Innerarchitect.com: Content Rich New Format, Valuable Tools, Inspirational Tips

Inner Architect Founder and CEO Susan Hanshaw is not only an author, keynote speaker, and inspirational teacher–she can now add webmaster to her repertoire. The new and vastly improved www.innerarchitect.com website is a very easy to navigate resource and support platform for readers.

Website Redesign

The innerarchitect.com website redesign is in support of the debut of Susan’s book “Inner Architect: How To Build The Life You Were Designed To Live” scheduled for June 2008 release.

Our Platform:

1. on our site: This is a quick reference table of contents which includes home, about us, books and products, upcoming events, media kit, contact us, and blog tabs for navigation ease

2. just released: This section contains the newly released book “Inner Architect: How To Build The Life You Were Designed To Live” and it will act as a message board for upcoming projects

3. tips and how to’s: This section will provide articles filled with tips and guides for subjects like maintaining positive energy, the power of your mind, and tools to dismantle doubt. Fresh new articles will be made available so watch this section weekly

4. sign up: This allows you to sign up for Susan’s inspirational tips and thoughts which will be delivered to you on a weekly basis. A wonderful way to stay connected and thinking about positive energy

5. upcoming events: Here you will see a list of Susan’s speaking engagements, workshops, and seminars throughout the year. Plan to attend a workshop or speaking event

6. videos: Susan’s video series explores becoming an inner architect with tips and other timely discussion topics aimed at helping you improve

A Man On A Mission: Taking Love To The Streets One Soul At A Time

Photo courtesy of SFGate.com

Imagine you are a history scholar, young father and newly wed in your 30’s, pushing hard for your doctorate from one of the leading universities in the world–and then it happens. You read an old version of the bible and you are blown away.

The experience is life changing and the transformation you embark upon begins with you leaving your doctorate studies for a life preaching “the word.” You begin your journey by inviting homeless people to sleep on your apartment floor every night. Your wife can not agree with your vision and your marriage ends in divorce with your wife and baby moving back to the East Coast.

The culmination of your transformation is your decision to turn in your apartment keys, sell your belongings, and go live in a homeless encampment under a freeway overpass so that you can relate to your “congregation.”

This is no Harlequin novel but rather the real life story, a wonderful read by San Francisco Chronicle’s Kevin Fagan, of Vincent Pannizzo a New Jersey native who was working toward his doctorate in History at the University of California at Berkeley before deciding, in his words, to heed God’s calling and preach “the word.”

What Do You Think Of This Man?

Maybe instead of a never ending stream of headlines about Paris Hilton, our convoluted and corrupt political system, and the ongoing soulless news items we are force fed, maybe we should seek out and make example of stories like Vincent’s story.

It is possible to change minds by simply changing what information you allow into your life? Tell me what you think.

Instincts Exercise: Taking Advantage Of Your Inner Assets

• A Sense of knowing something without knowing how you know it
• Insights about your life that are “just there”
• Persistent ideas that you don’t consciously focus on
• Desires that you have that you didn’t consciously create
• Dreams for your life that you would not dare to conjure up on your own
• Insight that feels like it is coming from the depths of your being
• A message or piece of knowledge that seems to come from out of nowhere
• Out of the ordinary bodily sensations

The 8 Common Characteristics of Intuition (above) provide the basis for Susan’s “Instincts Exercise” from her upcoming book “Inner Architect: How To Build The Life You Were Designed To Live.”

Exercise: Review the list of intuition characteristics above. Identify specific insights about what you are meant to be or achieve that have come to you in these ways. This is rich information for you to be in touch with.

*Write as many insights as you can here
*Don’t edit the list in any way
*Just acknowledge what has come to you

Instinct: Valuable “Intelligence” From Your Inner World

Because of our conditioning, instinct or intuition is often ignored as less than accurate due to our tendency to place more trust in what we know to be fact or physical evidence. Yet a vast amount of valuable intelligence is available from our own inner world.

“Intelligence” can be thought of as both information as well as smarts.

“Inner World” is our internal stream of thought, consciousness, and ongoing dialog.

Despite our conditioning and upbringings, we can choose to value our instincts by understanding their power, recognizing our own capability to hone our sense of intuition, and by using our instincts on a daily basis. In order to begin this process, it is important to understand some characteristics of intuition (aka instincts).

Common Characteristics of Intuition

• A Sense of knowing something without knowing how you know it
• Insights about your life that are “just there”
• Persistent ideas that you don’t consciously focus on
• Desires that you have that you didn’t consciously create
• Dreams for your life that you would not dare to conjure up on your own
• Insight that feels like it is coming from the depths of your being
• A message or piece of knowledge that seems to come from out of nowhere
• Out of the ordinary bodily sensations

Intuitive Heart vs Analytical Mind: The Internal Struggle You Need To Win

How many times in your life have you made decisions based on past experience(s), only to realize later, that these past experiences you based your decision upon were no longer relevant?

How often have you scoffed at and ignored your intuitive heart in matters because listening to your heart always seemed to be flighty rather than practical and wise?

In most cases, you utilize your analytical mind to make decisions rather than “giving credibility to your feelings and accepting their messages as valid.”

If this is you then it is time to wake up to the fact that your intuitive heart is a very valuable tool, more positive, and a better barometer in providing the kind of information that will allow you to move forward and attain your desired reality.

4 Steps to Trusting Your Intuitive Heart

1. Role: Allow your heart to play a role in matters of career, just as you allow it a significant role in your personal relationships

2. Acknowledge: Recognize and accept that your heart is the center of your spiritual essence. As such, it is the most knowledgeable entity about who you really are at the core and what is right for you

3. Best Interests: Believe that your heart always has your best interest in mind

4. Practice: give your heart a chance by practicing. Follow your heart for simple decisions so that you can build the experience to trust it in larger issues

Trusting Your Heart: The Key To Unlocking Purpose

Purpose, your passionate interest(s) that brings joy to you and people around you, is the path to fulfilling your life’s meaning and ultimate value. Unfortunately in most cases, you utilize your analytical mind to make decisions rather than “giving credibility to your feelings and accepting their messages as valid.”

Why is it that most of us think of our hearts as an irresponsible force that is only looking for fun when it is the greatest tool to unlocking purpose?

4 Steps to Trusting Your Heart

1. Acknowledge: that your feelings contain messages. Being unhappy is an idea that begs for change. Your inner feelings, subconscious stream of thought, are always expressing how you really feel about something. Often times these feelings are expressing ideas that you may not yet be willing to accept

2. Credibility: give credibility to your feelings and accept their messages as valid Do you discount your feelings and try to rationalize “why” you feel a certain way?

A good example is boredom. Boredom is a syndrome in someone who is not passionate about their work. Rather than understanding this as a valid sign, people discount this sign and suggest that they may cure this syndrome by finding a new work environment. The same job in a different place is only a short term fix at best. Changing workplace locations or environments is not going to cure the fact that you are bored with the work itself; instead this thinking serves to prolong the syndrome rather than cure it

3. Believe: believe that your heart will lead you to a better way of life than your analytical mind. Recognizing and giving credibility to messages from your heart is a key step to happiness in all areas of your life

4. Act: act upon the messages! If you act upon what you trust then it’s important to make the shift to trusting the messages that come from your heart just like you trust your analytical mind

The Purpose Exercise: Are You Willing To Believe In Purpose?

There are keys to evaluate when you are considering implementing any new concept in your life or extracting an old behavior. Consequently you have a choice to make when considering the idea of purpose:

1. You choose to perceive life as a series of meaningless random events

2. You choose to perceive life as having significant purposeful, meaningful events

Key To Evaluate

Are you willing to believe that there is purpose behind everything in life?
Are you willing to begin to approach life from this perspective and respond accordingly?

Purpose Exercise #1

Take out a journal and answer the following questions in as much detail as possible. Mine your memory for the most accurate examples and as many examples as you can remember from your life.

A.) Look at “how” purpose has played a role in your life. Consider all of the experiences and education you have had so far that make up who you are today. Think about the child that you were, and compare it to the adult you are now.

What things about your life have prepared you for who you are now, or who you ultimately wish to be?

B.) Look at your adult life. Consider the jobs that have molded your skill sets and the people who have come into your life.

Can you identify skills and knowledge that will be especially valuable in the work that you would really like to do?

3 Steps To Considering Purpose A Part Of Life

If you recognize that purpose is a part of life that requires that you believe that there is more going on than what you can see on the surface, then what steps do you take to begin to discover your purpose in life? The following steps give you a sound basis to begin your search.

3 Steps To Consider Purpose As A Part Of Life

1. Energy: Think of purpose as an energy that runs through everything in life–including you. Consider the concept of “gravity.” You can’t see it, yet it exists in all geographic areas at all times

2. Random: Remove the idea that your life is a random series of events. Things are connected

3. Reason: Accept the idea that there is a purposeful reason behind everything in life.

Discovering Your Passions: The Secret Of “Purpose” And The Role It Plays In Your Life

What is purpose and what is it’s role in a person’s life? Purpose is that “unique” something that each person has to offer,that will help benefit other people, during their lifetime. Our passionate interests are closely connected to our purpose. Unfortunately many people settle working in a career or living a life that is less than fulfilling or outright distasteful.

What is missing? Often the answer is the feeling that your life has no meaning or significance because you are not “giving back” and you are not feeling the excitement of passionate interest.

Mindset of Purpose: Understanding The Shift

*In order to live fully in your purpose, you must learn to perceive yourself and your significance in this world from a mindset of purpose. Are you utilizing your “gifts”? Are you helping people with your gifts? Do you feel that you make a difference in people’s lives through your passionate interests?

*The Shift requires you to change your perspective to a deeper level. Simply put recognizing purpose is a part of life that requires you to believe that there is more going on than what you can see on the surface

*Few people understand that the work that you love is the work you are really here, in this life on this planet, to do.