Let’s expect wins
Hot summer days that we will not complain about, a perilous trip north and disappointing eating experiences had us dump being let down to expect wins instead.
The summer sun cast a blazing eye across the earth. It sent us scuttling to the shade and into cooler rooms. The occasional breeze alleviated the heavy heat somewhat but never built up enough momentum to bring in the clouds and rain.
We refuse to complain about the heat. The days of grey, wet and cold are too near a memory. We wake early for cool walks and slide into the pool in the late afternoon for a cool off dip. It is summer and it is good.
In an airconditioned car we took a mini road trip north to meet with a prospective client. It’s not that far to Centurion, near Pretoria, but we like to joke about the distance. It was good to get out, as we have committed to do, but we were grateful that we don’t have to travel in that traffic on that highway too often.
The road is perilous
The N1 highway was perilous. Primarily because people drove so badly. The fast lane was the preferred lane for everybody no matter how fast or slow they drove. Trucks tried to overtake on uphills. They crawled abreast of each other and took up two lanes while they held everyone behind them back.
Some drivers thought they were living in a movie scene. They wove in and out of lanes while on their mobile phones and couldn’t be trusted to brake in time if there was a sudden jam ahead.
“It’s so disappointing to get on the road and be constantly faced with too hurried, too self absorbed and too distracted drivers,” muttered Matthew.
Chantal mostly kept her head down while Matthew swore at the idiots on the road.
We arrived at our destination mostly intact and unscathed. Our meeting went well. Very well. The road back was mercifully open. On the other side a road block had created a parking lot of the highway. We sighed in relief that we were going the other way.
A full weekend
We had a full weekend of meeting friends we had not seen since before Christmas! We wondered how it could be that it had been that long. It had. No excuses. This is life. The wonderful thing about these friends is that it doesn’t matter when we last saw them, it felt like last week.
No-one gets mad that more effort wasn’t made. We were grateful to see each other again and we had plenty to catch up on. We met one friend for pizza on Friday evening, another for breakfast at our favourite spot on Saturday and two more joined us for tea on Sunday afternoon.
Our experiences at the restaurants were less than stellar. Delays were the order of both the evening and morning eateries but because we were so busy talking we didn’t really feel the drag. Sadly this was the second time in as many visits that we had to wait, and make do with sub-standard food.
We were very disappointed. Eyes had been taken off the oven and the grill. Co-ordination was incidental as kitchen staff made their own rules for which tables were served when. Hence our extended waits.
Disappointment has peppered our lives
On a larger scale disappointment has peppered our lives over the years. After developing Shape of Emotion (see below for our 8th birthday homage), and enthusiastically marketing our training we were perpetually disappointed in the lack of uptake.
When we approached schools with a view to train educators in Shape of Emotion we were met with enthusiasm but low capacity to implement. After an initial spike of interest, attendance at our Emotional Fitness Classes trickled to nothing.
Wherever we went the work was welcomed with open arms but soon there would be backtracking and reticence when it came to initiating a pilot or a project. Funding, finances and forethought were limited when what was most urgent in that organisation sucked up all the resources.
“Always hopeful, but often disappointed” became something of a slogan of ours. It made us feel resilient but it also had a fateful ring to it. We armed ourselves for the next dismissal or negative answer as we built up the equivalent of a stock pile of rejection letters. If JK Rowling could be rejected by 12 publishers, who were we to complain?
Let’s expect wins
Although our disappointment was understandable and normal in the circumstances, it did us no good to expect it. It was not the cape of the battle hardened but rather a wet blanket to carry around.
In our transition into this year, we reflected that if there was one thing that we wanted to say goodbye to, it was disappointment. Not the disappointment that comes from an unsatisfactory experience at a restaurant. Or a delayed drive on the highway. That is felt and let go. It is the specific disappointment that starts to reek of judgment and failure.
“I’ve had enough of feeling like that,” announced Matthew.
“Me too,” agreed Chantal.
Together they got into a huddle, regrouped and strode into the zone of “Let’s expect wins.”
Until next time.
Yours in feeling,
Chantal & Matthew
Eight years of Shape of Emotion
For the greater part of 2017 we had sat with a question that had no easy answer.
South Africa had the lowest mental health score in the world. Over 17 million diagnosed anxiety disorders in a population of 58 million. 2.8 psychologists per 100,000 people. Eighteen million citizens living at a poverty threshold of $1.90 a day. A country shaped by slavery, colonialism, Apartheid, civil unrest, and ongoing economic collapse.
The maths of the prevailing model simply did not work. One therapist. One patient. One hour. Repeat. There were not enough therapists. There would never be enough therapists. And the children arriving at school every morning, locked in fight-or-flight from the violence and poverty surrounding them, could not learn. Education was supposed to be the way out. But education requires a brain that is online, and a nervous system in survival mode takes that offline.
And so we asked the question: What if we could build something different? Something that works with children and adults. Something that works in groups. An African solution for an African problem.
We had no idea if it was even possible.
On 3 February 2018 in a small room in Linden, Johannesburg we presented Shape of Emotion to a small group of people at a pilot workshop.
Eight years later, Shape of Emotion has been used with people from all over the world. It works and both the world and the science is beginning to finally catch up.
Here’s our homage to Shape of Emotion on its eighth birthday.
Credits for this issue — Images: 5th Place
Written by
Chantal Dawtrey
Supporting women, especially in midlife and beyond, to navigate life transitions · Emotional fitness coach
Chantal supports women, especially in midlife and beyond, to navigate life transitions. She designs and delivers data informed digital programmes that build organisational emotional fitness. She helps people move beyond habitual patterns into greater awareness, agency, and well being.
With over 15 years of coaching experience and more than two decades in facilitation and human development, Chantal partners with individuals, teams, and organizations to build emotional resilience, enhance self-awareness, and develop sustainable well-being strategies.
Her primary focus as a coach is supporting women, especially those in their 50’s and beyond, to navigate profound life transitions with clarity, steadiness and self-reconnection. Finding answers to questions about identity, purpose, belonging and desire to an emergence, a reclamation and a return to self.
If you're going through a transition and would like support, let's talk.
Matthew Green
Reducing the Certainty Deficit in high-performing people and teams · Emotional fitness coach
Matthew works with athletes, performance teams, and anyone who wants to reduce the Certainty Deficit in their situation or context.
The Certainty Deficit is the space between what you can do and what your body will let you do when it counts. It is context-specific and situational. A person or athlete can have zero deficit in one situation and a significant one in another.
The body holds beliefs that keep the Certainty Deficit in place. These beliefs run deeper than self-talk and faster than any conscious strategy. When they shift, the ceiling shifts, and new possibilities arise.
Matthew is also an emotional fitness coach who supports individuals to live and lead from a place of inner clarity and stability. The work is somatic-first, practical, and grounded.
If you're seeing a pattern that current approaches haven't shifted, let's talk.
My origin story: Why elite athletes underperform when it counts
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