Kintsugi Heroes

The question that rewrote my story ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention and grief & loss, 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 Kim grew up in a small Northern New South Wales beach town, curious and creative in a sports-obsessed community. After leaving for Brisbane, then a decade in London exploring different cultures and working in communications, she returned to Australia following a breakup. Her aunt's death by suicide while she was away shifted everything. It reframed her career from corporate communications to suicide prevention work at Suicide Prevention Australia, then into coaching individuals and organisations to share lived experience stories safely. A therapy session years later asked her a question that cut to the heart of her whole life's work: was she helping others be heard because she herself had never been heard? Now she trains people in storytelling, celebrant work, and public speaking, believing that vulnerability and preparation are what move audiences. Kim Borrowdale is a storytelling coach, celebrant, and communications strategist who spent a decade in London before returning to Australia to work in suicide prevention. After losing her aunt to suicide, she shifted her career focus to helping others tell their stories safely and powerfully, founding training programs that combine trauma-informed communication with narrative craft. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Kim shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Suicide grief is categorically different from other loss because it leaves unanswered questions and triggers relentless self-blame about what could have been done. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 The question that changed everything02:40 Small town childhood, running barefoot06:18 The creative kid in a sports family08:59 Why she left for Brisbane and London14:11 Finding meaning in corporate communications17:13 The breakup, Egypt, and coming home19:01 Her aunt's suicide and the turn inward23:08 Working in suicide prevention and safe storytelling30:05 From freelancer to story coach35:10 The counselor's mirror42:48 Why storytelling matters and how it moves people46:13 The next chapter and what she wants to share 🎧 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.auBorodale Communications: https://www.borodalecommunications.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 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 #thegoInthecracks #storytelling #griefandloss #suicideawareness #mentalhealth #publicpeaking ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi 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.

The chairs that save lives ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide, 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 Stuart spent years building a successful life as a publican and father, but a message from his wife in Taiwan triggered sudden suicidal ideation that fundamentally rewired his brain. A planned suicide attempt was interrupted by police; since then, the thought returns like a light switch whenever life gets hard. Rather than medicate the intrusive thoughts away, he found his anchor: Just One Reason, a single thing worth staying for. That concept became a book, then a pub designed to make mental health conversation inevitable. Now, from a hospital bed recovering from a second spinal surgery, he is mapping a vision to create 10,000 accidental counsellors across Australia in 90 days, starting with the simple act of showing up, being present, and asking someone if they're really okay. Stuart O'Neill is a country publican from Northern New South Wales who reopened a shuttered rural pub as Australia's first mental health pub, intentionally designing it as a space where conversations about suicide and mental health happen naturally. He is the author of Just One Reason, a book about finding a single anchor to survive suicidal ideation, and is currently writing Bloke Emu while recovering from spinal surgery in hospital. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Stuart shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Suicidal ideation can become a permanent feature of your brain wiring after a single trauma, resurfacing whenever difficulty strikes; medication alone does not switch it off.• Just one reason is enough to survive another day; the reasons can be trivial or profound, constant or instinctive, but they accumulate into a track record of choosing life. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 The message that changed everything02:16 Country publican, footy shorts and vision07:06 The justice gene and early defiance13:23 Taiwan, the dagger, and a turning point18:07 The book born from a coffee shop23:46 Why people slip through the cracks34:10 Living with the light switch42:18 The pub as proof of concept49:02 Real people, not academics53:56 Finding the leaders in crisis59:27 The 90-day vision: 10,000 chairs1:04:53 One reason to keep going 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline: lifeline.org.auMen's Line Australia: mensline.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 #kintsugiheros #thecrackisthegold #mentalhealth #suicideprevention #presence #onereason #community #justshowup ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi 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 ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The peace that passes understanding ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide, 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 Susan grew up in a close-knit Community of Christ family but spent her twenties in silent internal conflict about her sexuality, unable to name or share what she was experiencing. At 30, after years of prayer and struggle, she reached a breaking point at a church camp in 1993 where she surrendered the fight and received what she describes as profound peace. She came out to her parents, was ordained as an elder in 1995, and when church leaders asked what could be done for the LGBTQIA+ community, she helped start a small coming-out group that became the Open Door. Over 25 years, that group has grown into a thriving community offering support groups, social events, and a visible bridge between faith and rainbow identity. Today she continues to minister alongside her wife Lynn, holding space for people navigating faith, identity, and belonging. Susan Palmer is a primary school teacher and pastor of the Open Door Community of Christ in Cranebrook, Western Sydney, where she has served for over 25 years. She is married to Lynn, also a minister, and together they have built an affirming faith community centred on LGBTQIA+ inclusion, support groups, and creative connection through the Rainbow Hub. In this Pride In Stories conversation with John Dwyer, Susan shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Internalised homophobia from silence is as damaging as external rejection, and surrender brought peace where fighting brought exhaustion. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Content warning and opening philosophy01:07 Introduction to Susan Palmer and the Open Door05:18 Growing up in faith, questioning identity in silence08:15 The spiritual calling and internal conflict begins11:27 The exhaustion of living a double life14:44 Coming out to parents, being ordained as elder17:05 Starting the Open Door community in 199922:45 The Open Door as bridge between faith and LGBTQIA+ community25:38 Responding to rising conservatism and hate with hope32:28 Meeting Lynn and ministry partnership35:30 Rainbow Hub programs and community activities39:47 Closing message and how to connect 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Open Door Community of Christ: opendoorcommunityofchrist.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 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 #RainbowHub #AfirmingFaith #WesternSydney #LGBTQIA #FaithAndIdentity #CommunityBuilding #MentalHealthMatters #Inclusion ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi 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.

The peace he was looking for ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss and suicide & self-harm prevention, 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 Mia raised Ollie as a single mother after leaving a coercive relationship when he was two. She worked full-time in a male-dominated industry while building a life she thought was stable. In 2023, Ollie developed anorexia, initially hidden behind what looked like healthy eating and fitness. The eating disorder progressed rapidly; by December he was hospitalised, diagnosed with severe anorexia and postural tachycardia. Despite medical intervention, psychiatric care, and Mia's constant presence, Ollie was discharged after gaining weight but without the therapeutic work on his underlying pain. He had been researching how to end his life. On 9 June 2024, Mia found him in his bedroom. Two years later, she carries grief that feels like dust, but channels it into speaking in schools, advocating for digital literacy and safer social media, and building a community of bereaved parents working toward systemic change. Mia Bannister is the mother of Ollie, who died by suicide in 2024 after struggling with anorexia, self-harm, and the effects of social media and bullying. A property and construction executive, Mia founded Ollie's Echo, a charity dedicated to changing the narrative around eating disorders in boys and young men, and to advocating for safer digital spaces. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Before: a mother, a career, a life that fit04:44 The single parent years and what Mia built09:39 The signs no one recognises: eating disorder in a boy14:53 Crisis: admission to hospital, the fracture revealed22:00 Inside the adolescent mental health unit29:00 Discharge without answers: the hidden research, self-harm37:19 The moment everything stopped40:16 Reframing loss: what Ollie was actually looking for51:55 The untold story: boys, men, and the conversation we're missing1:02:53 Turning pain into purpose: Ollie's Echo and systemic change1:05:11 The dusty heart, the dark thoughts, the choice to stay1:11:35 Every echo matters: the work continues 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.auButterfly Foundation National Helpline: 1800 334 673 or butterfly.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 #CracksFilledWithGold #MiasBannister #OlliesEcho #SuicideLoss #EatingDisorders #BoysHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #SocialMedia #MentalHealthMatters #BereavedParents #DigitalLiteracy ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi 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 ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

Both my sons held me up ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention 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 Lawrence spent his career climbing the corporate ladder, believing hard work and loyalty would secure his future. When three catastrophic events collided, his father's death, retrenchment from Westpac, and a bike accident, he spiraled into severe depression twice, convinced his family would be better off without him. The breaking point came on his bed in Hornsby when both his teenage sons sat beside him, arms around his shoulders, and told him it would be all right. That moment of being held by them shattered the isolation he believed was protecting his family. With medication, therapy, and the people who showed up for him, he rebuilt. Today, he chairs Mr. Perfect barbecues across the Hunter Valley and beyond, sitting on the tongs next to men facing the same darkness he did, telling them they will get through it. Lawrence Atkinson is a retired senior financial and management consultant who spent 27 years at Westpac before moving into professional services, intellectual property management, and mental health coaching. He chairs Mr. Perfect, a community organisation that runs monthly barbecues for men navigating disconnection, loneliness, and suicidal ideation, and previously served 23 years with Rotary. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Lawrence shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Isolation masquerades as protection: Lawrence believed his family would be better off without him, until they showed him otherwise by holding him.• Loyalty to institutions is one-directional now: 27 years at Westpac with hardship posts in Bahrain and Port Moresby did not protect him from redundancy.• Men need to be asked what they need, not told: Mr. Perfect works because it makes no clinical demands. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 The two times I nearly lost myself03:00 From Perth barbecues to disconnection07:48 Seven friends lost15:41 The corporate climb and the breaking point22:34 27 years of loyalty, then retrenchment27:23 Finding worth through service33:41 What depression takes from men40:46 The night my sons saved me43:07 Why shame keeps men silent45:09 We need to teach men how to think49:31 Sharing stories from elder to younger51:30 The sausage and the witness 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline: 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 #GoldInTheCracks #MensSpeech #mentalhealth #suicideprevention #masculinity #depression #community #connection #elderhood ———Show notes by TBC · Approved by TBC · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi 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.