Editor’s Note: Becca Hensley and I have been friends for years, and occasionally we get together and gripe about the business we love. Here, Becca brilliantly lays out some of our big ones.
I am going to be frank. I don’t like the way things are going in the spa world. As a decades-long wellness and spa editor, writer and explorer, I’ve been tucked into spas all over the world and sought my bliss via a thousand and one modalities for more years than I can count.
A Lifetime Immersed in Spa Traditions
I’ve been in rustic boltholes in Germany to soak in primordial mud and leaf humus; been massaged with seashells, olive branches, cacti, golf balls and hammers; had nightingale poop facials and submerged in most every imaginable liquid from chocolate to wine. I’ve spent entire days in sauna complexes, usually naked for 24 hours at a time. I’ve swum in frozen seas and splashed in mineral hot springs. I’ve enjoyed exfoliation with sugar, salt, walnuts, and microdermabrasion beads. I’ve been sound-bowled, reiki-ed and read by shamans, psychics, healers—and no doubt, the occasional charlatan.
Honestly, I’ve loved every minute of it.
What Spa Has Always Been: A Portal Inward
To me, the spa experience wasn’t about the weird, the resulting glow, or even the relaxation: it was about finding a portal to me, that me within—the person who arrived to a sanctum in search of inner harmony. It was truly always and most everywhere an invitation to seek inner peace, to stop for a moment in quietude and reflection, to leap from the high-speed merry-go-round of life and simply be.
From the time I played spa with my cousins and slathered their faces with mashed carrots and yoghurt, forced them to chant, then made them rest on kindergarten nap mats, spa for me meant connecting with ancient traditions and retreating from external monitors to hide away in more reflective realms. Spa was like being part of the earth, learning its secrets, trusting its powers to heal. I didn’t always look 20 years younger when I left a treatment, but I’d connected deeply with my old soul.
The spa experience was about finding a portal to me, that me within—the person who arrived to a sanctum in search of inner harmony.
The Rise of the Quick Fix
Today, with med spas, biohacking, personal wellness devices, left-brained doctors a dime a dozen bringing medical-school-one-dimensional-hoo-ha to the forefront and very shallow goals desired by spa goers, I fear spa, in its most Roman or Etruscan sense, might be losing its power to heal. Yes: we all want to look better and feel better. What’s bothering me these days is that in a time when everyone talks the mindfulness talk, they aren’t going inward; they aren’t trying to delve beyond the superficial; they aren’t being open to something unfathomable and unexplainable that can happen on an energetic level—something that could change their lives.
Instead most spa-goers seem to want that “on the surface” quick fix, followed by a speedy retreat back into our frenetic, fractious, broken, frenzied world. What happens is that their pores may be smaller or their back muscles unraveled—but their spirit still ails. Sadly, current spa trends seem supported by the greedy (in my view) invasion of modern medical scenarios and offerings in spa space. Perhaps my feeling that so many purveyors of western medicine are no longer actual healers, but business people with medical knowledge, affects my view. But, I find this new movement to be not just paternalistic and condescending, but generic and feckless.
Losing the Depth that Makes Spa Healing
If spas don’t provide a path to deeper reflection, if they don’t engender self-reflection or awaken something inside, then I don’t think they’re working. To fully relax, just that, takes us to a deeper place. In a glib world, we aren’t living if we don’t do the work to go deeper. Recently, I was at a very expensive and beautiful spa that exemplifies this new mode of being. The problem for me was that its foundations were medical to the point that though offerings such as yoga, sounds baths, or mineral soaks were on offer, they weren’t taken seriously as something that might elicit a cure. They were just considered feel-good activities. There were absolutely no energy treatments or serious pathways for the uninitiated guest to find their inner bliss. Everything had to be by the book—by the western medical book.
Now, it’s been a long tradition in Europe to combine medical programs, such as checkups, recovery from procedures, plastic surgery, enhancements, etc., with a mainstay spa facility. Think Bad Ragaz or Burgenstock in Switzerland. But the difference is that the facilities co-exist but aren’t combined. The sterile medical veil doesn’t taint the potentially mystical or spiritual one. Guests can, in many cases, go back and forth and share some amenities, but overall the experiences are separate. What seems to be happening in the United States—and other hotspots—is a yielding to the idea that modern knowledge is more profound that ancient precepts.
I want wonder—and I want spas to be the place which opens that door for us all.
The American Drift Toward the Overly Clinical
We’re creating spa programs that seem uncomfortable with enigmas, self-healing and metaphysical possibilities. It’s hard enough for people to find inner solace and to harmonize their minds, bodies, and spirits in our digital dark land. But, when going to a spa starts to feel like a doctor’s office, I think we’re losing the plot.
Yes. Of course, new cures, solutions, results-driven modalities and understandings of how and why things work join the ranks every day. I’m not saying we should eschew modern medicine and its virtues. I’m simply advocating for a world where it doesn’t feel like old -school spas have disappeared in exchange for generic, money-making offerings and TikTok fast-paced, one-size-fits-all, off-the-rack ambiances with medical folks at the helm to ensure nobody gets sued.
I want mystery. I want to be reminded that’s there’s more magic in the world than we can comprehend. I want to be blessed and awakened, set free, and niggled into comprehending knowledge I’ve carried for a thousand years. I want wonder—and I want spas to be the place which opens that door for us all.
Becca Hensley
Becca Hensley is Editor at Large for Insider's Guide to Spas. Based in Austin, she writes regularly about travel and spas. She believes a good story draws you in like laughter in a crowded room, and challenges you to do it justice. Her work appears regularly in Austin Monthly, Travel Channel, Toronto Star and National Geographic Traveler.