In Conversation with Lindsay Olshan, LMFT-ATR, PAT

Tell us about your background:
I’m Lindsay Olshan, and I created FADEN as a vessel to help women remember who they are and how they belong. My path has been shaped by both clinical rigor and ceremonial reverence—an intertwining of science and soul. For over two decades, I’ve worked as a licensed marriage and family therapist, supporting thousands of clients through transformation, transition, and profound healing. But it was my own experience with psychedelic-assisted therapy that cracked something open in me. I realized that what I couldn’t resolve in years of talk therapy, I was able to meet—fully, somatically, and tenderly—through a single expanded journey. That was the moment I understood the power of integrating the clinical with the ceremonial.

I hold a master’s degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies and am trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy, including certifications in ketamine and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. My work also draws from years of training in yoga, holotropic breathwork, reiki, and art therapy. But what truly defines my approach is not just the modalities I carry—it’s how I carry them. I’m less guru, more mirror. A calm and attuned presence. Someone who can sit with others in the depths of grief and uncertainty without rushing to fix or define.

FADEN was born from this weaving. It’s not a place for escape, but for return. Our retreats are thoughtfully designed journeys where beauty, ritual, nature, and non-ordinary states of consciousness come together to spark healing that is both embodied and enduring. Each offering is rooted in clinical precision and held within an environment that is sensual, safe, and sacred. We work with responsibly-sourced psychedelics, but we also understand that healing doesn’t only come from medicine. It can arrive through movement, through sensory immersion, through silence. Through the courage to feel.

Over the past five years, I’ve built FADEN while running a private practice in San Francisco and leading intimate retreats across Mexico and Italy. The women who gather with us are high-functioning and often over-functioning—CEOs, physicians, creatives, caregivers—each ready to shed armor and step into something more truthful. They don’t come for transcendence. They come for resonance. For remembrance.

My work is ultimately about creating containers where women can safely unravel, reconnect with their inner knowing, and rethread themselves into the wholeness of their lives. I believe that healing is remembering. And I believe, deeply, that when women are well, the world is well.

FADEN is not a trend. It is a return to something ancient and necessary: women gathering, women softening, women healing in community. We offer not just experiences, but a new way to live—where beauty is a medicine, vulnerability is a strength, and the next step is always toward yourself.

What do you wish you’d known when you started out?
I wish I had known sooner that I could ultimately trust myself—that there’s no need to rush—and that true wisdom unfolds through experience and time. Now, at 51, I’m finally embracing all of this with openness and confidence.

Best career advice you've ever received?
Don’t rush the process, and never sacrifice depth for speed.

What leadership qualities are important to you?

For me, leadership is less about directing and more about deeply attuned presence. The most important leadership skills in my world are the ability to hold complexity, listen beyond what’s spoken, and create precise containers where others feel safe enough to soften, transform, and be seen.

I lead with a calm, grounded confidence—less guru, more mirror. That means showing up with clinical clarity and emotional precision, while also staying open to the mystery. I believe true leadership is the ability to weave together multiple worlds: the clinical and the ceremonial, the practical and the poetic, the individual and the collective.

I value discernment over dogma. Beauty as strategy. Structure that creates freedom. And I believe that leadership isn’t just about what you do—it’s about how your nervous system sets the tone for everyone around you.

In FADEN, leadership looks like guiding others through non-ordinary states of consciousness—from psychedelic journeys to breathwork and somatic release—and offering them a stable, intelligent, artfully designed space to land. It’s knowing when to intervene and when to step back. When to name a truth and when to trust that someone will find it on their own.

Ultimately, the leadership I embody is rooted in devotion, not dominance. It's the kind that trusts the wisdom of the women in the room.

What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

Certainly the biggest challenge in my career has been translating the profound nuance of clinical and ceremonial work into something that can be communicated, shared, and promoted—without diluting its integrity.

So much of what I do lives in the unseen. It’s the micro-moments in a group when someone finally exhales after years of holding. It’s the quiet internal shift that occurs when beauty opens the body to safety. It’s the way ketamine or psilocybin, under the right conditions, allows a woman to make peace with something she's carried for decades. These aren’t things that lend themselves easily to metrics or soundbites. And yet, if we’re going to change the way healing is accessed, understood, and valued—especially for women—then we have to find language that resonates *without* losing depth.

That tension—between protecting the sacredness of this work and making it accessible and compelling to those who need it—has been one of the most delicate challenges of my career. I’ve had to resist the pressure to oversimplify or spiritualize in ways that feel dissonant with my values. At the same time, I’ve had to become a translator of sorts: someone who can speak to both the clinical and the ceremonial, who can make the invisible feel tangible, and who can invite others into a space of deep trust.

Building FADEN has required me to hold that paradox daily. It’s not just about running retreats or facilitating experiences—it’s about holding a brand that reflects something ineffable. Something intimate. That means every word, every image, every design choice must align with the emotional texture of the work itself. And that’s not easy.

But I’ve come to see this challenge as part of the medicine. Because when we can hold complexity—when we can name what doesn’t want to be reduced—we model a new kind of leadership. One that is rooted in presence, poetry, and precision. And we give women permission to trust their own depth in the process.

So yes, the challenge is real. But so is the reward: seeing someone walk away not just transformed, but reconnected—to herself, her story, and her place in the world. That’s the thread I keep following. Because when women are well, the world is well.

How do you define success in your career, and how has that definition evolved over time?

Early in my career, success was measured in traditional therapeutic outcomes—client progress, a thriving private practice, referrals, and clinical excellence. It was about being effective, ethical, and trusted. And while those things are still important to me, my definition of success has radically evolved as I’ve stepped into work that lives beyond the office walls—work that exists in the body, in community, in the liminal space between science and spirit.

Today, I define success not by metrics or milestones, but by resonance. Success is when a woman says, “I’ve done everything—therapy, wellness, self-help—and nothing ever reached me like this did.” It’s when someone walks out of a FADEN retreat softer, clearer, and more attuned to herself and the world around her. It’s when I see a woman in leadership drop her armor and remember that she’s allowed to be held, too.

Success is also internal. It’s when I’ve created a space that is both clinically sound and ceremonially sacred. Where beauty is strategy, not decoration. Where every element—plant medicine, ketamine, breathwork, somatics, poetry, art, ritual—is curated with precision and reverence. And where women can safely unravel, rethread, and reclaim their own healing intelligence.

Over time, I’ve also come to see success as my ability to stay in integrity while scaling something intimate. That’s not easy. As I mentioned, one of the greatest challenges of my career has been how to promote work that’s inherently nuanced—how to speak to the depth without reducing it to buzzwords. But now I see that tension as part of my growth. Success is when I can hold complexity without bypassing it. When I can be both protector and messenger. When the brand, the space, and the medicine all speak in the same language of trust.

Most of all, success is seeing this work ripple outward. When a woman leaves FADEN more embodied, more alive, and more rooted in her own truth—that impacts her children, her relationships, her leadership, her lineage. That’s where the real change happens. The personal becomes the collective.

So my definition of success has shifted from individual achievement to collective awakening. From what I can do to the kind of space I can hold. Because when women are well, the world is well. And there is no greater success than being in service to that unfolding.

How has networking contributed to your professional growth and success?

Networking, in this way, becomes less about who you know, and more about who you trust—who you would entrust with someone’s healing, someone’s grief, someone’s becoming. That level of discernment has guided every partnership I’ve pursued for FADEN—from the practitioners we bring in, to the architects who design our spaces, to the women we invite to co-lead. And without these partnerships, FADEN would not be what it is today.

I am always seeking connection.

What are your top networking tips for building strong connections in your industry?
1. Be Fully Authentic and Present. When you show up as your true self, you invite deeper, more meaningful connections. This authenticity fosters trust and openness—the foundation for any transformative collaboration.

2. Hold Sacred Space in Every Interaction. Inspired by FADEN’s emphasis on creating safe, nurturing environments, approach networking as an opportunity to cultivate belonging and mutual respect. This creates fertile ground for collective healing and shared breakthroughs.

3. Prioritize Meaningful Relationships Over Broad Contacts. Like FADEN’s curated, intimate experiences, focus on building a network of people who genuinely resonate with your values and vision. This leads to aligned partnerships and sustained support.

4. Give Generously to Cultivate Reciprocity. Leading with generosity, whether through sharing knowledge, time, or resources, naturally builds goodwill and deepens connections.

5. Trust the Process and Timing. Slow, embodied transformation, recognize that the strongest connections develop over time with patience and consistent intention—leading to long-term growth and impact.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-olshan-lmft-atr-pat-3565b21/

Website: www.wearefaden.com

Instagram: @wearefaden