Something Shifted with Sean Loots

Sean Loots
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Something changes your life today. How does it shift your life tomorrow? Is resilience part of the human experience or are some people better equipped to deal with adversity? For host Sean Loots, that “something” was becoming a parent to a child with special needs. Something Shifted is a South African documentary-style podcast that uncovers life’s pivotal moments, the turning points, challenges, and “lifequakes” that redefine resilience. Each episode blends intimate interviews with reflective narration to reveal the courage, insight, and humanity behind real-life transformations. Through stories at the intersection of joy and discomfort, Something Shifted helps listeners navigate personal growth, life transitions, parenting challenges, career pivots, and unexpected events. These authentic stories are designed to inspire, connect, and remind you that you’re not alone. Featuring cinematic storytelling, thoughtful reflection, and practical insights, Something Shifted is perfect for listeners interested in personal development, resilience, self-discovery, and human connection. Follow the award-winning South African podcast to explore transformative stories, embrace life’s shifts, and be part of a community that brings human connection back into every story.

  1. The Most Effective Tools for Managing Stress and Anxiety with Noa Belling

    04/01/2024

    The Most Effective Tools for Managing Stress and Anxiety with Noa Belling

    Are you aware of how stress physically shapes your life? Sean Loots sits down with award-winning, bestselling author, psychotherapist and corporate consultant, Noa Belling to discuss her latest book, Stress Less: Managing anxiety in a modern world. In this episode, Noa shares the physiological impacts of stress and the transformative power of body awareness. For example, have you ever caught yourself holding your breath while checking emails? Noa Belling talks us through "email apnea," a stress-induced freeze response triggered by our digital habits. Discover the array of stress responses—fight, flight, freeze, and the cell danger response—and learn how to shift into a state of relaxation with simple techniques. Don't miss the valuable insights on cultivating a relaxation response to enhance your overall well-being as Noa shares practical tips and exercises to combat anxiety and depression, highlighting the crucial role of mindfulness and the body-mind connection. Quotes from Noa: "When you feel like it's tipping over and you can't cope, that's when you know you're on the slippery slide into too much stress." "When you are in that kind of a frozen response, you've been sitting really still, unnaturally so." This episode was originally published by Pagecast and is followed by a short series of guided Stress Less practices exclusively for Something Shifted listeners, led by Noa Belling. https://noabelling.com https://somethingshifted.co.za The introduction (00:00:01) Introducing the podcast and the guest, Noa Belling. Stress levels and coping (00:02:20) Discussion about stress levels, coping mechanisms, and practical stress-reducing techniques. Physiological reasoning for stress (00:04:16) Exploration of the physiological reasons for stress and its role as a survival mechanism. Differentiating good and bad stress (00:05:58) Differentiating between good and bad stress, and the impact of chronic stress on mental health. Inspiration for writing "Stress Less" (00:07:57) Noa Belling's inspiration for writing the book "Stress Less: Managing Anxiety in a Modern World" and the impact of the pandemic on stress levels. Body-mind connection and stress management (00:10:06) The connection between body awareness, mental health, and stress management, and the importance of self-awareness in managing stress. The importance of body movement (00:14:44) Discussion on the significance of body movement in reducing stress and anxiety, and its impact on breathing awareness. Email apnea and dissociation (00:16:13) Exploration of the concept of email apnea and dissociation experienced while being on screens, and its impact on stress response. Understanding stress responses (00:17:56) Explanation of different stress responses, including fight-flight-freeze and frozen-stilling responses, and their effects on the nervous system. Cell danger response (00:21:31) Insight into the cell danger response and its impact on the body's protective and regenerative functions under stress. Developing the relaxation response (00:26:38) Explanation of the relaxation response and its benefits in fostering presence, ease, and compassion, along with practical tools for growth. Identifying stress styles (00:29:01) Exploration of different stress styles, including anxious freeze and its physiological and emotional manifestations. Differentiating freeze responses (00:30:08) Comparison of anxious freeze and numb blank freeze responses, and their respective physiological and psychological characteristics. Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    40 min
  2. "Peel the f*cking onion."

    MAR 31

    "Peel the f*cking onion."

    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.' GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za 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/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    31 min
  3. I phoned The Chaeli Campaign for Podcasthon 2025

    MAR 24 · BONUS

    I phoned The Chaeli Campaign for Podcasthon 2025

    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." JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za 👉🏼 https://chaelicampaign.org/ INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/chaelicampaign/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    26 min
  4. "Pick up your pen and write a different story."

    MAR 10

    "Pick up your pen and write a different story."

    There's a saying that you regret more the things you didn't do than the things you actually did. Verity's dad was 48 when she was born. He passed away suddenly when she was 24. When she was in her teens and didn't want to listen to his advice, he took to writing her letters. Filled with positive affirmations, she didn't realize the value of these letters then, but her dad stuck with it, knowing in his hard-earned wisdom that these things would be important in time. And boy, oh boy, was he right. 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." JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za 👉🏼 https://verityprice.com SONG: "Forever In Me" 👉🏼 https://open.spotify.com/track/2fWW1fHiJSkoyIcfF21hxB?si=0cb2a306e91d4104 INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/veritypricespeaks RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: 👉🏼 https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    29 min
  5. "Half my face had collapsed."

    FEB 24

    "Half my face had collapsed."

    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, when 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 diagnosis 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.' JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. March = The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: 👉🏼 https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    26 min
  6. "Whose afraid of little old me?"

    FEB 10

    "Whose afraid of little old me?"

    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." JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. February = a Sealand Gear gift voucher! Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za 👉🏼 https://chaeli.co.za/ INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/chaelimycroft RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: 👉🏼 https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    29 min
  7. "I became a living upcycled human."

    JAN 27

    "I became a living upcycled human."

    What would it take for you to see life differently? To see value where others don't? Would an organ transplant help you to see things differently? Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis is a rare chronic liver disease that can lead to liver damage. And since you can’t live without a liver, a transplant is your only hope for survival. In this episode, Jasper Eales talks about the life he lived with a chronic illness and the life he is now living as an upcycled human. Jasper is the recipient of a liver transplant, a lover of nature and a surfer of waves. He is also the co-founder of South African apparel brand, Sealand Gear, that upcycles waste materials and gives them new value. 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.” JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. February = a Sealand Gear gift voucher! Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST UCOOK ORDER: Use the code #SHIFT50 at check out. 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO: 👉🏼 https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    25 min
  8. "You don't say no to that."

    JAN 13

    "You don't say no to that."

    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." JOIN THE 3-2-1 SHIFT NEWSLETTER and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway. Join here 👉🏼 https://321shift.beehiiv.com/subscribe UCOOK: 👉🏼 https://ucook.co.za/ - use the code #SHIFT50 on your first order at check out. WEBSITE: 👉🏼 https://somethingshifted.co.za INSTAGRAM: 👉🏼 https://www.instagram.com/seanloots Youtube · Instagram · Website · 3-2-1 Shift Newsletter

    28 min
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About

Something changes your life today. How does it shift your life tomorrow? Is resilience part of the human experience or are some people better equipped to deal with adversity? For host Sean Loots, that “something” was becoming a parent to a child with special needs. Something Shifted is a South African documentary-style podcast that uncovers life’s pivotal moments, the turning points, challenges, and “lifequakes” that redefine resilience. Each episode blends intimate interviews with reflective narration to reveal the courage, insight, and humanity behind real-life transformations. Through stories at the intersection of joy and discomfort, Something Shifted helps listeners navigate personal growth, life transitions, parenting challenges, career pivots, and unexpected events. These authentic stories are designed to inspire, connect, and remind you that you’re not alone. Featuring cinematic storytelling, thoughtful reflection, and practical insights, Something Shifted is perfect for listeners interested in personal development, resilience, self-discovery, and human connection. Follow the award-winning South African podcast to explore transformative stories, embrace life’s shifts, and be part of a community that brings human connection back into every story.

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