Meet our Resource Team: Jackson Hale and 360 WELLNESS
Jackson Hale is all about connections. He started making them during his physical therapy studies at Azusa Pacific University. To connect his lessons with real life experience, he went on Instagram to offer nutrition counseling or physical therapy sessions to dormmates and friends. Soon, he offered the same to clients at North County San Diego gyms.
As he gained experience, Jackson began to connect the injuries and issues he saw to what was causing them. At least 80 percent of the problems he treated, he believed, could have been prevented with proper coaching. He began to integrate his training and experience, melding mind, body and spirit into treatment approaches designed not just to heal, but to set clients on a path to long-term health.
A post-college backpacking trip in Southeast Asia sent Jackson deeper into thinking about spiritual health. And when he returned to Carlsbad a visit to a revival sermon at a San Marcos church opened the door to a new connection: a personal, experiential connection with God.
The next step was connecting this spiritual awakening with the profession he’d chosen in physical therapy. Jackson spent 500 hours working toward his license in massage, sports medicine and training. As he practiced, he increasingly saw that work as just one element of healing. Clients “were in pain, they weren’t eating well, they weren’t mindful, they were stressed, they were anxious, they were depressed,” he says. “I stepped out in faith and passion reaching out to these people in need,” adding prayer and words of encouragement to connect his physical therapy with spiritual healing.
Faith, says Jackson, is “that missing piece that I knew wasn’t in healthcare, that I believe is the solution.” Without it, healing is “not complete.” It lacks “that power, that love of God integrated into it.”
Jackson searched for an organization where he could integrate his faith with his physical therapy. When he couldn’t find one, he created his own: 360 Wellness. Faith “wasn’t something I was advertising or marketing, but it started to open the door with my clients,” he says.
As his own practice grew, Jackson made 360 Wellness a nonprofit center that hosts other fitness and wellness professionals in the Christian community. He’s sold his gym equipment, moving away from physical therapy to more personal, spiritual counseling. Clients now come to him for help resolving family conflicts, or dealing with issues such as mental health or addiction. Through donations to the nonprofit, he can cover costs for those who have few resources but need counsel and ministry.
What began as a massage therapy studio has transformed into a center for connection – connection to classes and counseling, prayer and mission study, with Jackson or other Christian wellness and fitness professionals.
In all of these connections, says Jackson, health and wellness professionals shouldn’t lose sight of their need to stay inwardly connected as well. It’s easy to let ambition push us so hard we burn out; the road to healing others starts with self-care, with keeping ourselves healthy – physically and spiritually.
Jackson has now set his sights beyond 360Wellness to extend his reach to support other ministries, organizations, start outreach programs, and support missions abroad. His missionary journey has brought him to South Africa, Botswana, and Uruguay for outreach, ministry care, and support. He is excited to be a part of the Roadworks Collective community to make a greater impact on those in need.