Author: Susan Hanshaw

Meditation: Priceless Gifts for Free

/ Susan Hanshaw / 4 Comments

I hate to admit this, but I’ve been neglecting my meditation practice lately, big time. I’ve allowed myself to become “too busy.”  The result?  Well, let’s just say that I haven’t been my usual joyful self. I gave myself an inner boost this morning, though, and it made such a difference that I felt inspired to share.

Here are just some of the benefits you might receive in a 20-minute meditation:

  • Be reminded that your life is not about the outside world and all its complications.
  • Experience a sense of privilege to have been given the opportunity to live.
  • Feel closely connected with the energy behind all of life.
  • Remember how you are really supposed to show up.
  • Become refreshed with a deep sense of peace and joy

Would you agree that this list of benefits reads like a seminar you might pay hundreds of dollars for?

Meditation is free. Here’s a great wikiHow article to help you get started.

I’d love to hear your comments on what meditation has done for you.

10 Simple Tips for Managing Stress

/ Susan Hanshaw / 8 Comments

I’ve been invited by Dress for Success San Francisco to give a presentation next week on managing stress. As I finished my initial preparation, it occurred to me that with all that is happening in our world these days, everyone could benefit from these 10 simple tips:

  1. Eliminate the idea of lack. Recognize that opportunities to create more abundance are all around you. It’s just a matter of focusing on them and following through.
  2. Look to see a benefit in the stress point – a silver lining or a valuable lesson learned. Choose to see tough economic times as opportunities to work hard and learn how to do what you do better to get and keep the job.
  3. Exercise your right to respond peacefully. A challenging situation does not require an emotionally charged response. Your choice to react peacefully does not mean that you agree with or support the stressor; rather it demonstrates your choice to minimize its negative impact.
  4. Take 15 to 20 minutes a day to sit quietly, relax and surround yourself with the energy of peace.
  5. Learn to accept things you can’t change. Choose to believe that the universe knows more than you about what is best.
  6. Find an exercise you enjoy and do it regularly.
  7. Avoid negative people and environments as much as possible. Do whatever you can to surround yourself with peaceful influences.
  8. Learn to say no. Don’t promise too much. Give yourself enough time to get things done.
  9. Trust in the goodness of the universe. Expect that what you need will be provided.
  10. Join a support group or seek out professionals if you can’t cope on your own. Consider seeking help as a sign that you are smart enough to know it and strong enough to go for it.

What’s Your Vibe Saying?

/ Susan Hanshaw / 2 Comments

I received a thank you card the other day from the program coordinator of a center for girls where I recently presented. In her note she expressed how she appreciated the vibe I brought to the girls. I thought that to be an interesting statement and considered what she specifically might have meant. I was conscious of the words I’d chosen to share, how I said them and what I wore. But my vibe?

Yesterday I attended a women’s networking event where I met a number of women for the first time. As I reflected on the event afterwards and brought to mind those I met, I realized that it wasn’t what they’d said or what they’d worn that stayed in my mind; it was their vibe.

Vibe as defined by The Free Dictionary: a distinctive emotional aura experienced instinctively

My mind kept revisiting one woman in particular. I knew very little about her life, but through her vibe, I sensed she felt beaten down, hungry for something that is missing in her life, and not comfortable in her own skin. While this person seems very nice on the outside, her vibe feels like a downer.

We all pick up on vibes, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Are you aware of what your vibe says?

Does it express what you want to attract in your life?

For tips on how to improve your vibe, read my article Raising Your Vibration to Attract What You Want.

Where are You Placing Your Trust?

/ Susan Hanshaw / 2 Comments

I was reminded today in a business meeting how much what we believe in impacts what we expect, and ultimately, what we manifest in our lives. This understanding is especially critical during times when we are easily tempted to believe in what we don’t want to manifest. Right now that temptation is financial crisis.

Can you see, though, that if you believe that you are in the midst of a financial crisis, that you are setting the intention to crash financially? Who wants that??? Sure, the stock market is behaving wildly, credit is hard to come by, and many of us are losing money in our investments. Yet markets turn and movement goes in a different direction.

In times like this we tend to forget that we are guided by Mother Nature and not Wall Street. Put your trust in the good of Mother Nature and give yourself permission to reject messages about financial lack. Instead set your intention to prosper. It won’t happen unless you open your mind to the possibility and follow through with the actions that will produce that flow.

Invest Where it Really Counts: Build Memories

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Yesterday I enjoyed the most simple and loving day with the three people who mean the most to me—my mother, my father and my boyfriend. We took a 75-mile drive to pick olives. This outing was something I initiated after an evening viewing our family home movies with my parents a few weeks back. My dad had made a comment that will forever stay with me, “Those were the good old days. I don’t have much to live for anymore.” I cried most of the drive home that night, partly from hearing that he felt that way and partly realizing that my time with my parents is running low.

At the end of the day, does it really matter how much the stock market dipped or what’s the price of oil? You can lose everything you have, but nothing can take your memories away.

Building memories is easy and it doesn’t have to cost much money. It’s all a matter of making memories a higher priority. Here’s how:

  1. Ask yourself who are the people who are important to you.
  2. Determine how you might enjoy spending time with them.
  3. Check your calendar for available dates.
  4. Make the call to propose the time.
  5. Follow through with your commitment.
  6. Enjoy the time and the awareness that you are building what really counts in life.

49th Birthday Revelations

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I turned 49 seventeen days ago and its impact has been settling in. I expected it to be a mellow landing, with a stronger thrust to hit with the big “50”. I guess I was wrong.

On the exterior, I feel great. Some of the workouts are harder than others, but nothing noticeable to even mention. It’s my interior that feels this one. I’m not going to live forever; in fact, I now see the precious value of the decades ahead. Part of me wishes that I could grab the past back just to gain more time. Yet the other part senses that the greatest jewels in life lie ahead.

Raising Your Vibration to Attract What You Want

/ Susan Hanshaw / 5 Comments

Why should you know what it means to raise your vibration? Because the process of raising your vibration is all about aligning with the energy that will attract what you want in your life.

Here are some examples:

To experience abundance, act from a mindset of prosperity:

  • Eliminate the idea of lack. Acknowledge that what lies between you and abundance is your ability to claim it for yourself.
  • Recognize that opportunities to create more abundance are all around you. It’s just a matter of focusing on them and following through.
  • Give generously, expecting that what you need will be provided.

To live meaningfully, follow your passions:

  • Be driven by passion, not by money.
  • Trust your heart over your analytical mind.
  • Recognize that your unique gifts provide the clues to your purpose.

To achieve inner peace, be authentic:

  • Express your inner self in your outer world.
  • Connect with others from your heart.
  • Seek to deliver what you’ve been born to do.


Similar articles

Tips for Raising Your Vibration

What Does it Really Mean to Raise Your Vibration?

Your Home: Is it Supporting Your Visions or Holding You Back?

/ Susan Hanshaw / 2 Comments

The other day I sat in on a presentation about the basics of Feng Shui by my charismatic French friend, Sabine Lamoureux. In a very simple way, it changed the way I think about the environment that surrounds me every day. Sabine helped me to see that the energy that we allow to surround us is as influential as the vitamins that we feed our physical bodies. It fuels our moods and acts as a mirror for how we see ourselves. Without this awareness we can sabotage our greatest desires.

Tips for aligning your home with your vision:

  1. Eliminate clutter. It keeps you bogged down with the energy of your past. To make room in your life for new opportunities, you have to make space in your physical energy field.

  2. Get rid of what doesn’t feel good in your environment. It decreases your level of positive energy.

  3. Create an environment that expresses what you want to experience. This isn’t about buying things. It is about surrounding yourself with simple things that represent what you want to achieve, create or become.

www.innerarchitect.com

The Secret to Happiness

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I woke up this morning, a Saturday with no plans or commitments, and asked the question, what can I do today to feel deep happiness, to embrace the joy of summer? You see, all year I’ve been working long and hard in building my personal development firm, Inner Architect and promoting my new book, Inner Architect: How to Build the Life You Were Designed to Live. It’s work I love, but I have been neglecting efforts to schedule time for non-work fun.

The answer to happiness that came was simple and powerful:

  • Look at the events of your days and the people and pets that come into your life as gifts of love from the energy that creates our universe.
  • Experience your life as an interactive relationship with this loving creative energy.
  • Be thankful for even the simplest of moments. You never know when your moments here will end.

Peace be with you.