Spirituality and Healing, Discovering the Wisdom of the Body










© 2015 Marc Lerner


How Accepting Death Empowers You in the Moment

We all carry a lot of unfinished business along with us all the time. The more we accept death, the more in the moment we are.  Accepting death is possible, for it makes us reject the parts of us not living in the moment. That is a spiritual gift. If you looked at your life imagining you are going to die soon, unimportant things would fall from your character. Just do the following things and allow your imagination to be real to you.

  • Sit and become deeply relaxed. The deeper you go, death is more than an idea to you.
  • Imagine a realistic situation that brings you closer to death.
  • Identify people, work situations and philosophical questions that are incomplete within you.
  • Realize that a conscious approach to death completes your unfinished business, so death is simply the next step for you in life. Make your breath flow easily and smoothly. Your mind becomes empty the closer you get to death.
  • Here is a technique that teaches you The Easy Breath; Take 3 deep breaths and stop breathing after the third one. If you are relaxed, the Wisdom of your Body breathes you. Notice how easy that breath flows through you; that is The Easy Breath.
  • Now imagine the unfinished business you have and ask yourself “Do I want to hold onto this as my last possession?”
  • Go deep again and breathe the Easy Breath. Let this experience sink deep into you.

When you return to your normal state of mind, be grateful for the experience you just had. Capture this experience in a trigger (a word or a phrase). Say that trigger whenever you deal with that unfinished business. This doesn’t complete your unfinished business; it just puts you in the best state of mind to work on it.

For instance if you owe money; you still owe it, but working on completing this unfinished business from a conscious state of mind makes it much easier to deal with. The same is true for unfinished business with another person. In other words, you still have to work on it, but from a conscious state of mind.

There is no reason you have to carry your unfinished business around with you as a weight around your neck. Complete it while being more conscious. There is no magic in life; get to the point where you face death consciously and watch the unimportant burdens fall away. Facing death consciously can be a new beginning for you. Just trust your deepest wisdom to change you and don’t resist. You will be more conscious in the moment.


© 2015 Marc Lerner

Go to Amazon/Kindle.com to find all of Marc Lerner’s books: The End, A Creative Way to Approach Death, A Poetic View of Hospice, A Healthy Way to be Sick, The Positive Self: Change Your Self-Image and You Change Your Life. Go to marclerner.com to read Marc’s blog and articles.

What Part of You Listens to Your Thoughts

The part of you that listens to your thoughts is the subtle consciousness which is the essence of life. Most people think life is represented by their thoughts, but this essence is beyond thoughts. From this consciousness, you interpret your thoughts and the imagery can communicate to your body. Most people think about their mind simply using their thoughts.

From this consciousness, intuition guides us. Intuition is to know without reason. This is connected to The Wisdom of your Body and has the power to embrace the moment and love from a selfless perspective. You may not be able to control your thoughts, but you can control what part of you listens and interprets.

Most people have such a strong habit of focusing on their thoughts that they interpret their life simply by the way they have been conditioned to think. We think to our self-image and, though our self-image has been developed throughout our entire life, it is possible to create a self-image that is based on the most positive parts of your life. Most people’s self-image is a blend of everything they learned and interacted with during their life.

Imagine having your thoughts interpreted solely by a self-image that was created in your most conscious moments. Just think; if you are conscious in the moment, with a heart full of love, your thinking and interpretations would be ideal. You would be free from your past and your interpretations of the events in your life would be an expression of your deepest wisdom.


We have the ability to create a self-image like that and trigger it whenever a negative self-image appears. This is what I mean by ‘what part of you listens to your thoughts.’ You have the ability to control your self-image and interpret your life from a conscious perspective. Nobody else but you can control that.

The simple fact of controlling what part of you interprets your life is an essential key in creating a quality life. It is essential to have conscious interpretations when dealing with a chronic illness or disability. Simple problems, like falling down, having your body not respond to your mind and difficulties communicating with people are significantly influenced by the way you interpret what is going on.

Most people focus on their thoughts and the focus of their awareness naturally goes to the object of their thoughts. In our culture, the value of thinking is a precious gift. Inventions and technological progress solve problems, but sometimes our problem exists in how we interact with a challenge. Through past conditioning and habits, our character is defined. We are taught to believe that that is who we really are. Sometimes, though, during the most difficult times of our life, we are forced to explore the inner reality that exists beyond that conditioning.


People who live a comfortable life are not often forced to this depth. This depth, though, is available to every person and would benefit everyone’s life if they accepted this inner reality. It is from this depth that the expression of their heart is pure. It lacks the thoughts and conditioning of ego and is purely an expression of their deepest wisdom.  The quality of their love would be selfless, not compromised by their ego.

In loving moments, that inner reality is there.  Unfortunately, the habit of focusing on thinking blocks us from staying in that consciousness. Too often, we think that if we change our mind and think a certain way, our problems will be solved. When we venture beyond our thoughts and experience this reality, that state of mind would serve us in everything we do. We just need to learn how to get there when we need it.


In all my books, I deal with developing a positive self-image. In The Positive Self: Change Your Self-Image and You Change Your Life, I show how a conscious self-image can develop over twenty life skills needed for a quality life. In A Healthy Way to be Sick, I emphasize what part of you heals the best. In a health crisis, your positive self is connected to the Wisdom of your Body, which is a conscious link to what needs to be healed. In The End: A Creative Approach to Death, a conscious self-image takes away the fear and resistance, so you can rest in peace.  A conscious self-image does not change the challenge you face; it just faces how you deal with it. You will find these books at Amazon/Kindle.com.


© 2014 Marc Lerner

Learning How to Let Go of Your Life

This title might sound suicidal, but this is not my intention. When you look at your life as the consciousness that keeps you alive and allows you to be more active, letting go of your life is freeing your consciousness. You are freeing it from your thoughts and conditioning. This allows you to be conscious of powerful inner resources and develop a deep spiritual connection. This goes against the way most people live their life.

We have been conditioned to be very conscious of the way we think. Our conditioning is so strong that our consciousness is trapped in our thinking mind. Basically, this is another way of defining attachments. When your consciousness is connected to a thought, you are unable to connect to your deeper inner wisdom. On almost every spiritual path, you are encouraged to let go of your attachments, which allows consciousness to enter a spiritual realm.

I want to propose to you that this can naturally happen in every breath. When we learn how to breathe beyond our thinking mind, our in-breath is a way of letting go of the thoughts that define our life. This in-breath can create a habit that frees us from our thinking mind every time we breathe. Then, on our out-breath, our consciousness returns to our thinking mind with a clear perspective.

To the ego that naturally fears death and is what we identify with, this traps us in our thinking mind. For most people, their thinking mind serves them and makes them more efficient in this world. But, when a person aspires to an important goal, that beyond-thought reality is the home of powerful inner resources that they need. For instance, if you struggle with a health crisis, breathing into this depth is how you can become an active participant as a partner with your doctor. Not only do you activate your healing powers, you remove anxious thinking that limits your ability to heal.

If you want to express love to someone who is important to you, the ability to breathe beyond thoughts allows your heart’s expression to be pure. We limit our love by the way we think and were conditioned. If you had the power to transport consciousness to the silence beyond your thoughts, your love would be free from any limitations. Of course, this happens by a habit which can happen to most people naturally. But, for those whose love is limited by their thoughts and conditioning, they may need to put conscious effort into making this happen.

Another aspect of our life that this breath can serve is our work. When we hold onto our thoughts, we block creativity and our openness to new ideas. Creativity is an important part of work and can subconsciously be limited by the habits we create. Developing the habit of conscious breathing, where we let go of our thinking mind, has the ability to makes us more conscious on our job.

Focusing on breathing may sound insignificant, but it can add quality to every aspect of your life if done consciously.  I suggest that you take time and develop the habit of letting go of your thoughts. This can happen by practicing breathing into silence every night before you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up. This will allow you an instant escape from anxious thinking and, possibly, develop this habit in every breath.

In a health crisis, you need to learn how to let go, so that powerful inner resources can assist you. In my book, A Healthy Way to be Sick, you learn to apply this in a health crisis. In my book, The End: A Creative Approach to Death, you apply this same perspective to your final days, as you approach death.

© 2015 Marc Lerner

My View of Becoming More Conscious

The main issues of today are dealt with by focusing on what people believe. For instance, some people believe that the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, was justified by the police. And others believe it was not.  Another issue is going to war in the Middle East against ISIS. Some people feel it is not our business and we should not be involved; others feel that they are a threat against America and we are justified to be active against them. A third issue is what the Republicans feel and what the Democrats feel.


I feel that the main problem is not in the right and wrong in what you believe in.  The main issue is the consciousness it is perceived with. When you focus on thinking, which is very important, you deal with things with a certain consciousness. When you focus beyond thinking, you can go back and deal with the issues from a higher consciousness. Most people constantly focus on thinking and they navigate through life on what they believe.


In Latin, the word ‘believe’ comes from the word ‘to allow.’ When you allow what you believe, you do not always have the consciousness that goes beyond your personal perspective. For instance, if you grew up in a Republican household, your beliefs would be influenced by that. If you had a selfless perspective, you would be able to see more than your past conditioning and see issues from a broader perspective.

I think the main problem in our society today is the consciousness we live our life in. We train our children to focus on thinking to be evaluated in a positive way. During those formative years, if we even presented the idea of focusing beyond thinking, they would naturally be open to that possibility. When this idea is presented to most people, they relate to it in a religious way. It takes faith to go beyond the security of thinking. For those who focus on thinking, they hide behind their belief system. The way they get to God is by focusing on the “right” way of thinking.


In almost every spiritual path, silence is honored as a way to connect with God. Silence is definitely beyond thinking, for your thoughts can disturb real silence. I feel the way to connect to God is not through a belief system, but the ability to surrender in silence.  In silence “you” do not exist. There is no duality and a conscious approach to issues is a natural response. It is hard for people to go beyond the idea “I am,” for they focus on thinking and identify with it. “I am a Republican.” “I am a Democrat.” “I believe in God.” “I do not believe in God.” In a high state of consciousness, “I am” is all that you need.


We do not enter this discussion because we do not want to influence people’s belief systems. If we dealt with this issue focused on consciousness, we would become more conscious in dealing with what we believe. For instance, religion is not taught in school, because each family has different belief systems. There is a law that separates church and state, but that does not really affect people becoming more conscious.


Every belief system would benefit when people were more conscious. For instance, there are many wars based on different belief systems. I feel that is unconscious. A conscious man can accept another’s belief system without being threatened. The reason this has not been understood in the past is that we live in the consciousness that is limited by the way we think. Most people have experienced this beyond-thought consciousness when they fall in love or face a challenge that really threatens them.


This beyond-thought consciousness is common in sports, for when people enter ‘the zone,’ they are beyond thought and perform excellently. I believe there could be ‘a zone’ in everything we do, but that requires people to go beyond the thoughts they identify with. It might seem impossible for different belief systems to live peacefully, but if we enter the zone and become conscious of more than our thoughts, our life would happen excellently.


The work I do in dealing with health issues involves people tapping the Wisdom of their Body. This I feel is ‘the zone’ of healing. I have had a disease for the last 33 years. Though I have not healed myself, I feel ‘the zone’ of dealing with my disease happens when I focus on consciousness, instead of the way I think. If I only focused on thoughts, it would be hard to make my life seem positive. If I surrender in consciousness, I can deal with what is happening to me in a loving, peaceful state.


If you look at the books I have written, available on Amazon/Kindle.com, you would learn the life skills that would help you be in consciousness, instead of the worries of your challenge. My 4 books; A Healthy Way to be Sick; The Positive Self: Change Your Self-Image and You Change Your Life; The End: A Creative Approach to Death; A :Poetic View of Hospice.

Marc’s websites: http://lifeskillsinc.com and  http://www.MarcLerner.com

Marc’s blog: marclerner.com


© 2015 Marc Lerner

Using the Positive Self to Work with Clients

I was asked how I work with difficult clients. I use the Positive Self to work with clients so I am not affected by their energy was my answer. Below is a more in depth answer.

I worked with veterans with PTSD for 25 years at the VA and found myself dealing with intense clients regularly. I understand what it means to be affected by the clients you work with. I found that it was more important to change where they were coming from to avoid negative energy than it was to change myself. My main technique was to get them in touch with what I called their Positive self. We think to our self image, so if they have a negative self image, their thoughts will have a negative expression. If they have a positive self-image they got positive expressions. My technique changed self-images to a positive self-image.

Since their positive self-image was created from their own past experience, they could identify with it. I found if I focused on their Positive self from my positive self, communications happened with ease. That doesn’t say they didn’t have problems to deal with; it just meant they dealt with their problems from a more conscious part of them. My goal was to have them create a habit where they thought to their positive self regularly.

I am retired now, writing what I learned in the past. You can learn how to connect to your Positive Self on my website for free. Go to marclerner.com and look for the sample technique. This would be something for you and your clients. It only takes 10 minutes to use when you lead them through it and about a week to create a habit. I wrote a book called “The Positive Self, Change your Self Image and You Change Your Life.” I also wrote a book using techniques like that for people in a health challenge called “A Healthy Way to Be Sick” and one for those facing a death threat called “The End, A Creative Way to Approach Death.” All my books are on Amazon/Kindle.

I am personally going through those stages and find it helpful to aspire to a deeper consciousness when dealing with difficult times. Those times have a very strong benefit; they motivate you to transcend your everyday consciousness to accomplish higher goals. If you are in a difficult time, I recommend that you put your focus into using it to evolve. If you are not in a difficult time, reading these books can plant seeds in your mind, so when hard times happen, you can fall back on this understanding instead of your past conditioning. Remember you always choreograph your life; so always lean toward consciousness for a beautiful life.

The Guidance of Consciousness

Steven Hawking says in the movie, “The Theory of Everything,” that the universe is unlimited. In spirituality, you could say that ultimate consciousness is unlimited. We do not think of the consciousness within us as unlimited, but throughout the ages, people have connected to that unlimited reality. Within all of us, there is a part of us that leans toward that unlimited reality and a part of us that is locked up in our past conditioning.


                I believe that real spiritual aspiration brings us closer to an experiential connection to that unlimited consciousness. Unfortunately, most people identify with and lean toward their past conditioning. Consciousness has no boundaries, but our past conditioning creates boundaries. When we lean toward our past conditioning, we find safety there. It seems to create a comfort zone that we resist leaving.


                Most people resist entering the Unknown because it removes them from their comfort zone and creates insecurity. The part of us that leans toward consciousness in everything we do has an open door to that unlimited reality. When you base your life on past conditioning, you are subject to limitations. Positive and negative memories create limitations. Even if you have positive memories of your family and your upbringing, you experience limitations unless you go beyond them. There is no “I” in that beyond-thought reality. Because we hold on and identify with the past, we are forced out of unconditional consciousness.


                I have written 3 e-books that lean on that unlimited consciousness. The first book, The Positive Self: Change Your Self-Image and You Change Your Life, develops a self-image that is willing to go beyond past conditioning and venture into that unlimited consciousness.  Most  people have self-images that cause them to panic when they leave their comfort zone. The second book, A Healthy Way to be Sick, helps you lean on that unlimited consciousness when dealing with a health challenge. It develops life skills that make you feel comfortable exploring the unknown. Especially when you have a health crisis, the motivation to heal is very strong. We can accomplish goals that normally seem impossible. The last book, The End: A Creative Approach to Death, leans on that unlimited consciousness as you approach death. These books are available on Amazon/Kindle.


From Diagnosis to the End

In the first few minutes after you receive a diagnosis, you set the tone of how you are going to deal with it. This is the way you are going to relate to your illness from that point on, until it is consciously changed. Doctors say that when a person hears a diagnosis of cancer and slams his fist on the desk, he lives longer and becomes more involved than a person who passively accepts it. Our initial reaction to the diagnosis plays a significant role, but it can consciously be changed by developing better life skills. If you trust your inner resources, you become more confident in dealing with challenges. These include self-trust, self-image and confidence.
You trust what is important to you. When you see your inner resources as an important part of your life, you confidently rely on them. When you do not see them as important, you become a passive victim, waiting
for help to come from other than yourself. In my book, A Healthy Way to be Sick, you learn how to move importance from things that are outside of you to what I call the Zero Point, where you trust yourself. Basically, that says that your life and inner wisdom are more important than your thoughts and perceptions. In a health crisis, self-trust is essential to become an
equal partner with your doctor. The doctor represents the medical world and the resources it takes to heal you. In that partnership, you represent the inner world and the inner resources it takes to heal the body and respond to medical treatments.
The next inner resource is developing a strong self-image. We think to our self-image, which is the way we interpret what is happening. A positive self-image interprets challenges in such a way that you play a significant role. Your interpretation determines the conclusion you arrive at. A negative self-image plays the role of a victim and hesitates to get
actively involved.  Since we trust what is important, we have to see our self-image as an important part of the healing process. In my book, The Positive Self: Change Your Self-Image and You Change Your Life, you develop a self-image that serves every part of you. It is your positive self that openly receives powerful inner resources and plays an active role in
The most important thing you have in healing is the attitude you have about your illness. Attitudes are based on the decisions you made in the past, when you dealt with similar situations. For instance, if in the past when you dealt with a health struggle, you decided that you cannot deal with it, you formed the attitude that eliminated active involvement in the
future. The poor decision came more likely from your negative self. It is possible to image that same situation and create a decision from your positive self, which will significantly change the attitude you have now. If you are more connected to a positive self-image in your everyday life now, that decision naturally changes.                                                                        Confidence is a result of your positive self being kind and compassionate to your negative self. This eliminates the self-doubt that negative conditioning plays in your life. Confidence, or ‘with faith’, brings a spiritual quality to the challenges you face. This quality opens you to something bigger than yourself to deal with your challenge. It eliminates the self-doubt you, too often, insert into challenges. We cannot always change the challenge we face, but we can always change what part of us deals with that challenge. Confidence is an important ingredient in really trusting ourselves.                                              Every part of a health challenge needs to have the best part of you participate. When that happens, you are a better partner with your doctor. This applies, not only to your conscious lifetime, but it also applies to how you face death. This does not only involve you, but also the people you love and those who care for you. Continue reading

The End: A Creative Way To Approach Death


To help me prepare for this final journey, I wrote a book called The End: A Creative Approach to Death. The first part of this book helped me be clear about what is involved in approaching death. The second part consists of 40 poems that helped me to prepare from a creative perspective.
Many of us have lived a life where we have become proficient in accomplishing goals; we live our lives in that state of mind. When we are close to the end of life, what is our goal? In our lives, we have been “the Doer,” where we do things by focusing on our thoughts. Preparing for death requires us to also be “the Receiver.”
Of course, there are things to do to prepare for this ultimate journey, but we also have to receive to get valuable input from our deepest inner wisdom. The majority of our character was created by habits developed as children, but most children never learned how to prepare for death.
Consciously approaching death involves utilizing powerful inner resources in a selfless way. This inner journey does not serve your ego, but it definitely brings you closer to life. If preparation can give you a better connection to life, why wait until the end of your life to prepare? It would serve everyone to prepare for death, even when it was not yet a threat. My best preparation happens when I transcend my ego and surrender in consciousness. As Lao Tzu said: “It is best to prepare for death while you are still alive.”
This book also suggests how you can write a book that creatively helps you
to approach death. When you create your thoughts in a book, you create
habits that help you during your toughest struggle, the end of life.

The Positive Self

You are basically described by the way you think and by the way you
act. This book is designed to have you consciously come from the best part
of you. In this book, “The Positive Self,” you develop habits that always
have you come from a conscious place. We think to our self- image, so if you
think to a negative self-image, you get negative thoughts and actions. You
interpret your trauma negatively, which only adds to the problem. If you
think to a positive self-image, you get positive responses, interpretations
and actions. Your positive self is open to external help because it
naturally falls back on consciousness, while the negative falls back on your
conditioned habits.
There is nothing that you identify with that can represent you as
accurately as your self-image. The greatest tool for a person that deals
with anxiety is to be able to control the self-image they identify with and
the ability to switch it whenever they need to. Your self-image was formed
by the way people related to you, for that taught you how to relate to
yourself. Your self-image is at the center of every memory, every idea and
every interpretation you make of your entire life. Simply changing your
self-image from a negative to a positive will not take away anxiety or any
trauma you may have experienced, but it will change the way you interpret
what is going on.
When a person has anxiety, they often have a difficult time
concentrating. Over time, it is often the case that an anxious person
develops a negative self-image. A positive self-image gives positive
interpretations and perceives exactly what is. A negative self-image
interprets based on past conditioning. A negative self-image is created by
past conditioned habits. It is difficult for a negative self-image to be in
the moment, for it associates every input to the past.

Your entire character is a relationship between your positive and
negative self-image. You can create valuable life skills through the
interaction between your positive and negative self. For instance, the
quality of confidence is the expression of your positive self being kind and
loving to your negative self. This is where you find ways to deal with your
anxiety by using inner strengths. A habit can be triggered by a word or
phrase, so that when a person faces an anxious state of mind, they can say
their trigger and at least interpret their situation from a conscious state
of mind.
Doctors and therapists directing their input to the positive self
find their input received consciously. If they direct their input to the
negative self, the input is received based on old habits the patient
identifies with. The habits can be negative or positive, but they block you
from being conscious in the moment. A patient connected to their positive
self is more receptive and connected to powerful inner resources: a patient
connected to their negative self is not open to new ideas and justifies
their life from the way they were conditioned.
The way you receive help is affected by what part of you, you think
to. This book is also helpful for people that help other people. It could be
doctors and therapists, teachers, parents those in a relationship, or anyone
who consciously deals with others’ personal development. Actually, the
greatest use of the “Positive Self” is personal development. The real
quality of life is when you look through the eyes of a conscious part of
you. This book gives you the tools to develop conscious life skills, a
positive perspective and the ability to better learn and correct yourself.