Why I Founded Elevated Mind Retreats
- Aug 5
- 9 min read
Updated: Aug 6
How burnout, breathwork and one life-changing retreat led me to create Elevated Mind Retreats.
🎥 Prefer watching? I've also recorded a short video sharing this story.
The Moment Everything Stopped
I still remember walking out of the hospital.
The evening before had started like any other. I was at home with my eight-year-old daughter when my eyesight suddenly narrowed. Strange flashes filled my vision, my arms began tingling, my chest tightened and, within minutes, I was lying on the floor of our living room convinced something was seriously wrong.
My wife was at work. My daughter ran to our neighbours for help while I managed to call an ambulance.
A few minutes later, I was being carried out of my home and rushed across Basel to the Emergency Department.
During the journey, my mind filled with worst-case scenarios. Was I having a heart attack? A brain aneurysm? I genuinely believed my life might be about to change forever.
The tests continued throughout the night.
The following morning, the doctors returned with the results.
My heart was healthy.
My brain was healthy.
Physically, I was fine.
Yet as I walked out of the hospital, I realised something I could no longer ignore.
My body had stopped me because I never would have stopped myself.
At the time, I thought that night was the beginning of my burnout.
Looking back, I now know it was simply the moment I could no longer deny what had been building for years.
The Life I Thought I Wanted
Looking back, my burnout wasn't caused by one difficult year or one demanding role. It was the result of patterns that had quietly developed over decades.
I spent more than twenty-five years building an international career across technology, consumer electronics, digital health and MedTech. I had the privilege of working with talented people around the world, leading businesses, solving complex challenges and helping innovative companies grow.
From the outside, life looked exactly as I had imagined it would.
I had built a successful career, travelled extensively and created a life that many people would probably have described as successful.
Yet, inside, something never quite settled.
There was always another goal to reach, another challenge to solve or another milestone that I believed would finally bring a lasting sense of fulfilment. Without realising it, I had started measuring my worth by what I achieved rather than who I was.
Success became something to chase rather than something to appreciate.
Looking back, I can also see how much of my life was lived in the future. My mind was almost constantly analysing, planning and preparing for every possible scenario. I spent an extraordinary amount of energy worrying about "what ifs" that, more often than not, never happened.
Whenever life became more demanding, I had only one response.
Push harder.
Willpower had become my greatest strength, but also my greatest blind spot. It helped me achieve more than I ever thought possible, yet it also prevented me from recognising when I needed to stop.
During one period, I experienced panic attacks almost every time I flew to our offices in London. I dreaded those flights, yet I kept boarding the plane because I believed that was simply what committed leaders did. Between those moments of intense anxiety came something perhaps even more difficult to recognise.
Numbness.
I wasn't deeply unhappy.
I simply wasn't truly present anymore.
Looking back now, I realise I had become disconnected from myself. Not because I lacked ambition or purpose, but because I had become so focused on achieving the next thing that I had forgotten how to simply be where I already was.
If you're interested in the science behind burnout and why psilocybin is attracting increasing attention, you may also enjoy Can Psilocybin Help with Burnout? What Research and Experience Suggest.
The Retreat That Changed Everything
In the months that followed, I began searching for a different way forward. Some time later, I attended a men's retreat in the Netherlands.
I wasn't searching for a new career, and I certainly wasn't planning to found a retreat organisation. I wasn't even looking for answers. More than anything, I wanted to reconnect with myself and understand why I had reached a point where my body had forced me to stop.
Looking back, what changed me wasn't one particular exercise or one extraordinary moment. It was the experience as a whole.
For three days, I stepped away from the outside world. There were no phones, no watches and no constant pressure to be productive. Time seemed to slow down, creating space for something I hadn't experienced in years: simply being present.
The programme unfolded gradually. We spent time in nature, shared our stories, sat in silence, challenged ourselves and built trust within the group. There was a sweat lodge, an ice bath, a guided psilocybin ceremony and a deep breathwork session.
Each experience prepared us for the next, allowing the weekend to unfold naturally rather than feeling like a series of disconnected activities.
The psilocybin ceremony was undoubtedly meaningful, but the moment that had the greatest impact on me came during a Conscious Connected Breathwork session.
For an hour, I simply breathed.
As the session unfolded, emotions I hadn't allowed myself to feel for more than twenty years began to surface. Layers of tension, sadness and grief that I didn't even realise I was carrying gradually gave way. It felt as though I had finally returned to a part of myself that had been waiting patiently all those years.
Then something happened that I still find difficult to explain.
In the middle of the session, I heard an inner voice with remarkable clarity. It wasn't loud or dramatic, nor did it feel like the constant stream of thoughts that usually occupied my mind. It was calm, certain and unlike anything I had experienced before.
It said only a few words. "Carry this work forward."
That moment planted a seed.
I didn't leave the retreat thinking, I'm going to build Elevated Mind Retreats.
I didn't even leave thinking I would become a breathwork facilitator.
But I did leave knowing that whatever had happened during that session was too meaningful to ignore.
Even before I returned home, I felt an overwhelming need to capture what I had experienced before everyday life took over again. I began writing what would later become The Retreat, a 108-page personal account of the events leading up to the retreat, the experience itself and everything that followed. Looking back, writing the book became part of my own integration. It helped me make sense of what had happened and gave me the clarity to see how deeply I had been disconnected from myself.
Over the following weeks and months, that quiet inner knowing stayed with me. It didn't demand immediate action or provide a detailed plan. Instead, it became a gentle compass, encouraging me to keep exploring, to keep learning and, eventually, to share what I was discovering with others.
Looking back now, I also realise that the transformation wasn't created by breathwork alone, or by the psilocybin ceremony.
It came from the combination of everything.
The preparation before the retreat.
The feeling of safety.
The experienced guidance.
The trust that developed within the group.
The connection with nature.
The music.
The moments of silence.
The breathwork.
The ceremony.
The integration afterwards.
None of these elements stood on their own. Together, they created an environment where I could finally stop fighting myself and begin listening instead.
At the time, I couldn't have explained why the retreat had affected me so deeply.
Today, I believe it was because, for the first time in many years, I felt completely safe to let go.
Building Elevated Mind
When I returned home, I didn't resign from my corporate career.
Life, at least on the surface, continued much as before. I returned to leading businesses, travelling and taking on the responsibilities that came with executive leadership. But something inside me had shifted.
The experience at the retreat—and especially the words I heard during the breathwork session, "Carry this work forward"—stayed with me. I wasn't yet sure what they meant, nor did I feel any urgency to act on them. But I couldn't ignore them either. Instead of making any drastic decisions, I simply chose to stay curious and keep exploring where that quiet inner knowing might lead.
I immersed myself in learning. I trained as a certified breathwork facilitator, continued exploring neuroscience, trauma, meditation and personal development, and kept doing my own inner work. The more I learned, the more convinced I became that these approaches had the potential to help many of the people I saw around me—people who, like me, had become disconnected from themselves.
That led me to found Breath Inspiration, where I began guiding breathwork sessions and supporting individuals through coaching. What started as a way of sharing one transformative tool quickly evolved into something broader.
The retreat I had attended remained in the back of my mind. I realised that what had changed my life wasn't breathwork alone, or the psilocybin ceremony on its own. It was the combination of preparation, feeling safe, stepping away from everyday life, connecting with others, spending time in nature, deep inner work and taking the time to integrate everything afterwards.
I wanted to create that kind of experience for others.
That desire gradually evolved into Elevated Mind Retreats. It wasn't created overnight, nor was it the result of a business plan. It grew organically from everything I had experienced, learned and witnessed while supporting others.
Since then, I've had the privilege of supporting more than 1,000 people through breathwork sessions, workshops and transformational retreats. Although every person arrives with a different story, one thing continues to inspire me: given the right environment, people are capable of far more healing, growth and self-discovery than they often believe possible.
Every retreat continues to teach me something new.
Why Elevated Mind Retreats Exists
People sometimes ask whether I simply recreated the retreat that changed my own life.
The answer is no.
That first retreat gave me direction and planted the seed for everything that followed, but it was only the beginning of my learning. Over the years, I continued exploring, training and, most importantly, supporting others through breathwork, coaching and transformational retreats. Every person I worked with taught me something new about what helps people feel safe enough to open up, let go and create lasting change.
Slowly, a clear philosophy began to emerge.
I came to believe that meaningful transformation is rarely the result of one extraordinary moment. It happens when the right conditions are created. When people feel safe rather than judged. When they are prepared instead of surprised. When they have time to slow down, disconnect from the outside world and reconnect with themselves. And when they are supported not only during the experience, but afterwards as well.
That philosophy became the foundation of Elevated Mind Retreats.
Every decision we make is guided by a simple question: "Will this help our participants feel safer, more supported and more able to surrender to the process?"
If the answer is yes, it belongs.
If not, it doesn't.
The psilocybin ceremony is an important part of the retreat, but it has never been the whole retreat. Preparation, medical screening, breathwork, nature, connection, music, integration and aftercare are all essential parts of the experience. Together, they create an environment where people can explore themselves with curiosity rather than fear.
When I think back to the person leaving that hospital in Basel, I realise I wasn't looking for a miracle.
I was looking for a place where I could finally stop, feel safe and reconnect with myself.
That is the environment I wanted to create for others.
Elevated Mind Retreats exists because I believe that, given the right conditions, every person has the capacity to reconnect with themselves and create meaningful, lasting change.
Looking Back
When people ask me whether leaving the corporate world was a difficult decision, my answer often surprises them.
I don't feel as though I changed careers.
I feel as though I became more aligned with the person I had always hoped to become.
Throughout my career, whether I was leading technology companies or building teams, I was always driven by the same underlying motivation: helping people improve their lives. Today, that motivation hasn't changed. The way I serve people has.
Looking back, I'm grateful for every chapter of my journey. My years in business taught me leadership, resilience and the importance of building organisations around people. Burnout taught me something equally valuable. It showed me that success means very little if we lose ourselves in the process of achieving it.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of all is that transformation isn't something that happens to us. It happens when we become willing to slow down, to look inwards and to honestly ask ourselves the questions we've been avoiding.
For me, that journey began with one retreat.
Today, it continues through every retreat we facilitate and every person who walks through our doors.
I don't expect everyone to follow the same path that I did.
But I do believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to reconnect with themselves in a safe, supportive and carefully guided environment.
That is why I founded Elevated Mind Retreats.
Curious to Learn More?
If you're considering a guided retreat, I'd love to invite you to explore what we've created at Elevated Mind Retreats.
Whether you're simply curious, looking for personal growth or wondering whether a retreat is right for you, you'll find plenty of information throughout our website.
Or, if you're ready, you can explore our upcoming retreats and learn more about our approach.
Related Reading
Why Every Part of Our Retreat Has a Purpose (coming soon)
Niels van der Valk
Founder, Elevated Mind Retreats
About the author
Niels van der Valk is the founder of Elevated Mind Retreats, a certified breathwork facilitator and author of The Retreat. After recovering from burnout through his own guided retreat experience, he has dedicated his work to helping others reconnect with themselves through carefully designed transformational retreats, breathwork and integration.
Originally published: August 2026
