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Bookbuz.biz by Yanky Fachler

Ireland’s leading motivational entrepreneurial expert
Bookbuzz.biz chief inspirational officer and founder of High Octane
Communication  YANKY FACHLER,
bookbuzz.biz Yanky's blog.

AN INCREDIBLE STORY OF PERSONAL BRAVERY

I have a lovely friend called Suzanna Marcus. She has many special qualities – she is a healer and spiritual teacher who raises awareness by leading individuals and groups in personal development and transformation through guidance, meditation and visualization. She enhances the ability to show up authentically and to gain a heightened sense of well being, inner harmony and interpersonal effectiveness at work, at home, at play and in relationships.

But the most remarkable thing about Suzanna is that 11 years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and was urged by every conventional medicine doctor and specialist to “wage war” on the disease. Failure to undergo chemotherapy, they assured her, would mean certain death within six months. Suzanna’s body told her that she couldn’t do it. Instead, Suzanna looked within and set out to make peace, both with herself and with her past. She bravely embarked on an extraordinary journey into the world of alternative therapies.

Suzanna tells her story in 6 Months to Live 10 Years Later: An Extraordinary Healing Journey and Guide to Well Being, a How To book that tells us how to realize our full potential for a healthy, happy, vital life, written by someone who has been there and done it. The story that unfolds covers the entire spectrum of human drama, from abuse, betrayal, tragedy, loss, and finally cancer, to awakening, enlightenment, transformation and healing. The book is a wake up call: Be well! Don’t wait until the stress has taken you over or until you are sick. Become aware now while your health is in good shape. Use your challenges in life as a training ground to grow, as a boot camp for your self-development.

One reviewer, the medical director of a department of Integrative Medicine for Cancer, said that doctors and patients alike should be aware of a patient's right to take charge of his or her life. “As a family physician and educator who integrates complementary medicine, up until a few years ago it was taboo to mix complementary and traditional medicine with cancer patients. Suzanna's journey forced me to open my eyes. Her journey changed my outlook and my approach to cancer and its treatment.“

A global sports icon was moved to write: “I was drawn to this heroic journey because it is a story that transcends race, colour, gender and religion, and because I admire Suzanna’s courage. Like me, Suzanna has faced challenges and adversity in her life. And, like myself, she has overcome the struggles that life brings and found peace and happiness in living each day to its fullest. That, in itself, is a rare goal many of us never achieve. Her journey illuminates the path for all who dare to surrender to what is true.” These words were written by none other than Muhammad Ali.

What I find particularly important in this book is that at no point does Suzanna advise women with breast cancer against conventional treatment. She is searingly honest about her motivation for ignoring the pressure to have chemo. There is no arguing with the results of her stubbornness. Before the six months death sentence was over, Suzanna’s cancer markers had disappeared, defying all medical predictions. Today, 11 years later, she is alive and kicking – beautiful, serene, incredibly sane, and probably smiling as she reads this blog post as she sits on her mountaintop terrace in the Carmel Mountains.

For information on how to buy this book or to benefit from Suzanna’s professional help, email her at opendoorways@gmail.com.

Atmosphere magazine worldwide

Be Your Own Doctor
By Orna Schneid

What do you do when one bright morning, you are faced with the horrible news that you only have six more months to live? Suzanna Marcus, a holistic therapist and personal trainer, decided she would get well, against all odds.

Photo of Suzanna Marcus
who today brims with health

In her book “6 Months to live - 10 Years Later - An Extraordinary Healing Journey & Guide to Well Being” Suzanna Marcus, a holistic therapist and personal well being trainer, tells the story of her life with a moving openness and heartbreaking honesty. The book takes us on a journey from her childhood in England, through the decision to move to Israel, marriage and mother- hood of three children, and a difficult divorce. The book culminates as Marcus is diagnosed with severe breast cancer and moves on to her extraordinary path to health.

“I want to be a source of inspiration for others,” Suzanna says. “I want to empower people that we can get over anything in life and become stronger, wiser human beings with meaningful lives, if only we’re willing to give up the feeling of victim.”

Marcus graduated in art and worked in the field for many years. As an art dealer, she traveled around the world, rubbing elbows with leading figures of the art world, but she never felt completely satisfied and never managed to shake off the feeling that something was missing. This feeling finally led her to quit her profession in order to study healing professionally at the College of Healing in Great Britain, where she focused on holistic methods. Later she went on to study with wise teachers and shamans all over the world.

Back in Israel, she opened a clinic in Tel Aviv that soon flourished. She loved the work and finally felt after all that had happened in her life she had found her place. Over time, though, and in spite of everything, Marcus sought a change of atmosphere and decided to move to Zichron Yaakov. “ Something deep inside of me called to leave the city, The scenery drew me in,” she says. Everything seemed to be on the right track. But then, without warning, doctors discovered late stage cancer that had already spread. Marcus decided to forego the conventional route and instead created for herself an alternative path of healing. “Since I came from the world of holistic medicine, I knew there were other ways of overcoming cancer, and I decided to devote myself to my healing. I had meditative tools that I used to relax myself in order to make a decision out of careful consideration, and not from a place of emotional chaos.”

“I understood my illness was radical,” she notes, “and therefore my decision had to be radical too. Since I was familiar with various alternative treatment methods I was fortunate enough to have some information, still being on the other side of the coin as the patient was a different matter. Finally after consideration I decided to fortify my immune system and detoxify my mind and body of anything toxic. I’m not opposed to conventional medicine, but I knew chemical treatment and radiation was not for me.”

Marcus created a healing path adopting a strict regimen of detoxifying mind and body, which involved diet, meditation and lifestyle changes. She combined this with the healing philosophy of Dr. Ann Wigmore who also sees the body and soul as one unit. The Living Foods lifestyle offers a natural lifestyle based on the motto “be your own doctor” and preaches that the patient himself is responsible for the cure.

Marcus closed the clinic and decided to devote all her time to healing. She began detoxifying her body with raw live foods and a diet of fresh vegetable juices including wheat grass Juice daily. To this she added meditations and visualizations to rid her mind of any tension or emotions that she was carrying, and held her back. There were herbs that she took too, and exercise hiking in nature became an inseparable part of her daily routine.

“I decided to give up any pain I had carried from past traumas, to let go of any anger and forgive those people and release them from my consciousness. I surrounded myself with people I loved,” she relates. “I hiked in the mountains and I was totally committed to my healing path. I asked the people around me not to expose me to any stress in any way at all, and I was totally focused on my goal- to become well”.

Six months later, the tests came back clear. The doctors at the Hospital were shocked to learn that the stage 111 invasive cancer had gone, and Suzanna started receiving invitations to lecture to the medical community. But, she didn’t give up the strict regime knowing that– a patient isn’t officially declared cured of cancer until the disease is gone for five years.

Suzanna’s message to her readers and listeners is that you don’t need to be sick to attain the insight that she reached as a result of her illness. “Practice spiritual growth and raise your awareness of mind body and spirit, before you are sick,” she says. “Cancer doesn’t happen instantaneously. It is a long process that begins when our immune system is weakened and our resistance is reduced. Stress, internal pollution and external pollution can contribute to this. If you tend to bottle up your emotions especially anger and pain, that is what you’ll see around you, instead you must do all you can to be filled with love and compassion, and then that is what you will see around you. Cancer is a wake-up call, a message. Be at peace with yourself, live honestly with yourself and don’t try to please everyone around you.”

Suzanna has returned to holistic therapy, and continues to give lectures and workshops, and offers personal training for people who want to retain their well being and for those going through crises or transition, although she again emphasizes: don’t wait for the crisis to make a change.

Suzanna’s tips for wellbeing:

• Be at peace with yourself
• Release the past
• Don’t try to please everyone
• Discover what gives you joy and zest
• Don’t wait for a crisis to change your life

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Farewell India -18.1.2016
by Suzanna Marcus



India challenges one to see the important 'stuff' of life, leaving aside all that is petty and Insignificant. On one hand filled with chaos, and yet on the other this is the place of all places to find serenity in the deepest sense. What's more, she teases you on your way, step by step stimulating your every possible sense.

Perhaps that is just to confuse you, and yet encourage you at the same time; to focus on the positive goodness that is out there ready to reap at any given moment. All this readily available providing you are willing in a Kill Bill fashion, to brush aside all negative thoughts with a swipe of your spiritual sword. Be intent on untying the knots of self deception, do away with all that stops your growth.Untangle it all so you may blossom like a flower in full bloom

Out on a warm day in Mopusa you just don't know which way to look first; cars hoot " beep beeping" on their way, while red black and blue Scooters race around town, usually with more than one colorfully clad person riding aboard. A brown cow walks slowly down the main road, and no one bats an eyelid. The smells of the market waft through the air, and going with the flow you are drawn in that direction. Feast your eyes on the ripe red fruit, dark green vegetables, and piles of bountiful silk cushions and jewelry. Look over there to the bedspreads, clothes, Saris and sweets of every colour under the sun which always seem to be touched with a little gold. All are spread amongst the sellers and their little stalls.

Here in Goa you find Cadburys milk chocolate from England, wrapped in mauve and gold reminding one of how the English once lived here ruling over the country. I can almost taste the brown velvet sweetness in my mouth , which allows the native people of this land to forget any bitterness that may have remained from the past. Hot red Indian Mango chutney, filled into glass jars can be found on some of the stalls too. White nougat dotted with brown hazelnuts on another, and as you look up the man with a berry dark face smiles at you as he warms your heart, if you let him in. And then his grin with only 5 teeth brings you sharply back to this earthly reality of poverty and suffering. But he still smiles. For he is content in knowing this is his Karma!



A cart covered in yellow bananas a meter high sits on the wayside, and on top of them lays the owner peacefully oblivious of the surroundings while having his lunch time nap. On the right hand side is a woman in her vivid red and gold sari. She sits on the ground in her spot, strategically placed in the centre line of the market. Her legs are crossed, and she looks so happy sitting on a blue mat which she has carefully placed under her rear. Her large ripe green peppers, together with giant mauve aubergines and green squash are displayed before you to please your eye. She smiles up at me as I pass by, and I notice how her rich dark long hair is tightly pulled back ,well oiled, allowing it to shine and reveal a beautiful pair of deep brown eyes rimmed with black Kajul and long eyelashes.. Her lips are cherry coloured with a magnificent pout to them, the kind that woman of the West will pay thousands for. But she is a simple village woman who has never been to London, Paris or New York. She has no idea how much these fancy women of the West would happily pay for her attributes to be woven into their physical existence.

All she knows is the rice fields of southern India, and at times her aching back and wet feet as she wades through the water. The smell in her Mothers home of Indian curry, and the daily ritual of resin burning to cleanse the air and keep away all evil spirits. The wiff of smoke reminiscent of the priest in Church on Sundays, who walks along the isles waving his burning frankincense, swinging it in the chalice as he carries it through the church assembly. But she, in all her innocence has never seen this. Her turquoise and gold bangles rattle as she stands up to take a look at the markets visitors, and as she does she smiles a beautiful angelic smile, and I smile back.



It's as if they are all saying with a smile and a nod of head swiveling sideways left and right, "Yes, Welcome to Mother India" -And with all the noises and hustle and bustle, there is something so very Divine about Mother India. She teaches you to look out for the good, and leave the rubbish at the side of the road. Pay attention to people's smiles, and at the same time to your words too in a conscious manner. Do not distract yourself with how you think the world should be run. Stop judging, Instead take in the goodness of it all, stop focusing on the dirt, or the 'jiffa' as my Arab brothers would say. Simply intend to focus consciously on the good stuff so you do not miss the magic of the moment, the experience of a lifetime.

And as I sit quietly in stillness in this country house, no longer rushing at the pace of town, there is a sense of tranquility and calm. Leaving behind the need to fill the moments with " something" as we do in the West. Simply being in the stillness of the moment; herein lies that greatest gift, and with it a sense of deep inner peace.

The sound of distant voices chanting softly, "Ommmmmmmm" can be heard in the foreground. And so life goes, softly if you allow it, and in gratitude I end my journey here in this Ancient land. Thank you Mother India. Thank you for your wise teachings brought in such simplicity. Thank you for your beauty, your Divine richness, thank you for smiling upon me. In deep gratitude and love.



Suzanna.