“The only constant in life is change”

Heraclitus said it first, but now let me re-iterate that notion. When, 5 years’ ago, I had the opportunity to take over Woodlands Spa, and re-invent a struggling business into my vision, I was almost paralysed by fear.

Would I succeed?
What if I failed?
What did the future hold?

All of these thoughts are now running through my head and heart once again. The lock-down has made us all take a forced break from our lives. This is a time where, even though my heart is bleeding that I can’t be at my beloved spa with my clients and staff, who have all become a family to me, I have decided to take this as a ‘slow down’.

The decision to close my beautiful spa before we were placed into a forced lock down, was not an easy one. The lives of my 30 staff members have been severely affected, I feel completely drained, and you aren’t able to receive our pampering.

This pandemic has changed every single person’s mindset about everything that we thought we knew about life, not one of us is the same person we were last week, and we will forever be changed because of this.

Some for the better and some for the worst – I received the following meme yesterday:

“Half of us are going to come out of this quarantine as amazing cooks. The other half will come out with a drinking problem.”

This made me realise that not everyone has the mindset for changing your life for the better. Not everyone will take this period as a time to bring real lasting change to their lives, and that for me is the saddest part.

It makes you realise that who and what you thought you were is no longer applicable. Everything can be taken away from you in an instant and what will you have left?

If someone had to ask me a few weeks ago: “Describe to me who you are?” would I have answered with this whole long explanation starting with my identity and who I am based on what the world has taught me.

Now my answer is simple – I am ROBUST. David Whyte puts it perfectly:

“Robustness is a word denoting health, psychological or physical, the ability to meet the world with vigour and impact. To be robust is to be physically or imaginatively present in the very firm presence of something or someone else. Being robust means, we acknowledge the living current in something other than ourselves. To be robust is to attempt something beyond the perimeter of our own constituted identity: to get beyond our own thoughts or the edge of our own selfishness. Robustness and vulnerability belong together. To be robust is to show a willingness to take collateral damage, to put up with temporary pain, noise, chaos or our systems being temporarily undone. Robustness means we can veer off either side of the line while keeping a firm ongoing intent.”

Even though I am Robust am I also Present – I know what it takes to run a business – one that is in the running for two spa awards this year. One non-negotiable for me is when I take time thinking about the monthly promotions, I make them as personal and relevant to my monthly theme as possible. This promotion will be no different.

While we are in lockdown and you won’t be able to support us physically, you can still support us by buying a voucher which you can redeem when booking with us when we reopen.

I pray God’s healing hands over our country in this difficult time ahead. May you all come out of this quarantine being better at something – preferable cooking, and not drinking….

Love, Tania