A standard healing session doesn’t work anymore. A morning in a conference room, four flipchart papers, and before lunch you’re stuck with a densely packed agenda. More and more MT and executive teams are feeling it: the items have been finished, but the decisions have not. What often arises here when you take three days off is something fundamentally different. No more meetings. Renew.
What a multi-day healing session is, and what it is not
A healing session is a work session outside the office in which a team addresses strategic issues without the distraction of day-to-day operations. The term comes from the English off-site. In Dutch practice, we see three variants: the half-day (one topic, one conclusion), the day session (often with an external facilitator), and the multi-day heisession (two to five days, with overnight stays).
A multi-day healing session is a working session of two to five days in which a management or executive team immerses itself in a natural environment to step out of daily meeting patterns and achieve strategic clarity and supported decision-making.
The multi-day version differs not by duration alone, but by what that duration makes possible. The first night the team lands. The second day something falls open that was still closed in the first 24 hours. The third morning the conversations arise that would never have happened in half a day. That’s not romance, that’s rhythm.
What it is not: a team building outing with flip chart papers in the morning and an escape room in the afternoon. A multi-day healing session has a strategic core. Team connection occurs around it, not as the main activity.
Why 24 hours is not enough
There’s a reason most one-day healing sessions end with good intentions and little follow-through. The cognitive patterns of working life are too deep to resolve in a few hours. Anyone driving to a meeting location on the A-road is mentally stuck in a traffic jam. The body is in a different place, the head is not.
Research by Atchley and colleagues suggests that a multi-day immersion in a natural environment increases creative problem-solving ability by about fifty percent (Atchley, Strayer & Atchley, 2012). The shorter version of that effect, a short nature walk, already produces improvements in concentration and memory (Berman, Jonides & Kaplan, 2008). But for strategic decisions at the executive level, that shorter version is not enough.
A night under the trees washes the noise of working life from one’s mind. Two nights puts something in motion. On the third morning, with the silence outside and coffee in hand, questions sound different than in the boardroom.
What else is at play? Mindfulness and silence reduce the influence of cognitive biases such as the sunk-cost fallacy. Teams make more rational decisions when they have space between stimulus and response (Hafenbrack, Kinias & Barsade, 2014). That space does not arise in half a day. It arises after the first night, in an environment where daily cues fall away.
What makes a multi-day healing session substantially different
Time is one factor. Place is the other. A multi-day healing session in nature works differently than the same three days in a conference hotel overlooking the parking lot. The environment is not a background, but participant. The wind through the birches, the silence at night, the rhythm of light and dark: these things drive the conversation.
The rituals surrounding work sessions also count. Breakfast together of what comes from our own garden. A walk between blocks. A campfire on the third night, where conversations continue that would never begin in the boardroom. This sounds soft, but delivers hard outcomes. Teams that come together in a natural setting build trust faster (Klein et al., 2009).
For MT and executive teams, this difference is concrete. Strategic clarity, alignment on direction, sharper decisions about what will and will not go ahead: these are precisely the things that remain unaddressed in standard meeting environments. Not out of unwillingness, but because the environment does not provoke it.
Hosting a multi-day healing session at Yūgen Forest
Yūgen Forest is a 52-hectare regenerative nature estate in Flevoland, an hour’s drive from Amsterdam and 25 minutes from Zwolle. We host MT and executive teams of fifteen to twenty-five people for multi-day offsites. Those wishing to organize a multi-day healing session can choose from three program rhythms, in increasing depth.
Two to three days, focus and connection. Day program with regenerative catering, hosting, overnight in cabins or glamping tents, a tour of the garden farm, a reflective campfire moment. For teams looking to land, decide and move on again.
Three to four days, strategic deepening. On top of the basic program: an extended tour, a wildlife walk or forest bath, a creative or reflective work session, and wellness in nature (sauna, hot tub, cold plunge). For teams who don’t just want to decide, but integrate what they decide.
Four to five days, leadership and culture. Exclusive access to the entire natural estate: Slot Roggebot, Greenhouse, Forest Room, Tipi. Program in co-creation. Movement and wellness integrated. For teams working on something beyond this quarter.
What is included in each package: vegetarian catering from our own regenerative garden, hosting by our team, overnight stays on the natural estate. What can be added: yoga or meditation, sound circles, cooking workshops. An external facilitator you bring along works seamlessly in this setting; we provide the framework, you provide the content.
What MT and executive teams often experience here
Yūgen Forest is ranked 5.0 with 65 Google reviews. Not all of the reviews say anything about healing sessions, but a few touch on exactly what we are describing here. Bas and Anneke Popkema, who are hosting Communication Fest with us in 2024, wrote that it was the perfect setting for their event and that the nature and silence really made it possible to catch your breath. Wiggert Meerman, speaker and author, organized several events with us and called the hospitality refreshing, enthusiastic and thoughtful.
What often emerges here when an MT stays for several days: clear conversations that had been put off too long in the office, a shared view of where the team wants to go, and a different kind of trust that comes from having breakfast together at a long table under the trees. These are observations, not promises. Whether it works this way with your team depends on what you take away and want to achieve.
A case from 2025: a four-day Nike offsite around creativity and leadership led to enhanced team confidence and new strategic choices. That type of outcome is what science predicts and what we see reflected in practice.
Frequently asked questions about a multi-day healing session
What does it cost to host a multi-day healing session at Yūgen Forest? Our packages start from €169 per person per day, excluding VAT. For MT and executive teams of fifteen to twenty-five people, the total investment is usually between €15,000 and €40,000 for two to four days. For a specific quote, we would be happy to think with you.
What should be the minimum length of a healing session to be effective? For strategic deepening at the MT or board level, we recommend a minimum of two nights, i.e. three days. Shorter can be done, but then you’ll stay closer to what a one-day session produces. The effect that research talks about occurs from multi-day immersion.
What does a healing session program at Yūgen Forest look like? You build the program with us around your strategic themes. We provide location, food, hosting and the rhythm of the day, alternating between work sessions, walks, shared meals and moments of reflection. An external facilitator or organizational consultant you bring your own will fit in effortlessly.
What if our team has specific dietary requirements or conditions? Our cuisine is vegetarian as a base, focusing on seasonal and homegrown produce. Allergies and dietary requirements should be announced at least seven days in advance, and our kitchen team will adjust the program accordingly. Bringing your own catering is not possible.
How do we reach Yūgen Forest? The natural estate is located on the Vossemeerdijk in Dronten, an hour’s drive from Amsterdam and 25 minutes from Zwolle. Parking is at P1, from which it is about a ten-minute walk to the venue.
Schedule your healing session at Yūgen Forest
A multi-day healing session is not a luxury. It is an investment in the clarity and confidence on which a team runs in the months ahead. What a meeting room doesn’t accomplish, three days of immersion in nature does: space to think without noise, to listen without an agenda, and to decide from shared ground.
Meeting, connecting, stilling. Three movements that never play simultaneously in a meeting room, but do in a multi-day rhythm.
Want to explore if that works for your team? We’d love to think with you.
