Lindsay Wagner

If anyone had told Lindsay Wagner in her twenties that one day she might be called a spiritual teacher and healer, she would have laughed. Even now she still don't see herself that way; but she has been motivated to share with others that which has truly enhanced her life and she is grateful that it has turned out to be so meaningful to others. The spiritual aspect, of what she is doing now, has always been a major part of her life. L earning meditation and visualization when she was 20 to help cure her stomach ulcers was the start of a life long journey in the study and practice of various complementary therapies and the interaction of body, mind and spirit.

The ulcers came about because of Lindsay's struggle to express her emotions throughout a tumultuous young life. Her parents divorced when she was seven. After her mother remarried, her family struggled with domestic violence. As Lindsay herself recalls, "The more I hurt, the more I bottled up my emotions. The more jokes I told". Her repressed emotions began eating their way out of her stomach during adolescence.

When she was 12, fate intervened. She was babysitting for the children of an acting coach who invited her into his class. It became a place where she could express her emotions in a safe environment and realise that she had nothing to be ashamed of. She took to it like a duck to water as it came so easily to her. When offered a part in a television series, he advised her to wait a few years until she was more emotionally ready. It was some of the best advice she ever received.

Lindsay's first professional dream when growing up was to become a psychologist or counsellor. However, being dyslexic in a time when no one knew what that was and therefore there was no help or understanding available, made it impossible for her to get through college. On the one hand she was told she was really bright, and inside she felt that; but on the other, she was branded lazy and told to try harder, even though she was trying as hard as she possible could. Her struggle with dyslexia added to the volcano growing inside her stomach, culminating in a need for an urgent operation at age 20.

More Divine Intervention.

While waiting to have the operation her boyfriend's mother brought two friends to see her, one an MD, the other a minister. They offered to help Lindsay avoid the surgery and go on a different healing path. Lindsay recalls, “ I would have done anything rather than have an operation and I agreed."

The friends were part of the Church of Religious Science and for six weeks Lindsay lived on skimmed milk and water and underwent a series of healing techniques including meditation, prayer and visualization, while still under observation by the hospital. They also taught her to look at her emotional patterns and behaviour. She saw that every time she was ill it followed some family crisis and she realised for the first time that the mind, the body and the soul are totally linked. Within six weeks Lindsay's ulcers was cured and it was the beginning of a lifetime of personal exploration and study of ‘accessing our amazing human potential'.

In July of 1971, Lindsay woke up one day and just felt ‘I was ready' to pursue an acting career. From her very first interview, Marcus Selby MD, she couldn't seem to do anything wrong. She starred in shows such as Rockford Files, Owen Marshall, Night Gallery, and 2 feature films, Two People directed by Robert Wise and the Paper Chase by James Bridges. Then Lindsay was then offered a guest role as the girlfriend of ‘The Six Million Dollar Man' and before she knew it she was catapulted to worldwide fame as The Bionic Woman.

From the very start she saw the series as a way of communicating with the audience, especially the children, who saw her as their role model. It was important to her to have some say in how they were going to be influencing children week after week. Lindsay explains, "I wasn't what you might call a traditional actress, I was more interested in getting my message across. I see my career as a way of communicating through stories and understanding our human potential and, hopefully, transcending circumstances.” The huge success of the Bionic Woman gave Lindsay the power within the TV industry to do movies with subject matter that was previously taboo; domestic violence, child abuse, revisionist history and other social issues, with the aim of helping viewers examine how such issues affected their lives.

With the advent of cable TV in the 90's television went from three to a hundred channels, and in doing so ratings became everything. Producers stopped making such issue orientated dramas in favour of sensationalism and reality shows. So in 1999, after making more than 35 TV movies, seven feature films and a host of mini series and specials, Lindsay decided to take a break from acting to spend time with her children and also focus more on her spiritual self. S he studied various spiritual traditions, such as Tibetan Buddhism , Quantum physics, nutrition, acupressure, homeopathy, inner bonding, Christian contemplation, Native American Shamans and integrating body, mind and spirit from various teachers, and she became certified in her own particular field of expertise, energy psychology, also known as emotional freedom techniques. These techniques help release emotional and physical pain by dislodging negative energy trapped in our energy field.

Within a couple of years Lindsay found herself teaching healing techniques in a support group for domestic violence offenders and their families in the LA County Jail, also setting up her own non-profit organization; PeaceMakers Community, with James Beard, a violence and substance abuse expert. Lindsay recalls, “This was so amazing to me; I had come full circle and was able to help families in a way I wish our family could have been helped a long time ago.”

The last event to trigger Lindsay's transition into a new career happened when she encountered the Oneness Experience; a flow of energy that has the capacity to bring about an immediate shift in perspective and to enhance our sense of connectedness. More recently Lindsay has put her personal experience and many years of studying to good use by combining spirituality, psychology and the techniques she has learned to develop her ‘Quiet the Mind & Open the Heart' experiential workshops and retreats. These are designed to help access the peace and joy that is naturally within us and to change people's perspectives of their problems so they can deal better with their circumstances.

She says: "We have the capability to change the way we feel about things, even if we cannot change the circumstances. I help people deal with all kinds of everyday life problems - things we think are so difficult, but which are not really, it's just our perspective of them.

This year Lindsay broke new ground with her first meditation cd ‘Open To Oneness'. It came about as a result of people wanting to follow up at home what they had experienced at the workshops. It is a unique labor of love and made with the listener very much in her heart and mind. It is an achievement of which she is rightly proud.

Looking back, Lindsay can see the divine guidance throughout her whole journey. Today, she sees it all the time. Actually, she expects it.