Dear Students
We are all affected by the totally new reality caused by COVID-19. The threat of the disease, and the restrictions of isolation often result in feelings of uncertainty and stress. We can imagine that being far from family and friends makes this experience even more difficult. Each of us reacts in their own way and has their own coping strategies. It is always good to understand our emotions better and it is worth to stop for a moment and think “how do I feel now, what do I feel?”. If we dedicate some mindful time to ourselves, we will be able to better respond to our needs.
We would like to invite you to an exercise facilitating a very personal expression of feelings. Please, take a moment, sit down, close your eyes and identify your feelings. Following this moment
of self-reflection, use your mobile to take pictures of anything in your surroundings that would express your feelings in the best way. Think of colours, think of objects, shapes. It may be totally abstract,
it may be realistic. It may also be a photo of your drawing, if this would let you express yourself better.
Note, that while many people feel stressed, there are many people who also identify multiple positive feelings – suddenly they have more time for reading books, watching movies, talking online with friends, mediation, long-forgotten hobbies. Don’t be negative or positive, just be honest, identify all aspects of this new situation. You may send us more (max.3) pictures if this would allow you to share your complex emotions better.
Please, accompany pictures with a few words, adjectives, nouns or verbs helping us to understand your message. You may also give titles to your pictures or the whole short series. Obviously don’t disobey the rules of isolation, don’t go out! 🙂 Also, avoid sending us selfies as we don’t want to violate your anonymity.
How we will use your pictures?
First of all, we would show some of them during the online webinar for the global audience for medical teachers and students aimed at discussing students’ current mental health needs. We would also like to publish them in the journal. Moreover, we will use them for an online exhibition (with you invited to see it as the first visitor).
We hope that this exercise would not only allow you to express your feelings but also to make us all feel working together on a joint project despite being isolated in the real world due to the pandemic.
Link to submit pictures and words: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/COVID19photographs
Deadline for submissions: 14 April (the best idea is to do it soon, not to forget about the project)
Our understanding is that by sending the pictures and words you allow us to use them anonymously for the above explained purpose.
If you give us your mail, we will invite you to join the online webinar and send you the link to the online exhibition.
We hope to see many fantastic pictures soon!
MUL Prof. J.Janczukowicz and Centre for Medical Education team