I am a bodywork therapist, spiritual director, and artist. I have always paid attention to details and relationships. Growing up among Amish and Mennonite communities in Pennsylvania, I was sensitive to my family’s status as outsiders. This childhood experience kindled my awareness of “insider-outsider” attitudes and empathy for those on the margins. 

When we pay attention to relationships, we feel our connection to everyone. No one of us is ever truly other but at some point, we have all had the experience of feeling that way. I believe that inclusion of everyone is our natural calling.

I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia and later, motivated by a curiosity about integrative health, I studied massage and bodywork therapy at the Baltimore School of Massage. Through my arts studies, I began to understand that the act of creating, and the ignition of human creativity, are a holistic experience of body/spirit/mind. In training for bodywork therapy, I came to see the physiological processes of healing - our inherent orientation toward healing or homeostasis - is in itself an expression of creativity.

All of us are energized by the capacity to create. Creating is never separated from Spirit, and it connects us to the creative "order" seen throughout nature, our world, and in one another. In my practices of bodywork therapy and spiritual direction, I seek to reconnect people with their own inherently wise and healing creativity.

Over the decades of my bodywork, one of the greatest rewards has been a daily encounter with our vulnerability, frailty, fear, and joy. It seems these aspects are inseparable from our healing, creativity, and spirituality, and that perhaps they reflect a connection to our life Source or life energy?

Eastern philosophies call this “chi” or “Qi,” but, a decade into my bodywork practice, I began to wonder what language is used within the Abrahamic faiths? Searching for a conversation that bridged medicine and theology, I entered the Master of Arts in Christian Studies (MACS) program at Duke Divinity School, where I explored the intersection of spirituality, theology, creativity, and health.

This study challenged me to read ancient texts from all faith traditions, through a discerning lens, to see the historical contexts of geography, culture, and social paradigms. Their stories reveal the same individual and communal struggles people of past civilizations encountered as we experience today.

Stepping back from my personal interpretations, questioning what may seem obvious, enables me to be more present, and to hear more deeply, the important “stories” people bring to a session.

All are invited and welcome to both my practice of bodywork therapy and my practice of spiritual direction.

Sallie is based in Durham, North Carolina. Follow her on Facebook at Sallie Gentry Spiritual Direction.