Article - Sally Talks About Health

Sally Kirkland is best known for her performance in "Anna" (1987) which won her an Oscar nomination as Best Actress the Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award. A few of her many other starring roles include "ColdFeet", "Revenge","Best of the Best"and a star cameo In "JFK." Her film "Cheatin' Hearts", which she also executive produced, was picked by Robert Redford for a Sundance Film Festival. She's a professional producer, acting teacher, theater and TV director, yoga master and ordained minister. She was a guest last July on "Oprah", teaching her yoga and meditation, and will be seen on Showtime television for a number of projects starring In "Amnesia" with Any Sheedy, acting plus directing for the series "Women", starring with Diane Ladd and Ray Walston In "The Westing Game" and currently filming 'The Hunger” in Canada.

Sally has long had a personal interest and involvement with various alternative therapies and practices. I got Into nutrition, meditation and yoga. In 1988, I was hired as a reporter on a program called "The Reporters", and when asked for my favorite choice of topic, I said 'alternative health'. I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Bernie Segal, Louise Hay, and Norman Cousins and an AIDS patient who was alive 10 years after he was predicted to be dead, based on combining Dr. Cousin's work with Louise Hay's work and nutritional therapy.

Sally is passionate about the need for people to have a choice in their approaches to health. Referring to the proposed Codex Alimentarius she says "if it's allowed to be set into motion, we're going to lose control . As consumers we should be able to choose and treat ourselves with herbal remedies If not , it will be tantamount to something like neo-fascism", she laughs. It'll put natural substances into the realm of prescription drugs.It seems the FDA is trying to slowly take away all the natural remedies
that work."
 

CONCERNED ABOUT FREEDOM OF CHOICE

 

From 1986 to 1995 she had silicone implants and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on healing (including no less than SIX surgeries) for resulting problems "Under the direction of  my clinical nutritionist Dr. Steven Small, and doctors from the Total  Health Connection, I have been treated in the past for Epstein-Barr and CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and Candida with herbs such as Red Clover, Milk Thistle, Echinacea, tryptophan & chaparral" She is very concerned that what happened with tryptophan and chaparral (they were taken off the market by the FDA) "will begin to happen with all the other herbs and we will not have free access to these very healing natural remedies" Legislation such as the Access to Medical Freedom Act is also of interest to Sally: "I've written Henry Waxman many letters threatening to go on every talk show if he doesn't keep the medical freedom choice." And referring to AB733, making the fluoridation of an California's waters mandatory, she says"Well, again, I don't want the government to have control of what goes Into my body. I want to have choice. In any event I suggest that people drink non-carbonated bottled water, because most of the municipal water supply is contaminated with toxic elements and parasites, unless you are lucky enough to live In Palm Springs or someplace like that ."

Sally uses a variety of alternative therapies to keep herself in top health and fitness for her very demanding work as an actor / producer / director : "I do Shiatsu, iridology, colonics, acupuncture, nutrition counseling, chiropractic, rolfing, reiki massage, daily lap swimming, Hatha yoga, pranayama, meditation, juice therapy, fasting, homeopathy, electro- acupuncture, aerobic exercise, and staying as dose to negative ions at least a couple of days a week as I can: by the water or In the desert. My diet primarily consists of brown rice, steamed vegetables, salmon, range-free turkey, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, soups and salads, and no sugar or anything that turns to sugar in the body. I love the late Linus Pauling and his theory of vitamin C. I take as much as 10,000 milligrams a day sometimes."

Sally became a yoga master in 1970 for the Integral Yoga Institute, and she still enjoys teaching worldwide: “I just taught a combination of yoga, meditation and acting in Santiago, Chile for Insight Transformational Seminars and people came from all Latin countries.Obviously I had an interpreter. I saw a man with polio, who'd been beaten as a child by his father for 14 years, have a complete breakthrough, with the healing powers of music (in this case 'The Greatest Love of All' by Michael Masser), and psychodrama go release the anger and tears) in order to get to the forgiveness and love. I used emotional recall and healing of memories, theater games and comedy improv so he and an the others there could get to the place where they could make fun of their own tragedy.
 

MANY ROADS TO SELF-REALIZATION

 

"These are some of the techniques I use with transformational work, accessing my work as a Minister of Light In the Movement of Spiritual  Inner Awareness, as an acting teacher for the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, and as a teacher for the IYI. I teach people to stay in the present and be open for the rebirthing moment to moment to let go of an the baggage, by transmuting it into an artistic expression. If there is a lot of pain in one's life, on whatever level physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually they are given techniques to turn it into a great poem, a painting, a dance, a song, a dramatic performance, a standup comedy act or a heartfelt sharing In front of an audience."



Sally feels an important part of what she does is to teach people communication skills and freedom of expression: "Often times a lot of people's problems stem from guilt about their own sexuality, so I guide people to help them express on an levels their own sexuality. So many of our parents, and our parent's parents and our parent's parent's parents have made it not OK to have our own unique expression of our sexuality, sensuality, and spirit. And that impacts health. For instance, in my work with AIDS for 15 year, I have worked with a lot of men and women in denial about their condition, because --at least in the past -- there was so much judgment from society around them. My Bible is a book called Forgiveness, the Key to the Kingdom by John-Roger.



One of the most important aspects of health, Sally notes, is one's spiritual condition: 'My work involves realizing the ordinariness in all of us. No matter what one's lot is in life or what one is dealing with, what matters is finding the heart focus, rather than the amount of money or not, or illness or not, or success or not. Because from my point of view with the mind-body / body-mind connection, we can all realize that we are enough just as we are, and that one smile is a ministry of light to someone who needed that smile. One touch is no different than the laying-on-of-hands by a saint if it's done with the heart focus in mind. The use of words with tenderness and compassion and empathy can be a healing in itself. For me, no matter what the AMA has told me or told some of my friends, I’ve seen miracle after miracle after miracle occur, and I have, at this point, I’d say dose to 25 friends who were suppose to have died of AIDS who are doing very well, and are very healthy. Maybe they had to change their lifestyle, as I had to with my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Maybe that's what it took to put the focus on health. Nevertheless there is something to be said f or taking one's health in one's own hands.



For me health freedom means keeping the avenues open to getting truthful information out on what is available naturally without having to fill our bodies up with prescription drugs. They can ultimately cause toxicity In the kidneys lungs heart, brain, pancreas liver and colon. (Juice therapy helps). Let's have the AMA and alternative health practitioners work side by side, and be realistic that every individual is going to have a different perfect cure.Why make a generalization for humanity? For me, alternative healing works,"

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