Discovering new hope within the brokenness in my life

I know I seem to have it all together. But the reality is, like many of us, there are myriad cracks just below the surface.

To be fair, I have got so good at concealing them that, most of the time, I don’t even notice them myself. I spend so little time thinking about them that I forget that I have them.

In fact, I felt so ‘together’, and wanting others to feel the same, that I started a course on helping others to tackle their own mental health.

But, in taking this course, I am rediscovering the cracks and the fractures within myself. I am coming to grips with episodes of anxiety, depression and shame in my past. Episodes that I literally stepped through and put behind me so completely that I forgot they were there.

It seems strange to me that a course on mental health would alter my perceived reality to one that reflects less mental stability. But the truth is, something in me is feeling more grounded – more sure of the rock on which it is founded.

As I engage with the hidden side of my character and experience, I am seeing more richness in how they make me who I have become. I feel more proud of the complex conundrum that is me. I feel more connected to those around me. I feel more blessed.

Moreover, I am finding that sharing my stories and insights with others in the group is helping them. And as they share their stories and insights it inspires me. At one level, it highlights to me experiences in my own life that I have glossed over. At another level, it provides a new normality and acceptance in which to handle those experiences. And, at a third level, it provides guidance on how I can more productively integrate them into who I have become, and who I want to be next.

As a result, like a Kintsugi bowl, the aspects of me that I have sought to conceal are made more prominent, and paradoxically more attractive, in a richer, fuller reflection of the whole.

And I realise, as someone who seemed to have it together, amidst communities of others who seem to have it together, that I am not alone in this.

In fact, it would be remarkable in this life for anyone to have achieved their current level of maturity without damage of some kind, however well they conceal it.

For an unfortunate few, the way they deal, or fail to deal, with that damage eventually catches up with them in traumatic, sometimes fatal ways. But if more of us can embrace and healthily incorporate our own damage into our lives, we can help people understand they are not alone. If we can make actively working on our mental health more ‘normal’ (like we do with our physical health) we can do much to remove the stigma that holds people back. We can model strategies and insights that can help others join us.

And we can enrich our lives, our narratives, and our relationships at the same time. As Leonard Cohen put it: Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering; There is a crack, a crack in everything; That’s how the light gets in.

I do have it together, but not in the way that I originally thought. And that is not just okay – it is refreshing, uplifting and empowering.

And I would like others to experience that too.

With thanks to the Kintsugi Hope team for this fulfilling experience, and making it freely available to everyone. God bless you.