Satori - Keeping a Peaceful Heart in Chaotic Times

By Jill Slane and Laurie Murphy

The word satori literally means understanding. It is that "a-ha" moment, when you finally "get it". It is a word that can, and will, change your life forever. This fun, compassionate, and practical guide will teach you to navigate the stressors in your world and learn to listen to the intelligence that resides in your heart, rather than the programming in your head. Only then can you experience true and lasting joy in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780983097518

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CHAPTER ONE

The Best Things in Life Are Not Things

I had it all, at least according to the American dream…a beautiful home, an adoring spouse, loving children, offices in the United States and Europe and a respected career. My friends always commented, You must be so happy. But I had a dirty little secret that I shared with no one. A secret I kept closely guarded, because I knew it had the power to destroy those whom I loved most. I had seen it happen before in my life. I was not happy, and I couldn’t get happy.

Our storyteller’s life sounds magical, at least to those on the outside looking in. Who wouldn’t be envious of such a fairy-tale life? Yet appearances are not always truths. The truth is, none of the story equated to happiness, because of hidden stress.

There is no one else more familiar with your stress than you. While you might appear to others to have the perfect marriage, job, or material items, your heart knows your true feelings. If you feel dissatisfied, regardless of how many things, or people, you have amassed, these are your true feelings. Satori asks that you begin to view things not from your intellect, but from your heart. Satori is about getting in touch with your feelings. It is about doing your hearts work. Because no one else can truly know your heart, they therefore cannot determine or define your happiness. So often we are all guilty of deferring our emotions to adapt the opinions of others. Whether this is the result of people-pleasing or a lack of self-confidence, the final result is the same. Your life does not actually belong to you. Your heart may long for something else. Listen to your heart’s voice. If you listen long enough, it will reveal the underlying cause for your stress and unhappiness.

What is Satori?

Satori is the antithesis of stress. It refuses to get caught up in the madness that has taken over our streets and our cities. It rejects the idea that there is nothing that can be done to alleviate the chaos in our lives. It promises the courage to overcome obstacles and settle your thoughts. It makes sense when nothing else does.

Don’t We All Suffer From Stress?

There has never been a time in history that is more stress-filled than today, when technological advancement and progress supersedes our ability to keep up with innovation. The world is spinning at a dizzying rate, and yet we continue to fall in love, marry, procreate, raise children, and have much of the same worries that have kept generations of people awake at night. We worry about the safety of our children, our financial security, and our health. Yet we are often alone, in the sense that extended families no longer reside on the same property, and the wisdom handed down from generation to generation is often lost.

Even in the age of technological ease and immediate gratification, we have, in many ways, lost our ability to communicate and establish personal rapport with others. Take a look around. Choose anyone, in any location, be it friend or stranger, neighbor or co-worker… each and every face has been tattooed with a roadmap of stress. It seems that it was only yesterday that we crawled underneath the covers in anticipation of sweet dreams and comfort. Nowadays, we are lucky to be able to fall into our beds at all without collapsing in states of exhaustion, pleading for just one night’s sleep without the torment of nightmares and ruminating worry.

How Are People Struggling To Survive Stress?

There are some who have simply given up and live lives of solitude and quiet isolation. There are others whose buttons have been pushed to the limits, triggering acts of aggression aimed at their spouses, children and even perfect strangers. Then there are the rest of us, trying to make it through somehow, waking up each day with a desire to get back to basics, still holding onto the belief that there is a solution to unravel chaos, a way to find peace, and a desire to reconnect with our families and loved ones. We begin each day with the optimistic hope that today will be different.

We are besieged with lights, noises and gadgets. With the staggering amount of external stimuli, it is little wonder that our senses have become overly stimulated and frazzled. Because of magnified stress levels, we no longer take the time to notice simple beauty, feel the comfort of harmony or even think clearly. Instead, in every walk of life, individual brains are malfunctioning, edging toward overload. Masses of gray matter are short-circuiting all over the world, and yet, either by fear or default, we continue to push harder, faster, longer until it is nearly impossible to keep up with our own expectations.

If ever there is a time to seek solace, peace and harmony, it is now. We are not machines. We are not designed to function under stress without emotional and physical consequences. In order for our minds and bodies to function properly, we need clarity of thought, concentration, and focus. Yet, existing in a world of relentless, unreasonable demands evokes the polar opposite. It is time to make a change.

We Know We Deserve Happiness, But How Do We Find It?

Our instincts initially are to stand firm and fight. We know we don’t deserve to be bullied into sacrificing everything we hold dear, to perform for those who regard us as nothing more than an extension of their demands, but we have families to feed, rent to pay, mortgages, car payments, alimony checks and a million other responsibilities that remind us to swallow unspoken words, crumble and take whatever is dished out. We can’t afford to buck the system, so we give in, disappointed in ourselves, but believing that there is no other way.

Misery was never the intention of life. We were born with a predisposition to be happy. One only needs to notice the quick smile on the face of an infant to understand that happiness is not learned… it is innate. Why then, do so many of us wake up one day and wonder what happened? Where did the reckless abandon of our youth go? The joy that could be aroused by nothing more than a simple thought, or even a smell. When did it go away? The answers to those questions vary with each of us. But almost invariably, the culprit is the same. It is called stress.

Stress is the robber of dreams, the thief that enters through an unlocked door, stealing happy moments and disrupting inner peace. Stress strips away the protective coating that insulates the hard wiring of our brains until there is nothing to stop us from short-circuiting. This is not the way life is intended to be lived. It has become a way of life after turmoil takes control and dictates the manner in which we think and behave, replacing carefree moments with anger, pessimism and criticism.

How Does Stress Define Us?

Stress defines us unfairly, placing importance on not who we actually are and the attributes we possess, but by who we have become underneath the cloak of negativity cast upon us. Unfairly, we are defined as successes or failures by societal standards implemented by those with often unscrupulous histories, and yet their judgment of us becomes the new standard by which we begin to judge ourselves. Our worth is no longer measured by kindness, patience, compassion and love. It is now measured by wealth and material possessions. The square footage of the houses we own and the neighborhoods in which we reside seem to determine our status. The number of people we consider to be our friends determines our popularity. Our job titles determine our importance. Using those standards of measure, most of us are worth very little.

Who Can We Trust?

The role models of honorable, hard-working, honest individuals have all but been replaced by those who use manipulation to swindle unsuspecting and trusting individuals. They do so without conscience and without care for the impact of their behavior upon others. Instead they find nothing wrong with stealing people’s property, jobs, spouses, and human dignity.

Haven’t you had enough?

If you find yourself unable to sleep, or awaking in the middle of the night with your heart pounding in your chest, you are not alone. Stress has caused sleep distress of great magnitude, where exhaustion follows sleeplessness, and dulls the mind as well as the spirit. You have only to take notice of your friends and co-workers to see the stress they wear across their faces like masks, their dull eyes dazed, staring at nothing at all. Jaws muscles are clenched in anticipation of more unhappiness, more turmoil, more criticism and more stress.

This stress is not only found in the workplace. It accompanies shoppers as they walk through the aisles, attempting to further stretch already tight budgets, calculating those groceries which will have to be returned to the shelves for another time. Stress lives in your home, sits along side you on the couch, and comes through your television set and radio with news of impossibly unthinkable acts of violence and loss. Stress sleeps in your bed, grows in your garden, and waits for you at your doorstep.

Is There Hope?

Emotionally, we are a world numbed with sadness and horror. Tear-stained faces collectively wonder if there is anything left to be done, if there is anything left for which to hope.

The answer is not complicated, but just as the obvious is often overlooked, we have been searching in all the wrong places. We are the hope! Each one of us carrying our hope forward, initially alone, but then joined by others, their hope linking into ours, forming a group and then a crowd. United we can spill onto the streets, a mob that comes not in anger, but in peace. We can decide that enough is enough, and all of us together can stop this insanity. Someone has to begin with one step. Will it be you?

How Did We Come to This?

So much of how we spend our time daily is in direct conflict to those things that are important individually. We sacrifice our needs and instead line up like laboratory rats, following each other through the maze on our way to work and home again, believing that we are doomed to spend the rest of our days living a life of terminal sadness. We have been promised that if we work hard, we will earn more money, and if we earn a certain amount of money, we will become happy. We are taught that hard work is its own reward, but after decades of working, people are still being laid off or demoted, especially now.

The pride that once pushed individuals to never give up has been lost. As well, self-respect and respect of others has been all but forgotten in the quest to forge ahead. It is no wonder that those of us