What is Something Shifted about?

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Something Shifted is a South African podcast about identity after interruption, those unpredictable lifequakes that divide our lives into before and after.

Before the diagnosis.
Before the loss.
Before the moment everything changed.

Hosted by award-winning broadcaster Sean Loots, Something Shifted explores identity, resilience, reinvention, and personal growth in the aftermath of disruption. Because we all face moments that fracture who we thought we were.

On this podcast, we lean in when things are complicated.
Through honest, documentary-style conversations, some of South Africa’s most interesting and courageous voices share how experiences that felt devastating - divorce, burnout, grief, career collapse, parenting challenges, health crises - became catalysts for growth and unexpected empowerment.

This is not a quick-fix self-help show.
It’s a podcast about transformation.
About rebuilding identity.
About finding possibility in the middle of chaos.

If you’re navigating change, searching for meaning after loss, or standing at the edge of a second act, you’ll feel at home here.

Because Something Shifted believes in the power of great stories, and in the power of possibility.

I think you're going to like it here.
Welcome to Something Shifted.
24 Feb 2022 English South Africa Self-Improvement · Relationships

Other recent episodes

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From 14% to Full Breath: Remembering Tanya Bothma's Double Lung Transplant Journey

What does it feel like to breathe freely for the first time at 40 years old? Tanya Bothma has struggled with every breath since birth. After a meconium aspiration as a newborn and repeated severe viral infections during childhood, she was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a progressive narrowing of the…
17 Mar 20 min

"I will not become what I witnessed."

In this episode of Something Shifted, True Crime South Africa host Nicole Engelbrecht reflects on how childhood trauma shaped both her identity and her work, telling some of the country’s darkest stories. Nicole Engelbrecht grew up in a world where some stories were never meant to leave the house. Violence,…
10 Mar 34 min

"Harder to kill."

Conn Bertish, a high-performing creative director, faced a rare brain cancer diagnosis at 36. Emergency surgery revealed a medulloblastoma, usually only found in children under five. In a matter of hours, Conn’s life fractured, forcing him to confront who he was; and who he would become. In this episode of…
24 Feb 33 min

If Chickens Can Do It

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…
6 Jan 20 min

"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…
31 Mar 2025 30 min