From Grief to Courage: Kevin Holloway on Loss, Identity & Becoming the Person You Are

Mahir Manot: Six Years of Bullying, One Teacher Who Listened, and the Voice He Found on the Other Side

⚠️ 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 Mahir entered high school as an energetic, curious kid thriving in primary school. By year 10, whispered jokes became systematic exclusion; by year 11, he was trapped between two new friends and a school full of people who had already decided who he was based on rumours. The day before his HSC exams, 15 bullies attacked him on the oval, humiliating him publicly. That same day, a compassionate teacher on his bus ride home convinced him to break his silence. His mother called the principal; the bullies apologised; he began counselling. University became his reset. Journalism reignited his expressive nature; the Big Lift volunteer program gave him the deep friendships he'd been searching for. Today, Mahir mentors emerging journalists, speaks publicly about mental health, and is building a career in broadcast media, turning his darkest chapter into fuel for helping others. Mahir Manot is a journalism and law student at UTS who survived severe bullying throughout high school. Now an ambassador for mental health charities including Headspace and Are You Okay?, he uses his story to help younger Australians find their voice and build genuine connection. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with Mark Henderson, Mahir shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Rumours and preconceived notions can be as damaging as direct bullying because they prevent victims from forming new friendships and force them to suppress their authentic selves. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction: Who Mahir Was Before 02:15 Primary School: Energy, Curiosity, and Belonging 03:37 The Transition: A Broken Arm and Changing Dynamics 10:01 Corridor Confrontations: The Ripple Effect of Rumours 13:34 The Breaking Point: Physical Attack Before HSC 16:24 Breaking Silence: A Compassionate Teacher and Telling His Mother 19:01 After the Assault: School Response, Loss, and Academic Resilience 22:13 The Navy Dream and the 1% That Changed Everything 22:51 Golden Joinery: University and the Uncaging of Expression 37:48 Forward: Curiosity, Impact, and Broadcasting Dreams 41:00 Core Message: Using Your Voice to Uplift, Not Drown 44:06 Closing and Gratitude 🎧 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 #GoldInTheCracks #AustralianStories #BullyingRecovery #MentalHealthMatters #FindingYourVoice #JournalismMatters #YouthMentalHealth #SharedAdversity #CommunityConnection

Colin Parsons: The Gold in the Cracks, How He Built a Life on His Own Terms

Colin Parsons spent decades people-pleasing and chasing externally imposed goals until a move to Luxembourg, the birth of his children, and therapy catalysed a complete reckoning. He took paternal leave in a country that supported it, discovered his gift for genuine human connection through a Chief Happiness Officer role, and later questioned everything: money, marriage, identity, and what it meant to show up authentically. A divorce forced him to surrender the shame and labels others placed on him. Today, he runs free weekly LinkedIn Live conversations with people worldwide, building trust through imperfection, and has learned that confidence isn't a destination but a compound return on small daily acts of courage and self-kindness. Colin Parsons is a Luxembourg-based conversationalist, former Chief Happiness Officer, and founder of unscripted LinkedIn Live interviews. After a career in banking and consulting, a divorce, and six years of therapy, he now facilitates genuine human connection globally through intentional dialogue and has built confidence through small, compounding acts of courage. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Taking time to genuinely connect with your children reveals what parental responsibility actually means and builds deeper bonds than any schedule can predict. • Money is a borrowed value, not a true one; when we make it the primary goal, we sacrifice alignment with ourselves and justify pain we didn't need to endure. • Vulnerability and therapy are not signs of weakness but courageous acts that disrupt the conditioning and narratives holding you back from living authentically. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome and introduction to Colin's story 02:28 Paternal leave in Luxembourg and the gift of deep parental bonding 07:15 From frustrated consultant to Chief Happiness Officer 14:53 How job loss and relocation sparked a career pivot 20:06 Questioning money as a primary value and reclaiming intentionality 27:38 The turning point: therapy, self-discovery, and disrupting old narratives 35:43 Awareness as a superpower and the art of reframing self-talk 43:49 Divorce, shame, and learning to stop people-pleasing 56:11 Building confidence through small, compounding daily acts 01:05:42 LinkedIn Live: creating genuine connection in a digital age 01:14:47 Why human imperfection matters more than AI perfection 01:19:00 Closing: gratitude and where to find Colin's work 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find 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 [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://kintsugiheroes.com.au] ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes [https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes] 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes [https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes] #KintsugiHeroes #GoldInTheCracks #RebuildingAfterDivorce #SelfCompassion #MentalHealth #Authenticity #PersonalGrowth #Therapy #HumanConnection #Vulnerability #IntentionalLiving #Fatherhood #Confidence

The Closet Is a Performance: How Gene Moore Dismantled Homophobia in the World's Toughest Institutions

Gene Moore grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household where his sexuality was framed as sin. He married, became a pastor, and spent 14 years denying who he was before a near-suicidal crisis forced him out of the closet. After losing his partner Victor to a plane crash in 1994, Gene channelled his grief into studying gay identity and eventually transforming military and police cultures by reframing homophobia not as prejudice against gay people but as a masculinity enforcement system that damages all men. His paradigm shift, grounded in research by David Plummer on homophobia phobia (the fear of being labelled gay), has proven effective in the most resistant institutional environments, creating what he calls a fellow victim paradigm where straight and gay men become allies against a common enemy. After 20 years of silence driven by safety concerns, Gene has begun publicly sharing this work. Gene Moore is a scholar, former pastor, and cultural change specialist whose decades-long career has focused on understanding and eliminating homophobia in military and police organisations across New Zealand and Australia. Born in Texas into a fundamentalist Christian home, Gene came out as gay after years in the closet, a trauma that sparked his lifelong mission to dismantle the systems that damage both queer and straight men. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Gene shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • The closet is not a secret kept by individuals but a performative system that damages everyone in an environment, particularly in hyper-masculine institutions like the military and police. • Homophobia phobia (the fear of being labelled gay) is the invisible driver of toxic masculinity enforcement, and naming this fear breaks its power by making the mechanism visible and absurd. • Straight men… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Gene's Interdisciplinary Mosaic 05:09 From Texas to the Pacific: Geographic and Intellectual Wandering 08:42 Fundamentalist Upbringing and the Denial of Desire 14:46 The Closet as Performance: Crisis and Escape 19:02 From Grief to Academia: The Birth of a Mission 25:28 The Military Paradigm Shift: From Tolerance to Attitude Change 32:27 Homophobia Phobia and the Fellow Victim Framework 44:00 Operational Effectiveness and the Rational Case for Change 50:17 Twenty Years of Silence and the Decision to Speak 01:02:14 Victor Neo: Love, Fate, and a Plane Crash 01:10:09 Breaking the Silence for Suicide Prevention 01:13:05 The Unpublished Book and the Path Forward 🎧 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 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 every week. 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 #FirstPersonStories #masculinity #homophobia #mentalhealth #suicideprevention #culturalchange #lgbtq #military #toxicmasculinity

Matt Tulle: From Hiding to Healing — Lived Experience and Peer Work

EPISODE SUMMARY Not every journey to purpose is a straight line. For Matt Tulle, it wound through stigma, addiction and some of the darkest corners of mental health — all while growing up queer in rural Queensland. Matt didn't just survive that journey. He transformed it. Today he works as a peer worker in alcohol and other drugs (AOD) support, walking alongside men who are exactly where he once was. In this honest, generous conversation, Matt unpacks ten years as a "functional drug addict", the cocaine years in a Melbourne ops manager role, the breakdown that followed, and the night he felt his late father's presence and chose a different path. This is a story about lived experience as a connection multiplier — and why peer work might be one of the most important roles in modern recovery. KEY TAKEAWAYS LIVED EXPERIENCE IS A CONNECTION MULTIPLIER Matt explains why "me too" lands in a way no textbook can — and how peer work uses it with intention, not as a trauma dump. SHAME TO GUILT IS THE MOVE "I'm a bad person" becomes "I had a bad moment." Matt walks through how that single reframe rebuilt his self-worth. ADDICTION CAN BE THE THING HOLDING IT TOGETHER For ten years, the drugs weren't the problem — they were the unprocessed solution. Real recovery meant doing the harder, slower work underneath. THE WORK TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES Eight years into healing and still going. Matt's view: time doesn't matter, you'll do it when you're ready. YOU MAY NEED A NEW POT On outgrowing people, redrawing boundaries, and why moving on isn't betrayal — it's growth. GUEST BIO Matt Tulle is an AOD peer worker based in Queensland, supporting men through addiction, mental health and recovery. A social work graduate, Matt brings a decade of lived experience to a workforce he believes belongs at every multidisciplinary table. RESOURCES MENTIONED - Lifeline Australia (24/7): 13 11 14 — https://www.lifeline.org.au [https://www.lifeline.org.au] - Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 — https://www.beyondblue.org.au [https://www.beyondblue.org.au] - QLife (LGBTI peer support): 1800 184 527 — https://www.qlife.org.au [https://www.qlife.org.au] - 13YARN (First Nations crisis line): 13 92 76 — https://www.13yarn.org.au [https://www.13yarn.org.au] TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 03:11 Growing up queer in Gympie 13:20 Melbourne, burnout and cocaine 15:42 Breakdown, withdrawal and first attempt 22:00 Losing Dad and the cat moment 26:00 Uni, therapy and doing the work 30:48 Peer work — shame to guilt 52:21 Future of peer work and LGBTQI+ hopes CALL TO ACTION If this conversation moved you, share it with one person who needs it. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and please leave a rating and review — it helps others find these stories. Support Kintsugi Heroes with a tax-deductible donation: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] THE KINTSUGI CONNECTION Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] If this resonated, you may also like: - KH episodes on men's mental health and recovery - KH episodes on lived experience and peer support ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit storytelling platform sharing real stories of resilience, disability and transformation. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi — repairing broken pottery with gold — we believe our breaks make us more valuable, not less. PARTNER WITH US Sponsorship and partnership enquiries: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] DONATE Make a tax-deductible donation: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] CONNECT Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] Theme music: "Broken" by Colin Lilly, used with permission.

The Beacon on Your Head: Breaking the Silence That Gives Abusers Power | Donna Kent

Donna carries memories from 18 months old, including repeated sexual abuse by her father beginning at age three. Through childhood and adolescence, she endured trafficking, gang rape, attempted abduction, and betrayal by peers. Two abortions—one illegal and traumatic, one legal—marked her teenage years. At 16, a suicide attempt by overdose nearly killed her. She married an abusive narcissist in her early twenties, escaped after years of rape and violence, and found safety with her second husband at 21. Real healing began at 38 when she finally disclosed her full story in a safe relationship. Hypnotherapy, EMDR, spiritual practice, and boundary-setting ('weeding the garden') became pivotal tools. At 44, just as she felt emotionally stable, her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died after 23 years together. Today she lives with peace and freedom, working toward a healing practice while helping others see hope beyond their circumstances. Donna Kent is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, and ongoing violence across her lifespan. Now in her late 40s, she works in bookkeeping and payroll while developing a healing practice as an intuitive guide and psychic medium, drawing on lived experience and multiple therapeutic modalities to support others in their recovery. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with Natalie Stockdale, Donna shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Silence is the mechanism by which abusers maintain power; speaking up, even when terrified, immediately disempowers the abuser and opens pathways to help. • Trauma survivors develop sophisticated masking behaviours early—suppressing inconsolable crying to avoid drawing attention—which becomes a lifelong pattern that prevents authentic help-seeking. • Different therapeutic modalities work at different stages of healing; no single approach is sufficient, and survivors must remain open to trying new tools as they progress. • The body archives trauma separately from emotion as a survival mechanism; EMDR and similar therapies work by reconnecting memory to emotion so it can be processed and archived rather than continuously relived. • Healing requires conscious boundary-setting ('weeding the garden'), including the difficult work of removing or distancing from family members and lifelong friends who drain energy or perpetuate cycles. • Survivors often dissociate into separate selves to survive; true integration requires bringing these fragmented parts back together, not just processing individual traumatic events. • Empathy and the ability to help others see alternative perspectives is one of the most valuable gifts that emerges from having survived and recovered from trauma. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Content warning and introduction 04:11 Early memories: hiding at 18 months, being trafficked by father's taxi to paedophiles 07:08 Gang rape at bus stop age 12: survival and silent continuation 13:49 Pregnancy at 15, rejection by family, illegal abortion in Tweed Heads 22:37 Meeting and marrying first husband: narcissist and abuser 27:38 Moving to Mount Isa, meeting second husband, safe relationship begins 34:43 Hypnotherapy: confronting father in safe space, writing letter 42:26 Mind games in trauma recovery: reliving events, self-blame, paralysis 50:41 Reintegrating dissociated selves: survivor and school-aged identities 54:43 Gifts from suffering: empathy, perspective-shifting, offering hope 57:36 Life now: peace, freedom, healing practice vision 01:00:22 Final message: draw on strength, you're not alone, keep moving forward 🌐 CONNECT WITH DONNA KENT: Lifeline: https://www.lifeline.org.au/ 1800RESPECT: https://www.1800respect.org.au/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience and transformation. Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what's been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath. We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard. 📺 Series on this channel: – Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham – Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale – Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova – Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter. ❤️ Donate (tax-deductible): https://kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate 🤝 Partner with us: https://kintsugiheroes.com.au 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories. We're all in this together. 💛 #KintsugiHeroes #KHMainFeed #FirstPersonStories #RebuildingAfterFracture #TraumaSurvival #ChildhoodAbuse #SpeakingUp #HealingJourney #MentalHealth #EMDR #Boundaries #Empowerment