Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace with Mon and Mazz cover art

Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace with Mon and Mazz

Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace with Mon and Mazz

By: Kintsugi Heroes
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Welcome to The Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, a podcast where resilience meets real life. Hosted by dynamic duo Mon and Mazz, we shine a light on the powerful, untold stories of people who have overcome adversity, hardship, and life's toughest challenges - with grit, heart, and grace. Each episode, we sit down with unsung heroes from all walks of life to explore their journeys through struggle, survival, and transformation. These are raw, honest conversations that go beyond the headlines - stories that inspire, challenge, and remind us of the strength within us all. Whether it's bouncing back from rock bottom, navigating personal loss, or turning pain into purpose, The Grit Diaries is a tribute to the human spirit - and a space where vulnerability meets victory. Real stories. Real people. Real resilience. Subscribe, listen, and join us on the journey from Grit to Grace. The Grit Diaries is a flagship series within the Kintsugi Heroes network — built on the belief that the most powerful stories aren't the polished ones, they're the honest ones. Through Mon and Mazz's warm, no-filter conversations, our guests share the moments most people don't talk about: the rock-bottom days, the quiet rebuilds, the family they leaned on, the help they finally asked for, and the small wins that turned into whole new lives. This isn't a series about perfect comebacks or neat endings. It's about real people doing the hard, messy, beautiful work of becoming themselves again — and the grace that's found on the other side of grit. Whether you're walking through something heavy right now, supporting someone who is, or simply need a reminder that you're not alone, The Grit Diaries is for you. Kintsugi Heroes is an Australian not-for-profit (DGR endorsed) dedicated to strengthening mental wellbeing through the power of storytelling. We believe lived experience is a gift to be shared, not a scar to be hidden. To find out more about Kintsugi Heroes and our other podcast series, head to KintsugiHeroes.com.au. Connect With Us: 🌐 Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes/ 👥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Kintsugi-Heroes-100084850387170/ ❤️ Donate (tax-deductible): https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate/#donateCopyright 2026 Kintsugi Heroes Hygiene & Healthy Living Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries

    Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries
    Jun 16 2026
    Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses 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.auIngrid grew up as a mixed-race child in New Jersey, retreating into horses and later punk rock music to survive feeling othered by adults and society. She came out as a lesbian in her mid-20s, facing rejection from her mother. Years later, after moving apart and her mother's battle with cancer, they reconciled through open-heartedness and forgiveness. In her mother's final years, despite COVID restrictions limiting visits, they rebuilt their relationship from soul to soul. After her mother's passing, Ingrid wrote her memoir and became a grief coach, learning that walking through fire refines us into gold.Ingrid Hu Dahl is an American TEDx speaker, author, ICF-certified leadership and grief coach, and lifelong musician who has toured internationally with multiple bands. She wrote Sun Shining on Morning Snow, a memoir exploring identity, grief, and reconciliation with her mother, and has directed short films on mixed-race representation and experience.In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Ingrid shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Being othered as a child for your identity teaches you to read subtlety and energy, skills that later become invaluable in coaching and human connection.• Coming out authentically, even when facing rejection, creates the possibility for deeper reconciliation later because you refuse to diminish yourself.• Grief and identity loss can catalyze profound growth, especially when you're willing to write your story and integrate what you've learned.• Forgiveness and reconciliation often require the person who rejected you to choose openness first, but you can still hold the door…🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction and Ingrid's Background04:35 Growing Up Mixed-Race on the East Coast06:44 Horses as Refuge and Nonverbal Communication10:13 Finding Voice Through Punk, Grunge and Riot Grrrl13:40 Coming Out and Complex Family Dynamics17:33 Mother's Rejection and the Long Separation22:33 The Reconciliation Begins: Mother Reaches Out24:35 Cancer, COVID, and Final Moments Together26:30 The Book and Its Symbolism28:22 Fire, Gold and the Year of the Fire Horse31:13 Leadership Lessons and Writing Through Grief36:34 Closing Thoughts on Authenticity and Hope🎧 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 & 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...
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    40 mins
  • Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House — Jo Tarnawsky | Grit Diaries

    Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House — Jo Tarnawsky | Grit Diaries
    Jun 2 2026
    Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House | Jo Tarnawsky | Grit DiariesJo Tarnawsky entered Parliament House at 12 after winning a TV competition, carrying a dream forged in that single afternoon. She built a two-decade career as a diplomat and political operative, thriving in crisis zones and complex postings. In 2022, she returned to Australia as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister—her childhood dream role. Within two years, she was locked out of her office, barred from her workplace, and pushed toward silence. Rather than slip away quietly, she chose to speak publicly, eventually filing suit against the Deputy PM, the PM's Chief of Staff, and the Commonwealth. The case settled on a no-liability basis in early 2025. Since then, she has redirected her energy into helping others navigate toxic workplaces through educational resources, videos, and advocacy work.Jo Tarnawsky is a career diplomat and political staffer who worked for the Australian Government across multiple continents—from Iraq to Italy to Zimbabwe—before returning to Australia as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister. In 2024, she took the federal government to court over workplace bullying in Parliament House.In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Jo shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Workplace bullying in institutional settings is often covert and sophisticated—exclusion, email omission, and exclusion from meetings rather than overt aggression—making it harder to name and easier to doubt yourself.• High performers and ethical people are targeted specifically because they pose a threat to systems that want to remain unchanged; the bullier's insecurity manifests as a need to neutralize those who shine a light.• Early intervention with human dignity, apology, and reasonable accommodation can prevent escalation to litigation; institutions that default to legal protection and risk management often create the very crisis they're trying to avoid.• Isolation is the most damaging weapon in workplace bullying; when you cannot eat in the cafeteria, access your own office, or know what's happening in your own portfolio, the psychological toll accelerates rapidly.• Children offer clarity in moments of despair; a child's simple suggestion to tell someone what is happening can become the permission slip to stop protecting the system that harmed you.• Speaking publicly about a painful experience does…🕒 CHAPTERS:00:31 Introduction: Workplace bullying in Parliament House04:12 The moment at Parliament House that changed everything09:11 Falling into diplomatic career with DFAT12:11 Deputy Ambassador posting to Italy and family15:42 Starting dream job and initial success20:00 Locked out of Parliament House24:30 The choice: be pushed out quietly or call them out29:13 First press conference and initial requests35:12 Final return to office and settlement38:25 Pivoting to purposeful work helping others42:39 Upcoming resources for safe work transitions48:11 Book-ending: starting and ending career at Parliament with press conference🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙️ 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 ...
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    50 mins
  • Lindsay Ziehl: From Grief and Cancer to Humanitarian Change-Maker

    Lindsay Ziehl: From Grief and Cancer to Humanitarian Change-Maker
    May 19 2026

    Episode Summary

    Lindsay Ziehl has lived enough lives for ten people — and at 77, she’s still not done. Born in Britain and raised across Australia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, Lindsay survived two cancers, raised her son Andrew alone after her husband walked out, and was stranded in South Africa during COVID when she received the phone call every parent dreads. Rather than be consumed by grief, she channelled it into the Andrew Ziehl Foundation and a lifetime of frontline humanitarian work — training over 3,000 women escaping domestic violence and personally intervening to secure the release of trafficked women. In this conversation with Mon and Mazz, Lindsay shares two unforgettable pieces of wisdom: a rabbi’s three-word reframe, and a little cat with a frozen chicken that changed the way she saw her own strength.

    Episode Pillars

    • The Nomadic Foundation: How a childhood of constant movement across Australia, the UK and Africa shaped Lindsay’s resilience and her lifelong instinct to help others.

    • A Son Called Andrew: Raising him alone, letting him fly back to Australia, and receiving the phone call no parent ever expects — during a global pandemic, unable to travel.

    • Turning Grief Into Purpose: The rabbi’s three-word reframe — “Not why, but what now?” — and how that single shift led to founding the Andrew Ziehl Foundation.

    • Two Cancers and a Cat: Surviving Paget’s disease and breast cancer, riding a four-hour bus to chemo alone, and the moment a tiny cat with a frozen chicken reminded her to get back up.

    • Domestic Violence Frontlines: Over 25 years running shelters, training 3,000 women, and securing the release of trafficked women just one day before they were sent abroad.

    The Kintsugi Connection

    To see the visual story of Lindsay’s journey and explore more episodes of resilience, visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes/videos

    If Lindsay’s story moved you, explore these related Hero conversations:

    • Navigating grief and loss? Explore another Grit Diaries episode on life after unimaginable loss. • Finding purpose after adversity? Explore another episode on turning pain into action

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    45 mins
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