Identity After Trauma, Brain Cancer, and the Science of Resilience.

What happens when a brain tumor fractures the identity you’ve built your life around?

In this episode of Something Shifted, Sean Loots explores identity after trauma through the story of Conn, a high-performing creative director whose life split into before and after at age 36.

What began as subtle slurred speech and six-second headaches became emergency brain surgery and a rare diagnosis: medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer usually found in children under five.

Within hours, Conn was signing a form warning he might wake up blind, deaf, or not wake up at all.

This is the moment identity fractures.

www.somethingshifted.co.za

recorded at Latitude Podcast Studio. Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

A case for optimism.

In the prelude to the new season of Something Shifted, Sean Loots speaks to astrophysicist-turned-journalist and author of "The Bright Side" Sumit Paul-Choudhury, about the science and psychology of optimism.

Drawing on stories from Ernest Shackleton's 1915 Arctic expedition, to Sean's "Joy Jar", and the research behind optimistic chickens, Sumit shares how he became an optimist after experiencing great loss. Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

Healing is like peeling an onion. The final episode of this season is a story about love, although it's not a traditional love story. It's about love addiction, the fear of not being loved and the kind of love that can keep you alive.

It's about a mother's love, facing your greatest fear and learning to love yourself through it all.

Sara-Jayne shares her complex family background, the trauma of being abandoned and adopted at 7 weeks, and her struggles with addiction alongside her partner's relapse.

Through it all Sara-Jayne Makwala-King emphasizes that the opposite of addiction is not soberity, but rather connection.

SJ is a journalist and author and has written two books about her life story. 'Killing Karoline' and 'Mad, Bad Love'. Both are available online and in all good bookstores.

QUOTES:

'My biggest fear had just happened, and yet I was the one that had told him to go. I’d facilitated that. So that was the quake—the worst thing in the world that could happen to me as I exist is happening, which is that I am a single parent, and it’s all on me.'

'You feel as if it must be personal, and it isn't. If somebody's not ready to get well from addiction, there's nothing you can do. I am powerless over another person in their addiction.'

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/seanloots

https://www.instagram.com/thisissjking

BOOKS:

Killing Karoline: https://exclusivebooks.co.za/products/9781920601959

Mad, Bad Love: https://exclusivebooks.co.za/products/9781990973567

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO:

https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

My plan was to visit The Chaeli Campaign HQ. But life happened.

So instead, I picked up the phone and spoke to the CEO, Zelda Mycroft.

Zelda shares The Chaeli Campaign's mission to drive social justice and inclusion for people with disabilities.

Highlighting the crucial role of advocacy in changing how society views and supports those with disabiliities, we speak about initiatives such as inclusive education and adaptive sports.

Listen to how Athletics South Africa came to include wheelchair athletes to their rulebook because of the advocacy work done by The Chaeli Campaign.

This episode forms part of Podcasthon 2025, using podcasting for good and raising awareness for charitable causes.

QUOTE:

"Inclusion can't be learned; it has to be lived. That is central to all the work that we do, seeing challenges as opportunities and inviting others along for the journey."

WEBSITE:

https://chaelicampaign.org/

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/seanloots

https://www.instagram.com/chaelicampaign/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

What if your life suddenly changed course, not by choice, but by force? In this episode, host Sean Loots introduces Verity, a woman who decided to rewrite her life after a personal lifequake.

Through courage, creativity, and deep self-reflection, Verity learned that we always have the power to author a new chapter, no matter how messy the last one was.

Sean guides this conversation on transformation, resilience, and the small but powerful shifts that can lead to a completely new sense of self.

In this episode, Verity Price tells a story filled with twists and turns.

From losing her dad at 24, to walking the Camino de Santiago in his honor, writing a letter to the future, and even following a man to America. Verity went on to sell 2,000 copies of an album before it was even recorded, and in 2021, she beat 35,000 people to become the World Champion of Public Speaking.

QUOTES:

"I was shaken to my core. We had a week with him, and it was really rough because he was paralyzed. So this very verbal father that I'd had could just look at me with his eyes, and he was totally paralyzed from the stroke."

“The biggest lesson I learned from that was that your ego often has one idea of what your life should look like and your soul has another.”

"I cried so much while rehearsing them and hoping they could hear how much I love them, and my speech that I won with was literally saying, "Your life is a book. If you're not enjoying the read, pick up your pen and write a different story."

WEBSITE:

https://verityprice.com

SONG: "Forever In Me"

https://open.spotify.com/track/2fWW1fHiJSkoyIcfF21hxB?si=0cb2a306e91d4104

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/veritypricespeaks

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

In this episode, we explore how Lesego’s life changed when he developed Bell’s Palsy, and what it took for him to reframe identity, hope, and resilience

If you've been listening to something shifted for a while, you've probably wondered about your own life quake. For Lesego, there are two distinct moments when the ground beneath his feet gave way. When he was fifteen, his dad passed away. And again, when he was 32, he thought he was having a stroke.

Eventually, it was confirmed that Lesego Majatladi had Bell's Palsy.

Bells Palsy is a strange condition which doctors can only diagnose once every other possibility has been ruled out.

An unexplained paralysis of facial muscles often associated with the latent effects of stress, Bell’s palsy begins suddenly and can get progressively worse.

In Lesego’s case, contracting Bell’s palsy was an acknowledgement that the life he had wasn’t what he wanted for himself, and things needed to change.

QUOTES:

'I stopped interacting with the world more than anything because it became an irritation. You walk into a room and people literally gasp, and then you must explain what's going on.'

'Experiencing Bell's palsy at 32 was terrifying, but it forced me to reevaluate my life and priorities.'

'The gift of Bell's palsy is an appreciation of mortality. You suddenly realize that life is not guaranteed, and if you want to do things, you better do them.'

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/seanloots

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

Today’s story is a little different to some of our previous episodes.

We generally meet guests post-life quake, who have the benefit of hindsight, and we learn how "That Big Thing" has changed the direction of their life - but we meet them on stable ground.

Not everyone is on the other side of an event that has changed the way they see how they fit into the world… sometimes we meet someone that is mid-quake.

Chaeli has cerebral palsy and is a full-time wheelchair user. A big part of her journey is being able to say "I am disabled and" not "I am disabled but."

While Chaeli is not always okay with being a disabled person, she lives openly, sharing her perspectives along the way.

Chaeli Mycroft started the Chaeli Campaign at the age of nine to raise funds for her own motorised wheelchair. Chaeli won an International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 and she was awarded the Social Activism medal by the Nobel Peace Laurates in 2012. Today, the Chaeli Campaign is a social justice organisation that serves more than 7000 beneficiaries every year.

Chaeli is disabled, and she completed a masters in human rights law. She's been to the top of Kilimanjaro. Chaeli has completed the comrades, published a book and is an adaptive athlete. Chaeli is also the only person I know that has seen the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, live, twice.

QUOTES:

"It took us a long time to reach a point where I could say, like, just say the sentence, I'm not always okay with being a disabled person. Right? Because you put out this persona of like, I'm the positive, solution-finding disabled person who's trying to not be an issue to somebody."

"My whole life I have very supportive people. I have a phenomenal support network. I do everything that I need to, I want to do. Never in my entire life had anyone said to me that supporting my 18,000 needs in a day is a privilege to them."

WEBSITE: https://chaeli.co.za/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/chaelimycroft

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO:

https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

When Jasper underwent a liver transplant in 2015, he didn’t just survive; he transformed. In this deeply human story, Jasper calls himself a “living upcycled human,” and shares what it means to carry a second chance inside your body.

Host Sean Loots explores the emotional, physical, and spiritual journey that follows major medical change; the fear, the gratitude, and the quiet shift that happens when you realise you’ve been rebuilt from the inside out.

In this episode:

- Jasper’s raw reflections on life before and after his liver transplant

- How facing death can reframe what it means to live

- Lessons in resilience, gratitude, and letting go

- Finding meaning in the label “upcycled human”

This story is for anyone navigating recovery, transplant life, or simply trying to make sense of who they’ve become after a major change.

QUOTES:

“Mindset is like the one thing you have control of, and in my view, it's one of the single most powerful things that one can do.”

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO:

https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

In the adventures we seek out for ourselves, or the chances that we say yes to, deep down we know that things will change.

But we can never fully grasp how much they will change. An enthusiastic yes today will obviously start a domino effect, but where will the yes ultimately lead?

These are the seismic shifts we create for ourselves.

In 2021, Liesl packed up her home in Cape Town and moved to Sweden with her husband and young son. Leaving behind a house she adored, a successful career, her family and solid friendship structures, and even a non-profit she had started.

Why? Three years later, what are the knock on effects of Liesl Joubert’s choices.

What does life look like now for Liesl, her husband, Anton, and their son, Noah?

QUOTES:

"When I'm sad and he's like, 'I'm sad because I miss Auntie Rue,' and then he would say, 'I know, it's okay, I miss her too,' and then we both feel better."

"It's an odd feeling, like crying from happiness is odd. It's so joyful that the technology exists but then so sad that so few humans get to experience." Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify

For most, becoming a parent is a seismic shift, a lifequake that transforms everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

It's a journey that challenges us to re-evaluate our priorities and make some tough decisions. Like how to balance our own dreams with the responsibilities of raising our children?

In 2022, Vicky became a mom for the first time.

Two weeks later, her dream to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games was born.

With a newborn in her arms and just 2 years to prepare for the 2024 Olympic Games, Vicky set out to pursue her passion - not just for herself but to inspire her son.

As parents, how do we carve out time for self-care without compromising precious moments spent nurturing our children's world?

Ultimately, we find ourselves grappling with two powerful questions - am giving enough and am I enough?

Vicky Botha is an inspiring business owner, triathlete, wife and mother of one who shares how she balances it all.

Vicky Botha

https://www.instagram.com/vickyvandermerwe/

https://triathlonsquad.co.za/

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify