Kintsugi Heroes
Judith Richards
Judith moved from losing her mind to training thousands in trauma healing, discovering the unconscious mind holds the key to rapid transformation.
If this story feels close to home
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Judith Richards grew up in a large Catholic family where she was sexually abused by priests and later by a nun at school. The message she absorbed was clear: she didn't matter, she deserved to suffer, and she was to blame. That programming ran her life. She found herself drawn to people who would harm her, working her way through a pattern of abusive relationships until she ended up with someone dangerous enough to cause severe physical injury. By her forties, her body was failing. She couldn't walk, couldn't eat, and was living alone in a tin shed in rural New South Wales for seven years, hiding from people who wanted to hurt her. Doctors gave her days to live.
What saved her was an old girlfriend who refused to let her die. Using tapping and a simple insight, the girlfriend showed Judith that her unconscious mind had been programmed to end her life when her son turned 21. Within days, Judith's body began to heal. She realised the unconscious mind runs 95 percent of life, and that the trauma stored in her body was playing on repeat like a videotape loop, triggering her nervous system to respond as if danger was happening now. She spent years developing a way to turn off those loops. In 2011, at her lowest point, she lost her mind entirely, living in hallucinations and walking the streets of Maleny as the 'mad beanie lady.' But in that crisis, she assembled the Richards Trauma Process. People watched her recover and brought her their loved ones. Within a few years, she was training practitioners around the world.
Now, Judith lives with gratitude, joy, and humour. She hears miraculous stories every day from people who have gone from despair to being well and happy. Her message to anyone in pain is simple: it sucks, and there is a way through. Your pain can become your gift if you hang in long enough to find it.
⚠️ 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
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