Kintsugi: The Roots That Cracked the Bowl

If I were a bowl, I would not be lifted new from a shelf.

I would be one that shattered, but not from being dropped.

From something inside it growing larger than the space allowed.

I carry the philosophy of kintsugi with me because it reflects my culture and how I understand healing. Not as a return to what once was, but as an ethical act of repair. Breakage is never random. Some cracks are caused by force. Others by neglect or mistakes. And many by systems that were never designed to hold certain people gently.

There is a kind of breaking that happens quietly.

When roots grow and press against the walls made to contain them.

When growth is mistaken for excess.

When depth is welcomed...until it wants space.

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I grew up learning how to belong by adapting.

How to read rooms before speaking.

How to sense when emotion was acceptable, and when it became inconvenient.

For a long time, I called this resilience.

Now I understand it as awareness shaped by systems that reward fitting a certain frame.

Across multiple cultures, countries, institutions, and professional spaces, I learned that even if people may have an image of what they want you to be, you are ultimately the author of your own story. 

More importantly, through the varied lenses around us, there is strength in sitting with the discomfort of uncertainty of how others may perceive us when we diverge from the status quo. These lessons didn’t make me harder. They made me more attuned. More relational. More aware of how power differentials, support structures, and identity quietly shape our experiences.

Don’t let those who don’t want to be curious and learn tear off your roots. Be around those where you can express yourself without erasure. 

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In my work as a counselor alongside people navigating severe emotional pain, trauma, and disempowerment, I’ve seen how suffering rarely exists in isolation. It lives at the intersection of systems, stigma, culture, and unmet needs. Healing is not linear. And it is never purely individual.

Some of the most meaningful moments I’ve witnessed have happened in quiet spaces:

sitting with someone in tears,

sharing a meal that carries cultural memory,

listening without trying to fix what needs to be felt,

guiding someone how to express themselves through art; beyond what words could explain.

These moments taught me that care is relational and that complexity is not something to be erased, but held with curiosity and patience.

But holding complexity requires containers that are built for it.

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There is a difference between a bonsai and a wild tree.

A bonsai is shaped through careful pruning.

Its beauty comes from restraint.

From being kept small enough to fit its pot.

A wild tree, on the other hand, grows where its roots can stretch.

It cracks stone.

It lifts sidewalks.

It refuses to apologize for taking up space.

Neither is wrong...but confusing one for the other can cause harm.

I learned what happens when wild roots are placed in a container designed for bonsai.

The bowl doesn’t break because the roots are defective.

It breaks because growth has nowhere to go but outwards.

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When my bowl cracked, the response was not curiosity. It was erasure.

Less feeling.

More restraint.

A narrowing of what was allowed.

But roots do not grow less because they are asked to.

They grow because they must.

And when the bowl finally broke, gold appeared. Not gold given by an institution. Not gold earned by policy.

Gold formed through integration. Through the choice to stop fragmenting myself in order to remain palatable to people that cannot understand another perspective. Repair, for me, came from within. It came with learning that repair might not be mutual. To accept what is in our control and let go of what is not.

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Kintsugi teaches us that repair is not about hiding the fracture.

It’s about tracing it honestly.

About acknowledging where the structure failed and where something stronger can emerge.

For me, the gold was the realization that becoming a healer does not mean shrinking to fit a mold from those around us.

It means becoming more whole.

More accountable.

More rooted.

Over the years at Voices Meet Minds, I’ve seen how storytelling allows people to reclaim narratives that were once flattened or taken from them. When someone is given language for their experience — when their cracks are named rather than concealed — stigma and shame loosens its grip.

This is the work I believe in.

Not perfect vessels.

But honest ones.

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I am still growing.

Still learning when to bend and when to root deeper.

Still discovering what kinds of containers constrain me, and others, to thrive.

But I no longer mistake breaking for failure.

Sometimes, the bowl breaks because it has done its job.

Because it held what it could…until it couldn’t.

Because something inside it was becoming more than the shape it was given. And sometimes, that is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of repair. With myself, with people, with systems and staying true to my values that root me. 

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Writer’s Note: This piece is published under my own name. Earlier versions of my writing lived under a pseudonym, written from a place of survival. This one is written from integration.