Finding Internal Peace

In my life I have been plagued with periods where internal peace is difficult to find. Sometimes I allow external events and external influences to effect my ability to find inner peace. If I logically recognize this as a weakness why can I not easily find it within myself to turn the page and find inner peace? Could it be that my ego would hold onto the attachments and allow them to create conflict within me, against my will?

Occasionally I can find it within myself to funnel such unrest into fruitful endeavors, this blog itself is a testament. Forsaking more lucrative endeavors to create here, with the intention to share my journey for the record. With an intention to explore my soul to understand why I torture myself so. Will this exploration lead to inner peace, or provide a place to record attachments, so that I might hold onto them longer? Hmmm........

Related to the source of my restlessness in the moment, I can but share part of myself and see how it helps to heal, or tear at the wound I create within me. So that I may learn, and hence others may learn how peace comes about in the smallest of circumstances so that in the larger sense it may also become manifest.

Recently a force has entered my life that has very mixed benefit/costs for me. As a benefit I have a somewhat stronger overall relationship with those I love most. As a cost, I seem to have to forgo things that are very important to me to win this appreciation. Is this a sacrifice for the greater good? Is this a sacrifice I must make to achieve peace within my life? Are my attachments to these things "very important to me" the source of my restlessness, conflict and lack of inner peace?

Interestingly what I have to sacrifice is time and shared connections to external places and endeavors in order make my most desired relationships stronger. Sacrifice some time with those I love and things I love to do all to make other time with them more connected. Sacrifice certain connections to things I love, to enhance my most meaningful connections.

"If you love someone set them free and when they come back to you, then you know they are truly yours". As stickmanBob says "If you love something and you have to keep it against its will then you don’t truly love it. You are keeping it for selfish reasons. Don’t drive it away but don’t force it to be yours, that would cause it pain and causing pain to one you love is unthinkable."

In this case those I love are subtly asking I forgo my needs and hence temporarily not enjoy these common connections, so that they may enhance connections with others outside of our relationship to create a stronger connection overall. If not explicitly then at least as interpreted implicitly. Somehow in the process of my sacrifice I shall be rewarded in other ways, without any other sacrifices on other peoples part, in fact to their greater gain. Am I supposed to believe if that is what makes them happy, I should allow them to do it even if it makes me sacrifice? Can my sacrifices allow them greater happiness without me, and in turn be more connected with me overall? Can I find happiness forgoing connections to those things I must give up to make those I love happy? Trade my own happiness for theirs, and find that it is enough, that I have set them free to be happy in whatever way they want, and find it within myself to be happy in other ways.

What makes it harder to achieve are the deep roots I have, and the permanent scars that will be left upon these places in memory of the sacrifice I have made, and the happiness achieved without me. Am I supposed to find it within myself to continue to hold those deep connection s of love regardless of the loss I feel at letting my love go in this way?

Must my humble soul appreciate times when my ego driven goals are not peaceful, but a source of conflict, and my goals must be forgone to achieve external peace, in the hope that it will lead to inner peace. Can my ego take this information and allow me to find inner peace, or might it by it's nature rebel and cause further conflict? Can I turn the page and let go my attachments to further the greater connection? Is this the root of sacrifice for a greater good?

For these answers, I am restless.