The Break Is Part of the Story
By Sophie Makonnen
Not everything needs to be restored to how it was. Some things are meant to transform us.
Kintsugi and the Beauty of Imperfection
In Japanese culture, kintsugi, which translates to "golden joinery," is the centuries-old practice of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Rather than disguising the damage, kintsugi illuminates the cracks. The result is not a seamless restoration, but a reimagined object—one that honours the break and its repair as part of the piece’s continuing story.
This philosophy is deeply rooted in wabi-sabi, a worldview that embraces impermanence, imperfection, and the beauty found in the natural cycle of growth and decay. It teaches that beauty is found in simplicity, irregularity, and the passage of time, rather than in flawlessness or symmetry. It is a quiet reverence for simple, weathered, and transient things.
In kintsugi, the break is not a failure to be hidden. It is something to be worked with, integrated, made visible, even dignified. It becomes part of the object’s history, not a detour from it. On the other hand, the gold lines in a repaired bowl do not make it “better” than before. They simply make it different, marked by time and experience, carried forward rather than restored to a previous state.
This view aligns with other traditional Japanese concepts:
Mottainai: A sense of regret over waste, encouraging care and reverence for materials, time, and resources. In kintsugi, this means not discarding what has broken, but finding a way to continue its life.
Mushin: A state of no-mindedness or flow. Of accepting change and loss without attachment. It encourages emotional equanimity and openness to transformation.
My intention is not to romanticize or oversimplify. Kintsugi has a very specific cultural, historical, and philosophical context, particularly influenced by Zen Buddhism and traditional Japanese aesthetics. While kintsugi is sometimes metaphorically applied to personal healing in the West, in Japan, it is first and foremost a craft—a practice requiring years of apprenticeship, discipline, and deep respect for materials.
A Statue That Stayed With Me
Fifteen years ago, during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, a tall, slim, six-foot wooden statue in my living room fell and broke. It depicted a man blowing into a conch shell—a striking image rooted in the country’s revolutionary history for independence and to end slavery. This figure was inspired by the bronze statue of Neg Mawon—or the Maroon Man—officially known as Le Marron Inconnu (“The Unknown Maroon” in French)—a national monument in Port-au-Prince that commemorates enslaved people who escaped and resisted slavery. In one hand, he holds a machete; in the other, he blows into a conch shell, called a lambi in Haitian Creole. During the Haitian Revolution, the lambi was more than an instrument: its deep, resonant sound was used to signal resistance, call people to gather, and warn communities of danger across the mountains.
My wooden statue, a birthday gift deeply meaningful to me, had once stood tall, hand-carved, full of movement and purpose. The shell and part of the arm snapped off in the quake. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I tied the broken pieces to what remained and left it just like that in the living room, a quiet witness to that day.
Eighteen months later, I was transferred to Guyana. I packed the broken statue with me and placed it again in my living room in Georgetown. One day, a new friend who owned a furniture store came by. Her furniture, crafted from local wood and natural materials, reflected an eco-conscious approach that wasn’t yet mainstream. When she noticed the statue, I told her the story and said I didn’t want to get rid of it. She offered to have it repaired in her workshop.
A few days later, the statue returned, beautifully and thoughtfully restored. You could still see where it had broken, but only if you looked closely. It stood proud again, and I was glad I had kept it. It became a quiet reminder, not just of how that day shaped my life or how lucky my family and I had been, but of something deeper. The earthquake struck without regard for status or circumstance. For 35 seconds, neither wealth nor position offered protection. The statue, repaired and standing in my living room, reminded me that what endures isn’t always untouched.
Thirteen years later, the statue is with me in Quebec, Canada, still standing in my living room—now in a small house nestled in the woods, about 70 kilometres outside Montreal. The repair has aged. The lines are more visible. And they’re simply part of the statue now—because I chose to keep it, to live with it. When I discovered kintsugi, the Japanese art of honouring broken things with gold, I thought immediately of my statue. I hadn’t known this technique at the time, but I had followed the instinct: not to discard what had been broken, but to carry it forward with care, memory, and respect.
Resilience
Kintsugi and perhaps my statue remind me what resilience can look like.
Too often, resilience is quietly equated with restoration, as if the goal were to return unchanged, to recover what was lost and resume life as it was. But that idea can obscure reality: life events alter us. Systems shift. Loss reshapes priorities. What’s broken may not be fully restorable. And that’s not a failure.
Resilience, as the American Psychological Association (APA) reminds us, is about adaptation, not return. It’s about carrying forward what remains and reimagining what’s possible from there. Not in spite of, not by hiding, not by trying to return to how things were before—but with it. Because of it.
That is what I love about kintsugi. The repair is not a flaw to be concealed. It transforms the object. The visible seams don’t erase the damage; they acknowledge it. And in doing so, they create something new, something strong, something beautiful.
I see the art of kintsugi as a form of resilience.
I don’t interpret this as a call to lower our standards or give up on excellence. It’s more about letting go of the illusion that everything should be perfect, or that we can move through life and work without encountering fracture. The twists and turns aren’t detours. They’re part of the process.
Maybe embracing the process is the real challenge.
Kintsugi pottery ©Photos by Naoko Fukumaru
Leading After Crisis
Crisis doesn’t always announce itself with headlines or fanfare. Sometimes it arrives suddenly—like an earthquake—and other times, it accumulates quietly through organizational shifts, political instability, or personal loss. But whatever the source, one thing is true: we don’t lead the same afterward.
Leading after a crisis requires more than recovery plans or strategic resets. It asks for presence, humility, and a willingness to lead with what’s still uncertain. You might carry fatigue, grief, and questions that haven’t fully settled. But that doesn’t mean you’re unfit to lead. On the contrary, it means you’re leading with what’s real. And that can be a source of strength, not despite the break, but because of how you’ve moved through it.
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it. (Maya Angelou)
If you’re at a turning point, personally or professionally, and wondering how to move forward without erasing what you’ve been through, coaching may help.
It can offer a space to reflect, make sense of what’s shifted, and choose your next steps with greater clarity and confidence.
If that’s something you’re curious about, you’re welcome to book a conversation to learn more.
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