Dr Heena Cheung: From Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivor to Senate Candidate | Grit Diaries

⚠️ 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.