Kintsugi – why you should care about it
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery typically with a gold or silver tinted joinery. The belief is the damage is a part of the items story, not the end. It’s about embracing the imperfect and the flawed. This is my first journal piece, and I believe it’s the most important and fundamental. After all, I named my business after it.
Exercise and movement for most people is highly correlated to their mental health and injuries can have a big impact on this. The activities that they attach their identity so closely to become limited, absent or prohibited. Finding new ways to alleviate stress, to maintain health, to integrate and mingle with their social circle are the hidden challenges that come with any injury.
If you’re lucky and the problem is small and fully recoverable from then this post is not addressed to you. This is regarding the injuries that have a reasonable impact on people’s lives for a prolonged period. Having to face this new reality, and the internal reflections of self that they may encounter can be much harder than the physical challenges, yet it’s so poorly thought of let alone managed. There are so many studies that show that a person’s perception of their problem and recovery potential can be hugely impactful on their outcome – both positive and negative. Yet who of you when seeing a health professional has challenged you on this, educated on its power and helped to improve it.
For example – a local rugby player who has been on the same team for the past several years and spends most weekends (whether playing or not) socialising with this group. They suffer a hip injury that takes 6months of rehab, then still require surgery followed by another 6months of rehab and told they shouldn’t play competitive again given the potential risk.
Or the new graduate who has started running to cope with the increased stress and demands of working life and develops a tendinopathy and told they’re not allowed to run for a few months until it settles. The lack of stress relief then plays on their mental health and worsens symptoms as well as their performance at work.
For both people having to come to terms that it may be years until they are back to their ‘normal’ can be shattering. It is a battle that they didn’t sign up for and potentially aren’t equipped to fully handle.
As someone who has had some considerable injuries myself, I have been through the above and had to learn a lot about what it takes to really overcome an injury. Listening to clients tell their stories for the last decade has taught me so much and helped with this journey. It really is true that our clients can be our best teachers and I cherish this and am grateful every day for what I have learnt. By seeing their behaviours, it has made me realise how I was doing the exact same thing. These lessons that I have learnt I now try and re-instil into my clients during their process.
This is where kintsugi comes in. The reason I named my company ‘inspire’ is because I believe in rebirth. I believe in helping individuals through the process of reflection and viewing things in a different way. Life may be changed, but that doesn’t change the beauty that’s available to be seen in it. The best-case scenario is that the problems are short term, but the client is able to sit in the discomfort and learn something. Coming out the other side with more knowledge, wisdom as well as physical health to be able to move forward and grow. Maybe they’ll also then be able to help someone else in their life who comes into a similar situation. For those that the issue is more permanent it’s about learning to accept this and getting back to living and loving life.
This mindset then stays with you. Learning to accept the bad, to see the silver linings, to take control of narratives and own the story. It’s a life skill that translate to all areas and something that humanity needs more of.
