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
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30:55
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30:55
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."
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
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26:27
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26:27
"Pick up your pen and write a different story." Public Speaking World Champion, Verity Price
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."
JOIN THE 3-2-1SHIFT NEWSLETTER
and stand a chance to win this month's giveaway.
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
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29:11
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29:11
"Half my face had collapsed." A life affected by Bell's palsy
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.'
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
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26:09
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26:09
"Whose afraid of little old me?" Chaeli Mycroft has cerebral palsy.
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."
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
A podcast about resilience, transformation, and rebuilding life after change.
When life shifts drastically, how do you find your footing again? In Something Shifted, host Sean Loots sits with people whose lives were permanently altered by adversity. From Sean's personal journey of raising a child with special needs to guests facing illness, loss, or identity crises.
Something Shifted is a South African podcast, filled with personal transformation stories about reinventing your life and coping with change. These stories of resilience are designed to inspire, connect, and remind you that you’re not alone.
Through raw storytelling and reflective insight, each episode uncovers how guests navigate the fallout, adjust their mindset and have found a new path forward.
Listeners will gain strategies and stories around:
- How to rebuild identity after trauma
- Lessons in resilience and personal growth
- What it really takes to navigate life transitions
- Parenting with grace in difficult circumstances
- Finding meaning when your world is upended
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.
South Africa