Be at peace with myself

so this past christmas i found myself alone in a hammock looking up at the stars through the leaves of a palm tree. i thought about karma (since i’m in India) and how it was that I got to this place in my life. I went back through my history and forgave the people who i thought had wronged me, then I realised that it wasn’t so much that they had wronged me, but I had done something to bring that on, so I forgave myself for doing whatever it was that i had done in the past to result in some of the tougher moments of this life. that somehow took me to a crazy place between here and there, between the past and the now and i saw myself in this ball of light with streams of light going in all directions-it was like the moment you chose your present life from the past ones. That was the moment I felt at peace with myself. Then I started sending out love to all those ‘enemies’ of my past, then to everyone I had ever met and then to everyone in the world and the universe—including myself. It might sound a bit flaky and nuts but it was pretty intense and I had this immense feeling of peace. Christmas is about peace and joy, and, for the first time in my life, I had a truly peaceful and joyous Christmas. All on my own. And since then I’ve been feeling pretty much at peace with myself. Sure, stuff comes up, but I let it pass because I see it with a new perspective—one of learning and forgiveness and of letting go and spreading the love.

I asked myself the other day if I was at peace with myself and i was pretty surprised with the whopping NO that I screamed in my own ear. At least I was being honest with myself, so in this spirit I got out my journal and started scribbling stuff down and started to realize that I’m hung up on past crap and guilt. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and a few themes keep coming up:
The past is the past and you can’t change it so let it go and if you need to change soemthing work with something you can change.
Forgive others for their misdeeds.
Forgive yourself.

Yeah, these are classics, but so easily forgotten. I tredged up some rotten crap that I’ve been hanging on to and let it go. Physically in writing. I forgave people and forgave myself. Still have a ways to go before achieving inner peace but I think I’m on the right track.

Next on the list: meditation. I’ve tried this but I think I really need some guidance here…