In question 4 I asked you to keep track of your thoughts for a day. I hope for you that they were mostly positive. In my case, that wasn't the case for so long. I thought I was a bad person when I stood up for myself. So I didn't think I was good enough, not nice enough and certainly not beautiful enough. Of course that had to do with the adults I grew up with. It's enormous what influence adults have on children and young adults.

In Japan, they have a philosophy of life, Kintsugi. In this philosophy, a broken object is repaired, whereby the fracture lines are clearly visible. A Kintsugi master does not work away the cracks, but accentuates them. The philosophy goes beyond a practical artistic skill: it touches on the symbolism of healing and resilience. The object is restored to its former glory, it reconciles itself with its past and thus becomes stronger, more beautiful and dearer than before the fracture.

Kintsugi is closely related to the Japanese beauty ideal of wabi-sabi: that there is beauty in simple things and in imperfection. One should not hide the damage, but rather show and enhance it. The damaged pottery is repaired with a special, extra strong glue, mixed with gold powder. The golden 'veins' that your cup or plate gets as a result symbolize the idea that something can be broken, but is no less beautiful because of it. In fact, a broken thing can be beautiful precisely because it has been broken. I always apply this philosophy in communication with our children, not in the same words, but in the spirit. It prevents you from feeling ashamed if something does not go perfectly or has gone wrong. That is precisely how you learn and grow.

I want you to experience what you could work on according to the philosophy of Kintsugi, what needs healing and what is valuable and at the same time very simple. So simple that it is obvious. What you can very simply leave imperfect and therefore gives shine.

Here are some ideas that, according to kintsugi thinking, can help one experience healing and value in something seemingly simple:

1. Recovery and reflection through meditation

Meditation, especially focused on self-acceptance, can help you discover the “cracks” within yourself. By taking time to calm your inner turmoil, you can appreciate where these “cracks” have shaped you. As with kintsugi, the idea is not to hide these fault lines, but to cherish them as part of your own valuable story.

2. Creatively repairing an object with sentimental value

Repair a damaged object, such as a broken mug, vase or picture frame. During the process, you can reflect on what that object means. This simple gesture helps you to literally and symbolically work on “healing” something valuable.

3. Practice daily gratitude exercises for imperfections

Write down what you are grateful for every day, paying special attention to things that didn’t go perfectly. This helps you appreciate the “cracks” and see how those imperfections add value to your life.

4. Take walks in nature and learn from imperfections

In nature you can see that perfection does not exist – trees are sometimes crooked, flowers have cracks in their leaves, stones are uneven. By consciously observing and appreciating how everything is still beautiful, even if it is not “perfect”, you can learn to embrace your own imperfections.

5. Reading and restoring old books or letters

By caring for something valuable that shows signs of age, such as an old letter, diary or book, you can experience the idea of beauty in transience. Perhaps you mend a torn page or re-tape a corner; this simple gesture shows that damage is part of a history that only makes the object more meaningful.

These experiences emphasize that healing and growth are slow and sometimes fragile processes, but it is precisely this vulnerability that makes them valuable. As kintsugi teaches us, beauty and value lie in embracing and making imperfections visible.

So in 2020 I wrote a personal development book for women and even though it was not an easy process, not even to publish and sell it, it also taught me a lot. Especially that I let myself be influenced by too many people during the whole process, because I was not strong enough to come out with my personal story in my own way, which is why I started writing this training in a completely different way. Initially there was no goal to do anything with it, my goal was to get a good feeling again with the texts I had used in my book and in the meantime the empowerment program continued to grow. In the meantime I got a role in our new family business and I experienced again what emotions this new activity in my life brought about and that gave me exactly the push to persevere, I felt resilience to share my knowledge and experience with more people. I was very happy and proud that after 25 years I was active in a company again and took on all kinds of new tasks, met people, went to trade fairs and grew as a result. When I went abroad as an expat, I gave up a very nice job in the corporate world for my family and now I went back into the corporate world for our family, to support them. This fulfilled a desire of mine, but at the same time I noticed that it also had an effect on women around me. I came across the “crab basket” phenomenon again, which I wrote about in my book and in question 3. Only now I had the advantage that my social and work environment did not consist of one group, as in the time that I published my book, and so the eye and voice of the environment no longer had much effect on me. I managed to show that I was growing, that I was happy and at the same time had to get used to my new life. Because that was exactly what it was, it is difficult to keep all the balls in the air when you have ambition. Exactly the word that I valued, but when I became a mother it took on a different meaning. I had not lost it, very slowly it came back, that old feeling, but in a completely different way. For me it felt symbolically like the cup that had been mended with gold. I was allowed to show that because I had become a mother I had experienced everything in those 25 years, that was precisely why I was valuable. There is always hope and everything is possible if you keep taking steps.

If I had dived into the energy of the book I had published and what I had lost in sales due to disappointing results, or in other words, into the energy of shame, I would never have succeeded.

So what needs to be healed in you? Revived? What is lying on the shelf under the dust? What step can you take, so that healing can take place.