The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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This is a good video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4835tL4srpY?si=eHG--SvWXTwL612h
Basically there are three aspects to a good Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.
Prayer
Your parish might have free devotional books that give you a daily Lenten meditation to read. It's not a bad idea to follow along!
If not, reading a section a day of the Gospel of Mark is common. There are 16 chapters, so if you finish a chapter every 2-3 days you will arrive at the end around Holy Week. Look up Lectio Divina methods of reading.
The Imitation of Christ is a good devotional book as well though it might be too much meat if you're still absorbing milk.
Otherwise, there are a myriad of popular Lent books out every year with forty days of meditations, reflections, etc. Something like https://www.avemariapress.com/products/witness-1. Some people swear by them.
The important thing is to not just read it, but then spend 5-10 minutes thinking about what you just read, asking the Holy Spirit to guide you in prayer.
Fasting
There are two days of fasting, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Abstinence every Friday of Lent.
Some people do more food fasts. Everything from OMAD and vegan diets to giving up candy/coffee/soda. I'm doing the ex150 diet with the occasional fish instead of beef.
Lately there is a stronger push to do a digital fast. Some people log off social media except for Sundays. I uninstall the apps from my phone and keep to the computer. Set a two hour stretch every day where your phone is in another room. Something like that.
There are other kinds of fasts too - only listen to religious music, only watch religious programming, etc.
Almsgiving
If you are fasting from coffee-shop coffee and saving $25/week, give it to the poor. Basically, one of the benefits of certain types of fasting is it might save you some money, but instead of using that money to benefit yourself, use it to benefit others.
If you are not financially supporting your parish yet, prayerfully consider what you can offer going forward. If you cannot give money, consider giving time. For example, your parish might have a library, you can offer to help check in and shelve books for 30 minutes after mass ends.
Good Friday is not part of Lent, but basically finish strong. Whatever you were doing, double it. It's a tradition for my family to turn off all devices and be silent from 12 to 3 PM. If you can attend your parish's Holy Thursday/Good Friday/Easter Vigil services, I highly recommend going to all three at least once in your life.
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