Lena Papadopoulos · 39 min
A teenager who survived suicidal depression lost her only safe confidant to suicide, and turned that devastating grief into a lifelong mission to create belonging for everyone.
Hear this story
Lena Papadopoulos grew up between the United States and Greece, caught between two worlds and living in a volatile home marked by addiction and abuse. Depression and suicidal thoughts arrived in her early teens. At 13, in a summer art program, she met Ned, a few years older, who listened without flinching when she spoke about her darkest feelings. He became the first safe person who didn't turn away from her pain. Months after the program ended, Lena learned that Ned had taken his own life. She hadn't known he was struggling. The guilt was crushing. She felt self-centred, convinced she had missed something she should have seen. But slowly, that devastating loss reshaped her entire life. Lena made a decision: she would create spaces where people felt safe to be fully themselves, including the parts they had learned to hide. That mission has driven everything she has done since. She studied sociology and psychology, then intercultural education, always working to build belonging. In 2017, she left university work to start her own coaching business. Today, she helps people discover their unique gifts and trace their purpose back through their lived experiences, the challenges they have overcome, and the pain points that fuel their desire to help others. Lena still faces depression in cycles, every 4 to 5 years, rooted in grief about the childhood she didn't have. But a deep knowing keeps her tethered: that she is here for a reason, that her suffering has meaning, and that what she has endured is often the very thing that enables her to reach someone else.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention, 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
“I wanted to create always I wanted the people around me to feel safe and comfortable to be the truth of who they were and to express everything including like the deepest darkest saddest most painful parts of themselves.”
“I just like had this knowing that I wasn't supposed to die and that there were things I was supposed to do in my life and people that I was supposed to help and that I was like meant to be here.”
“I have struggled with depression and suicidal ideation since then it comes every like four to five years I'll spend like a year in that kind of space but I still always like hold on to this intuitive knowing that I'm here for a reason even if in those moments I don't necessarily want to be.”
The hero, today
One person who truly listens and does not flinch when you speak your darkest thoughts can shift everything about how you see yourself and whether you want to stay alive. Lena had to build her own safety net because her family could not provide one, and 20 years later, allowing other people to help her is still one of her biggest challenges. When Ned died, Lena turned her guilt and regret into a mission to create spaces where people feel safe to be fully themselves, including the parts they have learned to hide. Lena's purpose is directly rooted in her lived experiences of pain and survival, and she sees that connection as true for everyone: what you have suffered and overcome is often the source of what you are meant to give others. Having a sense of purpose and a knowing that you matter can be a life raft even in the deepest depression, keeping you tethered to the surface when you feel completely submerged. Your worth and value do not depend on feeling good or being 'fixed'; the thing you are hurting over right now could very well be the thing that saves someone else.
Yes. Lena Papadopoulos is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
One person who truly listens and does not flinch when you speak your darkest thoughts can shift everything about how you see yourself and whether you want to stay alive.
Lena had to build her own safety net because her family could not provide one, and 20 years later, allowing other people to help her is still one of her biggest challenges.
When Ned died, Lena turned her guilt and regret into a mission to create spaces where people feel safe to be fully themselves, including the parts they have learned to hide.
Lena's purpose is directly rooted in her lived experiences of pain and survival, and she sees that connection as true for everyone: what you have suffered and overcome is often the source of what you are meant to give others.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:07
Welcome to the Kintsugi Heroes podcast, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people going through different challenges and how they overcome them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. If you love this conversation, we'd love you to like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero story. And in this episode, I met with Lena Papadopoulos. What a beautiful person Lena is. She spoke with such calm serenity in this conversation, in sharing her story. And yet her path, her journey was not calm or serene. She had a dysfunctional family, a long struggle with depression, including suicide ideation. She lost a close friend of hers to suicide early on without her being aware that he was in pain. It provided the basis for her to create safe places for other people. And she was able to turn that journey into where she is today. One thing that struck me was that Lena had to create her own foundations, her own safety net. She had to learn how to be her own backstop, you know, because she didn't have that safety net of the family foundation. And it's something that some of us, you know, do experience, and that's what makes us feel so alone on our journey. And yet Lena was able to go through all of that and come out the other side. It's a wonderful conversation. The compassion she has is massive. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Lena Papadopoulos. And here we are. It's another episode of Kintsugi Heroes, and I'm with Lena Papadopoulos. Lena, thank you for being here today with me.
REPLAY · 02:19
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Thanks for having me.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:20
You're welcome. It's a pleasure. And every guest who comes on and shares their story, I'm always grateful and in awe and very honored for you to do that. It's a really heartwarming experience for me and I know for our listeners. So I just want to thank you upfront for being here and sharing the story, which I don't know what it is. I make sure I don't know what the story is before you come on. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a beautiful thing. So let's get started, shall we? This is about your story. I'm going to hand over to you. How about you take us back to the beginning where your story starts? Take, share with us, you know, what's, what was going on? Where did it start?
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This conversation includes a childhood shaped by volatility, ned becomes a safe person, finding the handgun, ned's death shifts everything, guilt as a turning point and university and the fear of repetition.
REPLAY · 03:02
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Um, well, I was in my early teens and I was really experiencing severe depression. Um, like as a child, my, my parents are both from Greece, but I grew up in the United States and all my other family was all in Greece. And I kind of always had just this feeling or experience of kind of not belonging, of being a little bit of a weirdo or an outcast, whether I was in the US or in Greece. Um, and on top of that. You know, I had just a very volatile childhood with a lot of abuse and addiction and uncertainty. And yeah, I just, I was not in a good place mentally. And I was really suicidal and just really like not wanting to live. And every summer I went to art school. Um, I was in this kind of special program and it was this one particular summer, I guess the summer that I was 13. Um, and I became friends with someone named Ned who was also in the art program, but he went to a different school than I did. And he was a couple of years older than me, so I hadn't known him really before, even though I think we'd been in this program for several years together. I hadn't really met him before. Um, but we really clicked and connected and became close friends. And my depression and sort of suicidal ideation was something that had made a lot of people uncomfortable if I was ever open about it, or, you know, if I did try to kind of quote unquote seek help somehow with through my friends. But with Ned, it was different. He was very open and receptive and encouraging and supportive. And so he kind of became like this safe space for me to just be very honest and sincere about how I was feeling. Um, and so I became, we became really close and he became someone very special for me. Um, because I felt like he really sort of helped me through that. Um, he was constantly like validating and encouraging me and helping me see like my own value, but also like the value in my life. And a few months after the summer program ended and we had returned to our normal school life, I found out that Ned had killed himself. And it was a shock to me, um, because as much as I had shared about my depression and how I was feeling, he had never indicated that he had been feeling or going through the same. And I just like was really taken aback. And, um, I started to kind of ask because I had friends that were connected to his sisters at this other school. So I started to kind of ask questions and found out that he had struggled with depression for years. He had been on medication. Um, that this was something that, you know, a lot of people close to him actually did know about and maybe wasn't so surprising to his family. But then I just, I really struggled a lot with feeling guilt and regret and self-blame and, and just thinking like, wow, I'm so self-centered and selfish. That was just like all I could feel was that I had let him down and that he had been there. For me when he was actually going through the same. And of course he hadn't shared it with me, but also that I was so consumed by my own feelings that I hadn't noticed it or realized it. And so this became for me, like, then I feel like my whole purpose in life was to be more observant and to pay more attention. And I wanted to create, always, I wanted the people around me to feel feel safe and comfortable to be the truth of who they were and to express everything, including like the deepest, darkest, saddest, most painful parts of themselves. Yeah, that just became almost like my mission in life, um, to create space where people were accepted completely as they are. That really just like paved the path for everything that I did moving forward from that point. When I enrolled in undergraduate, like to go to uni, I initially enrolled to study architecture, but I had this feeling for a couple of years leading up like that I wanted to study, uh, counseling to be a therapist. But there was like a lot of fear in me around doing that because I thought like, oh, maybe the past will repeat itself. Maybe I will work with people who have things that are too heavy me, maybe they'll take their lives and I like won't be able to cope with that. So I did eventually, just before classes started, I, I changed and switched over to sociology and psychology. Um, but I still wrestled all throughout the years of uni with like this fear that I had. Um, and in that time period, I'd also gotten very involved with the international student community and started kind of running events and programs for, for that community and became so involved in that. And so my focus and passion kind of shifted into that. And once I graduated and was considering going on to get a master's, I was again really struggling with this, asking myself, do I really want to get a master's in social work? Do I really want to be a therapist? Can I do it? And Ultimately, like the fear took over, so I decided instead to study cultural anthropology, which continued me in this realm of intercultural education. But really I was still doing kind of what I wanted to do, just in a very different avenue. So from my perspective, I was still creating safe space for very different types of people to come together. To create some kind of common ground, common understanding, people who, you know, have very different cultural backgrounds and different ultimately perceptions of reality, like bringing them together to understand and accept and celebrate one another. And I was just constantly fueled by this desire that was birthed through the loss of Ned to just create this space for people. And I did that for several years. The longer I worked in that space, the more I started to feel as though the division between us is ultimately a reflection of a disconnection within us. And so I kind of circled back to this desire to really work with people one-on-one. In a more personal way. And so in 2017, I left my role at that time. I was working in a university in intercultural education, and I left that position and decided to start my own coaching business, um, which came with its own set of like insecurities and fears and self-doubt. Um, and was like this process of figuring out what exactly am I doing here and what do I want this to look like? But yeah, it eventually became what it is now where I really help other people see what their unique, unique gifts and strengths are and how their unique lived experiences can be used to make the world a better place in some way. So I want to help other people find their mission and purpose in life. Which I think is really rooted in what makes them different from everybody else. And so, yeah, that's what I do now. And I really, yeah, I just really feel like everything I've done in my life has been motivated and driven by this experience that I had with Ned.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 11:56
Thank you for that. I've got a few questions. Uh, the first one is, so how old were you when your depression started?
REPLAY · 12:05
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Um, yeah, around 12 or 13. Mm-hmm. Okay.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 12:10
And the experience you had with Ned, uh, as in once you found out that he'd taken his life, what did you go through then internally after, after learning that?
REPLAY · 12:24
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): As I said, it was, there was just like a lot of guilt and self-blame. Um, and this feeling of like being responsible in some way, which I, I know is not true. I was not responsible. Like, I don't think I actually could have done anything to change, um, how he felt or, or the place he was in. But yeah, I think it maybe took me like a year to get over feeling that kind of way. And I think it also, like, to recognize that even me sort of wallowing in those feelings was another form of, of like self-centeredness and that I needed to snap out of that if I really wanted to be able to support other people in a meaningful way.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 13:15
Did his passing change your own desire to, to potentially take your own life? Like, cuz you said you had some thoughts around it, you talked about, about it with your friends. What changed then when Ned passed, or did that affect your feelings about your own life?
REPLAY · 13:37
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): It's interesting because I had, I, I really think it was ultimately through my friendship with him and my, the support that he gave me that shifted my perspective on that. So it kind of had changed. Even before, there was one time when I felt like I had actually found like a handgun in my parents' room and I sat down with it, with like really seriously contemplating like wanting to use it to take my life. And I had this really, really, really strong feeling. At the time, I was quite religious, so I perceived it as like God speaking to me. Now I feel like it was just like my own intuitive knowing or inner sense, which ultimately I think the two are the same, to be honest. But I just like had this knowing that I wasn't supposed to die and that there were things I was supposed to do in my life and people that I was supposed to help and that I was like, meant to be here. So even now, like when I work with my clients, I talk so much about like, what is your reason for being here? I feel like we're all here for a reason and that's why I wanna help people find their purpose. And I have struggled with depression and suicidal ideation since then. I, it comes every like 4 to 5 years. I'll spend like a year in that kind of space, but I still always like hold onto this intuitive knowing that I'm here for a reason, even if in those moments I don't necessarily want to be.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 15:29
Mm-hmm. The, this, um, situation with you finding the handgun and then having that, the voice, the knowing, the message that you're meant to be here, did that happen before you met Ned or after?
REPLAY · 15:45
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): This is, I, I really can't remember if it was, I, I know it was after I had met him, but I can't remember if it was before or after his passing. Oh. Um, feels a little bit like a blur. Mm-hmm. I think it might've been after, but I'm honestly not sure.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 16:06
Did you get help? Does it help for your own emotional state, um, at this time, like after Ned passed?
REPLAY · 16:13
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Um, no. I remember once around this time there were these— there was this place. Oh, I don't remember what it was called, but there were these commercials on TV, um, and they would give kind of like a checklist and, you know, if you meet X criteria, then you're depressed and you need help and whatever. And I remember sitting with my mom and saying like, oh yeah, I meet like all of those. Um, and she, and she ended up taking me to a therapist and I was like very resistant. Like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to talk about anything. Because most of what they wanted me to address was around like things with my dad. And I was just like, I don't wanna talk about any of this. And I was very like shut down and closed off to it. And aside from that, no, there was, there was nothing. I just kind of leaned on myself.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 17:18
So no close friends that you could open up to?
REPLAY · 17:22
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Um, I didn't really feel that I could. I mean, there were some people that I shared some things with, but just based on, um, the discomfort that I sensed when I had talked about the depression before, I didn't really feel— yeah, I just felt like I didn't want to put the burden somehow on anyone else. So I really didn't. Speak to anyone much about it. Mm.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 17:51
So it was very much a, a lonely journey.
REPLAY · 17:55
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 17:57
What, what, what would you say was the thing that got you through it and, and pulled you out?
REPLAY · 18:03
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): A couple of things because at the time I mentioned, um, that I was quite religious. So I think it was kind of my own relationship with God, right? My own. Perception of, of what that meant and what that felt like and looked like. And then really just my own inner strength and resilience, because honestly, like, I'd already been through a lot of things that a kid normally shouldn't have to go through. Um, and those experiences had honestly made me like hyper-independent. I was very used to having to do everything by myself. Um, and so it almost just felt like a natural, just like the natural way to be for me.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 18:53
So can I ask, what was the relationship like between you and your parents when you were young and also through these years?
REPLAY · 19:01
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Not really good. Um, my dad was barely present. He was almost never around, and if he was, he was high on some kind of drug or he was drunk and he was unpredictable and explosive and violent. And I really hated him. Like, I really hated him when I was younger. And, you know, as I got older, like, I tried to see him as a human, as somebody who's the pain that he caused was created by his own pain. And so I tried to have compassion and empathy toward him, and we sort of built a relationship, and then he did some really terrible things again, and that felt to me like a big backtrack. And then it was just kind of this back and forth. And actually this year, this August, I made the decision not to have a relationship with him. Anymore, just because, oh, he really does inflict pain. Like, I don't feel like anything good comes out of being connected to him. And then with my mom, I don't know, she was young. She was really young, far away from her family in this toxic, abusive relationship. Um, she herself was quite like violent and abusive with me. Uh, but when I was younger, I didn't really it was like I couldn't really hold that against her because somehow I always compared her to my dad, which just seemed so much worse. And then around in like my teens, I just, I think that's when I started to really be like, uh, my mom, like, I don't like my mom either. Yeah. I just, I never felt safe with her. I didn't really feel like I could trust her. She was very, uh, I don't know. She, she's not very respectful of boundaries. In any kind of way, even still. Um, and so I always felt like my trust was violated with her, so I wasn't very close to her either.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 21:10
Yeah, I can understand that, you know, the foundations of home weren't, yeah, you know, solid in any way, or loving, nurturing. And hence why when you got to those early teenage years, you, you were in that state that you were. Do you have siblings? Did you grow up with siblings?
REPLAY · 21:29
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Um, yeah, I have a sister. She's 8 years younger than me, so there's a big gap there. Um, and her experience growing up was quite different than mine. She didn't see or experience the same kinds of things I did, and she has a very different relationship with both of my parents, but especially my dad. And my dad has never, like the things that he's done and said to me, he has never ever to her. Yeah. So actually when I, when I made this decision in August not to have a relationship with him anymore, I asked her if that would be uncomfortable for her, if it would create any kind of tension. And she just said, no, if I was you, he would've been out of my life a long time ago. So, wow. Yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 22:27
Sorry for the interruption. This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us to continue to produce more hero stories and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au. The donate function is at the bottom of the home page. We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au.
REPLAY · 23:12
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Now let's get back to the story.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 23:19
That's great that you've got a sister and one who understands. Yeah, from her perspective, um, why you made that decision.
REPLAY · 23:28
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, I'm really grateful for her.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 23:30
That's really lovely to hear. Did she— I mean, 8 years difference, I mean, she would have been what, 5 when you were going through your major depression and meeting Ned? Is that right?
REPLAY · 23:45
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 23:46
So no, she wouldn't barely have any memory of that.
REPLAY · 23:51
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): No.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 23:52
And have— has she heard the story? Does she understand what you went through?
REPLAY · 23:57
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, yeah, yeah, she knows.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 24:00
That's good. That's good that you've got her then. Mm-hmm. Even though she wasn't really there and aware of what was going on at the time. Certainly sounds like you've had to be your own soldier throughout your later teenage years and growing up.
REPLAY · 24:17
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 24:18
It feels like you've had to do that on your own.
REPLAY · 24:21
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah. So even now, like 20-something years later, one of my biggest challenges is is like allowing people to help me and, and just letting other people be there for me.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 24:36
Mm. Yeah, I can understand that. How has your work helped you heal the past?
REPLAY · 24:43
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, well, it just gives me such, such a sense of purpose and fulfillment and meaning. And even last week I ran a 5-day program called How to Well, it was called Alchemy, but the premise of it was how to transform pain into power and purpose. So how to take painful experiences and find your own personal power and purpose through them. So I feel like it is a gift that I have, and I want to share it with other people. And I wouldn't have this gift if I hadn't experienced the things that I have. So again, for me, it's like, It's all happening for a reason. There was purpose in all of it. As long as I can help other people, then it's not, you know, it's not for nothing. Hmm.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 25:37
Often when I speak with people about their journeys, they end up changing. Well, there's a few that have changed careers or they've come out of the learning and they've found a way to. Do something with that experience, or, you know, however long it's been. And it sounds like for you, like you were in that career pathway. Do I do architecture? No, I'll go and do sociology at the last minute. Um, do I do the master's in that? Do I become a counselor? And it sounds like you've, you've have really created this, your current work as, as a direct result of your life journey. And do you see that, uh, people's purpose can be linked directly to one's past journey and therefore it comes out later in life or at a certain point when they've actually gained that perspective and learning?
REPLAY · 26:35
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah. Um, I've actually created something called a Purpose Blueprint. And that's what I walk through pe— people through to help them sort of identify what is my purpose. And I think there are lots of different components to that, but for me, the most important ones are in one section, we look at their, the 5 most significant life experiences they've had that have shaped them. Mm-hmm. Um, and from there, what what challenges have they overcome, what are they proud of themselves for, and what lessons have they learned that they could share with others. And I find the purpose is often very connected to those lived experiences. And then there is another component of the blueprint, which is people's pain points. I kind of define pain points as— any sort of experience or feeling that angers or saddens or frustrates you or somehow motivates you to create a different experience or feeling for someone else. And I don't think I've ever walked people through this Purpose Blueprint framework process without the end result being somehow connected to their pain points.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 27:58
Mm-hmm. Did you come up with that as a result of your own journey and then reflection and looking at how you'd actually made your decisions and navigated your way around?
REPLAY · 28:11
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, it was, um, partly that. And then, oh, I didn't mention that kind of like wrapped up in my intercultural education work, I used to run leadership development programs. And those programs were really focused on like helping young global leaders identify their gifts and skills and talents, like how they could contribute to the world in a meaningful way. So it's really like this combination of my own lived experience of helping people identify what makes them special and unique, um, And then also this background in intercultural education and training and sort of how we are shaped and molded and conditioned and programmed and how that, for the most part, how that contributes, I think, to the fear that people have of actually doing the thing that I feel they're designed to do, that they were made to do. Because we're taught in so many ways to suppress our true nature, which with that is our gifts and skills and talents. And what I wanna do is really help people embrace those parts of themselves that they feel at some point they were rejected because of those things or abandoned or criticized or judged or whatever it might be. But just to help them see like that, that's actually where your power lies.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 29:44
That's really beautiful. Thank you for that. Um, I'd love to just briefly touch on what, uh, the depression, um, because I know a lot of people listening, you know, would be afflicted by this and resonate with what you're saying throughout this, your life journey with the cyclical nature of this. Is this common for people to have where it comes back after a number of years?
REPLAY · 30:10
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): I think, I mean, I think this really kind of depends on a number of factors. You know, for some people, yes, maybe there has been some kind of significant event that then leads to depression. That could, of course, be cyclical because grief, right, is kind of like always with us. It just comes and goes. And then for people Right, who maybe, like me, depression is very much rooted in past lived experience. And I think there's just like, almost like this mourning that happens, um, like mourning the life you didn't get to have somehow. And I find that that, especially for me as somebody who reflects a lot and can find myself a lot in the past. That comes up again and again. So when I have depressive sort of seasons, they're very much linked to my past. They're very often not really about the present moment at all or my present lived experience. They're just about this almost attachment that I have to how unfair I feel the past was. And then, yeah, I mean, then I think there are also people who they go through something hard and they experience depression around that, and then they move on and let go, especially if they're not the type of person to orient so strongly to the past, right? Um, but then there are other concerns, like some people I think who fixate a lot on the future tend to be a lot more prone to anxiety, right? Because there's a lot of like stress and worry about like, what is the future going to be and what that is going to look like? And just that, fear around the unknown and uncertainty of that. So yeah, I guess it just depends on a lot of things.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 32:07
Yeah. Yeah. I can see, I can see that. How important is it, do you think, for someone, or how important has it been for you to be rooted and grounded in your knowing of your purpose and, you know, why you are here to help overcome those about depression.
REPLAY · 32:26
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, I think it's incredibly important because when you're in that space, if you have, right, no sense of purpose or reason for being, then you're just really like sucked into the vortex of darkness and sadness. And even when I, you know, like when I find myself being sucked into that, it's still almost like I'm holding on somehow to a like a life raft or a buoy or something in, in this knowing that I have. So even if I'm completely submerged under like the waters, there's still something kind of keeping me connected to the surface, you know? And I think without that, I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I'd still be here.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:17
Is that connection based in your own internal knowing, faith, your connection to, you know, the divine or God or whatever that is?
REPLAY · 33:26
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): I think for me it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:30
So therefore it sounds like it's important for people regardless of where they're at, but to figure out their sense of place in the world, you know, that and being rooted in that, but also their own faith, whatever that is, whatever that looks like.
REPLAY · 33:47
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Right.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:48
Mm-hmm.
REPLAY · 33:49
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:51
What's next for you on this journey? How do you— you said you do look at the past a lot, and I feel that people that go through such big trauma events, you know, do go to the past. You know, they've got to keep— it's a continual process almost of letting go and processing and healing and acceptance. So yeah, what's, what's next for you? How do you move forward?
REPLAY · 34:20
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah, I think, uh, I think a big part of that journey for me is, is just becoming so aware of all of the things that I think or do that are rooted in my unconscious or my subconscious because drives like 95% of what we do, and that is based on past experience. So I find myself like projecting the past onto the present a lot, which in many cases leads to the repetition of particular patterns. And so I find myself in similar types of experiences. That is just like, I think what I'm most intentional about is becoming more and more aware of how my unconscious programming is really like kind of running the show. Because right, like with awareness is choice. And when we have the ability to choose something different, that's when we also exercise our inner power and our inner strength. And so that's kind of my focus is like, how do I create a different future for myself, which really means being consciously aware and intentional about my decisions in the present. Mm-hmm. Wow.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 35:52
Such a journey you've been on, Lena, and it's really inspiring, and I know that a A lot of people listening to this would really resonate, uh, with, with what you've shared, parts of it. Um, if there are those people listening, is there something you'd like to share with them right now if they're going through any of that, whether it's the suicide thoughts or, um, you know, the depression or any of the other challenges that you brought up? What would you like to share with them?
REPLAY · 36:22
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Sometimes I feel like it's hard to kind of give quote unquote advice to people in that space because I know from being there, you don't really almost care what anyone else has to say or like think it's valid or important. But nevertheless, I think I would say that you matter and you're special and you're important and there is a reason for you to be here. And it could very well be that whatever you're hurting over is like the thing that could save others, right? It's the thing that actually could be a source of power. And so, yeah, I guess just to trust that there is something for you to do here beyond yourself, and everything that you experience is like, I think, designed to lead you in that direction. And so if you can really see your own worth and value, you could truly change the world.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 37:41
Those words are not that small at all. They are really, really quite profound and So true. And I'm really grateful for you being able to share everything with me today. Thank you, Lena. It's been a joy.
REPLAY · 37:56
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Yeah.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 37:57
Yeah. I wish you all the best in what you're doing. And I love how you're bringing, you know, the challenges of your past and your life to, you know, which has formed your purpose and you're bringing that to the world and you're living that. It's really encouraging and inspirational. And yeah, keep going, you're doing good things.
REPLAY · 38:18
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Thank you, thank you so much.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 38:26
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Please like and share the show to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below. And join us next week for our next hero's story. Until then, keep being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way. Only when it's broken, only when it's broken, when it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. Take pride in those cries. It's only for tonight and then you rise.
REPLAY · 39:27
Lena Papadopoulos (Guest): Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 39:36
Only when you're broken.
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