimura, in an article called “Kintsugi Grace”, explains the philosophy of Kintsugi as “somatic knowledge of healing that resists our tendency to rush to ‘fix’ the world in the industrial sense. Instead, in Kintsugi we can ‘mend to make New.’”

Kintsugi restores the piece not only to the fullness of its original state but because of the resources put into it (time, gold, care, expertise), it creates a glorious piece of pottery that becomes even more valuable than before. In Japan, the ordinary ceramic becomes a treasured and valuable family heirloom that gets passed down the generations. 

What starts out as a functional ceramic tea cup, plate, pot, or bowl, becomes an extraordinary thing of beauty that can continue to be used for its original intent but now fills with endless delight as one feels they are seeing it for the first time each time the light reflects or refracts the gold in a new way. 

What was ordinary becomes sacred.

This is such a good metaphor for the process of healing from trauma.

5. Rushing the process can lead to regret—healing requires patience.

With the popularization of kintsugi in popular media and on online shops like etsy or ebay, dozens of kintsugi kits have come out in a variety of different materials. 

The first time I ever tried “kintsugi” was over a year after my most favorite and expensive ceramic pot came crashing down from the ceiling, spilling out my most treasured pothos. This was a large green pothos with pockets of white variegation, the first plant I had successfully propagated, shaped, and tended to a state of glory. All my plant people out there, you get it!

I had ordered some hooks that just weren’t going to work with the ceiling I had and I was getting impatient to be able to enjoy the new ambiance my hanging pothos would surely provide in my new macrame hanging pot holder. After searching for a long time for solutions, I settled on some adhesive hooks that seemed like they would do the trick and I finally hung the pot up. 

My gut gave me a warning about the trustworthiness of the adhesive and the heavy weight of the pot but I was desperate for that feeling of instant gratification after having newly moved to Seattle and putting so much work into unpacking–I ignored the warning.

Well, lo and behold, a few months after hanging it, I came back from out of town to find my pot shattered on the ground and my pothos in a very sorry state. That’s what I get for settling for a quick fix! I collected all the pieces and stuffed them in a shelf, swearing that one day I would finally try kintsugi and repair it to its original state. 

Over a year later, while taking a course called The Artist’s Way, I was finally ready to give it a try. 

5. True transformation takes time, care, and intention.

Without any real knowledge of kintsugi, I ordered a set off of etsy that seemed user friendly. It was a set of two kinds of epoxy that you mix with some powdered gold dust and put a thin layer across each shard of ceramic and hold it together for about a minute. By the end of the afternoon, I had repaired the entire pot except for a single ceramic piece on the side. It looked like a hole in its heart. 

I thought this was a beautiful reminder of what happens when we try to rush through a process that requires careful planning, skill, and time.

While I was pretty happy with the outcome, a huge part of me was disappointed in myself–again–for settling for instant gratification. 

I had not restored my pot to its original glory and the cheap epoxy sealant was cute but it wasn’t beautiful. 

For something as expensive as that pot was, I hadn’t treated it with the time and the dignity that it deserved if I were going to not just repair it, but to transform it. 

How much more valuable are you, a human life, to a ceramic pot? You are worthy of all the time, resources, and skill to repair what is broken.

6. Expression is itself transformation—sharing our stories of harm with others is part of the healing.

In Poetics of the Flesh, by Mayra Rivera, she writes,

“Break a case and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than the love that took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.” 

We live in a society that discards the old and the broken. Newness and novelty is elevated to the point of putting people in a constant state of needing to change, to update in order to stay relevant. 

What Rivera so poetically captures is how we tend to take for granted things in our lives until we encounter a loss or a tragedy. We romanticize what was or what could have been before the trauma. 

And yet Rivera is suggesting that it isn’t until after the fragmentation takes place that a love greater than previously can bring the fragments back together with a greater strength, integrity, and beauty. 

In the healing process, the act of expressing through writing, art making, movement, or through the narrative tradition is itself the process of transformation. Expression is like the gold added to the lacquer–when we express, we radiate light to others. 

7. Even the most broken parts of us can become the most valuable.

After trauma and fragmentation, when the sacred and costly work of time, care, and nurture takes place to reunite the fragmented parts of our psyches, what is left over is a person more resilient, more free, more authentic, and more beautiful than a person could ever be without having experienced the trauma.    

Have you ever met someone that you thought, ‘Now that is a solid person, they feel so free!’ You assume they have lived an easy and carefree life and that is why they are able to be so fully themselves. Then come to find out, they have lived through enormous amounts of trauma and you think, how can they have experienced so much pain and loss and yet feel so free and alive? 

There is something about moving through suffering that creates a gold binding of resilience and strength that is so brilliant, it shines. 

8. You are not beyond repair—there is beauty in the brokenness.

Trauma often makes us feel broken and worthless compared to those who have not experienced significant trauma.

The reality is, when those of us with trauma take the time to heal these wounds, to lovingly bring together the fragments of our souls and bodies with gold, it makes us shine brighter, deeper, and truer than any person who has not experienced significant suffering in their lives. 

Where there were cracks, now there is gold. We move from being ordinary to extraordinary. There is beauty in the brokenness. 

9. Repair takes time–Embrace the slow and narrow path to golden transformation, one layer at a time

Kintsugi isn’t just about mending broken pottery—it’s a meditation on healing, resilience, and embracing imperfection. Healing your own story and body is much like the process of kintsugi: slow, intentional, and ultimately transformative.

Unlike the work I did to repair my pot with the epoxy, the real art of kintsugi lies in the slow work of repairing one layer at a time. By looking at each of these steps, we can learn what this art form can teach us about the patience and grace toward the brokenness required in recovery, repair, and rebirth.

Kintsugi: A Golden Metaphor for Healing After Trauma

In the journey of healing from trauma, it’s easy to feel like our broken parts define us. But what if those cracks could become the most beautiful part of our story?

Step 1: Gather the Broken Pieces

The first step in kintsugi is often the hardest—acknowledging that something is broken. This can be the most difficult step of all because it requires us to feel the grief of the loss or of the traumatic event. Collect each shard, no matter how sharp or seemingly insignificant each piece may seem. Nothing is thrown away.

Reflection: In healing, this mirrors the moment we stop denying our pain and begin to face it. Once the brokenness is acknowledged and grieved, you are able to carefully explore each fragment within. Gathering our pieces is an act of courage.

Step 2: Clean and Prepare

Each piece is gently cleaned to remove dust, oils, or residue. This ensures the adhesive will bond properly and the repair will hold.

Reflection: In recovery, this might mean preparing ourselves emotionally—seeking support, creating safety, and clearing space for real healing to begin. Within the work of the Allender Center, we use the term “scaffolding”. 

Creating a scaffolding of support is essential for healing. This might look like finding a therapist, picking up a new embodied practice or art, leaning on a trusted friend, writing poetry, going for walks, slowing down and investing in adding beauty, rest, and play in your life–adding enough light to your life that the darkness encountered in the process of healing will not be able to overwhelm the light. 

Step 3: Apply the Urushi (Lacquer) and Rejoin

A special tree sap lacquer, called urushi, is applied to the edges of each broken piece. The pottery is then reassembled, one piece at a time, with patience and care. This stage can take days or even weeks, as each joint needs time to set and cure.

Reflection: Healing isn’t instant. It requires patience, trust, and often support from others. Healing happens in the context of relationships: a compassionate and trusted therapist, a supportive partner, a safe friend. Rejoining takes time—and that’s okay.

Step 4: Fill the Cracks with Gold

Once the piece is fully reassembled, the visible cracks are filled or dusted with gold powder (or sometimes silver or platinum), highlighting rather than hiding the fracture lines.

Reflection: This is the heart of kintsugi—celebrating the scars, not concealing them. In our lives, this can mean owning our past, sharing our story, and recognizing that our wounds make us more—not less—whole. This is also the fun, pretty part! Who am I now? What brings me joy? How can I accept myself fully and live with a sense of freedom and play?

Step 5: Polish, Reflect, and Admire

The final piece is polished and admired not as a “fixed” version of the old, but as something new: a work of art shaped by its experience.

Reflection: Healing doesn't mean returning to who we once were. It means becoming someone new—stronger, wiser, and more compassionate because of what we've been through.

Final Thoughts

In a culture that often pressures us to "move on" or “bounce back,” kintsugi offers a gentler truth: You are not broken beyond repair. Your pain matters. And with time, support, and intention, your story can become something even more powerful—not in spite of your trauma, but through it.

Kintsugi teaches us that beauty lies not in flawlessness, but in authenticity. When something breaks, it doesn’t have to be the end. With care, love, and maybe a little gold, it can become the beginning of something even more meaningful. 

If you’re on the healing journey, remember this: Your cracks don’t diminish you. They are part of what makes you whole. And with love and gold, even broken things can shine.

In Summary:

  1. Healing doesn’t mean returning to who you were before the trauma—it means becoming someone new.

  2. Embrace your imperfections—they are what make you human.

  3. What was once ordinary can become sacred through love and restoration. 

  4. Embracing imperfection can reveal a deeper, more radiant beauty.

  5. Rushing the process can lead to regret—healing requires patience.

  6. True transformation takes time, care, and intention.

  7. Expression is itself transformation—sharing our stories of harm with others is part of the healing.

  8. Even the most broken parts of us can become the most valuable.

  9. You are not beyond repair—there is beauty in the brokenness.

  10. Repair takes time–Embrace the slow and narrow path to golden transformation, one layer at a time

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Tend to your ecology of life–where authenticity and well-being grow together.

Isabel Slaney Urrutia
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