These aren’t just quotes.

They’re pieces of me.

Pieces I never meant to write —
but had to,
because the ache had nowhere else to go.

I didn’t write them to sound wise.
I wrote them through hurting truths —

when trust broke silently,
when I felt invisible in places I tried so hard to belong,
when I was busy proving I was worthy… by becoming smaller.

I recently submitted 7 of these quotes to the Embracing Our Differences 2027 global exhibition.

Not for validation —

but to let them breathe in the world
instead of suffocating inside me.

And if someone — even one soul — is going through something like I did,
I want to say this to you:

You are not alone.

These words were born from a place you might recognize.

Let them hold you the way I wish something had held me.

This blog series is called:
The Making of My 7 Soul Quotes.

It’s not about writing.
It’s about remembering.
It’s about the parts of me that kept folding,
kept giving,
kept pouring peace into people and places
that were never meant to hold it.

The first quote I’ll be reflecting on still brings a soft ache when I say it aloud:

“Peace didn’t run out.
We poured it into the hourglass.
And now we ache for it.”

The hourglass here isn’t just time —
it’s the self we kept offering to the wrong ones.

We gave away peace drop by drop:

• by convincing,
• by adjusting,
• by softening ourselves for someone else’s comfort.
• By waiting to be chosen.
• By holding space for people who kept leaving.
• By calling it love… when it was really just survival.

And so, piece by piece, we emptied out.

Now I know:
Peace isn’t something we lose.
It’s something we forget we’re allowed to keep.

Let this be the beginning of remembering the peace that was always yours.

 – Simply As You Are
     Jayasudha
unspoken, still