gwunspoken - Beyond the Plan
gwunspoken: Beyond the Plan
Hear the person beyond the plan.
This podcast is where NDIS participants, families, and supporters reclaim their narrative. We dive into life beyond the diagnosis, beyond the reports, and beyond the plans—exploring identity, strength, and voice.
Whether you're a parent seeking connection, a support worker craving understanding, or someone walking their own NDIS journey, this space is for you.
Because labels don’t define people—stories do.
gwunspoken - Beyond the Plan
From Saving Money to Baking Cookies: Arie's Life Updates Before His Melbourne Adventure
Excitement bubbles through every moment of this heartwarming conversation as Arie counts down the final days before his Melbourne adventure. With just three and a half days remaining until takeoff, his anticipation is contagious as he shares details about staying at the Hotel, complete with city views and family accommodations.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is our candid discussion about travel anxiety. When Arie admits, "I'm a little bit nervous for it. I haven't been on for a while," we explore practical coping strategies that work not just at school or home, but in any challenging situation. From muscle relaxation and box breathing to sensory grounding techniques, these tools provide children and adults alike with ways to manage anxiety anywhere. We even create a fun challenge for Arie to rate his plane landings on a scale of one to ten, transforming a potentially stressful moment into an engaging activity.
The conversation takes delightful turns through Arie's recent accomplishments, particularly his baking adventures. His pride in creating nine perfectly arranged chocolate chip cookies and a memorable Lego-shaped cake highlights how everyday activities build confidence and joy. These moments remind us that preparing for adventures involves more than just packing bags – it's about bringing our whole selves, complete with skills, strategies, and curiosity about the world around us. Join us for this genuine glimpse into childhood excitement, practical anxiety management, and the small moments that make life sweet. Have you tried creating rating games to help children navigate potentially stressful experiences? We'd love to hear your stories!
Welcome to an edition of Beyond the Plan, and I'm here with Ari. How are you, mate, good? What just happened, then? What happened to our normal intro music? What happened?
Speaker 2:We changed it.
Speaker 1:You found a nice relaxing one that you liked, didn't you yeah. It's pretty good that one. It's not just nice and soft. I could almost go back to sleep. You would not go back to sleep. You were at school. You might get in trouble. Yeah, alright, how are you feeling out of five today? Five Five out of five, and what's something you're really happy about at the moment.
Speaker 2:That I'm going to Melbourne for three and a half days.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, it's come up so fast. I remember at the start of the term you were like, yeah, in 10 weeks I'm going to Melbourne. And halfway through the term you were like, yeah, four or five weeks to Melbourne. And then we said like, 13 days to Melbourne. Now it's three and a half days to Melbourne. And last time on the podcast we talked about how you're a good saver of money, talked about how you're a good saver of money. Have you got some money to take with you to Melbourne?
Speaker 2:And I spent it what Remember? On the car.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:When you went to Gold Coast, the, the lightsaber.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that was only a little bit. That was like $20-something, wasn't it.
Speaker 2:No $30.
Speaker 1:Oh, was it Okay On Amazon.
Speaker 2:Oh, was it Okay On Amazon oh?
Speaker 1:was it? Well, guess what. You don't know this, but guess what happened last week.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:I actually rang your mum after work and said Ari spoke so well on the last podcast and he told me he's saving his money for Melbourne. And guess what your mum said. What she said Ari is one of the best savers of money in our family. What Whoops. So if ever I need a loan of money, I'm going to come and see you and say, ari, can I have a loan please? Can you please give me $200 to loan?
Speaker 2:No, I'm just going to say no.
Speaker 1:You're going to say no and look after my own money. What kind of things we want to talk about this last week? But remind me, what kind of things would you like to buy in Melbourne if you found it?
Speaker 2:Probably a statue.
Speaker 1:A statue. A statue of what Liberty You're going to buy? The Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 2:Isn't that?
Speaker 1:in America.
Speaker 2:Hopefully it's there.
Speaker 1:Imagine taking the whole big statue home and it's flying behind a plane. That would be weird, wouldn't it? Yeah, you'd look up at the sky and go, hey, what the heck is that? It's an RE Statue of Liberty. Oh, what kind of things are you doing in Melbourne? Like, besides shopping, what else do you have to do? Who are you going to see? Who are you going to meet which people?
Speaker 2:My mum's friend.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice, yep. Do you know where you're staying in Melbourne?
Speaker 2:Okay, nice, yep Do you know where you're staying in Melbourne Well Avani Central Resort Hotel.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're in a resort hotel.
Speaker 2:And no, it ain't a resort.
Speaker 1:In a resort.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Are you going to stay at mum's friend's house or are you going to stay in a hotel? In a hotel that would be cool, so you'll all be staying in the same hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you seen it?
Speaker 2:There is two beds, two queen beds.
Speaker 1:Is it so you're in, oscar will share, or are you jumping with mum?
Speaker 2:Yeah with mum.
Speaker 1:Okay, oscar will jump in with Nan. Oh cool, nan's going too. Yeah, cool, no snoring allowed, can you? Will you be able to see the city where you're staying, so you'll be able to look all over Melbourne and see all the pretty lights and stuff? Yeah, wow, and here's a tricky question for you. Here's a challenging question. Do you know how long you're staying for? Wow, and here's a tricky question for you.
Speaker 1:Here's a challenging question Do you know how long you're staying for? Like you leave on Friday? One week, Really. So what day do you leave?
Speaker 2:Friday, Friday, 11. I mean, I just now known the time when we leave.
Speaker 1:It's 10.20,. I think am Hang on. What about school? Isn't school at 10.20? Am Not for Ari.
Speaker 2:And Oscar.
Speaker 1:So you guys get to have Friday off. So you've got to go three more good days at school, yep, and then get up nice and early, probably head off to the airport around 7.30, 8 o'clock, put your bags under the plane as I was saying before you check your bags in and you can just hop on a plane and relax.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Are you scared of the plane trip or do you like the plane trip?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a little bit nervous for it. I haven't been on for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fine For a while Every year I go. Yeah, yeah, and you know what you can do, don't you, if you get nervous?
Speaker 2:What can you do if you get nervous?
Speaker 1:Just go like it's going to be alright. Yeah, Nice slow breathing is going to be okay. And what else? Remember all the strategies we've learnt. You can use them there too. You don't have to use them just at school or at home. You can use them for anything you get stressed about. Yeah, so you've got all those strategies ready to go. Yeah, the muscle relaxation. Yeah, the box breathing, and you know what else will be?
Speaker 2:fun what.
Speaker 1:Is you know, when you sort of look for three things yeah, in a plane you look for three different things, yeah, yeah, like three different things, you can say well, there's an air vent and there's some clouds, there's a plane.
Speaker 2:There there's a plane.
Speaker 1:There's a plane, it's inside the plane.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I'm sure you can smell different foods on the plane too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm probably at the back.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, or the front.
Speaker 2:Don't all the naughty kids go to the back? I always go to Hamilton Island. I went two times on the plane. You know how people have to go two times on the plane.
Speaker 1:You know how people have to go two times on a plane when they go trips Could go there and back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And was that a good plane ride? Hamilton Island was, yeah, a little bit of rough landing. Okay, because we bounced a little bit up.
Speaker 1:Did it frighten you? Yeah, did you hear a really funny story? Yeah, one day I was with a teacher and we're going to a sports carnival and we're just in the middle of this talking to each other. We didn't even know the plane was going to land and next thing the plane landed, and landed really hard, and he swore out loud. He goes oh shh, he got a big fright. And I burst out laughing because he just swore he thought he was dead. He just got a big fright because suddenly he hit the ground really hard and we didn't know we were landing. We must have been listening to the captain when he said we're going to be landing shortly. Yeah. So remember, when you go on your plane, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to think about when he lands or she lands. Whenever the pilot lands a plane, you ought to give it a mark out of 10. If it's nice and smooth, it'd be like an 8, 9, or 10. If it's really rough, you might say it was like a 3 or a 4.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then when you come back, I'm going to ask you, okay, in a podcast and say what was the landing? Yeah, but what's the name? The Hamilton Island one was very rough, so I would give it a five.
Speaker 1:Five a bit rough. Well, you have to give me two scores. Do you know why I?
Speaker 2:was like oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't swear out loud. You have to give me two scores of the landing. Do you know why?
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Well, you're going to land in Melbourne.
Speaker 2:And land in Australia.
Speaker 1:Or Brisbane, so Melbourne's still in Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's a different state, isn't it? So you're going to go back into Brisbane. So you're going to say, gary, on the way, when it landed, it was a. And then, when we came back to Brisbane, it was a.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, sound good. Yeah, all right. What else has been happening before you finished the podcast? What else?
Speaker 2:Nothing else.
Speaker 1:Nothing else.
Speaker 2:Have I told you about my bake? I baked. I chopped the cookies.
Speaker 1:You told me before off the podcast Was that yummy yeah. Where are they? Don't you tell me you ate them all.
Speaker 2:They're at home oh.
Speaker 1:How many do you think you made? How many was there? If you had to guess how many would you have made? How many biscuits?
Speaker 2:I already saw there was three down, three across.
Speaker 1:So nine big biscuits. Who's tried them so far?
Speaker 2:Me.
Speaker 1:Has Mum or Nan or dad or Oscar tried it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Would they say, that was good?
Speaker 2:Yep, they were very good.
Speaker 1:Do you know what the worst thing about chocolate chip biscuits are? You can't stop eating them. I just want to eat like a thousand of them. Like, if you left them on the bench I'd eat them all, I reckon and you'd come back and say, where did the chocolate chip biscuits go? And I'd probably have crumbs out of my mouth going, I don't know. Do you like baking? Yeah, what else have you cooked before?
Speaker 2:Lots of cakes.
Speaker 1:Have you? Do you have a favourite cake you make?
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to go with the Lego.
Speaker 1:A Lego cake. Tell me you don't make it out of Lego and you eat Lego.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:In the shape of Lego. What? Who helped you make that Mum? Mum, she's a good mum. Yeah, was it tasty? Was it in the shape of something?
Speaker 2:It was the shape of a Lego.
Speaker 1:Oh, just like a block of Lego. That's cool Like a big tower.
Speaker 2:No, like a ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know those long ones.
Speaker 1:The long ball.
Speaker 2:Like the four, I mean the eight dots on top.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Lego dots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Lego dots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we put that on.
Speaker 1:Did you and what colour was it? Was it different colours?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you remember what colours they were?
Speaker 2:I think they were. I think I have a picture. What I remember is it was blue and green.
Speaker 1:Ooh, nice, and did you put any lollies or chocolate swing on it as well.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Just that, that's cool and icing. And icing. Do you like having birthday cakes and blowing out the candles? Do you blow out the candles? I go like Do you try and get them all out in one blow? Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:What I usually do is go like.
Speaker 1:Really hard. Why do I only get one? Well, there's always one left, or you only blow one out, one left.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, how many candles will be on your cake this time for your next birthday?
Speaker 2:Ten.
Speaker 1:You have to blow out ten candles.
Speaker 2:Like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really hard. And if you have, like, candles that make up the one and candles that make up the zero, you have to blow right across the cake, because you've got two numbers now, not just like nine or eight or seven, you've got two numbers, one and a zero.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you're getting older.
Speaker 1:So you have to try and blow them out that way, are we good? Yeah, yeah, nice, all right. Anything else you want to talk about before we stop the podcast? No, so next time we speak on the podcast, you would have gone to Melbourne, so you have to tell me all about your trip. Are you looking forward to it? Are you excited? Will you miss school on Friday? You will miss school on Friday. You'll miss your friends. Yeah, that's alright, though. That's good, alright. Well, guess what? I'm going to try and put this nice music on that you picked again and we'll say goodbye, enjoy Melbourne. Thanks for talking on the podcast.
Speaker 2:See you.
Speaker 1:See you, bye.