Table 8.
Content of received post CMOs
| Overarching CMO statement | Illustrative participant quotation |
|---|---|
| If people receive post, that has clearly had effort put into it, then this can feel particularly meaningful, because they appreciate the time and effort that the sender put into doing something kind for a stranger. | “if you send something physical like a letter it shows that someone’s taken that effort to do that, it’s not just like Ah I can just send a text, or I can just talk to somebody through a screen. You’ve actually taken the time to go out, get a letter or a card or whatever, put a bit of thought into what you’re writing, and purposely sent it to someone.” P5 |
| If you do not know anything about the person you are exchanging with, then you can still get a lot of value from receiving your card, because just being kind to people together is enough of a connection. | “You don’t know any information apart from a first name and a postal address for somebody, it means that it’s not about all the things we’ve got in common, it’s just about being a human being and by virtue of being another human being, and being able to say something that matters to somebody.” P1 |
| If what is written in received mail is applicable to your current circumstances, then this can feel particularly meaningful/helpful to wellbeing, because it can feel like it was the right message at the right time; a deeper connection with the mail and the person who wrote it. | “There is something uncanny and like surprisingly powerful I think, especially if you’re – if you’re in a receptive mood and there’s a lot of synchronicity that people report, so they’ll report “Oh my goodness, the message just came at exactly the right time” and like “It was amazing how it spoke to certain things, it was just what I needed to hear,” people say things like that.” P1 |
| If the sender has made references to particular faiths, beliefs, or to the personality, feelings, or experiences of the recipient, then this can detract from the joy of receiving mail, because the recipient can feel alienated if they do not ring true for them or they are viewed as problematic. | “[There] was a religious inference, or a religious reference, in there … and that just made me a feel a bit uneasy… it did have an alienating effect on me, and it could have an alienating effect on other people as well who are outside of the kind of white Christian heteronormative majority.” P12 |