My Dear Past Self, You Ain’t Broken But A KINTSUGI Art

Kintsugi reminds us that something can break and yet still be beautiful, and that, once repaired, it is stronger at the broken places. This is an incredible metaphor for healing and recovery from adversity. — The art of being broken, WellBeing.com.au

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold. — Wikipedia

My dear past self, do not be ashamed of your broken past. This is just part of your life journey, not the whole of it. Everything happened for reason.

Knowing that you used to be a perfectionist, with your passive-aggressive attitude, it is not surprising that you are where you are now. Although deep down, you are one with a golden heart but emotionally weak.

It’s just that you had a bumpy start in your life, lack of guidance and wisdom to navigate in the rough sea of life.

You had to deal with your parents’ rocky marriage that cast a shadow on your perception of marriage. Your father’s violence towards your mother terrified you. Your mother's negativity drowned your confidence. Unfortunately, you inherited this too from her, besides her insecurity and stubbornness.

Your siblings teased you about your ugliness in your childhood which further eroded your self-confidence. It may not be a big deal to many others, but it matters to you because of your sensitive nature. You had a lonely childhood, so sharing seemed an odd thing to you, and you felt awkward asking for help.

Your introverted nature and timidness made you an unpopular kid. People’s unfriendly gestures further dwindled your already little self-worth. You felt like you were invisible among your loud and popular siblings.

No one could understand you and you felt helpless. You felt like you do not belong to your own species or even the earth here. You started to be afraid of humans, and try to run away from them if possible. You never realize that you were building a wall around yourself which was detrimental to you.

I knew that you have a high standard and ambition. Yet your inborn character and your circumstances had shaped you to be too blinded to see the truth — there was a veil in front of your eyes. You couldn’t see your right path through it.

You kept asking yourself — why am I born with such a conflicting personality? Your character and ambitions are two things that oppose each other! Yet you were too consumed by your negative emotions to realize this.

My dear past self, all the above circumstances were put to test your resilience and resourcefulness. These are the lessons you need to learn and overcome.

Although too bad that you made some mistakes and wrong choices in your golden age of 20s, which resulted in your unhappiness for the next two decades most of the time. I knew that you hardly had any breathing space. You kept licking your old wounds one after another… all by yourself.

It’s all right, my dear… It’s not totally your fault as we all are shaped by our environments. Success needs a perfect combination of three factors — the right timing, the right people, and being at the right place.

You only fail when you give up.

Finally, you had a huge awakening after all the hard knocks! Your dark veil was being removed.

Everyone has their own time clock for the major events in their lives.

Take the success story of Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of KFC, Jack Ma of Alibaba, etc., who achieved great success only at a much later age after lots of hardships.

My dear past self, glad that you had finally come to peace with yourself and starting a new chapter in life, and regain your enthusiasm for life. This time you know that you’ll make it right!

Just like the beautiful video below — You are not broken beyond repair.

Be proud of your scars... Be the best version of yourself! Ganbatte!

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