What I’ve Learned After Guiding More Than 1,000 People Through Breathwork and Retreats
- Aug 27
- 6 min read
Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of guiding more than 1,000 people through breathwork sessions, workshops and transformational retreats. They have come from different countries, backgrounds and stages of life. Some arrived with a very clear intention, while others simply knew that something in their lives needed to change.
No two experiences have been the same. Yet after witnessing so many people step into this work, certain patterns have become increasingly clear to me.
Before becoming a retreat facilitator, I spent more than 25 years building and leading businesses. I thought I understood quite a lot about people, motivation and change. This work has shown me that there was still a great deal to learn.
These are five of the lessons that have stayed with me most.
1. Knowing Isn’t the Same as Changing
One of the things that surprised me most is how often people already know what is holding them back. They can describe the pattern, may know where it originated, and understand how it affects their relationships, their work or the choices they make. Sometimes they have spent years thinking or talking about it.
Intellectually, they understand it remarkably well. And yet the pattern remains.
This has taught me that insight and transformation are not the same thing. We can understand something intellectually without experiencing it differently.
This is one reason I believe experiential practices such as breathwork and carefully facilitated retreats can be so powerful. Rather than only thinking or talking about what is happening, they can create an opportunity to experience ourselves and our patterns from another perspective.
That doesn’t mean a single experience suddenly fixes everything. In fact, I have become increasingly cautious about language such as “breakthrough” or “life-changing experience” when it suggests that transformation happens instantly.
But an experience can create an opening. Something that was previously understood only intellectually may suddenly be felt or seen in a very different way. Sometimes that is where change can begin.
2. Safety Comes Before Transformation
When people think about a psilocybin retreat, attention naturally tends to go towards the ceremony itself. What will I experience? What will it feel like? How intense will it be?
From a facilitator’s perspective, however, I have learned to focus first on something much more fundamental: does this person feel safe enough to let go?
Safety is not simply about the physical environment or having experienced facilitators present, although both are essential. It begins before someone arrives. It means careful screening and preparation, knowing what to expect, having the opportunity to ask questions, understanding who will be supporting you, and feeling confident that your boundaries will be respected.
During the retreat itself, safety also means not forcing an experience. As facilitators, our role is not to push someone towards a particular outcome or encourage them to go “deeper” simply because we think they should.
Often, the opposite is required. We create the conditions, provide support and allow the participant to have their own experience.
I have seen again and again that when people genuinely feel safe and supported, they are often more able to stop trying to control what happens. That can be far more important than pushing for a breakthrough.
3. What You Expect Isn’t Always What You Need
Most people arrive at a retreat with an intention, and I believe intentions are valuable. We spend considerable time before our retreats helping participants reflect on why they are coming and what they hope to explore.
But intention and expectation are not the same thing.
It is very easy to arrive with an internal script: this is the issue I need to solve; this is what I need to understand; this is what my experience should look like.
Then something entirely different emerges.
I have seen people arrive focused on one area of their lives only to find themselves exploring something they had barely considered beforehand.
Sometimes the experience is profound and emotional. Sometimes it is quiet. Sometimes something that initially seems insignificant becomes important only in the days or weeks afterwards.
This has taught me not to determine what somebody else’s experience is supposed to mean. A facilitator can provide structure, safety and support.
We can help someone prepare beforehand and later help them explore and integrate what emerged. But the experience belongs to the participant.
One of the most valuable things we can sometimes do is simply create enough space for that experience to unfold without trying to steer it towards the outcome that either we or the participant expected.
4. The Breakthrough Is Only the Beginning
This may be the lesson I feel most strongly about. A powerful experience is not the same as lasting change.
Someone can have an extraordinary breathwork session or a profound psilocybin experience. They may see themselves, their relationships or their lives from an entirely different perspective. That can be incredibly meaningful.
But then they go home.
The familiar environment returns. Work returns. Relationships return. Habits return. The triggers and patterns that existed before the retreat have not necessarily disappeared simply because they were understood differently for a few hours.
The important question then becomes: what are you going to do differently?
Perhaps it is a conversation that has been avoided, a boundary that needs to be established, a relationship that needs more attention, or a habit that no longer serves you. Sometimes it is something much smaller: making more space for yourself, changing a daily routine, or continuing to explore something that surfaced during the retreat.
This is why I don’t see integration as an optional extra that happens after a retreat. It is part of the process itself.
At Elevated Mind Retreats, that process begins before participants arrive. Preparation helps people understand their intentions and recognise some of the patterns they may want to explore. After the retreat, structured integration helps them consider what their experience means for the life they are returning to.
Because ultimately, the objective isn’t simply to create a memorable weekend or a powerful ceremony. It is to help someone take whatever they have discovered and decide what they want to do with it.
The experience may create an opening. What happens afterwards determines where that opening leads.
5. We’re More Capable of Change Than We Think
After guiding more than 1,000 people, perhaps the thing that has stayed with me most is a renewed belief in our capacity to change.
I have met many people who arrive carrying a belief that certain parts of themselves are simply fixed: this is who I am; I’ve always been like this; I can’t change this.
I understand that feeling.
My own path into this work began during a period when, despite having what looked externally like a successful life and career, I had become disconnected from myself. When I attended my first retreat, I wasn’t looking for a new profession or planning to change the direction of my life. I was looking for a way to reconnect with myself.
That experience didn’t magically solve everything. But it created movement where I had felt stuck.
Years later, having now witnessed that process in many different forms, I have become increasingly convinced that we often underestimate our own capacity for change.
That doesn’t mean change is easy, and it certainly doesn’t mean every retreat produces a dramatic transformation. Change can take many forms.
Sometimes it is a major life decision. Sometimes it is finally recognising an old pattern clearly. Sometimes it is forgiving someone, establishing a boundary or approaching an important relationship differently.
And sometimes it is simply taking the first small step in a different direction.
What Psilocybin Retreats Have Taught Me About Change
If there is one thing these experiences have reinforced for me, it is that nobody else can make change happen for us.
People come to breathwork sessions and psilocybin retreats for many different reasons. They may be looking for new insights, trying to understand what to do next in life, or wanting to let go of patterns, beliefs or experiences that no longer serve them. The circumstances are different for everyone, but ultimately the possibility for change begins with becoming more aware of what is there.
As facilitators, we can help create the conditions for that exploration. We can prepare carefully, create a safe and supportive environment, remain present when things become difficult and help people make sense of what emerges afterwards. But we cannot decide what somebody should discover or make the change for them.
That part remains deeply personal.
For me, letting go is an important part of this process. Not forgetting the past or pretending that difficult experiences didn’t happen, but becoming aware of what we are still carrying and recognising that we may no longer need to carry all of it in the same way.
After guiding more than 1,000 people, I have seen many different versions of what change can look like. Sometimes it is dramatic, but often it is much quieter: a new perspective, a different decision, a conversation that finally happens, or simply the recognition that something no longer needs to remain as it was.
Whatever form it takes, change has to start somewhere.
It starts with you.
About the author
Niels van der Valk is the founder of Elevated Mind Retreats and a certified breathwork facilitator. After attending a guided psychedelic retreat during his own journey of personal change, he created Elevated Mind Retreats around a simple principle: meaningful transformation is supported by the entire journey — preparation, experience and integration — rather than the ceremony alone.
📖 Read his personal story: The Retreat
