Animals & Us with Natalie Stockdale (Kintsugi Heroes)
The gold in the herd ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses some heavy themes 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 Matt and Jezey both grew up with animals-Jezey as the 'Pied Piper' of a semi-rural childhood, Matt on his grandparents' farm working horses and cattle. They met through martial arts and fighting communities, relocated to acreage in Queensland, and started collecting animals. Visitors repeatedly said they felt profoundly calm and safe at the property. Both independently began studying equine-assisted therapy. COVID crystallized what they already knew: people desperately needed reconnection to nature and animals. They formalized their practice into Wolfpack Health & Wellness, combining structured, evidence-based therapy with the healing power of animals. Now they run individual and group programs, corporate workshops, teenage girl circles, monthly men's fire chats, and farm stays. Young people disengaged from school and heading toward crisis have reconnected with family and education through working with horses. Adults report breakthroughs after years of stalled therapy. The animals-especially horses trained in partnership rather than dominance-sense incongruence and create space for clients to practice vulnerability, boundaries, and self-awareness in a container held by nature itself. Matt & Jezey Wolf are co-founders of Wolfpack Health & Wellness, a healing sanctuary in Queensland that combines equine-assisted therapy, Internal Family Systems work, and immersion in nature to support mental health and community belonging. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introduction 01:02 Jezey's childhood: the Pied Piper and animals 05:42 Matt's early years on the farm and leaving school at 14 09:11 How they met through martial arts and fighting 11:30 Visitors report healing; the spark of Wolfpack 16:45 The meaning of Wolfpack: community and belonging 19:43 The menagerie: 13 horses, buffalo, and beyond 27:00 How different animals show up in therapy and healing 31:31 Young people, boundaries, and the horse that says no 39:50 Do the horses choose their human? Invitation and consent 44:04 From breaking to partnership: Matt's shift in horsemanship 52:27 Final words: honor your draw to animals 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Wolfpack Health & Wellness: wolfpackwellness.clinic ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 #WolfpackWellness #AnimalHealing #MentalHealthMatters #EquineTherapy #NatureHeals #Wellbeing #Community #Belonging #TrustNotDominance Mentioned in this episode: Kintsugi Heroes 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.
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