Vision Spa Retreat

Wellness within the spa: guest post by Kate Riley

 

I'm delighted to present Vision Spa Retreat's first guest post from Kate Riley. Kate is an Eco-Centered Spa Consultant and Therapist Educator and determined to 'raise the bar' in both arenas.  In her own healing work, she specializes in a sensitive approach to chronic pain relief.

Recently, Kate and I have been enjoying a flow of conversation about what it really takes to create a spa environment that epitomizes caring for people and planet.  Here, Kate turns the idea of offering wellness outside-in and looks at the wellness of the spa as reflected in its staff.

She suggests that weaving wellness into a spa means encouraging a real sense of synergy among spa staff, emphasizing sharing and service to create a flow of good energy that will be palpable to all those who visit. 

The article below was first published in July 2011 on The Riley School of Integrated Somatic Bodywork blog, and is reproduced here with kind permission of Kate Riley. For more about Kate, or to contact her directly, follow the links at the end.

Imaging Spa: an interview with photo-artist Linda Troeller

by Sara Firman of Vision Spa Retreat
[all images reproduced by kind permission of Linda Troeller]

Art washes away from the Soul the dust of Everyday Life
- Pablo Picasso

If Picasso is right, then Art and Spa surely go together.   Both might add something more soulful (moist, fluid, luscious, vibrant) when we're feel worn down by life.

One of the things I love about spa as healing space is the inherent potential for creativity.  It's a special quality of soul, that beauty is always bound up with feeling through experiencing.

Over the last two decades, photo-artist Linda Troeller's mission has been to convey through her work what it actually feels like to enter a spa and immerse yourself in the experience.

I first came across her work at Toskana Therme, Bad Sulza.  It was a booklet about their  Liquid Sound®, featuring Linda's art, that made it possible for me to convey that magical experience to my friends later.

Vision Spa Retreat is focused on all that is soulful and sustainable in spa, so I was delighted to learn more from Linda about how she came to be involved with spa art and what has inspired her in that.

Visit Linda Troeller's website here.

I began by asking Linda how her interest in applying her photographic art in the world of spa came about.

Finding the divine: spiritual spa retreats

Phil Stone is one of those rare and special people who truly walks his talk.  He writes on one of his websites:

As a retreat leader and facilitator myself, I am sensitive to the challenges faced by retreat centers to market their planned events. Our objective is to help retreat centers, churches, retreat leaders and groups to market their events with the use of Internet technology.

As a recipient on several occasions now of Phil's help, I want to share with you two valuable services for those seeking and offering retreat services:

FindtheDivine & SeekaRetreat

for

Spiritual Retreats... Retreat Calendar...over 1,700 Retreat Centers... over 1,200 Conference Centers... over 300 Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders. An information source and directory for retreat centers, spiritual workshops, spiritual conference centers, camps, retreat centers for sale, retreat events, retreat leaders & spiritual direction.

See Vision Spa Retreat on FindtheDivine and SeekaRetreat.

Thank you Phil!

A New Year for Vision Spa Retreat

Aqua est Animus, Animus est Bonus (Water is life, life is good)

What if we considered retreat in natural surroundings, immersion in beauty and art, intensive personal attention, valuing dreams, visions and encounters with spirit, as our birthright?

From this soulful connection with self we might then experience a more sacred connection with nature that could inspire us to support it's preservation and healing also.  What if water were the medium?

Back at the start of this century, I set out on a quest for the wisdom of water that led me to establish a small spa-retreat that I called Aquaest, a combination of Aqua and Quest.  The phrase is also Latin for 'water is' and for me 'water is ... everything'.   That first spa-retreat is no longer but my quest continues.

During 2008, I have endeavored to reach out to people who share my interest in 'water consciousness for personal and planetary health'.  I'm especially inspired by the concept of spa-retreat as a means for restoring soulful and sustainable ways of living.

To begin, I decided to create three interlinked and interrelated weblogs that each focused on my particular areas of interest (spa culture, aquatic bodywork, and creative expression respectively), and through which I could share my ideas, receive feedback, and maybe inspire cooperative ventures.

Just after the recent election of the new US president Barack Obama, Change.org proposed that members of this innovative social network put forward ideas for positive change in no more than 250 words, and vote on these to discover the best from around the country (US). I drafted mine but didn't have the audacity to post it.

As 2009 opens and I am considering how I'd like my work to develop during the coming year, it seems appropriate to share this summary of my 'dream for change' here.  Below it, I will outline how the ancient healing tradition of Asclepius might inform, and be adapted to serve, our modern world to some benefit.

Why spa-retreat?

How does spa-retreat fit this ancient healing model? The word hospital has the same root as hospitality.  Both mean being welcoming and generous to guests.  Spa culture has it's roots in sacred healing traditions, just as retreat has been associated with spiritual seeking.  Spa-retreat combines health and hosting.

Many people are dissatisfied with fundamental issues such as quality of life, the search for health and meaning, care of the planet and its residents, and the absence of the sacred in nearly everything we do.  We need to envision a future that encompasses all these and is available to everyone.

Here is my dream for change:

This vision of spa-retreat as a cultural concept has the potential to bring about real change in personal and planetary health. It arises from a belief that it is possible, necessary, and effective to integrate self-care, self-development, and self-expression with environmental concerns such as water quality and conservation.

The concept incorporates the idea of taking sabbaticals of at least three-months from everyday concerns in order to focus on one's own well-being and that of the planet. An inspiring model for this is the ancient Asclepian sanctuaries to which people went to seek healing from troubles of body, mind, and spirit.

Those returning from these retreats or sabbaticals would bring back with them insights and actions of value not only to themselves but to the whole (much as Native American vision quests are intended to do). These places of seeking-and-support would be free, and free of any doctrine.

Many people are attracted to the images of health and reinvigoration associated with spa-retreat. However, the underlying essential value and role of our physical and social environments is often overlooked. Spa - sanus per agua (health throught water) - should not be a luxury commodity.

Water as an indicator of health and also a tool for health, is central to the spa-retreat offering. Water, as a metaphor, provides many insights into human behavior and human potential, as the Taoists knew well. Water and humans need to be free and to have depth and clarity to thrive.

Economic blues: asking deeper questions

 

We live on a planet that's 2/3 water and we don't have gills; we live on a planet full of consumer choices and we don't yet have the faculties to choose well.

   Adam Werbach

 

 

This week's Splash e-newsletter for the aquatics industry addressed the topic of 'Attracting Patients in a Down Economy' and suggested that it would be beneficial to look at how other aquatic disciplines are approaching this concern.  Particular reference was made to the spa industry and a recent blog post from Susie Ellis (spa guru) of Spa Finder giving her top 10 list of new spa trends for 2009.  I too had seen the list and have been thinking about what it might mean in the context of 'economy' and 'choice'.  What might spas and aquatic therapy clinics, both service-oriented, have in common when it comes to attracting custom?

As a member of the professional social network LinkedIn where I belong to a number of groups concerned with spa and the health marketing community, I have been following the discussions about the economic situation there too.  I've come to the conclusion that many people are still holding on to a familiar paradigm that is dependent on a consumerist culture.  The greater part of the spa industry seems fully invested in this, as reflected in the tendency to seek to wrap the same concepts in ever more enticing or intriguing packages.  Top spas continue to boast of 11 000 square foot of high-technology treatment options.

Simple and sustainable

How many ways can you cook an egg?  How many ways can you wrap a body?  How many ways can you spend a health dollar? What if such an approach only takes you further away from the fundamental needs people are seeking to meet?  Sometimes simple is best and small is beautiful.  When I was establishing my first spa-retreat, I looked at what the most popular treatments offered by spas were, and noticed that by a long streak this was plain old massage. But I wanted to focus on aquatic bodywork and to show people that this had value too.  So I decided to offer table massage and aquatic bodywork, and keep the 'menu' at that. 

A stay at our retreat always included both land and water sessions in the daily rate in such a way that people could decide how they wanted to combine them, when, and with which practitioner.  Simplicity and flexibility.  No-one ever asked why we didn't have more options or more staff or more rooms.  The treatments offered were assessed top rate, and each guest got personal and individualized attention.  I came to the conclusion that what people truly want is something that, with little fuss and trouble, takes their particular needs into careful consideration, and then makes use of a few simple, appropriate, and flexible tools to meet that well. 

Low-budget operations have to do this of course but the outcome need not mean that the client or patient or guest loses out.  Perhaps it doesn't take a billion dollar renovation to provide the best of service.  Perhaps what it takes is our deepest and truest sense of our humanity and our connection with each other and with the planet upon whose resources we ultimately depend.  Spa and aquatic clinic visitors are seeking greater health and wellbeing.  In the long run, neither quality can exist independent of the community and environment in which we all live.  That is what a downturn reminds us about - sustainability for all is ideal.

The luxury market, as exemplified by spas, does not seem to be being slowed at all by the economic downturn.  However, these venues are for a small elite.  Relatively few people can afford the services of the ecoluxury destination spas springing up in exotic locations all over the globe now.  Many appear to be leading the way regards environmentally and socially conscious operations but they are still for the few, and their acquisition of prime land stands in danger of looking like a new form of colonialism. 

Could we look behind this to ask what people (rich or not) are really seeking and what is truly sustainable over time?

Seeking inspiration

I've just finished reading a controversial article by Adam Werbach called the 'Birth of Blue' in which he is making a case for a new marketing drive based on  'Blue' rather than 'Green'.  As a water-lover, the blue theme immediately attracted me to read on. Many of those who commented on the piece were suspicious of Werbach's motives since he was certainly not advocating the end of the shopper as we know him or her, and perhaps it was just a clever twist of novelty rhetoric.  However, within his argument was a clear recognition of needs and values that are worth taking into consideration.  Here's his rousing introduction:

As vast and common as the ocean, BLUE is a platform for sustainability that goes beyond the deep, beautiful green of environmentalism. Green puts the planet at the center of the dialogue. BLUE puts people at the center.... Green is the beating heart of the emerging BLUE movement. Green represents the simple and inarguable wisdom of ecology: that all things are connected. BLUE brings together a broader set of human concerns, from practice to price, from nature to society. BLUE integrates all four streams of sustainability: social, cultural, economic and environmental.

BLUE puts the way we treat ourselves and each other at the center of our focus.

That last line is a mantra for the healing professions too. Werbach contrasts the focus of conventional psychology on human maladies with the research in the field of positive psychology to establish positive interventions that would proactively make us happy rather than treat us when we are sad. The results showed that once basic needs are met, four things increase people's happiness: 

• being of service to something larger than ourselves;

• experiencing "flow," or full engagement, on a regular basis;

• showing gratitude to the people in our lives;

• having at least three people emotionally close enough to share our lives with. 

What might this mean for a service business?

 

Putting price in context

All four happiness factors would be appropriate foundations for making health service providers, like spas and aquatic clinics, more sustainable in terms of human satisfaction (that of the staff and that of the customers).  Werbach then talked of the economics of sustainability, and the need to replace the four Ps - Price, Product, Place and Promotion, as taught in most marketing classes, with three Ps - Price, Process and Purpose.  (I guess People is a given in this argument.) Like the happiness factors, consideration of these Ps in the context of your service organization might provide some valuable insights and ideas for action. 

In Werbach's words, the new Ps of economics ask us to consider this:

PRICE: First, we need to democratize sustainability and make it available to everyone. You shouldn't have to be rich to be sustainable.

PURPOSE: What's the purpose of what you're buying? First, do you need it? Does it fit into the healthy practices in your life?

PROCESS: What was the process to make the product? Was it energy intensive? Did it use pesticides or petroleum? Were the workers paid a fair wage? How will it be disposed of?

These are the deeper questions that lead to greater authenticity and transparency in practice. Perhaps the downturn in the economy is an opportunity to look far more closely, personally, and locally, at how and why we do our work whether as spas in the leisure sector or aquatic clinics in the medical sector.  To ask if we are really meeting the needs of those we hope to serve might just be key to our success.  And we may find that we can do less but do it better, spend less but spend more effectively. 

Are you meeting people's needs?

What can you do to work together with your staff and customers to improve the effectiveness and availability and sustainability of your services.  Or following the mantra I like to use for my vision of spa-retreat, what can you do to be more 'soulful and sustainable'. In the end it is not the words that matter - though they may help to inspire us - but what we actually do and what that conveys to those we want to serve.  People who are watching their health dollars want to know that their real needs will be met.

Vision Spa Retreat is linked with another weblog on aquatic therapy: for more on this please visit Aquapoetics: Creative Aquatic Bodywork.

If you were to create a retreat ...

Earlier this year [2008], the moderator of the online community, Gaia [now ceased, 2011], asked the following in their 'Questions and Reflections' feature:

If you were to create a retreat, or found a retreat center, what would it be like? Where would you locate it? What would you offer?

 

At the time of writing, there have been about 75 responses and it was fascinating to review them, in the light of my own interest in helping others create eco-spa-retreat venues.

Dictionary definitions give two basic variations on 'retreat': a place of privacy or safety, a refuge from the world; and a period of group withdrawal for meditation and study.  Most of the responses on Gaia fit one or the other category.

However, there are probably going to be significant differences between 'an intimate, not commercial, setting', 'an open house atmosphere', and a place for 'business and community education'!

There was an interesting subset of the first (refuge) group, who felt that 'the space you live in needs to be your retreat' or recommended that it be your 'own heart'.  For these people, retreat is 'just for me'.

I appreciated that because I see retreat venues as providing opportunities to return to this sense of a self at peace.  For me, that extends to being at home wherever we are, but particularly in the natural world.

Retreats can model this and provide respite from life situations where that no longer seems possible. Healing modalities and a variety of activities may support this but only in an atmosphere of safety and connection.

Terms like hibernation, sanctuary, quiet solitude, peaceful space, and comfort came up in the responses.  Quite a few referred to a healing effect of being in nature, especially by water, and to simplicity and beauty.

I've envisaged being of service to 'visionaries who want to build dreams that reflect their values', and all the responders who either already had or hoped to manifest their own retreat venue, gave shape to their values.

Some facilities were described as offering a whole host of physical activities, others promoted mind practices like meditation, or communication skills (NLP and NVC), while some equated retreat with 'holistic wellness center' (including spa treatments).

Recovery from specific challenges such as chemical addictions (detox), traumatic brain injury, sleep problems, and dealing with weight issues, were put forward, often by those who have been affected by these.

Space for religious reflection (all kinds), a spiritual disneyland, an art colony, a place for writers and mothers, and even retreat for animals came up (there are already spas for them too). Many of these options can be found in online retreat directories.

Just a few people wrote of the ethos of retreat, often in irreverent but insightful ways [example no longer accessible online]. These unofficial philosophers and anthropologists are valuable since they look under the trends for the hidden human drives.

Our needs (and values) are based on what we believe will enrich our lives and give us a sense of wellbeing.  Fundamentally we all share the same needs, though we may (and do) choose to meet them differently.

Recognizing that is crucial for anyone who dreams of creating and running their own venue.  You've got to get really clear about what and why, including your own motivations, before you fill in the details. That's part of the service offered by Vision Spa Retreat.

Many people are attracted to the images of health and reinvigoration associated with retreat, and particularly spa-retreat.  Turning image into reality is not easy.  It's an ongoing challenge that requires great awareness.

One person wrote: 'I envision exquisite aftercare offered so the effects aren't short lived'.  This concern is reflected in one of my business tag lines 'soulful and sustainable'. What really makes a difference?

Our individual well-being is linked with our sense of belonging to the world, and ultimately with the health of the environment.  It's about our deepest nature (fundamental character) and about Nature (all living things).

I've found it helpful to associate both personal and planetary health with the health of water: an element of physical (essential for life), emotional (our 'unconscious'), and spiritual (holy water, creation myths) qualities.

I like to think that when we begin to relate to water at a deeper level than we usually do, we are more likely to respect, value, and protect it.   And that will have positive repercussions for our natures and for Nature itself.

This is why I find the ancient Asclepian sanctuary so fascinating - these offered sabbatical from normal life, cleansing rituals using water, means of soul recovery, and were sited near places of natural water beauty.

At that time, concern about the demise of the natural world at human hands was not paramount.  But the value of removing oneself from the hubbub of human life to a natural and internal space was understood.

I want to share a more extensive quote from one respondent [full version no longer online, 2011] who moved me greatly (she has come back from 5 years in a coma after traumatic brain injury):

I would provide the peaceful space for them to sleep, while their body repairs itself in peace, without having to be in the energy of a hospital, or a house full of people, who are concerned, and do not understand.

Here, everyone will understand. And let you heal in peace.

And when the patients are ready, and in a space where they are ready to integrate again, they can take it as slow as they need to.  And wake up to a beautiful environment to be in. Without having to deal with the sensory over load of the city around them.

Asclepian sanctuaries had abatons (couches) on which people would lie (after cleansing themselves for several weeks) to dream their healing dreams.  In a way, we are all recovering from the coma of human life.  What better way to awaken?

I'd like to finish this post with another response from a Gaian that captures perfectly and poetically the essence of retreat for me:

close to water

raw wood

silence

....and at least one full moon

It's the week of full moon now and I am sitting in a forest cabin enjoying the generosity of wood heat and contemplating a walk to the nearby river through the fall leaves; a young doe just strolled calmly by. 

If you were to create a retreat, or found a retreat center, what would it be like?

Comment below,

For more on Vision Spa Retreat's Services see the left-hand column of the website.

 

Visioning a spa-retreat

Water is: the mist, the fog, the storm that leads us to the place where we may meet our Selves

About two years in to creating a private spa retreat, someone asked me to describe what had inspired me and how I set about it. I thought about everything I did in terms of water, so water permeated my description. Now, when I re-read that description, I can feel the passion I had then and the certainty that everything could be overcome, just as water eventually overcomes all obstacles!

As it happened, the venture did not succeed, though now I have come to see that neither did it fail. In fact it had reached the magical 5-year mark and was beginning to earn a good reputation, to be 'heard of'. Sadly, the challenges of living and working together in sole partnership eventually took their toll of my marriage partnership. Mist became fog became storm, and I was tossed out of the dream boat.

This blog is, in part, my account of swimming back to shore to tell the tale.

Or, as Martin Prechtel writes in  The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, p. 86: 'If it was our love for a dream of peace that we followed to being blown-to-bits on the beach of Days, then it is the power of that shining dream that must put us back together again.'

The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun
by Martin Prechtel

Meanwhile, below are some unapologetically gushing extracts from my early writings on the above venture...

Like the ancients, I've been living in a dialog with water all my life. Water has provided both metaphor and meaning for making my way in the world. Most of all, it has reconnected me with my source.

When scientists look for signs of life on other planets, they look for water. Although we can do without food for up to three weeks, we can scarcely manage as many days without water.

Whether ocean or river, lake or pond, the water calls to us and reminds us of our dependence on it for both physical and spiritual support.

My story, I felt resembled the meanderings of a river to the sea, the instinct that is in all of us to search for right-livelihood.

The success of my venture would be nothing if it did not reflect the clarity and profundity that I hoped would arise from an appreciation of water.

If I could bring to others an awareness of the significance of this element, and through that a natural repugnance for anything that would pollute or otherwise dishonor it, then I would be very happy.

My first experience of Watsu (water shiatsu) in 1994 in England left a yearning to train that I did not achieve until four years later. Meantime, I taught myself to feel the world through my body - a new departure for a trained scientist. In the hot springs of Israel and South Africa, and finally California, I made discoveries about spirit through water that I could not deny.

As manager of the spa at a five-star English hotel, I had a taste of 'success and status' that I put aside in favor of deepening my passion for aquatic bodywork. I'd noticed that people of all kinds, whether Californian hippies or English gentry, forgot their masks in the water, and I was curious about that.

In a glittering paradise by the ocean in southern California, I had a brief honeymoon exploring this work with my then-husband. We began to build a business and soon came up against regulations that demanded large financial outlay. We questioned the future direction of our work and the best location for this.

A place in the Californian desert with natural hot water tempted us but the seller could feel our desire and matched it with his price. So we left the coast with its crowds of new luxury resorts, and headed inland. For six-months we traveled on a unspoken quest, reluctant water gypsies looking for a watering hole.

I started to write a saga of ancestral and mythological proportions in the hope that it might somehow draw the help of the spirits to us. We stayed with dear friends (Dot and Albert) in the Ozarks, while rain storms raged about us: Missouri or misery. One day, still resistant, we drove out to a log cabin that was for sale.

Standing in the hall of wood and light beside a flashing stream, I heard the land call me and my spirit began to flow again. The local bank gave us a loan on the spot, promising more for business development. We exchanged contracts on my birthday in July of 2002. Aquaest Retreat found its home ground.

No market research, no knowledge of our newly adopted homeland, nothing to go on but that call from the land and some dreams that would need modifying to suit new territory. I sank all my savings into a endeavor that neither family nor friend could call anything but crazily courageous.

While I created a website and marketing plan, my ex-husband spent the winter months battling ice and snow to build a bath house of log. No development loan was forthcoming and our neighbors had turned the quiet valley into a mining operation.

I persisted with a 'business plan' that was far from conventional. Limited by funds but not imagination, we faced every test and there were plenty. Our new marriage and our unproven venture were thrust into rough white water. We had everything to lose, except our commitment.

The vision spa retreat was conceived in response to a concern that big business would soon take the real water out of spa, that some people would see that the emperor wore no clothes. Although I had a grand plan, I knew it had to grow in a natural response to the seasons and cycles of the place and the time.

The help and the resources needed seem to come just on time, so long as we were willing to stay alert to the shifts in the currents. Turning up for 'work' every day, when there was no one to tell us what to do or how to do it, threw us back on knowledge we didn't realize we had.

We had to make things work by balancing the very practical with the very creative.We had to learn to appreciate our individual skills and to help each other rise to whatever might seem impossible before it's begun. It was an invigorating challenge.

I had no aspirations to expansion beyond whatever allowed me to offer my personal best. If living on some twenty acres of ancient and still-strong land, refreshed by live water, allowed me to hear what the natural world had to say to humans about their needs and responsibilities, then what more ambition need there be?

I wrote then:

To those who are inspired by this venture, I can say: follow a passion that celebrates life, value innate skills more than any training, do not be seduced by status or the superficial, look for your signs of calling and affirmation in nature, expect the right support to come at the right time, be grateful for the limitations that check inappropriate expansion, realize that none of it comes from your own powers except so far as you have been able to tap into a universal source.

I'd still say that but add ...

Water is: the mist, the fog, the storm that leads us to the place where we may meet our Selves

To read more about the challenge of meeting our Selves please visit my second blog: Diving Deeper.

These are some of the experiences that gave me the foundation that I share through my spa consultancy service.

If you are interested to know more about any of the above, please write to me directly or add a thought below.