Kintsugi: The Art of Becoming Stronger Through Breakage
In Japan, there is an ancient art called Kintsugi. When pottery breaks, instead of hiding the cracks, artisans repair it with golden lacquer, making the piece not only whole again but stronger, more valuable, and more beautiful because of its scars.
It’s a radical way of seeing brokenness: not as the end, but as the beginning of transformation.
Resilience vs. Elasticity
In public safety, we talk a lot about resilience—the ability to “bounce back” after stress or trauma. But here’s the truth: resilience still assumes you’ve broken.
What if we aimed higher?
What if instead of just bouncing back, we became elastic—stronger, tougher, and less likely to break when the next storm comes?
That’s what Kintsugi teaches us.
The gold isn’t just glue. It’s reinforcement.
The cracks don’t make the bowl weaker—they’re the reason it becomes a masterpiece.
Your struggles, your scars, your painful calls—they are not the end of your story. They are the gold that, if you let them, will bind you together with more strength than you had before.
The Rustic Strength Within
Dr. Mitch Javidi calls this being rustic.
In his powerful essay I Am Rustic, he reminds us that life—and especially service in public safety—will leave you weathered. The storms of this work will etch lines into your heart and mind. But those lines aren’t shameful. They are proof of your survival, your character, your courage.
Like Kintsugi, rusticity is about embracing the marks life leaves on you. Not hiding them. Not pretending they don’t exist. But letting them become the very source of your strength.
The Science of Post-Traumatic Growth
Research calls this post-traumatic growth: the phenomenon where people who endure hardship emerge with greater purpose, stronger values, deeper relationships, and more inner strength (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).
Instead of asking, “How do I get back to who I was before?” the question becomes:
“How do I become stronger, wiser, and more whole because of what I’ve been through?”
You Are the Bowl. You Are the Gold.
Every crack in your story is an opportunity.
Every scar is a chance to fill yourself with gold.
Not to erase the break, but to become unbreakable in new ways.
Your career, your life, your service—it will leave marks. That’s not failure. That’s the art of becoming rustic. That’s Kintsugi.
The Masterpiece of Living
This, truly, is what life is all about.
It’s about letting the scars of our living—both the ones carved from joy and the ones carved from hardship—turn into gold.
It’s about becoming so open to every experience that, wherever life touches us, we transform.
Every mark becomes part of the canvas of our hearts, turning it into a living masterpiece of gold, beauty, and experience.
The goal is not to escape being marked by life. It’s to let those marks make you more beautiful, more whole, and more capable of love.
Call to Action: Practice Kintsugi This Week
This week, reflect on one of your cracks—the moments that left scars, visible or invisible. Instead of asking how to hide it, ask:
How has this experience made me stronger?
What gold has it poured into my life—wisdom, compassion, resilience, perspective?
How can I carry that forward into my family, my team, my community?
Write it down. Share it with someone you trust. Honor your scars.
Because your cracks don’t make you less—they make you more.
Works Cited
Tedeschi, Richard G., and Lawrence G. Calhoun. Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence. Psychological Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–18.
Javidi, Mitch. I Am Rustic. National Command & Staff College, 2020.