Using the Gold Glue

Lessons in repair from Ted Lasso

In my first few sessions with new clients, I (Alyssa) usually ask them to tell me about “before and after moments.” What I mean by that is, I want to understand moments in their life where before X happened, life looked like that, and after X happened, life then looked like this. These tend to be markers in a client/couple’s timeline.

When clients answer, they almost always choose moments that were painful, challenging, anxiety-producing, and/or sad. It tends to be moments where the memory of how something was is so powerful, that everything after feels different and new. Maybe it is the loss of a relative, or the betrayal of a partner, or a falling out with a friend— and it makes sense these are the moments that stick out because they are the moments when they probably had to relearn parts of their life. 

We All Want the “Before”

Clients typically don’t have trouble naming these moments. They may even be part of the reason they are coming to therapy. But, when we actually start sorting through the effects of those moments, it gets tricky. It seems that so quickly people want to get back to whatever they were like “before” or whatever life was like “before.” Before becomes this dream destination to return back to, like that is where they need to be. 

Couples want to feel the same way they did in their relationship before the betrayal. Individuals want to be the version of themselves before that relationship ended. Families want to be as close as before they lost that beloved member.

I get that. Of course we all want the before. Before was just that, before— before the pain, before the hurt, before the loss, before the anxiety. Whereas, in the after we are pained, hurt, lost, anxious. It makes sense we want to move away from the after and the only other spot on the map we can see is the before. 

As a therapist, it is hard for me not to get caught in chasing the before. But, in a recent session, I was sitting with a couple and seeing how hard it was for them to have been working so hard and not feel like they were not back to what they knew their relationship to be before. I felt the defeat in the room— like we had all the right pieces and even though they were fitting together, the final picture didn’t look the same. 

A Different Kind of “After”

It was at that moment that Ted Lasso came to mind. I was brought back to the moment when the “Believe” sign was ripped in half. When the players find out, they are in shock. They think they are doomed. And in classic Ted fashion, he proceeds to give an inspiring locker room talk that ends in him ripping up the sign even more times. Tragic, but moving— classic Ted.

Several episodes later, in the series finale, the players each pull out individual pieces that they had saved from the ripped sign and rearrange the sign back together (I’m not doing this scene justice, so if you aren’t feeling the emotion, then I encourage you to rewatch it as I just did and get fresh tears in your eyes). 

This scene comes to mind for three reasons in the session I mentioned above.

1. This important pillar of “belief” for AFC Richmond is altered. It is ripped. Broken into pieces. And at first, it is jarring and then anger producing. There is only the after. 

2. There is a moment that comes after the after. Suddenly, there is a new spot on the map. The players have each carried around the pieces of this sign as a reminder of the before and in carrying it individually, seeing the other members of their team carry it, and then in working together to put it back together, there is something after the loss and change. 

3. In the final scenes of the show, you see one of the characters hanging up a new “Believe” sign made up of all the ripped pieces glued together with gold glue. This is a reference to the Japanese practice of kintsugi, or “to join with gold.” Its purpose is to create something new and beautiful after it is broken, not by erasing the cracks or the rips, but by accentuating it with something different.

The “Gold Glue”

With my couple, I brought up these images (they’ve watched Ted Lasso don’t worry)-- the ripped sign, the carrying of the pieces, and the new sign at the end— and asked what it would be like to give permission for the relationship to not have to look like the before? What if there is something that follows the after— something that follows the pain and the hurt and the loss? What if we can know before and after and then make something new from those pieces using the gold glue?

To me, there is something hopeful to this idea of using the gold glue. That I don’t have to twist and bend and burn myself out trying to get to before because, in a very blunt way, it won’t go back. And that I don’t have to live forever looking at only the memory of what was in the after. 

And I hope you know I am not asking you to go to Michael’s and buy the Elmer’s glitter gold glue and scrapbook your way to healing (unless you want to because honestly it sounds kind of nice). The gold glue in real life may look like new expectations and boundaries in relationships to make them stronger, finding ways to integrate family member’s traditions, or practicing self-compassion with ourselves. Whatever it may be, perhaps the gold glue gives permission for whatever it is in the before you are longing for to still be there, but with some sparkly adjustments.