Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes Originals
Kintsugi Heroes Originals
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Documentary
  • Updated Weekly

Kintsugi Heroes is a powerful Australian podcast sharing real-life stories of resilience, mental health, and human transformation. Each episode features raw, honest conversations with everyday people who have overcome adversity including addiction, trauma, grief, illness, financial hardship, and life-altering challenges. Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi — repairing what’s broken with gold — this podcast explores how life’s toughest moments can shape strength, purpose, and connection. Kintsugi Heroes exists to remind us that our struggles do not define us — they refine us.  Through deeply human storytelling, we create a safe space for lived experiences to be shared with dignity, compassion, and authenticity. Our mission is to reduce isolation, increase connection, and promote mental wellbeing through the power of story — not as clinical advice, but as real conversations that people can relate to and learn from.  🎧 Topics covered include: Mental health, addiction recovery, trauma, grief and loss, personal growth, resilience, relationships, disability, identity, life transitions, and rebuilding after failure. 🌍 Featuring voices from diverse backgrounds across cultures, communities, and lived experiences — because everyone has a story worth hearing. 🔗 Listen, Connect & Learn More Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KintsugiHeroes 💬 Why Listen to Kintsugi Heroes? If you’re navigating a tough time, rebuilding your life, or looking for real stories that inspire hope — this podcast is for you. These are not polished success stories. These are real people, real struggles, and real comebacks. ⸻ Follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube for full video episodes Share this with someone who needs to hear it

  1. 12h ago

    Ruth Carter: Making a Queer Documentary in Regional Victoria

    How Queer Looks Ruth and Ash met in Year 7 and found each other through shared online interests during the early years of social media and queer community discovery. Ruth came out as attracted to women in their mid-teens in a supportive family environment; Ash came out as queer at age 9 and later came out as non-binary at 13, becoming their school's first openly non-binary student. When they moved into community youth work, both noticed a gap: younger queer people had no local role models or connection to older generations who could show them that happy, long queer lives were possible. They pitched the idea of a documentary featuring older queer adults to Youth Affairs Council Victoria's HEY grants program, won $10,000, and produced How Queer Looks with professional filmmaking support. The documentary premiered at their school and has since been approached by cinemas, though technical barriers around file formats have limited its wider distribution. Ruth and Ash continue to push for grassroots community building in regional Victoria. Ruth Carter is a 19-year-old from Ballarat, Victoria, who uses she/they pronouns. Along with their friend Ash Crawford, Ruth created How Queer Looks, a documentary featuring older LGBTQIA+ adults sharing their lived experiences. Ruth and Ash secured a $10,000 grant through Youth Affairs Council Victoria to produce the film, which aims to show younger queer people that long, fulfilling lives are possible within the community. Links to How Queer Looks Short Film:https://youtu.be/yHyuqxm9ws0si=FYBUJXsHhe76Fbo0 and https://yballarat.org.au/how-queer-looks/ In this Pride In Stories conversation with John Dwyer, Ruth shares the story behind the moments below. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introductions 01:26 Ash and Ruth introduce themselves and their work 03:08 How they met and their unlikely friendship 06:46 Ash's queer awakening and early realisation 09:13 Ash's experience as the first non-binary student 12:39 The motivation behind How Queer Looks documentary 14:15 Finding and connecting with participants 17:49 The impact of older queer voices on younger community 20:20 Winning the grant and bringing the documentary to life 32:39 Future vision for the LGBTQIA+ community 35:44 What allies can do better 41:41 Final messages and closing thoughts 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262718400868059 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic): https://yacvic.org.au/ Minus18: https://www.minus18.org.au/ The Y (YMCA): https://www.ymca.org.au/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience • Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #PrideInStories #LGBTQIA #QueerCommunity #YouthLeadership #NonBinary #RegionalQueerness #CommunityBuilding #Allyship ——— Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

    Ruth Carter: Making a Queer Documentary in Regional Victoria

  2. 1d ago

    Matthew French on Surviving Domestic and Family Violence to Mentoring Veterans and Kids

    The kettlebell in the garage ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Matthew grew up in domestic violence, found stability in his stepfather, and joined the army at 25 to honour his stepfather's dying wish and his own calling to serve. In Afghanistan, he excelled as a machine gunner and paratrooper but witnessed the killing of three mates in a green-on-blue incident that fractured him with unearned guilt. Back home, he broke his neck surfing, lost his footing to medication and despair, then threw it all in the bin and picked up a kettlebell in his garage. That decision led him to youth mentoring, which gave him back his purpose. For the past decade, he has built a model that pairs veterans with struggling kids, arguing that only those who have survived real adversity can credibly teach others to do the same. His mission now is policy change and leaving his daughter a better world. Matthew French is a former infantry soldier and paratrooper who served with 3 RAR in Afghanistan in 2012, where he experienced combat and lost three mates in a single incident. After medical discharge, a broken neck, and a spiral of medication, he found purpose mentoring at-risk young Australians and now runs youth development programs nationally, employing veterans and working to reshape how Australian society supports both returning soldiers and struggling children. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Matthew shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• A childhood fractured by domestic violence taught Matthew early what not to do, turning a negative role model into a blueprint for the opposite. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Purpose before the fracture03:16 The stepfather's final words05:50 Growing up with domestic violence11:28 Signing up for service15:06 The calling to fight22:06 Landing in Afghanistan30:44 First contact36:02 The casualty incident42:00 Throwing it all away48:39 The mentoring call57:28 Building a movement1:04:49 Legacy and leaving things better 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #hiddenvalue #veteranstories #mentoring #youth #PTSD #service #militaryveterans #mentalhealth ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

    Matthew French on Surviving Domestic and Family Violence to Mentoring Veterans and Kids

  3. 3d ago

    Bill Stahl: Twelve Surgeries and the Friend Who Taught Him Attitude Is a Choice

    It doesn't help to have a bad attitude ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse, grief, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Bill Stahl's fracture came gradually, through dozens of injuries sustained across a lifetime of pushing his body in sport. Each setback, torn Achilles, ruptured quad tendon, twelve surgeries since 2011-could have stopped him. Instead, he treated recovery as his job, returning to running weeks or months faster than doctors expected. The turning point came when his friend Paul Bradley, dying of cancer, told him: "It doesn't help to have a bad attitude. You might as well have a good one." That conversation crystallised what Bill had been living: attitude is a choice. Today, he channels that philosophy into coaching young athletes, showing them through his own example that circumstances need not define you, and that doing hard things by choice builds resilience that carries into every part of life. Bill Stahl is a high school coach, ultra-marathon runner, and race director based in Colorado. For nearly four decades, he has shaped young athletes through track, cross-country, and basketball, founding and directing the American Heroes Run to honour military veterans and 9/11 responders. His philosophy centres on turning adversity into growth, a practice he lives out through multiple surgeries and endurance challenges. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Opening: A question that changed everything07:19 How Bill stumbled into coaching in 198912:52 Teaching inner-city kids what positivity looks like20:56 Where does this come from: the New York pessimist26:00 Paul Bradley's final lesson: attitude is a choice29:48 The Be Positive bracelets: a simple tool, a bigger message34:26 Staying calm: coaching without rage, living without it40:13 The ripple you never knew you made50:42 Do hard things: the philosophy that carries56:30 The American Heroes Run: a race for everyone1:03:00 Can we just talk? Seeking understanding in a divided world1:09:42 Where to find Bill: socials, podcast, and the next challenge 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Bill Stahl's Instagram: @stahlorWe Are Superman Podcast: Available on all podcast platformsAmerican Heroes Run: ultrasignup.com (search American Heroes Run) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldeninjoinery #ripplesofcompassion #attitude #choice #resilience #coaching #hardthings #ultrarunner #recovery #mentorship ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

    Bill Stahl: Twelve Surgeries and the Friend Who Taught Him Attitude Is a Choice

  4. Oct 15

    David Ayliffe on Leaving a Cult After 23 Years and His ADHD Late Diagnosis at 70

    The film over the eyes fell away ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au David's career began in journalism at the Bankstown Observer, where he worked alongside young Paul Keating. His ADHD, undiagnosed until age 70, drove him through multiple careers and into a Pentecostal healing ministry that became a cult led by a woman claiming to be God. For 23 years, he was isolated from family, including hanging up on his mother's calls. After the cult leader died, David led a five-year dismantling process, reversing isolation, reconnecting members with families, and eventually dissolving the group. He has since worked for International Needs, the Red Cross, Guide Dogs Victoria, and now runs a disability support business. His vision centres on kindness as a practice and framework for society, taught through children. David Ayliffe is a journalist, charity CEO, disability support worker and children's book author who spent 23 years in a religious cult before dismantling it from within. Now 72 and recently diagnosed with ADHD, he works with people with intellectual disabilities and advocates for kindness as a foundation for society. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, David shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Late ADHD diagnosis can reframe decades of 'failures' and offer self-compassion instead of shame. • Fundamentalism thrives by declaring certainty; it requires turning off critical thinking by designating something sacred. • Cult recovery works when the leader loses credibility; collective realization can dismantle even deep isolation in a single moment. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Young David at the Bankstown Observer 06:17 ADHD diagnosis at 70 16:19 The path into the cult: from journalist to believer 22:09 How fundamentalism silences critical thinking 27:20 Cut off from everyone but her 32:35 The moment she lost all credibility 35:28 The Emperor's New Clothes moment 37:48 The dismantling: five years of reversal and reconnection 42:04 Disability work and the kindness vision 51:00 Kindness as something you practise 56:51 Admitting what you got wrong 1:03:17 Humour as the thing that saved me 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lifeline Australia: lifeline.org.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience • Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldintheCracks #cultrecovery #ADHD #latelatediagnosis #kindness #disabilitywork #mentalhealth #fundamentalism #family ——— Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

    David Ayliffe on Leaving a Cult After 23 Years and His ADHD Late Diagnosis at 70

  5. Oct 14

    Ezra Burke: Living With DID After Childhood Abuse

    What that little child's brain did to survive ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing and mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Ezra grew up in a country town, the only Black child in a white family, enduring prolonged childhood sexual abuse by a primary perpetrator and others. The trauma fragmented their sense of self into distinct alters as a survival mechanism, which went unrecognized until their early twenties. For years, they struggled with suicidality, shame around disability, and profound isolation. When they disclosed the abuse to their family at 24, they were not supported and went no contact with their mother's side. Moving to Sydney, accessing NDIS support, and beginning intensive therapy marked a turning point. Ten years on from their darkest period, Ezra now works in advocacy roles, speaks to psychiatrists about lived experience, and has rebuilt a life grounded in self-compassion rather than productivity. They describe their journey not as recovery but as ongoing integration and functional multiplicity, where different parts of themselves can collaborate safely. Ezra Burke is a 30-year-old advocate, artist, and person with psychosocial disability living in Sydney. They have dissociative identity disorder (DID) and complex PTSD stemming from prolonged childhood sexual abuse. Through years of therapy, advocacy work, and the support of their assistance dog Peanut, Ezra has moved from crisis to a place of functional multiplicity, where their different parts collaborate rather than fracture. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Ezra Burke on surviving fragmentation and rebuilding03:07 What is psychosocial disability07:47 Forgetting years of childhood11:03 Complex PTSD and childhood trauma14:11 Disclosure without support19:28 Why disorganized attachment shapes DID26:22 Parts learning to work together31:19 The only Black child in a white town42:38 How trauma reshapes gender and sexuality1:00:40 What life looks like at 301:07:27 Recovery as ongoing work, not destination1:14:03 From survival to advocacy 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.auNDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme): https://www.ndis.gov.auDisability Support Pension: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #TheGoldInTheCracks #OurHiddenValue #MentalHealth #TraumaRecovery #DisabledAndHere #DID #ComplexPTSD #AdvocacyMatters ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

    Ezra Burke: Living With DID After Childhood Abuse

  6. Oct 13

    Dave Oliver on Male Survivor Recovery and Men's Mental Health Motivation

    What recovery has given me ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing, addiction & recovery and abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au Born into a legacy of civic leadership in Cowra, Dave Oliver was a high-achieving student, school captain and rugby player who excelled outwardly while carrying the weight of childhood sexual abuse from ages 9 to 12. He masked his trauma through alcohol and drugs that escalated into his twenties and thirties, cycling through 32 employers in 25 years while his behaviour spiralled. A turning point came 10 years ago when mates intervened and he entered a psychiatric facility where therapy helped him name what had happened and begin healing. Today sober and purposeful, he works in mental health and mentors individual men, driven by a mission to become the support he needed as a young man. Dave Oliver is a 45-year-old survivor of childhood sexual abuse who spent decades using alcohol and drugs to survive unresolved trauma before entering recovery 10 years ago. Now a peer support worker and programs coordinator in mental health, he mentors other male survivors and has launched You, Me, Us, an initiative connecting men through shared lived experience. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Dave shares the story behind the moments below. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Cowra legacy 06:31 The fracture: childhood sexual abuse 12:00 Boarding school and coping mechanisms 15:25 School success masking inner collapse 18:04 The pattern: 32 jobs in 25 years 23:17 Trauma, shame and sexuality in rural Australia 38:11 From survival to recovery 45:09 Reparenting the wounded child 50:24 Purpose through lived experience mentoring 57:15 The hybrid model: lived experience plus resources 01:04:00 Practical steps and You, Me, Us initiative 01:09:31 Closing and resources 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMHSA): https://www.samhsa.org.au/ Lifeline: 13 11 14 You, Me, Us: Instagram: You, Me, Us Australia ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience • Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #JohnMilham #mentalhealth #childtrauma #recovery #peerSupport #masculinity #survivors #mentalhealthawareness ——— Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

    Dave Oliver on Male Survivor Recovery and Men's Mental Health Motivation

  7. Oct 12

    Birth Trauma for Baby: Steven Kennedy and the Making of Prepared Dads

    The first man who came and talked ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss and mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au Steven's son Rory was born via emergency caesarean with an Apgar of 1, requiring resuscitation. Eight months later, Steven had a panic attack on a commuter train while reading about birth trauma, unaware he was experiencing postnatal depression himself. The breakdown triggered a deeper reckoning: he'd given his father CPR at 17 when his father suffered cardiac arrest; now, witnessing oxygen deprivation again, the trauma resurfaced. Steven sought help from a birth trauma specialist who told him something that changed his direction: she'd never spoken to a man about birth before. That admission became his mission. He spent six months researching 96 academic papers on men's role in birth, then founded Prepared Dads to teach expectant and new fathers what nobody had taught him: how to stay calm in the room, recognise their partner's needs, manage their own distress, and step into early fatherhood with intention. His son is now eight and thriving. Steven continues therapy and now runs support groups for bereaved dads, recognising that men have nowhere to process stillbirth, miscarriage, or perinatal loss. Steven Kennedy is the founder and CEO of Prepared Dads, an organisation equipping men with knowledge and skills for the perinatal period. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Welcome and content warning03:33 The traumatic birth: Apgar of 105:39 The unhealed wound: his father's death07:43 Breakdown on the commuter train09:01 Discovering postnatal depression in men14:33 Fear, pain and tension: why birth goes wrong20:34 Researching men's role: six months of papers28:10 Men as the weakest link in the birth room39:40 Nurturing masculinity and hormonal change55:46 Early fatherhood: paddling, not waves1:07:29 Prepared Dads: what the course offers1:30:05 Closing and call to action 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia): https://www.panda.org.auPrepared Dads: https://www.prepareddad.org.auBereaved Dads Brotherhood: https://www.prepareddad.org.auLifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldenjoinery #thecrackiswherethelight #rebuilding #perinatalhealth #fatherhood #mentalhealth #birthtrauma #postnataldepressioninmen #parenting ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

    Birth Trauma for Baby: Steven Kennedy and the Making of Prepared Dads

  8. Oct 7

    Si Moore on Perinatal Mental Health, IVF Loss and Founding Strong Dads

    I had to love myself ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss and mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au Si Moore spent his twenties searching for meaning through self-help and education, but burnout and a six-year relationship ending via email cracked him open. He rebuilt through reading, therapy, and deep self-reflection. When he and his wife pursued IVF, they discovered a brutal gap: there was support for her, nothing for him. After losing twins at nine weeks, dealing with family estrangement over a wedding exclusion, starting nursing school, buying a house, and COVID all at once, Si hit a breaking point. A panic attack during pathophysiology class, which he recognised because he understood the science, forced him to stop running from grief and start building something. He founded Strong Dads to offer fathers the one-on-one, holistic support he never found: a space to do the hard work of loving themselves so they can show up for their kids. His parents are now asking him for advice. He has three dads on the books and a goal of twenty. Si Moore is a registered nurse, father, and founder of Strong Dads Geelong, a holistic support program for fathers navigating identity, grief, and emotional development. After losing twins during IVF, a family estrangement, and a panic attack that came during his nursing studies, he left hospital crisis work to build upstream preventative support for men who have no other place to turn. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Si shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Men have no institutional support during IVF or perinatal loss, even as they carry grief and stress alongside their partners; this gap is not accidental, it is a systems failure Si is now filling one-on-one. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 This is a love story02:57 Finding meaning at 1708:38 Environmental science, burnout, and a breakup14:59 The gap: no support for men in IVF19:30 The wedding that fractured everything22:16 The panic attack that broke him open28:00 Building Strong Dads from the rubble35:55 The tipping points that make men ready48:35 What fathering looks like in practice51:38 20 dads: the goal spoken aloud54:38 Vulnerability is not a group sport59:22 How to find Si and do the work 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #StrongDads #fatherhood #mentalhealth #emotionalintelligence #grief #IVF #familyestrangement #healing #masculinity #selfcare ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Thank You For Listening Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters. Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

    Si Moore on Perinatal Mental Health, IVF Loss and Founding Strong Dads
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Kintsugi Heroes is a powerful Australian podcast sharing real-life stories of resilience, mental health, and human transformation. Each episode features raw, honest conversations with everyday people who have overcome adversity including addiction, trauma, grief, illness, financial hardship, and life-altering challenges. Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi — repairing what’s broken with gold — this podcast explores how life’s toughest moments can shape strength, purpose, and connection. Kintsugi Heroes exists to remind us that our struggles do not define us — they refine us.  Through deeply human storytelling, we create a safe space for lived experiences to be shared with dignity, compassion, and authenticity. Our mission is to reduce isolation, increase connection, and promote mental wellbeing through the power of story — not as clinical advice, but as real conversations that people can relate to and learn from.  🎧 Topics covered include: Mental health, addiction recovery, trauma, grief and loss, personal growth, resilience, relationships, disability, identity, life transitions, and rebuilding after failure. 🌍 Featuring voices from diverse backgrounds across cultures, communities, and lived experiences — because everyone has a story worth hearing. 🔗 Listen, Connect & Learn More Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KintsugiHeroes 💬 Why Listen to Kintsugi Heroes? If you’re navigating a tough time, rebuilding your life, or looking for real stories that inspire hope — this podcast is for you. These are not polished success stories. These are real people, real struggles, and real comebacks. ⸻ Follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube for full video episodes Share this with someone who needs to hear it

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