USING CONCEPTS FROM THE JAPANESE ART OF KINTSUGI, TRAUMA THERAPIST AND COACH HANNAH MCKIMM SHOWS US HOW WE CAN BUILD HEALTHIER, MORE LOVING RELATIONSHIPS WITH OURSELVES
Jim Rhon famously said, “We become the average of the five people we spend the most time around.” When you think about those who surround you in your life, who comes to mind? You might think about relationships with partners, family, co-workers, neighbours or even the person who serves you coffee in the morning. However, do you include the most important relationship – the relationship you have with yourself?
Ultimately, the dynamic within the relationship to ourselves heavily influences all of these other connections. It is, after all, the longest relationship we will have, yet for many of us, we find ourselves putting it at the bottom of our list of priorities. In marriage or civil partnerships, we make a legal promise to care for the other person in all eventualities, but do we ever make this promise to ourselves? We tell ourselves we will get around to taking care of ourselves when we have the time, but then the time never seems to arrive.
Broken but beautiful
It’s vital for our wellbeing and sense of belonging to maintain external connections, including through the act of kindness. According to the Office for National Statistics, positive relationships have one of the most significant impacts on our quality of life and happiness.
So, our task is not to solely focus on ourselves but to find balance and gain a deeper understanding of how the relationship we have with ourselves forms the foundation for all other relationships.
Using the process and metaphor of the Japanese art of kintsugi ( ) as our guide to expanding our awareness and quality of this relationship, let’s take some time together to bring our focus inwards.
• Try this: Take a few minutes to complete the exercise to explore what kind of relationship you have with yourself and how you might like this to change.
1 Bringing awareness to the cracks
Throughout our lives, we have all experienced events, situations and people that impact on who we are and how we show up in life. However, it is not the severity of the event that has the biggest impact on us but how we dealt with the event at the time. If we did not have the available space to process a stressful event, felt unable to express ourselves or did not feel heard, then this energy will become stored in our bodies and dictate how we respond later in life. Ultimately, this can lead to unhappiness.
These stressful events can leave us feeling a sense of loss, hurt, shame, anx
