When we first wrote about HIYAM Wellness Living, it was immediately clear this was not a retreat shaped by trends or templates. It felt quieter, more intentional, and deeply personal. Less about escape and more about arrival. Since then, HIYAM has continued to resonate with those seeking a slower, more intelligent approach to wellbeing, one rooted in listening, presence and lived experience.
At the centre of it all is founder Hiyäm Jabak, whose path into wellness has been shaped as much by martial arts, navigation and silence as it has by yoga and ritual. In this conversation, we speak with Hiyäm about how HIYAM came into being, what rest truly means in a culture of constant acceleration, and why subtlety may be the most powerful form of luxury we have left.
Do you remember when the idea of HIYAM first shifted from a feeling into something real?
Yes. In many ways, the dream existed long before it had a name. I was carrying Project Manifest Within to Panama in the aftermath of the pandemic, with the intention of creating a safe, curated and elegant space where people could land after such a profound global shift. At that time, it was still a feeling, a calling more than a structure.
The real shift happened later while travelling the world with Frédéric. During a long ocean crossing, somewhere between French Polynesia and American Samoa, the vision quietly transformed. What had begun as Manifest Within had already become HIYAM Wellness Living in my heart. When I spoke about it, Frédéric became a pioneer alongside me, not only in life, but in holding the vision and making it tangible. Between long navigations and shared silence, the dream took form. Today, it exists, and yet it still feels like a dream we live every day, with every breath.
Before HIYAM existed, what were you personally craving more of in your own life?
I was craving space. Space to evolve, to soften, to discover who I truly was beneath roles and expectations. My yoga teacher training did not teach me how to become a teacher. It taught me how to open an inner space where self love could grow, where I could begin to build my own inner temple and discern the path that felt true for me.
I had lived many years in worlds that valued discipline, performance and mastery, and I am grateful for that. But I longed for a more intimate refinement, something more defined, more pouffiné, without losing depth. That craving never really ends. As Gandhi so beautifully said, my life is my message. For me, this is a living, evolving practice, a never ending story of becoming.
Retreat culture can sometimes feel quite prescriptive. How did you decide what HIYAM should feel like instead?
I am grateful this question exists, because it touches the very essence of why HIYAM was created. As a guest, I attended many retreats where everything moved too fast. Gongs ringing, schedules dictating when to eat, move, rest or feel. It often mirrored everyday life, simply replacing phone notifications with rituals and rules, but without the intimacy or safety to truly land.
I knew I wanted something different. At HIYAM, the retreats are bespoke and built with the guests, not imposed on them. We begin by listening, deeply. The art of listening feels increasingly rare in our world, yet it changes everything. By taking time to understand who arrives, what they need and where they wish to go, the rhythm reveals itself naturally. And often, once people arrive and are truly seen, everything shifts. That space, slow, respectful and alive, is where the magic happens.
What does rest actually mean to you now, compared to before you built this space?
Rest has become the new luxury for me. Not indulgence, but intelligence. Today, rest is what allows me to feel stronger, more creative and more aligned, both as an entrepreneur and as a human being. It is a ritual of recalibration. After every major expansion, project or creative push, I consciously take time to reset and resource myself.
This rhythm has become a core value in my life and my work. In a world that glorifies constant acceleration, choosing rest is almost a spiritual act. It requires trust, self respect and presence. For me, it is a mark of refinement, to lead, create and build without abandoning oneself. Rest is no longer a pause from life. It is what allows life, business and vision to unfold with clarity and integrity.
HIYAM feels intentional without being rigid. How do you strike that balance between structure and softness?
This balance did not come only from yoga. It was forged through my life in martial arts. I come from a lineage shaped by Dan Inosanto, a close friend of Bruce Lee, and through that path I absorbed the essence of yin and yang very early on.
In martial arts, you cannot survive by being only rigid, just as you cannot rely solely on softness. One without the other collapses. As a woman martial artist, this taught me something essential. True mastery lives in balance. Structure must exist, but it has to remain alive. Softness must be present, but it needs grounding. This understanding has guided me for more than half of my life. It informs how I move, how I eat, how I listen and how I design retreats. Structure and softness are not opposing forces. They are in constant dialogue. It is a practice, a journey and a never ending love story.
Has creating a retreat changed your relationship with stillness or silence?
Completely. Stillness and silence are no longer something I enter. They are something I offer. In a retreat, silence creates the space for guests to imagine their own journey, their own adventure, and to listen deeply to what wants to emerge from within. We live in a society that has almost forgotten the art of listening, and silence gently brings it back.
Through stillness, people become more attuned to ambience, to subtle sounds, to gestures, and to themselves. It reminds me very much of sailing. When I began navigating, I realised how close it is to meditation. You learn to listen to every signal, every movement, every response from nature. Instinct sharpens. Presence deepens.
It is the same with our guests. Silence gives them time to truly hear what they desire to live. For me, stillness is not emptiness. It is where clarity and intention quietly take shape.
What part of building HIYAM challenged you in ways you did not expect?
One of the greatest challenges was facing myself. I am, and will always be, a student. Yet there comes a moment in life when you are asked to acknowledge, quietly but honestly, that you are here to do something specific, to make a difference in your own way. Allowing myself to recognise that truth required courage. Not confidence, but courage.
I have never been drawn to the spotlight. I find far more joy in witnessing others expand, step into their light and remember who they are. For a long time, embracing my own expansion felt uncomfortable. Naming a mission and standing behind it asked me to grow beyond humility into responsibility.
Today, that relationship has shifted. I no longer shrink from the scale of the vision. I meet it fully, believing in it at a cellular level, with every breath. From that place, everything becomes possible.
Was there a moment where you worried the vision might be too subtle or too quiet for the world?
I try to erase the language of worry and fear from my life as much as possible. What I experience instead is questioning, a conscious, cyclical return inward. This is deeply rooted in Thai martial arts and tradition. Each year, at Thai New Year, we are invited to pause and reflect on our vision and direction.
Yes, I have questioned whether my vision was too subtle or too quiet, but those moments of inquiry always became clarifying. Each question turned into a beam of light, guiding me more precisely toward where I needed to go. Through meditation, breath and the celebration of life, clarity emerges. Quiet does not dilute vision. It sharpens it.
Wellness has become very visible and performative. What do you think gets lost in that?
I have witnessed the same evolution across many disciplines, yoga, tea, wine, gastronomy. When a practice becomes widely visible, something precious can seem to disappear. But I do not believe it is lost. It simply moves deeper. Trends create access and language, and that is okay.
What can become obscured is the quiet core, the essence that is not performative. True wellness is not always aesthetic. It lives in how someone breathes, listens, sleeps and relates. When wellness becomes something to display rather than inhabit, internal listening fades. Yet this also creates space for those who feel called to go deeper, beyond trends, toward something sincere and embodied.
When someone leaves HIYAM, what do you hope they carry back into their everyday life?
A deeper relationship with themselves. I always return to the word self love, not as a concept, but as a lived practice. In everyday life, between work, relationships and responsibilities, it is easy to drift away from it. Returning to oneself is a lifelong journey.
What moves me most is the glow I see when people leave. It is inside them, and it radiates outward. Not because of my teaching, but because of what they allowed themselves to experience. They are simply not the same person anymore. There is more colour, more joy, more freedom. They have taken the time to reconnect, alone or together, and to remember something essential.
I do not claim that transformation. I simply hold the space. The magic belongs to them. Surrounded by a curated, secure, slow luxury environment, nourishing food and meaningful connection, they leave vibrating, fully alive, from the inside out.
The Final Word
Listening to Hiyäm speak, it becomes clear that HIYAM was never designed to transform anyone. It was created to make space for something far more honest. A return to self, on one’s own terms. In a wellness landscape that often prioritises visibility over depth, HIYAM offers something increasingly rare. Time, stillness and permission.
Perhaps that is why the experience lingers long after guests leave. Not because of what was taught, but because of what was remembered. HIYAM does not promise reinvention. It offers reconnection. And in a world that rarely slows down enough to listen, that may be its quiet, enduring power.
Read our full article on the HIYAM Wellness Living here.
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