To Join With Gold

We've all been there. Our favorite mug, pitcher, teapot, kitsch is in our hands and as we cross the room, bend to perform some mundane action -- something happens and we lose our grip. Maybe we see it slowly fall and shatter or maybe we feel it slipping and we try to quickly catch it but it's over before we have been able to process what happened. Either way, something we loved is in pieces on the floor and we want desperately to repair it.

Sometimes this happens in a marriage.

When you are going through divorce did you realize there are actually two divorces in the works?

Well, its true. There is of course the legal one which requires that you go meet with that stodgy, stiff lawyer-dude that seems to always be in a bad mood. Then there is what we call the emotional divorce. This is the actual emotional break with the person that you are/were married to. Unlike the legal divorce, there is not a definite day and time that the emotional divorce becomes final. For some people they are emotionally divorced from their spouse for quite awhile before they file for the legal divorce. You may hear your divorcing friend say "I'm just done...just no feelings there anymore."

Bingo, she is probably emotionally divorced.

But then there are the souls that hang on and have a very difficult time with letting go of the marriage, and their spouse. The emotional divorce for those people will likely go on for quite awhile after the legal divorce is finished. (Counseling can certainly help with this and is highly recommended if you are still going through your emotional divorce.)

Both divorces must be reconciled to some extent. In divorce the pieces your emotions, of the marriage, the dreams, the kids, the individual have to be put back together after it's all split apart.

How can you put all of those things back together? It makes me think of this unique technique used for restoring damaged things. In Japan there is an ancient tradition for repairing broken pottery. Kintsugi is the art of taking the damaged pottery and filling it in with gold.  It literally means to join with gold. Gold. And it's beautiful. (Seriously, check out the history and process of Kintsugi.)

Self-growth, self-love, successful co-parenting, is the gold that fills in around the pieces, unifying the whole into something more beautiful and precious because of destruction and what it took to bring it all back together.