The Break Matters
The process of putting it back together - slowly, honestly, messily - is the magic.
There’s a Japanese art called kintsugi - the process of mending broken pottery with lacquer dusted in gold. It’s absolutely beautiful (and the end product is eye watering expensive.)
Rather than trying to hide the damage, kintsugi highlights the repair.
The cracks are traced with gold like battle scars, like beautiful seams NOT like the way Salford Council fills in a pothole. These pots are put together with care, compassion and skill.
The imperfections become the masterpiece. A broken piece, pieced back together, becomes more valuable than it was before.
And that? That’s the whole bloody point.
The break matters.
The process of putting it back together - slowly, honestly, messily - is the magic.
And the end result isn’t just beautiful. It’s stronger. More real. More resilient than before.
I was talking about this with the fabulous Jennifer Cox who is on the podcast next week. She was telling me about the incredible work Chess Galea and Dr. Hayleigh Bosher are doing in this field, how our recovery and what we do next is the real story.
About how we get to make the plot twists part of our story the gold seals of worth but not the defining end. This has been so blinking important in my world as my girl navigated a blinking huge trauma and it broke her for a bit. And me. But it’s also been really important that this hasn’t been her defining story. It’s part of what makes her the bloody brilliant woman she is today. It’s her gold seam of survival and forms part of how she thrives - it’s the thread of gold that is turning her scars into something more.
That’s also what The FoundHer Fire Collective is built on.
This is not about pretending the cracks never happened.
It’s not about spinning a shiny story that skips the struggle.
It’s about choosing to come back - full of grit, heart and hard-won clarity.
Plot twist after plot twist.
Burnout. Redundancy. Divorce. Life getting lifey. The midlife itch to make it count. Simply deciding your cracks are going to fuel the come back, the sequel season.
You are not ruined. You’re being remade. The key is committing to the remaking and knowing your worth is eye wateringly expensive. And the women who walk through that fire.
They don’t just bounce back - they rebuild with gold in their seams. (Bounce-back: another word to get in the bloody bin.)
So here’s your Friday reminder:
This isn’t your breakdown. It’s your rebuild. This isn’t a detour. It’s your sequel. You’re not being blind-sided, you’re seeing how things could be without the bullshit.
This is your kintsugi era.
And trust me - it’s the most powerful one yet.
You ready?
(Picture of my gorgeous daughter Izzy Tyler (obvs taking after her mum) on stage awarding her Player of The Year for U13 at the Emerging Talent Centre for Manchester United. Her gold seams are now helping others thrive.)
