I have a strong tendency to avoid the negative chit chat in the office, you know when your friends talk about everything that goes wrong in the management, in the country, in the world? I don’t want to engage with that kind of conversation.

I don’t want to ruin my inner peace, and yes I do feel a quiet guilt because I can stay at peace even though I am surrounded by negativity and turmoil.

But you need to know that this peace I have now, it wasn’t handed to me.
It was hard earned.
I’ve dealt with too much pain, too much anxiety.
I fought hard, up to the point where I broke —
figuratively… and literally.

And thank goodness for the crack.
Because in that breaking,
I found my *komorebi* moments —
When sunlight finds its way  through the dense leaves,
through the soul,
through the mess, and touch the soil underneath.

I stopped fighting.
I stopped demanding answers.
Now, I trust the flow of the universe.
I accept what *is*.
I don’t ask anymore why this or that happened,
why I had to go through certain storms. Everything that happened… happened.
That’s it.
I needed it.
And strangely, I am grateful for it all.

I don’t have to understand the whole story —
as a matter of fact, I never did.
And maybe I never will.
How could I?
This cosmos is too vast, too intricately woven.
And yet, I am a part of it.
Interconnected.

So when you see me sit in peace now — this is
not out of ignorance,
but out of *awareness*.
I still see the bad news (unavoidable)
I still see the direction my country might be heading.
But I will not drown in it.
I will not be consumed.
I will not let fear run the show.

Let this peace be my protest.
Let my stillness be resistance.
Let my presence, my breath, my trust —
be the quietest and fiercest kind of courage.

Karin Sabrina