The weeks that were

It’s been a busy couple of weeks: Shape of Emotion has another Level 1 Foundation graduate! Visiting the Mother City. Making some new friends and visiting old ones.

We’ve been missing in action for the last few weeks. You may have noticed (we hope you did!) As with many of you, November was super-full and busy. There were some key highlights: we had the pleasure of conferring a Level 1 Foundation certificate onto Snooky Msibi, we received word that the trademark for Shape of Emotion has jumped through another hoop and we visited the Mother City and surrounds.

Another Shape of Emotion graduate!

Snooky Msibi did her Level 1 Foundation Training in July and completed her practicum by the end of September but we were only able to get her certificate to her in November. We like to make a celebration of it to honour and acknowledge the commitment to doing the work. We met her and her sponsor Mahmood Sonday at Mike’s Kitchen, Parktown (Johannesburg). After a celebratory drink and snack and amid an oncoming storm we gave her the certificate and took the photos. Congratulations Snooky!

Integrative medicine in the Western Cape

At the end of November we went down to the Western Cape to attend a weekend integrative medicine conference in Somerset West. We added days on either side of the weekend with the intention of meeting old friends and new contacts. Spending a few days in the beautiful Cape is in itself always a good idea.

The conference was on integrative medicine. We had booked ourselves on it months before and as the time drew closer to the date we wondered why we had chosen to attend this conference. The work we do is not exactly of the medical world, so what were we thinking? A quick (Google) search made it a bit clearer:

Integrative medicine focuses on your well-being and considers all aspects of your health: physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental.

Where does our work fit?

Our work fits into the emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and environmental realms so it seemed like a good fit. It was an arduous two days. The focus was very much on the physical rather than the other stuff. From the “outside-in” rather than the “inside-out”. We sat through lectures on hormones, cannabis, ozone therapy, frequency specific microcurrent, harmful environmental chemicals and their effect on our health. Outside the stallholders mostly continued the theme of outside-in with a few creative energetic focused offerings sprinkled amongst a plethora of cannabis products, supplements, diet options and vitamins.

As was expected there was a concentration on science, research and evidence based methods and approaches. Nothing wrong with that other than it smacked of the lab, white coats and superiority. Then one of the speakers reminded us that of all the scientifically researched, double-blind control tests done in the medical field only 30% of these could be replicated. So much for science!

Maybe it’s us, maybe we have just lost the capacity to sit through lectures for an entire day but on top of this bum-numbing challenge was the lack of networking opportunities. Truth be told this is why we were really there – to network! We had some great engagements with the stall holders – they had nowhere to run and were eager to chat. The rest of the participants not so much. Everybody seemed to disappear during teatime and the conversation we sat in on at one lunchtime was around the “dire” state of South Africa, education and job opportunities. Mind numbing.

Connections and reconnections

Outside of the conference we had the opportunity to connect with an old school friend of Matthew’s, a group of university mates of mine, an Afrikaburn neighbour and a molecular biologist with more sensitivity and compassion than some of the conference speakers we encountered. We were blessed with sunshine and clear skies on the day we took off to take a roadtrip to Hermanus. The coastal drive back took our breaths away. We drove at 50kmh, pulling over to let more hasty vehicles pass.

So what is the point of all of this? Other than remembering to say that finding good quality vegetarian food in Somerset West is a bit like trying to find fresh leafy greens at KFC. (Sorry Somerset Westers, feel free to send recommendations for our next trip down). I think it is to say that the best part of our trip was found in the most surprising places – unplanned meetings, new friends and a beautiful sunrise to name a few. We are still not completely sure what the point of all of it was – but we are certain this will be revealed in time. Sometimes it is just about going with the flow, windblown as it is.