There is much that the spa industry can do for spiritual wellbeing. Health, peace, time, silence, touch and relationships are all things that people may hold sacred that they can experience in a visit to a thoughtfully programmed holistic spa. Jeremy McCarthy
This post was written after reading Dissecting the Spirit in Body, Mind, Spirit (June 2011) on Jeremy McCarthy's blog The Psychology of Wellbeing: Musings on the Science of Holistic Wellness. Jeremy concluded his thoughtful piece by suggesting that:
While we like to figure out where to draw clear lines so we can box things into neat compartments that are easy to express independently, the key to success in holistic wellness is in getting comfortable with blurred lines.
I'd like to suggest that we consider this blurring as a kind of softening of our gaze on life that might allow us to be more receptive towards it and less demanding of it. That would differ from the hard look taken by those seeking to profit by the human need for healing. I don't think spa as industry can or needs to be the answer to all ills, and nor does it need to prove itself equal to clinical medicine. Perhaps there is more to our attraction to spa than meets the opportunistic eye.
I'm heartened to see that so many others are, like me, trying to articulate their thoughts about what comes into the broadening arena that is still simply called 'spa'. I'm no longer sure what the cohesive element for that term is. Once it was water; perhaps now it is wellness. As my crude charts in the previous post Spa Culturomics suggest, the use of this word is new. It is also an abstract term, and we are tempted to seek models for it.
All the initial comments that were made on Jeremy's post referenced models for defining wellbeing across 'body, mind and spirit' and all were attempting to 'intelligently think about how spas can impact each of these three distinct domains' (JM). And yet the domains are not distinct. We soon discover that naming things only gives us the illusion of being in control of them. It allows us to talk about them but we easily lose sight of the bigger picture.
It will be a great loss if existing models (or any models) of scientific understanding or business practice are used to define, regulate and standardize away the healing arts that spas once helped to resurrect and revive interest in. Innovations that don't fit the models or don't offer obvious profits may be all too easily dismissed in this way. If not dismissed, they may be adapted out of all recognition by simplistic interpretations.
Recently, a spa colleague asked me how I would define 'holistic science'. For me, it remains a contradictory term. Conventional scientific methodology seeks to be objective, to reduce the observer effect and to avoid subjectivity. Truly holistic science would integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches to studying whole systems. It would develop methodologies that take into account ecological context, complexity and the value of life.
There are some, like the forward-thinkers at Schumacher College who are developing these ideas. And yet, putting them into practice will probably require us to change much of our modern approach to life and our part in it as humans. These are huge philosophical concepts that cannot be reduced to marketing speak by those looking for trends and drivers and ways to boost their bottom lines. Which brings me back to spa, as industry.
Ideas spread quickly in our media-led world, and like gossip they often end up as something quite different. We forget that surveys (as in the Global Spa Summit 2010 Wellness report) are only a reflection of the necessarily limited population of respondents. They do not tell us 'what the people think'. Rather than providing justifications for mass marketing, they serve us best if they inspire us to ask deeper questions.
This is just what Jeremy McCarthy has done in his valiant attempt to respond to spa industry leader Susie Ellis's observation that the distinctions 'between mind and spirit in the spa context (as in body, mind, spirit)' are somewhat blurred. (See Susie's comment on Jeremy's earlier post Science and Spirituality in the Spa about an apparent trend in the spa industry of moving away from spirituality and towards the scientific end of the spectrum.)
Wary about industry-identified trends of any kind, I find myself asking: Are spas now wondering if they can become not only upholders of science but also purveyors of spirit? Should they be in the business of marketing meaning? They may perhaps endeavor to provide a setting and an opportunity for healing but the actuality of that depends on something that I suspect will remain beyond our human comprehension for a long time yet.
People have been benefiting from healing practices like massage or soaking in warm water since ancient times - long before medical science studied the effects on the human body, and long before spa became the modern industry it now is. Being supported by compassionate helpers with common sense in making our individual choices may be what matters most. Could our modern version of spa offer that?
I don't think it likely for as long as the emphasis remains on models and methods, instead of the mystery that remain at the heart of life and is carried in the hearts of the individual people who work in spas (and every other place) and those who go to spas seeking some kind of respite from the very particular stresses of their very individual lives. It's not that our studies and systems don't matter, it's just that sometimes we forget that there is something else.
Quoting Jeremy again: '[Spirituality] is not defined by something greater than ourselves, but it accommodates people who deeply value relationships and contribution.' One size does not fit all; One spa does not fit all; One spirit may pervade all. Let's those of us who love spa watch out for the hubris that 'often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities'. Service is a humble art.
