Creative writing during second lockdown. ‘’HEROINES’’ pilot online course creates new opportunities for social connection

‘’………….. it is clear that the city-state is a natural growth, and that man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it ‘’. Aristotle

Human beings are by nature social species. It’s an innate trait; all of us need the acceptance and the presence of others to meet our psychological and social needs.  John Donne wrote in one of his poems “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent,” depicting the strong social ties between people (1).

Covid-19 has forced us to alter our social habits, our daily routines and our perception of life. Under these unprecedented circumstances we are trying to keep all the parts of our lives still stuck together re-arranging and reshaping our next plans every day.

During the preparation of our ‘’Heroines’’ pilot course we were waiting with eagerness  for our first face to face session to welcome our participants, to getting to know each other to share with them the power of therapeutic writing as a self-empowering tool.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the related lockdown measures caused lots of problems we had to encounter such as gathering prohibition, insecurity and unstable work schedule .

Yet human beings are also adaptive species. Whenever we are facing an obstacle we have the power to build a bridge to overcome it. Every crisis brings new opportunities. These were some of our thoughts during this period of preparation. So we had to invent new ways of coming together, to search for creative digital tools, to overcome personal second thoughts, to make new adjustments in  our ‘’Heroines’’ pilot course and eventually we managed.

In this time of increasing social distancing we managed to create a virtual safe place where we can gather together with our eight women participants every week creating our weekly routine. It was a big surprise for us that for all our participants ‘’Heroines’’ online pilot course constitutes for them an opportunity to stay connected with other people, to share personal experiences, to discover that they are facing similar difficulties. As one of our women replied in our question on what was the most important thing during our first session ‘’I felt that I am not alone, it was so inspiring so refreshing for my brain, heart & soul”.

Reference

1. Donne J. ‘No Man is an Island’ accessed 12 /11/2020 https:// web.cs.dal.ca /~johnston/ poetry/island.html

 Vasia Tzanetou