65 - Using lent to do the things

Picking new and dropping old habits over the lenten season

I’ve spent most of my life as a standard Sunday-Sunday Christian. The type who loves her hymns and her canticles but can’t necessarily quote scripture. In recent years, my relationship with organised religion has become more strained than my mother would like.

While I may no longer attend church service regularly, I still enjoy and partake in certain christian practices, one of which is observing lent.

Lenten season for Christians is a solemn time and usually involves fasting. Having tried to fast unsuccessfully a few times, I have since chosen a different approach to observing lent. Every year around this time, I choose to either give up or pick up something for the 40 day duration.

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I tend to pick things I know I’m might be getting addicted to or things I have procrastinated about for a long time. And by doing so year after year, I’ve found a pretty decent opportunity to build new habits and break old ones.

One reason why this works well for me is that I usually pick something that I do/has to be done daily. I also like an unbroken streak and the challenge of not missing a day helps me to keep going.

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It’s never easy to start. I usually have to start thinking a few weeks ahead about what it is I want to give up/pick up. What steps I need to take to minimise my chances of slipping. What steps I need to take to increase my chances of success. Whether or not to share my plans with an accountability partner, and so on.

The first few days are usually the hardest. The agitation or craving if it’s a habit I’m trying to break, or the struggle to remember if it’s a habit I’m trying to build. However, at the end of the 40 days, I’m sometimes pleasantly surprised by how little I miss my old habit or how familiar my new habit has become.

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We’re barely a week into this year’s lenten season, so there’s still time for you to join in. What’s one thing you swear you’re not addicted to but find yourself doing regularly. Or the one you’ve been swearing up and down to get into but haven’t. Might be a good time to wean yourself of an old habit, or pick up a new one. Feel free to share what’s on your list.

One of the things I would like to add to this year’s list is listening to sermons again. I would like to find my own way back to forging a relationship with God and I’m hoping to find concise and impactful teachers to help with this, so please send me recommendations.

This week I listened to

Shane talk to Dr Anna Lembke about the pain and pleasure and how they relate to addiction. Dr Anna mentioned that one of the things she prescribes for her patients who come in with certain mental health challenges is a 30 day period of abstinence from their addiction, and I like how that tied in nicely with my annual 40 day hiatus from some of my vices.

I especially liked the end of the podcast where Shane asked her his wrap up question: “What is success to you?” Her answer was something along the lines of enjoying the small moments that make good days because “what i’ve discovered is a lot of good days add up to a pretty good life.”

A while ago, I interviewed my friend Stella for her podcast. I’m grateful to her for sharing a little about her encounter with cervical cancer. If you need one, here’s your reminder to get that health check done, and make it a regular occurence.

I am currently having a lot of anxiety around the ongoing elections in Nigeria. My heart is heavy and my chest is tight. I have logged off all social media to try and manage my anxiety and hold on to the scraps of hope I have left. Hopefully you’re doing much better than I am right now.

Here’s wishing you a week of materialised hopes. Amen.