The key to inner peace is...

... forgiveness.

For a long time I thought the key to inner peace is to be satisfied with your accomplished goals and being successful, but I had to realise that these things are rather results of the inner peace, than the inner peace itself.

It was about 3 years ago when I went to Finland for the Sastamala Gregoriana masterclass, and my senses awakened (see this entry for more), and that helped me realise how much negativity and resentment I am holding onto instead of letting go of old grudges. Of course, I was shocked seeing how many emotional loose ends I have. The shock was followed by embarrassment and frustration, and then I really decided to take care of my emotional loose ends. One would think these loose ends cannot cause much problems, but the more you have of them, the more they will block your way of getting over old things. And here I would quote here Carrie Fischer again: "... let's say something happens and from a certain slant, maybe it's tragic and even a little bit shocking. And then time passes and you go to the funny slant and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm."
If you don't go to the "funny slant" as time goes by, and don't understand and accept that tragic and shocking experiences can no longer do you any harm, you'll get stuck in your past.

But how can you actually go to the funny slant? My mother always says: if you cannot laugh about it, you are not over it yet. Even top secret documents have expiration date, not to mention foodstuff. The only thing that certain and eternal in this World is that everything continuously changes. If you prevent this natural flow, there's no way you could come out of it healthy and unhurt.

Even at singing, if you for example grab on your larynx, you'll get eventually vocal problems after a while. The essence of Life is change, therefore for a healthy career you shouldn't be afraid of this natural flow.

How you take care of loose ends? You apply forgiveness. You forgive everyone that has ever intentionally or unintentionally hurt you - including yourself. There's always two sides of the coin and sometimes you just have to accept that whatever happened, it cannot be helped, just forgive without wanting to hear an apology.

I am still working on my loose ends. How about you?