5th Place, 102 2nd Street, Linden, Randburg (2025)

25/11/2025

Emotions Matter. Really!

Ep. 9, Battling burnout in an always-on work life

Burnout has seen an alarming increase and although it may appear that burnout is a 21st century ailment, it actually has ancient roots. Chantal and Matthew look at where the concept of burnout has originated from, what the symptoms of burnout are and what causes it. Some essential strategies to avoid as well as recover from burnout are discussed.

Listen here: https://emotionsmatterreally.5th.place/e/battling-burnout-in-an-always-on-work-life

Links of interest
The End of Burnout - a book by Jonathan Malesic.

24/11/2025

🔥 Emotion Regulation & Inflammation / Physical Health

A 2023 systematic review of 38 studies found that strong emotion regulation skills are consistently associated with lower levels of inflammation, whereas poor emotion regulation is linked to higher inflammation. (PubMed)

💛 This finding highlights how emotional mastery isn’t just about feeling good, it literally impacts your physical health. When you understand, express, and regulate emotions well, you reduce stress responses that would otherwise elevate inflammation. This creates more peace, presence, and stability in your daily life, while supporting your immune system and decreasing long-term health risks. Emotional mastery also helps you build psychological robustness, enabling you to handle life’s ups and downs with more calm and clarity. It strengthens connection, empathy, and communication, enriching both personal and professional relationships.

🌿 If emotional patterns can shape inflammation in the body, what might happen if you actively learned to regulate them better? Don’t let the chance to strengthen your long-term wellbeing pass you by, your future self will thank you.

🔗 https://www.udemy.com/course/5th-place-emotional-mastery-for-a-better-life/

🔖

19/11/2025

Going quiet in Kliptown - 10 October 2018

In October 2018 we went to Kliptown to do an Emotional Fitness Class for unemployed youth on behalf of Khulisa Social Solutions. Kliptown is the oldest district in Soweto. It has a noble history as the place where the Freedom Charter was born. It remains desperately poor.

We met a group of young people in a small crumbling room on the corner of two dirt roads. A makeshift pulpit, religious pictures and crosses taped on the wall said we were in a crude church. A group of ladies sat in the corner chatting and knitting.

Twelve young adults arranged themselves on rickety benches placed in a circle. We took them through a body scan and an Emotional Fitness Class where they were guided to release a difficult emotion and open and embrace a supportive one.

English was not their first language, it was hot and sticky inside and hot and noisy out. But they managed to follow along. Some participants left, bored or with something more pressing to attend to. Nine stayed for the duration of the morning.

Their feedback was overwhelmingly positive:

The thing I enjoyed the most is the experience of dealing with my inner side.
I learned how to get in touch with my inner soul and keep calm all the time.
I’ve learnt about how to manage your stress. How to take care of your body.
I enjoyed communicating with my inner peace and I learned on how to distract myself from proliferation of things around me mentally.
I want to learn more and gain more knowledge and teach others who don’t know.
To connect with myself and to know how to release bad, sad feelings and open up for good.

As we left we encountered two Mercedes C63 cars, valued at around R1.5 million each. One was driving in Kliptown with windows open, the other on the Golden Highway just off Union Road. The contrast to the surrounding poverty was stark. We looked at one another and smiled, happy that we had offered these young people a glimpse of real gold.

18/11/2025

Emotions Matter. Really!
Ep. 8 Freedom and emotional fitness

Tuesday Apr 26, 2022

It is Freedom Day in South Africa, a public holiday that commemorates the first democratic elections held in 1994. Matthew and Chantal consider what freedom means to them and what not having freedom can do to one’s mental and emotional wellbeing. They look at different freedoms and the responsibilities they come with. Finally they address how one can be free from one’s own self imposed limitations and beliefs.

Listen here: https://emotionsmatterreally.5th.place/e/freedom-and-emotional-fitness

Music credit: Liborio Conti - Inspire

Links of interest
And Still I Rise - A Book of Poems by Maya Angelou

Episode links
To experience a live Emotional Fitness Class visit https://5th.place/5th-place-offerings/emotional-fitness-class/emotional-fitness-class-on-insight-timer/

17/11/2025

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
— Paulo Coelho

💡 When we commit to emotional mastery, we aren’t just improving how we feel internally, we’re changing the environment we create around us. By learning to understand, express, and regulate emotions effectively, we cultivate greater calm, presence, and psychological resilience. This inward growth naturally influences the quality of our relationships, our decision-making, and even our physical health by reducing stress and tension. In many ways, Coelho’s words echo this truth: personal growth radiates outward, shaping our world as much as our inner life.

✨ The Emotional Mastery for a Better Life course can guide you toward the version of yourself that elevates everything around you. Small internal shifts today can lead to significant transformation tomorrow.

🔗 https://www.udemy.com/course/5th-place-emotional-mastery-for-a-better-life/

🔖

14/11/2025

“Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgement, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’”
— Brené Brown

Empathy is one of the purest expressions of emotional mastery. It means regulating your own emotions so you can really listen, stay present, and connect without defensiveness or judgement. This strengthens resilience, deepens relationships, and brings more peace and presence into your everyday life. It also supports the Relating pillar by helping you build both inner and outer connection.

✨ Insight: When you practise empathy consistently, your brain literally strengthens pathways linked to emotional regulation, making you calmer and more responsive rather than reactive in daily situations.

🌱
Carrot approach: If you want relationships that feel supportive rather than draining, and communication that feels clear instead of overwhelming, Emotional Mastery for a Better Life gives you the tools to get there.

🔗 https://www.udemy.com/course/5th-place-emotional-mastery-for-a-better-life/

🔖

13/11/2025

239. A marathon not a sprint
13 November 2025

Excerpt: A week full of meaningful connections gave us the energy to keep on going working in an environment not often respected or appreciated. We were reminded that our work is more like a marathon than a sprint.

It was a week chock full of exploratory meetings, coaching sessions, a fascinating talk, and granny day! Some weeks are busier than others, and last week was one of those. Not the crazy-can’t-fit-it-all-in-busy, more a delicious feast of engagement and connecting.

There were moments of “aah how are we going to fit it all in” but some deep breathing and a walk around the garden or sunroom settled the whizzing. We did fit it all in and we did get it all done. Of course.

Continue Reading on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/enablingthehow/p/a-marathon-not-a-sprint?r=yvd8w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

12/11/2025

Shape of Emotion care at Sekwati Primary School - 1 October 2018

The principal of Sekwati Primary School in Soweto had completed a one day Shape of Emotion course with us in July 2018. She asked if we would come to do a similar one for her teachers at the school. On 1 October 2018 we travelled to the school to deliver a one day workshop for educators and members of the SGB.

We had adapted our Level 1 course specifically for those who support others. We called it Shape of Emotion care.

The workshop was very successful and well received by those that showed up. We planned for ten participants. We sent them pre-workshop tests and collected them on the Friday before to be ready for the Monday workshop.

Four of the ten participants pitched up at the start of the day. It was the beginning of a school holiday which was more enticing than spending the day at school. The principal invited 3 others that were not part of the original group but we were happy to have them there. We started with seven participants in total, two more arrived late during the morning. We lost one participant at teatime and another two left after lunch.

In the end six participants completed the workshop.

Participants who did complete the entire day had this to say:

I personally enjoyed the workshop. Thank you very much guys. Keep up the good work.
This workshop it really works for me and that burden that was in my shoulder has gone. I just let it go.
This is life skills because we do have similar anger or emotional challenges in our everyday life.
I came with anger but I went home with peace.

We are very grateful to have been able to offer the workshop to those that arrived. It was a valuable experience for us and the participants really benefited too.

11/11/2025

Emotions Matter. Really! Ep.7
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022

Poetry, creativity and emotional fitness

Tea goes perfectly with poetry. Here at 5th Place we do love poetry and being creative. In this podcast Chantal and Matthew look at what poets themselves have said about poetry, how poetry and poems can support emotional fitness, creativity and the concept of flow. They discuss how poetry has impacted them as people and they share a few of their favourite poems.

Listen here: https://emotionsmatterreally.5th.place/e/poetry-creativity-and-emotional-fitness

Links of interest
Book: Poetry Rx: How Fifty Inspiring Poems Can Heal and Bring Joy to Your Life

Episode links
To experience an Emotional Fitness Class: https://5th.place/5th-place-offerings/emotional-fitness-class/emotional-fitness-class-on-insight-timer/

07/11/2025

🌤️ Here is a fun and light activity to help build and generate Emotional Fitness: Emotional Weather Chart

Pillars: Thinking, Feeling

Make a visible, lasting chart to track your emotional “weather”, your moods, triggers, and what helps you shift them. Treat your emotions like the atmosphere: changing, expressive, and full of useful information. Each day, mark your mood with a weather symbol, sunny for calm, stormy for anger, foggy for confusion, and note one strategy that helped you rebalance.
Emotional mastery is about understanding, expressing, and regulating emotions in healthy ways. This simple activity deepens self-awareness and attunement to your emotional state, key components of emotional fitness. Over time, you’ll start seeing patterns: what brings sunshine, what causes storms, and which emotional regulation tools truly work for you. Through reflection and curiosity (Thinking) and mindful awareness of your body and emotions (Feeling), you build greater resilience and presence. 🌈

✨ Carrot approach: Taking part in Emotional Mastery for a Better Life gives you the tools to interpret your inner weather with calm and clarity — so even when life brings storms, you’ll know how to find the rainbow.

🔗 https://www.udemy.com/course/5th-place-emotional-mastery-for-a-better-life/

🔖

06/11/2025

238. More evidence than action
6 November 2025

Excerpt: An opportunity to present at a conference set us up with mainly representatives from academic and research organisations. Plenty of evidence was presented. Now we need more action.

The 2nd South African Mental Health Conference took place at Emperors Palace, Kempton Park, last week. Its theme was Evidence to Action and we were privileged to do two oral presentations and one poster presentation. All were for very different tracks, which said something about the breadth of our work but did confuse some people who sought to find a box to place us in...

Continue reading on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/enablingthehow/p/more-evidence-than-action?r=yvd8w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

05/11/2025

Presenting at the 2nd SA Mental Health Conference 28 - 29 October 2025
The 2nd South African Mental Health Conference took place at Emperor’s Palace, Kempton Park, Johannesburg, from 28 - 29 October 2025.

We contributed two oral presentations and a poster presentation all in different tracks. Both oral presentations, given by Chantal, were held on the same day, Tuesday 28 October.

The first presentation titled, From Numbers to Narratives: A Human-Centred Approach to Workplace Mental Health Assessment, was mistakenly added to a track on Student wellbeing. It was too late to fix the error so Chantal just had to frame the presentation in a way that it could be viewed from the perspective of any organisation including academic institutions.

Despite being noticeably out of place the presentation was well received.

The second presentation titled, Emotional Superpowers: Innovating Proactive Youth Mental Health At Scale, garnered a good deal of interest as a novel and innovative way to proactively lay the foundations for good mental health, or as we call it, emotional fitness, in high school youth.

Matthew’s poster presentation, Shape of Emotion: A Pilot Feasibility Study for Anxiety Relief, solicited interest even though it competed with several other posters in a busy break.

We met many interesting and interested individuals over the course of the two days. We attended a cornucopia of presentations. Our offerings were noticeable and lauded for their non-academic but still robust research basis as well as the beautifully designed images and clear slides.

We look forward to the next SA Mental Health Conference to be held in 2027.

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