Hey, how are you? I mean, is there anything worse
than being asked how you are and having to pretend that you're fine?
Well, you don't have to pretend here. Have you heard of the term life
quake? In this podcast,
we talk about life quakes, those unpredictable seismic shifts
that in time can lead to profound personal growth and empowerment.
Throughout this season, you can expect heartfelt conversations
that reveal both the joy and the discomfort of unexpected change.
And I think you're going to like it here.
My name is Sean, and this is something shifted.
Today's story belongs to Liesel. The opportunity we got on the other
side of the world was to give up everything here in South Africa
and move to Sweden. That's next.
I lead a demanding lifestyle and I'm very guilty of wanting more for less.
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I want to try new flavors, but I also don't want to spend
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If you're a longtime listener to something shifted, welcome back.
And if it's the first time you're here.
This is episode six of our third season, and so far we've heard
about unexpected events that significantly shifted the course
of people's lives, like the heart wrenching loss of a father.
Or receiving difficult news that you need a second organ transplant.
The type of life quake that lands like a gut punch you just
weren't ready for and leaves you breathless and vulnerable.
Somewhere in that chaos and uncertainty.
There's a surprising sense of freedom.
Standing at the crossroad you didn't choose for yourself,
you have a chance to make the best of a situation that was thrust upon you.
And then there are seismic shifts that we create for ourselves.
I would say the live quake that changed me most recently wasn't
actually something that happened to me, something that was out of
my control or something that we chose and that that life quake
came in the form of opportunity. And then you have to choose
whether to take it or not. But it's it was our choice.
In the adventures we seek out for ourselves or the chances that we
say yes to, we know that things will change, but we never really
know how much they will change. An enthusiastic yes today will
obviously start a domino effect, but where will the yes ultimately lead?
You cannot know all of the ramifications of your choices,
and there were definitely a few moments where I was like, why did
I choose this? This is too hard. Can't do it. I want to go home.
For Liesel and her husband, Anton. Home was Cape Town, South Africa.
I grew up in Cape Town. Anton grew up in Pretoria, but we
had both been living in Cape Town for 15 years or so before we left.
Yeah, so there was a lot of infrastructure here.
And part of that infrastructure was their beautiful blue Victorian row
house in Woodstock that they had renovated and truly made their own.
This was the first house their son Noah would call home.
Now, there are three things that you need to know about the
chambers to appreciate the gravity of their move to Sweden.
Firstly, the jobs loved living in Woodstock.
It's your hometown, so you know it. You know what? Every back street.
You know where you like to eat. You know and you like to drink
coffee. You know where to get everything.
It was just like, now I realize it was a wealth of
knowledge that I just carried in my in my head all the time.
Now, the second thing you need to know is that in 2021,
both Liesel and Anton had very successful careers in the science
and tech industries respectively. Liesel had climbed the ranks
while working at the same company for more than a decade.
And when you have that kind of experience where you're seeing
the same people every day, they become your people.
They become your friends. There's the people that you
spend the most time with. I didn't realize how much I
would miss and mourn that family when I'd left that job.
To me, a job was never a job. It's you.
It's it's what you're doing with your time.
And what you're doing with your time is the most precious thing you have,
actually. So job is important. And both of us had to give ours up.
But giving up a job wasn't the only important thing.
You see, the opportunity to relocate abroad
came about at the start of 2021. Noah was almost three years old.
He was already showing signs of being the coolest little dude ever.
And I'm not just saying that because he's my godson.
Which brings me to the third thing you should know about the bears.
They're a big part of our story. You see, Liesel is more than
just Rue's best friend. They're each other's person and
have been woven into the tapestry of each other's lives since 2004.
They studied at university together, organized each other's
bachelorette parties. Helped each other into their
respective wedding dresses. They've held each other up in
good times and in bad. And as families,
we've grown up together. Whenever Zoe landed in hospital,
the two bears were the ones we called first.
They were the ones who sat with us in the ER waiting rooms at 3:00 in
the morning. No questions asked. They were just always there.
So with them leaving South Africa, it's been a big change for all of us.
Even Noah, even though he was only three when they left.
I mean, he would sometimes asked, when are we going to grandma's house?
Or when are we going to go see Omar? And then we'd explain where we live
in Sweden now, and they're 10,000km away in South Africa, and we have a
big map up on our dining room wall. And we put a pin on where Omar
loves and where grandma loves. And then and this is where we love.
He could understand that it's that it's far to go.
And we'll see them next year or we'll see them soon.
So he when I'm sad and he's like, I'm sad because I miss Auntie Roo.
And then he would say, I know it's okay. I miss her too.
And then we both feel better. I teach him like it's okay to
feel sad. In all of his four year old wisdom at
the time, he's been helping us deal. Noah turned 6 in 2024, and we had the
joy of spending almost four weeks with our dear friends of the 2024
festive period in sunny South Africa. There was one particularly warm
day which Noah described as scorching hot.
So, with the benefit of three years of hindsight, I asked Liesl again.
So why did you choose to move? So let me just dispel the higher
pay cheque right now. Moving to Europe does not mean you're
going to get paid more, because you also have to live in Europe.
So it wasn't it wasn't money. We weren't moving away from
something. We loved it year. Loved a house.
We're close to family, friends. Um, my nonprofit that I started
was taking off doing well. Uh, we'd managed we got out on
the other side of Covid. It I there was no good reason to go.
It was something that we were talked about ideally and dreamt about,
like what it would be like to live in a different country for
a while and imagine the things that we could see and experience.
And we traveled a lot before then. So it really was naively as an
adventure. My husband got an opportunity to
work at a synchrotron in Europe, and you don't say no to that,
to raise your child in a different society, to see so many things.
Because all I've known all my life was Cape Town and South Africa,
right? It was exciting, and I guess a
part of me felt honored. We also have our ducks in a row.
We were moving. And with that,
the Jabez boarded the plane bound for Sweden in November of 2021,
leaving behind work, their home, family, friends and a balmy South
African summer to arrive in the snow dusted university town of Lunt.
And this would be their new home. It was almost Christmas and it
was magical. And I think in that first like
two like month and a half, you kind of feel touristy.
So you eat, you try everything and you taste everything.
It is new vegetation, new temperatures, new birdsong.
Because they don't have the same birds that we do.
So there's no hodeidah, just the sounds in the trees or different,
um, beautiful but different. And new shops, new Food.
New smells. New color palettes. New housing structures.
New road infrastructure. Driving on the new side of the road.
New transport systems. New is wonderful and exciting.
New is adventure. And when everything your senses
encounter is new, it can also be exhausting.
I woke up to the shortest days I've ever experienced in my life.
So sunrise at 930, sunset at 330. And it went on like that for for
two months. It was also jarring, like the first
time your your son gets a flu and you walk into a pharmacy and you cannot
read the labels on any medication. And so first, that was the first
sort of time where I felt like, I can't do this.
I can't take care of my son. How do I do this?
Like, there's so much new things that your brain is completely
occupied the whole time with taking things in that you don't have
any more capacity really, to do the things that you normally do.
And everything became was harder in that time, like like cooking basic.
And you know, I'm a good cook, but like I struggled like, okay,
now what do I need for Bolognaise again? Onions, tomato in a can.
Okay. I can find that I can. This must be a picture on or a
section in the shop. You know garlic you need.
What's it called in Swedish wheat. Look. What the hell is that?
I know I said there were three things you needed to know,
but they're actually full. Liesel is a really, really good cook.
I was struggling to do the basics because you have to shop in Swedish.
You have to use your translate app all the time.
What a shop would normally take me ten minutes here to 45 minutes.
So I guess there was a bit of a fatigue that set in,
and I realized that I if normally all could do 100 things a day,
I probably I would scale that down to I can do 25 things a day.
Uh, that's kind of the the downshifting of my gears.
I had to do as a, a mum, a scientist, a parent, a wife, sister, friend.
And you can see where the 100 things come in with all of those
roles that we play. But I could do 25%, I think because
I was learning a new language, I was it slowly became easier and I
could shift up again to where I would say maybe after two years when I'd
been through enough language classes. Um,
and I had gotten a driver's license. Then I could feel that I got to maybe
80 to 90% of what I was when I left. I remember the feeling of not being
able to function at an optimal level when I was at the peak of burnout.
So I know all too well how not being able to operate as 100% Liesel
would have been hard for Liesel.
And if you've ever felt that loss of self to my Sunday emailer 321 shift
might help you find the path again. Think of it as a self-care.
Pick me up from an overwhelmed dad. Every second Sunday, three things
for your mind, two things for your body and one thing for your soul.
Oh, and please remember to give something shifted a five star
rating when you leave a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
I could read it on the podcasts, like this one from Jenny.
Incredible vulnerability. I tend to cry at least once
throughout each listen. Not because it's sad,
but it's just open, honest, beautiful conversations that move
you, that shift something in you. Thanks, Jenny, for leaving your
review on Apple Podcasts, and I could be reading your review
in the next episode of Something Shifted. Right. So where were we?
Oh yes, we're in Sweden, and Liesel has been operating at 25%,
not quite feeling herself unable to figure things out quickly and
grasp something immediately like she did back in South Africa.
All the newness and learning was exhausting, but the newness and
learning is also why she said yes to this call of adventure.
From probably when I was a teen, I was an avid reader of fantasy
and science fiction and bubblegum fiction and all of it.
I would read everything and anything I could find.
I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding.
One of the reasons that I didn't become a doctor was the was
because as a doctor, you really only do enough to be
able to treat the patient. You never really get to understand
unless that person goes into a clinical study. How? What happened?
Um, so that the the why and the how and the mechanism was always
fascinating to me. I mean, this is why I love
needlework and sewing. I think it's because understanding
how you could put like these 2D patterns together to, to fit and
form a, around a 3D person. Like how does that work?
Like the technique, the skill, or how do you make butter tastes
like caramel. Like How it's, you know, like,
you can hear it in my voice like that. It's fire in me.
So wanting to know the how in the why is the basis of of my drive.
And then on top of that is how do I also become financially
independent and able to, you know, stand on my own two feet?
That has driven my career. After Lisa completed her
master's in grapevine virology, she immediately started work as an
intern at a biotech startup in Cape Town, earning peanuts at first,
which many of us did. Liesl worked in various departments.
As the startup grew and grew, and it ultimately became part of a global
company in those 11 years, Liesl said yes to many challenges figuring
out solutions as she went along, enjoying the frustration and the
thrill of experimenting and learning. The growing in the company that
that I did made me feel like I can do anything,
and I still have that delusion. I was saying to a friend the other
day, like, I dare you to tell me I can't do something. And then.
And then, yeah, watch me. I don't know where that comes from.
That has to be in your DNA, right? Like.
Even if Liesel doesn't know where that drive comes from,
I can tell you where it's taken her. Although Liesel had thought she
might be a lady of leisure for at least six months in Sweden, a casual
visit to a lab facility in London. You know,
just to have a look around led to a job offer just one week later.
So within two months of arriving in a brand new country,
Liesel was back at work taking on new challenges and figuring
things out as she went along. I was like, you know what I need
to do? I need to make a friend. And you didn't have to be a
Swedish friend. But I needed to make a friend on that
side that I can confess things to. I don't think humans can live
without, um, a friend. And I was worried a little bit
that this friend that I'm making is only going to get a part of
me that I can offer, because everything else is hard.
And then I made friends who went through the same stuff I did,
and they understood. Making friends has been lovely
because it feels like I myself again. I invited a family over for a braai
and I cooked and the cooking was easy and they were blown away.
Like there was those moments that I kind of cemented in my in
my brain to like, remind me, you know, who I, who I really am.
For Liesl, the last three years have been an adventure.
One way she's lost herself and slowly rediscovered the core of who
she is in a completely new way. It's an odd feeling,
like crying from happiness is odd. It's, for example, seeing a piece
of infrastructure in Sweden that, you know, would help so many
people in, in southern Africa. Like, if we could just implement
this there, it's that so joyful that the technology exists,
but then so sad that so few humans get to experience it.
I think all of the new experiences, you may experience them for what
they are like. You walk into the Lego store in
Denmark and you know you. You know how your friends love
Lego and you want them there with you next to you.
And so my technique at that stage is to pretend that they're there
and we're experiencing it together. That helps.
You never know what your emotional response is going to be.
So sometimes you're you experience something beautiful and then you cry
or you see something sad and then you laugh because, yeah, it's it's
very it's it's a hard place to be. It's like the in-between world.
And I've since leaving had a lot of inspiration from other
experts around the world. I see how they say that you're
never you're never, ever going to fit in at home again.
Perhaps that's the secret joy of saying yes to change to adventure and
the unknown, knowing who you are and being comfortable with that knowledge
so that you don't feel like you have to give up who you are to fit in.
And unfortunately, you never truly feel that you fit in the new place.
But honestly, that has always been true for me. I've.
I've always been a coloured aunty from Cape Town, you know,
with a masters in virology. I've always been a little,
a lot different. I always find myself in unexpected
situations and I, I definitely have the skills and the mindset and
the strength to to deal with it and love it. Liesel is loving it.
Thankfully with someone that is steadfast and always by her side and.
On most of the time has the opposite reaction to most things than I have.
Mine is always very strongly emotional and he is always very
logical and factual. Being even keeled is probably the the
thing that I value the most in him. It is the long term sort of
anchor to my kite, like if I am blowing in the wind.
He's he's just my, my anchor. And that happens daily and
effortlessly for him, for him, for the rest of us,
we're blowing in the wind. And with Leslie's passion and Anton's
steadiness, Noah is developing his own sense of curiosity.
Like I wanted him to be able to deal or see big feelings and
deal with big feelings. Um, as soon as he was able to,
to see and understand. And I think that kids can survive
most things as long as they know that they caregivers love them
and are there for them. And the rest is it doesn't matter
actually where you are in the world or how cold it is outside.
It's the fun and the joy and the love that you have when you're
spending time together as a family. I've asked him already, like,
are you happy or sad that we left South Africa?
And then he would say things like happy and sad.
And so he, he gets it, uh, and he he accepts it.
He doesn't question my decisions yet. Maybe he will.
And I will say, I'll probably say we made the decision for all the for
all three of us, it was more job opportunities and a chance to learn
more things for all three of us. And it was we. It was an adventure.
We were going to do something completely new. And we did it for.
For fun, for interest, for excitement, for for like,
love of life. I think that's how I would
describe it to an older Noah. And so when we light a brai on a
scorching summer evening, we take a page from Liza's book
and imagine that they are here enjoying it with us.
Or we picture the bears in a snowy winter wonderland.
Noah learning how to ski, and Liesel and Anton holding hands, anchoring
each other in the face of adventure.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Something Shifted.
You can follow something shifted on Apple Podcasts or your
favorite podcast player and give it a five star review.
Go on, I know you want to. And then be sure to share this
episode with your friends and family. Also, remember to use my code
Hash Shift 50 at checkout when you place your first order on you
KuCoin and you'll get 50% off. You can find me on Instagram at Sean
Lewis and my mailing list is three, two, one shift and out every
second Sunday. Think of it as a self-care blitz,
giving you three things for your mind, two things for your body
and one thing for your soul. Plus, along the way,
a few little extra fun surprises. All of the links are in the
episode's show notes. Thanks, as always to my executive
producer, Rwanda, and to you for believing in possibility.
My name is Sean and this is something shifted. See you in two weeks. Bye.