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.
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What's a way I can volunteer where I can be near or acquainted with death? Stuff like suicide hotlines, or doing some work around a funeral home, or something. Not anything like a job, but some thankless work I can do on the odd weekend where everyone around is sad or somber. Honestly I can probably only spare a few hours a week.
I want the burden of mourning, or the heaviness. I want to do something necessary and generally unpleasant, because I think I'm particularly well-suited for emotional lows or even tragedy (but maybe not necessarily trauma). When my 19-year-old sister-in-law overdosed, I experienced plenty of serious faces and serious conversations, and I was slightly intoxicated by it, like the places we were going and the things people were saying mattered very much.
In addition to the other suggestions, I would add facilitating a grief from death support group. One may already exist and you could just attend. Even though you aren't technically volunteering I think it still fits the spirit of volunteering because you are helping other people process their grief just by showing up and being supportive. I think rationalist-adjacent thinkers can often add a valuable perspective to support groups if they are also personally impacted by the issue.
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