My Story

Finding joy at age 100: Talking to centenarians about living their best life at any age

Aging is seen as a period of loss, and there are unhelpful myths about older adults. Myths lead to treatable conditions being considered normal parts of aging, including cognitive decline, dementia, depression and loneliness. Some even consider exercise dangerous in older adults.

My story: singing the blues away at my local pub choir

Two years of tragic events, trauma and illness in her family took away Gillian’s love for life and eroded her confidence. But when she worked up the courage to join a local pub choir, she began to feel her old self slowly returning.

My Story: The Gift of Loss

When her son Dan passed away suddenly, Karen Chaston was forced to reassess her life, work and relationships, taking the first step on the journey to becoming her own best friend.

My Story: Why it’s cool to be kind

After her dream of becoming a mother disappeared for good, Naomi searched for a way of giving meaning to her life that would also bring happiness to others.

My Story: Making art in the sand

David Hilliam (known as ‘Beach Tagger’) is not your typical artist. Instead of a paintbrush, he uses a rake. And instead of a canvas, he has the beach. If you’re lucky enough to stumble upon his work, it’s a sight to behold. His massive pieces of ‘earth art’ have transformed Auckland’s west coast beaches into breathtaking spectacles. We sat down for a Q&A with Hilliam to learn more about his unusual artistic craft.

My Story: Darling Daniella

When Donna Meads-Barlow’s five-year-old daughter, Daniella was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, she had no real understanding either of the disease or of the potentially fatal risks associated with this incurable condition.

My Story: Meet the small Kiwi business tackling big issues of poverty

When Nadia Key first left school, she was like many school leavers who didn’t know what to do. After taking […]

Following in the family footsteps

After 64 years working at Kapuna Hospital in the remote jungle swamplands of Papua New Guinea, 93-year-old Dr Lin Calvert has finally stepped down. Now her daughter, Dr Valerie Archer, carries on the family tradition, and leads the hospital’s medical team caring for the region’s grateful residents.

My Story: Behind the surgery screen

Jacqui Carter had never considered having plastic surgery, nor did she condone it. Then, despite her conflicting beliefs, she had little choice but to take a job working for a plastic surgeon. She reveals what she learned from the experience.

The Power of a Secret

Sarah was just 14 when she was raped. Now in her 50s, this successful Kiwi woman is confronting her past to fashion a new future and demand changes in the justice system.

Conquering PTSD with sport

This excerpt is one of several powerful personal stories of the Sydney Invictus Games participants shared in the new book ‘Unconquered: Our […]

My Story: ‘I am the lucky one’

Dr Michael Wong was about to start work as a neurosurgeon one morning when an unprovoked knife attack left him clinging to life. Four years later, he has forgiven his attacker, adjusted his priorities and is agitating for reform.

The Tolling Bells

A lifelong dependence on prescription medication transformed Claire McCall’s father from a charismatic salesman to an anxious addict. She recounts the journey of his life and his final decline, and the devastation dementia can bring to families.

Out of the Shadows

Domestic violence has reached epidemic proportions, with incidents reported to police rising every year. After years of living with an abusive father, one reader knows only too well the pain, lasting damage and devastation such violence leaves in its wake.

Remembering Polly

Too many women in Australia are dying at the hands of current or former partners through domestic violence. Joanna Tovia never considered her fearless best friend Polly would become one of them.

My Story: Without my daughter

I’m a recovering alcoholic. And a mum. When I lost custody of my beautiful little girl, my life began to […]

Sydney soccer star Brandon O’Neill talks passion, motivation and his love for the game

According to the Australian Sports Commission’s official AusPlay survey, football, also referred to as soccer, is the most played sport […]

A work in progress

When New Zealand became the first country to give women the vote in 1893, our antipodean nation was way ahead […]

Reaching out

New Zealand’s suicide rate is the highest it has ever been. In our special MiNDFOOD investigation, Catherine Masters talks to survivors, asks […]

My Story: Retracing my great-great aunt’s steps on the Africa Mercy hospital ship

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, and a heart-warming story has come to light of two nurses who served on hospital ships a century apart.

Life interrupted by madness: A young woman’s brave battle through depression

October 10 marks World Mental Health Day, and this year’s focus is “Young people and mental health in a changing […]

Mr Survivor – beats cancer, now takes on Ironman

Josh Hickford has been through the wringer these past two years, emerging the other side of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and making […]

My Story: “My father was murdered”

What to most of us is just a sensational headline, Margaret Ambrose lived through first-hand. She shares her all-too-real story […]

Lyn Cosgrove puts on a brave face in the battle against breast cancer

In 2005, Scott Perkins established The Louise Perkins Foundation, named after his wife Louise, who passed away in 2004 after […]

1 2 3 4 … 6

BECOME A MiNDFOOD SUBSCRIBER TODAY

Let us keep you up to date with our weekly MiNDFOOD e-newsletters which include the weekly menu plan, health and news updates or tempt your taste buds with the MiNDFOOD Daily Recipe.