Tag: writing

Notice

Kristine Binder

Every year when Fat Tuesday rolls around, I decide I’m going to do Lent right. There’s always a brief window — usually while holding a paczki — where I become extremely optimistic about my future holiness. I am going to give up something that will make me a better person after 40 days is over…
I’ve given up soda (Dr. Pepper is my fave and still a treat!). I’ve given up chocolates and dessert. I’ve given up coffee (the Lord and I both know that one was never sustainable). I once gave up buying clothes and gave something away every day. I’ve tried the rosary. I’ve tried daily Bible reading. I’ve tried structure and discipline and holy intentions.
And some years it stuck. Most years it… didn’t. Turns out self-improvement and I have a complicated relationship.
Those who know me also know I’m not really a “church” or organized-religion person in the traditional sense. But my faith runs deep. My belief in God and Jesus is steady and personal, and I pray every day. The Memorare is one that is more like a mantra and has become the prayer I fall back on when I don’t have words of my own – especially on the days when my prayers sound less like poetry and more like, “Okay… now what?”
This year I’m not feeling any call to heroic deprivation. Honestly, I could use all the desserts…. eating my feelings has been my go-to lately, and at this point the desserts and I are in a committed relationship.
So this Lent I’m not giving up small pleasures in hopes that suffering will magically reorder my soul. This year I’m giving up the things that are actually stealing my peace.
I’m giving up pretending I am a person who can successfully give up something like food or shopping for 40 days. Growth starts with honesty. I’m giving up rehearsing old resentments….. the ones I polish and revisit like they’re part of my personality. The stories I tell myself about other people, and the even harsher ones I tell myself.
I’m giving up the voice in my head that still thinks I should be a past version of me if I just try hard enough. I am giving up the lies I have told myself for years about who and what I deserve. I’m giving up expecting immediate text responses from my kids (this may be the holiest sacrifice of all… and also the least successful). I’m giving up believing the internet is an accurate representation of the world. It isn’t. It’s an algorithm, not reality – and definitely not a spiritual director.
Mostly, I’m giving up control – the exhausting illusion that if I monitor everything closely enough, worry hard enough, and plan carefully enough, I can keep life neat, predictable, and according to my own plans. Life, as it turns out, has never once agreed to that arrangement, no matter how convincing my spreadsheets were.
So instead of subtraction or even addition, this year I’m choosing attention.
For over a year I posted every single week…… seven moments of joy from the previous week. One photo for each day. One small moment of beauty at a time. And then life got heavy. Grief, responsibility, noise, fear, logistics. Noticing got replaced with surviving…… and surviving doesn’t leave much room for wonder.
So I’m going back.
From Ash Wednesday forward, I’m keeping a daily practice of deliberately looking for what is still good. Each day I’ll share one small thing – a photo of something I find beautiful, a kind interaction with a stranger, a sentence someone said that mattered, or one honest gratitude from the day.
Nothing curated. Nothing inspirational or poster perfect. Just real evidence that goodness still exists right here, right now.
Because social media….. and honestly the world lately …. trains our brains to scan for danger. For outrage. For proof everything is broken. But God is rarely found in the shouting. God shows up in the ordinary. Jesus himself saw straight through the ugliness of humanity to the beautiful parts. He sat with the outcasts, forgave the mess, loved people anyway. I mean… the man literally died for us and for the sins of the world. That kind of love isn’t loud. It’s steady, present, and usually happening in small moments we almost miss because of the chaos around us.
Sunrise peaking through the buildings. Someone holding a door. A laugh you didn’t expect. The dog excitedly waiting for you to arrive home. The moment your mind finally goes quiet and you just smile…..usually when you weren’t even trying.
I’m not pretending life is easy. I’m not ignoring the steady stream of news. I am still grieving. I’m just refusing to miss beauty while pain and ugliness exist. Holiness, at least for me this year, might look less like discipline and more like paying attention.
This Lent I’m giving up the constant analysis, the doom-scrolling, the need to fix every outcome. And instead, I’m going to look for the goodness and presence of God.
One ordinary day at a time. One ordinary moment at a time.
If you need that too, I would love it if you would join me. It would genuinely bring me joy to see what brings you joy – what goodness you notice in the world, because most of us have no trouble agreeing on what makes us angry or frustrated. Maybe we can practice agreeing on the good, too.
Maybe none of us will emerge dramatically transformed but maybe we’ll notice more goodness, carry a little more peace, and arrive at Easter ready to celebrate with real joy when He is risen…
the kind of joy that feels earned because we actually learned to see it.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Alignment

Kristine Binder

At 60, I would love to tell you I have mastered self-love — that I wake up every day fully confident, fully certain, fully comfortable in my own skin. I don’t.
Many days I am still critical. Many days I still question myself. Many days I slip into old patterns of thinking I should be more, do more, fix more.
But I am finally understanding something I wish I learned decades ago: self-love isn’t a switch that flips on. It’s a pattern you recognize.
So, on Valentine’s day, instead of asking, Do I love myself?
I asked a better question:
Where am I already loving myself?
And suddenly the evidence was everywhere.
I love myself — and my brain — enough to read and learn something new every single day. Growth is not accidental at this age. It is a decision. Curiosity is hope in action, and I am still planning a future I want to be present for.
I love myself — and my body — enough to move it with intention every day. Not as punishment. Not to become smaller. But to stay alive inside this body that has carried me through six decades of joy, heartbreak, birth, grief, laughter, and survival…no matter what it looks like.
I love myself enough to walk slowly. To practice walking meditation. To be still in a world that profits off my distraction. Stillness used to feel unproductive. Now I understand it is repair.
I love myself enough to eat foods that nourish me and foods that delight me — because balance is health too. Deprivation never healed anyone. Peace did.
I love myself enough to love Lucky, my constant companion. His love is unconditional and unspoken. He does not ask me to be younger, thinner, quieter, nicer, easier. He just loves me. And in that loving, he reminds me I am allowed to exist without performing.
I love myself enough to finally stand up for what I know is right. Even when my voice shakes. Even when it disappoints people. Even when it costs me relationships I once tried to preserve at my own expense. Silence is not kindness to yourself.
I love myself enough to allow myself to feel grief. Real grief. Not the rushed, polite version. I have lost people, versions of my life, expectations, and imagined futures. Honoring that pain is not weakness — it is loyalty to my self and my own story.
I love myself enough to surround myself with beauty. Fresh flowers. Music. Words. Reflections of sunlight. The small things that say life is still offering me moments of beauty and I am still allowed to receive them.
And yes — I love myself enough to buy the things that others think frivolous but bring me joy. Joy is not wasteful. Joy is maintenance for the soul.
So no, I don’t fully love myself yet.
But I trust myself more.
I protect my peace more.
I choose myself more.
And maybe that is what self-love actually looks like at 60 — not arrival, but alignment.
Not perfection, but permission.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.
I did not wait for love to find me.
I practiced giving it to the one person who has been here for every single moment of my life.
Me.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Yes

Kristine Binder

For most of my life, “yes” came easily — sometimes too easily. I said yes to responsibility, to caregiving, to stepping in, smoothing things over, and holding everything together. I said yes to being strong even when it was quietly breaking me. I said yes to survival because it felt necessary, even when what I really wanted was to live.
That kind of yes kept me moving, but it also kept me stuck.
This year feels different. Not because everything around me has changed, but because I’m willing to respond differently.
This is the year of yes – and yes, most importantly, to myself.
I’m not talking about impulsive decisions or forced optimism. I’m talking about intentional yeses. Yeses to things I’ve never done before. Yeses to invitations I would have declined because they felt uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Yeses to challenges that pull me out of anxiety and into motion.
For a long time, fear made my choices for me. It disguised itself as caution and convinced me that staying where I was kept me safe. But staying where I was didn’t protect me – it just kept me circling the same thoughts and patterns, hoping for change without taking steps toward it.
Saying yes now means choosing experience over imagination. It means allowing myself to try without needing certainty or guarantees. I may not love everything. I may not enjoy every moment. But I am willing to show up and see what happens instead of deciding in advance that something won’t work.
This year of yes is about movement. It’s about curiosity instead of avoidance. It’s about letting action interrupt anxiety. I don’t need every step to feel comfortable –
I just need it to keep moving me forward.
So I’m saying yes – to new experiences, to challenges, to invitations, and to change. Not because I have everything figured out, but because fear doesn’t get to lead anymore.
This is my yes.
And I’m ready to see where it takes me.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Becoming

Kristine Binder

Your past does not define your future. Not the good choices you made, not the decisions you aren’t proud of, not the moments that brought you joy, and not the experiences that tore you apart. All of it happened, all of it shaped you, but none of it gets to decide what comes next unless you allow it to.
For a long time, I carried my past like a verdict. I treated certain choices as proof that I should know better by now or that I had somehow failed myself. I replayed moments that went beautifully and moments that broke me open, trying to figure out what they said about who I was and what I deserved. I gave the past far more authority than it ever earned.
What I’m learning, over and over again, is that the past is information, not destiny. It can teach you. It can inform you. It can offer wisdom if you’re willing to listen. But it does not get to write your future on your behalf.
I’ve also come to understand how deeply belief shapes experience. What we expect, we prepare for. What we fear, we rehearse. What we believe we deserve, we either make room for or quietly push away. The energy we carry, consciously or not, has a way of finding its way back to us. What you believe, you receive.
This is a lesson I am still learning. Some days I catch myself slipping into old narratives, bracing for disappointment, waiting for the other shoe to drop, assuming the next chapter will be harder than the last. Other days, I notice that pattern and choose something different. I remind myself that change doesn’t require perfection — it requires progress. Small shifts. Better questions. A little more trust than yesterday.
Calling in the good doesn’t mean ignoring what hurt or pretending difficult things didn’t happen. It means refusing to let pain have the final word. It means allowing joy to arrive without immediately questioning how long it will last or what it will cost. It means making space for possibility instead of living in constant state of anticipatory grief.
I don’t want my future to be a reaction to my past. I want it to be a response to who I am now. The mistakes I’ve made don’t disqualify me from what’s ahead. The joy I’ve experienced doesn’t trap me in nostalgia. And the grief I’ve carried doesn’t mean more loss is inevitable.
So this is what I’m practicing now: choosing progress over perfection, loosening my grip on the past, and intentionally calling in what I want more of. Not perfectly. Not every day. But with awareness, patience, and intention.
Because the future isn’t something I inherit. It’s something I help create. And I’m learning, one step at a time, to call in the good.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Here

Kristine Binder

I’ve spent most of my life living everywhere except the present.
If I’m honest, being here has always felt unfamiliar — even unsafe. My mind learned early that it was better to stay busy traveling through time: backward into analysis, forward into fear. If I wasn’t replaying what already happened, I was scanning the horizon for what might go wrong next.
I told myself that was responsibility.
That it was preparation.
That it was being smart.
It wasn’t.
It didn’t protect me.
It didn’t prevent pain.
It didn’t make me safer.
All it did was keep me from actually living the life that was happening right in front of me.
Not being present has not served me well. It has cost me peace, softened moments, and entire stretches of time I can’t get back. It has kept me braced instead of open, vigilant instead of curious, exhausted instead of grounded.
Part of presence, for me, is letting go of control.
I’ve wanted to control everything — outcomes, conversations, relationships, timing — because control felt like safety. If I could anticipate every possible problem, maybe I could avoid the worst of it. But when I can’t control something — and so much of life can’t be controlled — my brain jumps straight to catastrophe. I rehearse disasters that haven’t happened and may never happen, as if fear itself is a form of armor.
It isn’t.
Being here means trusting that worry is not preparedness.
It means understanding that anxiety doesn’t equal foresight.
It means choosing intention over survival mode.
Presence asks something different of me. It asks me to notice instead of anticipate. To respond instead of brace. To breathe instead of grip tighter.
I want to wake up and feel the morning instead of immediately reviewing the past or forecasting the future. I want to notice the way light moves across a room, the sound of a laugh, the quiet moments that pass unnoticed when I’m stuck in my head.
I don’t want to live in hindsight or hypotheticals anymore.
I want to be here.
Right now.
In the tiny details that actually make up a life.
Presence is not something I’ve mastered. It feels like a muscle I never learned how to use and am now strengthening one small moment at a time. Some days I catch myself drifting back into old patterns — analyzing, worrying, controlling — and other days I manage to stay.
But I know this much: the present moment is the only place I can actually live. It’s the only place joy exists. It’s the only place connection happens. And it’s the only place I get to choose how I show up.
For the rest of my life — however long it is, however it unfolds — I want to be present for it.
Not perfect.
Not fearless
Just here.
And for the first time, that feels like enough.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace