Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace with Mon and Mazz

Finding hope in the hopeless ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses 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• 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au Harrison was headed for a media career in London until, at 17, he deferred his university place to volunteer in South Africa as a teacher and children's home worker. A four-month stint changed everything. Watching children who had experienced profound trauma still show up with engagement and positivity, and sitting with the weight of leaving them behind, crystallised his purpose: these children should not have people come in and out of their lives. He returned to the UK, started Maranatha Care Children from scratch on Google, and enrolled in social work simultaneously. Nineteen years on, he has built a residential centre that admits children from across South Africa, exposed them to mentorship, vocational training, and real opportunity. COVID forced an overhaul: younger children arrived in crisis, he coordinated schooling across ten institutions, managed grief and loss, and watched young people he'd met at 18 now forge adult lives and careers. He returned to Plymouth last year but remains deeply embedded in the work. Harrison Nash is a UK-based charity director and social work supervisor who founded Maranatha Care Children in South Africa 19 years ago after a gap-year volunteering stint at 18. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 The interview begins05:23 Growing up in Plymouth: media, music, and family08:13 First day teaching in South Africa: 40 kids, no co-teacher09:56 Walking into Maranatha: the moment everything shifted11:41 The boy who didn't understand goodbye13:00 Founding a charity on Google while studying social work18:29 The Queen's Honours and COVID lockdown22:00 Suddenly younger children: the reality of crisis25:19 Loving at social distance: grief during lockdown29:30 From the streets to the five-star kitchen39:30 The medal came home to the children41:45 How to support the work: next steps 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Maranatha Care Children: maranathaforcarechildren.comLifeline Australia: 13 11 14 or text 0477 131114 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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 #GritDiaries #FromGritToGrace #charity #socialwork #mentalhealth #childhood trauma #South Africa #mentorship #resilience #residential care ———Show notes by TBC · Approved by TBC · 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.Kintsugi HeroesFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The day I said yes when I should have said no⚠️ 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.auSimon Harrison was 15 when his mother died of a brain tumour, leaving him adrift. Years later, drunk and ignoring his grandmother's plea to stay home, he went out one Saturday night in May 1996. He was run over by a train and lost his left arm. The accident fractured his life into before and after, spawning decades of complex PTSD and recurring nightmares. He found stable ground in radio work, then later in volunteering. When he met host Simone at Radio Northern Beaches, a former Barker student whose brother had a similar accident, something clicked. Nine months after their first interview, Simon returned to Barker's Leslie Hall, nearly 30 years to the day of the accident, to stand before Year 10 students and tell them what it costs to ignore your instincts. For the first time, he felt the weight lift.Simon Harrison lost his left arm in a train accident at 15 after ignoring his grandmother's warning not to go out. He spent 23 years in racing radio at Sky Sports Radio, and the past decade volunteering with suicide prevention and community services on the Northern Beaches. He has returned to Barker College, his childhood school, to speak with Year 9 and 10 students about listening to your gut.In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Simon shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Simon went out despite his grandmother's warning and his own intuition. The accident was preventable. Thirty years later, he speaks to young people about listening to that inner voice.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Welcome back to Grit Diaries with Simon Harrison02:09 The power of saying yes when you want to say no05:44 Finding unexpected kinship at Barker College06:18 Simon's snapshot: the accident and what came after09:02 The night he ignored his grandmother's warning11:46 Standing in Leslie Hall, 30 years later15:09 Complex PTSD and the healing that came18:06 Why the tandem talk works for young people20:22 Finding his voice after 23 years on radio23:14 Learning to deliver the message, not just the story24:02 Gold nuggets from Grit Diaries and Kintsugi Heroes26:01 The ripple effect: from grit to grace🎧 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 DwyerEvery 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/donateThank 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 #GritDiaries #RadioNorthernBeaches #GritToGrace #gutinstinct #mentalhealth #ptsd #trauma #healing #purpose #youthspotlight #secondchances———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Kintsugi HeroesFollow 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 reality partner I had to become⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and mental health & wellbeing, 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• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.auMelanie grew up in a loving, faith-based family with early exposure to addiction through her grandfather and mental health challenges through her sister. After 10 years in the Air Force, she entered a relationship with Rob, a man caught between his party lifestyle and his desire to be a family man. When their son Hayden was born, the pressure fractured Rob. He drank heavily, became emotionally absent, and refused professional help. Melanie wrote three letters spelling out the reality he faced, each clearer than the last. When she finally withdrew her support to force him toward help, he broke down. He moved closer to his family for better support, and they became closer friends apart than together. She prepared her young son for the possibility of losing his father. Rob died on a bender less than a week after their last conversation. Melanie now speaks about processing rage and grief safely, accepting what she cannot control, and the cost of loving someone through addiction.Melanie Marshall is a leadership executive, author of Adaptive Excellence, and former Air Force intelligence analyst. She spent a decade as a reality partner to her partner Rob, navigating his addiction and mental health crisis while protecting her two children, until his death by overdose.In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Melanie shares the story behind the moments below.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Reality partner, not carer04:05 Growing up in faith, seeing addiction close08:12 Her sister's crisis, learning where to draw the line16:23 Exam anxiety to Air Force service24:39 Meeting Rob, naming what needed to change31:45 Becoming a parent, watching him fracture36:37 Coming home to find him paralytic on the couch39:29 Writing three letters that forced the truth43:01 His breakdown, her moment of knowing46:50 Telling Hayden his father could die47:45 His final thank you, her last wish for him49:29 Rage, grief, and the validity of everything unsaid🎧 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.auCarers Australia: https://www.carersaustralia.com.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 DwyerEvery 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/donateThank 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 #GritDiaries #AddictionAndMentalHealth #CarerWellness #FamilyResilience #BoundariesInLove #ProcessingGrief #RealityPartnerMentioned 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.Kintsugi HeroesFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The 20-year fogKarl 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 introduction01:27 Growing up in apartheid South Africa08:00 Dissociation, trauma, and the Austrian father14:30 A narcissistic mother and emotional distance19:22 Coming out as queer at 2727:50 Leaving South Africa for London and Australia35:00 Corporate work, authenticity, and walking away41:00 Climbing Kilimanjaro and metaphors for life46:35 Writing, creativity, and The Land Where Unicorns Are Made50:14 Reiki practice and community connection through Ankali54:20 Building community, smiling, and winning people over57:51 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.websitecarlfox.com: carlfox.comLightunitedreiki.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/donateThank 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 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.

⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse, violence, 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.auDr Heena Cheung survived childhood sexual abuse from age 13, followed by repeated abuse in college. At 27, she migrated from India to Australia, initially working low-wage jobs while pursuing a Master's in Public Health. A mental health crisis in 2017 involving anorexia became a turning point when Tony Robbins' phrase 'life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you' reframed her trauma. She has since founded My Second Home, an NDIS housing provider; co-founded Simple AI for aged care technology; established My Safe Circle to support abuse survivors; and ran as an independent Senate candidate in 2025, breaking voting records for independents in Victoria. Today, she advocates across disability rights, migrant women's legal protections, childhood sexual abuse prevention, access to justice for First Nations communities, and climate action, driven by the conviction that her past does not define her future.Dr Heena Cheung is a childhood sexual abuse survivor, public health advocate, and independent Senate candidate in Victoria who has channeled her lived experience into multifaceted community work spanning disability rights, migrant women's advocacy, justice reform, and climate action.In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Dr shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Trauma does not define your future-your present actions and choices determine who you become and what impact you create.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Welcome and Episode Overview02:03 Dr Heena Cheung Introduction and Content Warning07:00 From Dentistry to Public Health: Finding True Purpose09:12 Family Pressure, Sisterhood, and Migration to Australia16:39 Kintsugi Principle: Reframing Trauma as Strength19:27 Statistics, Underreporting, and the Definition of Abuse22:50 Access to Justice: First Nations, Migrant Women, and Global Rights25:06 Protect Our Children Jail Not Bail: Changing Suppression Laws28:34 Neuroscience of Trauma: Why Healing Opens Horizons30:18 Pearls of Wisdom: Small Actions, Big Change35:34 Closing Message: Non-Judgment and Compassion37:22 Farewell and Episode Close🎧 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 & ResilienceEvery 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#donateThank 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#GritDiaries #KintsugiHeroes #GritToGrace #DrHeenaCheung #AustralianAdvocacy #ChildhoodSexualAbuseRecovery #SurvivorToAdvocate #MentalHealthHealing #JusticeReform #MigrantWomensRights #DisabilityAdvocacy #ClimateAction #KintsugiPrinciple #SmallActionsLargeChange #CommunityLeadershipY6fRaRiZz6oYxQIxAVGnMentioned in this episode:Kintsugi HeroesFollow 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.