Beautiful In The Breaking: The Art of Becoming Whole

All the light that remains

There are times in life when everything feels cracked wide open—when the weight of grief, loss, uncertainty or a nameless heaviness splits us down the middle, and the pieces scatter in so many directions that it feels like we’ll never be able to put ourselves back together. In those moments, it's easy to believe we are broken beyond repair, that the darkness will swallow us whole.

There have been seasons in my life when everything felt like it was falling apart, unravelling. Slowly at first and then wham, all at once.

The kind of seasons where you wake up and it takes a moment to remember what's missing. Where the silence in the room feels heavier than any words could ever be. I’ve sat in that silence. I’ve cried into it. I’ve wondered if the light would ever return, when it feels like it never will (but slowly, eventually, it does).

It felt, at times, like life was chiselling away at everything I loved. Like I was being worn down to dust. There were days when the grief came in waves so big I thought I might drown.

But I didn’t. (And if you’re going through difficult times, this is my promise to you - you won’t either).

Somehow, even in the dark, the light found a way in. Not in the form of grand epiphanies or silver linings—but in tiny, quiet ways. A friend who checked in. A memory that made me cry and smile all at once. The warmth of my dog's head on my lap. Putting my running shoes back on again. Picking up a pen (metaphorically) to start writing once more.

My Mom died in December of 2015. Alcoholism took her, but really, it was the accumulation of pain she never got to heal. The holidays haven’t felt the same since. That winter cracked something open in me I didn’t know could break - and it started me on my journey to a more resilient version of myself I didn’t know existed.

In the years that followed, the losses didn’t stop. Our dog Bailey, who had been with us through some of my darkest days, died in June 2019. Then my aunt—my Mom’s sister—died of cancer in January 2021. Six months later, in June, we lost my Mom’s brother too. And then, not all that long ago, in December 2022, we said goodbye to our Mexican rescue dog Penny, another dog who had wrapped her little soul so tightly around my heart it still aches in her absence, even though we now have another Mexican rescue, Annie.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe, not in theory, but through living it: the light does come back. It doesn't always look the way you expect (I’ve learned not to expect), and it might take a while (even years). Sometimes it’s a tiny flicker—just enough to get you to tomorrow. Sometimes it hides in unlikely places: a kind word, a stranger’s smile, the quiet comfort of knowing you made it through another day. But it is there.

So, what if the breaking, the shattering into a million pieces isn't the end? What if it’s just the beginning of something else?

There is a Japanese art form called kintsugi, which means "golden joinery."

Photo by Matt Perkins on Unsplash

It’s the practice of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The result is not a return to what was, but a transformation into something more beautiful, more valuable, because of its past.

Kintsugi doesn't hide the cracks. It highlights them. It says, “This was broken. And now, it shines.”

I remember the first time I heard about kintsugi. It took my breath away - this idea that instead of hiding the cracks, it honours them. It says: this piece was broken—but now it holds more beauty, more depth, more soul because of it. It still matters. This healed and that matters too.

I used to think healing meant putting myself back together so no one could see the damage. Fitting all the puzzle pieces back together perfectly. Now I understand that healing is letting the cracks be seen—letting the gold show. Putting the pieces in different places. Every loss has reshaped me. And though I would give anything to have them all back, I carry pieces of all my loved ones, as I move through the world now.

We don't become whole again by pretending we were never broken. We become whole by embracing the truth of who we are—with all the loss, all the love, all the light that remains.

Something in me cracked open when I learned about kintsugi. I realized how much I’d been trying to glue myself back together, hoping no one would notice the lines. Hoping I could return to the way life was “before.” But the truth is, there is no going back. And I’ve learned that’s okay. Maybe we’re not meant to be restored to our old selves, but to be transformed into something more honest, more radiant. A phoenix from the ashes.

The cracks in my life—every heartbreak, every loss, every moment I thought I wouldn’t get through—have become part of my story. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. But I also wouldn’t erase them. Because through them, I’ve discovered tenderness. I’ve discovered strength and ease. Sthira and sukha in Sanskrit. I’ve learned how to sit with someone else’s pain without flinching, without trying to make them feel better, because they have to move through their journeys at their own pace. I’ve learned how to hold my own.

There’s a different kind of light that lives in us after we’ve been broken open. It’s not loud or showy. It’s the kind of light that whispers, you’re still here. And that matters.

When we move through difficult times, it is an opportunity to become our own kind of kintsugi. To allow the cracks life has left in us to be filled not with shame or silence, but with gold—grace, love, insight, resilience. Our pain becomes part of our story, but not the whole of it. The light, after all, pours in through the places where we’ve been torn open.

The idea of finding light in the darkness isn't about bypassing pain or pretending everything is okay. We aren’t papering over the cracks so that they aren’t visible. We’re letting them shine. It’s about learning to hold the tension between what is hard and what is hopeful. It’s the quiet strength of showing up again and again, even when your heart is heavy. It’s the courage to keep going, to keep loving, to keep creating, even with a few (or many) golden scars showing.

We are not meant to be flawless vessels, unmarked by life. We are meant to be changed. And often, it is in the unmaking that we become more true, more honest, more whole. It’s the things that shatter us that make us the unique beings that we are.

So if you find yourself in a season of darkness - if you’re missing someone, or something, from your life, I want you to know you’re not alone. And you’re not broken beyond repair. I want you to know: there is light waiting for you. Not in spite of the cracks, but through them. And you don’t have to be okay right away. You don’t have to fix it all. Just breathe. Just keep showing up, moment by moment. Let the light find you in the cracks.

There is beauty still to be made. There is gold to be poured. And there is a story—your story—that is still unfolding, glowing at the edges where the light has touched the brokenness and made it shine. Let the gold find you. Let the light come in through the cracks. It may take time, and effort. But there is beauty still to be made.

And when it does, when you start to glow again—don’t hide it. Let it shine.

You’re still here. And that matters more than words can say.

And I wanted to end with a quote from Leonard Cohen that goes:

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

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