After decades spent optimizing their lives, the affluent are now paying to be bored, silent, and uncomfortable

By Naomi May

At Nijkleaster, a working monastery in rural Friesland, in the Netherlands, a five-day retreat costs $610. There are no luxury amenities, no wellness consultations, no technology. Just a Frisian meadow, monastic rhythm, and the instruction to listen to what stirs within you. It is fully booked for the year. There is, naturally, a waiting list.

In the English countryside, coach Emma Georgiou runs a four-day retreat called “Return to Self,” pitched at “high-performing individuals” ready to ask: “Who am I beyond what I produce?” The promise is nervous-system restoration, reflective inquiry, and “mornings that unfold slowly.”

These are not the corporate wellness weekends or spa days of a decade READ ON