We have a word for almost everything these days. But the most remarkable transformation a human body and brain can go through - the one that neuroscientists are now calling the biggest neuroendocrine event of the human lifespan - most of us can't name at all.

The word is MATRESCENCE. It describes the passage into motherhood, and if you've never heard it until now, that's part of the whole wicked problem.

'Matrescence' was coined in 1973 by the anthropologist Dana Raphael, the same woman who gave us the word "doula". One word took, but the other all but vanished for the next three decades. This is despite the fact that there are two billion mothers on the planet, and yet until very recently, the transition that miraculously makes women 'mothers' remains one of the least studied, least understood experiences in human development.

This, sadly, tells you something about how little we have valued mothers in modern societies: we kept the word for the ‘helper’ but we lost the word for ‘her’.

In this episode of Human Cogs, Mads as a mother of four reflects on her own experience of motherhood and joins the wonderful singer-songwriter and filmmaker Claire Tonti, whose documentary ‘Matrescence: The Hidden World of M/otherhood’ will premiere in Australia and globally this November. 

Tonti didn't set out to become a global advocate for motherhood or to create a global documentary about it. She set out, instead, at the age of 29, to have a baby and a natural birth with maternal agency. 

But what she got was a sixteen-hour, life-threatening labour and traumatic birth with a forceps delivery, an episiotomy that tore, emergency surgery and then afterwards, the rude shock of new motherhood which meant 24/7 responsibility for a tiny being when she was at her most physically vulnerable, emotionally fragile and entirely disillusioned with mothering in the modern world.

Tonti describes her early years of motherhood as being lonely and isolated with no village to guide and hold her, and her battle to withstand the societal pressure to “enjoy every moment oh it goes so fast” only to surf through the waves of grief, rage, fear, ambivalence and identity shifts that beset her as a new mother. 

It was only years later, burnt out and unwell, that Tonti typed "motherhood" into Google looking for a synonym and a way to describe how she felt, and then found the word and movement that would reorder her life.

For her documentary, Tonti travelled from the edge of the largest informal settlement in Nairobi to the corporate towers of New York looking for the motherhood village we've lost. What she found, again and again, was that cultures with almost nothing still pour their resources into caring for a new mother because they understand something we've forgotten: when a baby is born, a mother is born again too, and she is just as fragile and precious and in need of swaddling and reverence as the tiny child.

What Tonti also found is that there is very little reverence for new-born mothers here in Australia. One in three women experience birth trauma. One in five women currently experience a perinatal mental health disorder, and, devastatingly, suicide is still the leading cause of death for women in the first year postpartum. 

Honouring matrescence is how we hold and support new-born mothers through the births, the joy, the fear, the trauma, the tenderness and the everyday extraordinary miracle of birthing and raising a real live human being. 

Of course, naming a thing doesn't fix it. But it does tell a woman, in the seismic tidal waves of matrescence, that she isn't broken: she is becoming, again and again.

We hope you embrace the word, read more about it, and that you enjoy this conversation with the wonderful Claire Tonti.

Thanks for listening, and here’s to the mothers across the world.

Guest: Claire Tonti
Album: Matrescence
Documentary: Matrescence: The Hidden World Of M/otherhood
Instagram: @clairetonti
Website: clairetonti.com

Host: Madeleine Hanger Grummet Linkedin Instagram Website

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What if ageing wasn't something to fear but something to finally - fiercely - embrace?

Jacinta Parsons is an ABC broadcaster, writer, public speaker and newly minted Doctor. She has lived with Crohn's disease for decades, navigated divorce, faced chronic illness and devastating loss, and now come through the other side, not diminished but radically empowered. 

For her latest book, A Wisdom of Age, Jacinta interviewed women across Australia about the experience of ageing, and captured what we can learn from them to boldly rewrite the story of the second half of our lives.

In this episode of Human Cogs we talk with Jacinta about the hardwon learnings and unbridled freedom that can come with ageing: the shedding of “good girl” rules, the cultivation of our wilder versions of self and how life’s fractures and fragilities can also be surprising openings to new identities and big opportunities in the world. 

We talk about internalised ageism and the stories women are told about their bodies. We talk about what chronic illness teaches you about control, surrender and what actually matters. We talk about the difference between loneliness and solitude, and why learning to be happily alone with yourself might be one of the most important things you can do.

And mostly we talk about wisdom - what it really means, how you cultivate it, and why the most interesting chapters of your life might be the ones you haven't written yet.

So pour yourself a cuppa, take a long walk under the bright sun or stars or lie your good self down and listen to this absolute wisdom of age from Jacinta Parsons.

Guest: Jacinta Parsons, ABC Broadcaster, writer and public speaker. She is the Co-host of ABC Melbourne’s The Friday Revue with Brian Nankervis and presents ABC Victorian Saturday Mornings.
Book: A Wisdom Of Age
Instagram: @jacintaparsons
Website: JacintaParsons.com

Hosts: Mads Hanger (Grummet) and Sabina Read
Producer: Our audio wizard is the beloved Daryl Missen

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For anyone who grew up in the late 80s and 90s, the name Alison Brahe-Daddo is synonymous with that Dolly magazine cover - the one blu-tacked to bedroom walls and plastered all over school lockers. 

With her dazzling smile and golden beach body, Ali exploded onto the Australian modelling scene at the age of 16, gracing the glossy covers of Cleo, Dolly and Cosmopolitan and making herself a household name. Ali was the absolute ‘It-Girl’ of the time, and everything every young woman wanted to be.

Fast-forward to today, and Alison Brahe-Daddo is a Mum to three adult children, fitness teacher, birth assistant, podcaster co-hosting the hit show "The Heart Of It" with her husband Cameron Daddo and she is also the author of Queen Menopause: Finding Your Majesty in the Mayhem.

In this episode, Ali takes us back into the often brutal world of modeling when as a self-proclaimed naïve teenager she learned to people-please her way through the industry - a pattern that followed her well beyond the runway and into her adult life.

We talk about how she fell madly in love with and married Cameron Daddo when she was aged just 22, and unpack the beautiful, messy reality of how Ali and Cam have evolved both individually and together over three decades of life and marriage.

But the big nugget in this conversation is MENOPAUSE: that universal yet profoundly misunderstood and stigmatised life change we still don't talk about nearly enough. 

Ali doesn't hold back about her own challenging journey through menopause: the crippling anxiety, terrible panic attacks, insomnia, deep depression, blind rage and complete absence of joy that beset her through this stage of life. 

What's remarkable about Ali's approach is that she doesn't just catalog the struggle: she dispels the myths, destigmatises what it means when a woman's fertile years end and explores the hidden gifts of menopause, including the power of self-love and self-compassion, and how she used this time to live a fuller, more authentic life. 

The ripple effect of menopause impacts everyone - partners, children, workplaces, society at large - so this conversation isn't just for women, it’s for all of us.

But we hope Ali’s experience and wisdom in this episode will offer help and reassurance to anyone struggling with the challenges of menopause right now.

 

Guest: Alison Brahe-Daddo
Podcast: The Heart Of It
Instagram: @alidaddo

Hosts: Mads Hanger (Grummet) and Sabina Read
Producer: Our audio wizard is Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Spotify or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with stacks of our previous guests :)

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“How many kids do you have?”

It’s a question asked so casually, often as part of small talk. Yet, for those who dreamed of parenthood but find themselves childless, these four words can land with a heavy blow.

Today’s guest, Kelly Donougher, is a successful interior designer and founder of 13 Interiors, with design studios in Perth and Melbourne. But behind her professional success lies a deeply personal story. In her new book No Fence, No Limits, Kelly opens up about her and her husband’s decade-long journey with infertility—marked by rounds of medical interventions, the heartbreak of miscarriage, and the ongoing process of navigating grief.

In our conversation, Kelly shares the tension between meeting society’s expectations and honouring her own truths, how the medical system can make you feel like just another number, and what it means to carve out an identity beyond parenthood. She also reflects on how grief, while devastating, can spark transformation—and how creativity and career reinvention became lifelines of healing.

This is a conversation not just about infertility, but about the universal struggle with life’s “shoulds,” the boxes we’re told to tick, and the courage it takes to choose a different path. Kelly’s story is one of perseverance, hope, surrender, and ultimately, acceptance. Most of all, she reminds us that even when our sense of agency feels diminished, we still hold the power to choose.

To learn more about Kelly’s book, head to kellydonougher.com, and to explore her beautiful design work, visit 13interiors.com.

Host: Sabina Read
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****

Hosts: Mads Hanger (Grummet) and Sabina Read
Producer: Our audio wizard is Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Spotify or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with stacks of our previous guests :)

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
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How often do you think about worst case scenarios? Contemplate fate or imagine catastrophes or run the gamut of ‘what ifs?’ 

The reality is that none of us really know what’s coming down the life pipes next … as famed author Joan Didion wrote “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You can sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

For Pete Conroy, that instant came on the most ordinary of mornings - the third of November, 2022.

It was dead quiet on the peninsula that day. Pre-dawn. Pre-birdsong. Pete was driving to work, thinking about the day ahead, staring into the darkness, thinking about maybe an ocean swim at Dromana later on, about dinner tonight, about working on his golf handicap on Saturday. 

Just an ordinary morning. On an ordinary day. That with no warning, suddenly turned into the worst day of Pete’s life.

In the darkness, in an instant, everything would change: the life Pete loved, the body he lived in, the world he knew and the way he moved through it.

The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius once wrote: “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.”

This is a conversation about that kind of strength, and the story of a truly remarkable man who chose to meet the very worst of what happened on an ordinary day with unimaginable grace, superhuman grit and extraordinary good humour.

As Pete says in this episode: “Every human’s got their own Everest. Some are bigger and steeper than others but at some stage, everyone’s got to make the climb.

This is the story of Pete’s climb. 

Guest: Pete Conroy
Powering Up Pete: Donate here
Instagram: Powering Up Pete
Host: Mads Hanger (Grummet)
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****

Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :)

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
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Thanks, as ever, for listening.

Go well. Be well. Human well.
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Don Watson has spent a lifetime listening closely - to the language of politics, power, persuasion and all the spaces in between.

A historian, author and master of the written word, he is perhaps best known as the speechwriter behind some of Australia’s most unforgettable words - including the iconic Redfern Speech, delivered by then-Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992. It remains one of this country’s most raw and courageous reckonings with our colonial past, and a landmark moment in the long and unfinished story of reconciliation.

But Don Watson's work doesn’t stop at politics. Over decades, he’s carved out a formidable legacy as one of our most astute and fearless cultural critics - writing bestselling books, searing Quarterly Essays and brilliantly biting commentaries that strip the varnish from political spin, corporate waffle and the TikTokian digital decay of modern language.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Don offers his brutally clear-eyed take on the state of language and the state of the world with that other Don running amok in the White House. From the rise of meaningless buzzwords and the weaponisation of language to the turning of the free world under the Trumpian Project 2025 dictate, Don Watson says America was never a perfect democracy anyway - and that if anyone tries to tell you what is going on in the United States, you should quickly walk away. 

We talk about democracy - what it was, what it is and what it’s becoming - but we also  go way back to Don’s childhood on a muddy, blue-gum-lined dairy farm in Gippsland. A world of rolling hills, working hands and laconic storytellers - where his first understanding of Australia, its language, its past and its people took shape.

We chart his unlikely journey from farm kid to the halls of academia where he discovered that the real nuggets weren’t to be found in textbooks, but in the colour, grit and perennial contradictions of Australia’s chequered political history.

What is clear when you listen to this is that no matter where you sit - or not - on the political spectrum, Don Watson is a remarkable human and a rare thinker - a man unafraid to call out bullshit, challenge conventional wisdom and remind us that words aren’t just words; they define who we are. 

Words can shape nations, tear down empires, ignite revolutions and - sometimes - heal wounds. Words can give voice to the voiceless, turn ideas into movements and hold power to account. 

And in an era of misinformation, disinformation and the white noise of the White House, where the zone is flooded, meaning is diluted and truth is up for debate, the way we use language matters now - more than ever. 

This is a conversation about the power of language but really, it’s about everything. About truth. About history. And about the kind of future world we want to live in - and the words we’ll need to build it.

Guest: Don Watson
Books: Penguin
Catch Don at the Sorrento Writers’ Festival

Host: Mads Grummet
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****
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Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :)

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Thanks, as ever, for listening.
Go well. Be well. Human well.
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Politics is the stuff of Shakespeare.

Acts of revenge, personal sabotage, falls from grace and epic power struggles have always pushed politicians in and out of public favour.

As Australia heads toward a federal election, in our own political landscape we see the high drama of campaign theatre play out against the global backdrop and twisted plot of an increasingly shaky world order. 

Do you still have faith in our democracy and the kind of leadership Australia needs right now?

I recently sat down with Julia Banks - former federal MP, corporate lawyer, leadership consultant and author of Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs.

Julia’s story is one of grit, resilience and a deep commitment to challenging the structures that hold people back. She made headlines when - after winning the seat of Chisholm in 2016 as the only Liberal to take a seat from the Opposition - she later walked away from the party, calling out Scott Morrison, the toxic culture, gendered power plays and systemic bias she experienced firsthand.

Julia unpacks the realities of Australian politics behind closed doors, and unpacks the tension between ‘positional power’ - the authority that comes with a title - and ‘personal power’ - the strength we each carry within us. 

While Julia’s experiences in Australian politics played out in the full glare of the public eye, her insights extend far beyond the bearpit of Canberra. 

In Australia's boardrooms, workplaces and everyday interactions, she says women in leadership roles are still labeled as "too ambitious," "difficult" or "overemotional" - coded language used to diminish their power. And women are still gravely unrepresented in the political arena.

In this episode of Human Cogs, Julia brings a perspective that is sharp, honest and deeply needed at a time like this, in a world like this. 

Julia reminds us that while the power struggles will perpetuate, we all have a choice in the leaders we elevate, values we uphold and future we collectively shape through our individual actions and democratic participation.

Guest: Julia Banks
Book: Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs
Twitter / X: @juliahbanks

Hosts: Mads Hanger (Grummet) and Sabina Read
Producer: Our audio wizard is Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Spotify or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with stacks of our previous guests :)

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Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means "horrible year". It’s the antithesis of annus mirabilis which means "wonderful year".

Of course years don’t exist in those binaries but we all know that some years are better than others: some are defined by greatness, and others we just can’t wait to see the back of.

As this episode goes to air, Mads shares what this past year has been like for her, marred by deep grief and a few mortality jolts that have brought into sharp focus what really matters. 

Mads doesn’t count her experience as unique because this is just ordinary human life, of course, playing out as it ever has with its wonders and horrors in chorus. 

But it is true that for most of us, by the time you’ve clocked up a few decades of living, you’ll likely have had a front row seat to witnessing some people you deeply love die, dement, disappear or divorce.

How you choose to walk through those human hardships is the only choice you will ultimately have because life will continue to throw curveballs, which means you will need to deliberately choose - again and again - where you will focus your energy, who you will spend your precious time with and who you will need to let go.

Sarah Grynberg knows this walk well because she’s had to make some pretty hard personal choices recently to let a few old friends and habits go so she can create more space for serendipity in her life.

This has partly been prompted by what Sarah has learned in her professional life, as an internationally acclaimed mindset coach and speaker, and the host of A Life of Greatness podcast which to date has had millions of downloads.

On her podcast, Sarah interviews some of the world's greatest thought-leaders, sporting legends, famous entertainers and best-selling authors as they explain how they have overcome challenges, conquered self-limiting beliefs and unearthed what it means to achieve greatness in their own lives.

Of course, what a life of greatness looks like is very different for each of us. But as Sarah walks us through her own difficult journey to now, we hope you can all take a little tonic of greatness from this conversation. Enjoy.

Guest: Sarah Grynberg, Host of A Life of Greatness Podcast and internationally acclaimed Mindset Coach and Speaker

Hosts: Mads Hanger (Grummet) and Sabina Read
Producer: Our audio wizard is Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Spotify or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with stacks of our previous guests :)

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Stan Grant is a man of remarkable intellect, profound story and deep faith.

On a late winter's afternoon recently, I meet Stan in a moment when he is on a difficult journey through a kind of lament - deeply contemplating the three big disciplines that have steeled his extraordinary life and work - physics, philosophy and theology.

Stan says since the Voice to Parliament Referendum he’s been taking time to take stock, that he’s done too much time plucking the wings off butterflies - and that right now he’d rather write beauty into the world.

So he’s been working on a new book that is a meditation on time, on God, on the temporal nature of our being and on the complex state of our modern world.

There is plenty for Stan to sit with and sort through right now.

As a journalist and correspondent who covered war for 40 years, he's seen the worst of what we can do to each other but he has also seen love endure in the most Godforsaken of places. So he knows first-hand the paradoxical contradictions of what it means to be a human in a world like ours.

Stan believes it's essential we all have something bigger than ourselves to believe in because if the human being is the limit, then we will only see the limits of the human.

And in a world so often consumed by the chaos of modernity, ongoing conflicts and the binaries of identity, Stan Grant is keenly focussed these days on kindling what we share rather than what divides us for, as Franz Kafka said, identity is a cage in search of a bird.

I'd love you to listen to this episode of Human Cogs podcast as we journey with Stan through his rivers and eddies of thought, where philosophy, theology and the mystical realm converge to offer a deeper understanding of Stan Grant the mortal, what might lie beyond this life, and how we humans can all - somehow - someday - find our place in the untold cosmos.

Guest: Stan Grant, Award-winning Journalist, Author, Writer, Poet and Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Spotify or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with stacks of our previous guests :)

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When you think of a health retreat, I wonder what thoughts and feelings come to mind? Yoga with a monk on a mountain, people healing their deepest wounds around grief, illness or weight issues, or perhaps it’s images of Nicole Kidman in 9 Perfect Strangers as depicted in the book and movie?

I’ve attended countless retreats in Australia and overseas, and every time I have made one or two changes that have catalysed bigger shifts in my life. I believe we need to update our beliefs that retreats are somewhere “broken” people go, and replace them with the idea that retreats provide an environment with all the ideal ingredients that help set us up for tuning into our own innate sense of knowing and wisdom that have the potential to invite us back to a sense of wholeness, rest and repair – emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally.

In 2023, I spent six life changing days at Aro Hā Health Retreat in the glorious New Zealand mountains near Queenstown. In this episode, we are joined by Aro Hā’s co-founder and glorious human, Damian Chaparro. He shares the philosophy embedded in the program at Aro Hā as well as what a typical week looks like for guests. Damian shares his own younger year experiences of working tirelessly in an IT job with all the financial trappings, and too much alcohol, minus the meaning and fulfillment. And how as a life-long learner he continues to find ways to acknowledge all the parts that show up in him and how he has learned to listen to self and others with curiosity and acceptance.

We discuss the benefits of fasting, movement, nature and stillness, and what gets in the way of creating sustainable behaviour changes that we desire, yet so often sabotage. Damian also reveals some entertaining and heartfelt stories of connecting with his 80 year old mum after they both shared the plant-based psychedelic, ayahuasca (not at Aro Hā by the way!)

If you’re curious about dialling up wellbeing, or are wondering what a health retreat might be like for you, or if your body, mind and soul is looking for a reset, then this conversation is for you. I deeply believe the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to experience the magic of Aro Hā.  Here’s my chat with Damian.

 

Website: Aro Ha
Links: Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, 

Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!

Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.
www.humancogs.com

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