Humans, being. with Lael Stone

“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 costume
Play as a recovery tool for a fried nervous system, and why the micro moments count
Achievement addiction, and how gold stars and trophies quietly become a mortgage and a boat you’re not sure you wanted
Why adaptability is just play in a fancy suit, and what that means for the kids coming up behind us
The 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/buJKhq
Web: culturehero.co https://hbp.s.gy/qtzEtI
LinkedIn: Dara Simkin https://hbp.s.gy/dDDAGI
Book: fullstackhumanbook.com https://hbp.s.gy/P49x3Q

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @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.

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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 down
What 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 there
Her friends in their nineties, the rebels, and what they understand about time that we don’t
Why 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: @jacintaparsons
Website: jacintaparsons.com
ABC Radio Melbourne: abc.net.au/melbourne

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Threads: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
YouTube: @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.

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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: @laelstone
Website: laelstone.com.au

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Threads: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
YouTube: @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.

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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 fucks 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 it
Grief as the flip side of love, and how feeling every fibre of it let Gina map the shape of her own heart
Why we’re not designed for comfort, and what discomfort is actually inviting us to do
Five 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: @gigiamazonia
Website: ginachick.com
Book: We Are The Stars
Wild Heart: wildheart.life
Substack: @therealginachick

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @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 sooner
Why everything she creates gets made "for her", the woman lying awake at 2am, wondering what happened to her life
The imprints from her dad and her mum that she's still working to untangle
School, undiagnosed neurodivergence, and what it cost her to be brilliant at the hard stuff / punished for struggling with the easy stuff
Why her darling mate Michael is who she calls the greatest love story of her life
Dating 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.com
Instagram: @emrusciano
Podcast: Emsolation (with Michael Lucas)
Book: Blood, Sweat and Glitter
Live Tour: Addicted to Love

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @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.