Kintsugi Heroes
Transforming by Addressing the Emotional Trauma of a Challenging Life with Tim Rubin
Tim Rubin
A man who survived apartheid and combat learned that the behaviors that saved him were choices he could unmake.
Kintsugi Studio
Kintsugi Heroes
Tim Rubin
A man who survived apartheid and combat learned that the behaviors that saved him were choices he could unmake.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Tim Rubin survived apartheid South Africa, two years in a combat unit during the Angolan war, and the drowning death of his epileptic sister while he was at university. He learned early to switch off emotion when things hurt, a skill that kept him alive in violent places but followed him into civilian life for decades. He moved to Australia in 2001 with his wife, built a career in IT, raised two sons, and believed his life was on track until it wasn't.
At middle age, Tim hit a wall. His marriage deteriorated, he discovered his wife's infidelity, his professional relevance faded, and he found himself searching online for ways to end his life. The numbness that had protected him in the military had become a prison. But when he decided not to take his own life for his two boys, something shifted. He realized the behaviors that had saved him in one world were choices he could unmake in another.
Tim learned to separate the person he was from the person he was being. He discovered through meditation and a close friend's confrontation that he had never actually been present in his own life, always living toward some future moment instead of inhabiting the one he was in. He learned to feel sunshine on his skin. He allowed himself to be held and supported, things a South African man had been taught never to do.
Now Tim wants conversations that matter and time with people he loves. If every remaining day is like today, he says, he will die a happy man.
⚠️ 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
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