From the wellspring
Venustus
Busy modern people often talk about stress, work-life balance and feelings of being overwhelmed. But what if solutions to these problems lie here in Paddington? Two local practices offering relaxation and a balm for overstretched spirits make it as simple as passing through the doors.
Venustus, on Oxford St, has become nationally (even internationally) recognised as a unique place of healing and wellness, with an emphasis on repairing the spirit and the body at once. The spa and treatment centre this year reopened in extraordinary new premises (right next door to its old premises) with a unique look and feel.
The sense of healing starts the moment you enter, thanks to a ‘sacred crystal grid’ strategically buried under the building. From the salvaged clay brick feature wall to the noise-resistant egg-shaped treatment pods — and the 3m metal staircase that ‘acts as a direct portal to the sun and moon’ — everything here is intentional, yet slightly unexpected.
“My mother took me for my first facial when I was 18 years old, and as I lay there, I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” says Venustus founder Jeannie Bourke. “It wasn’t an aesthetic thing for me, it was the feeling that I could make people feel loved and cared for.”
Venustus
Driven by a deep curiosity, Bourke designs bespoke treatments — from a six-hand muscle release massage to high-definition lymphatic bodywork to reiki facials and hot rocks treatments — to match the changing needs of a hyper-stressed community.
The result is an experience that feels like a response, rather than something from a service menu. Every small detail — the sweet ginger tea, the oil, the blankets — adds up to create the ultimate wellness ritual.
“I love my work and I’m always looking for the next thing. We’ve had clients who have been coming to us for 30 years and we still have people coming in for the first time. I always say you find us exactly when you need to,” Bourke says, adding that there’s a spiritual element to her work, but you don’t have to be a believer to be a receiver of it.
“Just because we’re healers, doesn’t mean that everyone’s into it,” she says. “We just integrate the practices into the work. It’s about doing two things at the same time. You can give a facial while working on someone’s nervous system.”
On nearby William St, Kaizen Skin Body Being is another much-loved local retreat offering sanctuary for stressed souls. Founder Andrea O’Shea arrived in Australia from Ireland in 2004 as a qualified beauty and massage therapist, but the more clients she worked with, the more she felt as if something was missing.
Kaizen
“I knew there had to be a reason why someone came in for a massage and walked out relaxed but then two weeks later they’d be back in with the same pain and stress in their body,” she says.
Determined to work out the root cause of her clients’ tensions and skin irritations, O’Shea started researching the mind-body connection, but the remedy she was looking for was sparked by a personal turning point.
“I was going through a break-up and a colleague suggested I try kinesiology. It changed my life. I started recommending it to my clients and then decided to study and practice it myself. It has helped me clear a lot of negative patterns and old belief patterns.”
There are different forms of kinesiology, but the practice is based on the idea that our muscles reflect our physical, emotional and energetic states, and the way our muscles respond to different tests helps locate imbalances and the source of disease in the body.
“We tap into the wisdom of the body,” O’Shea explains. “Rather than presuming a diagnosis when someone comes in with an issue, we let the body show what it needs.”
The power of kinesiology is its ability to deliver a personalised approach to wellbeing. Drawing on traditional Chinese medicine, kinesiologists work with meridians, or energy channels, within the body and release the emotional blockages that often impact our physical health.
“If someone is emotionally stressed, that will show up in the physical body and affect physiology such as adrenals, thyroid and gut health,” O’Shea says. Post-pandemic, she has noticed a shift in attitude towards alternative treatments, with more people exploring modalities outside traditional Western medicine.
“After COVID, people were completely burnt-out and started looking for something different,” she says. “I’ve had really sceptical people turn up because a friend told them to come and after the treatment they’re surprised by how different they feel, even if they can’t explain why.”
In some ways, the modern world is only just catching up to modalities that have roots in ancient practices used for centuries. These days, energy medicine and healing is less woo-woo and more quantum physics.
“Humans are .0001% physical and 99% energy, and that's just down to science,” O’Shea explains. “If you walk into a room after two people have just had an argument, you will feel that energy lingering in the space.”
One of the biggest benefits of these treatments is simply that they help us to relax. As basic as it sounds, relaxation is one of the best things we can do for our health — it slows our heart rate, reduces blood pressure and plays a key role in strengthening the body’s natural healing process.
According to Bourke, urban retreats are designed to help us create a new beginning, even amid the busiest of weeks. “It's about elevating the treatment to a level that people are not expecting,” she says. “If I can get them out of their head and into their heart, they'll just love everything more.”
383 Oxford St
72 William St