Burnout Sabbatical: Six Sessions Over Three Months

I'm a startup founder who ran myself into the ground over five years. When I finally acknowledged I couldn't continue without a break, I negotiated a three-month sabbatical and decided to use it intentionally — therapy, physical recovery, and psilocybin work, which I'd been curious about for years.

Sessions 1-2 (guided, month one): I spent most of both sessions crying and sleeping. The therapist normalized this as the nervous system decompressing. I had been so tightly held for so long that the first thing psilocybin did was let me stop holding. There was almost no content — just release.

Sessions 3-4 (guided, month two): with some baseline restoration, there was actual psychological material. Questions about what I actually wanted vs. what I had decided I wanted at twenty-two. The startup identity was so total that there wasn't much behind it that I had maintained. The sessions helped me find out what was still there.

Sessions 5-6 (solo, month three): integration and consolidation. I wanted to be alone with what I'd found. These were quieter, more contemplative. The question I was sitting with was what I wanted the next five years to look like — not what I thought I should want, but what I actually wanted.

I went back to the company. But I went back different. The relationship to the work changed from something I was doing because it had become my identity to something I was choosing because I actually wanted to build what I was building. Small distinction, enormous difference in lived experience.