Advertise on podcast: Humans, being.™ with Lael Stone

In this tender, honest, and quietly fierce conversation, I sit down with Taryn Brumfitt, the filmmaker behind Embrace and Embrace Kids, 2023 Australian of the Year, and a woman who’s spent more than a decade asking us to stop apologising for the bodies we live in. I first watched Embrace in a cinema back in 2016, with my (then) 13-year-old daughter. I still remember the sadness that moved through my body that night... nobody had ever spoken to me like that when I was her age. And underneath it, this enormous joy that she was getting a different story than the one I got. Taryn and I get into the imprints. The change room floors, the monkey bars, the throwaway comment at a table that lands in a young body and just stays there for forty years. We talk about what it’s cost us, all those hours spent at war with ourselves, and what opens up when we put the weapons down. Taryn shares what being Australian of the Year revealed to her: that she’s strong and she’s tough and she can still be hurt. And she shares the losses in her own family that shaped her relationship with trust. We explore: Why what we say at home matters more than anything on a screenMaking peace with a body that never stops changingFocusing a little more on how you feel than how you look, and what that could shiftHabit stacking, the inner critic, and giving yourself five minutes to talk smackWhat we say about ageing, and why we could be so much gentler with it[Recorded Online May 2026] About Taryn Brumfitt: Taryn Brumfitt is an Adelaide-based filmmaker, author and speaker, and she is the reason a lot of us started talking about our bodies differently. In 2013, she posted a reverse before-and-after photo, her bodybuilding competition body as the before and her natural post-babies body as the after, and it went everywhere. Around seven thousand emails and messages came back, and they were not light. She made Embrace in 2016 and Embrace Kids in 2022, she co-founded the Embrace Collective, she was named Australian of the Year in 2023 and awarded an honorary doctorate by Flinders University in 2024. She’ll also tell you straight that she is still a harsh critic of herself. Connect with Osher: Instagram: @bodyimagemovementThe Embrace Collective (and all the free resources): theembracehub.comTaryn's online community: Embrace YouWatch: Embrace (2016)Watch: Embrace Kids (2022)If this episode hits close to home: Butterfly Foundation, for body image and eating disorders: 1800 33 4673, butterfly.org.auLifeline: 13 11 14, lifeline.org.au — Seen Circles is an online space Lael and Sam created where parents can join facilitated group sessions, some themed, some open, at times that suit their week. There's no pressure to share, just a place to feel less alone in the hard parts of parenting. You can join for one session, or sign up for more.

In this hopeful and honest conversation, I sit down with David Bott, best-selling author and education consultant, and a man who still gets choked up about a teacher who was there for him when he was thirteen. I'll put my hand up here... for a long time I was one of the loudest voices saying the system was broken. David gently invites me to look at the other side of that story. He's worked with over a thousand schools around the world, and what he sees is a lot of magnificence. Educators doing extraordinary things, often despite everything we keep piling on them. In this conversation, we talk about grades and who they really serve – homework, and what it costs a family at the end of a long day. Teachers performing like elite athletes with no time to recover. And the kids we worry about least, the quiet ones who often slip through unseen. We explore: Why the "education is broken" story can harm the very people holding it togetherThe best teacher David ever saw, and why a whole system can't run on heroesGrades, homework, and the old Latin question David keeps asking: who does this really serve?How AI might be nudging schools back towards the most human skills of allWhen I ask educators about the teacher who changed them, they talk about the one who noticed them, who believed in them, who helped when things were hard. None of that shows up in a test score or a headline... and it's happening in classrooms everywhere, every single day. [Recorded May 2026] About David Bott: David Bott is a best-selling author, education consultant, and former teacher who co-founded The Wellbeing Distillery, helping schools around the world build wellbeing into the way they actually run. He was a founding member of the UAE Government's Dubai Future Council for Education, sits on the board of the Positive Education Schools Association, and co-wrote 10 Things Schools Get Wrong (And How We Can Get Them Right) with Dr Jared Cooney Horvath. He's also a dad to a ten-year-old who is just discovering homework. Connect with David: Web: thewellbeingdistillery.comInstagram: @thewellbeingdistillery — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

What if the fight in the back seat is really a red flag... and your child is waving it at you? In this honest, practical, and gentle solo episode, I'm talking all things siblings. The squabbles over who got more ice cream, the toddler showing the new baby a little too much "love", the teens hurling spicy words down the hallway... and the parent standing in the middle of it all, muttering, why can't you just get along? This one comes straight from my DMs. So many of you have asked how to navigate sibling rivalry, and I wanted to sit down with you, like we're having a cuppa, and share what I've learnt over 26 years of being a mum and many years of walking alongside families. Why sibling conflict is so normal, what often sits underneath it, and what we can do in the moment when it all kicks off. I explore: Why family is one of the first training grounds for conflictKids being in balance and out of balance, and the "backpack" of big feelingsWhat gets stirred up in us as parents when our children clashSpaciousness, safety and helping everyone be heardRepair without forced apologies, and filling up each child's cupEvery time our kids fight, we get another chance to show them what conflict can look like... someone calm arrives, everyone is kept safe, everyone gets a turn to be heard, and there's always a way back to each other. It's slow, it's messy, and some days we lose our cool completely. But little by little, that pattern can become theirs, and the sibling who drives them up the wall today might just be the one they laugh with the longest. [Recorded October 2026] About Lael Stone: Lael Stone is an educator, counsellor, and author of Own Your Story: Understanding your past to create your future. With over 20 years of experience working with families, Lael helps people understand how their childhood imprints shape their adult lives – and how to do something about it. Connect with Lael: Instagram: @laelstoneWebsite: laelstone.com.au — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Join me for the Parenting Immersion. My eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Sign up now.

"You've gotta walk across the bindis a bit to get to the swimming pool." What if everything you’re hoping for is sitting on the other side of the thing you keep avoiding? In this open, tender and surprisingly funny conversation, I sit down with Osher Günsberg, a man who has been in Australian living rooms for nearly two decades, and who spent a lot of that time doing the hardest work of his life off camera. We talk about the version of Osher that millions of us watched on Idol and The Bachelor, and the version who went home afterwards. He speaks with such generosity about sixteen years of sobriety, about the drinking and the painkillers, about periods of psychosis, and about the day he rang twenty-three people just to get through it. He’s very clear that none of it was solved by clever thinking. What saved him, every single time, was other humans. We explore: The three great lies our brain tells us: this is permanent, this is personal, this is everythingWhy you can’t think your way out of thinking, and what to reach for insteadSpeaking plainly about a psychosis diagnosis... it’s grim, but so is a compound fractureBeing a stepdad first, and the grace of honouring the dad who is already there[Recorded Online June 2026] About Osher Günsberg: Osher Günsberg has been a familiar face and voice in Australian homes for close to twenty years, from Channel V to seven seasons of Australian Idol, a decade of The Bachelor, and the narration on Bondi Rescue. He’s also a podcaster, best-selling author, award-winning doco maker, mental health advocate, husband, dad and stepdad. He’s been sober for more than sixteen years and speaks about it the way it was first spoken to him, plainly and without shame, so the next person doesn’t have to work it out alone. Connect with Osher: Instagram: @osher_gunsbergPodcast: Better Than YesterdayBook: So What? Now What?Linktree: /osher_gunsbergIf this episode hits close to home: There are many doors into support, and they all do the job. National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline 1800 250 015, free and confidential, 24 hours; Lifeline 13 11 14. And Osher's own advice, which costs nothing: before you pick up a drink, pick up the phone. — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

"It's not the distress that hurts kids. It's being alone in the distress." Karen Young With the noise of the world, the endless information, the sense that our nervous systems have hit the limit, I asked Karen how she's finding it, and she said it's a constant battle. Some days she wins it, some days she doesn't. In this episode, Karen talks about wanting our kids to feel safer and do the brave things. Not one or the other. We discuss anxiety and how we've started pathologising a very normal human response, and in doing that we've made it harder to move our kids towards bravery. She opens up on her own childhood with no adult to lean into. We also discuss schools, and the one question she'd ask if she could only ask one. And step-parenting, which she says is the hardest thing she has ever done. We explore: Why anxiety is a normal human response, and what we've done to parents by putting "disorder" on the end of itThe difference between a child being unsafe and a child being uncomfortable, and why that distinction changes everythingWhat actually traumatises kids, and why it’s almost never the hard thing itselfWhy kids are telling us they don't want more resilience, and what they want instead[Recorded Online June 2026] About Karen Young: Karen Young is a former psychologist with an honours degree in psychology and a master's in Gestalt therapy. She founded Hey Sigmund after realising how much power sits in solid information, and her articles now reach millions of readers a year. She wrote the best-selling Hey Warrior for her own daughter, and she's the author of five other books. She's recognised for her expertise in school refusal, which she calls anxiety-based school absenteeism, and she's a mum to two children and two stepchildren. Connect with Karen: Instagram: @karenyoung_heysigmundWeb: heysigmund.comFacebook: Karen Young Hey Sigmund — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

The loudest voice in our heads often says: “what are you waiting for?” Luke Cook has spent his whole life answering that question by just jumping in. Underneath the million followers and the characters and the Netflix devil is a guy who shared that his ongoing battle is feeling like he falls short of everything. That rejection still stings, seventeen years in, and it stings because he still cares. We talk about what we make things mean, and how quickly we all default to our not-enoughness. We talk about his boys, and the birth pool, and the terrifying business of being watched that closely by three small humans. And we land somewhere I loved: if you are having fun, you are probably in the right place. We explore: Why Luke doesn’t experience his biggest leaps as risksThe thing school tries to beat out of you that turns out to be your secret sauceGrowing up the last of five in a Bible college, and why a minister's kid was always going to end up performingThe joyous, ridiculous business of poking fun online, where the line sits, and what he does when he gets it wrongThe gap between how the world sees you and how you see yourself, and the inadequacy story that runs underneath itThree boys, two home births, and the best piece of advice he has for partners in a birth spaceThe imprint he hopes is loudest in his sons' heads when they grow up[Recorded Online June 2026] About Luke Cook: Luke Cook is a Sydney-born actor, writer, director and content creator who has lived in Los Angeles since he was twenty-two. He is best known for playing Lucifer Morningstar in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and most recently starred in the Stan Original series Good Cop/Bad Cop, which earned him a Logie nomination. Away from the screen he has built an audience of around a million people on Instagram through his original comedy characters, co-founded the health and wellness brand Shakewell, and is dad to three young boys with his wife Kara. Connect with Luke: Instagram: @thelukecookTikTok: @thelukecookWeb: thelukecook.comShakewell: getshakewell.com — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

“Play is an on-ramp, not a reward” Dara Simkin says early on in our conversation. Yep, that resonates. I too have spent most of my life saving play for after the list is done. The list is never done. Dara brings play to boardrooms and leadership days, and what she describes is a generation of adults so addicted to achievement that they have optimised themselves right out of their own lives. We talk about grief hiding inside what looks like resistance, about her redefining success as ease, and about the morning her five-year-old lost it over a Rubik's Cube and what she chose to do instead of fixing it. We explore: The difference between real curiosity and judgment wearing a curious costumePlay as a recovery tool for a fried nervous system, and why the micro moments countAchievement addiction, and how gold stars and trophies quietly become a mortgage and a boat you’re not sure you wantedWhy adaptability is just play in a fancy suit, and what that means for the kids coming up behind usThe question she asks herself at the end of each day: “how was I human today?”[Recorded May 2026] About Dara Simkin: Dara Simkin is a Melbourne-based speaker, facilitator and organisational culture specialist, and the founder and Chief Play Officer of Culture Hero. Born and raised in the US, she moved to Australia at 25 after winning a video competition that sent her around Tasmania in a camper van, and she has spent the last decade researching, designing and facilitating play at work. In March 2026, she co-published Full Stack Human with data scientist and futurist Tane Hunter, about how we hold onto our humanity and adaptability in a world moving faster than we are. Connect with Dara: Instagram: @darasimkin https://hbp.s.gy/buJKhqWeb: culturehero.co https://hbp.s.gy/qtzEtILinkedIn: Dara Simkin https://hbp.s.gy/dDDAGIBook: fullstackhumanbook.com https://hbp.s.gy/P49x3Q — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

A ninety-five-year-old told Jacinta she was the last of her tribe. Jacinta asked how that small body holds something so big, and she said she has to feel the loss but not go too far into it … when it gets close she goes outside and listens to the magpies. That is the whole human experience in one sentence. In this episode we talk about the moment women become invisible, and how much earlier that lands than anyone admits. We talk about bodies, and about Jacinta's fierce insistence that we stop policing each other. She tells me what chronic illness took from her in her late twenties, and about the moment in her parents' spare room when it turned. And then she tells me about her friends in their nineties, and honestly, I want what they have. We explore: The unconscious loyalties we carry, and what happens when you put one downWhat chronic illness took from Jacinta, and why she now calls it ‘the opportunity of illness’The bottom of the pool, and why she reckons nobody can stay thereHer friends in their nineties, the rebels, and what they understand about time that we don’tWhy nobody needs your solution, and the deep listening none of us were taught[Recorded May 2026] About Jacinta Parsons: Jacinta Parsons is a Melbourne-based broadcaster, author and public speaker who currently hosts the Friday Revue and Saturday Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne. She started out at community station Triple R in 2006 and joined the ABC in 2015. She has written three books, Unseen, A Question of Age and A Wisdom of Age, moving from her own experience of chronic illness into the far bigger question of what this country does to women as they age. She is an ambassador for Crohn's and Colitis Australia, and she has just finished her PhD. Connect with Jacinta: Instagram: @jacintaparsonsWebsite: jacintaparsons.comABC Radio Melbourne: abc.net.au/melbourne — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Lael's eight-week Parenting Immersion starts October 19th, working through themes like trust, boundaries, anger and repair to help you understand your own patterns and respond instead of react. Join the waitlist or sign up now.

This week's episode is a different one. I have been hearing that many of you are feeling overwhelmed, and I wanted to create a little break from the everyday hustle and grind to give you something you can come back to many times. This guided relaxation invites you to sit down for 30 minutes, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, calm your nervous system, and get back in touch with your centre. We don't advise listening to this whilst driving. Instead, find a cosy spot to take a short break. Pop your headphones in and let my voice carry you away for a little while. [Recorded May 2026] About Lael Stone: Lael Stone is an educator, counsellor, and author of Own Your Story: Understanding your past to create your future. With over 20 years of experience working with families, Lael helps people understand how their childhood imprints shape their adult lives – and how to do something about it. Connect with Lael: Instagram: @laelstoneWebsite: laelstone.com.au — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Seen Circles is an online space Lael and Sam created where parents can join facilitated group sessions, some themed, some open, at times that suit their week. There's no pressure to share, just a place to feel less alone in the hard parts of parenting. You can join for one session, or sign up for more.

Gina Chick was about seven when her whole class was told to walk in a circle. She stepped out of it and walked the other way, on purpose, so she had to look at every single face coming towards her. She’s been walking the other way ever since. I’ve wanted this conversation for a long time. Gina survived 67 days alone in the Tasmanian wilderness, but that isn’t the part that undoes me. It’s her book, We Are the Stars, which I read and wailed my way through, snot-crying, completely levelled. She writes about her daughter Blaise with a line that has never left me: “because I've said yes to the grief and whatever it asked of me, I've always been bigger than it.” So I asked her how a person learns to turn towards the thing that most of us spend a lifetime running from. Our conversation gets into the voice of "should" that is never actually ours, about why our culture pathologises discomfort and hands us ten million distractions instead of tools. We talked about five rhythms and the wild life force that dance sets loose, about dancing in the ashes of friends on Oxford Street in the nineties, about hot flushes as a lifetime of squashed rage burning its way out, and about what Gina calls silver feathers. Her belief that women come out the other side of menopause forged, decentred from the male gaze, with no f***s left to give and exactly the right qualifications to lead. We explore: Why comparison is a normal part of being human, and where our culture leaves us stranded with itGrief as the flip side of love, and how feeling every fibre of it let Gina map the shape of her own heartWhy we’re not designed for comfort, and what discomfort is actually inviting us to doFive rhythms as a way to digest what we cannot think our way out of[Recorded Online June 2026] About Gina Chick: Gina Chick is a rewilding facilitator, five rhythms dance meditation teacher and storyteller who won the first season of Alone Australia after 67 days solo in the Tasmanian wilderness. She is the founder of Wild Heart, which runs family wilderness camps, vision quests and retreats built around reconnecting with nature as a path to inner authority. Her debut memoir We Are the Stars won the ABIA Matt Richell Award for Best New Writer of the Year and became the first work of non-fiction ever to top the Dymocks Top 101, and is now out in the US with Andrews McMeel. She is currently writing her second book. Connect with Gina: Instagram: @gigiamazoniaWebsite: ginachick.comBook: We Are The StarsWild Heart: wildheart.lifeSubstack: @therealginachick — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

* There are a few F-bombs in our discussion. If you’ve little ones listening nearby, consider headphones! Em Rusciano knows this: taking care of herself first is a radical punk act. And if you know Em from her music, book, radio, or her gloriously chaotic Instagram, you already know she's never done anything by halves. Em talks about parenting her 6yr old son, who she describes, with so much love, as a “sixty-year-old cranky super genius”; her family… they’re a “lineage of lunatics” (in the best possible way), the 30 years of friendship with her bestie, screenwriter Michael Lucas; and about dating again in her forties after divorce. We explore: The "Diagnostic Trifecta": ADHD at forty-two, autism at forty-three, and perimenopause arriving right on schedule, and why Em is grateful she wasn't diagnosed any soonerWhy everything she creates gets made "for her", the woman lying awake at 2am, wondering what happened to her lifeThe imprints from her dad and her mum that she's still working to untangleSchool, undiagnosed neurodivergence, and what it cost her to be brilliant at the hard stuff / punished for struggling with the easy stuffWhy her darling mate Michael is who she calls the greatest love story of her lifeDating after divorce, and the new rule book she's discovered for choosing instead of waiting to be chosen[Recorded Online May 2026] About Em Rusciano: Em Rusciano is a comedian, singer, author, and podcaster who has spent two decades making Australians laugh, cry, and feel a little less alone. She first came to national attention on Australian Idol in 2004 and has since built a career across radio, stand-up, and television. In 2023, Em delivered an address to the National Press Club on ADHD and her son's autism that shifted the national conversation on neurodivergence. She was diagnosed with ADHD at forty-two and autism at forty-three, alongside the arrival of perimenopause, what she calls her diagnostic trifecta. Connect with Em: Website: emrusciano.comInstagram: @emruscianoPodcast: Emsolation (with Michael Lucas)Book: Blood, Sweat and GlitterLive Tour: Addicted to Love — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Seen Circles is an online space Lael and Sam created where parents can join facilitated group sessions, some themed, some open, at times that suit their week. There's no pressure to share, just a place to feel less alone in the hard parts of parenting. You can join for one session, or sign up for more.

Joe Williams told me that looking honestly at yourself can be a brutal thing, and then in the same breath he called it the best mirror we can ever hold, because that’s where generational change actually starts. Joe and I were on the road together for nearly a month touring the doco ‘Seen’, so I got to watch him sit in front of audiences again and again and tell the truth about being a dad. There’s a line of his in the film that gets me every time: that he has to put his hand up, that it haunts him, that there are many years he can't get back. What I’ve watched him do with that grief is not turn away from it. He gave his kids full permission to say whatever they needed to say in their own interviews, then listened to the whole recording alone in a hotel room in upstate New York the night before a keynote, because he knew he couldn't carry it onto a stage. We talk about the stories we think define us and who actually gets to define them, about getting sober twenty-one years ago and why he says culture keeps him sober. We explore: Who gets to define us, and how differently Joe defines himself now compared with almost everyone he’s ever metSitting in lockdown and realising he’d been a father to five kids without being a dad to any of themWhy he now believes a stack of his success came from a place of screaming to be noticedCountry as medicine, the drives out the road not knowing whether he would come backDreaming stories as instructions for living rather than pretty picture books on a shelf[Recorded Online May 2026] About Joe Williams: Joe is a Wiradjuri and Wolgalu man, born in Cowra and raised in Wagga Wagga. He played in the National Rugby League for South Sydney, Penrith and Canterbury before switching to professional boxing in 2009, where he became a two-time WBF World Junior Welterweight champion and won a WBC Asia continental title. Connect with Joe: Website: joewilliams.com.auInstagram: @joewilliams_tewSpeaking: The Enemy WithinBook: Defying the Enemy Within — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Seen Circles is an online space Lael and Sam created where parents can join facilitated group sessions, some themed, some open, at times that suit their week. There's no pressure to share, just a place to feel less alone in the hard parts of parenting. You can join for one session, or sign up for more.

Dr Edna Lekgabe has a name for what happens when a woman becomes a mother. She calls it matrescence, basically puberty 2.0: messy, hormonal, profound, and almost completely unnamed. Edna’s a Melbourne perinatal psychiatrist whom I have so much respect for. We talk about the developmental earthquake none of us are warned about. I became a mum at 25 with no idea what was happening to me… the brain rewiring, the threat system switching on. We discuss what happens when birth trauma and matrescence collide, why accepting care is so much harder than giving it. We talked about how the same threat system that protects a newborn also sharpens a mother's boundaries, and get into perimenopause and menopause, and ‘the gold’ Edna says is waiting on the other side. She wants every woman to have a buddy a few steps ahead and behind her, the same way kids get one on their first day of school. We explore: What matrescence is, and why Edna calls it "puberty 2.0" for the brain and bodyThe support networks that help mothers to thriveWhat's waiting on the other side of perimenopause and menopause, and nature's amazing designDr Edna says the real task of matrescence is learning to accept care. I think about the version of me who once whispered "I don't like this" down the phone to my own mum, and what it would have meant to have a name for it. Whatever quake you're bracing for, I hope this conversation hands you some of that language too. [Recorded May 2026] About Dr Edna Lekgabe: Dr Edna Lekgabe is a perinatal and reproductive psychiatrist based in Melbourne, and founder and clinical director of WARM Health Collective, a psychiatrist-led practice in Collingwood supporting people through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood. She also holds a consultant role at The Royal Women's Hospital and sits on Safer Care Victoria's Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity. Connect with Edna: Instagram: @drednalekgabeWebsite: drednalekgabe.com.auWARM Health Collective: warmhealthcollective.com.au — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future. — Seen Circles is an online space Lael and Sam created where parents can join facilitated group sessions, some themed, some open, at times that suit their week. There's no pressure to share, just a place to feel less alone in the hard parts of parenting. You can join for one session, or sign up for more.

Friendship, Bec Sparrow says, is a bumper bar on your life. It doesn't stop the hard things from happening – it cushions the impact when they do. Bec is one of Australia's most trusted voices on teen and tween life - author of seven books, co-host of ABC's Parental as Anything with Maggie Dent, co-founder of Birds of a Feather (Australia's largest online book club for women), and a woman who has spent more than twenty years studying the science and art of friendship. She is also, by her own admission, a deeply introverted person who has had to consciously learn every single skill she teaches. We explore: The sense of calling she has carried since her teenage years, and what it actually feels like to be doing the work you're here to doThe pilot light – what Bec says to every parent who is deep in the season of small children and losing themselvesWhy Bec models friendship differently now, including the concept of "deep casual hosting" and having people over even when your house is a mess.The power of apologising and owning your impact when friendships get messyWhy your kids need friends inside school AND outside school – and why having both matters so much when things go sidewaysJOT: Join One Thing – Bec's campaign to combat loneliness, and why she believes there are friendships waiting for all of us if we're willing to walk in the door[Recorded Online April 2026] About Bec Sparrow: Rebecca (Bec) Sparrow is one of Australia's most trusted voices on teen and tween life. She's the author of seven books spanning fiction and non-fiction, including the bestselling novel The Girl Most Likely and the teen guide Find Your Tribe. Her most recent book, Out of the Box: A one-stop guide to navigating neurodivergence, was co-authored with journalist Madonna King and published by UQP in 2024. She co-hosts the ABC podcast Parental as Anything: Teens with Maggie Dent, and co-founded Birds of a Feather Book Club - billed as Australia's largest online book club for women - with Jane Sullivan. Connect with Bec: Website: rebeccasparrow.com – including a free friendship resources offer: if you're struggling and can't afford her paid resources, email [email protected] and mention this podcast. She will send you what you need.Instagram: @rebeccasparrow72Facebook: Rebecca Sparrow WriterBook club: birdsofafeather.com.auBook: Out of the Box (UQP, 2024) with Madonna KingPodcast: Parental as Anything: Teens (ABC) — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

I started this episode thinking about endings, the ones I'm walking towards in my own life right now, and somehow that musing turned into one of the most life-affirming, funniest conversations about death I have ever had. I’ve spent years sitting with families through birth, and I’ve always felt that birth and death are close cousins, both thresholds, both asking something of us we rarely feel ready for. So when Dr Hannah Gould, cultural anthropologist, death studies scholar and author of How to Die in the 21st Century, sat down across from me, it felt like coming home to a conversation I’ve wanted to have for a long time. We explore: Why most of us have never been modelled a healthy ending, and what that does to our relationship with deathThe coffin catalogue moment that sent Hannah down the path to a PhD in death studies, after losing her dad in her early twentiesThe "pornography of death" theory, and why we have sex education but no death educationWhat voluntary assisted dying actually involves, and the genuinely thorny open question of VAD and dementiaThe hidden toll on death care workers, and why Hannah believes the crematorium operator she worked alongside deserves Australian of the Year (Shoutout, Shane)What a glorious death looks like, for a woman who has spent her career studying exactly thatHannah left me with so much to sit with, but the thing I keep coming back to is how unafraid she is to laugh about all of it. I love how she puts it: "we're all going to die, so don't really sweat the small stuff." [Recorded May 2026] About Dr Hannah Gould: Dr Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, where she studies death, Buddhism and material culture across Australia and East Asia, and a Fellow with the DeathTech Research Team. Her academic monograph, When Death Falls Apart (University of Chicago Press), won the 2025 F. Hilary Conroy First Book Prize, and her latest book, How to Die in the 21st Century (Thames and Hudson), brings a decade of research on death and dying to a general readership. She is also President of the Australian Death Studies Society. Connect with Dr Hannah: Website: hannahgould.comInstagram: @hrhgouldMentioned: @thelasthurrahfunerals — Connect with Humans, being: Web: humansbeing.auInstagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneFacebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneThreads: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneTikTok: @humansbeingwithlaelstoneYouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.