In Search Of My Soul: Broken pieces, Right or wrong, and loneliness
While reflecting, I found that our life has become more complicated in a context which is ever-changing: relationships, expectations, beliefs, and values – resulting in a stressful life.
We believe that we do not have a choice to pause and if at all we pause, we are seldom clear on what we need to do to create a quiet, contemplating, reflective mind, which can create happiness within, in whatever changing context, we are in.
During my conversation with my fellow coach in France, he indicated that he has gone through a period of loneliness. Interestingly, he also told me that when he was contemplating marrying his soulmate and wanted to shift to France and start the journey from zero, his father told him “If the love from this lady is pure and strong, you can take any risk in life”. That instilled lot of confidence in him. Therefore, while having the conversation with him, I felt glad, concerned, sad, and hopeful for the future.
Through my coaching conversations, I realised that all have stories to say, all these stories have different shades of happiness and sadness. Further, I learned that we have a choice to lead our life—as broken/discarded pieces or pieces which are joined with golden gum (the Japanese concept of “Kin-Tsugi – “golden joinery,” kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi. A centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive, the kintsugi technique employs a special urushi lacquer, made from tree sap, dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares, giving a one-of-a-kind appearance to each “repaired” piece – similar to the image given at the top.) making it more beautiful than earlier. Whether to exercise this choice or not defines our moment of truth. This poem reflects my feelings upon these thoughts – a few broken pieces, the confusion of right or wrong, and the sense of loneliness, but the conviction within to conquer the demons and come out as a winner – indicating the perpetual potential we have as human beings.
The lessons learnt from these conversations were very useful during coaching conversations: to be more grounded, be more concerned, and connect with the clients’ different emotional states and help them conquer their demons!
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Baburaj Nair
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