Kintsugi Heroes: Uncovering our Hidden Value

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. 7h ago ·  Bonus

    Disability, Duty and a Gene She Didn't Carry | Alyssa Chhim-Michelle | Golden Threads

    What I do while I can walk Alyssa grew up in a Cambodian Australian family shaped by her parents' escape from genocide. In high school, she learned her father and sister carried the spinocerebellar ataxia gene. After years of uncertainty, she found courage to test for the gene herself through a partner's unconditional support in Turkey, only to learn she did not carry it. The relief turned to guilt watching her sister's mobility decline. Now, as an NDIS plan nominee and researcher, Alyssa confronts the gap between what her family inherited-duty, sacrifice, resilience-and what she wants to change. She channels that tension into work on inclusive employment and deliberate choices about her own future. Alyssa Chhim-Michelle is a Cambodian Australian researcher, NDIS plan nominee, and PhD candidate studying neurodivergent employment. Born in Melbourne to parents who fled the Cambodian genocide, she navigates dual cultural obligations while managing her sister's progressive disability and her own family responsibilities. In this Golden Threads conversation with Daniel Dougherty, Alyssa shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Duty to family is not guilt; it is how Cambodian culture frames love, but it can trap you in patterns you do not want to repeat. • Genetic uncertainty creates impossible choices for young people about their future, love, and family planning. • Disability reveals how much of 'normal life' is built on unstated physical assumptions; small breaches become life-changing crises. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introduction 02:34 Growing up in an immigrant household with cultural tensions 06:05 Family history of the Cambodian genocide, what her parents endured 14:39 Her dual role as NDIS plan nominee and caregiver for her father 16:51 Spinocerebellar ataxia explained, the diagnosis of her father and sister 22:02 Learning she does not carry the gene, guilt about her sister's reaction 28:16 Her sister's generosity before the disability worsened, shared travel memories 39:40 Challenges with paid support workers and intimate care 41:29 The guilt Alyssa carries and the day-to-day realities of caregiving 47:32 Finding silver linings and what disability has taught her 50:18 How to communicate and connect with her sister 57:49 Closing: reflection on how she and Daniel met, future conversations 🎧 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 #GoldenThreads #DisabilityAndRehabilding #disability #caregiving #familyduty #geneticuncertainty #cambodianamerican #ndis #inclusion #mentalhealth 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. Kintsugi Heroes Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

    Disability, Duty and a Gene She Didn't Carry | Alyssa Chhim-Michelle | Golden Threads

  2. 6d ago

    Self Advocacy, Mental Health and Writing Her Way Back | Sarah Rosse | Kintsugi Heroes

    The story I had to share ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide, 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 Sarah Rosse spent her career as a high-functioning professional in human services, confident in her ability to help others navigate mental health crises. In October 2023, her 16-year-old son attempted to take his life, shattering her sense of control and forcing her to confront the gap between her professional knowledge and her lived reality as a mother. The fracture triggered deep shame: she believed she had failed, that people saw her as a terrible mother. Through journaling, she moved from brain-dumping her pain to intentional reflection, eventually writing a memoir about identity, family, loss, and resilience. Today, Sarah speaks publicly about mental health, parenting, and authenticity, committed to 100 conversations over 12 months about the themes in her book. Her son received an ADHD diagnosis and ongoing support; their connection has deepened. Sarah has stopped dyeing her hair, begun public speaking despite being a self-described introvert, and embraced discomfort as the path to growth. Sarah Rosse is a memoirist, journaling coach, and human services professional who lives in regional Victoria. After her 16-year-old son attempted suicide in October 2023, she began writing the story that became her first book, framed through the lens of kintsugi. She now works to help others find their voice through writing and lived experience. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Sarah shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Shame thrives in silence; connection breaks it. • Professional knowledge doesn't prepare you for your own crisis. • Journaling moves from survival to meaning through intentionality. • The mental health system fails without advocates. • Discomfort signals the direction of growth. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Stories that hold us together 01:45 What is a memoirist? 05:53 Journaling as a framework 10:57 The crisis: October 2023 14:04 Shame and the weight of silence 20:35 Presence over fixing 28:28 Professional knowledge meets lived experience 33:31 Navigating the mental health system 37:52 Embracing discomfort as growth 41:24 What I hope for my son 44:32 100 Conversations: a new mission 48:27 Sharing stories so others can hear them 🎧 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 weekly 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 #StoriesThatMatter #GoldenJoinery #MentalHealth #Motherhood #SuicidePrevention #MemoirWriting #ParentalSupport #AuthenticSelf #BreakingTheStigma 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.

    Self Advocacy, Mental Health and Writing Her Way Back | Sarah Rosse | Kintsugi Heroes

  3. Aug 3 ·  Bonus

    Purpose and meaning of life: Saengduean Chailert on what one elephant's eyes taught her | Animals and Us

    The elephant's eyes changed everything ⚠️ 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 Saengduean 'Lek' grew up in a Karen tribe where girls had strict limits on movement and education. Her mother, defying family and community pressure, let her attend school 14 kilometres away. At 16, Saengduean witnessed loggers beating a starving elephant, jabbing it with knives and forcing it to haul massive logs uphill. The elephant's eyes, full of fear and hopelessness, haunted her. She worked as a dishwasher and took any job she could find to buy medicine and care for injured elephants. Her grandfather's teaching-that true happiness comes from lifting others out of pain-shaped her resolve. With help from a man from Texas who offered 50 acres of land, she built a sanctuary that has grown far beyond her original dream of helping one elephant. She has faced threats, physical danger, and backlash from industries and officials, yet continues rescuing animals and using education and social media to change how people treat and interact with animals in Thailand and across Asia. Saengduean Chailert, known as Lek, grew up in a Karen hill tribe in Thailand where women had few choices beyond motherhood and farmwork. Against community pressure, she became the first woman in her village to graduate from college. At 16, she witnessed an elephant being brutally beaten in the logging industry, and that moment redirected her entire life. She founded the Save Elephant Foundation and has rescued hundreds of elephants from circus, riding camps, and street begging, building a sanctuary that now shelters elephants, dogs, cats, horses, bears, and other animals. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Meeting Tongkam, the first elephant 01:45 Learning from her grandfather 03:14 Her mother's choice to let her study 06:44 Raising piglets while learning empathy 09:53 The moment everything changed 12:50 Dishwashing for elephant medicine 17:01 Working to find true happiness 19:05 A candle in the darkness 23:18 Facing threats and danger 27:11 Namtip's journey from cruelty to healing 29:51 Singing lullabies to calmed elephants 32:32 Education and change through social media 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Save Elephant Foundation: saveelephant.org ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 (launching 31 July 2026) 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 weekly 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 #AnimalsUs #AnimalsAndUs #TheGoldInTheCracks #AnimalWelfare #Conservation #Compassion #Courage #SocialChange #ElephantRights NGinbaVI8OeKbT13vOaq

    Purpose and meaning of life: Saengduean Chailert on what one elephant's eyes taught her | Animals and Us

  4. Aug 2 ·  Bonus

    ADHD in women is one of the most missed diagnoses in adult mental health, and for three professional women, understanding why took decades. | Our Stories Matter | Kintsugi Heroes

    ADHD in women is one of the most missed diagnoses in adult mental health, and for three professional women, understanding why took decades. This is Too Much, Not Enough: Late Diagnosis of ADHD in Women, a live online panel from Kintsugi Heroes' Our Stories Matter series. Three women share what it's really like to get a late ADHD diagnosis as an adult, including the relief of finally understanding your own mind and the grief of every year that diagnosis didn't come. They talk openly about ADHD symptoms in women that often get mistaken for anxiety, what a neurodivergent diagnosis changes in your day-to-day life, and the self-compassion that comes once you finally understand how your brain works. Recorded live via Zoom as part of Kintsugi Heroes' monthly panel series, this episode is for anyone wondering if they have ADHD, anyone recently diagnosed, or anyone supporting a woman navigating a late ADHD diagnosis. Key Takeaways Why ADHD in women is so often missed: Girls and women are frequently misdiagnosed with anxiety, or missed altogether, because ADHD symptoms in women don't always match the stereotype.ADHD grief is real: Alongside the relief of a diagnosis, there's genuine grief for the years spent not understanding yourself.ADHD and everyday life: How undiagnosed and diagnosed ADHD shapes work, relationships, parenting and daily routines.Strength in a neurodivergent diagnosis: The self-compassion and resilience that comes once you understand your neurodivergent mind. About the Panel Karise McNamee — counselling social worker, founder of Paths with Purpose, supporting ADHD, AuDHD and autistic women. pathswithpurpose.com.au Angela Raspass — ADHD business coach and strategist, author of Your Next Chapter: A Business Book for Women with ADHD and Sparky Brains. angelaraspass.com.au Patricia Falcetta OAM — founder of Social Living Solutions, neurodiversity advocate and keynote speaker. sociallivingsolutions.com.au Resources Mentioned Paths with Purpose (Karise McNamee): https://pathswithpurpose.com.au/ Angela Raspass, ADHD Business Coaching: https://www.angelaraspass.com.au/ Your Next Chapter (Angela Raspass' book): https://www.angelaraspass.com.au/book Social Living Solutions (Patricia Falcetta): https://sociallivingsolutions.com.au/ Event Details Live online panel, hosted by Kintsugi Heroes Ltd, part of the monthly Our Stories Matter series. Held via Zoom, 23 July 2026 (confirm your actual AEST time before reusing this date/time anywhere). Timestamps 00:00 Introduction and welcome 01:54 Meet the panel: Karice, Angela and Patricia 08:00 Why ADHD in women is missed or misdiagnosed 09:31 How ADHD symptoms show up differently in women 14:00 Masking, overworking and what late diagnosis really means 16:53 The diagnosis moment: relief, grief and self-compassion 24:12 Living with the grief that comes after diagnosis 26:53 How undiagnosed ADHD showed up in work, relationships and parenting 34:40 What actually helped: therapy, community and workplace support 44:10 Addiction, undiagnosed ADHD and finding what works long term 54:25 Audience Q&A 63:01 Closing reflections and thanks If this episode landed for you, hit follow so you don't miss the next Our Stories Matter conversation, and if you know a woman still wondering if she has ADHD, send her this one. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, so if our stories matter to you, consider partnering or donating to help us keep telling them. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dxgcadlJRs0 About Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit storytelling platform sharing real stories of resilience and transformation. Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au Partner with us: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/partners/ Donate: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084850387170 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes/ SByfoGayOfTc7xxw2B2g 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.

    ADHD in women is one of the most missed diagnoses in adult mental health, and for three professional women, understanding why took decades. | Our Stories Matter | Kintsugi Heroes

  5. Jul 30

    Complex trauma and self identity: Karl Germann's 20-year fog | Kintsugi Heroes

    The 20-year fog Karl grew up in apartheid South Africa in a wealthy but emotionally distant Austrian-South African family, experiencing what he now understands as complex trauma rooted in his mother's narcissism and his father's clinical detachment. For decades he dissociated, unaware he was queer until his late twenties when he met a partner and came out to indifference from his family. He moved to London at 27, then Australia, but remained numb and disconnected from himself until the last two years. Only recently, after leaving corporate work and experiencing a workplace sexual harassment case, has he begun to reclaim his creativity, healing practice, and authentic self. He now writes, mentors others in isolation, and teaches people that the answers we seek live in the quiet spaces we're taught to fear. Karl Germann is a queer South African-born Australian now based in Port Macquarie. He spent two decades navigating dissociation and emotional distance from a privileged but cold family before recognizing his lived experience as trauma. He has since become a Reiki practitioner, author of the children's book The Land Where Unicorns Are Made, and community support worker dedicated to healing and connection. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Dwyer, Karl shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Dissociation and small-t trauma can persist silently for decades without dramatic incidents, rooted in emotional distance and hypervigilance from childhood. • Coming out as queer or reaching any milestone does not instantly resolve the foundational trauma that shaped you. • Authenticity attracts more meaningful connection and professional success than conformity or self-censorship ever will. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introduction 01:27 Growing up in apartheid South Africa 08:00 Dissociation, trauma, and the Austrian father 14:30 A narcissistic mother and emotional distance 19:22 Coming out as queer at 27 27:50 Leaving South Africa for London and Australia 35:00 Corporate work, authenticity, and walking away 41:00 Climbing Kilimanjaro and metaphors for life 46:35 Writing, creativity, and The Land Where Unicorns Are Made 50:14 Reiki practice and community connection through Ankali 54:20 Building community, smiling, and winning people over 57:51 Advice for younger selves and closing reflections 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Out of the Fog: outofthefog.website carlfox.com: carlfox.com Lightunitedreiki.com: lightunitedreiki.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 (launching 31 July 2026) 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 weekly 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 #GoldenJoinery #QueerJourney #MentalHealth #Dissociation #AuthenticSelf #FamilyTrauma #HealingWork #CommunityConnection #CreativityHeals ——— 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.

    Complex trauma and self identity: Karl Germann's 20-year fog | Kintsugi Heroes

  6. Jul 21

    Phil Hugill: from slow learner to corrections leader, what prisons taught him about second chances

    The light in the tunnel ⚠️ 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 John left school at 15 written off as a slow learner, worked manual jobs, and felt trapped. An art teacher gave him a chance on an art course despite his inability to draw; that opened a career in education and social work. Over decades, he worked with youth in diversion programs, people with disabilities, children in care, and finally prisoners in corrections. In each role, he discovered the same truth: people who've been excluded, abused, or labelled criminal carry trauma that systems punish rather than heal. He learned to see the person beneath the label, to lead with respect, and to believe that connection and opportunity prevent crime better than law and order ever will. Now retired from government work but still volunteering, he supports ex-prisoners through peer friendship. His message is clear: before you judge someone, find out their story. Goodness still outweighs the crisis narrative. John Milham is a social worker, educator, and corrections leader who spent decades working in some of Australia's most challenging environments: youth diversion programs, disability services, child protection, and prisons. He volunteered his way into these roles after leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, shaped by a mentor who helped him unpack his own biases and rebuild his moral compass. He now volunteers with ex-prisoners, believing that second chances and human connection are the only path out of cycles of trauma and incarceration. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Phil shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Second chances are rooted in someone seeing potential you don't see in yourself. • Labelling people disempowers them and makes it easier for institutions to dehumanise. • Trauma is the root cause; punishment is the symptom we treat instead. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Why second chances matter 01:58 Written off at school 04:50 The art teacher's chance 08:15 Unpacking bias, rebuilding values 14:59 Building community access programs 18:55 Corrections: seeing the person 29:01 Labels dehumanise 45:58 Youth crime and crisis politics 53:27 Diversion over detention 56:09 A walk to Woolworths 1:01:02 Finding light in darkness 1:06:24 Embrace the light 🎧 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 (launching 31 July 2026) 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 weekly 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 #StoriesThatMatter #SecondChances #CriminalJustice #MentalHealth #Incarceration #HumanConnection #Redemption #SocialWork #Trauma #YouthJustice #PeerSupport ——— Show notes by TBC · Approved by TBC · 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.

  7. Jul 7

    Holly Deane-Johns: 17 Years Inside, One Moment of Clarity, and a Life Rebuilt with Purpose

    ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Holly Deane-Johns grew up in a stable home until her mother's involvement with a man who introduced the family to heroin. By 16, Holly was using; by 20, she was imprisoned. Over the next nine years, she cycled through Australian jails while her family spiralled into addiction, culminating in her mother's heroin overdose. Arrested in Thailand at 29 during her husband's flight from authorities, Holly received a 31-year sentence. Seven years into a Bangkok prison, sitting on filthy ground, she had a clarity moment and made a decision to never use drugs again. She returned to Australia, completed her sentence, and studied while inside. Today she works directly with men leaving prison, using her lived experience to build trust and show them a different path. She's written a book and gives talks in schools, driven by the belief that her fractured life was always meant for this work of helping others rebuild. Holly Deane-Johns is a youth and community worker who spent 17 years in various prisons across Australia and Thailand after struggling with heroin addiction from age 16. She now works with Wadjining Aboriginal Corporation in the RESET program, supporting men transitioning out of prison, and has written a book about her journey to help others see a future beyond addiction and incarceration. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Holly shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Addiction is rarely about drugs; it's about masking pain from trauma, and understanding this shifts how we approach people struggling with substance use. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and Holly's Work Today 02:40 Working with RESET: Supporting Men Leaving Prison 07:34 The River: How Holly Ended Up in Heroin 10:51 A Man Entered the Family Home 13:06 The 110% Rule: Why Addicts Don't Stop 16:12 Loss: Her Mother's Overdose in Prison 20:36 Thailand: The Arrest and 31-Year Sentence 27:29 This Life Was Always for This Reason 33:00 The Heartbreaking Gap: Housing and Survival 40:48 Studying Inside: Planning for a Future 46:16 What the Community Needs to Know 48:38 Going Forward: Books in Schools and Prisons 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #StoriesThatMatter #GoldenJoinery #TheGoldInTheCracks #LivedExperience #PrisonReform #AddictionRecovery #CommunityWork #SecondChances #HolidayDeaneJohns 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.

    Holly Deane-Johns: 17 Years Inside, One Moment of Clarity, and a Life Rebuilt with Purpose

  8. Jun 24

    Jason Blyth: The Gold in the Cracks, How Pain Refines and Purpose Is Built

    Jason Blyth: The Gold in the Cracks, How Pain Refines and Purpose Is Built ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, addiction & recovery and 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 • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Born from rape after his mother's catastrophic accident left her brain-damaged and emotionally dysregulated, Jason entered the world under profound darkness. The child protection and mental health systems failed him repeatedly as he cycled through twenty clinicians between ages 2 and 15. He left home at 15 believing his circumstances would change, only to discover trauma travels inward. A gifted athlete and musician, he spent 15 years seeing himself as a victim, living with rage, engaging in escapism through drugs, prostitution, and even satanic cults. At 29, drinking a litre of wine three times daily to pass out, he hit rock bottom. In rehab on his 30th birthday, a single realisation shifted everything: no one was coming to save him. His wife's ultimatum to check himself in became his turning point. Now, nearly 8 years sober with a wife of 13 years and an infant son, Jason is using his voice and storytelling gift to champion systemic child protection reform and help others recognise that pain refines rather than defines us. Jason Blyth is a speaker, advocate, and systemic change champion who survived profound childhood trauma, addiction, and a near-fatal descent into alcoholism before rebuilding his life with intention and faith. Now 8 years sober, he channels his lived experience into work protecting children and helping others recognize their own agency in rewriting their stories. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 The Riptide: A Story Shaped Before Birth 01:51 The Fracture: How Jason Came Into the World 04:46 The System That Failed: Fifteen Years in Psychology 08:58 The Hero's Journey and Necessary Trials 13:39 Being the Story: Narrative and Presence 16:50 Why Pain is the Great Initiator 22:09 One Person's Love Stops the Spiral 28:44 Marriage, Miracles, and a Son 33:54 Purpose From Pain: The Systemic Change Mission 43:27 Discipline and the Daily Regimen 59:13 Seeking His Biological Father: Closure Without Redemption 1:07:46 What's Next: Growing Into the Mission 🎧 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 five 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 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. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#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://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 #KHMainFeed #JasonBlyth #HeroJourney #GoldInTheCracks #TraumaRecovery #Redemption #ChildProtection #Faith #SystemicChange #SecondChance #PainToPurpose

See All (176)

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

Information

More From Kintsugi Heroes Originals

You Might Also Like